Bound by Corruption by BelovedStranger

Conflict

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This time I did not say the proverb word for word, but it's meaning is still portrayed in the chapter.

Prompt: 'Love me, love my dog.'

Sesshomaru stopped beside her, looking down at the pitiful onna for a brief moment in contemplation. She looked so small and fragile, hunched over in a small ball, her form trembling ever so slightly. He did not understand what had just happened. She had wanted him, pleading with him to continue, but then she attacked him, forcing him off of her. Was she nothing more than a tease? Leading a male on, then denying him in the next breath? He felt his irritation spike at the thought. He would not be led on like this then be forced to stop because she found it amusing to arouse a man before denying him gratification.

Her seemingly defensive posture angered him, because he believed her actions were a masquerade, a silent plea for sympathy for him not to retaliate for her attack on his person. He hadn’t realized that this miko would use such feminine wiles against him, having thought she was...pure? No, he inwardly sneered, congratulating her on her superb performance, for she had been able to deceive him without his conscious knowledge that she might just be a little different from other humans.

How easily she had played him for a fool, and he was angry at her beyond measure for falling for her innocent visage and demeanor. Never again would he make that mistake, he silently vowed as he knelt down beside her. He couldn’t see her face as her hair had spilled over her shoulders, obscuring his gaze in a black, silky shroud.      

Though he was still smarting over the burns she gave him, he made no move to physically strike her, but his words were far from kind.

“Cease this pitiful display. Your theatrics will not work on me.”

Kagome froze, having been unaware that he knelt beside her, too lost in her own tortured thoughts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in slight confusion, her mind too filled with thoughts of her stupidity for succumbing to this Inugami to fully focus on his meaning.

Sesshomaru scowled at her, though she did not see it. He didn’t have the patience for her games. “You think to act the wounded animal so as not to receive reprisal from me for having purposely attacked me after teasing me with your body. Listen well, miko, the next time you beg for my touch and try to stop me after arousing me, I will give you what you begged for no matter how much you fight me.”

Kagome couldn’t think for a long moment as she turned her head to gaze at Sesshomaru through the veil of her long tresses with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“You think I threw myself at you, only to deny you after you were aroused,” she asked in a disbelieving whisper. She couldn’t believe he had actually jumped to that conclusion.

Sesshomaru sneered again, and this time she saw it, if barely due to the darkness around them. However, his white fang was hard to miss as he curled his upper lip, the pearly sheen shining in the blackness.

“Still playing the victim, aijin? It’s no use to continue this charade when I am fully aware of it. You wanted me, you can’t deny it. I know when a female desires me, and you reeked of sexual arousal.”

“You’re wrong!” she cried. “I wasn’t teasing you.”

“Then care to explain why one second you are encouraging my advances, then the next, pushing me away--no, attacking me, to get me off of you?”

How can he not know? she silently questioned, surprised by his ignorance, before anger flashed in her eyes, replacing the confusion.

“You thought I was aroused by the bloodshed, didn’t you? That’s not the reason at all. It wasn’t until you shoved your bloody finger in my mouth that I wanted to get away from you. That’s disgusting! As if I could ever be alright with what you did.”

It was Sesshomaru’s turn to be dumbstruck. He replayed the previous scene in his mind, recalling the exact moment he heard a piercing cry of horror in his mind, and came to the realization that, that cry had come from Kagome, from her revulsion at being forced to lick the blood of her enemy from his finger. Then followed the sharp pain of her reiki burning him, and lastly of her vomiting into the ground.

Sesshomaru gazed intently into her brown eyes, needing to see if what she said was true. He reached towards her, intending to brush aside her hair so he could see the expression in her eyes better, but she flinched away from him.

Needing his answers, not having time for her childish games, he growled, “Remove your hair from your eyes so that I may look into them, or I shall do it for you.”

Obeying immediately, not wishing for his bloodied hands to touch her again, she pushed her hair behind her ears and faced him defiantly. Let him see the truth for himself if that’s what he wished. Kagome could still remember the taste of blood on her tongue, felt the sticky liquid, and felt her throat convulse again, but she swallowed, not wanting to dry heave again. Her stomach was still cramping up from last time.

Sesshomaru saw her reaction, witnessed her revulsion and horror of his actions in her expressive gaze, knew she told the truth. How can this be? How could he have been so wrong? If it wasn’t because of their deaths, then why had she desired him in the first place? He didn’t understand her.

