To Shed a Little Light by RhiannonoftheMoon

Chapter 1

A/N: Sequel to "Darkness". Inspired by a story that I will name at the end of the last chapter (though if you wnat to guess, put it into a review). Still lacking in substance and shamelessly lemony! Hope all you out there who wanted the sequel are happy.

This picks up right where "Darkness" left off. Remember, this takes place at the beginning of the series – Shippo, Sango, and Miroku have yet to join the group, Kikyou has not been revived, but Inuyasha has fought Sesshomaru for Tetsusaiga.

To Shed a Little Light

Chapter 1

Kagome couldn't help the dreamy smile that curved her lips as she stirred the merrily crackling campfire and ignored Inuyasha's suspicious glares and obvious sniffs in her direction. She simply felt too good, albeit sore between her legs, to care what the stupid hanyou thought. Her demon lord had come back to her and all was right with the universe.

He'd insisted that she keep her eyes closed when he'd approached her in the hot spring and, in fear that he'd leave her if she disobeyed, she'd squeezed them shut and resisted the urge to peek at the male who bent her over the submerged boulder on which she'd been sitting and took her from behind. Gently at first, then he had pounded into her with wild abandon and she had bit back the cries of pleasure that struggled to burst forth. It was over too fast, both of them slamming into shattering orgasms that had left them trembling in the steamy water. With a tender nuzzle of her ear and sharp smack on her backside, he was gone, and Kagome had thoroughly washed again before leaving the spring, donning her make-shift pajamas, and returning to camp.

Inuyasha had a strange light in his eyes now, and she tried to push her amorous encounter out of her mind. He was an inuhanyou, after all, and who knew what he could smell with that sensitive nose of his. She wondered what kind of demon her lover was, and if he had as keen of a nose. He had smelled her blood when the blisters on her feet had popped and oozed, but she had no idea how subtle that kind of odor was. Hell, she didn't even know what Inuyasha smelled – she'd washed all of her lover's stuff off her body.

She supposed she should be a little ashamed, or at the very least annoyed, that an unnamed, unseen demon was using her for sex, but she loved every minute of it. It was an unseemly thing to do, something that a properly raised girl would never dream of allowing to happen. She could only imagine the looks on the villagers' faces (let alone Kaede's or her mother's) if they found out she was screwing a demon lord! Not much of a pure miko, was she?

She didn't really think of herself as a miko, anyway. The villagers had thrust that role upon her because they thought she was the reincarnation of priestess 50 years dead. Their gifts and obeisant manners had been novel, if unnerving, for the first couple of days, but now she was downright tired of it. Spiritual powers or no, sacred jewel or no, she was still just a teenager with homework to do and boys to ogle. Too bad she had yet to ogle hers.

Why was it that he refused to reveal himself to her? Perhaps he was hideous or deformed, but she couldn't believe that; after all, she'd touched most of him and he felt beautiful. His voice did sinful things to her: she could listen to him read financial reports and still get all hot and bothered. No, he had to have another reason, and the fact that it probably existed did nothing to burst her bubble of romance and sexual gratification. Let him keep his secret, as long as he kept coming back.

A piece of wood in the fire popped like the rapport of a gun and she startled, suddenly aware of her companion's close proximity. He was seated on the ground on her right side; knees up with his hands planted between his feet, looking every bit the dog whose blood he shared. Leaning forward, he sniffed at her with flaring nostrils. Kagome fixed him with a hard stare, and even though she'd obviously caught him checking her out, he made no move to stop or apologize.

"Inuyasha, knock it off," she did her best to growl at him.

"Keh. Bathing, my ass."

Color shot into her cheeks before she could help it, for he was correct, in a way, and she was a lousy liar. For a moment, she considered telling him, getting it out in the open so that she wouldn't have to sneak around. However, her gut told her to keep quiet, so she did. "Excuse me? And what else would I be doing?" Besides being fucked by a demon lord, that is.

