A/N: Hey guys, I know it's been a very long time since I've updated, but after the New Year has come, I decided to come back to the story and see what can unfold from this. I have a lot of ideas, but now I think I know what I'm doing. : ) Okay, on to this story.

"Soledad? Soledad, wake up." Oni said, shaking Soledad lightly. Soledad groaned and rolled over, trying to ignore her. She opened her eyes up slightly, and saw there was no light streaming from the window.

"What time is it?" she mumbled softly, her eyes still closed and hoping this was just a joke so she could sleep a couple more hours.

"I am sorry to disturb you from your sleep, but Lady Kagura would like to talk to you." Soledad's ears perked up. Why would Kagura want to talk to her? All she did these past few days was continually glare up at her when she walked into the room.

"Well, can't it wait until tomorrow?" Oni sighed.

"I tried to convince her that too, since she woke me up herself, but she insisted she must talk to you. And she said you knew what it was about, and that you must meet her in the main garden." This does not sound good at all. Soledad thought to herself. But if it was about Sesshomaru, why should she worry? It wasn't like she was going to try to go after him. True, she did have strong feelings for him, but there was no way that she could take another woman's man. Soledad got herself out of bed slowly and rubbed her eyes. When her vision finally became clear, she looked up at Oni and smiled slightly.

"Well, thanks for waking me up and for you actually getting up yourself. This is an ungodly hour for anyone to be up at." Soledad chuckled as she put on a robe. She was hoping for the best but expecting the worst. As she got closer and closer to the main garden, she got even more and more nervous. She tried to focus on the breathing that she could hear through the doors as she passed by each of them. She stopped when she smelled the musky and masculine scent from the master bedroom and instantly recognized it as Sesshomaru's. Strange, she thought to herself. I don't remember him being much of a sleeper. She put her ear to the door to see if he was actually sleeping. At first she heard someone shifting around, and assumed that it was him moving around in the bed, but then she suddenly heard someone coming towards the door. She started to walk quickly and hope that he hadn't noticed that someone was at the door.

"Hmph. I don't recall you being a person that would occasionally wake up at two in the morning, unless this is a new habit of yours." Soledad stopped in her tracks.

"Shit." she whispered. She heard Sesshomaru walk slowly towards her.

"And you should know that I don't approve of profanity in my presence." Soledad sighed heavily, looking at Sesshomaru and put her hands on her hips.

"First of all, I didn't want to be up at three--"

"Two." he corrected. She glared at him.

"TWO then, in the morning just for the hell of it. Kagura got my servant to come and meet her in the main gardens. And second of all, I think I have the right to say what I want to." Sesshomaru smirked.

"Well, I don't think you should be using profanity in front of this Taiyoukai, and why would Kagura want to see you?" Soledad shrugged.

"Why would I know?" Sesshomaru stepped towards her again, shortening the distance between them to about two feet.

"I think you would know. You wouldn't get up this late if you didn't know why or if it weren't important to you." Sesshomaru suddenly smelled the jasmine and vanilla scent that surrounded Soledad. He was slightly surprised by it because he hadn't smelled it in a century.

"Well, I have no idea, like I said before, and I want to know why you decided to talk to me now after you've basically ignored me for the past week and a half?"

"I don't need to explain to you why I decided to talk to you."

"Well then, I'm ending this conversation. I need to talk to your mate anyway." Soledad said, turning to walk away from him. If she were Kagura, she would be pissed having to wait for half an hour for someone that should have been there in less than five minutes.

"Who said this conversation was over?" Soledad stopped in her tracks. She needed to stop this, because if they kept this conversation going on she would go insane. She had tried to be irritated or angry with him, but she was also struggling to keep a smile from manifesting on her face. She turned to him and sighed.

"I need to go talk to your mate. I think she would be upset if I just left her waiting and even more upset if she found us talking in the middle of the night." He walked towards her so they were only a few inches away from eachother.

"Have you gotten even more naive during past one hundred years that you've been dead? You must have noticed in the past week you've been here that I don't care about her." he said.

"Well, whether or not you love her or hate her, I am going to be the one to honor the relationship you two have." she told him. "We're not together, Sesshomaru. We were, but I died and told you to take Kagura as your new mate. She loves you so much, and no matter how many glares I get from her from across the room, it won't make me try to get you back." she said softly. Before he could respond, she quickly walked away from him, a thousand thoughts flying through her mind. Did he not realize that she couldn't be with him anymore? What if a servant had seen them in the middle of the night, and what would they think? Would she be kicked out? Banished because of what Kagura believed would happen? She took a deep breath when she finally reached the garden. The roses slightly glistened in the moonlight, and Soledad was able to make out a figure near the blue roses. Soledad realized that Kagura was wearing a completely black kimono, which made it a little hard to find her at first. Soledad slowly made her way to her and sat next to her on the bench.

"What's wrong, Kagura? There must be something bothering you?" Kagura looked up at her and kept a cold glare towards Soledad, making Soledad tense up slightly.

"You know what it is." she said coldly. Soledad instantly panicked.

