A Forest on Fire (KuramaxOc)

Ch 12: To Trap A Fox

"I know you were listening in, Shuichi... Your scent is... strong, today..."

She told him quietly, her eyes suddenly finding her hands very interesting.

"Will you come in?" She asked in a quiet, yet hopeful voice.

Shuichi swallowed hard as she turned away from him. Her anxiety was palpable as she walked back to the kitchen. He nodded, and took tentative steps into the room behind her. He knew he should leave now, right now, before he made decisions that he still thought it was far too soon to make, but the barely untucked tail of the girl in front of him spoke volumes.

It would crush her if he walked out that door, and he knew it. No, the only way out of this was by using his words. He would just have to dissuade her, and convince the girl that this was still too soon, for her own good.

'For her own good???' A vicious snarl in his mind. 'She was attacked you sniveling whelp!! What would have become of her had the monster 'marked' her instead? Your hesitance 'will' get her killed boy... or worse!' Yoko's words echoed in the boy's head, and he grabbed onto the edge of a table to steady himself from powerful images the demon forced into his mind. Images of her lying bruised, broken... used...

He bit his tongue so hard he could taste blood to keep his own snarl from escaping his lips. It was the wrong move.

Yumiko felt the air in the room change and flinched, visibly flinched. Her tail tucked further between her legs in one swift motion, and her ears flattened back as she froze on the spot. Shuichi's energy was radiating off of his body in waves! It spoke of one emotion, and only one... rage...

Seeing the girl flinch broke Shuichi out of his thoughts at once, her fear-scent hitting his senses even as her tail tucked under. He had frightened her...Truly frightened her, all thanks to Yoko's incessant prodding. He took in a deep breath and sighed, speaking softly.

"I am not angry with you, Yumiko... merely the situation. You have no need to be frightened of me."

She had flinched at his first word, but calmed slightly, though her ears remained flat against her head, and he could see the tilt as she looked at the ground in front of her.

"Do you hate me so badly?" She asked in a voice hardly more than a whisper. The words caught him completely unprepared.

"What?" Was all he managed to say, frozen in place.

"Do you hate me so horribly... that the thought of bonding to me disgusts you so...?" Her voice quivered, and the sound of it nearly broke him. He summoned every bit of restraint he had, and remained rooted to the spot.

"I do not hate you, Yumiko... there are simply ways I would rather do this..."

"It's not like I'm asking to be your mate..." she interrupted, then flinched. He had the impression that he was not meant to hear that thought.

Still, it cut him to the bone, and he sighed anew. "A sylphan bond should be seen as something akin to a mate's bond Yumiko. In fact, it should honestly be seen as even more than such. You would be bound to me until my dying breath. You would not live to find another mate. How can you be so ready to throw your freedom away in such disregard?"

He didn't mean to scold her, but that's how it came out. Yoko was still growling inside his head, and it made the boy quite short-tempered with the situation. He had wanted to court the girl, to win her affection over time, and fulfil the requirements of the true bond only once she was truly certain she was ready...

He opened his mouth to continue, to voice this, when her energy suddenly spiked. H stifled a gasp, the pure force behind the spike much greater than he had imagined the little fox capable of! Before he knew what had happened, she whirled around to face him, seafoam eyes burning in fury.