Dubious though it had been, Sesshoumaru’s fascination with Hirokin’s first sexual conquest had left an indelible impression upon him.

Apart from contests of pure intellect, rarely had the demon prince seen his best friend show him an inkling of respect, let alone admiration. But it had been there, glaring out from beneath the searing scrutiny of that golden gaze—a glint of unmistakable awe.

It had driven Hirokin, as it drove him now, to prove his worthiness in Sesshoumaru’s eyes.

To earn his hard-won approval.

…

The harem of the River Palace was as legendary as it was elusive. Yet Hirokin had no trouble making his way there.

Within this underwater sanctum, the most beautiful and eligible females of his kind remained cloistered. In the ancient days of his grandfather’s rule, they had been prisoners in truth, confined day and night to their gilded cage—save for the few scarce hours when they would be summoned forth to serve. Yet with Ryuutarou’s ascent to the throne, and his devotion to his mate Haname, this shadowy tradition of royal concubines had ended, and now the honor of belonging to the harem was a mere formality to be enjoyed at the leisure of its esteemed members.

Pampered, idle, and restless, they lounged about, trading bits of finery and gossip between themselves as they awaited some better diversion to find them. At the chorus of elated cries, at the ecstatic flinging of silks and jewels through the perfumed space, Hirokin’s arrival seemed the perfect distraction. Smirking a little, he let himself be swarmed and swept to the center of the shell-shaped chamber, to be seated there like a prized pearl at the heart of the soft, shimmering throng.

“Ah, Hirokin-sama—what a treat!”

“How lovely it is to see you, my lord!”

“Will you be staying long, dear cousin?—please say that you will!”

Smoothly, Hirokin replied, “Long as I am able to, my lady—though that can never be long enough.”

As she and the rest blushed and tittered at this, his sister Hanako scoffed from the fringes, her jade eyes narrowed upon the game of go she was losing. “My elder brother’s company is a rare commodity indeed. You should all be so lucky as to catch a grain of his most coveted attentions.”

Hirokin’s practiced smile didn’t waver in the slightest.

“Now, now, Hana-chan, don’t be sour,” their younger sister Himamori lilted from her place at the head of the pack. Blue eyes so like Hirokin’s own glittered up at him in sheer indulgence, as she twined her delicate fingers through his hair. “Our liege lord is an exacting master—isn’t that so, Onii-san?”

She found it titillating, Hirokin supposed, the idea of him being Sesshoumaru’s little pet. Amongst his siblings, this had long been a favored source of teasing and ridicule—though it was clear that none of them, not even Houseki for all his vicious taunting, truly believed it. This was due in part to their bigotry, in part to Sesshoumaru’s cold hostility, and in part to the reputation Hirokin had labored to create for himself through centuries of vicious self-denial.

A reputation he had neglected in his preoccupation with Kou, and must now take pains to restore.

Plucking Himamori’s hand discreetly from his haori as it began to wander, Hirokin spent the next hour or so entertaining the ladies of the harem with news from beyond the Lake—which despite their air of stubborn superiority, they devoured with relish. All the while, as they flirted and fawned, he scanned the room for a likely mark.

Vain and vapid were the qualities he most often looked for in a lover, and those traits were in abundance here. Many of these demonesses he had certainly trysted with before. To an extent, there was comfort in the familiar, and when one of his old favorites Umihana came sidling up to him, with no regards for even Himamori’s icy glare, Hirokin had all but settled upon her.

“But surely, my lord, you must find it exhausting,” she said silkily as she fondled his knee in a show of commiseration, her gem-studded rings chafing him through the fine knit of his clothes. “I cannot imagine it, enduring the company of those graceless land-dwellers. It is well you’ve returned for a reprieve.”

“Well indeed.” Hirokin’s eyes held hers, glinting. “I’ve been away for so long, I fear I may have forgotten the way to my bed.”

“I haven’t,” Umihana murmured, as she slipped her hand into his.

“Such a clever girl,” Hirokin lied easily as she tugged him to his feet, a chorus of disappointed whines following after them. Dipping his mouth close to her ear, he added lowly, “Can you tell I’ve been dying to fuck you from the start?”

