Chapter Text
“Like what you see?” Sesshomaru inquired, a confident tilt teasing his lips. “I certainly do.” He continued, eyes trailing down her body, appraising her muscular shoulders, well defined clavicle, and smooth breast, the tips of which, were now abandoned, the mauve red buds of her nipples barely hidden beneath the clear pools of his mothers sakura springs.
Reminded of her state of undress, the newly acquired training and manners that his mother had force fed her since her arrival here jump started her heart, her face inflamed further- past the point where she could blame her reddened flush on the steam and the chill in the air… then she stammered. “O- OH MY GOSH! Please cover up! This isn’t proper!”
“Not proper?” Fine iridescent silver brows dipped and bowed, furrowing in silent inquiry. “Since when did you care for propriety?”
His nose twitched, stubbly inhaling her scent. Citrus and cinnamon, wrapped protectively with his mothers tart lime, and her kits myrrh and juvenile sandalwood. “Do you not bathe with my mother and the kit? Why is bathing with me any different?” He queried, sliding into the steaming waters with an easy grace.
She’d only seen that elegance rived in one person, his mother. The very person who’d likely told him where to find her… and of their bathing habits.
But watching him enter the bath was far more stimulating.
“You are my alpha bitch, did you think I would not sense it?” He hummed, sauntering forward - stopping just before her prone form - watching as she desperately tried to look anywhere but down. Anywhere but at him.
‘That will need to be fixed, she should look. Revel in the sight of me again.’
Fine tipped claws caressed the edge of her arms catching at her wrist and pulling her forward till she was standing before him, mere inches from being pressed skin to skin.
Leaning down he returned his nose to the tantalizing slope of her neck, taking a deep drink of her scent once again.
“Three moons ago, when you claimed your new rank in my pack I felt it. The shifting hierarchy, it grated deep inside me, goading my beast into action. I hunted my mother down that very night. Demanding an explanation - she fed me nothing but disceptions, stuffed to the brink with half truths. I should’ve known she had you then!” He growled softly into the shell of her ear, and she trembled.
“After all, it was only after our little conversation that our game of scent-tag began.”
“Scent-tag?”
“Do not play coy with me. I speak of the tearing of your previous garments and the scattering of its pieces all throughout my lands. I laid chase.”
Her heart stuttered, tumbling in a summersault down to her stomach kicking up a slew of butterflies in its wake. “You presused?”
“Should I present you with them? Ka-go-me. I’ve kept them all, each and every one.”
Her mind reeled, this couldn’t be possible. Sure Sakki had told her he’d known and he was searching for her. It was why she’d agreed to the shredding of her miko garb, finally relenting in their stalemated war for her to be draped in the finery Sakkio provided. Even wearing the palace guards training clothes in favor of not being found. But the way he said it, how he whispered of his perusal - naked and unashamed - made it clear that this game meant far more than she’d wagared.
“I didn’t know.”
“Hn?” He hummed sliding behind her, his hands falling to her waist, pulling her down with him as he sat on the ledge she had been residing on. “Didn’t know what?”
“W-what it meant!”
“Tell me little miko, what did it mean?” He chortled softly, removing his hands from her body before his beast was too tempted to be tempered.
Settling her between his legs was bad enough, so he dropped his hands to his knees - bent out of the water - on either side of her. Unwittingly she copied him, her own knees bending and pulled tight to her chest, her hands cradling to her reddened cheeks.
“You said you, you laid chase… that phrase, and others like it are only used when a male is-” She cut herself off staring in shock at the reflection of his easy smirk in the settling water. It simply wasn’t possible. How could this have happened?
“Hn?” He prompted, his breath brushing past her ears.
“When a male is…”
“Announcing his intentions, it represents the beginning of courting. The very thing your ascension in rank and scent-scattering invited.” Sesshomaru finished for her, his fingers returning to the back of her neck, unable or unwilling to quell the urge to touch her - even just a little - any longer.
He would take it no further, though he was sorely tempted.
Instincts demanded she must submit to him first, something this shocked state could not do - even if her body easily followed all his prompting.
“I promise you Kagome, someday soon, you will be mine.”
*Hick* Her breath caught in her chest, and she shivered.