Demon Love by Usha

Prologue

Ashes of bones and dirt.

Nothing more.

No, wait... there was hate as well. Pure and fierce hate.

That's what he had chosen over her... a walking corpse with no real soul and no true love.

And she had cried.

Heavens, she had cried silently and constantly whenever she was alone. And it had hurt beyond measure to lose her first love like that. However... how can someone lose something they never had?

So she promised herself she would get over him. Completely.

She had shut herself from him. It had been hard, true. Yet not nearly as hard as she thought it would be.

The others had noticed her change of attitude. Her lack of interest in arguing with him, in complaining. She simply ignored him. The situation had been nearly unbearable at first. But time was a good ally. She was strong now. Strong enough to survive it.

None of them would understand. For none had ever felt what she felt every time she saw...

They didn't know how much it hurt. They might try to guess, but they would never know how it felt. How it suffocated her heart and disturbed her mind... Was she that bad? Was she so worthless that he had to choose a dead woman instead?

Those thoughts had disturbed her for some time. And although she knew now that there was no way a walking corpse was a better choice over anybody, she was still fighting the voice inside that insisted on belittling her.

And through all she had kept silent. She didn't just shut herself from him. She had kept her distance from the others as well. For as soon as the mess she had somehow got herself into was finally fixed, she just wanted to walk away and return to her normal life. Not a glance back.

They had been kind friends, yes. She recognized that. And little Shippo had nothing to do with the situation...

But she was tired.

She had grown weary of this crazy life she was living. Weary and sick of it... Her heart would not survive it. She was already changed; hardened, no longer carefree.

Through everything , in spite of all her acquired strength, it was not possible yet for her not to feel hurt whenever he talked about her, whenever he looked at her as if he was seeing at her instead.

And he did it constantly. And she had to go to extremes not to scream at him... and cry.

God knows she was trying. She had been trying for an eternity. She didn't know how much more she could handle.

And then it had happened. In a hot summer night.

A battle had occurred and she had been slightly wounded. But she had grown bored of his attempts to get a furious reaction from her during a one-sided argument and had wandered into the forests, threatening him with murderer if he so much as thought about following her... without caring for her wound.

It was that night that changed everything. The night he found her. The night he took her. The night she became a woman in so many ways...

It was that particular night that made her life worth living. Made her complete. Made her see...

And now she lived two separated lives.

As the sun shined in the sky, she traveled through the feudal era looking for the shards with a very peculiar gang.

But as the night fell upon them, she belonged with him. Her lover.

And if by a great misfortune of fate she didn't manage to spare him time for one night...

The moon never failed to rise again.