Her aura sizzled as she giggled like a fool.  “Oh! Hirokin-sama—”

A sudden sharp slam went up from the periphery of the room, followed by a clattering of stones on polished wood.

“Masaki!” Hanako cried as all eyes turned to her opponent, a demoness with violet irises as iridescent and keen as the scales of the small, sleek dragon wound about her from shoulder to hip.

To Hirokin’s surprise, it was not to Hanako, but to himself that Masaki’s gaze had flashed. As he met it with a frown, an embarrassed flush fanned out high across her fair cheeks, before she rose and retreated swiftly toward the door of the chamber.

“If you leave, you forfeit the match!” Hanako sneered after her, but Masaki left all the same, vanishing in a flurry of silk, sparkling scales, and rivulets of pure silver tresses.

…

Of course, with little real interest in pursuing the opposite sex, Hirokin had found himself at a loss as to how to proceed. Now that he’d bothered to notice, not a few demonesses’ gazes had been lingering suggestively upon him. But his natural aversion had held him back.

What if he could not stay hard enough to please them? What if his own displeasure could not be disguised?—these had been the thoughts that had plagued him, even as he’d mustered the nerve to take one of them to bed at last.

Quickly he’d realized that his own insecurities had paled in comparison to those of his female partner. Naturally, she’d assumed the fault had been hers, and Hirokin’s relief at this had been indescribable. Heaping a cool dismissal on her for good measure, he’d sent her on her dismal way.

Still, Hirokin had known that he couldn’t continue this pattern forever. Bitches would talk, and his reputation would eventually suffer for it.

He would have to think of something else.

…

Umihana was soft and yielding as Hirokin pinned her to the wall against him and crushed his mouth to hers. Wantonly she writhed in his hold, her breasts flattening mercifully to his chest as Hirokin continued to muffle her feminine moans. She had exactly the sort of voluptuous figure Sesshoumaru lusted after and Hirokin despaired of.

But she was simple-minded, and that made things a great deal easier to manage.

…

By sheer coincidence, or some stroke of good fortune, he had stumbled upon the stash of forbidden scrolls. Erotic art was hardly in short supply around his father’s palace, yet this had been something different entirely.

Where Hirokin’s youthful imagination had failed him—or perhaps had simply not yet dared to venture on its own—the sordid images of coupling males had painted a shockingly vivid picture. Hirokin’s jaw had fallen slack before he’d thrust the scroll back into the hidden trunk and slammed it shut, and left that old musty corner of the archives altogether.

But the images could not be so easily put from his mind. Seared into his consciousness, they had tormented him with their terrible sensuality, until he’d lain awake feverish night after night.

Until in a tempest of fury and frustration he’d stolen back to that trunk and scored his heated gaze over every conjoining line and thick, plunging stroke.

…

“Deeper,” he seethed around the fingers buried in his mouth.

“My lord, I dare not!” Umihana whined from his lap.

“Deeper, you dumb fucking slut,” he hissed back, and though her youki flared in anger, she complied, thrusting her hand toward the back of his throat.

Hirokin groaned, gagging. As his cock went fully hard at the invasion, Umihana groaned as well, her walls rippling fluidly around him. If a bitch was aggressive enough, he could almost forget that she was female. Closing his eyes, Hirokin imagined it was blood-thickened shaft ramming down his throat, instead of a slender, feminine wrist.

…

The ruthless plundering of his mouth, his ass—

For Hirokin in his youth, this had been the most blissful of freedoms. Wrapped up in the fantasy that it had been Sesshoumaru inflicting these punishments upon him, he had come easily, time after time.

Forever seeking Sesshoumaru in his partners, he had found his path to release.

…

So then, why wasn’t it working now?

Despite Umihana’s best efforts, Hirokin could feel himself going soft within her, and his frustrations mounted in contrast. In another second, she realized it herself, and stilled above him, panting.

“My lord, what’s wrong?”

…

There were many currents that flowed within a living being.