He inhaled sharply, nose in the air as if to catch each nuance of her scent. "You tell me, wench. What were you doing?"

"Bathing, idiot!"

"You smell damn strange for someone who just took a bath."

"Osuwari!" Kagome let him have it, effectively ending the conversation. Stomping over to her backpack, she pulled out her math book and crawled into her sleeping bag, removing the warming stones from the bottom. Pointedly ignoring the hanyou who was sputtering in the dirt, she angled the text to the fire and pretended to read. Here he was all riled up about something he couldn't even name but did he ask about the scabby injuries that marred her chest? No! The jerk was insufferable; to think that she had kinda-sorta thought he was cute! Well, the way his ears twitched on the top of his head was pretty cute. 'I wonder if they would tickle my thighs if he...'

'Oh! So don't go there, Kagome!' she grimaced and decided to try to read the book, if just to stymie her now hentai imagination. Nothing was more of a turn-off than quadratic equations.

A quiet rustle, then an indignant grunt, and Kagome sighed in relative relief, glad that the hanyou had finally decided to roost in the treetops. Whoever heard of a dog climbing trees, but they were his favorite places to sleep, high in the branches with his precious sword leaning against his shoulder. Kagome could care less where he slept as long as he quit nosing (pun intended) around her business.

XxxxxxxxX

"Inuyasha, we have to help these poor people," Kagome cocked her hands on her hips and gave the intractable hanyou a death glare. Why did he have to make everything so difficult?

"You mean I have to help them, and I ain't gonna." Normally stubborn, today he was downright obstinate and she had to wonder if he were mule hanyou instead of inuhanyou. It had been almost a week since her cave adventure and he hadn't treated her the same since. The modicum of regard he'd seemed to gain for her after the thing with Yura of the Demon Hair had evaporated like water in a hot frying pan and his gruff manner had devolved into downright rudeness.

Kagome had been in better moods herself; it had also been a week since she'd had a rendezvous with her lover and she was beginning to suspect that he was done with her, a fact that upset her more than she thought it should. After all, it was just a little fling, right? Like a one-night stand! He'd made no promises to her. However, she couldn't help search the shadows for a glimmer of silver, the only visual clue she had of him, or strain her ears for the velvet timbre of his voice.

She was uncomfortably reminded of the month her friend Yuka spent sitting by the telephone waiting for her would-be boyfriend to call, blanching whenever it would ring and plummeting into the depths of despair when it wasn't him, spending sleepless nights in an adolescent bliss when it was. She'd put her life on hold for that guy, defending his careless misuse of her feeling to her friends with a vehemence that Kagome hadn't begun to understand, until one day Yuka simply lost interest, her attention cast to the fickle wind of youth and snagged by a handsome older boy with a car.

In the meantime, Inuyasha had almost been clingy, though hotly denying it when Kagome brought it up, and had hardly let her out of his sight. She was positive that he'd been lurking around when she bathed. He denied that, too, but his gaudy red outfit was awfully difficult to hide in the green-leafed branches that ringed the springs she used. It had only been flashes out of the corners of her eyes, but she swore she saw him more than once.

"But that demon is burning their fields! They'll starve this winter if we don't do something."

"It ain't got a jewel shard so it ain't our business."

"Please?"

"Fuck no."

Kagome gave him a calculating stare, wondering if sitting him would do more harm than good. It often took a little cajoling on her part to get him to help people, but he'd always caved in eventually due to his kind heart, or so she thought. Today, he just wouldn't back down.

"Then I'll just have to go myself."

"Stupid girl, like you could do anything, you're so pathetic."

"Osuwari!" He hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, cursing and raging into the ground. Kagome scowled at him; only a moron wouldn't have seen that coming. Spinning on her heel, she stomped toward the pillar of brown smoke that marred the otherwise perfectly cloudless blue sky. "I'll show you what I can do!"

