Thanks so much to my Beta reader, L.M. Avalon. with out her, this story would be terrible.(I would know. I have a story on FF.net that I didn't have a beta reader for and it makes me cringe. alot.)
Sesshomaru sliced through another demon with a savage growl. He’d killed nearly one hundred with his bare claws, but he still felt—agitated. He’d been feeling like that since midmorning the previous day. *It is as if there is some impending doom about to fall upon my head,* he thought as he flicked blood from his claws. He began to pace, unaware that he was doing so. He did not like this uneasy feeling that made him so jumpy. *Where is Jaken? He should have returned by now.* Just as Sesshomaru thought this, he heard Jaken’s panicked screeching.
One hour earlier Jaken rubbed his aching head as he walked toward the village. Sesshomaru had been in an especially foul mood since Ali had run from them, and Jaken had suffered for it. Jaken didn’t blame his lord though—he was unaware that he loved the silly creature and was hurt that she’d felt the need to flee from him. Jaken had to wonder what had made her run off in the first place, but he didn’t dare ask Sesshomaru. He’d only get kicked. Jaken heaved a sigh and prayed he could find some sign of Ali here so he could talk her into returning.
“Kappa, is your name Jaken?” a deep voice asked, startling Jaken. Jaken turned and bowed to the snake demon.
“Yes, my lord,” Jaken murmured to the ground. This demon was a great deal older than Sesshomaru and nearly as powerful.
“Where is Sesshomaru of the Western Lands? There is someone looking for him,” the snake said. Jaken warily stood upright and eyed the snake, who smiled at him in approval. “Well, I see that Sesshy hasn’t lowered his guard much. Forgive me, my name is Akishino. I was Lady Choutsuki’s physician when she carried Sesshy,” he clarified. Jaken gave a sigh of relief and lifted his chin.
“Lord Sesshomaru sent me here for some supplies. He is in the forest as he is not feeling sociable at the moment. Who is looking for him?”
Lord Akishino gestured for Jaken to follow him into a nearby hut. Jaken felt all the air leave his lungs in a rush as he saw Ali, who looked very battered. “I take it you know this half-demon,” the snake demon said when he saw Jaken’s skin turn grey with shock. Jaken didn’t bother to correct his assumption that Ali was a half-demon—he’d been under the impression that her true nature was a secret.
“Yes. She is our traveling companion. Do you know what happened to her?” Jaken did not look forward to the beating he was going to get and thought it might be less severe if he knew what had happened to Ali. Akishino shook his head.
“I returned to Nihon last week, and I was camping about half a day outside this village. Late last night, she stumbled into my tent and collapsed. She’s only woken enough to say you are Sesshy’s servant. I can tell you that if she were human, she’d be dead right now. She was severely beaten and poisoned. She has five broken fingers, one broken rib, two cracked ribs, and four bruised ones. She also has two black eyes and a broken nose, as well as a large wound on her shoulder. There are other minor scrapes, but those are the most serious. I was surprised she didn’t have internal bleeding as well,” Akishino said and gently wiped sweat from Ali’s forehead. She tossed her head back and forth, clearly in the throes of a nightmare. Jaken winced. He felt bad for the girl even though she teased him a lot. Broken and bruised ribs were not fun.
“I will go get Lord Sesshomaru,” he said and scrambled out of the hut and back to Sesshomaru, calling out his name when he got close to their encampment.
“Jaken. Calm yourself,” Sesshomaru ordered crossly. Jaken took a deep breath and bowed until his forehead touched the ground.
“I found the girl,” he began. Sesshomaru snorted.
“Then why is she not here?” he asked coolly. Jaken braced his body for the blows that were sure to follow.
“She is injured and ill. I left her in the care of a snake demon named Lord Akishino,” he said. When he wasn’t injured, Jaken cautiously lifted his head. He gulped at the rage and fear fighting for dominance in Sesshomaru's eyes.
