InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Quadrangle ❯ Irresistible ( Chapter 13 )

A/N: Lemon alert!

 

AFF: Tsuki; sennin; Laini; OpheliaUndone - I'll update when you update…just kidding; CelesPrye; Anime; demonlordlover; inuyoukai8; Seda - thanks! I try; swasdiva - you make me laugh! But Sesshomaru wouldn't be Sesshomaru without the arrogance…or the ass!; black; sendosha - it's not that Sango and Miroku don't have a problem with Kikyou, they tolerate her because she is with Inuyasha and because they are good people. As for Inuyasha…Kikyou has said many nasty things to him, claimed his life, given the jewel to Naraku, blah blah and Inuyasha has always defended her. He's got blinders on when it concerns Kikyou, and yes, a warped sense of honor.

 

MM: HopelesslyEscaflowne - it wasn't my intention to portray him as hopelessly unintelligent, just dense and blind where Kikyou and Kagome are concerned. After all, one can be intelligent and still be dense about certain things; fatalfeline; Megan Consoer; shadowwolf_02 - hentai! Just kidding, me too

 

Disclaimer: I do not own any character created by Rumiko Takahashi.

 

Chapter 13 - Irresistible

 

Kagome dropped her bag against the dry, splintered wood of the well, sighing with a great rush of air that seemed to come from the depths of her soul. `Do souls breathe?' she wondered distantly. `They hurt and break and die… but maybe that's just my heart.' She joined her bag in the grass, tucking her legs under her and leaning her forehead against the rough boards, still warm from baking in the sun. `The well never sees sunlight in my time,' she thought, placing the flat of her hand on the wood, tracing the grain lightly with the pads of her fingers.

 

She'd told Kaede that leaving this way would be easier, but now that she was here, facing the shadowed unknown of a future in her own era as she stared into the well's open maw, she realized how difficult this was really going to be. `You don't belong here! You've fulfilled your purpose as shard detector and hunter of Naraku. No one needs you anymore: Inuyasha has Kikyou, Sango has Miroku, and Kaede will make sure Shippo has a family.' Curling her hand into a fist, she rolled her head to rest her cheek and shoulder against the wood. `Maybe Shippo could stay with Rin and Sesshomaru…' the name sent a shudder through her body and her heart lunged against her ribs.

 

`Don't think of him,' she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. He certainly didn't need her. It would be best for her if she just forgot…

 

A familiar tug pulled at her soul and her eyes popped open, scanning the line of trees that ringed the well. Silver glinted through the towering trunks and she caught her breath as heat pooled low in her abdomen, her determination to forget him lost in the shimmering strands of his hair tossed gently by the breeze. Why did he have to be so beautiful? Why did her body have to ache when his glittering eyes caressed her? Why was he here, anyway? She hadn't intended to see anyone before she left.

 

“Uh oh,” she muttered under her breath, wondering if he had figured out how she used the well against which she was now leaning. If he were anything like his brother, he would not like her leaving. She hadn't kept the well a secret, exactly, but neither had told him anything about it; he hadn't asked.

 

Maybe he'd just been out for a walk and had accidentally found her here? She discarded that notion as soon as it crossed her mind; his expression was far too intense for one who was on a casual evening stroll. Moving with a fluid grace that belied his swift pace, his boots barely bent the grass as he approached. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that he was a predator stalking his prey…and if she didn't get her butt in gear, he would be upon her!

 

Frozen into immobility even as her brain raced, Kagome pressed her back against the well and watched him come with wide eyes. He was pulling on their thread of connection, willing her to stay still and Kagome wondered if she had use of her legs, would she have only stumbled toward him?

 

With a whisper of silk, he surrounded her, his hand placed next to her head on the side of the well, his curtain of hair falling around them as it had last night…. Kagome almost moaned when his face filled her field of vision and her lips parted hungrily, ready for the kiss she was sure was to follow. He stopped a breath away, warm, moist air fanning her cheeks and sending a tremor through her belly.

 

His eyes locked with hers for a long moment, searing a path to her soul and holding her still as surely as if he'd pinned her there. Slowly, his eyes slid to her backpack and her heart fluttered uneasily. Just as slowly, his gaze slid back to her, darkening, though his impassive expression did not change.

