Chapter 24

"Where is Kagome?" Sesshoumaru asked, entering the dining room where InuYasha was already waiting.

"Hmm... I would've thought by now you would have figured it out. Sometimes where Kagome would bathe by herself and took too long, I would send Sango to get her. Apparently she likes to fall asleep in the bath. When I went to her era, sometimes she would be in the bathroom for over two hours and always came out rested. So, I imagine that is what happened. You can't blame her. She exhausted herself in the dojo and on top of that, she is stressed from the loss of her family," Inu Yasha surmised.

"Come brother, we need to get her. The bath house is not the safest part of the palace," Sesshoumaru said, then quickly left, leaving Inu Yasha to catch up.

They found her still asleep, her hair already dry, but some of her still smelled like the salt from sweat.

"She fell asleep before bathing her body. I didn't think that she was this exhausted," InuYasha observed with a frown.

"Then we will bathe her, and then put her to bed," Sesshoumaru said, taking off his haori.

Inu Yasha blushed at the thought of touching Kagome's naked skin.

"Wash her, not ravish her, little brother. You are a stupid, acting like a whelp at your age. She may be beautiful and the temptation great, but it is dishonorable to take virgins in their sleep," Sesshoumaru snapped as he discarded the rest of his clothes and slid into the water.

InuYasha followed suit, his blush already subsiding. Sesshoumaru had a point. If he mated with Kagome, he would have to get past his modesty. He took Kagome's shampoo and began to gently lather her hair as Sesshoumaru bathed her body. He knew she had already washed her hair, but did not trust himself to touch her any place besides her head and back.

Kagome's scent spiked with her arousal, making both brothers groan.

"We must finish. Control yourself InuYasha," Sesshoumaru strained, as InuYasha had already started kissing Kagome's neck.

InuYasha stopped, and made himself finish washing her hair, then quickly left, leaving Sesshoumaru to rinse and dress her.

'Idiot,' he growled, watching InuYasha flee.

When he was done, Sesshoumaru put Kagome in his chambers and then left for the closest cold stream. He was aroused so badly. He knew that even if Kagome had been awake, she was not aware that her scent was maddening. His member strained against his silken hakamas, making it very difficult to make it to the stream faster.

"Ha! I know you'd be here any moment. Oh shit, I've never felt this way," InuYasha admitted.

He really had not felt like that. He had never made love to a woman, and not even Kikyo made him so hard by scent or mere thought of her.

"My little brother, still a virgin?" Sesshoumaru smirked.

"Yes, so you aren't?" Inu Yasha asked.

"No. I bedded a few females during the years you had slumbered in the Goshinboku, but they meant nothing. Just a good rut," Sesshoumaru replied coolly.

"Why didn't you mate any of them?" InuYasha inquired further.

"They wanted the title and the wealth. They were all weak. I even killed a couple of them for their annoying persistence to try to persuade me with their sexual prowess," Sesshoumaru growled. "One of them tried drugging me, but a loyal vassal informed me of the vixen's plan, and I killed the bitch right in bed."

"I didn't know. I always thought your position was easy," InuYasha said, realizing that his brother had a tough life as well.

"Yes. I keep my own council. If I were to rely on a council, I would be allowing myself to trust others and it was some of the cowards that fleed during the war against the panthers when you were in your cursed slumber that affirmed my decision to keep to myself. They were suppose to be loyal to the Western lands, yet I had to rely on myself to pull through. If it was not war, then it was some bitch trying to get me to mate them," Sesshoumaru said quite disgusted, then left the cold stream to go back to the palace.

Sesshoumaru realized that InuYasha had been too busy taunted and shooed away from villages to even have a chance with women, even if it were human women. He knew from overhearing whispering human women as he passed through villages, that they often talked about him as being gorgeous, and being that InuYasha somewhat looked like him, he could not have been that bad to look at. Female demons did not live in the wilderness, so he had no opportunity with them. So, essentially, his brother's knowledge of women was very limited. He could have grown up in the Western palace and known many women, but that did not happen.

InuYasha followed Sesshoumaru, feeling at peace for once, content that he could carry on a civil conversation with his brother, even joke with him to an extent. He had always idolized Sesshoumaru. He had never seen his father, so when he had found out about the Jewel of Four Souls, he wanted to become a full demon like his big brother. Now, he did not want to become full demon anymore.

'I love you. I love you as a half-demon, InuYasha,' he remembered Kagome's words, back in Kaguya's castle.

It was then he knew he could not make that kind of wish. He was accepted by someone with a wonderful heart who had repaired the damage that demons and humans had created during his years alone.

Today, for the first time, his heart was content knowing that Kagome wanted him as a mate, and it did not matter if he shared her with Sesshoumaru. She loved them both equally. She brought him and his brother together with her pure and loving soul.