“What happened to her? Did she use her powers again?” Sesshomaru asked evenly and began walking. Jaken leapt to his feet and followed him.
“Lord Akishino thinks she was beaten,” Jaken said and listed off the injuries.
Sesshomaru clenched his jaw tightly. What in Kami’s name had that stupid girl done now? *
She shouldn’t have run off without her armor. She knows Inuyasha well enough that she should not be wandering around without protection,* he grumbled mentally. It only took a few moments to reach the village.
Akishino removed the bandage from the girl’s shoulder and winced. Who had she pissed off enough that they would remove a layer of skin with a poisoned blade? He sighed as she gave a small whimper. She was no ordinary half-demon—she felt as powerful as a Taiyoukai. Gently as he could, Akishino cleansed the wound. He froze as the girl’s magnificent purple eyes opened, and her head turned to the door.
“Sesshomaru?” she whispered and pushed herself into a sitting position. Akishino turned to greet the demon but saw no one there. He frowned and turned back to the girl just as she stood and took several wobbly steps toward the doorway.
“Miss, you need to lie back down. You’re very sick,” Akishino said gently and placed a gentle hand on her elbow.
The girl pulled from his grasp and pulled her yukata up so that she was decent, then staggered out the door. Akishino was a few steps behind her and had every intention of carrying her back—she was too weak to defend herself in this village of full blooded demons. When he arrived outside, he saw her drop her forehead into the fur of Sesshomaru's Mokomoko. When Sesshomaru cupped the back of her head instead of shoving her away, Akishino lifted an eyebrow. Sesshomaru hated to be touched.
A few seconds later, Sesshomaru shook his head in response to something she said and scooped her into his arms. Akishino gave him a bow and showed him where to put the girl. He didn’t miss the way Sesshomaru subconsciously trailed a finger over her unbruised cheek.
“Hello, Sesshy,” he greeted, hiding a smirk at the fierce glare that the demon sent him. Akishino couldn’t believe how strong Makoto’s only son was—if his aura was any indication, then Sesshomaru had surpassed Makoto in pure demonic power. *
Three hundred years between visits to that old guy is entirely too long,* he thought.
“So, what does my old friend think of you being more powerful than him?” Akishino asked as he began tending to the girl’s wounds.
“I would not know. Father has been dead for over two hundred years,” Sesshomaru said acidly and then pushed Akishino’s limp hands away from the girl. Akishino could hardly believe his ears. Makoto was dead?
“I’m sorry. What happened?” he asked Sesshomaru and allowed the younger demon to continue tending the girl’s wound. Sesshomaru's jaw clenched tightly and a low growl left his lips. The girl placed a gentle hand on Sesshomaru's knee and let her eyes shut with exhaustion.
“He fell in love with a human princess and died protecting her and their newborn son,” Sesshomaru said shortly. If Sesshomaru had declared that the sky was green and that the moon was just a rock, Akishino would have been less shocked.
He decided that asking more questions about Makoto would be unwise and concentrated on healing the girl. “How is it that a half-demon girl came to be your traveling companion?” he asked Sesshomaru.
“She is half Tennin, not half demon. She is related to the shikon no tama protector,” Sesshomaru said and removed the girl’s hand from his knee. Akishino stared at the girl and sighed. It was no wonder she’d been beaten—Tennin magic was powerful stuff and something people feared. He’d thought all the half-
tennins Tennins had been wiped out centuries ago. He could see why Jaken hadn’t corrected his assumption that the girl was a half-demon.
“I can’t keep calling her girl. What’s her name?”
“Alithia. She does not like to be addressed as a lady, though, and prefers to be called Ali,” Sesshomaru said quietly as he covered the now sleeping girl.
Akishino blinked in surprise. *
Who ever named her must be very old and have traveled a lot. Alithia is a Greek name. I should ask her about it when she is better. That is, if Sesshy will let me within five feet of her,* he thought wryly as he watched Sesshomaru wait for Ali to wake up.
