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Thank you all so much for the reviews! This chapter should be good for those of you who are hungry for romance ;) I hope you enjoy reading it and please carry on leaving your comments whether it's questions or thoughts or even just you screaming through your screens!

EIGHTH BLOOD

Chapter 36: Bonds

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He followed her down to the beach, which was even emptier than usual at night.

A dray of squirrels hitched a ride on her shoulders and snuggled into her neck as she trudged through the icy forest. The sensation of their noses rubbing against her skin tickled immensely. When she laughed, the snow beneath her feet melted, revealing bright green grass and crushed flowers, which opened their petals in her presence.

They followed the sound of waves and stopped on the threshold of the beach, where the squirrels abandoned their perch on her shoulders and scampered away.

Sesshoumaru hadn't said a word since their conversation on the cliffs. She turned to check if he was still there and saw that he was simply distracted. His eyes were fixed on the rising moon, and he looked lost in thought. She contemplated bringing him back to reality by snapping her fingers in front of his face, but ultimately decided against it.

"You'll attract flies with your mouth hanging open like that."

She pursed her lips together and frowned. "It's not my fault you're so beautiful."

His eyes slid down to meet hers. "Such flattery," he said, smirking faintly. "Luckily, this one is immune to your charms."

"I wasn't trying to charm you."

"Weren't you?"

She bit her tongue in an attempt to hide her smile. "If I had been, you wouldn't have been able to resist."

"Your vanity rivals even my mother's."

"You were the one who told me that being vain wasn't a bad thing."

She wandered onto the beach and watched as the waves lapped against the frosty shore like black tongues.

Grinning, she turned to face him and asked, "So, what sort of payment did you have in mind?"

He didn't answer.

"Have I rendered you speechless, my lord?" she teased.

"Be careful, human," he warned. "Daiyoukai aren't known for their restraint."

She tried not to appear affected by the obvious innuendo. "Neither am I." His surprised expression made her laugh and say, "Unfortunately, obedience doesn't come naturally to us humans. We're a very uncooperative species. So . . . If you want something, you'll have to take it from me."

He didn't react as she backed away slowly, melting more snow with every step.

"As you wish," he said in a throaty voice.

Shivering with anticipation, she spun around to make a break for it, but he was already two steps ahead of her. He used his inhuman speed to dart in front of her and block her path. Her breath hitched as she slammed into his chest and almost fell backwards, only for him to catch her by the arms. She flashed him a pretend glare. "That's cheating."

"No, it isn't. A demoness would have never fallen for such an overused and predictable tactic."

"Well, I'm not a demoness, am I?"

"The fact remains painfully obvious."

His hands travelled down to cup her elbows.

"Does it bother you?"

"What?"

"That I'm human."

"You can't help what you are."

"But your father . . ."

His expression faltered when he realised what she was getting at. "You misunderstand," he said coldly. "That is not what I—"

He cut himself off before he could finish. Octavia's eyes widened as his previously blazing youki retreated, making his intentions – or rather, lack of – clear. She should have been embarrassed, but the conflict in his eyes made her rethink her response. Talk about sending mixed signals.

"Then what the fuck has all of this been about?" she snapped.

"You are too presumptuous—"

"Get your hands off me, then."

They didn't move. Taking that as confirmation of her suspicions, she leaned in and brought her lips to his ear. She felt him tense, but he made no attempt to shove her away. He couldn't just toy with her and get away with it. He may be a dog, she thought, but I'm no helpless rabbit.

"You like my power, don't you?" she whispered, planting her hands on his shoulders. "You like how dangerous it is. I could hurt you if I wanted to. That should scare you, but it doesn't. Does it?"

His breathing was harsh against her cheekbone. She felt his claws trail up and down her arms – not hard enough to leave scratches, but not so gently that she didn't feel them.

Her heart thundered in her chest, which was now touching his, when he murmured, "I fear nothing."

