Chapter one;
The lies our parents told us
“Why do you let him go to her?” He asked. His voice was hot with anger though his eyes still held the ice she’d always known in his gaze. “You are his true mate. My mother. You rule together.”
She studied him a long time. The same jaw as his father, but the rest aside from shared features were all hers. She’d raised him away from his father. He’d yearned to be near him, still she always told him that it was for his safety. Her mate was a strong and capable fighter, but not when his son was near him. The boy softened him in ways she’d never thought possible. But there were other reasons. Reasons he never needed to know. “He is the lord of these lands, Sesshou. I have no power over how he treats them.”
“You speak as if this woman were a part of the land.” He spat. His anger and hatred of the woman was overwhelming even for Satori.
“Humans are a part of the land. Aside from the stray miko or monk, there is no real separation for the lords who protect and rule between them and the land they live on. He loves his lands. So it does not disturb me that he loves this fleeting mortal woman. He is mine until time ends and it is best I not hold him from his pleasures.”
“She carries his seed and will birth a hanyou, Mother.” He growled, finally sitting after pacing for well over an hour before her. He was only a pup still in her eyes. His father was well over a millennia old. She had only been a few hundred years old when he’d chosen her, mated her and their heir was born. Her mate could have been her father twice over.
“The hanyou is none of my affair, Sesshou. That is your father’s dealings with his land.”
“It's your land too!”
“Quiet yourself and listen.” She only used that tone on him once every few decades, though the span between times was getting more and more distant. He growled and silenced his words and met her eyes with a look of disgust. “One day you will have his position and you will understand. You will grasp why he has done what he has done because it will be in your heart to do as well.” He snarled, but to his credit he managed to mind his tongue. “I do not care because he’s mine until the end of time. When he is at my side, there is no question in my mind who he belongs to and who I belong to. It would be different if he were to bind her to him with his aura and make her immortal. He hasn’t and will not do that because he doesn’t love her. Not the way he loves me.” Lies. She knew they were lies as she said them but she’d anticipated this conversation and knew what she was going to say long before she said it. Sesshomaru would accept her words. He always did. He believed she wouldn’t ever lie to him.
He nodded finally and looked from her gaze. “I will always hate his half-blooded son. Someday I will kill him.”
“If you must, you must.” She said cooly. It left a bitter taste in her mouth, the whole business. But it had to be done. The lie had to be maintained for the sake of what was to come. Her son left her then in anger and confusion. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to impart the truth that only she and his father knew, but she could not. Did it tear her apart that he had rutted with that mortal woman and sired a bastard with her? Yes. Every moment. And to his credit, he returned to her as often as he dared and made it up to her the best he could.
She touched her flat belly and fought back tears. Her first son had stollen her ability to give birth to any other child. They had their heir, but another was necessary. The prophecy had been set in place on her own birth. It was why she’d been chosen by him to be his mate. He’d watched her grow and become the woman that he fell hopelessly in love with. He hadn’t intended to love her, just follow the path that fate had set for them. Sesshomaru had been born shortly after their bonding and it was that early birth for her that took her ability to fulfill what she had thought was her destiny. The second son was not hers to bear.
He had nearly killed the seer when the truth had been told. It had been kept from her mate to ensure that he took her as his and kept Satori. Her part was to ensure that their first son could rule the land when his father was dead. They were given a name, a date and a place for the birth of the mortal woman who would birth his second son and told that after the boy was born he would be taken from the world and from her. The two mothers then would raise and tend their sons until they were of age and then they would find their paths together to end the suffering of the world. Together they will slay a great evil who will possess an object of untold power. Love will be their guide and her name will be Kagome. She smiled faintly at the name. It was a name with no meaning and yet it was so soft and filled with promise. That’s the meaning of nothing, Satori. She thought softly, her smile warming faintly. Its promise is completely unknown and unexpected and yet... It is that fact that makes it more powerful than any meaning anyone could give it. It’s the meaning it gives itself that makes it great.
There was little time now for her and her beloved lord. He loved the little mortal who he had sired his half-blooded prince within. But it was fiery fleeting love. It wasn’t the kind of love he held for Satori. Theirs was a love that was forged to survive into eternity. Mortals, though capable of reincarnation, were doomed to forget utterly their love from one lifetime to the next. And so he loved her as an immortal can only love a star he knows will burn out before he is barely able to blink his eyes.