Chapter 18

Sesshomaru took off his Haori covering me with it. I was covered in love bites, my hair a mess, and everything that was once on the table. Was now spread across the floor. I wrapped the Haori tightly around me.

"You have made a mess," I told him.

He kissed me smirking.

"We my love. We, have made a mess."

"No, you. You started this and this is the result." I told him.

He smirked. "By this, do you mean when I had you bent over the desk saying my name?" he said smugly.

Why that smug-

"You-it does not matter. We cannot leave the study like this. The servants will know."

"Your embarrassment is quaint." He said, kissing my knuckles. "They already know. You are not very quiet. They will clean up after us. As they always do." he teased.

I could feel my cheeks get hot.

"You are not quiet either!"

"And I never will be. Not when you feel so tig-"

"Enough!" I said embarrassed. "Must you do that!?"

"Tease you? As your mate, it is my job."

I held back my smile. He kissed me again and I leaned into him. I had grown softer for him with each passing day... no, with every hour and every second. His claws were digging deeper and deeper into me, and I feared that I did not want him to let go. Though I had not told him that. Part of me was not sure that I ever would.

"Careful Himiko. It seems you are starting to enjoy my company."

He knew very well just how much I enjoyed being near him.

"What I meant was must you... take me everywhere you please like this."

"Yes," he said seriously. "It is very difficult for me to keep my hands off you."

"I do not see why."

He smiled. "I want you the way you want me. Even though you do not say it, Himiko. You show it, and I feel it."

He pulled up a chair and sat in front of me. He kissed my ankle before beginning to massage my foot. I relaxed as fingers kneaded my sole.

"Besides, I do not hear any complaints while I am insi-"

I clamped my hand over his mouth. He moved my hand, chuckling.

"I want nothing more than to love you, fill you up, and watch you grow with my children. As well as not share you with anyone."

His children.

I have not once thought about having children. Why did it not cross my mind until now?

"Sesshomaru please watch what you say, someone might hear you," I said ignoring his comment. "You do not share me with anyone."

"Don't I? You give him so much affection and he has taken it the wrong way. You touch him so freely at any time."

"I do not touch him freely."

"You held his face in your hands. Anyone passing by would have surely mistaken you two for lovers."

"I didn't realize I did that... it is different with Inuyasha."

I did not realize it bothered him this much.

"Different how?"

"When I touch him it does not do anything to me. Nor does it mean anything to me. It is as if I am touching Rin. It is completely innocent. When I touch you I..." I trailed off.

He looked at me, waiting for me to go on. I sighed sliding off the table and sitting on his lap; something I had found myself doing more often.

"He is alone, Sesshomaru, and you do not help the issue by avoiding him the way you do. Of course, he would cling to someone who shows him kindness. His companions are leaving him one by one. Soon he will only have us. I am kind to him, but I am not his family; not really. I am not you."

"You show him too much kindness."

"There is no such thing as too much kindness, Sesshomaru. Especially not for someone who has gone so long without it."

"You pity him."

"I understand him." I corrected him. "You need to try and put in the effort with him. Both of you are more alike than you think.

"I have noticed. It does not make any of this easy."

"I may understand him in certain ways, but you know him in ways that I cannot, and it is not supposed to be easy. You are his brother, his blood. That means something; everything. Even if you two may fight like dogs."

I grabbed the letter off the floor.

"Then put your pride aside and try."

He wrapped his arm around my waist.

"If I do not try?"

"I was not asking Sesshomaru," I said plainly.

He smiled. "You are behaving like a true demoness. You did not finish what you were saying. About how you feel when you touch me."

I felt my cheeks get hot.

"That is not important."

He smirked. "It would make me feel better."

I looked down at his hand. "When I touch you, or when you touch me. It feels... electric almost. Or if I have gone too long without touching you. When I finally do... my skin feels like fire; not painful but more so of a burning-"

"Desire." he chimed in.

He smiled "Careful Himiko. It sounds as if you crave me. As if you lov-"

I cleared my throat obnoxiously loud, cutting him off and making him laugh. I held the letter up reading it.

"They are expecting us in two days. We won't have enough time." I explained.

He plucked the letter from my fingers reading it over.

"We have more than enough time. Their empire is not as far as you think."

"In the books I've read. While the empire is a mysterious one. It is an empire even larger than this one. It would take days to reach something like that. Even if we flew there."

He looked over at the clock on the wall. "We will arrive there on time, in less than two days. We will leave tomorrow."