She shuddered as he stopped paying attention to her arms and instead captured her waist. She pulled back before her lips could be tempted to graze his earlobe and stared deep into his eyes. His claws kneaded the fabric of her yukata, picking apart the lilac threads. Heat shot straight to her core as he lowered his head and breathed her name over the distant crashing waves.

"Octavia."

"Yes?" Her voice sounded low and gravelly. She waited for him to speak, but he no longer seemed capable of saying anything other than her name, until . . .

"Octavia," he said again, like it was a plea. "Had you only been born like me."

She flinched before wrenching herself out of his grasp. A crinkle formed between his brow as her expression changed drastically, becoming fierce and determined.

"No," she rebuked firmly. "I'm human. I know you wish I wasn't, but I am. My identity is the one thing that's purely mine. I've had to fight to keep it like that, and I've lost pieces of it along the way, but it's mine. I won't let you take it from me. You can take everything else, but not that."

His eyes narrowed sceptically.

"Being human doesn't make you weak," she continued. "I'm not ashamed. You might think I'm inferior to you because I'll be dead in a hundred years, but I don't want an eternity of being alone with my self-hatred. Besides, I'm not the only one who thinks they're not good enough."

Hostility crept into his features. "I have no such concerns—"

"Funny. I don't remember saying it was you."

He paused.

Realising that she'd outsmarted him, she carried on. "You've spent so long trying to be like your father. When are you going to start being you? You don't have to follow in his footsteps all the time. You don't have to keep convincing everyone that you're worthy of being his replacement. You're more than that. You're your own person, Sesshoumaru. You can't let what your father thought of you dictate who you choose to be—"

"You have no right to tell me what to do—"

"The only thing you have to surpass is your own judgement."

He froze and regarded her strangely. The patch of snow they were standing on was now a puddle of steaming water that soaked into the sand. Her throat bobbed as the markings on his cheeks turned jagged and he glowered at her.

"Why do you hate yourself?"

Her chest tightened. "It doesn't matter."

"I think it does. I know nothing of your past. I didn't consent to showing you snippets of mine through the Reikon Blade; therefore, it is only fair that you share yours with me."

She blinked. "You want to know about my childhood?"

He answered with a nod.

Sighing, she sat cross-legged on the vaguely damp sand and gestured for him to join her. "Fine," she said. "I'll tell you. But you can't blame me if it's boring."

"There is no law that says information must be entertaining," he replied, sitting beside her on the sand.

She removed the crown of flowers from her head and stared at it absently. The petals quivered in the breeze, and several blew loose, flying out to sea.

"I was born in Greece," she began. "About five hundred years from now. I lived with my parents until I was four, but I can't even remember what they looked like, never mind if they were good people or not. I can't remember anything from before I moved to England with my aunt, who immediately lost custody of me. I can't really remember her, either.

"After that, I bounced around a bunch of children's homes in London. Turns out, being an orphan really fucking sucks. Especially if you're a teenager. No one in their right mind wants to foster one of those. Eventually, social services reached out to my aunt to see if she could legally be deemed fit to take me back, but she'd disappeared. To this day, no one knows where she went.

"Anyway, as soon as I turned eighteen, I moved west, to Wales. I wanted to get away from the city I'd spent the worst years of my life in, so I rented a cheap flat in Cardiff and applied to the local university. I always wanted to be an artist, you see. I worked in a shop to pay my bills, and when I wasn't doing that, I was either losing sleep over my coursework or at the pub.

"That was my life for the past ten months, until Kagome's mother reached out to me and said that we were related. To be honest, I think those ancestry websites are mostly full of shit, but I didn't tell her that. Because even if it wasn't real, it would have been nice to have a family."

Her throat felt tight whenever she thought about the Higurashis. Were they worried about her? Or did they think she'd left of her own accord? She wished she could find a way to tell them that she'd met Kagome, and that they were both okay.

