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Chapter Text

Chapter One: Exit Metrics
(Kagome – POV)

Twelve minutes into the Quarterly Business Review and Kagome could already feel it—that creeping sense of corporate déjà vu. The same nodding heads. The same mic delay. The same executives pretending to scroll through the deck while answering Slack messages on the side. Not that she blamed them. No one actually read the pre-read. No one ever did. Not when they knew she’d walk them through every insight, every metric, every red flag disguised as a polite suggestion. She was good at this—too good, maybe. Clear, efficient, personable. Trusted. The kind of voice people leaned toward, even when the data wasn’t great. Especially then.

She clicked to Slide Sixteen without looking, the numbers already memorized, her cadence even and precise. The screen flickered between bar graphs and a pie chart that looked a little too cheerful for what it represented.

“Forecast versus actuals,” she said, letting the rhythm of the phrase carry her. “Which brings us to a 17.4% uptick in efficiency year-over-year. The most significant contributing factor? Your escalation flow. Off-hours coverage improvements drove down incident sprawl by 31%, and we saw time-to-resolution drop below the 48-minute threshold for the first time since implementation.”

A pause. She let the silence breathe—taught her team to do the same. Good news needed time to settle. Let the client absorb it. Let them feel smart for making good decisions.

“That acceleration wouldn’t have happened without internal buy-in. So credit to Mitsuki and Omar for driving that operational shift,” she added, her tone effortlessly warm. “Your change management team’s discipline deserves to be recognized.”

Muted claps and brief nods filtered through the virtual room. A few appreciative murmurs. Someone coughed into their mic before fumbling to mute it. Kazuo—the intern, the boy wonder, the brand-new “replacement”—sat beside her with the tense, upright posture of someone bracing for a pop quiz. His navy blazer was too big, and his eyes kept flicking between the screen and her hands as though trying to learn through osmosis. Or maybe he was just terrified of saying the wrong thing.

Which would be understandable.

She hadn’t told him much. Just the basics. “You’ll be shadowing for two weeks. Focus on listening. Don’t interrupt unless someone addresses you directly. Always have the deck open. Smile at the camera even when it’s off.”

Not that she was bitter. Not that she was mad. Not that she’d spent the last month fighting for the soul of a department the new VP was determined to carve up like roast meat.

Kagome took a sip from her water bottle, lips steady, and asked calmly, “Any questions before we move on?”

The silence was familiar, expectant. Most of the clients on this call trusted her. Some because she’d earned it. Others because she’d made it easy not to look too closely.

She reached for the mouse again.

“And with that, I’ll be transitioning the review over to the person who’ll be shadowing these sessions moving forward.”

That was the moment.

The faint ripple in the gallery of faces. Half of them blinked at once. Some froze. One furrowed his brow, clearly scrambling to remember if they’d missed a memo.

But the worst part wasn’t the confusion.

It was the assumption.

That she was being promoted. Upward. Forward. That of course someone like her wouldn’t just step aside.

Kagome kept her voice breezy. “This is Kazuo. He’ll be observing over the next two weeks. After that, he’ll be taking over full-time as the primary contact for your quarterly reviews. I’ll still be around to support during the transition.”

A few polite welcomes trickled in. One of the newer directors even smiled, clearly eager to make a good impression on her successor.

Then, just as she was moving to the next slide, it came. The voice.

Low. Cool. Clear.

“May we ask what role you’ll be moving into?”

Kagome stilled.

It was so rare to hear him speak, she almost didn’t recognize it at first. Sesshōmaru Taisho—Chief Executive Officer of Western Territories, Inc., the largest client on the call, the most elite and inscrutable account in their portfolio. He never asked questions. Never spoke unless legally necessary. She’d once told a junior associate that his silence carried more weight than most people’s boardroom threats.

She glanced at the screen, though his camera was, as always, off. A muted black rectangle with his name in tidy all-caps: SESSHŌMARU TAISHO. Monolithic. Implacable.

Something inside her fluttered, sharp and unpleasant.

She smiled lightly, keeping her tone even. “Still finalizing that,” she said. “I’m exploring a few directions internally.”

There was a pause. Then his voice again, quieter this time, but somehow colder for it.

“You’re not being promoted.”

