Hi everyone!

Thanks for hanging with me. This chapter is the one most everyone has been waiting for I think. YES, there is some LEMONade in here. It's my first attempt in fanfiction *bites nails* I tried to keep it watered down so that it wouldn't be taken down. I haven't really been keeping up with ratings and things over the years so I don't know what's acceptable and not anymore lol. But here we go. Thank you for your patience!

Special Thanks to Surimi who caught my error lol. Typical of what happens when I take so long in between to update.

Chapter 19: Whispered Promises

Sesshoumaru's home on this private island was set in the side of the plateau, affording him the most beautiful view of nearly the entire island. He had cooked her a simple breakfast and the two sat and enjoyed the peace and quiet of the morning on the porch that overlooked his land. Right now, Kagome would not want to be anywhere else in the world.

When they came in from her training last night, Sesshoumaru had fixed her a quick snack and insisted she rest. The exertion of expanding her reiki was draining and sure enough, after the issue of her hunger had been settled, Kagome fell into a heavy sleep. Now that she'd had enough time to take in everything from yesterday evening, she was stunned beyond belief.

"You're so quiet, mate." Sesshoumaru's low baritone filled the porch.

Kagome looked at their intertwined fingers. She sat between Sesshoumaru's legs on the outdoor couch with her back against his chest. His strong arms wrapped over her stomach and Kagome's arms rested on his and all she could think about were the changes that Sesshoumaru had brought to her life.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She turned her head to look back at him and saw his blood-red eyes looking back at her with all the love he possessed. He watched as she tilted her face upward.

"I love you."

Sesshoumaru wasted no time and swooped down for a kiss, showing her with his lips and tongue that he felt the same for her. It was sweet, comforting, and promising all at once and had Kagome sighing with pleasure.

She turned to rest against him again and squeezed his hands. "Yesterday you offered me the world."

When she said nothing else, Sesshoumaru confirmed her words. "I did."

Kagome took another deep breath. "Last night during our meditation, you gave it to me."

"Did I?"

"Yes," came out breathlessly. "I feel boneless."

"Do tell." She heard the smile in his voice.

Kagome snuggled harder against his chest and pulled his arms tighter around herself until he held her firmly. "I didn't realize that trying to control my powers actually suppressed them so much." She had come to this realization after she had opened her mind and aura last night.

"Since first falling down the well, I had always felt unsettled, jittery even. I constantly had the feeling that I needed to do something but back then I thought it was the desire to finish my quest for the jewel. When I was sent back home, I thought it was because I lost my feudal family and I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Last night-" Kagome paused to figure how she wanted to say how she felt. "Last night, you offered me the world and then you gave it to me. I feel so grounded now. I feel so connected and so energetic. I feel...free."

Sesshoumaru thought on her words for a bit. He squeezed her gently to let her know he heard and acknowledged her. "Perhaps it is because miko are stewards of the earth. Now that you have opened yourself to the land, you have connected with what is most likely the heart of your reiki."

Kagome wiggled in his arms when she felt their combined energies sizzle under her skin. If a person could get drunk on passion and contentment, she was sure it felt like this. The way she tingled, she knew it was his youki swirling within her but she knew it was no longer a separate energy. It would be impossible to separate his youki and her reiki now, not that she would ever want to after feeling this way. She felt complete. It was a truth now and she understood the workings of it so much better after last night.

"Come, I would like to show you something." Sesshoumaru lifted them both effortlessly and flew them to the top of the plateau.

When they reached the top, he heard Kagome's labored breathing. "Pull the air slowly through your nose and when it fills your lungs, send healing energy into your lungs to remove symptoms of hypoxia."

Kagome closed her eyes and followed Sesshoumaru's instructions. After several deep breaths, she noticed the difference and smiled. "Did you have to do this when you were younger?"

Sesshoumaru tensed suddenly and then pulled the miko closer to him. "I did but it was to train myself to adapt to poisons so I would be immune."

Kagome pulled away from him so she could turn and look at him. The expression on her face was not a happy one.

