Bound by Corruption by BelovedStranger

Dark Urges

Author's Note:

Word Count: 3,520

Glossary:

Hanyou—Half-Daemon

RIDING HIS YOUKI cloud, Sesshomaru flew them to her village. Unbeknownst to the miko, the magic flaring around them had created intimacy, a sharing of self that went far deeper than anything physical. A connection one had to shield against to prevent unwanted scrutiny.

During the exchange, Kagome’s mind had been wide open, her heart, her inner most being, laid bare for him to see. Had she been aware of the significance of their connection, she might have attempted to delve into him. His shields had been flimsy, weakened by the incredible strain of dueling powers and energy—both his and hers.

Her ignorance had kept him from an uncomfortable perusal, for in the seeing of her innermost being, he saw his own darkness with fresh clarity. And her purity.

It had been a revelation.

An unblemished soul right before his eyes. In the palms of his hands.

The miko was impatient and easily provoked, yet displayed a great perseverance in the search for her sister. For all her loud outbursts of unbridled emotion, she possessed a quite endurance when facing difficult circumstances.

What he’d at first perceived as a short-tempered immaturity was actually a fiery passion, a soul burning with vibrancy and vitality.

She was impulsive yet had the uncommon ability to take in criticism and learn from her mistakes. Her prejudices against youkai, or even against ningen criminals, was tempered by a complete lack of conceit. Rather than be opinionated, she listened, opening her awareness to new information with a willingness to adapt, but without compromising her integrity. She was careless without being callus.

Her heart brimmed with an immeasurable compassion that should have been a weakness, yet she made it a strength. 

This onna held a pureness he’d always believed to be a false conjuring of pompous piety. Ningen, youkai. All were darkness personified, just in different measures. Even those possessing purification. But for all Kagome’s shortcomings, the darkness he’d gleamed inside her was negligible.

His aim had been to reveal her darkness to her, to bring it out and see it flourish. What darkness she possessed had been revealed, but only light emerged. An impossibility. Yet he knew if he continued with his current course, he would be going against the bonds of their contract. He’d be dragging her into the darkness with him, and did he really want to extinguish her flame?

Sesshomaru was coming to realize he held in his possession a rare gem in its unrefined state that had been hidden amongst crumbling stone.

She was perfectly imperfect.

And she was his.

But what to do with her now?

During the ritual magic, he hadn’t just cast the locator spell. He’d broken their contract in blood by marking her with his bite. Had he just stopped there, nothing would of come of it—other than a scar on too fragile flesh. But he’d infused his youki into the mark. Completing an irrevocable binding.

A mark of ownership.

Any daemon who came near her would sense his claim and know that she was his. His covetous nature would not be denied. He’d bound her to him without binding himself to her. And yet, some primal part of him had wanted more. The unthinkable.

She wasn’t youkai. Worse, she was a miko. Undeserving of more.

She could never be his, not in that way.

He shouldn’t have her in this manner. He was a daemon, she a creature of light. It was wrong what he did. Abnormal. He didn’t care.

His desire was perverse, he knew.

Kagome didn’t know it yet, but she was his. He knew she wanted him, desired him. Soon, she’d crave him. Need him like the very air she breathed. He would make certain of it. Not by any magic. Not through force of compulsion. No, he’d bind her with the lust they shared. She’d become his willingly, regardless of his mark of ownership. His shaft thickened painfully at the mental image of making her truly his. His gem. His possession.

Right or wrong, others would want her, too. But they couldn’t have her.

His arms tightened around the girl, a low growl reverberating up his throat.

She tilted her head, the back of her skull pressing against his chest as she stared up at him. “Are you alright, Sesshomaru?”

“You worry needlessly.”

He held her close, and she let him, which pleased him. If other daemons ever learned of her uniqueness, they would covet her, but few would be foolish enough to attempt to take her, but idiots were everywhere. He’d kill to keep her. To have her.

Others would offer to buy her, hoping he’d be open to selling her on the daemon market, but he never would, and he’d kill any for the insult.

Sesshomaru was drawn from his possessive musing when they reached the miko’s village—or what remained of the crumbling, blackened ruins. They were silent as he landed where her home had once stood. All that remained was charred rubble. Though she made not a sound, he felt her sadness like a physical weight, and for the first time, he offered her solace with no hidden agenda or false sincerity, but because he wanted to ease her pain.

He turned her in his arms, cupped her face in the palms of his hands, and tilted her chin, before kissing her forehead.

