Even after Sesshoumaru had departed the palace, the shadow of his will seemed to linger, inflexible and all-consuming in its reach. Hirokin felt it keenly, and was grateful for it. How easy it had been, to slip into complacency in the absence. To begin to believe that his will was his own.

It seemed absurd to him now, that he should ever have considered Kou his lover. And so Hirokin went about his business as he had for long centuries before, forgetting the castle in the sky, and the illusion of freedom it had presented.

With effort, he even managed to forget Kou, though he glimpsed him regularly enough, as Inukimi’s captain of the guard. The intent golden gaze that pierced into him in turn Hirokin just as easily dismissed—

Frivolous, dangerous, and best left behind him.

What he hadn’t accounted for was Kou’s stubborn tenacity. Most brutally it confronted him one night when he was alone in his bedchamber, and he’d woken sharply to the sensation of that fearsome, familiar bulk bearing down upon him.

“Kou!” Hirokin had hissed upon waking, as he thrashed beneath the inuyoukai’s powerful form. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” the soldier replied. “I want to know why.”

“If you don’t know why, then you’re not half as smart as I thought you were,” the demon prince said darkly. “Sesshoumaru-sama’s wrath would be terrible if we were discovered like this.”

“He is not here,” Kou said simply. “And I am not afraid of being discovered.”

Hirokin’s gaze narrowed in censure. “You should be.”

Kou shook his head. Catching Hirokin’s slender wrists easily in his claws, he bent them both back to the bed. Against the blood boiling in Hirokin’s cheeks, the watery smoothness of the sheets felt tortuously cool. Sleek dark hair brushed him feather-light as Kou leaned in—another fresh wave of torment.

“I cannot hide what I feel for you,” the inuyoukai murmured, his rough tongue tracing the vein that pounded in Hirokin’s throat. “I won’t.”

Before Hirokin could argue, Kou’s lips sealed over his, devouring his protests in a heated clash of fangs. Hirokin surged viciously against him, inflamed with lust and anger. Lost in the tumult, they crashed together, Hirokin’s cock glancing hard off of Kou’s—each parrying blow riling them further until they were a mad, seething tangle of lashed limbs and snarled youki.

Out of the water, out of sorts, Hirokin was at a clear disadvantage. Despite Kou’s relative youth, he was terribly strong—and terribly determined. Even when Hirokin’s sharp teeth shredded through Kou’s lower lip, the burly inuyoukai merely shook it off with a glare so smoldering that for a moment Hirokin didn’t care whether his whole world came burning to the ground around them.

Then in a bitter torrent, his better senses returned to him.

The nails scratching down Kou’s naked chest unfurled, as Hirokin flattened his palms against him and urged him back. “…Damn it, enough.”

Panting, the inuyoukai rocked back on his heels, a frown creasing his tanned, earnest face. “Koi—”

“Don’t you call me that—don’t you dare,” Hirokin snapped, pushing himself upright on the heels of his hands. “I am a lord, and you are nothing. And you had best remember that, or I’ll have you torn apart piece by insolent piece.”

Kou drew back from him, stricken.

“I am your first,” he said softly after a pause, his deep voice so resonant it was trembling, “as you are mine.”

“My first?” Hirokin said, his tone dripping condescension. Scathingly, he raked his eyes over Kou’s clumsy, kneeling form. “What a fool you are. The list was long ere before you were born, and long it will be after you have gone.”

In desperation, Kou studied his face, as if hoping to divine some hint of lie in what Hirokin had said. But the prince’s cool expression betrayed nothing except dismissal, and so with uncharacteristic dignity, Kou picked himself up at last and left.

…

The list was long, as Hirokin had said.

Tediously long.

Seeming to collapse in upon himself in Kou’s yawning absence, the demon prince brooded upon it. Of course there had been a beginning, as there must always be—although for him it had been rather a breaking-in of sorts.

…

Hirokin had been one-hundred-and-three years old. Still very much a child in many ways—all the ways that had mattered most.

Yet his coming-of-age celebration had marked a change. His true form had manifested, and where he’d struggled before to summon forth the slightest wisp of youki, it had now seemed a font of power bursting at the seams of his being.