"Are you telling me that as a child, someone forced you to inhale poison?" He felt her anger growing and found himself wanting to comfort her. He nuzzled her throat and growled lightly at her to calm her.

"It was not as bad as you may think."

"How is forcing a child to breathe poison not as bad as I think?"

He nuzzled her hair next and chuckled at her irate reaction. "It was not so bad. You can relate it to breathing in the sulfur of a volcano."

Kagome pushed him away from her with a finger. "That's bad, Sesshoumaru. Sulfur is very bad for humans."

"You worry for nothing, mate. My line is known for its immunity to poison and other toxins but much of our immunity is had by exposure." She hadn't said anything to that and he knew she was upset.

"What are you thinking of, little mate?"

"Are you planning on having kids?"

"Pups," he corrected. "And yes, we will be having pups mate."

"If you plan on purposely exposing my pups to poison for immunity's sake, you better tell me right now because I'll make sure we don't have any."

"That is a mighty boast, mate."

"I'll purify your seed right out of me," she hissed.

His eyes narrowed at her tone. He knew that she would have a problem with this but didn't know she'd outright refuse to give him pups at all.

"You wouldn't dare."

Kagome's head snapped up so quickly. "Believe what you will. I would rather cut out all my reproductive organs than birth a child that you would torture."

"You would refuse me?" he asked with a curious lilt to his voice.

"If it would save a child? With all my power." Sesshoumaru took a deep breath and then another. He could not fault her for her thinking. Her protective and motherly instincts are what drew her to him first.

"If it pleases you to know, I would not expose a pup of ours to that part of my training. They would be half human after all. That training was only conducted on pure demon pups in our line."

"And it has ended with you." Her words rang with finality and Sesshoumaru sighed into her hair. He wanted a strong mate? He found one and he wouldn't want her any other way.

"It has ended with me," he agreed and nuzzled her throat.

Once he had laved her with enough caresses and kisses, she had relaxed against him once more and the tension from their conversation melted away.

"Did we just fight?" he asked in a playful voice. Her energy had settled down again and he knew it was safe.

Kagome scoffed. "No. We just had a conversation. A heated one."

Sesshoumaru chuckled. "Is that what we're calling it these days?"

"Yes. A discussion and I'm sure we'll have a lot more in the future too." She got another kiss for that and relaxed against him again. "So, Inuyasha didn't have to do the training because he was a half-demon?"

Her reiki was calmer now that he'd let her know their pups would not be subjected to the same training. "No," he started. "The immunity ran through my mother's line, not our father's. Inuyasha was partially protected from some of my toxins because our father's powerful blood burned the toxins out after a while."

Kagome grunted. "Don't tell me that was your reason for picking fights with him."

Sesshoumaru huffed quietly in response and changed topics. "Our energies have merged. You would not be able to purify my seed successfully, little mate." He kissed behind her ear and down her neck, only to place more light kisses along her collarbone that had her breathing faster.

"Speaking of which," he said in a low growl, "it is time we complete our mating while I still have control. My passion for you runs high enough. I wish to savor you while I have control over my more basic instincts."

Kagome twisted around and Sesshoumaru lifted her so she could straddle his lap to face him. He enjoyed smoothing his large hands over her backside and pulling her toward him.

"Is there anything specific I need to do to finish our bond?" How had he managed to take her shirt off without her realizing it?

"When we reach our peaks, you will feed your reiki into me." He cupped her face in his large hands and forced her to look at him. "Mate."

Kagome's cheeks pinkened. "Yes?"

His eyes burned a bright, fiery red and a sweet and powerful anticipation stole over her as Sesshoumaru spoke his next words. "I place my lands, my life, and my soul into your care to do with as you will."

Kagome couldn't breathe with the shock of hearing his pledge and desperately wanted to give one of her own but he distracted her with kisses. That heat she'd felt in her abdomen since he'd read that children's book at the hospital that first night she'd joined him grew until it filled her.

