I woke up alone. That was somewhat shocking... I would have thought my demon senses would have alerted me to the human leaving. It was daytime, the sunlight filtering through the trees, not quite bright enough to be painful.

Sitting up, I winced. My inopportune choice of hard forest floor and the night's -- exertions -- had left my muscles cramped.

Somewhere in getting dressed, it hit me. Who... what I had done. The fact that I had just lain with a human... it was vaguely nauseating. Yet, I couldn't deny that I desired him. I still desired him.

I wished he had stayed.

I finished dressing, absently untangling knots from my hair with my claws, still turning the previous night over in my mind. Obsessing about it, and about him. I wondered if he'd think about me.

Laughter broke my reverie. Low, rasping, grating, and close. I knew that laugh a mile off. I turned to face Naraku, cursing silently.

He was smiling at me, not a foot away. How did he get so close without me noticing him? He was uncomfortably close. If it wasn't a sign of weakness, I would have stepped back. Wrapped in his baboon skin, all I could see of him was his mouth, turned upward in a sly grin.

"What do you want, Naraku?" I gritted the words out through clenched teeth. More laughter, chasing it's way up my spine to lodge in the base of my skull, like fine, sharp claws. "Sesshomaru, I must say.... I'm disappointed in you."

I stared at him, not letting myself reveal anything, not moving even as his too-soft hand reached up to grasp my chin.

"For one of your moral stature, you have a strange choice of bedfellows." His fingers caressed my skin lightly, and I held back a shudder of revulsion. "Tell me, Sesshomaru... what was it like to taste him? Is he as sweet as I've imagined? Is he worth possessing?" His lips were parted slightly, as if anticipating the human. I felt another wave of slight nausea at the thought of him taking the human.

The silence grew between us as he studied me and I stayed frozen, refusing to play his game, unwilling to give him anything.

Suddenly, he laughed again. "Or maybe I'm wrong. Did he possess you, Sesshomaru?"

I jerked out of his grip angrily. "Spare me your games, Naraku." I turned away. "What are you here for?"

I think that I could have killed him for his laugh. And then his hands were on my arms, sliding down to my wrists in a vague caress. His body pressed lightly against mine, and his breath sent a chill down my spine as he chuckled.

"Does everything between us have to be about business, Sesshomaru?" His lips brushed my ear. I shivered, tense.

"I'm not interested in a personal relationship with you." My words were clipped, cold. They didn't affect him, of course. His grip tightened on my wrists.

"A business arrangement then. You can either stay out of my affairs with the human priest, or you can... protect him." His hand left my wrist to ghost in between my legs, leaving me little doubt as to what he was proposing.

He released me then, still laughing to himself as he left the clearing. I stood listening to it as it faded, tense and completely still, my hands curled into fists. I could smell them both, their scents intermingling in my clothing. And again, I felt sickened.