Hirokin had realized this from an early age. Yet manipulating those currents had come with knowledge and experience.

And some were far easier to bend to his will than others.

…

With perfect, escalating subtlety, he heated Umihana’s blood in her veins, increased its pressure and flow to her teeming flesh. Despite his waning desire, her own began to build as he changed their positions to further distract her, wrenching her around and underneath him. As her back hit the smooth surface of the bed, she gasped, her eyes misting with senseless pleasure.

“What’s wrong,” he murmured, as he stoked her so wholly from within that his own limpness was beyond her notice, “is your lack of a cock, my dear.”

Her brow furrowed, her lush lips parting in confusion. But Hirokin simply smiled as he reached within her mind, following the straightforward course of her thoughts and promptly reversing it. As easily as flexing his little finger, he erased her memory of his last words and of her own, and replaced them with the pure orgasmic sensation of what she was feeling now—a full-body release that wracked through her like a tide, and through Hirokin like the bitterest pangs of defeat.

…

But all Umihana remembered was the pleasure. Flushed, whimpering, she sagged helplessly against him, still reeling.

“I…my lord, I…”

Enraged at himself, Hirokin pushed her off his lap, impatient to have her gone. When she reached for him still in her muddled afterglow, he caught her hand and squeezed it with barely suppressed irritation.

“Now, now, my darling,” he said with brittle lightness, as he picked up her dress and pressed it to her, “you have utterly worn me out.”

“…Hai, my lord,” Umihana said demurely. Slipping back into her sheer kimono, she held it closed at the chest, eyeing him with a tentative hopefulness that made him all the bitterer. “Yet, perhaps later, after you have rested—”

“Alas, no,” he said firmly, herding her now toward the door of an adjoining room. “After I have rested, I must depart.”

“But, my lord—”

With a swift, cool kiss Hirokin cut off her protests. Stepping back from her, he pushed her the rest of the way through the threshold, and closed the screen soundly behind her.

Carding a hand through his mussed hair, Hirokin sighed tersely as he glared toward the opposite door.

Beyond it, in the antechamber, stood Ryuutarou, his slitted emerald eyes scanning the room in perfect nonchalance. He was looking for all the world as though he’d only just arrived to intrude on the privacy of his youngest son. But Hirokin knew better.

“Ah, there you are!” The River Lord beamed, his smile as gleaming and broad as the bands of silver scale that ringed his form. “I hope I have not disturbed you.”

“What do you want, Father?” Hirokin flatly inquired, still holding the screen mostly shut between them.

“Am I not permitted to call upon my own son, in my own house?” Ryuutarou’s lips pursed into their habitual pout, his tone taking on a wounded inflection. “One might have hoped you would have come to greet me first.”

Hirokin rolled his eyes. Discreetly adjusting the sash of his robes, he stepped forward to do just that—yet it seemed Ryuutarou had already forgotten the offense, as he began to peer about the room more intently.

“Now where is that special ink of yours,” he said, eyeing the travel chests Hirokin’s attendants had stacked off to one side. “I have a need for a smooth, flawless finish, and that last batch you sent me has just run out.” Without the slightest prompting, he withdrew a small scroll from his haori and unfurled it proudly upon a table. “I am in the heated throes of composing a verse, you see. Rough brushstrokes would sully the art.”

Hirokin gave a short, dismissive wave. “Yes, it’s there—in that first chest.”

As Ryuutarou began to rifle gleefully through his son’s possessions, Hirokin walked over to the table, to see precisely what kind of ‘art’ his father was so intent upon. Glancing over the flourishing characters of the poem, the phrases golden-eyed goddess and snowdrifts of downy fur sent Hirokin soaring to new heights of agitation.

“This—this drivel you’re writing—it’s about Inukimi-sama!” Red-faced with fury, he snatched up the strip of parchment in his fist. “I told you no more letters.”

“I wasn’t going to send it to her!” Ryuutarou protested, his eyes going wide with horror as Hirokin’s hand began to glow. “I was only going to hang it by my bedside.”