It was a development that had distressed Hirokin as much as it had intrigued him.

“Not to worry, my dear boy,” his father Ryuutarou had said blithely, as Hirokin had grimaced toward the floating remains of yet another banquet swept out in a veritable tidal wave of annoyance—annoyance at Ryuutarou, of course. “This sort of thing is to be expected. Although,” the River Lord had added unhelpfully, tapping a claw to his chin as Hirokin’s other relatives had surfaced, disheveled and glaring, “you might try tempering your outbursts, just a little…”

‘Tempered’ or no, Hirokin’s newfound abilities had failed to impress Sesshoumaru. As always, it had seemed, in matters of strength Touga’s heir had been miles ahead of him.

“So your tears boil now when I thrash you up and down the training grounds,” Sesshoumaru had coolly observed, the thin lash of youki that had cracked from his claws seeming to mock Hirokin with its shimmering, even perfection. “You’ll have to do far better than that to convince me that your balls have dropped.”

In fact, Hirokin’s balls had dropped a full season before Sesshoumaru’s, but since pointing this out would only earn him another thrashing, Hirokin had kept his mouth shut and willed his pain-bleared eyes not to steam.

…

Despite the tumultuous onset of Hirokin’s adolescence, the thought of lying with a female had not occurred to him. Left to his own natural devices, Hirokin doubted whether it ever would.

Of course his brothers and his peers—and even his shameless father—had always remarked upon the assets of various demonesses enthusiastically and at length. Yet Hirokin had continued to find it a tiresome subject. It was not that he didn’t appreciate the female form—in fact, he found it quite lovely.

But for him the appeal ended at the aesthetic.

Still, he had felt as much churning desire as any other young male, he supposed. Only in the manner of relieving it had Hirokin begun to suspect his own strangeness. The images he’d pleasured himself to had often not been overtly sexual—rather, they had been somewhat vague and abstract, yet nevertheless relating to a common, perplexing theme.

Images of coercion, even debasement. A cutting glance, a stinging insult, a well-placed blow—the galling sensation of being torn down and brought low—these had been the subjects of his heated fantasies, and Sesshoumaru the chief object of his desires.

It had not taken long for the ‘Sesshoumaru’ of these fantasies to become far crueler indeed than Sesshoumaru himself. This had been the result of a fantastical progression, a feverish escalation of imaginings. Hirokin had been half-mad with lust for his best friend before he’d even realized it—mad enough to have convinced himself that Sesshoumaru had reciprocated the attraction.

Yet even his hostile rebuff had not dampened Hirokin’s passions. It had merely stoked them to new and terrible heights.

Even to be around Sesshoumaru had become a torment to him, yet Hirokin had been unable to keep away. In agony, he would contemplate Sesshoumaru’s fierce beauty, and gradually his sharp eyes and sculpted figure had come to feature more prominently in Hirokin’s private thoughts.

Yet not Sesshoumaru’s cock, strangely enough—not back then. In those days, Hirokin had been utterly unable to place it, scarcely knowing what to do with his own.

…

Perhaps the greatest advantage of coming of age, the demon prince reflected, had been the greater freedoms it had allowed.

No longer defenseless fledglings bound to their birth forms, Sesshoumaru and Hirokin had taken every opportunity to venture beyond the confines of the palace walls. Sesshoumaru’s ability to fly had made such adventuring even easier, for he was far faster and defter than his two-headed dragon. Though Hirokin’s own spiritual powers had been developing rapidly, the gift of flight was not one he’d ever hoped to possess, and so when he’d chanced to become separated from Sesshoumaru on one of their many excursions, he had found himself stranded at a loss.

To make matters worse, the surrounding wilderness had been rocky, barren and wholly unfamiliar to him. Wandering around searching for Sesshoumaru had already left him dangerously parched. Deciding his best course would be to backtrack to the river that had broken his scent trail, and wait for Sesshoumaru’s sharp nose to find him there, Hirokin had set off at a trudge.

Yet somehow, by misstep or by design, he had found himself yet again wandering off course as night had descended. The sunbaked slag had skidded and burned beneath his dragging feet as he’d sat down upon a boulder and let his pounding head fall back against the trunk of a stout, scratchy tree. He’d felt wrung out, faint. His endurance had left much to be desired back then, and he’d needed water badly to replenish his fading strength.