"Not with the jewel shards, you won't! Hey, get back here! Wench!"

Kagome left him hollering in the dirt, her arms stiff at her sides and her hands clenched into righteous little balls as she stomped toward the burning rice patties. Insufferable, loud-mouthed, arrogant, snotty, flea-brained...

Her mental tirade died away the closer she got. Villagers were scurrying frantically with overflowing buckets to put out the flames. Several had made a dousing chain, standing one beside the other from the fire to the well, tossing full and empty buckets between them to put out the largest of the blazes. No matter how many small fires they extinguished, another would take its place. As she watched, a brick red lizard-looking thing slithered away from the newest fire on stubby legs, the tip of its tail still smoldering. She felt pity for the poor thing caught in the blaze and rushed forward to help it when its skin temporarily caught fire, igniting a part of the rice patty that had so far escaped the fires.

Frowning and pulling an arrow out of her quiver, she stood with legs apart as she nocked the arrow to her bow. She was a lousy shot, sure, but she had something to prove. With a silent prayer for accuracy, she released the arrow, thrilled by the pink corona of light around its tip. The arrow embedded itself in the ground a couple feet from the salamander, which turned to look at her with angry red eyes.

"Great, Kagome. Now it knows you're here." She nocked another arrow quickly, tongue stuck between her lips as she aimed. 'At least I have a better shot, now,' she thought nervously, for the salamander was trundling in her direction. She let the arrow fly and the youkai had to twist out of the way to avoid being hit, and Kagome did a small mental happy-dance that she'd gotten so close before pulling out another arrow.

'How did it move so fast?' Kagome wondered, for the thing was now almost upon her, smoke rising off of its skin in puffy white clouds. Brave or stupid, the girl from the future held her ground, arrow clutched in her hand and poised to strike like a knife instead of projectile. Just before it leapt at her, it burst into flames, and Kagome had a moment where she wished she had stayed with Inuyasha and let the villagers deal with this themselves. Then, her arm was swinging around, slamming the purifying arrow into the salamander's body where the point sunk into burning flesh.

Screaming in pain, she was only half aware of the youkai being enveloped in pink light, then exploding into a fine, iridescent dust. Clutching her scorched hand to her chest, she fell onto her rump, tears streaming down her face. "Owowowowowow!"

"She killed it! She killed the salamander youkai!"

"That girl did!"

"She must be a priestess!"

Several of the villagers rushed to surround her, a matronly woman helping her to her feet with a hand on her uninjured arm. The men finished dousing the flames, an easy task now that no more fires were being started, and joined the circle of gawkers. For her part, Kagome didn't care what they called her, as long as they got her something for her hand, which hurt more than anything she'd experienced in a long time. The skin was red, swollen, and blistering profusely, several blisters dark in color.

"Get the healer," the old mother snapped at the onlookers, pushing through the rapidly growing crowd of people with a meaty, calloused hand. A young boy did just that, wheeling around and printing toward the cluster of huts that was their village. He returned minutes later, meeting the group that was slowly making its own way to the village with another old woman in tow.

Clucking to herself like an enormous overstuffed hen, the portly woman shoed away the villagers and took Kagome under her wing, leading her to the hut where she practiced her craft.

XxxxxxxxX

'This isn't so bad,' Kagome thought with a pained smile as she laid on a comfortable futon and stared at the shadowed roof over her head. The headman of the village had insisted that she and her friend (though they all had given Inuyasha dirty, distrustful looks) stay in his house that night and dine with his family. Dinner had been delicious and even though it hurt to wield her chopsticks, she had enjoyed every bite. Even Inuyasha had seemed somewhat pleased, despite the fact that he'd fought tooth and nail against staying there. Kagome hadn't given him a choice, and when she'd shown him her burned hand, he'd gracelessly capitulated. She thanked the heavens that they'd been given separate sleeping chambers; she was in no mood for his incessant grumbling.