It wasn’t framed as a question. It didn’t need to be. He’d already reached his conclusion. He’d seen it, heard it in the soft drop of her voice, the way her eyes didn’t quite lift when she mentioned ‘transition.’ Kagome had the sudden, visceral sense of being pinned under a microscope, her career dissected with surgical precision by someone who knew exactly what he was looking for.

She laughed, too quickly, too brittle.

“Just shifting focus,” she said. “A little internal recalibration. You know how it is.”

“Indeed,” Sesshōmaru replied. “And yet, removing an asset with six years of domain-specific knowledge during a critical contract year suggests poor internal calibration.”

His tone wasn’t confrontational. It was factual. Like reading out a line of code and letting it stand on its own.

Several clients suddenly found themselves very interested in the conversation. One of the EMEA directors leaned forward, lips parted. Another muted themselves, likely to say what the hell? to someone nearby.

Even Kazuo was starting to sweat.

Kagome felt a chill trace the back of her spine.

“Of course,” she said smoothly, “I’ll still be involved to ensure the transition is clean. I’ve already documented the most recent policy changes—”

“I reviewed them. They were excellent.”

The compliment dropped so unexpectedly she blinked.

“I’m glad they were useful.”

“Which is why your departure is not,” Sesshōmaru said calmly. “A loss of operational equity in your role will cost your organization. Substantially.”

It wasn’t a threat. Not exactly. It was worse. It was a statement of inevitability.

Kagome’s mouth went dry. She forced herself to nod, thanked him again for the feedback, and moved the meeting forward.

Kazuo stumbled his way through the next slide, mispronounced “Deloitte” as “Dee-lottie,” and accidentally skipped over the NPS segment altogether. Kagome interjected politely, her voice steady, her smile just tight enough to keep from cracking.

But underneath?

Her thoughts were a blur.

Because Sesshōmaru never spoke. He never made unsolicited comments. And today, of all days, he’d broken his silence to unearth the one thing she hadn’t wanted to admit: she wasn’t leaving for something better. She was being removed. Sidelined. Discarded in favor of a VP’s nephew with a business degree and a talent for wearing expensive watches.

And the worst part?

She hadn’t realized anyone noticed.

She hadn’t realized he noticed.

And somewhere across the city, in a quiet office she’d never been invited to, Sesshōmaru Taisho was already dialing numbers Kagome wouldn’t know about until it was far too late.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Competitive Loss
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

The call ended not with closure, but with decay. One by one, the tiles on his screen vanished—executives, directors, analysts, all peeling away like brittle leaves in winter. A few lingered in the shared document, aimlessly typing shallow comments or adjusting bullet point spacing as if that might delay the reality of what had just occurred. Sesshōmaru said nothing. He didn’t need to. His presence lingered long after the platform closed, and he remained seated, motionless, letting the silence sharpen around him like a blade being honed.

His office, a clean and windowless chamber on the forty-third floor of the Western Territories Tokyo headquarters, was built for focus. Matte black walls, low lighting, glass desk. No décor. No clutter. The only ambient sound was the low hum of his server stack in the adjacent room. In this space, there was no distraction—only the brutal purity of function. His hand hovered over the mouse, but he did not yet move. The weight of what had just happened still pressed against his mind, not as shock—he was never surprised—but as confirmation of a slow and deliberate rot he had suspected, now made obvious by a single, stunning act of organizational negligence.

They were replacing Kagome Higurashi.

With a child.

He remembered her onboarding call like it had happened last week, though it had been over two years ago. She had entered the meeting three minutes early—already a rarity—and smiled like someone unaware of the stakes. Young, maybe twenty-eight. Hair pulled back. Blazer a touch too cheerful for the setting. She had looked like the kind of person who brought cupcakes to morale events. He had dismissed her the moment she’d begun her introductions.

And yet, ten minutes into her deck, he had revised his judgment.

Not out of generosity. Sesshōmaru was not prone to softness. But her numbers were correct. Her phrasing was deliberate. Her insights weren’t cribbed from canned decks or recycled bullet points handed down from above. They were sharp. Original. The kind of observations made by someone who understood—not just the data, but the gaps between the data. The things most managers missed. She had flagged an overextended integration in his APAC pipeline before it triggered a cascading delay. She’d questioned his vendor’s automation rollout—not publicly, not foolishly—but in a quiet comment with just enough plausible deniability to protect her while still planting the necessary doubt in his mind. That alone had saved his company just under 1.3 million yen in the first quarter.