Snarling back a curse, Hirokin froze the scroll and shattered it in his nails like a sheet of the thinnest ice. “You’re incorrigible.”

“And you are a heartless tyrant,” Ryuutarou exclaimed, his claw streaking out at Hirokin in rueful admonition. “Woe unto the poor damsel who must someday subsist upon your miserly affections!”

Hirokin grit his teeth, beyond his limit for such foolishness. “You and I both know full well that is never going to happen.”

Ryuutarou frowned as he drew himself upright. For once, it seemed, the glib River Lord was at a loss for words. Yet that frown of his had been telling enough. Never in all his life had Hirokin spoken so candidly of his deviant preferences, and this admission he knew he could never take back. Of all the creatures whose memories Hirokin had set out to alter, his father remained the only one for whom such attempts had failed.

Around the mind of Ryuutarou an impenetrable fog seemed to hover. Even now, Hirokin could hear his father’s blithe remark of ‘Hm, that tickles’ echoing back at him from failures past.

Yet what Ryuutarou said to him now, after a long, tortuous moment of consideration, was: “Now, now, Hirokin. This piquant little fancy of yours—someday it shall pass. Why, there was a time when even your mother—”

“Father,” Hirokin hissed out, and Ryuutarou desisted with a flippant gesture.

“At any rate,” he said, smiling leisurely, “you will come to see what I mean. Only a female can give you children, and a balanced union of flesh and spirit. What good can coupling with a male ever give, apart from a toughened backside?”

Pale with mortification, Hirokin shook his head as he turned away. A few beats of silence passed before Ryuutarou spoke again.

“I’ve chosen a match for Houseki, by the way.”

Exhaling in relief at this most welcome change of subject, Hirokin turned back. “Have you.”

Ryuutarou nodded, smiling still. “A distant cousin of yours: the shy, thoughtful one with the violet eyes, and that clever little beast that clings forever to her side. It is a rare thing, you know, to bond with a dragon one did not hatch from the egg…”

But Hirokin had ceased listening. His father could pontificate on the finer points of dragon-rearing for hours upon end.

“Masaki,” he said.

Ryuutarou’s expression brightened. “Ah, so you know her, then. And what do you think of her, as your future sister-in-law?”

Recalling the piercing flash of those violet eyes upon him, Hirokin hesitated. At this memory, he felt the strangest sense of reservation. Perhaps it was simply the sheer effrontery of the image, though in truth she had cowed readily enough before him, after that.

And, he supposed, his father had his reasons.

“She will do,” Hirokin pronounced at last.

…

Hirokin’s sour mood did not leave him with his departure from his ancestral home. If anything, his dourness had only compounded by the time he returned to the Western Palace.

It did not take Inukimi long to remark upon it.

“You seem out of sorts, my dear.”

Thinly, Hirokin smiled. “These are trying times, my lady.”

Sesshoumaru’s mother nodded in understanding. For a while, she was silent, her golden eyes regarding him a little too keenly above the gilded edge of her fan.

“It is Kou who is troubling you, is it not?”

Hirokin’s expression remained the picture of calm indifference. “Kou, my lady?” The slant of his lips steepened slightly. “Forgive me, but I cannot see why one of your guards should trouble me.”

Steadily, she regarded him still. “You are an accomplished actor, Hirokin. Yet your lover is not. I have noticed how raptly his eyes follow you, not least of all because they follow me so little.”

Hirokin returned her level stare, though inside the cage of his being, his youki thrashed like a serpent caught in the snare. Yet there was a note of wounded pride in this last remark of hers, and desperately he seized upon it.

“Yours is a fearful beauty, Inukimi-sama. Can you blame the lout for averting his unworthy gaze? Dumb though he is, your guard is not blind.”

Her fan snapped shut. “Enough now,” she said. “Do you love me so little that you would continue to deceive me to my face?”

The intensity of her reproving glare defeated him at last. Bowing his head a little, Hirokin turned away with a grimace.

“I love you with all my heart,” he said to her, sincerely.

