Chapter 26: Betrayal
Everything hurt and exhaust demanded that she rest now that all her babies were born. Yet she found watching them sleep kept slumber’s demanding embrace at bay. They were all so beautiful and prefect that she couldn’t believe that she had given birth to all five of them.
“You should rest, Kagome.” Nori whispered softly but Kagome ignored the demoness and gently touched the cheek of one of her sons. He had been crying so loud that Kagome worried that he would wake his siblings but her touch turned so cries into little whimpers and a pair of golden eyes opened to take her out with unfocused eyes. Her heart overflowed with love for the little being she had given birth to only hours ago.
“You’re okay, mommy is here. You’re okay, Hajime.” Kagome whispered and she moved to be closer to her babies; her body protested the action but she insisted and took him into her arms when she was close enough to all of them.
“Kagome, you should not name them without Sesshomaru presence to approve the names.” Nori protested as she moved to be closer to the newborns as well. Kagome took a quick glance at Nori and saw the utter devotion into the demoness’s golden gaze. Kagome couldn’t help but wonder if Sesshomaru even cared for their new children. He had left at some point and everyone else come in so to care for her as she had labored to bring her children into the world. It had hurt so much that she didn’t even know when he had left.
Though she loathed to admit it even to herself, she had longed for his aid as she had worked to bring their other babies into the world instead of having his mother and the horrid midwives. He had seemed to so happy but then suddenly he had left her alone in the one moment that she felt she had needed him most. Did he really want to change and for them to develop a supportive relationship together? Or had he just said all that to get her to behave until she had given birth. How Kagome wished that she had the answers to her feelings and sesshomaru’s actions but she had nothing. She had nothing to hold onto and support her in this life that had been forced on her.
Hajime rubbed against her chest, making those hungry little whimpers that made her think of how Mizuki had done before. Moving her kosode off her chest and shoulders to bare her breasts for her son. He was quick to latch onto her nipple and suckled so hard in pursuit of his meal that Kagome gasped in pain for a moment. “Be gentle on mommy, sweetie.”
But the gentle scolding was lost on the infant as he feasted upon his mother’s milk. She watched with a loving gaze as she nursed her baby boy, it had been a few months now since she had last nursed Mizuki and found herself missing that connection. It was funny really but she had missed having a baby suckle from her milk swollen breasts.
There was such a connection between mother and child as life giving milk flowed that Kagome found her concerning thoughts lost to her mind for the moment.
“He will be quite like his father.” Nori muttered. Kagome looked to Nori with a question in her ocean blue eyes.
“Sesshomaru was quite an eater as well. He would always want his meal and would drink me dry when he was done; this little one is going to be just like his father…with the exception of the hair. That’s quite a surprise there.”
Kagome looked back down at her newborn son and only held him tighter to her. She didn’t want her son to be his father, she wanted him to be greater than and above his father in every way. Looking at all her new children, Kagome want that for all of them. For all her sons and daughters to be better than their father. It was in that moment that she felt like one of her babies were crying for her but all of them, even Mizuki were fine. Kagome looked at them, wondering why she felt that way when she noticed one of her two new daughters were staring at a wall and reaching out for something.
Looking at the wall, the feeling only grew stronger within her that one of her babies was crying.
oOo
Sesshomaru frowned at the wet-nurse that held his screeching daughter. The demoness continued endlessly to offer her breast to his daughter but his screeching little girl endlessly refused it despite clearly being hungry. The screeching hurt his ears but they were bleeding wounds upon his heart. Finally he could take the sound no longer and took his child from the demoness’s arms. “Go and get my mother.”
The order had been harsh in sound the look in his eyes had the wet-nurse fleeing to do his bidding. He looked down at his little girl, who screeching cries had turned to little whimpers the moment he had her. The angry red of her cry face was slowing fading though the look of it on her was killed something inside him. None of his children should ever look like that and yet one did, one of them refused to eat, one of them kept looking in the direction of where Kagome and their other children were. It made him question if keeping her away was truly the right thing for them all?
If other lords were to learn of her, they would all demand her death when it was a miracle that she was alive and happy being born was early. He couldn’t allow her to die for he already cared for her too deeply to let harm touch her, just as he cared for all his other children too deeply to let harm touch them. They and their mother were his world.
“I know Yumi…I wish you could be with your mother as well.” He whispered to the newborn.
“You let it live?” Sesshomaru slowly turned his head to look at his mother, who stared at him in utter shock. She stared at the baby in his arms with a blank expression when the shock faded but her eyes told him everything. Pain, she was feeling such pain.
“You need to kill it, Sesshomaru.” The moment those words left her mouth, Sesshomaru found his hand around his mother’s throat and slammed her into the wall behind her. His eyes were blood red and he felt the same as when he learned of what his brother had done. Rage roared through him like a dragon, demanding his mother’s blood and death for her words. But this was his mother, his adviser that told him that he needed to kill his own child. There could be no more impossible a task that that of what she just asked him.