 

“This well,” he said softly, dangerously, a husky quality roughening his melodic voice. His fingers curled slightly, sharp claws gouging into the wood.

 

Kagome shivered, “It takes me home.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“I have to go home,” Kagome said with as much conviction as she could muster considering that the very timbre of his voice was making her panties conspicuously wet.

 

He was as motionless as stone; only his molten eyes flickered darkly in the depths. This place bothered him; a faint, familiar scent lingered in the air around the well and he could feel a thrum of power in the earth. Unnerving for it's oddity, for he could usually place a scent decades after encountering it, but it was weak nonetheless. More disquieting was the current situation: there was something she wasn't telling him, some unspoken truth that twisted her words into a different meaning. Underneath the tendrils of lust that curled around her, her grief burned with a finality that put him on edge. What had his idiot brother said during that fight about the well? `What if you can't get back?' Perhaps she didn't intend to come back? If there was such a chance, then, “No.”

 

“Sesshomaru, I-“

 

“No.”

 

Anger at the pompous lord broke through the spell he'd woven around her and Kagome glowered at him, pacing her hands against his chest as if to shove him away. She may as well been pushing against a mountain for all the good it did. “You can't keep me here!”

 

“I can; you belong to me.”

 

“No I don't! You didn't bite me, or whatever, when we, you know,” she blushed and gave him another ineffective push for emphasis, but in only served to remind him of his main reason for seeking her. Despite her anger, she didn't smell inclined to deny him. Hooding his eyes with sleepy lids, he leaned forward to scent her neck, brushing her cheek with his hair and smirking slightly when her heart rate and breathing accelerated.

 

The mark had not faded much; his scent was still strong on the small punctures next to her scars. It didn't need reinforcing, which was why he hadn't already done it, but if she insisted, he would be happy to oblige. He snaked out his tongue, running it over the slightly puckered skin and was rewarded with her violent shiver.

 

“Sess-shoma-ru,” she protested, almost more concerned by her body's reactions than his actions. If she didn't make him stop soon, then she would dissolve into a jiggling pile of Kagome flavored Jell-O. “I'll- I'll purify you!”

 

“This Sesshomaru will survive,” he breathed against her wet skin.

 

Kagome made an inarticulate sound in the back of her throat, her short fingernails scraping against his armor as her back arched. To be wanted: it was something she'd always longed for but never really thought she'd have, not like this. And she wanted him with a fervor that went beyond lucid thought and conscious admission. `Just once more, before I say goodbye. Oh, how can I say goodbye?'

 

Taking the opportunity presented to him, Sesshomaru wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her unresisting form up with him as he stood. Now that the matter of her departure had been settled, they could move on to more enjoyable pursuits. He could take her to a spring, but then again, this clearing was secluded enough for his purpose. Uncharacteristically impatient, he briefly considered bending her over the lip of the well, but thought better of it. Couldn't have her falling in by accident, absolutely not. More precious than his own life's blood, she was his and he had to have her. Now.

 

Leaving the lonely yellow bag sitting in the grass, Sesshomaru took several quick steps toward the border of the forest, eager to rid himself of the armor that had become tight and confining. Kagome seemed to agree as she was tugging on the leather straps that held it together. Setting her on her feet, he moved back just enough to shrug out of the hard plates and spikes that made up his protection, and then gathered her against him once more, nudging her head back with his nose until the creamy expanse of her throat was bared. Tracing each scar with his tongue, he lost himself in the taste of her flesh and the prickling of her power as her fingers wriggled between the folds of his clothes to trace whorls of heat across his chest. Claws snagged against cotton as he trailed his fingers down her back, cupping her bottom in a firm squeeze before lifting the hem of her skirt. Her knee bent of its own accord, lifting her calf to wrap around his leg, and his fingers slid up her bare thigh, plucking at her underwear. With a quick flick of a claw, he'd sliced them at the hip, earning him a guttural moan and a flood of uncontained warmth.

 

`Sesshomaru: 2, panties: 0,' Kagome noted distantly before she was overcome by a shudder that bucked her hips against the hand that had found the pinnacle of her pleasure. Burying her fingers in his glorious hair, she held his mouth to her neck while her other hand quested lower, finally finding the ties that separated them. He was in her hand a moment later, hot and hard and velvety smooth, the tip beaded with moisture. `For me,' she thought, `all for me.'