The next morning It was the smell of food that woke Ali up. As she blinked away the blurry sensation that accompanies morning, she saw a scaly hand reach for her head. She knocked it away and rolled to the side. Grabbing Tensaiga from the floor and unsheathing it with something resembling grace, she pointed it at the scaly demon, remaining in a crouched position. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand upright at the moment. *
Where is Sesshomaru?* she wondered as she tried to ignore her screaming ribs. The scaled demon tilted his head at her curiously.
“I was going to ask how you feel, but I suppose you answered my question by doing that. Where did you learn such a thing?” Ali guessed that the demon was some sort of snake from the way he had to suppress the urge to draw out his ‘s’s. She didn’t answer him, though—who was he anyway?
“Alithia, lift your elbow and straighten your wrist,” Sesshomaru's voice said somewhere above her head. Ali did as she was told and hissed under her breath as her ribs protested this simple movement. “Good.” Sesshomaru's hands covered hers and guided her through the process of sheathing Tensaiga properly. He’d been teaching her things like this for—how long had it been since she’d run from him? “You can trust Lord Akishino. He is my mother’s physician. Lie back down before you pass out and hurt yourself worse,” Sesshomaru said in his bossiest tone. Ali was annoyed by it but complied since the room decided to spin on her.
“Child, do you know who did this to you?” Lord Akishino asked Ali. She gave a small nod and shivered.
“My former betrothed.” Akishino pretended not to notice how stiff Sesshomaru became at the feisty girl’s soft words. Instead he began to inspect her shoulder wound.
“What did you do to make him this angry?” Akishino asked. Ali shrugged her good shoulder.
“I said something that upset him,” she murmured.
“And why would you want him to beat you half dead?” the snake said as he gently dabbed a strange smelling concoction on her shoulder. Ali chewed her lip and glanced at Sesshomaru, a blush suddenly staining her cheeks.
“He was going to rape me. I’d rather die than ever let him touch me like that again,” she said fiercely. She sounded so bitter and hurt that Akishino wanted to ask her what had happened, but Sesshomaru glared at him. *
He hates his father for marrying a human, so why is he so protective of a woman who is half human herself?* Akishino finished wrapping Ali’s shoulder and gave her a gentle smile.
“Why don’t you try to eat a little something? I’m sure I can get Sesshy here to help you,” Akishino said, grinning cheekily at the glaring demon. “I’ll be back shortly,” he promised and slipped out of the hut.
Once outside, he found a quiet place to concentrate and projected his mind into the hut with the young people. He’d learned how to do this about a century ago from some monks on the mainland. Akishino knew that although Sesshomaru had some psychic abilities, he would be too focused on the girl to notice Akishino’s mental presence.
Sesshomaru really didn’t understand why people insisted on calling him ‘Sesshy.’ It was a child’s nickname. He gave a sigh to Akishino’s retreating back and turned his attention to the battered figure next to him. “How did Edward find you? And why did he attempt to skin you?” he asked Alithia. She gave him a crooked smile and shrugged again.
“I guess I’m just a trouble magnet. Eddie didn’t exactly find me—I found him. After I ran off that night, I hid in the woods just outside this seaside village. I went looking for something to eat and saw him. My mistake was allowing him to take me somewhere we could talk privately. He didn’t hit me until I called him stupid for not realizing that I might run into Kagome and Inuyasha. When I made it clear that I wasn’t going to tell him where they were, he threw me into the side of a cliff. That’s when he saw—”
Alithia paused and frowned.
“Well I don’t know what he saw really. He just freaked out and asked who did this to me.” She gingerly touched her injured shoulder. Sesshomaru began to get a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “The only thing I can think of is that this is where you’ve licked me on two separate occasions, but I don’t know how he’d know that. I’ve bathed since then,” she said, her forehead scrunching up in thought.
