Withholding

© Salome Wilde, 2008

Withholding

Chapter 5

As they flew, Rin glimpsed the magnificence of the rising sun with jaded, tear-stained eyes. She wondered if she would ever again appreciate its splendor, or any other of life’s many splendors, again. Though Sesshomaru had rescued her from imprisonment and the future of torture, exploitation, and death that Kyura had planned for her, her beloved Lord had spoken of her as an object more than even a slave, something prized because it was owned, not for any inherent value or appeal. And worse, he had punctuated this degradation with proof by withdrawing his scent from her with such apparent ease. That he could do so only proved to Rin its falsity, its artificiality; the projected aura was simply a tool of control and pacification—as if she had ever needed appeasement to devote her life to his service!

A small part of the girl fought against this spiraling despair, the way it fed on itself and denied realities she had experienced before the battle with Kyura on the tiny island. A sliver of the wisdom that comes to adults, if they are lucky, permeated her consciousness as she was cradled in Sesshomaru’s strong arms. Her heart recognized how safe and warm she felt in his embrace, especially as she glanced up at his majestic profile from the corner of her eye and marveled, as always, at his unearthly beauty. He was still the one being in the world who protected and cherished her. Yes, cherished. She could not, while held so tightly and while inhaling the ghostly musk of Sesshomaru’s lush, silver-furred shoulder, deny that she was cherished, if the word meant wanted, valued. One did not risk one’s life for something without value; the coldly dispassionate Lord Sesshomaru certainly did not. Perhaps he did not love her—not the way she defined love with the ardor and passion of a teenaged heart—but he did care for her and he kept her from harm. The longer they soared through the morning sky together, the more that sliver of hope grew.

Abruptly, though, Sesshomaru halted their progress and touched down to earth at the side of a small, mountainside pool. He released Rin from his arms and gestured to the water. “Drink, Rin,” he commanded. “Your body has been weakened by Kyura’s fire and the ordeal you have been subjected to. I will gather food for you.” He took a deep breath and released it then turned and walked away.

“Sesshomaru-sama,” she called softly after him.

He paused and looked over his shoulder at her.

“Did Kyura harm you?” she asked, though it was not at all what she had wanted to say.

“No, Rin. I am uninjured.” He waited to see if she would speak again. When she did not, he said, “I will return soon” and departed.

Rin could not summon the courage to answer. They were talking, but they were not communicating. Of course, Sesshomaru had never been one to communicate openly. It seemed against his very nature to do so. Yet, he was caring for her, as always. In fact, Rin could not remember the last time Sesshomaru had offered to gather food. The few times she had been injured or too ill to fend for herself, Jaken had been assigned to the task. But now, he was not returning her to Jaken’s side and he was not demanding she care for her own needs. Weakened she might be, but she was not incapacitated. She reminded her shaky heart that this showed again that Sesshomaru did value her. And when he returned, perhaps she could try to talk to him again, maybe even to ask him about what he had said to Kyura. Humbly, head bowed, she would ask if he had meant those words or if they were (oh, please let them be) misrepresentations to keep Kyura from knowing what she truly meant to Sesshomaru. That was possible, wasn’t it?

The further Sesshomaru walked from her, however, the more doubtful she again became. He was protecting his property. He cared for her only as she magnified his power. She was a symbol of his omnipotence. She was an occasional distraction in moments of boredom. He did not belong to her and never had. Stop! she screamed in her mind, her body beginning to shake as she dissolved in tears. She felt dizzy and deeply afraid. It was in this state that Sesshomaru found her when he returned, at a run, hands full of berries and nuts.

“Rin,” he called, scattering his bounty on the ground.

She raised her eyes, so well trained was she to obey his summons without hesitation, but she could not stop shaking and crying. “Help me, Sesshomaru-sama,” she sobbed. “Take me back. Let me know you again…” She could not go on; the pain was too great.

