Chapter 19: Desperation of all

She stared at him, desperate for an answer to a question that she didn’t understand. Her mind was a buzz with self-hate and confusion. She should have hated Sesshomaru instead of herself, she knew that yet she couldn’t. Something inside of her whispered that for all he had done, hadn’t she done the same? How many times had she rejected him?

How many times had she given up talking and fighting with him? All so she could just sit there and cry as he looked at her like he did now? She didn’t understand herself any more than she understood him. Ever now, she didn’t understand him or herself.

The wind howled like a beast around them, the ground beneath her feet was burned black beyond repair. The morning was fast approach as she continued to stare at him. Kagome needed those answers more than she could say.

Only the expression on his face kept them on her tongue. The pain expressed so blatantly on his normally blank face keep her quiet. For maybe the first time, she saw unguarded uncertainty appear in his eyes. It was so different from what she had seen before. All of his emotions were expressed in his eyes before now.

The hysteria that seemed to hold her tight loosened ever so slightly. It was enough for her to get one word past her lips. “Please?”

“I don’t know what to say that will make it better,” he whispered.

“Nothing can but tell me anyway.”

His face transformed into a look of despair, beautiful and haunting in the canvas of the blues and reds behind him. It almost made her want to reach out and hold him to her breast like she would their children.

She resisted the urge; it would only make things worse to encourage something that felt wrong. Still, she didn’t understand why she felt so calm. Like all the emotions that had tormented her every waking moment was suddenly gone.

She felt relieved to be so hollow of them but scared at the same time Everything was confusing.

As the silence lengthened, she begged once more. “Please.”

It seemed to be what he needed.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” He asked softly.

She nodded, reliving the moment at hearing his question. He had stood on the shoulder of that giant ogre, intimidating and elegant from the first moment. The storm that raged had seemed tame compared to him and nowhere near as beautiful. She had been shocked to learn of his relationship with Inuyasha.

“You wore the oddest clothes and stood next to my brother as if an equal, it drew my eye to you instantly,” he said as his gaze lost focus. “Then when Inuyasha was caught by the Unmother, you saved him all by yourself…with a stick. I didn’t know what to think of you and simply kept to my task, my greatest desire at the time.”

“Those clothes were odd? I think what I’m wearing now is even worse,” she muttered. Her mind was on that one thing suddenly, he seemed to remember them where she couldn’t.

A slight smile appeared on his lips. “A dark blue kimono unlike any that I have ever seen and your hamaka?…was indecently arousing.”

She took a step back at that last word. Kagome felt hatred at the very meaning of it; arousal had brought nothing good into her life. The flames reacted, becoming more violent as the hysteria seemed to try and take hold once more.

Sesshomaru seemed to notice for the slight smile vanished. “Kagome?”

He took a step forward and she took two back, the flames growing as her emotions did. His expression was full of concern but it didn’t matter.

Not when she needed to get away from him.

“Kagome, talk with me,” he begged in a desperate voice.

There was nothing to say, he wouldn’t change. The conversation went the same route as it always did. That was the act of a crazy person; to do the same thing over and over, and to expect a different outcome. She wasn’t going to be crazy anymore. Her voice was calm, cold like a rational person would be.“There’s nothing to say to you, Sesshomaru. I have my answers now, thank you.”

She seemed so cold to his eyes as she stood there apart from him. For just a moment, he thought he saw the real her. The Kagome that had taken down the Unmother, the Kagome that fought and defended her friends. The Kagome that he loved and loved his brother.

Instead, she had returned to the woman that had dumped Inuyasha’s dead body off her. Cold, calm, dead-eyed was all he saw as she spoke to him.

“There’s nothing to say to you, Sesshomaru. I have my answers now, thank you.”

His heart stopped at her words. What answers did he give her? He tried to think of what he had said that had turned her into this. Only there was no forthcoming answer to his mind. So he questioned her, “What answers are those?”

“The only ones that matter.”

That could mean anything and nothing; it didn’t explain the expression or what her thoughts were.

He stood there in the morning light yet he was in the darkness of the night. He was lost in the darkness and Kagome was the moon, hidden from his view. He would push the cloud out of the way.“What did I say to make you come to this conclusion?”

She said nothing, just stared at him for another moment before giving him her back again. She started to walk away, the reds, yellows and gold made her seem like a goddess. A goddess that was playing at being mortal.

Desperation tortured him on the heels of that thought. It urged him to follow her, so he did. Step by step he followed as the dawn fade into the day.

The earth beneath her scorched a path for him. Flames threatened to lick him, burn him as he walked the path. They were always killed off the strong winds before they could do anything. Not that he cared, his eyes simply watched Kagome as they walked the same steps.