He remembered that number. He remembered all numbers. And he remembered that she had said it with a small, apologetic shrug—like she hadn’t expected him to listen.

He had listened. He had always listened.

Kagome Higurashi was not one of those fragile, brittle corporate types who built their identity around compliance and condescension. She wasn’t easily rattled. She asked uncomfortable questions, but only after earning the right to do so. And most importantly: she executed. Relentlessly. Cleanly. Without ego. The sort of operator he could count on to manage his business review while he turned off his camera and listened, allowing her voice to steer the room while others flailed.

He never spoke on her calls. There had been no need.

Until today.

Sesshōmaru opened his internal dashboard with a single flick of his wrist. Every QBR transcript she’d hosted sat catalogued in perfect digital order, each with timestamps, cross-referenced decision logs, and audio files. Her notes were thorough. Her escalations rare. Her forecasts nearly indistinguishable from his own internal projections.

And now, someone had decided to remove her.

No announcement. No press release. No promotion pathway.

Just a sudden, polite handoff to a twenty-two-year-old with large eyes, a borrowed suit, and no grasp of escalation logic. Kazuo—he didn’t even remember the surname—had fumbled through the meeting like a child who had wandered onto a battlefield and brought a squirt gun. He had mispronounced strategic partner names. He had skipped entire segments of the deck. At one point, he had addressed the wrong region entirely. Sesshōmaru had remained silent not out of mercy, but out of calculation. No good would come from crushing an intern on a recorded call. That would come later.

What mattered now was the pattern.

Sesshōmaru didn’t believe in chaos. He believed in cause. If someone was being removed, it was either due to incompetence, consolidation, or politics. Kagome had not failed. Her accounts ran lean and clean. She had a 97% retention rating across seven regions. She had never missed a forecast target in ten quarters.

Which left politics.

The foulest, weakest of reasons.

Sesshōmaru sat back, eyes narrowing as his mind moved through potential motives. Someone higher in the chain wanted her gone. Her exit had not been announced as a promotion. There was no project reallocation, no strategic elevation. The phrase she had used—“just exploring a few directions internally”—was too vague, too polished. It was damage control.

More damning was her smile. She had smiled like a hostage told to wave through the glass. He recognized that smile. He had seen it on executives forced to celebrate their own layoffs. He had worn it once, in another life, and never again.

He activated his comms terminal, typing quickly, without flourish.

TO: [internal counsel]
SUBJECT: Vendor Transition Inquiry
 1. Confirm the status of Higurashi Kagome’s exit.
 2. Determine whether transition was voluntary or imposed.
 3. Initiate talent acquisition scenario.
 4. Expedite if competitive acquisition risk is present.

He paused only once, then added:

Priority: Immediate.

There would be no more hesitation. If his suspicions were correct, someone inside her organization had made the critical error of valuing politics over performance. A fragile ego had likely been bruised by her precision, her unwillingness to soften data for the sake of optics. Perhaps she had pushed back. Perhaps she had flagged a risk too early, too publicly. Sesshōmaru didn’t care. That was their failing, not hers.

What mattered now was containment.

Because if she was truly being forced out, then her current employer would not be the only one watching. Others would already be positioning—headhunting firms, strategic partners, poaching specialists.

But they were too slow.

They would underestimate her because of her youth, her warmth, the way she joked too easily before getting to the point. They would assume she lacked ambition because she didn’t speak like a shark. Fools.

Sesshōmaru knew the truth.

Kagome Higurashi was a scalpel disguised as a paperclip.

And now that someone had pried her loose from the drawer, he would ensure that she didn’t end up in the hands of anyone who might dull her.

Not because he was sentimental.
Not because he admired her.
And certainly not because her voice lingered in his thoughts hours after every call.

No. This was strictly operational.

And operations demanded precision.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three: The Name in the Room
(Kagome – POV)

She was supposed to have two more weeks.

Fourteen days. Ten business days. Five QBRs and one final handoff summary she had already drafted in her head, complete with internal notes, process maps, and a neat archive of lessons learned for the next person who would try to manage the West Territories account.