Sesshomaru came to his knees before her, and gathered her into his arms. Why was she in this condition? Her aura cried out to his and he was here. But from what did she suffer so? He inhaled and he could sense that, although traumatized, she was still his, still clearly marked—so strongly that even a puny demon like Kyura could detect it. But he also felt her sorrow and her panic, and it began to invade him as well. It was no threat to his control, though it was unwelcome and disturbing. What caused such doubt in her? He must find the answer, and comfort her. “Rin, I am here,” he offered. “I will not send you away.” He hated having to articulate these things which she should know, should feel throughout her body and soul. Such declarations were repugnant to him, bitter on his tongue. And they should be unnecessary.

“Why have you rejected me as your mate?” Rin gushed. It took all of her strength to ask and left her faint and bawling like a baby in consequence. She hated being so weak.

Sesshomaru grasped her jaw and tipped her face up. His eyes bore into hers, searching for what was tormenting her so. He reached out to her with all of his senses so deep as to touch her very soul. And suddenly he knew: he had blocked his aura from her during the battle with Kyura. It remained a one-way wall between them. He could sense her but she could not reach him. Her suffering must be immense. He must heal her, comfort her. He released her chin and embraced her tightly, pressing her head to his chest and stroking her hair. “Feel my heart beating, Rin. My spirit is united with yours. Know this, Rin.” As he spoke, he cursed himself for his ignorance, for failing to let down the barrier he had erected. He tore himself open to her, ripping into his own defenses like his claws through the body of an enemy. “Feel me, Rin.”

Rin moaned in his arms, holding tightly to his body, her sobs calming, her heart rate slowing. She was breathing deeply of him, and he was projecting his undying commitment to her safety and happiness. How many times would he fail her? He inhaled and basked in her devotion. Though a frail and immature human, she could project such ardor. He pressed his lips to the top of her head, overwhelmed with the need to reassure his mate. She stirred and lifted her face to him again. The sight was precious to him, and he did not attempt to resist or dismiss its pull. He brought his lips to her moist eyelids, first one then the other. The tears tasted of mortality. She whimpered and invoked his name. He brought his mouth to hers, nourishing her with his yokai strength and savoring her human vitality. Her lips were soft and warm, her tongue alive with desire. Soon, he needed to deepen the contact, to match their interwoven minds with entwined bodies.

Rin was awash with sensation. Sesshomaru had overwhelmed her with his powerful aura, and she had gone from the trauma of his denial of her to the ecstasy of his overwhelming recognition. Logical thought was beyond her, but she sensed, in a realm far beyond words, that he was hers. This was no illusion even if it meant that everything else beyond it was. She kissed his lips with possessive passion and felt her heart swell as her body opened to him. His agile fingers removed her robe without breaking the kiss, and almost immediately after she felt the exquisite coolness of his bare skin upon hers. He laid her back in the soft grass with the sun shining overhead, caressing her body with his. His hand reached beneath her and pressed her hips upward, so she could feel the hard length of him between her soft, moistening folds, but not yet inside her. Rin arched heatedly into his embrace, urging on the adored object of her unqualified devotion and her inexorable passion with her every movement. No longer able to be concerned with humility or deference, she spread her legs wide and wrapped her ankles around Sesshomaru’s back. Then, she reached her hands around and dug her nails into his hips. He broke the kiss in a groan of pleasure as she bucked into him until he entered and rode her with such smooth, slick sweetness that every thrust was a step into higher bliss. Rin felt reckless, driven to luscious madness by the pounding of those hips, the feel of that perfect marble shaft inside her, churning her body and her emotions with relentless yet tender force. In this position, his groin easily stroked her externally as effectively as his erection did within, and she knew she would reach climax soon.

Sesshomaru gloried in Rin’s unexpected boldness. The way she dug her nails into his backside fueled his need to possess her and simultaneously to wring every drop of pleasure from her young, eager body. She smelled like the earth, like a wildfire, like a feral animal that he was taming and somehow also being transformed by. They were beasts together, running, rushing, charging to a place no others but they could reach. And as he felt and heard her crest and fly, he drove her onward, rejoicing in her triumph and her magnificence. She burst around him and he exulted in her swollen flesh, her quivering muscles, her guttural moans, her rich smell, and her tousled mind. All were his, for she was now and forever his mate, his treasure, his Rin.