Breathing shakily, he’d strained his keen ears for the sound of underground streams. Yet there had been not the faintest trickle or stir. Cracking open his glazed eyes, he’d let his head roll to the side—and that had been when he’d glimpsed it.

Only a short distance away, tucked into the rocky hillside: the unmistakable sloped awning of a house.

Whatever misgivings Hirokin had felt upon sighting it now, and not before, he’d pushed to the back of his mind as he’d staggered to his feet and begun the steep, narrow ascent toward the cliffside dwelling. What choice had been left him, after all, but to remain weak and languishing out in the open in his thirst? At least here had been the chance to quench it, and in his desperation, that fevered notion had compelled him foremost.

As he’d drawn closer to the house, he’d seen a warm orange glow filtering through the shutters. Hirokin’s spirits had lifted further. Climbing heavily up the porch steps, he’d slid open the wooden door and collapsed to his knees in the threshold.

From the glowing hearth before him, a lady had looked up at him with a gasp of surprise.

“…Water,” Hirokin had managed to rasp, and in a rustle of silk she had hurried over to him with a cup.

The moment the cool water had touched his tongue, Hirokin had groaned, his wilted youki unfurling in sheer relief. “More,” he’d demanded, and as she’d obliged him, Hirokin’s attention had shifted to her at last. She’d been pretty, in the most nondescript way. Even as he’d regarded her, her countenance had seemed subtly to change, though Hirokin had supposed it to be some trick of the light, or his own lingering delirium.

As he’d drunk from her cup, a slim hand had brushed the hair back from his brow. The tip of a glossy nail had traced over the mark of his lineage.

“Sweet prince,” she had murmured as she’d refilled the cup yet again, “is water the source of your strength?”

Her voice had had the most enchanting quality to it. Hirokin’s eyes had drifted shut as she’d tipped the draught to his lips with a tinkling little laugh. At the sound, Hirokin’s lids had sluggishly opened—a small shock passing through him as he’d gazed in full upon her fair, luminous face, her bright blue eyes and her long flowing mane of white-gold hair. How like his mother this demoness had looked!

…And how had he not noticed this resemblance before?

“Come now, my dear,” she’d said with a smile so gentle and familiar it had cleaved at his heart. “Come and rest with me for a while.”

Numbly, he’d followed as she’d taken his hand and guided him toward the large lush bed at the back of the dwelling. Together they’d settled down amongst the silk sheets and pillows. Light as falling snow, her palm had drifted to his cheek.

“How handsome you are, my love,” she had whispered, her lips brushing his.

Knowing now that he must be dreaming, Hirokin had kissed her chastely before drawing back with a sigh. “And you, Haha-ue…how beautiful you are.”

In his embrace she had stiffened, before shaking her head. “No, no, dear prince—look at me clearly: I am the woman you long for most.”

“Then you are she,” Hirokin had dreamily replied, as a scowl had darkened her lovely features, and a deep fog of sleep had overtaken him.

…

When he’d awoken, it had been to find himself bound naked and spread-eagled to the bed. Hirokin’s chest had constricted as he’d pulled at his bonds, but they had been ensorcelled, and the more force he’d applied, the more his youki had depleted. Realizing this at once, he’d desisted, as a low feminine chuckle had drawn his gaze to the demoness’s approaching form.

She had been naked as well, still in the guise of his mother. Hirokin’s cheeks had flamed as he’d jerked his chin away in disgust.

“Release me at once,” he’d demanded, “or you’ll wish that you had. My friend is searching for me, and if he finds me like this he’ll show you no mercy.”

Again there had been that soft tinkling laughter. “No one is searching for you, princeling. Your companion flew west from here hours ago. I made sure to watch him leave before I lured you in. He does seem a fearsome fellow.”

Hirokin had clenched his jaw. Damn you, Sesshoumaru…

“But you…” Her voice had lowered huskily as she’d knelt beside him on the bed, her sharp glittering nails skimming up along the inside of his twitching thigh. “I’ve never had a lover as fair as you. Such a fine, pretty cock,” she’d said as she’d wrapped her cool slender fingers around it, “…even if it’s far too soft at the moment.”