“If you can’t do it then let me d-” He choked her of her words, stopping the air from reaching her lungs. He could do it, he could kill his mother but he could never kill his child. He was so tempted to kill her in that moment, to paint his claws red with her blood. He cared deeply for his mother, but the emotions he felt for his mother paled in comparison to those emotions he felt for his children and Kagome. They were his everything and he would burn everything to keep them safe and happy.
His claws dug into the skin of her neck, the blood greeted his nose and all of it just whispered that he could take out a threat to his child in that moment. It was in the moment he was about to end that threat that suddenly his daughter was gone from his arm.
His mother released and forgotten, Sesshomaru’s eyes sought out his child with panic slamming into his heart each moment that Yumi was not in his sight. He found her in the arms of lady Rie who stared at him like he was a beast, to which in that moment he was. He moved towards her, not noticing her mate at her side as he moved to kill the demoness and reclaim his child from within her arms.
Lord Hotaka moved between them, stopping Sesshomaru from moving towards lady Rie with the strength of his arms alone around the protective father. Sesshomaru turned his claws to lord; but before his claws could do so, pain burned him as he moved to do so. He glanced at lady Rie to see an outreached hand with power flowing from it to wrap around him. “You will stop this now or your daughter will not be returned to you until you have calmed down.”
Lord Hotaka’s words took root within Sesshomaru’s mind and allowed him to become calm one more though the blood red of his eyes did not return to their golden color.
“Please kill the child.” Nori whispered when breath finally returned to her. Sesshomaru did not even think twice upon using his whip to slice his mother’s cheek to silence her horrid words; his gaze remain on lady Rie though, watching her for the threat she may be to his daughter. But lady Rie now stared at his mother with a look of betrayal with her eyes.
oOo
Rie looked at her best friend in betrayal of her words. How could Nori desire the death of the child that was within her arms? The baby was so sweet and appeared to be a prefect blend of her parents. Nori knew that she had a brother that was a half demon like the child in her arms, Nori knew how her parents had death for her brother because of the love they had felt for him. Her friend knew how she and her brothers had hid him, protected him and raised him with the love that their parents would have given.
Nori knew how Rie had demanded that her mating to Hotaka be arranged for the protection of her brother and yet…her friend would see the baby in her arms dead? Rie could not think of any greater betrayal then the words her friend had whispered in that moment. “I demand reason to why we should make an alliance with you now, Nori? You have wanted to protect your family and yet you now seek the death of your granddaughter. Give reason to why me and my mate shall help when our friendship is now shattered by your words?”
Nori looked at her with horror and found her footing as she moved towards them. Sesshomaru turned and his mother, snarling as he turned his claws on her cheek as he slapped her away. Hotaka glanced at her and knew that he would make an alliance with Sesshomaru no matter Nori’s words to her. A loving father himself and a great ruler that her mate was, she knew that he could not desert a demon cut from the same cloth as himself.
“Sesshomaru isn’t ready…you are not ready, my son. That child will be the ruin of our family if you do-”
“I will kill you, mother! If you say another word in threat to my daughter, I will torture your until your flesh falls for your bones without aid from my claws.” Sesshomaru warned in so brutal a voice that ever Rie shivered in the sound of it and the baby in her arms cried for it. It was the sound of the baby’s cries that calmed him though, turning his eyes from the blood red that they were to the golden gaze mirrored in his own child.
He moved towards them and took his daughter from her arms, soothing the baby as he did so.
oOo
“What is this? I’m sorry my little dream. I did not mean to upset you, daddy is sorry.” He whispered into his daughter’s ear as he rocked in his arms, all his focus on soothing his little girl. The baby gripped his clothes as if afraid that he would let her go, but he never would. He would never let any of his children go for they were his life’s blood.
“He reminds me of you.” Lady Rie said as she moved pass Sesshomaru to her mate’s side, bring him back to the fact that there may still be a threat to his child.
“How so?” Lord Hotaka asked his mate.
“You turn into a big softy when you’re around our babies too and when you are needed to comfort them regardless of who may be around.”
“Softy? Maybe I should show you how hard I am when we return to our chamber, you are clearly in need of having a pup put into your belly again.” Hotaka told his mate before turning to look at Sesshomaru. “You have my support and alliance in your war against the others. Now take that pup to your mate…mothers need their pups just like pups need their mother.”
With those words spoken, lord Hotaka picked up his mate and they left Sesshomaru alone with his mother. Sesshomaru looked at his mother and realized that Hotaka’s words were true and that Yumi needed to be with Kagome. But there had been one thing that lord Hotaka had said that had Sesshomaru rooted to where he stood. “Mate?”