“As I love you,” she replied, mollified. Hirokin struggled not to flinch as her hand touched to his. “You are a second son to me, Hirokin. Do you think that after all these years I would not know you? Do you think I have not grieved for you, as any mother would, to see you suffer as you have? Sesshoumaru will never return your feelings; he cannot. Yet here now is one who can. Though you’ve inveigled me, I am happy for you. It was a clever contrivance,” she admitted, smiling a little in chagrin. “But let there be no such secrets between us any longer.”

Despite her loving assurances, Hirokin was far from comforted. Never in all his life had he felt so acutely vulnerable. So miserably exposed. Stripped bare of all his carefully constructed defenses, he felt resentful. Ashamed. The spiteful part of him wanted to drag her down to his level of abject humiliation. Before he even fully realized what he was saying, the words had left him in a cold, stinging rush.

“My father told me what happened,” he said, his eyes cutting to hers, “in the valley, on that day.”

It had been a longshot, this bluff of his—a lashing out in the truest sense. Yet to Hirokin’s amazement there was the faintest simmer of indignation in Inukimi’s mirrored gaze. As she began to withdraw her hand from his, Hirokin reached back for her in furious abandon. From this point of contact, he raced along the flow of her thoughts, following it to the source.

Inukimi’s mind was like his, a vast and placid sea, yet there was a disturbance rippling at the surface of her memories. Within this distortion he saw fragmented images: grey skies above the gully of Ryuukotsusei’s once living grave—vindication at its blasted emptiness—grief at her remembered loss—rage at Hirokin’s father for his untimely intrusion—a red haze coloring her vision—two great beasts locked together in vicious conflict—the pillared canyon collapsing around them—pale limbs intertwined amidst the rubble—fur and flesh corded in bands of scale, bleeding and straining for release—tears obscuring sight, cries obscuring sound—devastation in the aftermath, and Ryuutarou’s weary voice cooing ‘there, there’ as she shuddered in his arms—

Hirokin’s hand fell from hers. His chest constricted as he struggled to process what he had seen. Shock was at the forefront of his thoughts—no small amount of it due to the fact that his father had survived the ordeal.

Inukimi’s violence was legendary. For all his laziness and buffoonery, it seemed Ryuutarou was far stronger—and wilier—than Hirokin had given him credit for, the old devil.

“Hirokin,” Inukimi said guardedly after a moment, for in fact all of this, unbeknownst to her, had transpired in a moment’s time. “Whatever your father has told you about us—”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Hirokin confessed. “All that he said was that he wished to meet you there again.”

Unsnapping her fan, Inukimi raised it to her face in a gesture of brisk dismissal. “Hmph. Such impudence.”

Yet above the fine scalloped edge, there was a glint of amusement in her eye. As Hirokin caught it, her look became grave. Significant.

“Sesshoumaru must never know,” she said.

“No,” Hirokin agreed.

In this pact of shared secrecy, he was at last reassured. More than that, in her bridging of the subject, he intuited a long-awaited opportunity had finally presented itself.

“Speaking of your son, Inukimi-sama,” he continued after a pause, “there is something more I must tell you.”

…

Inukimi had been distraught by what Hirokin had confided to her. Yet only one who knew her well would have been able to tell it, by the tension that shadowed her features. Remarking that she must “reflect upon all this,” she retired to her inner chambers, yielding the vestibule to him.

Alone, Hirokin lingered, lost in reflections of his own. It was near now to the time when the changing of the guard would occur. Only when the captain entered to take his leave did Hirokin rise from his seat, to greet Kou in Inukimi’s stead.

Surprised, the inuyoukai halted, frowning, just inside the door. Hirokin stepped toward him, his expression mild.

“Once,” he said, “long ago, someone told me that they admired my courage. It was the finest compliment I’d ever received, yet it seems that over time I had forgotten it completely.” A few feet from Kou he stopped. “I am tired of being ruled by fear. Being with you is the freest I have felt in all my life.”

…

In the palace by the sea, Hirokin let himself be brave again. His fear was no less. If anything, it was all the greater. A fresh new terror had possessed him, as surely as he himself was being possessed. Yet with it was an exhilaration he had never known before—it was in the rush of his blood, the thrum of his nerves, the heat of his skin.