But instead, she was standing in a too-white conference room, heart thudding against her ribs in a rhythm that felt off-beat and accusatory. The lights overhead were too bright. The kind of sterile LED glow that made even the polished glass of the executive floor feel like a fish tank. And she—Kagome, who had always prided herself on poise—was still gripping her badge like she might need to fight her way out.

Across the table, three people sat like a jury that had already voted.

The VP of Operations, who had never liked her.
Legal counsel, silent, square-jawed, already tired.
And an HR representative who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else—maybe sipping tea in a lobby, maybe hiding behind a LinkedIn post about “resilience in leadership.”

“Let’s not make this adversarial,” the VP said, voice smooth as wax paper, tone a little too practiced.

“I wasn’t aware it had become adversarial,” Kagome replied, steady but quiet. She’d left her sarcasm at the door. They didn’t deserve it.

The VP leaned forward, steepling his fingers like someone who thought posture would make him credible. “We received notice this morning. Western Territories is terminating their contract effective immediately. They’ve paid out the penalty clause in full.”

Kagome blinked. Not because she didn’t understand—but because it made no sense.

“That account was stable,” she said. “They’ve never so much as escalated a ticket. They were profitable. Over SLA every month.”

“We’re aware.”

“I had a final QBR with them yesterday. It went fine. Kazuo presented. I supervised. There was no indication—”

“According to their legal team,” the VP interrupted, “there were concerns about continuity and performance.”

Kagome stared at him, unable to stop the small twist of incredulity in her throat. “Continuity? You removed me from the account.”

“They believe your removal compromised strategic trust.”

She let out a slow, humorless laugh. “And yet, I wasn’t the one who decided to replace me with a fresh grad.”

The HR rep shifted uncomfortably. Legal said nothing. But the VP didn’t flinch. He tapped the file in front of him with one manicured finger and said, “When asked for clarification on their decision to sever the relationship, they gave a one-word answer.”

He looked at her like the words were her fault. Like they had weight because she had made them heavy.

Kagome’s mouth was dry. “What word?”

He slid the file forward. Let it speak.

Her name. Just her name.

Higurashi.

That was all they’d said.

She didn’t sit. Couldn’t. The floor under her felt unsteady, like standing on a subway platform when the train arrives too fast. Her palms itched. Her throat ached—not from shame, but from the unbearable absurdity of it.

“You’re saying the largest client we’ve had in three years paid millions in penalties… because I was taken off the account?”

“They didn’t elaborate. But your name was the sole response. I’m sure you understand how that puts the company in a delicate position.”

Her laugh this time was sharper. “No, actually, I don’t understand. Because you put the company in this position. You let me be replaced because I questioned a deployment model that risked cross-regional fatigue. I flagged an ethics concern with one of our RFPs, and suddenly I’m too ‘rigid’ for leadership. But now that it’s costing money, you’re ready to play shocked?”

The VP didn’t blink. “This isn’t the time for that discussion.”

“Right. Because there was never time for that discussion. Just a private meeting, a closed-door offer to ‘explore new directions,’ and a calendar invite with my replacement already attached.”

Her voice cracked—only slightly—but she caught it, steadied it, wrapped professionalism back around herself like armor she’d worn too long and too well.

“We’d like you to sign a quiet separation,” HR interjected, finally finding her voice. “No formal performance issues on file. A positive recommendation. The standard exit package.”

Of course they would.

She was being packaged. Wrapped. Archived like old code.

They wanted to fold her neatly into a box, push it off the shelf, and pretend the loss was just one more budget adjustment. Something impersonal. Something acceptable.

But she knew better.

Kagome drew in a breath through her nose, slow and deep, and nodded.

“I’ll review the paperwork.”

She walked out without waiting to be dismissed. She didn’t slam the door—didn’t need to. Her silence was louder.

In the elevator, alone, she leaned back against the mirror-paneled wall and stared at her reflection. She looked fine. Professional. Her hair was tied back. Her blazer was still crisp. But she felt… peeled. Stripped of something she hadn’t even known she’d grown attached to.

Her name.

That’s what they said.

That’s what they blamed.

They didn’t say she missed a metric. Or breached protocol. They didn’t accuse her of any specific failure.

They just said her name.

And someone—someone with enough weight to terminate a multimillion-dollar contract—had made sure it echoed all the way back to the top floor.

