The dark skies thundered. The blasted earth shook. Youki smoldered and seethed, a black, burning haze. “In due time,” Sesshoumaru said through gritted fangs, “I’d have secured a proper match for Rin—a mate, not a ‘husband.’ She might have lived on, my immortal daughter forever after. But now, thanks to your meddling, the chance has

Kagome felt like the ground had been torn out from underneath her. In the void of Sesshoumaru’s absence, her heart floundered, bereft. She might have stayed weeping in that state of desolation indefinitely. But her concern for her baby outweighed her distress. She dredged herself up from the frozen mud with Shin in arms. Wrapping

Inuyasha looked like he was about to say something else. But Shin gnawing on his wrist drew his attention away. “Hey, knock it off. You’d draw blood if you bit a human like that.” Shin desisted, though Kagome suspected it was more from the rumble underscoring Inuyasha’s voice than from the words themselves. Planting his

Spring approached.  The air warmed. The days grew longer. The ground thawed and greened, and the birds began to sing. Earth, sky and sea, the world around teemed with fresh new life.  But Kagome remained frozen, stuck in the neverending winter of her melancholy. Her eyes saw. Her ears heard. Her senses perceived. But in

No more, Sesshoumaru had said. And he had meant it. There had been a cold, hard finality in his voice, like a steel door slamming shut. Like a forbidding spell. He was gone. Kagome knew it. So why couldn’t she accept it? The bitter pill remained lodged in her throat. She was unable to swallow

That night, Kagome dreamed. She stood in the clearing of Goshinboku. Not far from the Bone-Eater’s Well but not close to it either. The well was simply an object she glimpsed in her periphery, a presence she felt faintly glowing at her back. It was springtime in Edo, just like it had been the first

How long? The words clanged in Kagome’s skull like a funeral gong, sounding above the desperate pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears. In a fleeting moment of sheer panic, she glanced toward the crib. Inuyasha’s piercing gaze followed hers—snapping to Shin where he stood in his hanyou form, staring at them with his

Kagome glanced down at Shin, now in his human form. In her arms he was quiet and tense. His blue eyes met hers, wide and terrified. She didn’t know whether it was because of Inuyasha or her or the magic of the well—maybe it was all of the above—but she rocked him in her arms

It was a while before Kagome gathered the wherewithal to pull herself back from her mother’s embrace. Straightening and swiping at her wet sticky face, she was thankful that it was still dark out, so that her mother wouldn’t see just how much of a trainwreck she was— For the moment, anyway. Holding onto her

Kagome bowed her head, squeezing her mother’s hand tight. Tears dripped from her face to the table. The mixture of pain and relief she felt overwhelmed her. Now someone else apart from herself knew the whole story. Even Sesshoumaru hadn’t known the full extent of her marital difficulties with Inuyasha. She’d never confessed that to