It was the purest sensation of freedom, a paradoxical thrill that could only be appreciated in contrast. For centuries, Hirokin had been locked inside himself. Skewered and pinned beneath the hard-muscled body of his male lover, he was released—

For the moment.

“So I am your first,” Hirokin said musingly, after. Sprawled at Kou’s side, he skimmed his nails idly over the corrugated breadth of the soldier’s abdomen and chest. “The only demon who has stirred you to such madness.”

Against him Kou imperceptibly shifted. Hirokin stiffened. Bolting upright, he glared down at the inuyoukai who was not quite meeting his gaze, and gripped him by the jaw.

“Who was he?” Hirokin demanded, not bothering to temper his jealous outburst in the slightest. “You had better tell me now—all of it. Gods fucking help you if you lie to me; I will know it.”

Kou shook his dark maned head. “No, this was different. I did care for him, but he was nowhere near as lovely as you, nor so clever.” Somewhat appeased by this, Hirokin relaxed his grip as Kou sat up to join him. “He was not like you at all—nor me, for that matter. He was not like us.”

Hirokin understood all too well. “Tell me about him anyway. Clearly the thought of him has some hold over you, still.”

“Very well; though first I must tell you more about myself.”

…

“I did not know my father,” the inuyoukai began. “My mother claimed he was a great lord, fearsome yet kind. She was fanciful, my mother.” Kou’s lips curved into a wistful smile. “She claimed also that I had his eyes, and this I do believe, since hers were as green as yours are blue.”

A curious dread seized at Hirokin, as he looked into Kou’s striking golden stare. Surely, the demon prince thought, not willing even to give voice to the doubt in his mind—

Surely, not…

“Koi, what is it?” Kou paused to ask, his own dark brow furrowing in turn.

“Nothing,” Hirokin said with all the casualness he could feign. “Go on—I am listening.”

“When the rest of my pack was slain in an enemy raid, I was left with nothing, no one,” Kou resumed, glancing off toward the distant moonlit sea that gleamed through the open shutters. “I wandered for a time, I don’t know how long. Eventually, I came to a mountainous land far to the north. I was so weary. All I had left to me was my grandfather’s sword—it is the heavy blade I carry with me now—yet back then I could do little more than strap it to my back, let alone swing it. When I fought, it was with fang and claw. So many times I was forced to flee; so many times I nearly died. I was near in fact to death when I came upon this place. By the first stream I met, I fell into a feverish stupor, overcome by the latest wounds inflicted upon me. It was Hebimaru who found me, and cleansed the poison from my veins.”

“This Hebimaru,” Hirokin interrupted with a twist of lip. “So he was the one who enchanted you so.”

Kou nodded in his simple, earnest way. “He was older than I was, yet not very strong. He did not bear up well under the venom he had inherited from his terrible mother. Those mountains were her domain, and she reigned just as cruelly over him as she did her rocky keep.”

Hirokin braced his chin in his palm. “I suppose she would have welcomed you not.”

“No; Hebimaru kept me hidden from her, and dwelling there for a while in the foothills, I rested and regained my strength. It was the first peace I had known since my mother’s death. Hebimaru was gentle with me, though I must have troubled him. He knew what I was even before I did. I was just coming into adulthood, and I could not conceal what I felt for him. Even as he rejected me, he was gentle with me still. He told me I mustn’t reveal such things until I found another demon like myself.”

Here Kou held Hirokin’s gaze, and the demon prince flushed despite himself. “And so?—what happened to this gentle soul?”

Kou’s jaw tightened as he glanced away. “Though he was weak, he aspired to overthrow his mother. He was prone to such idle talk. Still, I should have dissuaded him. I did not think he would truly attempt it; even now I wonder if it was because of me that he did.”

“You mean that his mother discovered you?”