"Kagura, you must know I would never touch hi--"

"Don't even give me that bull. I'm not stupid, you know. I know what could happen between you two if you were given the chance." Soledad shook her head, trying to mollify the woman in front of her. She couldn't imagine what she would think if she knew what had just happened thirty seconds ago.

"Nothing will ever happen between the two of us again. He's gotten over me during the past hundred years that I've been dead...." Soledad said, realizing that the last part hurt a lot. "...He doesn't look at me anymore, he can't even speak to me, even though I've been here for the past week and a half....." she was hoping that maybe that it would convince her. She had seen it herself too. There seemed to be no way that Kagura could still see her as a threat with all this evidence.

"I can smell him on you.... is that who you were with, taking a half an hour to get here?" Kagura whispered angrily. Soledad was taken by surprise and stood up in defense.

"Look, I can explain, and I assure you nothing had happened." she said quickly.

Kagura stood up, not listening to anything that Soledad was saying, and swept her hair back in frustration and sighed heavily. How could Soledad believe that there was nothing between her and her husband anymore?

"You know what? I'll let you gone on with your little innocent act, and you can keep on saying you won't touch him...but if I find out that you do anything with him.....I'll make sure that you'll want to die every day for the rest of your life." Soledad stared at her shocked as Kagura began walking away.

"Are you making a threat towards me?" she said softly. Kagura looked back at her, smirking. Soledad felt like she was looking right through her during the few seconds that she paused to reply.

"Well, if you don't like the word 'threat', you don't need to use it. You can just call it a warning." she said sharply before leaving Soledad at the garden. Soledad put her fingers through her curly hair and sighed heavily. What was she going to do about this one?

---0---0---0---

Soledad was still laying in her bed hours after the first rays of sunlight streamed through her window. She didn't know what to do. She didn't sleep very well last night after the two encounters she had. First she realized that Sesshomaru hadn't gotten over her, and Kagura was ready to kill her if Soledad was alone with Sesshomaru for five minutes. There seemed to be no way out of it.

"Soledad? Soledad? Are you awake?" Soledad heard a muffled voice through the door. She picked up her robe from a nearby chair and opened the door to see Sol standing there with a worried expression on her face. "Soledad, are you alright? It's almost four in the afternoon and no one in the castle has seen you out of your room today."

"Oh...I didn't realize how late it was..." Soledad mumbled. She didn't want to explain what had happened last night, especially to Sol. She was probably stressed out enough with planning her wedding, so she didn't need this other complication of having to stress out about what was going on between her and her parents. "But, yea I'm fine. I'll be out by dinnertime, I just need some time to get ready." Sol smiled.

"Well, do you want me to get Oni for you to help you get ready?" Soledad shook her head.

"That won't be necessary. I'll be fine, I can get myself ready." she smiled. "Thank you for coming over to check on me." Sol smiled back and left. Soledad closed the door and slumped down to the floor. How was she going to avoid Kagura and Sesshomaru when she just said she was coming to dinner? It was going to be very akward around them, unless she had someone with her. At that very moment she realized who could go with her. She ran out of the room and began searching the whole castle, not noticing the strange stares she was getting from everyone in the castle. She finally found him on the training grounds. It was a sunny and warm day, and the soldiers that were being instructed by Shinto were dressed in their uniforms and half of them looked as if they were dying as they were doing push ups with huge weights upon their backs. Soledad pondered that the weights must have been at least a hundred and fifty pounds on their backs. It was brutal.

"You better not stop, this is just the warmup! If I see one of you even falter on one of your pushups, you'll make everyone else do an extra fifty because of you!" Shinto barked at them. The men groaned in exhaustion and in pain, praying no one would make their workout even longer. He was wearing an outfit very similar to what Sesshomaru usually wore, but the flowers were actually blue instead and brought out the color in his eyes. She noticed that he wasn't aware of her presence after a few seconds, so Soledad cleared her throat to get his attention. Shinto turned around to see her there and smiled at her.

"Soledad! I haven't seen you all day, I thought you might have gotten hurt." he said to her, kissing her hand. She blushed and smiled at him.

"No, I'm fine, I just slept in for a while. But I came to you to ask you something." One of Shinto's eyebrows rose in curiousity.

"And what would that be then?" he asked her.

"I would like to invite you to dinner with me tonight. It's just that Sesshomaru doesn't say anything, and neither does Kagura. The only person I have to talk to is Sol, and quite frankly, I'm getting kind of annoyed with her talking about what her dress looks like and how the setting is going to be so romantic." Shinto chuckled.

"Well, I would be honored to come with a beautiful woman as you. I assume dinner will be served at seven as usual?" Soledad nodded.

"I don't think that's changed today."

"And will you be wearing something similar to what you're wearing now?" Shinto said as he eyed her. She gasped as she looked down and remembered that the nightgown she was wearing was slightly see through and very short. She pushed him playfully.

"You're such a pig!" she giggled.

"No, actually I'm a wolf demon. I've never really gotten the animal pig before to describe me." She smirked.

"Well, maybe if you play your cards right, I'll wear it for you." she said slyly, turning to get ready for dinner. She did feel a little bad for leading him on like that, but she had to make an attempt at making Sesshomaru realize she wasn't going to be part of his love triangle.