Sesshoumaru's expression was incredibly strained. She could practically see the gears turning in his head when he asked, "But if you're from the future, how did you get here?"

"The same way Kagome did. The well in Musashi is more than just a well. It's a bridge that connects our two times. The night we met was the night I crossed over. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a bright light coming from inside the well-house, but when I went to check it out, it vanished. I thought I was dreaming. But then I fell. Or maybe something pulled me in. Either way, I didn't know where I was. It never occurred to me that I'd travelled back in time."

He shook his head. "Impossible. You're lying."

"I'm not. I'll prove it to you. Ask me anything."

"Who is in charge of the world in your time?"

"There isn't just one person. The world is divided into continents, and those continents are divided into countries. Their leaders work together to keep things running."

"Are they youkai?"

"No. I mean, I don't think so. Where I come from, your kind are just . . ."

"Just what?" he probed angrily.

"You're just stories . . . You, Jaken and Ah-Un were the first ones I'd met. I didn't think creatures like you existed before I saw you in the flesh. Most people don't. I'm not sure what happened to make everyone forget, but my best guess is you either died out or went into hiding. I prefer the second option to the first one."

"Demons don't hide. We fight and we kill."

"Maybe that stopped being an option at some point along the line."

He buried his claws in the sand. "You'd truly never seen one of us before?"

She shook her head. "I wanted to, though. When I was young, I believed in magic with all of my heart, but as I got older, I started to think it was just rubbish. But a little part of me always hoped that it was real. I wished and I wished, but the fairies never came for me. So, when I saw you, I thought: this is it. I finally got what I wanted, but now it's going to kill me. That's why you should be careful what you wish for."

"I didn't kill you, though."

"True. Maybe the shadow was right and it was destiny."

"Don't be ridiculous."

She laughed.

The anger in his expression slowly faded away. By the time he spoke again, it was completely gone. "Strangely enough, it makes sense. You and the miko both seem so very alien. You also share several of the same speech mannerisms, and the clothes you were wearing when we met were unlike anything I'd ever seen. Excluding the odd green and white garment that the miko always wore. Is all fashion that awful in the future?"

"Look who's talking. Those rags you're wearing aren't exactly runway material."

"These are peasant clothes. They could never compare to my usual attire."

"Well, our peasant clothes are miles better than yours. I'd trade those itchy hakama for a pair of joggers every damn time. They even beat this fancy yukata I'm wearing now."

The thought of soft, slouchy clothes unexpectedly brought tears to her eyes. Sesshoumaru looked startled, but he still reached out and cupped her cheek. She winced as his thumb swiped the dampness away whilst the rest of his fingers became tangled in her hair. Unsure of how to react, she settled on meeting his gaze and searching for answers in his glittering gold eyes.

Something in him always wavered whenever he was forced to look her directly in the eye. Out of disgust, she supposed, though it never really looked like disgust.

"My father didn't want my mother."

"What?" she sniffed, blinking away her tears.

"He never wanted her," he repeated gently. "Or rather, not in the way that she wanted him. Those feelings were reserved for Inuyasha's mother." His face soured at the mention of her. "My mother was a princess, too. Her clan lived in the Floating Citadel of Moon Country, high above the Lunar Mountains. She was given to my father as a means of forging an alliance between their families. Their union was entirely political, though I suspect they were at least friends, in some sense of the word. When I was born, it meant everything and nothing at the same time. I was no more than a requisite, there to fill the title of successor . . . Not like Inuyasha.

"A year before his birth, Izayoi discovered my father in her mansion's gardens. He was badly wounded and wouldn't have been able to resist capture, but she failed to alert the guards to his presence. Instead, she tended to his wounds and secretly nursed him back to health. After he was healed, he carried on visiting her. I asked my mother why he couldn't just leave her alone, but she wouldn't answer. My mother is a proud woman. She hated feeling like she was second best. She never confronted my father about it, though, despite my efforts to convince her.