“Perhaps.” Kou’s gaze was dark as he frowned down at the claws furled in his lap. “It happened very fast. From the high peaks above, I felt that his presence was gone. And then she was barreling down upon me. She was terrible, truly she was—she had the form of a gigantic serpent with seven heads. By all rights I should have died. A part of me longed to join Hebimaru in death. But what I longed for even more was to avenge him. I felt such consuming rage; everything went red, and when my sight had cleared there were only pieces of her left, scattered about, and her foul blood thickening in my mouth. I had not just killed her, Hirokin—I had ripped her to shreds.”

…

A chill threaded down Hirokin’s spine. From the abyssal recesses of memory, crimson eyes glared back at him, ghastly and looming above one ravaged corpse after another. Feral eyes that, though familiar, seemed to know him not.

“A passion beyond your control,” he said quietly, as if to himself, “had swept you up in its grip. As for hopeless devotion, I know the feeling well enough.”

“Sesshoumaru-sama,” Kou replied, and at Hirokin’s sharp, suspicious glance, he elaborated. “I had an intuition about you, but Hebimaru had warned me to be careful. It was only after I’d observed you for a while, around Sesshoumaru-sama, that I was certain.”

“Gods,” Hirokin muttered, shaking his head in embarrassment. “But no—I was not referring to him. Not exactly.”

And now he himself looked through the shutters to the sea. The night was clear, yet a fine mist hung above the water, pale and sparkling and ethereal as the wisps of her hair.

“My mother was a goddess,” Hirokin said.

Kou smiled at him, slight and dreamy. “I can believe it.”

“No,” the demon prince said, fixing his gaze upon Kou’s. “She was a goddess, in truth. A deity of the sea, and its king was her lord father.” As the corners of Kou’s lips descended at the gravity of this, Hirokin continued. “When she left the sea to marry my father, she was stripped of her divinity. Her father was so enraged at her choices that he banished her from his realm, forever—though later, after his anger had cooled, he gifted this palace to her, for she was his only daughter and he loved her dearly.”

“What became of her?” Kou asked.

“She was killed by Touga, Sesshoumaru-sama’s late father.” Hirokin’s eyes narrowed, his tone darkening. “The great task of my life has been to avenge her wrongful death…”

…

“Rutting with humans and siring half-breeds now is he, little cousin?” An aura black as night descended upon the land. Drawing himself up to his full and terrible height, Ryuukotsusei rumbled down at Hirokin. “This soft-hearted cur who fancies himself Lord of the Western Lands…”

…

“Against all who’d had a hand in it.”

…

“What was I to do? Do you think I wished to choose between my wife and my heir?” Ryuutarou cried, seizing at Hirokin’s sleeve when he turned away in disdain. “It was Haname herself who put forth the plan, to name herself the heretic in Hiraitou’s stead. I could not take her place; if it was thought that I’d raised the revolt, our whole house would have been destroyed, root and stem…”

…

“Against all who’d dared forget.”

…

“You are my brother,” Hiraitou bloodily gasped, as Hirokin stood by and watched him perish along with the rest of his rebel force. “How could you betray me…”

…

“Sesshoumaru’s reign was my vengeance.”

…

“…My lord,” Ryuutarou mumbled, hollow-eyed and broken with loss, as he knelt before Sesshoumaru’s throne to pay fealty; and Hirokin at his side felt nothing but his own seething emptiness.

…

“…My punishment as well,” Hirokin concluded past the ache in his chest. “It is an ocean of regret that binds us together. An ocean of blood I have offered up, in worship to her, in service to him—and it will never be enough.”

“Then,” Kou said, taking Hirokin by the arms, “you must let them go for your own sake, and devote yourself elsewhere.”

Hirokin’s expression crumpled as he clung to his lover in turn.

In his mind, the image of Kagome burned, so painfully bright that he could hardly stand to contemplate it. How strange, he thought, that his salvation should hang upon the shoulders of a mortal, and a priestess at that…

“Yes,” Hirokin said in a strangled whisper, “I must.”

---

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Blergh, work has been murder so this took me a lot longer than intended – doesn’t help that it’s also super long itself 😛 Thanks for humoring me on this ride 😉