 

In a breathless, dizzying movement, her back was against the scratchy surface of a tree trunk, her leg around his hips as she guided him into herself. He swallowed her strangled cry, penetrating her mouth with his tongue as he slid between the walls of muscles. Claws squeezing her pert cheek, he took her fiercely, crashing toward his release as she screamed in his mouth, pulled at his hair, drove her hips against his in mutual frenzy.

 

He broke the kiss when she began to clench around him, nipping a path back down to his mark, his lips tingling with the sparks of power that danced over her skin. She threw her head back and shrieked as he bit down hard, blind to the leafy canopy above as light exploded behind her eyes and wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her. Sesshomaru ignored the pain in his scalp and the purifying energy that surged through him as he pulsed within her. All that mattered was her blood on his tongue, her body wrapped around him, and theirs souls mingling in shared bliss.

 

“KAGOME!” A heartbroken cry rent the air from high above and Kagome blinked rapidly as reality swept over her. A red blur was rapidly descending through the twilight, too small to for her to see his face but woefully recognizable nonetheless. The chest against her rumbled a warning, and her lover pulled out of her, the fangs easing from her neck leaving an emptiness almost as sore as the one in her womb.

 

Sesshomaru tucked himself away, still turgid and eager despite the rapidly approaching interruption. Of all the times for his idiot half-brother to disturb him, this had to be the least welcome. An almost irrational rage percolated through his gut that another male would smell his female's most intimate scents; no matter that she was still clothed or that said male had traveled with her for years. She belonged to him, Sesshomaru, and no one could take what was his.

 

`Shit!' Kagome swore silently, smoothing her hair with her fingers and making sure her skirt was on straight. Not like it would hide anything: she was sticky and sweaty and flushed and…her panties were on the ground in a small pile of torn pink satin. She aimed a swift kick at them, sending them fluttering toward the brush and hopefully out of sight. Maybe Inuyasha just thought they were necking? Was that Kikyou on his back? `Shit!'

 

Inuyasha landed with a thump, dumping Kikyou from his back and drawing Tetsusaiga in one smooth motion. Snarling, his eyes darted between his half-brother and the miko. He'd heard her scream, smelled semen and blood, and assumed the worst. So why was she just standing there behind him? He couldn't think straight but he knew one thing: he wanted blood. “Get the hell away from Kagome, you sick fuck.”

 

“You are in no position to give orders, half-breed,” Sesshomaru stated as he stepped in front of Kagome and flexed his claws, willing energy to the tips of his fingers since his swords had joined his armor in a heap. Besides, it would serve him well to fight the impudent fool with his claws; his blood was still high and singing for excitement.

 

Bellowing, Inuyasha lunged and slashed down with Tetsusaiga. “Get back, Kagome. I'm gonna slice this bastard apart!”

 

“Take care not to cut yourself,” Sesshomaru taunted mockingly, easily deflecting the blow with a snap of his energy whip and remaining positioned between the hanyou and miko. `So, the idiot still wants her, even though he carries the other one with him. He needs to learn when he has lost.'

 

Kagome had had enough of male posturing and darted away from brawl, trying to ignore her air-conditioned backside. She gave a violent tug on the thread of connection with Sesshomaru, relieved when he stumbled slightly and turned to glare at her, and then shouted, “Osuwari!” Now two pairs of eyes were fixed on her, fury evident in the swirling of their golden pools. “Stop it!”

 

“But that bastard was-“ Inuyasha started, bewilderment and hurt in his voice. Sesshomaru had been ravishing her; didn't she need him to rescue her? What was wrong with her? She couldn't possibly have wanted it!

 

“He didn't hurt me, Inuyasha.”

 

“I can smell…him… all over you! He forced you-“

 

“He didn't rape me, either,” Kagome sighed. “Inuyasha-” She was cut off by a wail so brutal and lonely that it pierced her heart. She had wanted so badly to avoid all of this; why had she let Sesshomaru distract her? Was she so wanton that she couldn't say no to his advances?