As her body quieted, he forced himself to gently withdraw. He was still hard and she whimpered with regret at the loss, but she let herself be led by his actions, and soon he adjusted their bodies so she was comfortably resting at his side, her head beneath the arm he wrapped possessively around her. She awaited some comment, some explanation for his withdrawal, but it did not come.

“What happened, Sesshomaru-sama?” she asked in a small, hesitant voice.

Sesshomaru sat up and placed Rin’s head in his lap. He stroked her hair rhythmically, thinking how to answer her. Like everything else that demanded words, Sesshomaru did not want to discuss what had happened. But whatever their bodies and enmeshed auras could not answer for Rin then language must. And it was his duty to explain. He looked toward the horizon, his gaze steady and level, and spoke without inflection. “I failed you, Rin…again. I hurt you when I meant to protect you. I lied to Kyura to keep him from knowing just how much he could wound me through you. And then I closed myself off from you, almost instinctively, to keep you from feeling the fullness of my rage at Kyura. I could not explain nor reassure you until the battle had finished. When you were safe, I should have lowered the barrier, but I did not. I did not realize even that I had not done so. I did not sense that you suffered from my separation from you. I should have. That having a mate is as new to me as it is to you is no excuse. I am Sesshomaru. And I am responsible for you, even more so since I have marked and claimed you as my own. If you can retain trust in me, Rin, I will strive to be worthy of it.”

Rin twisted out of her reclining position and rose onto her knees to face her mate. Though nothing could have been more welcome than his gentle touch and these reassuring words of explanation (more words, she guessed, than she had ever heard him speak at once), she needed to reply. Her heart was so full, though, it was hard to find words. “I am yours, always, and you, forever, are my Sesshomaru,” she murmured. Confidently, she took his porcelain face in her hands and brought her lips to his. She kissed him with all the love in her heart and projected forth the undiminished respect and immeasurable esteem in which she held—would always hold—him. He kissed her back, and she felt his commanding aura pour forth its gratitude, its dedication, and its pride.

When she released him, thrilled to her core that he had allowed her to determine the strength and duration of the embrace, it was nearly impossible to broach the topic that she knew she must still address. As much as she relished his explanation and avowal of devotion, there was another, perhaps lesser matter that concerned her. “Sesshomaru-sama,” she began, feeling the honorific was the best way to show she meant no disrespect in asking him this difficult question, “why, just now, did you not…allow yourself…to be...satisfied by me?” Rin felt Sesshomaru’s reluctance to offer even more words, but she knew he would.

“Rin, you are my mate. I desire not only to protect you but to possess you, bodily. The hunger burns within me to claim and reclaim you, with my hands, my mouth, my sex. Surely you feel that…”

Rin blushed.

“But Rin, though I now understand how my father could have taken a human mate, I will not have you bear a hanyo child—my hanyo child. It is repellant to me. Do you understand?”

Rin was dumbfounded, yet again. “My child would be repellant to you, Sesshomaru?”

“There will be no child!” Sesshomaru declared, in a voice more forceful than he used with any but his foes.

Frustration over her competing emotions kept Rin from responding immediately. Was she more angry, hurt, or disappointed? Did Sesshomaru mean never to allow himself release within her? Would he offer her commitment to everything but their mutual fulfillment? And why did he think that she wanted a child? She was not even contemplating such things. She wanted to learn to be a better fighter and scout, to be Sesshomaru’s companion, his mate, his lover. Motherhood was nothing she had even been considering! But now, hearing him voice his hatred for humans through his disdain for hanyo turned her stomach. Did everything boil down to his loathing for his younger brother? Inuyasha had faced losing Kikyo and had moved on, had found happiness with Kagome. And they had given birth to their own child. It suddenly struck Rin: Had that poison-tipped arrow truly been fired to keep Sesshomaru from harming his half-brother’s hanyo offspring? She would not believe it, she could not.

“Sesshomaru-sama,” she begged. Let it not be true.

Sesshomaru’s scent bespoke an impossible combination of absolute finality and profoundest need for understanding. It was more than Rin could bear. She reached within herself and brought down a barrier between them that she did not know she could even control.

Sesshomaru gasped. “Rin,” he said sharply. His voice was that of a god betrayed.

Rin grabbed her robe and ran.