The severance documents were blandly cruel. She sat at her kitchen table late that night, barefoot, wrapped in the soft cardigan she only wore when sick or humiliated. Her laptop cast a sterile white glow onto the untouched mug of tea beside her, and her apartment, usually organized to the point of obsession, looked as though it too had been fired from a job it loved.

Clause by clause, the exit agreement tried to fold her into silence.
No admission of fault.
No public discussion of client loss.
No further engagement with former clients without corporate approval.
Standard stuff.

Legalese was her third language by now, and yet tonight it scraped across her nerves like sandpaper. Every line read like someone trying to wipe her fingerprints off the vault.

Kagome tapped her pen twice on the margin of the packet, then stopped. She wasn’t sure why she expected more. Or less. Or anything at all.

This morning, she’d been a valued partner. This evening, she was a risk mitigation footnote.

And still, the one thing she couldn’t get over—couldn’t begin to understand—was that they named her.

Not the company.
Not the restructure.
Not Kazuo’s feeble attempt at presenting.

Her.

Higurashi. Full stop.

Her name as both cause and casualty.

It didn’t make sense.

Unless—

She shook her head. No. Too presumptuous. Too arrogant, even for the corner of her brain that was still raw and grasping for something to explain why a man like Sesshōmaru Taisho had broken a multimillion-dollar contract without a single request for clarification, mediation, or recovery strategy.

Companies didn’t do that.

Sesshōmaru didn’t do that.

He was legendary in client ops. Quiet. Precise. Infamously cold. He hadn’t spoken a full paragraph on any call in over two years. His camera was always off. His expectations were exacting, but he’d never so much as filed a single complaint against her in her entire tenure. He didn’t waste time. He didn’t posture. He simply approved, or he didn’t. That was it. That was him.

So why the hell would someone like that detonate an entire contract just because her name was no longer attached to it?

And more unsettling—why hadn’t he said a damn word to her?

She clicked through her tabs.  
Outlook: empty. No emails. No escalation requests. No follow-up questions.
Slack: dead.
Phone: nothing.

He hadn’t asked her to stay.
He hadn’t offered to speak privately.
He hadn’t even acknowledged the goodbye.

Which is why her breath caught, sharp and reflexive, when she checked LinkedIn out of habit, intending only to update her availability to “quietly looking,” and saw his name at the top of her notifications.

Sesshōmaru Taisho wants to connect.

No note. No message. Just that.

Her mouth dried.

She stared at it, half-expecting it to vanish. To glitch. To revert into something sensible—an error, a prank, a recruiter with a similar name. But no. It was him. Verified profile. Minimalist. Cold. Six connections total. CEO. Board advisor. Private equity bloodhound. The kind of profile that never, ever reached down the ladder unless it intended to pull someone up—or put them on a leash.

Kagome didn’t click it. Not yet. Her brain spun in too many directions, every variable crowding the room like ghosts.

Because if her math was mathing—and it always, always math’d—then he had terminated a major contract without dispute. He had paid the penalty clause without blinking. Had not demanded a replacement, an apology, a single meeting.

And all he said was her name.

Her name.

And now, here he was. Digital. Intentional.

Men like Sesshōmaru Taisho didn’t request connections. They ordered acquisitions. They didn’t do soft pings. They made moves in six figures. They didn’t reach out unless they had already decided what came next.

Kagome stared at the screen another moment longer. Her cursor hovered.

And then—
She clicked Deny.

No hesitation. No drama. Just: not today.

She didn’t know what this was yet. A test? A power play? A courtesy? But whatever it was, it was too soon. Too raw.

And she didn’t trust him.

Not because he was dangerous. But because he had made a company flinch with a name.
And she was the name.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four: Denial of Access
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He knew the moment she rejected him.

It wasn’t dramatic. No notification popped. No alert blared. But Sesshōmaru Taisho had been watching systems long enough to feel the shape of absence. He refreshed her LinkedIn profile—discreetly, from a private instance, through an anonymized window. Moments before, the “Connect” option had been grayed out, locked by their existing request.

Now it had returned.

Active. Neutral.

Reset.

She had denied him.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t lean back. He simply observed the change, marked the implications, and moved on.

It was a logical response. Clean. Sharp. Professional. Like her.
She had known exactly what his request meant—and exactly what it might cost her to accept it.