Hirokin had gasped as she’d tightened her clutch, his eyes screwing shut. “You fucking witch…let me go!”

“Now, now, is that any way to speak to your mother?” she’d crooned as he’d begun to harden from all her squeezing and stroking. Smooth thighs had slid around his hips, slick folds of flesh parting open around the head of his cock. “You’re a wicked boy who needs to learn his lesson, lusting after the one who birthed you.” Hirokin had choked out another curse as he’d been engulfed to the hilt in wet, crushing warmth. “I’m going to enjoy taking my time teaching it to you as I drain you dry,” the demoness had moaned as she’d rolled her hips wantonly into his, her sharp nails raking over his heaving chest. “Look at me, you naughty prince—you look at your mother while she’s fucking you!”

Hatefully, Hirokin had glared up at the demoness above him. One glance at her girlish face, her lithe limbs and bouncing breasts, and he’d gone limp in an instant.

…

Her indignant shrieking had been the last thing Hirokin had heard before she’d knocked him unconscious again. The next time he’d awoken, there had been a blindfold over his eyes, but that hadn’t prevented him from softening at the sound of her dainty cries. And stoppering his ears—which had not been altogether successful at any rate—hadn’t prevented him from smelling her womanly musk, feeling her soft skin, or sensing the feminine edge to her aura.

“You’re a tough nut to crack, little dragon,” she had growled in frustration, Hirokin wincing as she’d given his balls a brisk slap. “But you’ll come for me soon enough, that I promise.”

Hirokin had believed her, especially if she’d planned to keep striking him like that. No matter how much he’d detested the bitch for impersonating his mother, he’d known he couldn’t hold out forever under her relentless assault. He would surely come eventually, and then he’d supposed she would finish him off the rest of the way, riding into climax on his death throes.

The bonds that had held him fast for days had kept his youki well-drained, even when he hadn’t shown an ounce of resistance. And she had been careful to give him only enough water to sustain him.

He would have to think of something else, and while he’d bided his time with each flagging erection, he had begun to formulate a plan. He had not been remotely certain that it would work, yet it had seemed his only chance, and if he’d failed he would have no other.

A calculated risk with his death in the bargain—the first of many such wagers Hirokin would make in his adulthood.

For what he’d needed most had been for his captor to drop her guard. And the surest way he’d seen to manage this had been first to drop his own.

There had been a certain erotic thrill in the stricture of his bindings—a thrill which Hirokin had been determined to ignore. Yet now on the edge of ruin he’d embraced it. As she’d stirred his aching cock back to life, he’d given himself over to the helplessness of his circumstances. A feeling of sublime subjugation had washed through him, and he’d shuddered, overcome.

“Yes, that’s it, my pet,” she’d purred, her slick insides giving him a gloating squeeze. “That’s the look I’ve been waiting to see. Give in to it now; stop your futile resisting. This warm wet grip feels so good, and you know it.”

Stupid whore, Hirokin had thought with a curl of his lip. But she could believe what she liked. His expression of twisted disdain had passed well enough for agonized longing, for she’d flattened her chest to his and started sucking at his neck as she rode him with abandon.

Her flushed skin had crushed greedily to his, every inch of it that she could, it had seemed—

More contact even that Hirokin had hoped for.

“Gods you feel so good,” she’d groaned into his ear. “I’m going to keep you forever.”

Poised tensely at the peak, Hirokin had frowned. So maybe she hadn’t been planning on killing him, then…

Ah, well.

More than the fluttering spasms around his cock, it had been the cutting tightness of the bonds he’d felt at the end. Lashing into him, burning at his flesh, as though they’d been whip-cords of virulent green youki…

“My love for my mother is pure,” he’d seethed at her as she’d writhed above him. “You despicable cunt.”

She’d stilled, but the dam in Hirokin had broken, and in her sluggishness and his rampaging lust, he’d wrenched with all his might at the risen blood coursing through her flesh—ripped it straight through the thin shallow vessels so violently and fast that her veins had emptied, her arteries had run dry, and her shriveled heart had capsized in the wake.

