It was raining
It was raining.
Kaoru's eyes fluttered
open, unaware, for the moment, of her location but -as of yet- uncaring.
She loved the rain.
Slowly focusing, she eyed
the pilgrim's shrine and felt a slow tremble enter her limbs, her stomach
clenching in teroor, as the memories from that night sprang to mind.
Kidnapped.
Lips nipping at her ear.
Rope.
Shuddering she became
aware of the fact that she was laying flat on her back and that no part of her
was bound. Slowly pushing herself up she was aware of the cotton taste in her
mouth and wondered how long she had been unconscious.
"You're awake."
It was that slow hissing voice. Slowly she turned, her hair now unbound,
loose around her shoulders in a cascade of dark silk.
She was unarmed.
Kaoru licked her lips and
shrank away, something in this man's eyes was unstable, and it terrified her
with the insanity she read in his gaze.
"So my pretty new toy
has decided to awaken." His words were a distinct purr of sensuality and
crazed delight.
"Wha..." Kaoru
stumbled with the pronunciation of the words and tried again. "What do you
want?"
Something was sluggishly
rising to the surface of her skin, desperately attempting to rise beyond both
the silk wrapping in her mind and blood. Perhaps a warning, perhaps some sort
of protection but her mind clung to either with desperate fingers.
"Revenge."
It was a hiss, a dark
murmur that caused her skin to tense in some unknown fear, the hairs on the
back of her arms and neck rising at the unhampered hate in his voice.
"You see girl, you
are the perfect way to destroy him. He wants you, his blood sings with the need
to take you as his own…"
He's too close, Kaoru thought frantically, her
gaze sluggish as she registered the dark angles and mad red gaze, tiny facets
of insanity irrupting in his eyes light strikes of lightening.
"…and you are untouched."
There was something in the way he said it, in the twisting of his words that
froze her like a startled rabbit.
He moved forward, and
Kaoru realized exactly what his madness spoke of, to defile her before anyone
else could.
Kaoru felt a hand wrap
into the base of her skull, the dark ebony mane knotted into his twisted hands,
his mouth pressing against hers in a brutal hold.
His tongue forced entry
and Kaoru felt -whatever it was- rise in her blood and pulse against him; his
grip loosen in surprise. Kaoru felt a need to lash out, to vomit at the taste
of him in her mouth.
"So I was
right." A knife was out and Kaoru screamed as it bit deep into her
shoulder, the white-hot pain of the steel biting into her, causing her to
tremble in agony. Kaoru swore she saw spots as she worked to keep from
fainting.
However, it was not until
he placed his mouth against the surging cut that she felt violated, as his
tongue carefully probed broken skin and muscle.
"You are a creature
caught between worlds." His mouth was stained with the rich red of new
blood. Her blood.
Then he was kissing her
again, his mouth bruising and painful, one hand holding her to him as the other
explored her chest and sides, his fingers pressing hard enough to leave
bruises.
She struggled, but that
only seemed to excite his already erratic Ki. It was not until his mouth began
to trail wet, slick kisses down the column of her throat that she began to
panic.
"Stop!" Her tone
was high, frightened, and sharp with acute terror.
He raised his head then;
his eyes glowing with hatred so dark and intense that the mere sight of it made
her tremble.
"No. Don't fret
girl." His voice was –almost- soothing and it scared her even more.
"I won't claim you until you are fully mine."
His teeth brutally ripped
into the pale skin. Involuntarily, her body arched against him.
She screamed.
It was the starkest,
cruelest invasion she had ever felt. It was as if his Ki was attempting to
invade ever corner of her mind, what little tatters of her soul she had left,
the rest already torn by a loneliness that had only just begun to fade.
It was wrong.
Something inside her
rebelled against it.
She was no-one's
victim!
It came ripping through
her veins like one of those strange western steam engines and her mind went
incandescent with the sheer power and fury of it.
She heard the faint
cursing from Jineh, felt his shift off of her, but her brain was beyond caring
and in the white-hot rage that filled her eyes, she felt herself groping for
some to pull herself back with, anything to control the dangerous unleashing of
wrath in her blood.
"Stay still!"
It was a hiss; Kaoru had felt when the sharp edges of his fangs had been ripped
forcefully from her skin, and even with her vision completely taken she knew he
was closing back in, his Ki was a dark song of poisonous hate.
The rich tang of her own
blood was heavy on the air and her senses were congested with it. Reaching
behind her, she ripped a handful of wood out of the shrine wall only aware of
what she was doing by the splintering sounds behind her.