She could do without the flowers, incense, and other little things that the villagers were leaving outside her door, however. 'What do they think I'm going to do with all that stuff?' It just seemed wasteful. A quiet creak outside the sliding door signaled to the injured girl that another misguided soul was here to pay homage. Groaning silently, Kagome closed her eyes and rolled onto her side, adjusting her hand so that it touched as little as possible. Damn, but those burns hurt. Even liberally spread with an herbal salve and bandaged, they throbbed and ached, and each inadvertent bump sent lances of pain through her arm and into her shoulders. Maybe she should've taken that sleeping draught the healer had offered after all.

Just about to crawl back out of bed to visit the old woman and ask for the potion, Kagome froze when she heard the hushed rattle of the door to her room being slid back. She shot to a sitting position, holding the blanket to her chest in an instinctively protective gesture. Eyes straining to pierce the darkness of her room, she saw a dim silhouette in her doorway: tall, statuesque, backlit by a sliver of pale, milky moon and almost shimmering before it vanished when the door was slid shut. Hardly more of a glimpse than when they had left the cave together, it still told her, without a doubt, who her visitor was.

"My lord!" With a strangled gasp and a sudden levity in her heart, she closed her eyes, letting the blanket and her hands fall into her lap, barely noticing when her injured hand protested the movement with a jolt of pain. She had it bad, that malady that sent the heart racing into overdrive, heady anticipation flooding her body and splashing into her belly, surging with heat and tension. She should have been alarmed at the power he had over her, power that she had freely given, but she didn't...she just...wanted.

"Good girl," he whispered, his breath caressing the curve of her ear. The smooth pads of his fingers glided down her bare arm, a quiet hiss of displeasure escaping his lips as he fingered the bandaging on her hand. Kagome whimpered quietly, rubbing her cheek to his and then turning her head to press his lips with a needy kiss. His tongue dipped into her mouth, tasting her with a thoroughness that left her gasping for each tremulous breath before pulling away.

Lips traced the pulse in her throat, parting slightly to allow the gentlest of nibbles. Kagome thought she would dissolve on the spot; already her panties had become uncomfortably wet and she shifted slightly to relieve the ache that had bloomed between her thighs. Moaning softly and baring the side of her neck as she leaned against his shoulder, she slid her uninjured fingers into the hair at the base of his neck, gently scoring his scalp with blunt nails. He shivered against her back, the clawed hand creeping under the hem of her sleeping shirt spasming slightly on the skin over her ribcage, and then continuing its quest to her left breast where it tugged on a hardening nipple. Fangs scraped against the arch of her throat, mimicking bites in rhythm with the tweaks of her nipple.

Letting the silky cascade of his hair flow through her fingers, she arched her back and writhed, trying to feel the hardness that she knew waited for her, to convey her desperate need for him to fill her, to meld with her, to push her into to the upper stratosphere of carnal pleasure. He obliged her by pulling her to her knees and grinding his groin against her flannel-clad bottom, the length of him sliding between her cheeks. Instinctively, she bent over, putting her weight on her elbows and tilting her hips, presenting herself for his prodding and singing a silent song in her mind, 'Please, please, please...'

A distant wooden racket and a hoarse shout broke through the fog of sensuality, the shaft pressed against her folds freezing as her heart jumped into her throat. A flash of light and he was gone, zipping out the high, empty window like an overgrown firefly just as her door slid open with a protesting rattle.

"The fuck is going on in here?!"

"OSUWARI!" Kagome shouted back, scrambling under her covers and pulling them to her chin. The hanyou hit the floorboards with a resonating crack and Kagome winced; it had to have hurt.

"Bitch!"

"Osuwari!" Kagome snapped back, her momentary guilt smothered by Inuyasha's foul mouth. "How dare you barge in here?" Glaring at the crumpled pile of silver hair and red fabric lit by the feeble light of the moon, her panicked mind whirred frantically to figure out what he might have seen and how she could explain it.