When he leaned back, he told her, “Look at me, Kagome.” When she did, his voice was gentle. “Keep your eyes on me. Don’t look away.”

Awareness flashed in her gaze, understanding that he was focusing her attention away from their surroundings, away from her source of anguish. Gratitude lightened her expression, softening the grief etched there. Without taking his gaze from hers, he found her wrist and lifted her arm. She’d bound the injury with a strip of cloth she’d torn from the hem of her haori.

He should have seen to her injury, eased her pain. In wordless apology, he nuzzled her palm, before pressing his lips over the bloodstain fabric. Kagome didn’t stop him when he used his fangs to untie the knot holding the bandage in place, the wrap slipping to the ash covered ground. The scent of her essence called to the beast within. He remembered her taste, salivated for another.

She was quickly becoming an addiction, one he did not wish to be free from. Rather, he desired to indulge in his cravings to the fullest. With self-restraint, he only nicked the wound with a fang. She flinched but did not pull away as he forced the wound to bleed anew. Pleased by her trust, he kissed the injury, and flicked his tongue out for a taste. Pure decadence.

Would she scar? He should be disgusted by the thought, her frailty. Instead, he was pleased. Any mark he choose to give her was added proof that she was his, but he would be careful in the future, not wishing to scar her unduly.

The wound wasn’t bleeding enough, he saw. Sesshomaru opened his mouth, showing her his fangs, let her watch him ease them slowly into her wound. Her fingers curled, her arm going stiff in his hold, but she did not pull away or turn from him. Her eyes were wide open, watching him as he’d commanded. Her lips parted, breaths panting.

He scented her pain, and something else. It was faint, her arousal. His body tightened in response, nostrils flaring to take in more of the heady scent.

His little masochist.

He allowed himself a sinful indulgence by wrapping his lips around the wound and pulled. Just a taste. He drank down her essence and felt the bite of her reiki on his tongue. Light would always clash with darkness. They were not supposed to be. They were natural repellents of each other, fated enemies.

Wrong. She was his.

Reluctantly, he released his fangs and tilted her arm to face the ground, allowing her blood to drip and soak into the dirt. A waste. But the magic required its due.

“Call your sister’s name,” he instructed softly.

Kagome nodded, and once again their auras flared. His for the magic, hers for lack of control, but this time, she was able to keep her powers in check without him having to force her reiki back by wrapping his energy around hers. Or biting her to force clarity. Pain had a way of compelling compliance, of heightening one’s focus.

When he’d first bitten her, he hadn’t intended to do anything more than that. But greedy monster that he knew himself to be, he couldn’t prevent what happened next. The binding.

She was powerful, his little miko. Once she had a better handle of her purification, she would be a force to be reckoned with. And she was all his.

His lips formed the words to the incantation, energy flaring around them, creating an unnatural storm that hid them in an impenetrable fog. Green flares of lightning flashed, thunder bombing, while energy pulsed around them, dark and sinister. The magic reached its crescendo, and the fog dissipated.

KAGOME DARED TO look away from Sesshomaru’s compelling stare. Her arm was on fire, but she forgot about the pain, a gasp escaping her parted lips. She looked this way and that, shocked to see not blackened ruins but her village as it once was—before the bandits came.

Everything was…whole. Huts were unblemished by fire, the streets cleared of all ash and embers. Even villagers walked around, carrying on with their daily chores or stopping to socialize. It was like any other day, as though nothing horrible had happened.

“Is this…real?”

“No, aijin.” Sesshomaru’s answer lashed her despite its gentle delivery. But she already knew.

“Magic,” she breathed in painful wonder. “I’ve never seen its like.”

Behind her, she heard a door flap flutter, followed by a familiar voice. Kagome stiffened, her heart panging painfully in her chest.

“I won’t be gone long, Obaasan. Kagome, take care of things here while I am away.”

Kagome turned around with a shout, “Kikyo!”

There she was! She looked just as Kagome remembered. A little taller than Kagome, Kikyo’s face was not as soft and round as hers, but they had the same bone structure, the same eyes and midnight hair; though, Kikyo wore hers in the traditional low ponytail with dual rings curling beneath her ears that reached her shoulders.

In a couple years, would she look exactly as Kikyo did now? They were so similar in appearance, yet they couldn’t be more different in spirit and character if they’d tried.

As though she hadn’t heard or saw her, her sister turned away and began walking through the village.

“Kikyo, wait! It’s me, Kagome!”