 

Kikyou walked over to the hanyou, picking his limp form out of the dirt by his forearm. His head hung, the unruly fringe of his bangs hiding his eyes. She whispered quietly to him and he shook his head slowly. “How could you do this to me?” he asked finally, his voice broken and resentful, still slumped where he sat, leaning slightly against the woman who supported him.

 

Kagome met the cold stare of the other woman and felt her own anger threatening to burst free. “Why are you even asking me that? After all the times you snuck away to her? Do you think I wouldn't notice?”

 

His head snapped up, defensiveness slamming into place, “That's different, stupid! I've never rutted with her!”

 

Color rose in her cheeks, but she refused to be embarrassed into silence. “Inuyasha, you stole the jewel and left me!”

 

“His scent was on you when I took it; is that what you were doing that night, too?”

 

“No! We were just-”

 

“I took the fucking jewel to get my body back so that I could kick his miserable ass out of our life!” he flung a finger in the direction of the taiyoukai who was watching the exchange with an air of boredom.

 

Stunned speechless, Kagome dropped her gaze, the flutter of hope she'd expected to feel at his words noticeably absent. Was it true that he hadn't chosen Kikyou over her? If that were the case, then why hadn't he taken the time to explain himself instead of just disappearing, not to mention poisoning her almost fatally? Regardless, she couldn't help but feel at fault for his pain; she'd moved on and left him behind, the action so natural that she'd almost missed seeing it. But where did that leave her? No longer in love with a hanyou and unwilling to love a youkai who didn't love her back. “I'm sorry,” she said quietly, knowing that it was poor consolation. “I didn't mean for it to happen.”

 

Inuyasha jumped to his feet, his hands clenched into fists as he glowered at her. “Are you saying it was an accident? He tripped and fell in your-“

 

“Osuwari!” she lashed out before she could stop herself, cringing when his impact left a crater in the earth but frustrated beyond niceties. “You don't love me, Inuyasha. Whenever you look at me, you see her. I'll never be as beautiful or powerful as Kikyou. I'll be your second choice, the one you settle for.

 

“And you, Sesshomaru,” she pointed an accusing finger at the demon lord. “What am I to you, another Tetsusaiga to take from Inuyasha? Show him who's best?”

 

He stared at her blankly, her words hitting him like pebbles breaking the surface of a pond, little ripples of emotion flickering across his face and then disappearing as if they were never there. He wanted to yell back at her, shake her, anything to make her believe that what she said wasn't true, but he didn't. His youkai raged and clawed at his mind, but he pushed it down. His mask was fixed in place by centuries of tight control and he would let no miko or blood beast break it.

 

Kagome watched as Kikyou whispered to Inuyasha again, the hanyou narrowing a calculating stare at his half-brother. She didn't like the conspiratorial hunch of Kikyou's shoulders, nor the hanyou's pinned ears, reminding her of a dog ready to attack. Worse was Sesshomaru's silence and leaden gaze, the thrum of tension and hurt along their slender link. Feeling weary suddenly, a heaviness weighing in her bones, her shoulders slumped and she hugged her arms to her body. “You know what? Screw you guys, I'm going home.”

 

Head down, she walked to the well and lifted her yellow backpack by its straps. She had one leg over the edge of the well when she heard a laugh; a wicked, familiar laugh that echoed off the dirt walls and into her mind like a half-forgotten nightmare. The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled and she bent to stare intently into the well, dread knotting in her stomach as the gathering shadows seemed to seethe and flicker with a shimmering, solemn blue light. Never before had it felt so sinister, like an oubliette hiding faceless horrors instead of the gate to a time slip she knew it to be. Chewing on her bottom lip, frustrated with the deepening gloom of night that further obscured her vision, she regarded the unwholesome glow with trepidation. `Why is the time slip active? It usually isn't visible unless someone is in it.'

 

A vicious, snarling roar and the ring of metal striking something hard broke through her contemplations and she glanced over her shoulder. Inuyasha had attacked Sesshomaru again and was swinging Tetsusaiga on a back blow that Sesshomaru batted away with claws glowing green with poison, knocking the hanyou back several feet to land in the dirt. Spinning in place and fixing furious, reddening eyes on her, Sesshomaru lunged toward her.