There where sharp shooting
pains where the wood had bit into her palm; the skin turning a dark red. Sharp
streaks leading away from the puncture points; was a dangerous warning.
Jineh lunged again, and in
a reflex of pure desperation, she buried the splinter of wood into his
shoulder, her vision clearing even as she felt something leap from her
fingertips into his skin.
Jineh screamed and clawed
at her hand. Kaoru became aware of his Ki in a way that she had never been
aware of before, only passingly noticing his fingers tearing at hers.
It moved in curious dark
patterns, dark threads that melded together and around each other in vaguely
recognizable patterns of flashing colors.
Kaoru felt that vicious
energy within her again, and reaching out she slashed through the gossamer
threads. She was conscious as Jineh opened his mouth in a silent scream as the
blood around his wound turned black. She, in a moment of vindictiveness,
decided to put everything back together.
However, she wove a new
design into his Ki and watched as the patterns molded together and fought one
another. The smooth alignment was gone, replaced by a chaos that terrified
Kaoru. Terrified her because she had created it, created it with the intent to
hurt.
Pushing herself to her
feet shakily, she pushed herself out of the door, unsure how long her feet
would carry her as a weakness began to pull at her limbs.
Reaching up she touched
the still bleeding mark on her neck, letting go she paused to look at her
burning hand, watching as the skin darkened in color. Cradling the appendage to
her chest she half/stumbled across the uneven ground.
Kaoru was unaware of how
long she ran, or exactly when she fell, but she lay there shaking and bruised.
Her body refused to rise. Kaoru sobbed silently into the ground and wondered
how she was going to get home.
Suddenly she felt
something smoldering against her senses, something dark and burning, and some
half-forgotten memory, and once again, she felt the dull fire crawl through her
veins.
Reaching out in
desperation Kaoru felt whatever it was flare into a sigh of relief before she
felt her world tumble into blackness.
Kenshin frowned darkly as
he felt the rain finally start to slow, his clothing was plastered to his hard
form, but it was a warm night, and the cold very rarely bothered him anymore.
Jineh, as always, had
covered his trail beautifully. There was a reason he had once been the top spy
of Shishio, a reason that Jineh had managed to escape the purging he had once
helped create. His smile turned dark at the remembered bloodshed, he missed the
days when Kyoto's streets had run red with the blood of those he had deemed
unworthy to live.
Kenshin let out a low
snarl as he felt the winds change, closing his eyes the kept one hand firmly on
his Katana and he reached for her Ki again, kept a tight reign on it, seeking
even the smallest of abnormalities in the air.
It would be impossible to
find Jineh's Ki, but he could still feel the faintest pulsing of her blood in
his veins. He had claimed her partially and he knew, his blood was screaming
it, that he could use this, he felt that extra sense that always had something
to do with her reach as well, but once again, he felt nothing.
However, there was a faint
disturbance of the natural Ki of the forest. He moved as quickly as he could,
the rain had restored most of the balance, but if he reached hard enough he
could just taste it in his teeth.
Then...there, he felt the
faintest of pulse beating just outside of a Ki dead zone.
Moving fast enough to blur
he kept his senses locked on the faint pulse, the faintest touch of her.
Then it exploded. Skidding
to a stop, he frowned at what he felt, his eyes darkening to an almost black
color as he realized what was happening.
She was being changed.
He sensed the dissention
in the air and knew that Jineh was mocking him, knew that he was shifting the
patterns as he always had.
Gripping the hilt of his
Katana, he waited, knowing that getting that close to two people fighting for
dominance could be deadly even to him. Her untrained gift reared in his own
blood and he felt the heady power from it. It was rejecting Jineh fiercely.
But then it stopped.
He felt Jineh then, very
clear, a sure sign that Kaoru had escaped and left Jineh not completely
undamaged, but it was a different Jineh, one that had been mixed up and then
seemingly put back together.
A small smirk spread
across his face, and with his fangs glinting in sharp contrast to the darkness
in his eyes, Kenshin laughed.
"Well my little
one," he murmured his tone amused while his eyes sparkled with something
that could almost be delight, "It appears you are yet full of
surprises."
However, as quickly as it
came his amusement left as he felt the change in her Ki. Swearing he began once
again to move. Entering the clearing where her Ki was strongest, he moved
toward the prone figure on the ground.
Reaching out he picked her
up easily and quickly he assessed her damage, knowing that she also had not
escaped without some torture to her small frame.
His eyes, almost calm and
holding lingering traces of dark mirth, darkened with fury when he realized
that her neck had been punctured and that the blood levels in her body where
dangerously low for a human. He knew that Jineh had attempted to change her,
but the fact that he had gotten this far was unacceptable.
