Chapter 4: Need

Tea was set before her but Kagome couldn’t bring herself to drink it. It was hot to the touch and would have warmed her if she sipped it.

She wanted to feel the cold that ate her up inside. She had hurt so many that were innocent when she had that dream of Sesshomaru. It had been so wrong…everything felt so wrong.

How her stomach knotted at the thought of what he had done to her. She had always hated how he made her body respond and enjoy what he did to her. It felt sick…twisted to enjoy what he forced on her, raping her against her will. Still, Sesshomaru had always made sure that she enjoyed it.

Who would enjoy being raped?

“Someone that hurts others in their sleep apparently,” Kagome muttered to herself.

She reached out and the tea to still be burning to the touch. Taking the cup in hand, she was filled with the desire to punish herself. She had done so much wrong and needed some way to punish herself for those that she had hurt.

Kagome needed to punish herself for responding as well. Because it was so wrong and so twisted that her body would ever react to what Sesshomaru had forced on her.

“Don’t even think about it, Kagome.”

Kagome watched as Emma sat down across from her and took the cup from her hands. There was a stern look in Emma’s eyes with disapproval that came off her in waves. She was older than Kagome by a few years. But Kagome had learned long ago that age did not equal wisdom.

That wasn’t the case with Emma though.

She had helped Haruto when she had just woken up. Both of them had stared down at her with fear in their eyes. But it had been fear for her as much as fear of her.

Just as then, there was something about the woman that whispered to her that Emma was a survivor. That was something that made them even more different from each other. The only thing that was the same about them was that they both had holy power. Kagome could not feel it before when she had been travelling with her friends but now she could. She could feel when someone with holy powers around her now…almost all the humans that were alive here had holy power.

Looking at Emma, made Kagome feel so unsure of herself. Yet it felt like she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. She always felt so lost now. Kagome had felt more herself, the person that she had once been when she had revived. Yet the dream, her body responding against her will and the knowledge that she had hurt those people had taken it from her.

Kagome felt so lost within herself.

“It’s never easy in the beginning. I know it wasn’t for me, I felt lost and angry in a new land,” Emma said softly. There was a sad look within Emma’s pale blue eyes at those words.

They were like the sky losing its colour before a storm. It only made Kagome wonder what this woman had gone through.

“You can’t stay angry and lost forever. You’re human like me and that means you will heal with time.”

Kagome thought about those words. She had changed so much, evolved as a person with her friends, fighting Naraku. Even with Sesshomaru, she had evolved, changed. Unlike with her friends though, she felt weaker for it.

It had been like she was clay, raw with potential. She was shaped by her family and friends, ready for the kiln when Sesshomaru had taken her. His touch destroyed who she had become, forcing her to fit his mold.

How it had broken her.

“If I can’t heal with time?” Kagome questioned.

“I would say you die but that doesn’t seem to work with you,” Emma replied.

It was the truth. Sesshomaru’s sword should have killed her. It was meant to kill everything yet she healed with only a scar that remained. It felt as if the world had turned its back on her. It so often felt like she wasn’t the person that she had been.

She craved to be that person once more.

It was something that Emma seemed to notice. “You will never be the person that you were before…no one can be when they have been raped.”

“You talk about it like you were raped too.”

“Oh yes, I had been given to a lord of these lands as a gift.”

oOo
Enma watched them. They appeared as two beautiful young women in a garden of red blooms. But he knew the truth about them. One of them was the mate of his cousin and the other was his heart.

Both were scarred by the actions and deeds of others. It enraged him that his own blood kin would have done such things. It also made him so ashamed.

Taking and using others had been his father’s way, rotting almost all of his family in doing so. He had been one of the few that had escaped before the rot could taint him. His two older brothers and sister were the others.

The rest had died for a father that had never cared.

The children were lucky to have a mother that did. Enma knew that Kagome had been sick before. That sickness had driven her to that desperate act. Though that sickness clung to her, refusing to let her go, he could see that she would overcome it.

It would just take time for her to do that. He would have to see that she was given that time.

“Are you just going to stand there?”

He smiled at the question his love asked of him. She was the only person that would ever ask him a question like that. Others would just wait at his side for days if he decided to stand there for that long. She was bold in front of all but him. She watched him her timid side when it was only them.

“I think I will for a little while longer.”

“How about you come and meet Kagome instead,” Emma insisted.
His smile got bigger as she stood and came to him. There was a beautiful smile on her lips but her eyes were filled with sadness. It hurt to see that sadness in her eyes. It had been there when he has first met her.

Along with the rage.

He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a sweet kiss before following her to Kagome. She was beautiful in her dark blue kimono with white lilies; Emma outshone her. Every female was outshone by his golden maiden. But he would still help this beautiful woman for the fact that his family wrong her so gravely.