Because Kagome Higurashi wasn’t foolish. She had always been keenly aware of the currents beneath every conversation. She smiled too easily, spoke gently, but her mind worked like a strategist’s map—always calculating angles, variables, outcomes. She didn’t make moves unless they served a purpose.

And right now?

Her purpose was likely survival.

She had known that the contract termination—quiet, sudden, expensive—would trigger repercussions. She had probably anticipated chaos. But what she hadn’t anticipated, Sesshōmaru suspected, was that her employer would act with the panicked idiocy of a drowning man, flailing wildly in every direction—including toward her.

He was still contemplating that possibility when the update came through. A soft chime in his inbox. Internal thread. No subject line beyond the usual file ID.

He opened it.

Status Update: Western Territories / Vendor Transition

– Contract formally terminated per your directive.
– Penalty fee paid and processed.
– As of 15:42 JST today, client-side rep (Higurashi, K.) removed from all internal systems.
– Confirmation received: final day of employment accelerated. Decision made by vendor leadership citing reputational damage.

The cursor blinked beside the last line as if waiting for his reaction.

Sesshōmaru stared at it for several seconds, each word more galling than the last.

They blamed her.

Not the company. Not the restructure. Not the failure in judgment that led to a novice shadowing an executive client. No, they had traced the decision to its impact, and then dropped it on her shoulders like a guillotine.

They had removed her that same day.

Accelerated her exit.

Burned the last two weeks off her timeline and branded her as the reason for the loss—even as the loss had been triggered by their own actions.

And he—

Sesshōmaru almost swore.

Almost.

A breath curled in his throat, sharp and cold. He clenched his hand once on the armrest, the leather groaning beneath his palm.

It wasn’t because he regretted pulling the contract. He didn’t.
The moment they reassigned her, they ceased to be viable.
Trust, once broken, was not something he extended a second time.

But the timing. The stupidity. The sheer pettiness of accelerating her removal after he withdrew business—it was textbook self-sabotage. And yet, entirely predictable. That was the danger of fragile leadership: they reacted, they retaliated, and they always looked down, never up.

He could now see it clearly.

Why she had denied the connection.

To her, the cause and effect would have been glaring. He terminated. They punished. She suffered the fallout—and not quietly, either. He’d pulled the business; they had pulled her life.

She had been preparing for two more weeks of transition, for a quiet exit, for a graceful departure.

And instead, because of him—because of the leverage he had chosen to use—she’d been ripped from the role with zero ceremony and all the subtlety of a public execution.

Of course she denied the request.

It wasn’t personal.

It was survival.

Worse still, she might not even be allowed to respond. If she had signed a clause—one of those bloated corporate NDAs full of gag orders and “non-solicitation” traps—then contact with him might violate her separation terms. He knew the language. He had commissioned those contracts in other lifetimes, before he realized how often they were used to muzzle the wrong people.

Kagome might very well be sealed behind legal tape, watching the storm outside with no voice left to respond.

The cursor blinked again.

Sesshōmaru closed the window and opened a new one.

Not LinkedIn. Not Slack. Not email.

Recruitment channels. Private. Executive-tier.

If she couldn’t speak to him, then he would speak to the market.

Quietly. Powerfully. Legally.

He didn’t need her to accept a request.
He needed her to receive an offer.

And this time, she would not be the casualty.
She would be the acquisition.

Sesshōmaru did not operate on impulse. He calculated. He timed. He struck only when the outcome was preordained.

But this—
This required something more direct.

He sat alone in the strategy vault of his headquarters, the black-glass conference room soundproofed and secured for high-priority tactical conversations. A low hum filled the space—white noise engineered to blur sound and thought, but his mind remained crystalline.

Kagome’s profile still sat open on his left screen. A relic now. Stripped of any corporate affiliation, it listed her title in gray: Former Senior Operations Manager.
Not “Promoted.”
Not “Transitioned.”
Just former.

So they had already wiped her.

No severance announcement. No farewell post. No internal recognition for six years of performance metrics most of their staff couldn’t even spell. She had been archived—discreetly, but not quietly.

And now?

Now, Sesshōmaru would retrieve what they discarded.

He opened a secure terminal and keyed in the one phrase he rarely used:

Level-One Talent Override.

Within twenty seconds, a direct link opened to Ayaka Suda, his VP of Strategic Acquisitions. She appeared on screen without preamble, without pleasantries, already in motion.

“Sir.”

