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At least the champagne is good. It’s the kind that is crisp and clean on the palette, leaving the drinker refreshed as they sip. Kagome surveys the crowd already gathering, searching the sea of strangers for a friendly face or two.
The man with the push broom mustache is one to be avoided. When he drinks, he seems to believe he is 30 years younger and 50 pounds lighter, and he makes it a point to zero in on any woman with the misfortune of being alone. Hard pass.
The woman with the long gray hair, the other miko, has always given Kagome the evil stepmother vibe. Harsh eyes and cutting remarks about everything from dress to conduct to manners to power. As if she is the dictator of good decorum and taste. Right now she’s wearing a dress far far too short for her years, and is leaning over some smarmy thunder demon. He looks bored, and annoyed.
Better you than me, Kagome sneers at the pair, and she takes another sip of her champagne.
It’s so odd. Being a modern miko. Demons have integrated into society now, and follow the same laws that humans follow. The wars are over, and modern weapons do just fine against even the most powerful. It makes spiritual powers a sideshow.
Glowing hands here, zapping things there, and a lot of care not to obliterate demon friends when you get mad. Miko powers have diluted so much that Kagome really is a rarity. Rarer still that she cares enough to study archery. That’s probably why she gets asked to attend events. And why she has to see Tsubaki as much as she does (god, she misses Kikyō, but Kikyō moved to Hokkaido and doesn’t do Tokyo events anymore). What can she say? A girl has to pay her bills, and if zapping and glowing for an hour or two a week pays her bills? She isn’t going to refuse.
At least this charity is one she actually cares about.
“The Musashi Foundation: giving children in need a roof over their head for 300 years.” It’s one that specializes in half-demon youths, since humans and demons are still frowned upon when they fall in love.
It’s such a silly holdover from an earlier time. When violence was so severe that half-demons found themselves on the brink of death regularly enough for the blood rage to ignite. Sealing the blood has become routine, a procedure no more involved than vaccinating someone. But, the stigma still lingers.
“You look bored.” Kagome turns to try to find the source of the voice.
It doesn’t take long, because once she sees him, she can’t do much more than stutter. He’s tall, with silver hair that streams down his back. The downy dog ears atop his head connote that he’s a half-demon, maybe an Inu. And the golden eyes and mischievous fang poking at his full lips just further her suspicion. He wears a double-breasted suit coat, which, despite the heat, looks excellent on him.
She’s never seen him at one of these before. It’s a shame. She would definitely have remembered him.
“Not yet,” Kagome counters. “I need to save my boredom for the speeches.”
“I hear that the testimonies of the kids that they saved are real snoozers,” the man drawls. Kagome almost retorts, but he has a smirk on his face. He reaches out his hand. “Inuyasha.”
“Kagome,” Kagome answers, taking his hand and shaking. His grip is firm, but it’s the way his claws just graze her skin that catches her off-guard. “And the testimonies are the best part.”
“Not your first?” Inuyasha asks; he’s taken the spot to her side.
“First today,” Kagome answers. She likes the way her cheek brings out one of his dimples. How his ears flick when she flirts. It’s going to make the next set of speeches far more entertaining. Suddenly, the thing he is holding catches her eye. “Why the sword?”
“Why the bow and arrow?” Inuyasha counters; Kagome actually forgot that she is wearing her quiver.
“I asked you first,” Kagome winks, slapping her hand on the weathered leather holding her ceremonial arrows.
“You certain you won’t get bored?” He quirks his eyebrow, and yes, he still sounds sexy and confident, but there’s a waver there, too. As if he’s worried that the answer will end whatever it is he and Kagome are currently playing at. “Or scared?”
Scared catches Kagome’s ear. It’s an odd phrase, given she’s the one whose temper tantrum could send Inuyasha to the hospital. Reiki zaps on half-demons are vanishingly rare, but it can’t do anything good.
“I don’t think you could say anything that would scare me,” Kagome says earnestly. She’s far less afraid of this Inuyasha with a sword than she normally is when some entitled human man gets drunk and demands her time. So Kagome smiles, and she locks her eyes with his. She wants to make sure he can read her as genuine right now. “And I don’t think you could say anything that would bore me either.”
Inuyasha should know that it’s unfair to pin his ears back like that, because for some reason it’s making Kagome want to touch them. And… well, it’s making Kagome picture some unsavory (and extremely pleasant) things.
“Even if I told you this sword is my blood seal?” Inuyasha whispers; his ears are hiding in his hair. He doesn’t want anyone except Kagome to hear his admission.
“Oh.” Kagome eyes the aged katana. Most seals are small. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, tattoos. They’re subtle. A sword is big and garish for a purpose like this. Unless… “Oh…”
“It’s n-not the only one, though. Just… was the one that was around for my dad when I—I had an… incident.” Inuyasha’s glowing eyes are shadowed with… shame. “I—I didn’t hurt anyone when it happened. Plus, my dad was right there and he—he… he tucked the sword in my hand and sealed me. So… it should be okay.”
Kagome has never met an unsealed half-demon. Someone whose yōki can flare in the same way that her reiki can flare. Someone who must always worry about losing his temper for fear he will not be able to rein it in. Someone who…
Someone who can understand her.
“I’m the sideshow miko,” Kagome says, and takes an arrow out of her quiver. “They pay me to come to these things and to shoot an arrow into a target. Or to infuse flowers with reiki for kids so they glow.”
Inuyasha is giving her a look, like she spawned a second head. She’s not sure what to do with it; then again, maybe it’s rare that someone would react to him admitting that he might be rabid by pulling out an arrow and making it glow.