Sesshomaru was assaulted with several distinct memories that made his head spin and his blood heat. It wasn’t any wonder that Alithia had run from him the other day—he had marked her as his concubine. *
She was must have instinctively realized that I could force her to—* The thought that Alithia would think he’d rape her made Sesshomaru's stomach turn. He glared down at her to hide his reaction.
“You said nothing intimate happened between us that night in the cave,” he said evenly. She cocked her head in confusion. “I marked you as my concubine. That is why you felt the urge to run from me the other day,” he said coolly. Alithia’s jaw dropped, and her eyes grew impossibly wide.
Akishino nearly laughed out loud. Poor Sesshomaru. He always got himself into the most interesting situations.
“Ooooh. That explains—” Alithia blushed a lovely red as she remembered something. He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Your mother made a comment about concubines knowing their place the day I met her. I never understood why until now. And nothing did happen in the cave besides you licking my shoulder. I thought that marking involved you biting me, and since you didn’t do that, I didn’t think about it until you licked me again when I was human. That I blamed on whatever makes men act weird around me on my human nights. I try to avoid people then,” she explained.
Sesshomaru sighed and shook his head. “Pheromones. Your human night is one of the nights that will guarantee that you will carry a child should you mate,” he said. Alithia turned redder still.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Maru. I did—” Sesshomaru placed his hand over her mouth before she could finish her apology.
“It was not your fault. Do not think about it anymore,” he ordered gently, moving his hand from her mouth to stroke her cheek. She gave him a tiny smile and nodded.
Akishino smirked as he watched Sesshomaru and the girl. He could see that they were falling in love, though they were unaware of it. Akishino winced on behalf of the man who had hurt Ali—Sesshomaru on a path of revenge was not a pretty sight. A pang jerked through his heart. There was a reason he’d left this country three hundred years ago. Ali’s voice drew Akishino’s attention back to the present.
“I know you wouldn’t have raped me the other day,” Alithia said, startling Sesshomaru. He lifted an eyebrow. “When I saw the look you gave me the other night, my first thought was that Eddie used to look at me like that. I don’t know why it made me run away. The next morning, I had convinced myself that I had been imagining things. Everything about the way you act tells me you don’t want to be like your father—meaning that you wouldn’t be interested in pursuing a realationship with a human, half or whole. Then I saw Eddie, and he did look at me in that way that told me exactly what he wanted, and it was so very different from the way you looked at me—I really didn’t understand why I had run from you then,” she said softly as tears began to roll down her cheeks.
*
I wonder how that bastard looked at her. I cannot believe there would be that much difference in the way we look at her.* Sesshomaru thought as Alithia began to weep, her sobs mixed with short yips of pain as her ribs protested the expansion of her lungs. He sighed softly and very carefully pulled her into his arms, stroking her hair—the only part of her he wasn’t afraid of hurting more.
“Alithia, you must stop weeping—you will only aggravate your injuries,” he said into her ear softly. She buried her face deep into his Mokomoko and tried to stop.
“I was so scared that he was going to kill me. I don’t want to die yet. I have to find someone,” she whispered as her sobbing slowed. Sesshomaru felt a surge of something unidentifiable race through his chest.
“Who are you searching for?” he asked to distract her from her tears.
“I don’t know who he is, just that I have to find him. He’s someone who completes me—my soul mate, I think,” she said, her tears slowing at last. Sesshomaru pretended to not notice the surge of anger that rolled through him and cocked his head at Alithia.
“You ‘think’?” he asked softly. “Why are you unsure?”
Akishino wondered how it was that neither Sesshomaru nor Ali realized how he felt about her. Sesshomaru's jealousy was spiking off him in waves. Akishino shook his head. Sesshomaru's stubborn nature would probably be one of the many problems they faced before they married—which Akishino had no doubt was going to happen.
