Compulsion – Ch. 1

Summary: Orihime was a normal, well-adjusted high school student with a bright future. That is, until the new boy came to town and she found herself enmeshed in his deadly secrets. Can she tear herself away before it's too late? Dark AiHime. AU.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. All main characters in this story are 18 or older.

(Originally posted 5/17/12)

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Orihime lay spread-eagled, naked, on the altar, her chest rising and falling in the cool night air. The slight breeze tickled the insides of her thighs and the tips of her breasts, the sensitive areas unaccustomed to being so exposed. All around her in the dark clearing, hooded figures were standing in a circle, all wearing black robes, chanting, low-voiced, monotonous, over and over. Each member of the circle held a candle to their chest, the flickering light illuminating the half-hooded faces from underneath, casting twisted shadows over their features. They looked inhuman, alien, and a chill ran through her. Her bare body trembled, and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see any more, wanting to pretend this wasn't really happening to her.

How could she have consented to this? she wondered. She had always been a good student at Karakura High, an obedient girl. She had obeyed her parents in all things, had followed the rules, had gotten good grades, had lived in this town all her life. She knew all her neighbors, had babysat for all their kids. Everyone knew she was a wholesome and decent person.

What could have happened to her, that suddenly this year everything had changed? How could the arrival of a single person have upended everything in her life?

There was a break in the chanting and she heard the long grass whispering as someone walked toward the altar. Almost against her will, she opened her eyes. One of the robed and hooded figures had come forward and was approaching her. The figure threw back its hood, and as it did, her heart pounded faster and she felt weak all over. Her eyes were drawn to the beautiful, achingly familiar features: huge and intense eyes, apparently black in the dim light; full lips curled into a careless smirk; high cheekbones and pale skin beneath thick, tousled brown hair brushed back over a high forehead, a single curl falling casually between his eyes.

She gazed at him and felt once again that odd lightness in her middle, as though she had just ridden over the top of a Ferris wheel, had just taken a dive off a cliff. Her entire body seemed to tingle just because it was touched by his gaze.

He glided closer to the altar and looked down at her, his eyes half-closed, and she saw a dark glitter through his thick lashes, an expression of deep satisfaction on his lips.

"Are you ready, Orihime?" he murmured in that deep voice that always seemed to resonate precisely at the frequency she was most attuned to, so that her whole body vibrated like a tuning fork at his every word. She did not answer, only held his eyes, and after a long moment, his smile widened, and he drew from a sheath on his belt a large and gleaming knife. His athame, his consecrated blade. Her pupils dilated and she shivered; how well she remembered it. The dark-haired boy lifted the blade gracefully to his lips and kissed it once, his lips lingering on the bare metal. Then he raised it high in a ritual gesture.

Orihime tensed. She could not tear her eyes away from the boy in front of her as he began to speak the words of the dark ritual.

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A/N: I'm not quite sure where this came from. I had writer's block on all my other stories, and this came out. Should I continue?