 

Reflexively, Kagome squeaked and flinched back, almost losing her seat on the edge of the well. `Oooh, is he mad at me,' she thought, dismay liquefying her insides. She'd seen him irritated with her, of course, and she'd seen him angry, but he'd never directed such unbridled wrath in her direction. `Does he want me to stay that badly?' she barely had time to wonder before Inuyasha was on his feet and rushing at the taiyoukai, screaming unintelligibly and slashing with Tetsusaiga.

 

`I can't leave when they're fighting like this. They'll kill each other!' Kagome started to swing her leg back over the edge of the well when something latched onto her ankle. Squealing, she dropped her bag in the grass and kicked at the clammy thing. Her shoe slipped off as it lost its grip but another was there to take its place, wrapping tightly around her calf. Breath sticking in her throat, Kagome stared hard into the undulating darkness that had swallowed her leg; she couldn't see the thing that had caught her but as it pulsed and slid up her leg, the males' fight was forgotten in the mind-numbing panic that gripped her. Imagining she could see a tangle of writhing tentacles and spider legs at the bottom of the well, she made a frantic dive for the ground. Just as she knew they would, more tentacles reached out of the well, wrapping around her thigh and waist, dragging her inexorably toward their center.

 

“SESSHOMARU!” she screamed wildly, reaching for him as he turned to her, his eyes scarlet, his markings vivid against his pale skin. Inuyasha howled and renewed his attacks with reckless abandon, forcing the taiyoukai to defend himself from the rain of blows.

 

“Now she's on your side, huh? Kaze no Kizu!” Inuyasha slammed Tetsusaiga into the ground, sending jagged bolts of energy at the dog demon and Sesshomaru leapt into the sky to dodge the blast. It was just as Kikyou had said: his brother wouldn't stop tormenting him until his spirit was broken and when he couldn't take his sword, he'd taken the only other thing that mattered to him: Kagome. No matter what she or Kikyou said, she hadn't gone willingly. Once the bastard was dead, she'd be his again.

 

The tip of a tentacle slithered around Kagome's neck and squeezed, effectively cutting off her air and rendering her silent. Another wrapped around one forearm, wrenching her backward, and she lost her balance, her body falling until she caught herself with her free hand. Digging short nails into the lip of the well under her, Kagome clung to the wood as bright spots sparkled in front of her eyes. Inuyasha was lost behind the blaze of the windscar, Sesshomaru was just another dancing light in the sky, and Kagome wheezed desperately, hot tears trickling down her cheeks as the tentacles bunched and pulled.

 

Through the gray that was seeping over her vision, a white hakama suddenly blotted out the distant stars that, until now, had been the only witness to Kagome's plight. Kikyou stared down at her, brown eyes sad and regretful, and placed her hands over Kagome's straining fingers. Kagome met her gaze, mutely pleading for help.

 

“I'm so sorry, Kagome, that it had to end this way, but you don't belong here. There should only ever have been one of us at any given time.” With strength belied by the slenderness of the digits, Kikyou began to pry Kagome's fingers loose of their grasp on the lip of the well.

 

`Don't do this, Kikyou!' Kagome screamed inside her head, gasping as the tentacles tugged on her legs and tightened around her throat. No one was coming to save her: the realization clogged her throat but strangely, the panic that had numbed her brain receded a little. No one was coming, but this wasn't that horrid, repeating nightmare! She could save herself! Reaching deep within herself to that place she tapped when charging a purifying an arrow, she said a silent prayer and…released.

 

Light streamed from her skin and the tentacles attached to her body dissolved almost instantly as an ear-splitting scream issued from the depths of the well. Kikyou let go of her hand to shield her eyes, stumbling backward a step before falling into the grass. Her hands suddenly free, Kagome grabbed the edge of the well with both and heaved herself onto her stomach, balancing half in, half out of the well. Panting harshly, Kagome felt the power within her pulse once and then diminish. As soon as she flopped over the edge and into the grass, more tentacles burst out of the well, too many to fit as the seams of the walls groaned and cracked. Flailing erratically, their suckered tips grasped at anything they touched and Kagome had to roll to the side, narrowly escaping them. The sound of splintering wood almost drowned out a terrified scream and Kagome barely had time to register a flash of red cloth before she sprang forward, reaching for a sandaled foot.