“I need access to Higurashi Kagome’s contractual records,” Sesshōmaru said. “Employment terms. Severance structure. Non-compete clauses. All of it.”

Ayaka didn’t blink. “Do you anticipate litigation?”

“No. I anticipate incompetence.”

She gave a curt nod, typing already. “Would you like this discreet or confrontational?”

“Discreet—for now. Focus on her exit documentation. I want the version she signed, not the internal draft.”

“Understood.”

He leaned back just slightly, temple resting against his hand, eyes narrowing on the black space beside her name. The empty LinkedIn connection pulsed faintly in the corner of his mind.

“She may be under a gag clause,” he added. “Get eyes on any communications restrictions. If she’s been silenced, I want to know how thoroughly—and for how long.”

Ayaka paused, then asked carefully, “Would you like me to contact her directly?”

“No.” His voice was immediate. Final. “Not yet. She denied a connection request. I will not approach again without leverage.”

A silence passed.

He allowed it.

Sesshōmaru wasn’t interested in courtship. He didn’t believe in charm, or games, or the illusion of choice when the outcome was obvious. He did not woo. He won. And right now, Kagome was locked behind an NDA like a brilliant piece of stolen code—too valuable to destroy, too risky to acknowledge.

But that wouldn’t last.

Because contracts had holes.

NDAs had limits.

And his team had never once failed to find both.

“What’s the timeline?” he asked.

Ayaka clicked once, twice. “They processed her exit through their third-party clearing house. Standard terms. I can have her package in hand within twenty-four hours.”

“Make it twelve.”

“Yes, sir.”

He ended the call.

The room returned to silence, but Sesshōmaru did not move. He sat still, every nerve alert, every cell at attention.

Because he had never gone to war for a client-side employee.

But this wasn’t about war.

It was about correction.

They had made a tactical error when they removed her.
Then a fatal one when they blamed her.
And now, they would learn what it meant to miscalculate in public view.

Kagome might not understand it yet. She might be grieving. She might be furious. She might be doing what smart, honorable people always did when faced with betrayal—trying to walk away clean.

But Sesshōmaru had no intention of letting her disappear.

Not when the sharpest mind he’d worked with in a decade was finally, legally, on the market.

Not when someone else might move first.

And not when the only thing standing between her silence and his offer…
was a few thousand words of unenforceable paper.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: Restriction Clauses
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

The file arrived six hours later—clean, compressed, and encrypted under his executive key.

Sesshōmaru opened it in silence, the flicker of his monitor illuminating the hard angles of his face as page after page unfolded beneath his gaze. No music. No light outside. Just him, and the sound of calculated treachery laid out in sanitized legal prose.

Higurashi, Kagome – Final Separation Package
Sixty-four pages.
Formatted, footnoted, dated with the precision of an execution warrant.

He began with the summary page. Standard language. Mutual separation agreement. Nondisclosure terms. Non-disparagement clause. Severance payout equivalent to sixteen weeks of base salary. No bonus. No equity retention. No press release. No internal announcement.

They had scrubbed her like a data breach.

He scanned the body quickly, pausing only where it mattered. Then he reached Section 12.

Client Engagement Restrictions

The Employee agrees that for a period of six (6) months following the termination of employment, they shall not:

a) Accept offers of employment from any active client or partner organization of [Redacted Corp];
b) Solicit or otherwise engage with said clients for the purposes of recruitment, employment, or contractual business;
c) Communicate with prior clients about their separation or the internal operations of [Redacted Corp] without express, written approval from Legal.

Sesshōmaru read it twice.

Once as a strategist.
Then again as a man who did not like being told no.

It wasn’t surprising. Of course they had sealed her in. She had sat too close to real power for too long. She knew where the inefficiencies lived, where the skeletons were buried, where the bad data had been cleaned up and repackaged for board reports. She was fluent in operational risk, and they had stripped her of the right to speak it.

Six months of silence.

They had gagged her in every direction.

No contact.
No client work.
No public narrative.

And she had signed it.

Likely under pressure. Likely because her exit was accelerated so violently that she’d had no time to revise, negotiate, or consult. He could see it in the signature timestamp—forty-seven minutes after the contract delivery time.

Too fast.

She hadn’t reviewed it thoroughly. Or she had and known there was no use.