~ LEMONADE ~

She didn't know how the rest of their clothing had come off or where it had even gone to. Right now, she couldn't even bring herself to care. Sesshoumaru was inching his way into her body and it took all she had to keep still as he worked himself into her. His own body was providing the means to make his entrance easier with every heartbeat that pulsed through him.

"Relax, little miko. You were made for me and me alone." His kisses were drugs, his hands burned trails across her body, drawing a symphony of sounds and pleasure with every kiss and caress. She responded by raking her nails across every bit of him she could reach.

Words. She wanted to give him words - her own promise.

"I promise to cherish and protect your life, your lands, and your soul with everything I am. I have nothing to give except myself, my loyalty and my love-"

Sesshoumaru could hold back no longer. They were words he had waited nearly half a millennia to hear and his youki soared as did his howl of joy over the island and across the ocean. He laid her back on his mokomoko and brought them to dizzying heights and pleasure over and over again. With each climax, their excess energies poured into the land and cycling back to them and rejuvenating them. The sheer magnitude of his power would have been overwhelming if Kagome had not had such significant power herself.

Through the storm of his youki, she heard him whisper, "let go. Be free." With those simple words, he had unlocked her soul from the last of her self-imposed restraints. The glory of their combined energies that she fed into him and near climax had all the light of their auras compressing around them, tightening along with all their nerve endings until it shattered, sending a shockwave outward that continued on, well past the extent of their sight if they had been able to look away from one another.

Sesshoumaru could barely move, let alone think. He would come back for their clothes later. Right now, he knew he needed the safety of a den and so Sesshoumaru, mated Lord of the West, gathered his beautiful mate in his arms and flew them back to his balcony and locked themselves into his island abode. The last thing he remembered doing before closing his eyes was drawing enough energy from the island to set a barrier around his plateau home. Kagome was drowsy and made a delicious mewling sound as he adjusted them in the bed.

"Rest up, little mate. The night is not over yet."

Kagome's husky chuckle filled his heart and his home. "You better get your rest too. I love you, Sesshoumaru."

He leaned forward and kissed her shoulder. "And I you, little mate."

~ S & K ~

The waning light of the late afternoon sun streaked into the room through long, thin windows placed high along the wall that allowed light as well as privacy. Kagome's eyes fluttered open as a soft beam touched her face and warmed her cheek. The warmth of the body behind her called her to sleep again and as she took a deep breath of satisfaction, a clawed hand flexed against her ribs and pulled her closer to the source of warmth at her back.

There was a sense of wonder and disbelief and it wasn't coming from her. It was being fed to her through her new mate bond and it took Kagome by complete surprise. It wasn't what she expected to feel from him.

Sesshoumaru nuzzled her shoulder and took in her scent and Kagome smiled and sighed as lightning tingled from her neck down to her toes. She loved being touched by him, loved the care she felt with every caress and kiss he had given her. Being a mated woman now, she finally felt the importance and power of such a bond. There was no question if they had completed the bond. They had and she felt it in every cell of her body and he was a steady, comforting presence in her mind and soul. And having finally partaken of the physical aspect of their relationship, they were both filled with satisfaction, contentment. Completion.

She had heard his softly whispered words. I cannot believe you are finally mine. Not wanting to spoil their waking moments, she quietly asked, "is it really so hard to believe that I'm your mate?"

His answer was a tightening of his arm around her.

"Yes," he whispered before pressing kisses to her shoulder and neck. "I am afraid to open my eyes and find out that I have merely been dreaming this whole time. I am afraid that my mind has been playing tricks on me again and that you are not really here in my arms."

Kagome's heart broke at the loneliness that colored his voice. Did that mean he had dreamt of her after she'd been forced back to her time? She was breathless from the pain that coursed through her - his pain and it had her turning in his arms so she could look at him.