 

The already damaged wall gave way with a crunch under the pressure of Kikyou's body being pulled in two directions. Planting her feet in the dirt, Kagome held onto her ankle with all her might, but the force of the tentacles pulled her inexorably closer to the collapsing well. A white-clad arm wrapped around her chest, yanking her backward and out of reach of the fleshy tendrils and she screamed as the foot was dragged out of her grasp. Inuyasha blurred by, slashing at tentacles as he tried to reach the spot where Kikyou had disappeared, but she was gone: even her voice had been silenced.

 

A black, spiny leg shot out of the well, pointing toward the night sky before bending sharply and slamming into the ground.

 

“Kikyou!” Howling, Inuyasha cut it down with Tetsusaiga and was showered with sticky ichors that smoked and stank and clotted in his shining silver hair. The image of Kikyou being dragged into darkness burned into his retinas as he hacked further into the mass of writhing tentacles.

 

Coughing, Kagome tugged against the arm around her. “I have to seal it,” she choked out, her voice raspy and throat sore. She could sense the hesitation and apprehension that hummed through the body at her back. Craning her neck, she tried to capture his attention. Crimson-eyed and snarling, he seemed only slightly less feral than his brother, but he locked gazes with her. “Sesshomaru, I have to seal it shut with that thing inside it!”

 

Growling, he held her tighter, the vise-like grip of his arm painful across her chest where it pressed against her breasts. The option of zapping him lightly to make him let go crossed her mind briefly but was discarded just as quickly as it was suicidal at worst and painfully unproductive at best and she certainly didn't need a raging, possessive inuyoukai dragging her away by her hair to teach her about pack dominance and obedience. `You're babbling,' she told herself sternly. `Do something before it pulls Inuyasha down too!'

 

`Dominance! That's it!' Kagome thought frantically and forced her body to go limp. `Stop fighting,' she refused to use the word `submit', `and he'll calm down.' Just for good measure, she cuddled against his chest and bared the mark he'd just given her, earning a change in tone of the growl that somehow helped to steady her frenetically beating heart. “Please, Sesshomaru. I'm not going anywhere.”

 

It was true; the well was on the brink of collapse and there was no way she was going to jump into it with all of those tentacles clogging the opening, even if she didn't have to seal it, and she knew in her bones that it had to be done. The creature was inside the time slip, holding it open, and she couldn't take the chance of it, or anything else, using the portal. Pushing the consequences of sealing it to the back of her mind to deal with later, she pleaded with her captor. “I promise.”

 

He narrowed his eyes briefly and then nodded once. His grip slackened and before he could change his mind, she rushed toward the well, clearing her mind as she let her power flow to the surface of her skin. She didn't actually know how to seal the well so she'd have to wing it, as she'd done so many other times before. Sesshomaru was a reassuring presence at her back, dissolving tentacles with a flick of his whip if they strayed too close. Though vicious and bloodthirsty, they were hardly organized; their central brain must have been on the fritz.

 

“Inuyasha, get back!” she screamed at the hanyou, wincing at the abuse of her already tortured throat. Throwing himself at the monstrosity as he pummeled it with blows from Tetsusaiga and bleeding from several lacerations, he ignored her, redoubling his efforts with a wild yell. Another grotesque spider leg plunged though the middle of thrashing tentacles, impaling the hanyou through the shoulder and pinning him to the ground. `At least he's no longer in danger of falling into the well,' Kagome thought distantly, numbly. She'd never seen him this bestial while still holding his sword. Was all of this for the death of Kikyou?

 

Dropping to her knees, she placed her hands palm down on the ground near the edge of well and closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of Sesshomaru's whip ripping through a tentacle above her head. With a deep breath, she let the power flow through her body and into the pit before her, searching for the key to it's destruction. The youki of the creature pulsed, recoiling from her purifying energy and Kagome gasped in understanding. How could she have been so stupid?

 

Finally, she found it: that kernel of magic that allowed one to travel through time. With a hard heart and whispered goodbye to her family, she surrounded it with her aura and squeezed until the magic shuddered, then popped. Underneath her, the ground quaked and groaned as darkness, soft as silk, enfolded her.

 

 

 

A/N: I hadn't intended to end the chapter here, but I've spent so much time tweaking it that I didn't get around to the next bits. Holler all you like, I probably deserve it.