“I needed to train. Because I’ve got enough juice that if I get really pissed, I could actually really hurt a demon,” Kagome admits. “I will never understand why they ask me to be at demon events. Maybe because everyone likes to feel a little scared?”
“I ain’t afraid,” Inuyasha blurts, then turns a color of red that makes Kagome think he hadn’t intended to speak. “That doesn’t look like enough reiki to even light a candle.”
“Trust me,” Kagome teases. “It’s enough to subdue pretty much any demon who…” She bites her lip. Thinking about subduing Inuyasha is doing things to her. “Any demon who tries to overpower me.”
Uh oh.
Kagome’s mind is going somewhere. Somewhere with a half-demon flirting with danger. A place where both of them wonder what happens to the other if they lose control. Somewhere… sweaty and slick, full of moans and shouts and cries. Testing the boundaries of safety, finding out for certain if the control they think they have actually exists.
Dangerous things for Kagome to be thinking.
“Do you bring your sword to bed?” Kagome hadn’t intended the double entendre, but she can’t help but bite her lip when Inuyasha’s ears start to blush.
“Only one of them.” The man recovers from embarrassment quickly; Kagome will give him that. “My necklace, too… can… temper me.”
“It must be depressing to never be able to relinquish control,” Kagome says, the suggestions underlying her words entirely intentional this time. “To always have to think about it.”
“I don’t mind,” Inuyasha says. His body now touches Kagome, contact she is certain is entirely intentional. “I sort of like having control.”
Kagome doesn’t miss the second meaning. And the wild fantasies that are lacing her mind are growing ever more vivid with every sentence she and Inuyasha speak to one another.
“It’s a real joy to give someone else control from time to time,” she says, letting her pinky finger brush against his; he returns the gesture. “It’s hard to be so bottled up. Because of how afraid we are of letting go completely. I—I sometimes wish I could.”
She doesn’t say the rest. That her type has always been demons. That every lover she’s ever had would graze her neck with their fangs and snarl in feral delight at claiming her. It is her bliss, exquisite and addictive.
And yet, Kagome would bite her cheek until she could taste copper as they guided her toward climax, to make sure that she never stepped over the line, afraid that an orgasm too good would set off her carefully controlled reiki, and destroy the very demon she was fucking.
Sure, she too had a charm: a pink jewel that sat around her neck that could blunt the reiki blow, but that did not mean that she was not scared of the day that her jewel failed.
“Something you might not know about half-demons,” Inuyasha interjects, jarring Kagome out of her thoughts. “Yeah, sure, reiki can affect us, but… it can’t kill us.” His gaze is intense enough to burn. “We turn human for a little while, even from the most powerful monk’s or miko’s blast.” Oh. Oh. “So if you ever think you want to lose control, well… find yourself a half-demon.”
Kagome is fairly certain she has found herself a half-demon.
“I’ve also heard…” Kagome is breathing hard now. “That powerful reiki can subdue even the most violent blood lusts of unsealed half-demons.” She takes another arrow, and imbues it with enough of her reiki that it flares out the tip. “People tell me I’m pretty powerful.”
The double entendres are just entendres now. Inuyasha and Kagome know what they are saying to one another, if the panting is anything to go by. Or the lingering touches. Or the impregnating gazes.
“And now, we would like you to hear the heartwarming story of Inuyasha Taisho, one of the first half-demons to receive a full scholarship to—” The moment is ruined by an announcer, calling Inuyasha away from Kagome’s side.
“That’s me,” Inuyasha sighs, then he leans into Kagome’s ear and whispers, “by the way, you smell delicious.”
Kagome can’t tell, but she thinks that Inuyasha is reading her mind. He licks his lips a few too many times during his speech. And he seems to be telling his story only to her.
“Let’s give Inuyasha a hand! Thank you for such a moving—”
Inuyasha is off the stage and back to Kagome before the room has managed to stop politely clapping for him. This time, though, he’s bolder than before, wrapping his arm around her waist. Her breath shudders at the way his claws prick at her skin, sending her eyes fluttering.
If he keeps touching her like this, she is going to lose control.
She is a professional. She needs to control herself. She needs to be patient and centered and…
“If you keep smelling like this, I’m gonna be snuffling into your neck,” Inuyasha whispers into her ear. He’s entirely unfair now, and he knows it. “Say you have a stomach ache and meet me in the parking lot.”
Inuyasha wheels around and leaves the venue, throwing Kagome one last glance before he leaves. Kagome certainly does have an ache, but it’s not from bad banquet food.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she grumbles, then hobbles over to the organizer and apologizes profusely for needing to leave. No one challenges stomach ailments at least.
Inuyasha is waiting for her, his eyes ravenous and his fangs poking out of his Cheshire grin. He opens the passenger door of his car, and Kagome ducks inside.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Inuyasha says as he turns the key.
“I can never resist someone giving me permission to let loose,” Kagome answers, fully aware of what comes next. “Especially when they look like you.”
Inuyasha chokes on her admission, but she doesn’t miss the way his ears blush pink yet again.
“Keh…” is all the response Inuyasha seems capable of producing; Kagome doesn’t mind.
“Inuyasha?” Kagome puts her hand on his thigh as she asks. “Can you give your speech again? I missed it the first time.”
“You promise not to be bored?” Inuyasha asks, his eyes trained on the road but his ears both pointed at Kagome.
“I promise,” she says. She’s fairly certain that when it comes to Inuyasha, Kagome is never going to be bored again.
Artwork by LunaStarr/fudalfighter