Jineh was a fool for
taking what was his, but an even darker fool for trying to change her this way.
They where two ways to change a being into a Shadow creature, but this was by
far the more personal. He could even smell Jineh on her skin, a stark contrast
the normal faint clean sent that she carried.
But it was the erratic Ki
located near her palm that caused his darkest anger. Pulling her already
damaged hand up, he gave a low growl when he saw the tall tell signs of wood
poisoning.
Even for a Halfling like
herself wood would be dangerous once her vampire side had been awakened. Up
until now, she had not had any of the darker side of her body let loose so she
had been safe. But with the majority of her human blood gone and still fading
she would die if he did not get her help soon.
Standing he quickly began
to head back to the Dojo. It appeared he would have to change his little pet
much sooner than he had anticipated.
Yahiko snarled as he paced
across the Dojo floor, his temper fully exploding when there was nothing to
explode too. "Damn him."
"Damning Batts is not
going to bring your precious half-blood back." Megumi told him scathingly.
"As it is I believe he is the only chance she had of coming back unless
something drastic happens."
"What do you mean
drastic?" Sano's voice demanded from behind her. His hand was clenched and
Megumi noted absently that it appeared as if he had punched something, and that
whatever he had punched had won.
"Don't tell me you
two haven't felt it?" Megumi demanded her voice scornful, her eyes
narrowing in sharp amusement.
Both Vampires tensed,
their bodies going very still.
"You both have felt
her gift and you did nothing to train it or stop its appearance all
together." Megumi rolled her eyes and gave a mocking laugh. "How
ironic as most likely it was her contact with you that made the little
half-blood's gift awake."
"We weren't
sure," Yahiko whispered, his chocolate gaze defensive even as he turned
his gaze to Sano. "But why do you keep calling her a half-blood."
Megumi sighed and took the
tone of a mother speaking with great patience to a toddler. "She is at
least half-human isn't she? But honestly believing that the Battousai would
take interest in anything fully human is ludicrous, and it is even worse if you
two idiots believe that a human would be born with a gift."
Sano fisted his hands
together once again.
But before he could retort
to her scathing voice, the sliding open of the Dojo doors caused them all to
turn. The Battousai, his clothing plastered to his body, and Kaoru's pale form
where stark against the dark night.
Megumi froze when she took
in both their Ki.
"Kami." Megumi
swore before spinning on her heel. She knew, faintly, that if Kaoru died then
her own life was going to be forfeit, Battousai was never one to allow failure
and she had been on watch.
As it was she knew that if
something didn't distract him later she could expect a sound beating.
Yanking a futon out she
barely had it lowered before he was setting her down.
"Leave."
Megumi looked up, her eyes
wide, but he ignored her in the same manner he always had. Rising quickly she
shut the door behind her and grabbed both Yahiko and Sano by the ear and
dragged them into the courtyard.
"You two can do
nothing, so I suggest you go somewhere else if you don't want to be
killed." Megumi's voice was cool and clinical but Sano sensed turbulence
underneath her cool posture.
"Why?" Yahiko
was furious and his posture and face showed that clearly.
"Because, you little
fool, he is saving her life. Kaoru is suffering from blood loss and wood
poisoning. There is only one way for him to counteract that and for reasons
that I myself do not understand, he is going to help her."
Yahiko and Sano both paled
at that, both understanding what those words meant.
To save her life meant to
claim her as his.
Kenshin watched her for a
moment, her skin turning a sickeningly pale color, before he growled. This
would have been a much more...enjoyable occasion if she had been awake.
He longed to feel her body
react to his, but that could always wait, because after this her body belonged
to him. Right now he was simply going to have to take what he wanted instead of
teasing and taunting it out of her.
Lowering himself down next
to her prone body, he firmly bit into the puncture holes already marked by Jineh,
his own Ki demanding the right to mark her, to claim her as his.
He felt rather than saw
his power burn away at what little Jineh had been able to force into her, felt
her own Ki react to his, at first resenting the intrusion, but then he felt the
struggle against his own stronger life force begin to edge off.
He was no toddler like
Jineh, nor was he stupid enough to claim something that did not already belong
to him. And Kaoru had been his from the moment he had caught her in the street
and startled the pedestrians away from her.
He allowed a viscous
amusement to flutter through him at that point, those idiotic human would
provide her first blood and her first kill.