Hand outstretched, Kagome ran towards Kikyo, but when she tried to grab onto her sister’s shoulder, her hand went through Kikyo’s back. Blinking in confusion, Kagome stumbled to a halt. She stared from Kikyo’s retreating form to her open palm. From the corner of her eye, something white and black took up position beside her.

“Calm yourself, aijin,” Sesshomaru said. “Your sister is not here, not really. You glimpse but a memory, a rendition of the past. Everything you see, your entire village, is illusion. It’s not real. Not anymore.”

Kagome curled her first and brought it to her chest, over the painful beat of her heart. How foolish of her to forget for even a moment. “Of course. Forgive me.” Her voice hitched. “You’d already made that clear…”

“Come. To find your sister, we must retrace the echoes of her steps.”

Before she could take a single step forward, a large palm caught her left hip, pulling her against Sesshomaru’s side. A cloud formed beneath their feet.

“Travelling on foot will take too long.”

Then something strange happened. Sesshomaru spoke a word of command in a foreign language, and everything around her seemed to speed up. Kikyo was moving impossibly fast without actually running. It was as though Sesshomaru had sped up time. No, he was fast forwarding through the past, and they were chasing the ghost of her sister. Kikyo travelled towards the neighboring village, as she said she would, but as soon as she reached the forest outside their own village, her steps deviated.

With a numbing shock, Kagome watched her sister double back and meet up with a man, but not just any man. A youkai with silver hair and amber eyes.

Kagome gasped, but it wasn’t Sesshomaru she saw her sister embrace. No, this male had dog ears on top of his skull, signaling his half-blood.

Her sister was kissing a hanyou. 

She felt Sesshomaru stiffen beside her. He recognized the male. How could he not? They looked so similar. Like family.  

But Kagome couldn’t focus on that revelation, not when the half-daemon picked up her sister and carried her off. Her sister didn’t fight him. Instead, Kikyo curled her arms around the stranger’s neck and rested her head against his shoulder.

Time continued to move at a fast pace, and Sesshomaru followed the pair. The hanyou was fast, running through the forest, even jumping high into the trees, and leaping from branch to branch. Sesshomaru easily kept pace.

Soon, the couple came to a small cove of trees, rocks forming a circle around a steaming pool of water—a hot spring. The beauty of their surroundings was lost on Kagome as she watched with growing understanding as the couple lowered themselves to the ground and began kissing in earnest. Once clothes began coming off, Sesshomaru uttered another command, reverting time to normal pace. Kagome wished he hadn’t as feminine moans rose to heated cries for more, with male groans of pleasure echoing in her ears.

Worse, Sesshomaru floated them down for a closer look.

“What are you doing?!” she shrieked, mortified, before turning to bury her face against his ribcage.

“Mmm, Inuyasha! Please, yes, like that!” Kikyo moaned on a throaty whimper.

Kagome had never heard her sister talk like that, or sound like that. She shrieked and lifted her hands to her ears to shut out the lude noises happened just a few yards away. “Oh, kami!”

INUYASHA, HIS HALF-BROTHER.

Sesshomaru narrowed his eyes on the red clad figure. The crimson haori and hakama had been a gift from their mighty father, the robes of the fire rat. It was meant to protect the mutt from fire. 

Weak hanyou, he sneered.

Half-breeds, born from the union between a human and daemon, were stronger than a ningen and low-level daemons, but feeble compared to a daemon of Sesshomaru’s caliber. Of his father’s.

Ningen and youkai alike were prejudice against all hanyou. Accepted by neither race, shunned by all.

And Sesshomaru was no different.

Inuyasha was nothing but a weakness polluting his strong and proud line. An unsightly blemish in the perfection of his lineage.

However, Sesshomaru’s distaste for the mutt went beyond his dirty blood. Because of him, his great and terrible father was dead. To save his pitiful mother and newborn mutt, his father—already grievously wounded by a previous battle—had fallen, by the hands of a human. For that, Sesshomaru would never forgive. He would always despise Inuyasha.

He watched in disgust as the uncouth pup took the priestess into his arms and began kissing her. When he carried her off into the trees, Sesshomaru followed them. It wasn’t until they reached the hot springs that he saw an unexpected opportunity. 

Inuyasha was rutting with Kikyo, Kagome’s oh so perfect sister.

Sesshomaru took swift advantage of his good fortune. Though it would be a terrible drain on his energy, he reverted time to normal. This was his chance. To weaken the bond shared between sisters. One he had not foreseen presenting itself so soon.

Too easy.

For once, his brother’s pitiful existence would prove useful.

A savage grin slashed across his face, one that Kagome missed by hiding against his side.