“It is a pleasure to meet you…again, Kagome,” He said it with a smile.
She frowned at him, which told him that she remembered nothing of what had happened. It was surprising to him, to say the least since he had been badly wounded by her. It only heartened him to like her since it had been centuries when he last had a challenge in battle.

“It’s nice to meet you as well…”

“Enma,” he told her.

Her eyes went wide at his words before screaming excitedly. Both he and Emma flinched at it but wasn’t surprised when she ran off.

“Well…that was fun.”

“You’re not that scary,” Emma commented.

“No, I’m not but my father was and he was…brutal in the best of moods.” Thoughts of his father’s reign filled Enma’s mind, reminding him of all the wrong that he had done to his realm and the people within.

So many were tormented and tortured for the littlest things. The worst was done to those that had been victims in their lives before death. Just the thought of those poor souls burned him forever.

“Can I have your autograph?” Kagome begged when she suddenly reappeared with everything needed for it.

oOo

Nori sighed at the humiliation that she was forced to endure. Sitting behind Takashi, waiting to refill his cup of sake as if she was a mere servant. she longing for when he was beating her, it was far less humiliating. Still, it was a small victory to herself that he no longer sought to touch her and take her himself.

She took such delight as well as disgust that Takashi was terrified by his father’s mate. She had been one that had grown up with the belief that family was sacred, to be protected. The father was the center and his heir only became so when he was gone.

Setsuna’s mate had died years before and despite the fact that Takashi was a concubine’s son…he was still the heir. It had been Setsuna’s duty to see that her mate’s heir would be worthy of his title. To Nori’s cold gaze, it was clear that Setsuna had failed.

She had forever been a child; Setsuna had expected everything to be like it was in hell. Yet she never gave a thought to what it meant to be mated to a lord of the mortal realms.

It gave Nori such joy to know her old rival had suffered. The only thing to make it all the better would be for Setsuna to die.

Still, Nori needed her alive for the moment. It would make things easier in corrupting Takashi’s life home and life.

“Give me more, bitch.” Nori glared at Takashi for the order. He ignored her with his cup held before her as he listened to his spies. It disgusted her to do it but she went to the motions of doing what she had been ordered to do.

It felt bittersweet to pour sake.

The last time that she had done so had been for her beloved. It was a bitter memory for her since he had taken her heart and shattered it with the truth. It had been the night that he had told her that he loved a human princess.

Those words were daggers to her heart. He had been loyal to her as she had been to him for so long. He had been the first to take her, to love her and then he threw it all in her face. It was not the worst part of that night.

The true betrayal was when he told her that his human princess was pregnant with his child.

It had been the one and only time that she hated herself for what she was. That her mate’s lover had conceived so easily had made her so unhappy to be a demon.

It made her hate them. Her hate for humans had burned her inside for so long that she had been blinded by it.

Until her son taught her a lesson. Seeing Sesshomaru with Kagome and Rin had slowly killed that hatred. Her son’s love for Kagome had slowly helped to heal her from the betrayal as well.

“Gone? Gone where? Where is Kagome?” Takashi screeched like a child.

In a rage, he threw his cup of sake at her, breaking it and soaked her in the alcohol. His eyes were crazed as he stared at his spies.

“She died, my lord. Driven to take her own life with Sesshomaru’s sword.”

Nori’s heart stopped as those words filled her thoughts. Kagome was gone. It would drive Sesshomaru to kill himself, which meant that she needed to leave more than ever before.

Her grandchildren needed her.

oOo

Emma stared at the love of her life as he undressed. He was a glorious sight to behold. It was hard to believe that he wanted her, that he had made her his mate.

If being with him was a sin then she would happily stay in hell after death. But Emma knew that she didn’t deserve him though.

After all, she was a bastard and tainted by the touch of that lord. Even if Enma had returned her virginal state to her before deflowering her himself. It did not change the fact that she was forever tainted by another.

But he didn’t care.

“What are you thinking right now, my sweet?” Enma asked as he walked towards her.

“That your naked flesh is beautiful,” she said softly. Enma grimaced at her words like he always did when she called him beautiful.

He was beautiful, inside and out to her. “I’m not the beautiful, my sweet.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are not.”

“Only a beautiful demon can touch me, she informed him.

“I’m a beautiful demon,” he relented before he pounced on her.

He ripped the silk from her and kissed her skin gently like it was the softest of silks. It was heaven to feel him touch her, to feel her. It was like nothing that she had ever felt before, serving only to make her fall deeper for him.

She whimpered at how right it felt as he brushed his fingertips against her breasts. Teasing her nipples to harden with those gentle brushes and eager caresses. Her flower wept with desire for him to touch her more, to kiss her with that passion that they shared. “How did your talk with Kagome go?”

His words were like cold water dumped upon her, killing her desire.

“You have terrible timing for questions, Enma.”