He began to pull the blood
from her body, letting it roll down the back of his throat in a delightfully
lazy manner, her unconscious form offering non of the resistance she had shown
Jineh, non of the fierce desire to be free of his touch.
Instead he felt the part
of her that was not human welcome him, the darkness of her own gift craving his
black flame of life, her blood burning as it went in silent despair from the
small part of her that wished to remain human. But it died along with whatever
resistance she could have offered.
Soon what spilled into his
mouth was warm, a soothing tonic that was setting his senses on fire, the taste
that he could associate with his mate.
For Kaoru was his mate,
his to dominate and possess, his to protect and to own. Kenshin drank until
there was simply nothing left to take. Her body had long stopped breathing and
her heart had stopped beating some minutes past.
Reaching for his Katana he
pulled the blade, the only blade that had ever drank willingly from his body,
and easily cut his wrist. This should have been the part where she would have
been drinking from his own neck but this suited him just fine.
She was his, but he was
not yet completely hers, and would not be until he decided he wished to -give-
her such a gift.
He watched as the blood
spilled into her mouth and allowed a grin of sinful delight spread across his
mouth as she began to react to the blood that slid into her system, watched as
her body went through the minute changes associated with the Shadow.
He let her drink her fill
and then he pulled back. He would have to feed her for the next few days like
this but there was enough blood in her system to change her completely, and to
keep her alive until he could hunt and feed himself.
Reaching down he tasted
her lips for the first time as he gently cleaned the last of his blood from her
mouth. Pulling back he watched as she settled, her eyes never once fluttering
open, her Ki was still erratic but he sensed her body fighting the poison, his
blood already immune to the wood, was aiding in the fight but she would still
be weak for the next few days.
He gave her torn clothing
a calculating glance and felt himself harden at the creamy skin that was now
showing, the gently curves that where starkly outlined by the clinging yukata.
"Mine, my pet. And
there is simply nothing you can do about it." He had little doubt she
would fight him on this, and the prospect was a delightful challenge, which he
was going to enjoy. He had no doubt she was a virgin, had tasted it in her
blood, and he knew he was going to enjoy waking her senses to his touch.
Teachign her to long for
what only he could give her.
There was nothing she
could do to stop him now from taking what he wanted from her. Her gift,
once welcoming him, could not be used against him, which meant the sneaky trick
she had used on Jineh was impossible to be used against him.
Rising he left, there was
unfinished business with Jineh that must be met.
Reaching the courtyard, he
nodded at Megumi. "Remove the wood from her hand, and wash her skin clean
of this night's deed."
Turning to the other two
he eyed the coolly. "You will allow no one to enter the Dojo, and if
anyone does, I will kill them and you as well."
Then he was gone.
Sano sat on the porch of
the Dojo as he waited for Megumi to come out from whatever she was doing to
Kaoru. It would do no good to barge in on the already irritated Kitsune, and
besides there was something about Yahiko's face that suggested he was unhappy.
"What is your problem
kid." Sano asked around the fishbone in his mouth, his expression full of
banked curiosity.
"I am not a
KID!" Yahiko spat, his dark eyes turning to fire. "And nothing."
"Sure its nothing,
you have been moping for the past hour." Sano argued, deciding now was not
the time to correct the younger man.
Yahiko frowned at his feet
and ignored the taller man.
Both sat in silence for
several minutes as they absorbed the night sky.
"It's not your fault
Yahiko." Sano mumbled around his abused fishbone. "There is no way
you could have predicted that this Jineh character would have abducted
Kaoru."
Yahiko sat up straight and
glared at his long time friend. "I should have been able to! What is the
gift of foresight useful for if I can't protect Busu?"
Sano shook his head.
"You know what the one old lady," Sano waved his hand to indicate the
fact that Yahiko should know –which- old women he was talking about, "that
one time said about your gift."
Yahiko rolled his eyes.
"That old lady that one time, Sano how many old ladies do you think we
have met?"
Sano shrugged.
"That's not the point. The point is she said that you would only see
things that –could- be changed. Kaoru be kidnapped apparently had to happen.
She also said that you would, at the most, see things a candle mark
ahead."
Yahiko kicked at the
ground, his frown etching into his features. "I still feel guilty."
Sano sighed in agreement.
"Let's just hope she makes it. Wood poisoning is not something to laugh
at."
Yahiko growled. "I
hope the Battousai kills him." He didn't need to stress whom Yahiko
was wishing death apon.
Sano sighed. "He most
likely will. After he tortures him."
Yahiko grimaced in
agreement. 'But will Busu make it as Battousai's mate?'
Some questions only time
would tell the answer to.