Hours must have past them by; his gold gaze begged her to stop and turn. He was a noble demon, a master of many and he was such actions. He would have rather slice his stomach open than beg to anyone.

Kagome wasn’t just anyone though.

He questioned himself over and over on what he had said to her. He had wanted her from that meeting, only denying him because she was human. It had been the reason that he had denied himself in the past. He had been a fool and he still was. If he had been like his brother and courted her in moments, the future may have been different. If he had never mated, he could have waited for her return. If he had been patient, showing her the love he hadn’t known, maybe she would have returned it.

How that word plagued him and all the opportunities that he wasted. Even now, they continued to be wasted for he was a fool. A fool that didn’t know what to say or how to act towards her.

Finally, she stopped and he did as well. Her flames kept him at bay, threatening him with more than death.

“Will you talk with me, Kagome?”

“I hate it when you say my name,” she informed, sounding like his mother as she continued to look away from him.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“You think I care if it does or doesn’t answer your questions? You never answered mine before, you never shared anything with me,” she hissed. “You’re the most powerful demon that I know and you let others controlled you…just like I let you control me.”

She had looked so strong as she stood there, only for that to change. One moment, she looked strong enough to burn the world away and in the next, so weak. “I’m so tired, Sesshomaru. All I wanted was death but that gave me no relief. All I want now is for our children to be safe and happy before I try to die again.”

“Don’t say that, please,” he begged because he knew that he would follow. Just as he had followed her for hours, he would follow her in death as well. He would never stop following her as long as his soul remained.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her slowly changing eyes watched him for a moment. “Why shouldn’t I? It is what I want and I plan to get what I want.”

“Please do not kill yourself, a part of me died with you when you did so the last time.”

“You think I care, Sesshomaru?”

He knew that she most likely did not but that didn’t change how he felt. “I know you don’t.”

“You don’t know anything, Sesshomaru. You don’t know anything about me or what I care about.” The sadness in her voice cut him to ribbons. “I tried to tell you, I tried talking with you but it always ended with me in tears. Words always fall deaf to your ears.”

“I will cha-”

“Change? You already told me that you can’t,” she interrupted as she turned around.

“How?” he questioned, nothing he said had made it apparent to him.

“Indecently arousing,” she shot at him. She said arousing as if it was a poison that would kill.

He didn’t understand, had it been insulting to her to say the truth? She had been arousing then, just as she was now. Dressed, undressed, pregnant with his child or thin as she was; she was so beautiful that he could take her at any time.

He wanted her whenever he could have her. It did not mean that he would continue to be a beast and take her as he had.

Sesshomaru was determined to change…for her.

“I apologize if that was inappropriate but it was how I felt at the time. It doesn’t change the fact that your clothes were…always like that.”

She laughed, the sound was so hollow and pained that it was more like the sound of a dying animal than a sound of happiness.

It was nothing like when she had played with him and their daughter. He thought of that moment, needing the happiness that they had shared with their oldest. His arms started to ache all over again. Only, it was Kagome that he longed to hold. It was their children.

“Inappropriate! You say it’s inappropriate but it is more than that. It’s all you think about is sex, sex and more sex if not getting me pregnant with more than one baby. I’m your property, after all, your concubine, aren’t I” she suddenly screeched at him.

Sesshomaru shook his head at that and said the only word that mattered. “No.”

She stopped and waited, most likely for him to continue. Only there was nothing else to say.

She was no longer his concubine and never would be again.

When he didn’t continue, she questioned him. “I don’t understand, I’m not your property or I’m not your concubine?”

There was nothing to say to her question. He could only give her the truth. “You are my mate, Kagome.”

“Sakura is your mate,” she shot back at him without hesitation.

“Sakura is dead and she was never the one I loved. She was a pawn for peace and I was the same as well as a fool. I should have left all of my beliefs about humans behind me as you and Rin showed me the truth but I continued to be blind,” he roared at her. He needed her to believe him. “I have loved you from the first moment I have laid eyes on you and I will love you until my soul is extinguished.”

Her flames grew more and more violent, consuming and spreading as they had before. They threatened the world, burning everything as they changed from their beautiful blue to a blinding white.

They were blinding and his eyes were hot with pain as all he saw faded to white. He was certain that they would burn his sight away as well as his life; only he remained unharmed. He was hot, but not on fire as he thought he would be.

He stood there unsure until he heard her voice.
“I have nothing to say to you.”

Chapter 18 Sesshomaru’s Mate chapters Chapter 20