“What are you doing?! Oh, kami!”

“Why do you look away, aijin?” he asked, all innocence.

She sputtered, choking on words. “You know perfectly well why! They… They’re…”

“Fucking?” he supplied, amused by her discomfort and embarrassment. “Innocent little miko. There is nothing unusual in the act of pleasure.”

His only answer was an outraged squeak before she stilled when her sister let out another womanly cry. Sesshomaru ignored the fornicating couple, his entire focus on the woman huddled against him, as if she could hide from the revelation of her sister.

No, that wouldn’t do.

Sesshomaru gripped the back of her skull and forced Kagome to face forward despite how she tensed and tried to look away. Moving behind her, crowding her, he framed her face from behind in the palms of his hands, preventing her from looking away. He lowered his head until his cheek grazed her own, and from the corner of his eye, he saw that hers were clenched tightly closed.

“Open your eyes,” he murmured silkily.

“No,” she choked barely above a whisper.

Not to be denied, he modified his hold. He gripped her chin securely, keeping her face positioned where he wished, while his freed hand lowered, drifting between the folds of her haori.

Kagome’s breathe hitched. She tried to jerk away but he held her firmly. His fingers caressed the bare flesh of her collar bone, then the top swells of her breasts, reminding her that her chest binding was long gone. She was left open, vulnerable to his touch should he choose to move his hand further down.

His words were a silken warning against her ear. “If you do not, I will take you here, beside the memory of your sister fucking my brother.”

Too late, he realized his mistake.

“Your brother?”

He’d succeeded in getting her to open her eyes, but instead of watching the now naked couple just feet away, she tried to turn her head to stare at him, eyes wide in shock. He almost cursed. He hadn’t intended to reveal his connection with the half-breed; though, anyone with eyes could see the truth of it.

“Half-brother,” he corrected automatically.

They didn’t have time for this! Already, he felt his strength waning alarmingly, the spell draining him fast. Even one as powerful as he could not sustain such a complex spell for long.

He yanked Kagome’s gaze forward just when both Inuyasha and Kikyo cried out. Sesshomaru spared them but a glance, noticing the hanyou had finally entered his lover and began a quick, pounding pace inside the writhing woman. Going back to nuzzling his nose against Kagome’s temple, he whispered darkly in her ear.

“Remember another hot spring. You kissed me. Held my cock in your hand.” He felt her stiffen.

“Why are you—”

“Look away, and we shall continue were we left off.”

She jerked in his hold, her breath stuttering. “But—!”

When his hand lowered, Kagome grabbed his wrist. He could have continued had he wished, but he stopped. Waiting.

“Alright! I’ll—I’ll watch.”

He heard her swallow thickly, but true to her word, she had her eyes open. While she watched their siblings, he stared at her. Kagome’s face was twisted in dismay, yet under her horror and embarrassment, he saw something else. Fascination.

Had she never watched the act played out before? His little innocent.

It was obvious Kikyo had been no innocent during this joining with her lover. Their touches were too intimate, too familiar.

“They’ve done this before,” he murmured. “I wonder how many times your sister has snuck away in the guise of duty, only to fuck.”

Kagome uttered a sound of protest.

He scented it then, his aijin’s lust. It was faint but undeniable.

He eyed the two lovers and saw that Inuyasha was petting his paramour’s breasts.

Was Kagome remembering how he’d touched her? She was so sensitive, so responsive. His blood heated despite his growing fatigue.

“Is your sister mated, aijin? Married?”

Kagome shook her head quickly.

“No, who would mate a hanyou? It would appear your sister has a taste for the forbidden.”

Kagome choked on her next breath.

“Ah, what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive.”

“No,” she moaned in misery. Even with the evidence before her very eyes, she didn’t wish to believe her sister capable of deceit.

Sesshomaru wouldn’t allow her to lie to herself. “There is nothing wrong in what your sister has done,” he soothed. “Look at her, lost in ecstasy. Does she not look happy, fulfilled? You have been lied to,” he told her softly. “Your sister knows. She sees. There is no shame in pleasures of the flesh.”

Abruptly, Kikyo cried out, jolting Kagome. Together, they watched as the other woman reached her peak, and the hanyou soon followed with a loud groan, before collapsing on top of her.

“That’s enough!” Kagome shouted, voice sharp. When she yanked her head to the side, Sesshomaru released her chin, allowing her the small escape.

He grinned. She’d seen enough. “As you wish, aijin. Let us fast forward through time to locate your sister’s destination.”