"She only left the stronghold when she learned that Izayoi was with child. The nobles mocked her for losing her husband to a mortal, and the peasants despised her, anyway, so she had no reason to stay. I certainly wasn't a strong enough incentive, and my father had more important matters to attend to. I resented him for prioritising his relationship with a human over ours.

"His teachings about honour and duty became disingenuous, and I no longer believed him when he promised not to abandon us. I never forgave him for betraying us the way he did. It is not something I know how to forgive."

"He didn't abandon you," Octavia interjected. "He died. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

She swallowed thickly. "I like to think so."

His eyes darkened. "After his death, everything quickly fell apart. The Western Lands were in uproar, demanding justice, but Izayoi had fled across the border with her newborn. I followed them to her extended family's home and waited for them to turn her away, but they didn't. However, none of them wanted anything to do with the abomination she called a son."

"But he was innocent."

"I hated that most of all."

His hand pulled free from her hair and flopped into his lap uselessly.

"Why didn't you help her?" asked Octavia.

"Because I wanted her to pay for her crimes. I wanted her to suffer as I had. But most notably, I wanted Inuyasha to know how it felt to be alone in the world. I was owed that much."

"Just because you're in pain doesn't give you the right to hurt others. Trust me, I know how it feels, but causing more suffering doesn't make you feel any better. I learned that the hard way."

"You don't understand—"

She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. His eyes widened slightly as she pressed her thumbs against the magenta stripes on his cheeks and spoke harshly. "I do," she said. "I do understand. It all makes sense now. I think deep down, you love your brother. Or you at least feel something for him. You would've killed him in his crib if you didn't."

"I would never murder a defenceless child. I was merely waiting until he was old enough—"

"That's bullshit. You've had plenty of chances to kill him as an adult, but you always back out at the last second. I think you regret not helping him. That's why you helped Rin, isn't it? You were trying to fix your mistake."

"You're wrong. I don't regret the way I treated him. I don't regret anything."

"Shut up."

"You dare tell me—"

"I said shut up!" Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "For once in your life, just shut up . . ." Her fingers trembled against his jaw. "Stop pushing me away. I know how it feels. I don't care if you believe me or not, but I do. I know I'm broken. I've always known. It's not like I can forget when everyone I meet tries to fix me . . . Except you. You're the only one who looks at me and doesn't see what's missing."

His eyes flickered between hers, full of that feeling she couldn't identify, before he sighed in defeat. Closing his eyes, he tipped his head forwards and rested his brow against hers.

"Why do I listen to you?" he breathed. "Why can't I shut you out like I do the others? You're a spiteful creature. I should hate you, yet I don't. Why don't I hate you?"

Octavia was lost for words.

Sesshoumaru held onto her for dear life, digging his claws into her arms as he did. When he reopened his eyes, his pupils were like two black suns, dragging her in. Her heart pounded as his eyes briefly darted down to look at her mouth.

Swallowing, he eventually released her arms and pulled away, repulsed by his own foolish actions. She watched as he rose to his feet and averted his gaze elsewhere.

"Forgive me," he murmured, staring out to sea. "I wasn't myself just now."

"Actually, I think that was the closest I've ever gotten to seeing the real you."

He scoffed. "What an idiotic statement."

She smiled tenderly. "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked, bewildered.

"For trusting me. I know it wasn't easy. I really appreciate it."

His brows arched upwards in surprise. She smiled wider as she felt the line connecting them pull tighter. Nagisa's mother had been wrong about the threads. They weren't confined to just their bodies. They existed within a huge web that tied everyone together.

There's a theory that our souls are bound to others long before we're born, and when we're reincarnated, they're instinctively drawn to those people, despite being in new bodies.

The idea is that when strong bonds are formed between people, those bonds persevere. It doesn't matter whether it's between families, lovers, or enemies. If the bond is powerful enough, it can last until the end of time.

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