Cursing unintelligibly from the floor, Inuyasha finally managed to growl out a sentence. "Who was in here?"

Deny, deny, deny... "No one!" she shot back, putting as much outrage and innocence into her voice as she possibly could.

"Bullshit! I smell...fuck!" the hanyou was again reduced to growling and cursing.

'What does he smell?' she wondered with cold dread, her heart slamming in her chest so hard that she was afraid it may break through the back of her ribcage. She didn't think he'd smelled the other demon before; otherwise he wouldn't have accepted her previous denials so easily. He would have tracked down the other demon using his doggy nose. She figured he could smell the stuff her lord left behind or her own body's juices. Her biology book said that animals gave off pheromones to attract others to mate; could he smell that too?

Pulling himself off the floor, he sniffed at her, at the doorframe, around the perimeter of the room, all the while grumbling under his breath. From his lack of shouting and hurling accusations, Kagome decided that for some reason, he couldn't smell her lover, which just left her and her pheromones. She would have to remember to ask him how he did it.

Sighing as he circled her, snuffling loudly and suspiciously but not too closely to her body, she fought back her own mortification and gave him a tired frown. "Well, Inuyasha? What do you smell?"

He refused to look at her, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring, seemingly unknowingly, out the window her demon lover had used to escape.

"Then could you please leave so I can get some sleep?"

His head snapped around, his gleaming predator's eyes boring into her like hot pokers, trying to torture the truth out of her with a look alone. Kagome wasn't falling for it. Finally he huffed, breaking the silence. "You smell like..."

Was it her imagination, or was the obnoxious hanyou embarrassed? Now she was positive that he could smell her pheromones, or arousal, and couldn't even put it into words. Perhaps he didn't even know what men's...stuff...smelled like. Did hanyou and youkai pleasure themselves? She'd seen dogs licking their things but never to the point of...ew. But that would make him a virgin, and a shy one at that. It would be funny in a different situation. Feeling empowered and a little less anxious, Kagome gave him a questioning look, pouring virtue and empathy into her limpid brown eyes.

"Like what, Inuyasha?" That's it girl, lay on the charm. It was working, too; his rigid stance relaxed a little as he took a couple of shuffling steps toward her, his nose twitching as he strove to take in the intoxicating scent of sexual chemicals.

"Like...like... Keh! Whatever!" he seemed to realize with a start what he was doing and backed off, dropping to a cross-legged sitting position when his back hit the wall. "Stupid girl." Adjusting his sword to lean against his shoulder with the point near his crossed ankles and the hilt touching the wall behind him, he glowered out the small window. "Then why were you making so much damn noise?"

'Noise?' she repeated silently to herself. He had heard her moaning? Oh kami, that's almost worse than him smelling her! Her cheeks heating despite her internal struggle to remain cool, she flopped down on the futon and rolled with her back facing him. Then, an idea struck her: fiercely embarrassing, she would never have considered it before her awakening to sex and subterfuge. Clearing her throat of the dryness that had settled there, she swallowed noisily.

"I was dreaming," she mumbled quietly, hoping he would buy her little ploy and go away. It was too perfect, really, if he couldn't smell the other demon and didn't know what cum was. His reaction to her pheromones was probably pure instinct. She heard a snort and a rustle, smirking to herself as she realized that her statement could be even more embarrassing to the hanyou than to herself.

Still, he stayed where he was, much to her dismay. Fighting it would only bring more suspicion, so she closed her eyes and silently fumed on her futon, body twitching in the throes of withdrawal, mind screaming at the loss of fulfillment. She felt like a drug addict denied a fix, a metaphor that should have alarmed her as much as her rampant desire for her lover and his power to incite her body, but so close to the problem, all she could lament was the unslaked burning in her abdomen.

A/N: reviews may be sent to Rhiannon.oftheMoon@yahoo.com