"Sesshoumaru, look at me," she whispered. "Open your eyes, love." Reverently, Kagome brushed some loose strands of hair away from his eyes and waited to see his red, demonic gaze full of love for her. She wanted to weep for him and all the lonely nights he'd suffered. All his lonely years. She was blessed to have only suffered for seven years before she had stumbled into Seiichi. Slowly but surely, Sesshoumaru opened his eyes and Kagome stiffened as his demonic red gaze drained, leaving behind burnished gold.

Her breath caught in her throat. "Sesshoumaru."

Her gaze was careful and assessing. When Sesshoumaru's instinctual side broke past the rigid control of the golden-eyed Sesshoumaru, he had explained to her the reason she had been pushed away and then removed all doubt of his feelings toward her. Her red-eyed mate lavished her with all the love and attention he'd been storing up over the past five centuries, knowing that his more structured and refined self could see the way she flourished under their attention and had nothing to worry about.

If his eyes hadn't looked so sad, so pained, Kagome might have flinched when her golden-eyed lover pulled her against him and buried his face against her throat. He took deep, full breaths of her scent and pushed one of his legs between hers. He just couldn't get close enough. Sesshoumaru needed to be in her skin with her, needed to be surrounded by the bottomless well of love that she freely gave all she met. The only sign, other than the steel cage of his arms, of his emotional state was the shuddered breaths that escaped him - like a drowning man gasping for air.

Only a couple minutes passed but they felt much longer. He was still impersonating his mokomoko when she finally heard him speak.

"Forgive me. The gods know I do not deserve it but I ask anyway."

Kagome wrapped her arms around him and took a deep breath. The feelings-his feelings that came to her through their new bond reassured her of his love and devotion to her. It also told of his guilt and she didn't want to start off their new life together with these dark feelings. They needed to get this off their chests.

"Why did you push me away?"

If it was possible, he tightened his limbs around her, most likely to keep her from running from him. Or to keep her from swinging at him. Right now, it was up in the air. She couldn't very well zap him since their energy was one entity.

"I feared for your safety," he said softly.

"My safety?"

He nodded against her. "I feared that I would get lost in my passion for you and injure you. I-"

"You do not need to protect me from you, Sesshoumaru. If you haven't noticed, I thoroughly enjoyed everything we did to each other and I'm the safest I've ever been because I'm with you and in your arms. You could spear your hand right through my belly and rip out my spine and it would hurt," she said, plowing through her explanation even with the horrified look on his face. "It would hurt like hell but nothing, nothing I have ever experienced hurt as much as your banishment of me."

"I did not banish you-"

"You turned away from me. You rejected me. Gods, it hurt worse than that mess between me, Inuyasha and Kikyo. I just wanted to find a hole and curl up in it." The pain wasn't as fierce as it had been the night she'd walked out of the hospital but just recalling the memories of it caused her chest to constrict. Sesshoumaru gasped and jerked against her and the feelings drained from her body. Had he done something?

"You will never know just how sorry I am for making you think that."

Kagome rolled him onto his back and straddled his stomach. "I know who I mated, Sesshoumaru. I know there are differences between us. Those differences and this here," she said placing her hand over his heart, "are all a part of the dog demon I mated and call me selfish but I want all of my mate. Not just the parts he thinks I'll like or I'm safe with. I need all of you. I've had bits and pieces of too many important things in the past for too long. I want all of you or I'll have none of you."

Sesshoumaru's eyes flared red before they settled on a medium pink hue and a look of severe determination settled into his eyes, wiping away the regret that had been there not moments before. His hands tightened on her hips and he lifted her slightly so he could slide himself into her waiting warmth and groaned at the perfection that was her body.

"All of me it is then, my little miko."

~ LEMONADE ALL GONE ~

~ S&K ~

It was a round of vicious love making followed by the most tender and reverent worship a human could receive by a demon. After they had settled in bed for the night and Sesshoumuar's hand mindlessly stroked his mate's belly and hips, her phone buzzed on the bedside table.

Sesshoumaru reached over and saw the kit's name pop up on her phone.

"Kit."