What made him so sure?

"Have you been there? The Ryu empire."

He smiled. "You speak of them as if they are strangers."

"They are strangers."

"They are your blood; your family. This Ryu empire is part of who you are. You should put in the effort and try with them." He teased me.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. A nasty habit I had picked up from Inuyasha.

I traced his magenta markings with my finger.

"You have made your point, Sesshomaru."

He chuckled. "Good, and to answer your question. Yes, I have been there. Many times in fact. Your family and I are very close. My mother resides in the Ryu empire as well."

"Why there and not here?"

He smiled. "It will make sense once you meet her.

"Who will be there? At the wedding I mean?"

"When I had Jaken send word to them. I sent a list of people that I feel should be there. A few of them you will know. As for the rest. That is a surprise."

He took my hand and kissed my knuckle. I could feel his fingers trailing up the inside of the haori I wore.

"A surprise?" I asked breathlessly.

"Hn but as of right now we have more pressing matters to attend to."

"More pressing matters?"

"Hn. I need to hear more about how I make you feel."

I stretched my limbs feeling around me. I opened my eyes. I was back in our bedroom. All of the candles had been blown out. The only light in the room was the few strays of moonlight. That spilled in through the window. I would have been completely blind if not for the new sight I'd gained, after becoming a demon. The last thing I recalled was being face down bent over the study desk exhausted.

"You are awake." I heard him say.

"How long has it been?"

"A few hours?"

I looked up at him. "A few."

He gave me a small smile.

"It will be sunrise, in the next two hours."

"That is more than a few hours, Sesshomaru. I slept the night away."

"Yes, you seemed to be very tired for some reason," he teased.

"Yes, I was held hostage in a study."

He chuckled.

"Sesshomaru, can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

I tensed up in his arms.

"Will my father be there? At the wedding."

"Even though your father and your mother's side of the family did not get along. They would not rob you of your father being there. It would be bad manners on their part. So, yes, he will be there. However, your sister will be there as well. That is something to look forward to."

"Rob me? If only they knew keeping him away would be doing me a favor."

"How do you expect him to make amends, if you keep him away?"

I rolled my eyes.

"What would you have me do? Welcome him with open arms?"

"You push for Inuyasha and I to reconcile. Can't I want the same thing for you and Father? I am not saying that you need to forgive him so quickly, but at least open your mind to it."

"Why must I forgive someone who has waited so long to ask for forgiveness?"

"Humans make many mistakes in their short lifetimes."

"To make mistakes is a part of life. At some point, they stop being mistakes and they become choices. They get to live on and forget what they have done to me. Yet I will have to live with it. Where will I put all the rage I have held onto all these years? Should I forget that too? The world seems to care too much about forgiveness. Then those who were hurt... the victims."

"You do not see yourself as a victim, Himiko."

How wrong he was about that.

"I don't want to be the one that remembers everything when everyone else has long forgotten. It is pathetic and mortifying. It always is for the one who remembers."

I felt his hand slip into mine.

"Is that how you see yourself," he asked softly. "Pathetic?" he asked, pulling me closer.

I said nothing. I held my anger in. I was sure that at that moment he'd felt it.

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I pushed for my reasons. Simply because-."

"You were angry with your father and you lost him. You do not want the same for me."

I was beginning to be able to read him, just as he did me.

"I should not have pushed you. We can speak about something else."

I sighed, relaxing into him, and changed the subject.

"I would read these books as a child. The books Yukina would sneak to me when no one was looking, They were always happy stories. I yearned for the families that I read about in them. Their love for one another was so effortless and unconditional. I want to be the mother that I was never able to have. A mother that they would deserve. I want my children to feel loved and protected. I want them to have all of the things that I did not have. I wish for them to know only comfort."

He smiled and kissed my temple.

"You will spoil them, Himiko."

I smiled. "Rotten."

We laughed together.

"If I spoil them, they will love me more." I joked.

"They will love you because you will be their mother."

I looked up at the ceiling.

"A mother should be her child's first love. I have heard that it is a love so incomparable to anything else. Those who have never had it will constantly look for love to fill the void left behind. Only to realize that it can never be replaced or replicated. I never want them to know what that void feels like."

I was projecting.

I could feel his hand on my stomach.

"Even if you will stifle them," he teased.

"Even then."

"You will make a wonderful mother Himiko."

I moved closer to him. I could feel myself drifting off to sleep again.

Would I make a good mother?