Ali bit her lip. She hadn’t meant to talk about this—it sounded rather crazy in her time period but arrogant in this one. She looked up at Sesshomaru and knew he wouldn’t laugh at her, not for this. He might think her weak, but he wouldn’t laugh. She showed him the scar from her suicide attempt. “When I did this, I lay in a pool of blood for what seemed like forever. I got so sleepy and knew that I was going to die. Suddenly there was a bright light and a voice begging me to fight. It was a man’s voice, and he said that I hadn’t found him yet. ‘I need you. Do not let go yet, beloved. I need you to fight right now. We are not meant to end things this way.’ For the longest time, I forgot all about the voice that pulled me away from the edge. I think I saw a red thread connecting us, but I could have been hallucinating because of all the blood I’d lost.”
Akishino winced when he saw the long white scar running up Ali’s arm. He wondered what would drive her to do such a thing and decided to gain her trust. She reminded him a little of his daughter, long since gone. From the other scars he’d seen while he treated her, she needed all the protection she could get.
Sesshomaru gently kissed Alithia’s arm and shifted her so that she reclined against him and gave her a bowl of broth. “I can help you find him,” he said to her.
Ali felt heat racing into her cheeks and wished she could stop blushing in front of Sesshomaru. Not that crying was much better. She peered at him from beneath her lashes and saw the determined set of his jaw. “I don’t know that you can help me find him, but thank you for offering,” she said and drank her broth. Sesshomaru's eyebrow hiked up to his hairline. “I won’t be alive in five hundred years, which is when I heard him. Or will hear him. Okay, my head hurts now.” She moaned. Sesshomaru chuckled at her, earning a dirty from Ali in return.
Akishino blinked in surprise. He didn’t remember Sesshomaru ever laughing. Interesting that this girl could bring it out. And what was this about five hundred years in the future? His curiosity was left unsatisfied as Sesshomaru captured Ali’s chin with gentle fingers and tilted her head toward him.
“Why did you blush when Akishino was asking about your beating?” Sesshomaru asked Alithia, not surprised when she turned bright red—the blush highlighted her bruised eyes and cheek. He had to physically swallow the grumble of rage that threatened to escape from his chest. She peered at him shyly from beneath her lashes.
“Promise you won’t get angry?” Alithia asked him anxiously. Sesshomaru gave a sharp nod. He was angry at Edward for making her afraid again—he’d made progress with not scaring her every five minutes and now that bastard had undone nearly a year’s work of gaining her trust.
“After he saw the claim mark, Eddie accused me of being a whore—his words, not mine. I guess he saw that I was starting to get scared because he told me that he’d make a better lover than you would, and asked if I would reconsider my refusal of his marriage offer. I told him—”
Ali broke off and blushed even harder, burying her face in her bandaged hands.
“I told Eddie that I’d rather be your whore than his wife,” she whispered.
Akishino winced in unison with Sesshomaru. They were harsh words for even sane men. For someone who was quite clearly more insane than a panther demon in Inu territory, it had to be humiliating.
“That was harsh, but I fail to see why it made him beat you so severely,” Sesshomaru said quietly. Ali bit her lip. She knew that Sesshomaru was extremely intelligent, but she wasn’t entirely sure how to explain movies to him. She’d have to lie a bit.
“It’s a line from a play that Eddie hated. Well, not a play exactly, but it’s really difficult to explain because I don’t really understand the techniques behind it myself. You’ll understand in, oh, 400 years or so,” Ali stated before a yawn erupted out of her mouth. Sesshomaru gave her a gentle smile and carefully laid her back down. Once he’d covered her up, he stood and began to leave. Ali grabbed the bottom of his hakama and gave him a pleading expression.
“Please stay with me? I keep thinking that he’s going to find me and kill me. I know it’s impossible as long as you’re here,” she murmured sleepily. Akishino wondered at the girl’s ability to make Sesshomaru act so different. Akishino’s own daughter had once asked Sesshomaru to stay with her while she slept, and the cold demon had scoffed at her and told her not to be so weak. Akishino returned to his body and then returned to the hut. He had things to discuss with the young demon boy.