Bathed in the flood of gore that had rushed to him, Hirokin’s panting breath had escaped him in a fine mist of red, as the bonds restraining him had dispelled, and the demoness’s bloodless husk of a corpse had dissolved into dust.

…

Hirokin had found the river in short order after that. But he’d been in no mood to wait for anyone to come and fetch him. In water, he could travel swiftly enough, and haggard though he’d been, in what had seemed like a fraction of time after all he’d endured, he’d arrived at the Western Palace.

As he’d stormed up to the top of the battlements, toward the lone pale figure who’d stood upon them, Sesshoumaru had glanced to him dispassionately as ever, as though Hirokin were returning from some errand, and had only stepped briefly from his side.

“You abandoned me,” Hirokin had accused him without preamble. “You left me stranded, alone, in the middle of some godforsaken wilderness for days upon end. What the hell were you thinking?—I might have died!”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Sesshoumaru had said, his gaze sliding back to the blue, mist-veiled valley beyond. “You are fine, as I knew you would be.”

At Sesshoumaru’s coolness, Hirokin’s indignation had dulled to hurt. “Why did you do it?”

“I needed a reprieve from you.” Golden eyes had narrowed slightly. “You’ve gotten far too clingy as of late.”

Hirokin had frowned. When they were boys, they had been inseparable. Even then, Sesshoumaru had never needed ‘a reprieve’ from him before. There had been more to it than that, and at the suppressed anger in Sesshoumaru’s expression, Hirokin had guessed why.

“This is because I kissed you, isn’t it?” Hirokin’s cheeks had flushed as he’d balled his hands to fists. “It was a stupid fucking mistake, and I’m sorry I ever did it. How long are you going to keep punishing me for that?”

“How long are you going to keep pining after me like a lovestruck young girl?” Sesshoumaru had shot back, glaring. “It’s pathetic. It makes you look weak.”

“Then it’s an apt look for me isn’t it?” Hirokin had said wretchedly. “All you ever do is berate me for being weak.”

Sesshoumaru had scoffed, glancing away again. “That’s only to motivate you, you fool. Do you really think I’d give a damn about you if you were a weakling?”

Hirokin’s blush had deepened. “You know, you could have just told me all of this instead.”

Sesshoumaru had shrugged, smirking faintly as he’d turned back to Hirokin again. “So, what happened to you after I left? I suppose you were busy for a while, fending off spiders and sprites.”

“No,” Hirokin had replied, scowling. “Some mad cunt of a sorceress kidnapped me and tried to fuck me to death.”

Sesshoumaru’s eyes had gone wide, before his features had darkened thunderously. Hirokin had paled.

“You—before me?”

Yet Sesshoumaru’s jealous outrage had quickly subsided, replaced by an almost frightful enthusiasm. A barrage of questioning had ensued from him, as though Hirokin had been away on some splendid holiday.

“What did she look like?—was she curvy or trim? How big were her breasts, her hips?”

Recalling what she’d looked like had made Hirokin feel vaguely ill. Before she’d taken on the form of his mother, he hadn’t gotten a very good look at her—and he’d had absolutely no interest in divulging any details of her figure after she had.

“Normal, I suppose,” he’d answered tightly.

Sesshoumaru had given him an impatient look. “That’s all you have to say? Well then, what did it feel like to fuck her?”

“Relentless,” Hirokin had recounted with a tired sigh. “She kept at it night and day, tormenting me whenever I began to flag. I was bound to her bed, so there wasn’t much that I could do except lie there and take it…until I managed to overpower her at last.”

“Gods, Hirokin,” Sesshoumaru had said, smiling slowly, “you really do fancy males.”

Fuming, Hirokin had turned away. But a stirring of youki in the air behind him had made him turn back with a start.

“Where are you going now?” he’d called out, as Sesshoumaru had begun to rise.

“Back to that canyon to find her,” Touga’s heir had replied, smiling still.

“You won’t,” Hirokin had said shortly, cringing a little as Sesshoumaru’s eyes had slanted to him in surprise.

“You killed her,” Sesshoumaru had said, slightly wondering, as the cloud of youki had dissipated beneath his feet, “after all that.”

Hirokin had remained silent, averting his gaze.

“Well,” Sesshoumaru had said quietly, after a moment, “that is a shame.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi