When Sesshoumaru held out his hand to her, Kagome took it. As he helped her to her feet, he pulled her to him. His lips pressed to her brow. Into her tousled bangs he spoke. “You must know that I love you.” Kagome’s eyes flared wide as she gripped his arms. Her heart constricted, as

You must know that I love you. Kagome sighed, staring off into the distance. A gust of cool breeze fanned over her cheeks.  The snows were finally melting, sloughing off the eaves of roofs and the branches of trees like old dead skins. The ground was patchy, dark where the drifts had frayed and shrunk

Later that day, while Inuyasha was out on an errand, Miroku dropped by the hut. It wasn’t a coincidence he was stopping by when Inuyasha was gone. Shifty-eyed, the monk slipped past the door curtain without so much as a word to announce his presence. Normally, this would have startled Kagome senseless, but she was

The arrival of spring didn’t do much to lift Kagome’s spirits. Now well into her third trimester, the more-or-less constant state of discomfort she was in made it hard for her to enjoy the nice, warm weather—or anything, really. It was becoming increasingly difficult, just for her to get up and about. Even puttering around

“I’m just bringing you up to speed,” Inuyasha groused to his older brother. His coarse sleeve brushed Kagome’s face as he dropped down beside her, trying to uncoil her from her stiff, fetal crouch. “She’s in a lot of pain, in case you couldn’t tell.” Kagome whimpered, resisting. At his jostling, a fresh wave of

Every few days or so, Sesshoumaru dropped by to relieve Kagome’s reiki build-up, whether she was experiencing any headaches or not. To her annoyance, Inuyasha backed him up on this. To her further annoyance, he skipped off whenever Sesshoumaru arrived to attend to her, claiming he couldn’t stand to watch. It made his blood boil,

Seeming to sense that he’d really hurt her with his last remark, Sesshoumaru dialed back on the verbal offensive. Kagome was relieved, though she had the sneaking suspicion he was only biding his time until he thought of a new strategy to get under her skin. Either way, he kept the reiki-purging sessions to a

Inuyasha didn’t return home that day, or even that night. Exhausted with waiting up for him— exhausted with being angry waiting up for him—Kagome at last collapsed into a sleep so fitful even Taiyoutori’s egg (cocoa-flavored, that morning) couldn’t soothe her. There were dark circles under her eyes when she woke up the next day—to

Kagome’s jumpy nerves calmed a little. Normally she would’ve been irked at Sesshoumaru being so brisk with her, but under the present circumstances, she was relieved. With an inward sigh, she laid out her hand.  The moment he took it, she realized what a terrible mistake she had made. Not because of how he was

At the clutch to his wrist, Sesshoumaru paused, glancing back. Kagome sat frozen. She gaped at him, unable to move, to speak. All she knew was that as terrible as it was for her to touch him, it was even more terrible not to feel him at all. But she couldn’t say this. She couldn’t