When Shippo had first joined Kagome's group during the shard hunting days, he was only a century shy of Inuyasha's age but no one knew except the kit. If he had grown up in the safety of his den with his parents, Sesshoumaru had no doubt that Shippo would have been nearly the same size as Inuyasha, properly displaying his maturity. Foxes, however, were tricksters and in the trauma of his parents having been killed, foxes were known to stay small, therefore tempting another vixen or female demon to take them in and raise them. Kagome had answered that call and Shippo had kept his size small to soak in all the love he hadn't gotten since his parents were killed. It wasn't until Kagome was forced back to her time that he had allowed his body to catch up to his true maturity level.

"Papa."

That title let Sesshoumaru know that the kit was under a great deal of stress. When Kagome had been sent back to the future, Shippo had become an unholy terror. He had lost two mothers in the span of five years and it was too much for his young psyche to handle. It had been Miroku's idea to appeal to Sesshoumaru to take the kit under his wing. Shippo had blamed Kagome leaving on Inuyasha and to keep from knocking the boy out every time he saw him, Inuyasha took to staying in the woods again, leaving Shippo with Miroku and Sango in the safety of the village.

Inuyasha had bartered with Sesshoumaru the next time he'd seen him. He asked for Sesshoumaru to foster the kit in exchange for Inuyasha's assistance to quell any uprisings along the eastern borders of Sesshoumaru's rule. It had worked out in the end as Shippo had properly responded to Sesshoumaru's alpha status and had stabilized his growth.

Within a year of being fostered, Sesshoumaru had decided to adopt the kit and when Shippo looked up at him with watery and grateful eyes and asked the Lord of the West why he would want to do such a thing, he had totally been stunned at Sesshoumaru's answer.

"It is what she would have wanted for you. For you to have a pack."

Shippo's loyalty had been given completely to the West and to Sesshoumaru that day and he had thrived in all his lessons and tutoring to make his pack leader and alpha proud. And because it would have been what Kagome wanted for him too.

"Papa. It's Tenseiga," Shippo said in a shaky voice.

Sesshoumaru gently rearranged Kagome on the nest of pillows and sat up. "What happened to Tenseiga?" He looked down at his hand where he constantly wore a piece of the sword as a ring to find it missing. Then he remembered that he had left the ring with Nobuhiro and had taken the sword.

"I came down to check on my son. I couldn't sleep. I was giving him a bath and he gasped, his eyes flew open and there was a pulse of power from Tenseiga's ring before it shattered. It just shattered into fine dust and it's coating the room. I didn't want to move anything."

"Is Nobuhiro awake?"

"Yes. Rin has him upstairs and is tending him now. He's as weak as a newborn but he can open his eyes and communicate with growls. Anything else comes out raspy-"

"Expect us soon."

They ended the call and Sesshoumaru turned to wake up his mate, who was quietly watching him. Her eyes glowed with power for a brief second before the glow faded and he could see her puzzled blue gaze.

"The kit called-"

"Tenseiga."

Sesshoumaru nodded. He pulled the blankets back so they could get up and saw a suspicious collection of what looked like a hint of ashes at the base of his sword stand.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked quietly, afraid to disturb the stillness in the room.

Sesshoumaru looked at the stand where he had placed Tenseiga for safe keeping. The handle was tilted at an odd angle, resting against the scabbard. He lifted the handle and was surprised that it had come away. Bone dust was still in the handle where the tang was and the rest was in the sheathe that he had also inspected.

"We must leave. We will shower and head out. Leave everything as it is. I will have someone tend our things."

Kagome nodded and the two quickly showered and dressed. The sky was dark, morning hadn't quite decided to take the reigns away from the moon yet and to anyone who was still awake and stargazing would have seen a shooting star streak across the sky as the Lord and Lady of the West made their way home.

Another Chapter Finished! I hope this one was satisfactory. I can't believe I actually finished writing it this week. TBH, I fell asleep a couple times while writing it today, never mind that it was in the middle of the afternoon HAHAHA. Thank you for all your continued support! It has really helped me to get this chapter out. Have a wonderful week! See you at Chapter 20!

Echo Hunter