“Aijin...” began Sesshomaru, intending to find out the answer to his question, but she interrupted him.

“Don’t you dare call me that!” Kagome cried, angered at his gall. “It implies you care for me, and we both know you don’t, not even a little. If you did, then you’d accept me for the way I am and not try to change me into someone you think I should be.”

Sesshomaru paused at her words, noting how hurt she was. He felt a strange pang in his chest. He ignored it, thinking it was from his wounds that were going to take a few days for him to heal. Spiritual burns always took longer than any other injury to recover from as the pure energy sought to purify his flesh.

Seeing how upset she was, he tried to calm her down, not wanting a hysterical woman on his hands. “Calm yourself. You are overreacting.”

She made a rude noise in the back of her throat, but he ignored it. “If you were not aroused by the blood, then why were you?”

Sesshomaru believed her now, knew that his previous thoughts were misconceptions. Though he was relieved to know that she wasn’t playing some game with him, he now had no idea what had prompted her desire. Her confession stopped the breath in his lungs.

Without thinking, her emotions high, she said in a loud voice, “Because of you! And how you made me feel.”

Conflicting emotions warred inside his mind. By her admission, it was obvious she meant she had reacted to him as a man, had wanted him for no other reason than for himself. Then his mind took another turn.

“You mean lust.” He chuckled darkly, almost relieved. “You wanted me even though I was coated in the blood of your enemies.” Then he frowned at her, ignoring her gaping mouth. “So you only had issue with tasting blood, but not rutting amongst the dead? I will not make the same mistake twice, aijin.” He whispered to her seductively, leaning towards her, wishing to kiss her and reclaim the moment not long ago. His blood heated at the thought of taking her, here, now, with the carnage around them.

If she didn’t want to lick the blood off his person, he wouldn’t force her, but he pictured her bloodstained, her creamy, white skin splattered crimson, and he would rub the sticky substance into her skin, licking it off every inch of her.

Kagome saw him lean closer, knew from the expression in his glowing gaze what he was about to do, and she was repulsed. She scrambled backwards, away from him, yelling, “Don’t touch me!” From a few feet away, she pointed a shaking finger at him, her anger at him growing exponentially. “Stop twisting my words! That’s not what I meant. I did not want to...to...rut,” she stuttered on the word, before continuing angrily, “surrounded by the people you killed. I forgot all about where we were and what you had done. Sometimes I feel connected to you, think you actually care about me, and cherish me and I liked you. I liked you and wanted to be closer to you,” she all but whispered, her heart breaking all over again.

Kagome felt like crying. God, she felt so gullable, so naive for believing for one second that this Inugami actually cared for her. She hated revealing so much of her stupidity, but she couldn’t let him continue thinking that she had been aroused by anything other than Sesshomaru as a man she admired, or thought she had. But it was all a terrible lie!

Sesshomaru felt his heart skip a beat at her admission, felt it speed up, then clench uncomfortably. He recalled all the times she had responded to him, every time she had looked at him with a soft expression, and know he knew why. It wasn’t because she was submitting to both of their passions, but because she had cared about him, had seen him as a man she felt attached to.

He had been cruel to her, forced her to stand in the burned remains of her village, said hurtful things to her, made her watch him kill dozens of men, and yet she still accepted him as he was. Why did the thought make breathing painful? There was a strange constricting sensation where his heart should be. He clenched his hands into fists.

Attempting to belittle her feelings, her efforts to try and get to know him and accept him for who he was, he said snidely, “The man you think you like is not the real me. It’s nothing more than a delusion your mind created. You don’t know me, not the real me.”

She made an impressive sneer. “I am aware of that. Everything I thought I knew about you is a lie. You’re nothing but a manipulating monster, thinking only about himself. Who could ever love such a selfish being like you?!”

For some unfathomable reason, his chest tightened at her words. Why should he care if no one loved him, accepted him? He had never before needed the opinion of others to dictate how he lived or viewed himself. The only opinion that mattered was his own. Why then when she looked at him thusly, instead of gifting him with her usual tentative smile, caused his heart to ache uncomfortably?

Growling from the hectic emotions he couldn’t name let alone begin to understand, he stood up abruptly, startling the onna. He didn’t care.

“Rise. We have unfinished business.”

Then he turned away and started towards Onigumo who was slumped against a tree, unmoving. Sesshomaru was looking forward to taking out his aggravation on the bandit, and hopefully forget the  disquieting thoughts the miko had risen in him.