A/N: I'll be honest, I was fully expecting torches and pitchforks after the last chapter dropped! I had no idea what the reaction was going to be…

Bet you didn't see this coming! A Saturday teaser chapter?! What are the odds? Also, I have survived finals week of summer semester so I'm free until august. This won't be my only project, though, so keep an eye on my other works for updates and possible new material!

Pain.

Excruciating pain was what brought Sesshomaru violently back to consciousness just minutes after he had collapsed in the garden. He lashed out at whatever nearby thing was causing him such pain and several sets of hands firmly held him down until he could be tied. He quickly stopped thrashing, exhausted beyond belief, panting in agony as the hands removed his damaged armor, then his blood-soaked clothing, in order to access the wounds. There were exclamations of awe and concern as the extent of his injuries was revealed.

One set of hands gently but firmly started to remove the arrows, putting a burning salve in each wound after the head was pulled out. He writhed and yelled, then fell still again, starting to lose consciousness.

"Stay awake, Sesshomaru-sama! You must stay awake!" insisted an urgent voice from somewhere closer to his waist. The wounded man let out another roar of pain as the healer cinched the bandage around his thigh, hoping to stop the bleeding. He had already lost so much blood…

"Look at his wrist…" a woman's voice worried at his side.

"It was broken. We'll have to rebreak it to set it correctly."

"Shouldn't we give him painkillers?" Asked a different voice on his other side.

"Not until he proves he'll recover. In the state he's in he won't feel much beyond the very worst of it anyway."

"Do you really think he'll—" The first began.

"Hush. Don't speak it, lest it come true."

Sesshomaru struggled to take deep breaths, letting out a pained yelp as his right wrist was forcibly twisted until an unpleasant crunch sounded, then whimpered as it was kneaded like a ball of dough until everything was back where it belonged so it could be splinted. His eyes weren't working well and everything had a red tinge over black and white, hazy and indistinct. He tried to look around, not knowing where he was, only where he should be. He knew the healer was the one winding a thick bandage around his thigh now that the bleeding had been staunched, and that he had at least two helpers by the voices. But someone was missing…

"Rin…where?..." He managed to ask, trying to find a face through the red haze. "Where?"

"She is with the midwife and the servant girl. She is fine."

Sesshomaru let out a deep sigh of relief and closed his eyes, feeling the pain fade as the noises around him grew less distinct again. "Good…" He breathed, happy to relax and float in the numb blackness that wanted to swallow him. It was so much nicer than the red pain.

But the healer refused to let him rest, jarring him back to reality again and making him groan and peek open his red-sclera eyes. "You cannot rest, Sesshomaru-sama. Not until you eat and take herbs." He tried to shake his head—he knew he didn't have the energy to chew—but the healer had a large bowl of broth and held his head up to drink as slowly as he needed to. When he was done, he closed his eyes again, hearing the bowl set on the floor, drifting towards a safer reddish-blackness that promised a future, unlike the deep nothing from before.

"There's nothing more to do now but wait for the dawn."

"Are you certain he'll recover?"

"His father was strong. Surely he will be too." A pause and a shuffle of someone sitting down. "Though, the sight of that blood, and the fact he ran for hours with those wounds…I will admit I am more than a little concerned."

More footsteps, and the door to the room opened. "How is he?"

"He should recover, Aki, if he makes it through tonight. And the Lady?"

"She is well. I was forced to sedate her, though. She was too strong for both of us combined to restrain her."

A heavy sigh. "You did the right thing. We cannot risk losing both heirs." There was another long pause, then footsteps and the door closing. Sesshomaru fell more deeply unconscious, content to know that Rin was well.

Sesshomaru woke to a sweet, warm scent wreathed around him, and managed a tiny smile before the pain hit him like a rampaging oni. He spat out a curse through clenched teeth and the healer was beside him in an instant with another bowl of broth that smelled rather foul. "Here, drink."

He drank the bitter liquid as quickly as he could manage, feeling the pain slowly ebb once again. His breathing eased and his broken body fell limp again. "Rin…she was here…?" He asked the healer in a strained whisper. Her scent surrounded him; she had to have visited, surely.

"No. You woke thrashing in the early morning and we took some of her bedding to calm you. The scent of your mate was the only thing that would allow you to rest properly." The man tugged the light blanket up a little higher on Sesshomaru's chest, and he caught the scent wafting from it. It disappointed him that Rin had not come to see him, but perhaps it was for the best. He knew he must look awful still, at least as bad as when they first met, vastly weakened and unable to move under his own power.

I was a fool, thinking I could go into an ambush alone and return unscathed… he slowly turned his head as the healer left the room, then closed his eyes again, deciding he may as well rest, and try to heal as fast as possible.

A few moments later, frantic footsteps sounded in the hallway and the door was shoved open. He opened his eyes but had no time to turn his head before a set of clawed hands rested on either side of his head.

He was momentarily alarmed, but the next thing he felt was a gentle kiss on his forehead and faint tickles as his beloved's raven hair fell around him. She sat up a little, stroking his cheeks as her eyes filled with tears.

"You're so hurt…" She worried to him, feeling her first tear fall. "I shouldn't have let you go, I had the most awful feeling as soon as you left…" She sniffled as several more tears fell. Rin was clearly still exhausted by something, as though she hadn't slept at all the night before, though he was certain she had. She seemed to make up her mind and very carefully settled herself beside him on his less-injured left side, quickly passing out as the sedative herbs they had given her the night before had not fully worn off.

A moment or two after Rin had stopped fidgeting, he felt something tapping at the back of his left hand. He tried to look down, but couldn't get a good angle to see what it was. He carefully turned his hand upside down so his palm was facing the tapping and the tiny smile returned as he realized his pup was kicking again. Sesshomaru let out a soft sigh and allowed himself back into unconsciousness again, letting himself heal as quickly as he could.

It was almost a miracle that no one outside the manor apparently knew that Sesshomaru had been injured at all. He knew it must partly be because he had slaughtered every last one of the wolves that had been sent against him. A few days after the attack, when he was feeling well enough to sit up and feed himself, he ordered some men to go investigate the wolves' bodies, but they returned empty-handed. Someone had cleaned up the mess he'd left behind, taking the weapons and everything else. The attacks and raids ceased around that time also, and he was relieved to know that the threats were gone for the time being.

Rin was sleeping lightly with her head in his lap as he sat at his desk, noting it was nearly time for the annual whelping festival. He had lost track of the weeks during his recovery, and what had been almost a month away was now only 3 days hence. He glanced down and gently petted his mate's hair, seeing her smile slightly in her sleep. She had barely let him out of her sight for even a moment since the morning after the attack, worried sick over him.

"Mochi…" She mumbled randomly, and his hand stilled as he glanced down again, one eyebrow slightly raised. "Noodles…"

"Dreaming about food again, are we?" He asked in amusement.

She hummed softly and then mumbled "…Sheep," in a pleased tone of voice, her tongue sticking slightly out. He gently poked the protruding tongue with the tip of a claw and she quickly pulled it back in, blinking awake.

"Are you having a nice dream?"

Rin blinked and nodded, yawning a little and stretching. "When should we leave for the festival? Don't we have to be there ahead of time?"

Sesshomaru gave a small nod of his own. "Ordinarily, we would have been there a week ago or more, since you would be nesting and preparing to whelp," He noted. "But you're nowhere near ready for that." He looked over his mate's slim body, pausing proudly at the gentle roundness of her growing stomach. She looked what he might call 'comfortably pregnant', not yet the strained hugeness of a woman ready to bear her pup, that looked as if she had swallowed a kemari whole, or a very large melon. He had been around the whelping festival plenty growing up, and he knew it must not be comfortable to be that large. He'd never met a woman who didn't complain of the discomfort or downright pain of being so vast. He most certainly did not look forward to his beloved being in such discomfort, but knew she would be. She was already slightly bigger than expected for how far along she was, so Aki told him. The Royal Midwife chalked it up to the pup being a quarter Nami, due to Sesshomaru's father's blood. The Nami had big bones for certain, and were several inches taller than any other clan, several feet in true form.

A gentle kiss on the cheek startled him out of his thoughts and Rin hummed in amusement as he jumped slightly. "Would you like something to eat? I'm famished."

He nodded, going back to the letter on his desk from his mother, detailing what he should pack for the trip to the palace. He supposed they should leave tomorrow, to ensure plenty of time to settle in…