Sesshōmaru tapped one finger against the armrest of his chair. His gaze didn’t move from the screen.

This wasn’t just a restriction.

It was containment.

They hadn’t just wanted her gone—they had wanted her erased. Filed away in a holding pattern while they tried to plug the hole she’d left behind. Six months was an eternity in their industry. By then, they hoped her impact would dull, her reputation would fade, and her options would thin.

But they had made a critical mistake.

They had not accounted for him.

Because Sesshōmaru had no intention of waiting half a year to reclaim what they’d mishandled. Not because he lacked patience—but because he had purpose. Every quarter that passed without her insights cost him more than the penalty clause he’d already swallowed. He hadn’t terminated the contract to make a statement. He’d done it because she was irreplaceable.

And if she was now encased in legal tape?

Then he would cut through it.

He highlighted three specific sections—one on geographic jurisdiction, one on client classification, one on severability—and forwarded them to Ayaka with a single note:

Get me out of this.

Not her.
This.

This contract.
This cage.
This insult.

He leaned back, folding his hands beneath his chin. His reflection stared back at him from the black glass of the office wall—sharp-eyed, silent, and utterly still.

Let them try to keep her.
Let them try to bar him.

Because Sesshōmaru Taisho did not chase.
He acquired.
He dismantled.
And he corrected errors.

And this—
This entire document—
was a very expensive mistake.

Sesshōmaru had never believed in rules. Not truly.

He understood them. He used them. He maneuvered within them when necessary—but he had never once mistaken them for barriers. Not when everything could be bought, amended, rewritten. Laws were only as powerful as the lawyers who enforced them. Clauses only mattered until someone sharper decided they didn’t.

And this NDA?

This six-month leash wrapped around Kagome Higurashi’s throat?

It was already starting to fray.

He stood before the glass wall of his private office, city lights glittering beneath him like a constellation brought to heel. Tokyo pulsed below—slow, obedient, unaware that one woman’s name had reordered his entire week.

Ayaka’s first update came in just after midnight.

“We’ve identified three exploitable weaknesses. Her non-compete clause defines ‘client’ by active billing status as of the date of termination. You terminated the contract before her final day. Technically, we were no longer a client when she signed. We may proceed.”

Sesshōmaru read it, then reread it, and allowed himself the faintest tilt of his mouth.

It wasn’t quite a smile.
It was sharper than that.

He had always known their lawyers were arrogant. Sloppy, even. More eager to punish her than protect the company. They’d made the severance binding on the same day they confirmed his termination, assuming no one would bother to trace the timing.

They didn’t know him.

But she would.

Kagome would know exactly what this meant when the first message arrived. When the first offer slid under her door with language so precise it couldn’t possibly be accidental. She would recognize his signature in the structure, even if it came from another voice.

He had no need to approach her again.
Not yet.
That wasn’t the strategy.

He didn’t intend to ask Kagome Higurashi to work for him.

He intended to place the offer so cleanly—so perfectly aligned with her values, her goals, her quiet defiance—that she would have no choice but to say yes.

No name. No title. No press.

Not at first.

She would receive an inquiry from a private executive consulting group in Osaka—one that didn’t exist before this week. A think tank. Independent, discreet, and outrageously well-funded. Its charter would match her interests. Its mission would include a clause about operational ethics. It would offer creative freedom. A six-month advisory contract with options to extend. Remote-first. Flexible leadership structure.

No visible ties to him.

Not yet.

Because Sesshōmaru was not impatient. He was precise. And there was something deeply gratifying—almost sensually satisfying—in knowing that while others reacted, he was already three moves ahead.

He poured himself a single measure of whisky and turned back to his desk. His suit jacket rested on the back of his chair, sleeves rolled. His tie undone. He looked powerful like this—unfastened, but still dangerous. The kind of man who didn’t need control to wield it.

The kind of man who didn’t chase women.

But made exceptions.

For her.

Because whether Kagome understood it yet or not, she belonged in his orbit. She had proven herself in silence for years—navigating chaos, handling power with care, never once demanding attention. She was efficient. Sharp. Calm under fire.

And now that she had been cast out by lesser minds?

She was available.

Technically.
Tactically.

And soon—inevitably—his.

Not just as an asset.

But as something far more interesting.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six: Quiet Algorithm
(Kagome – POV)

Three months.

That’s what they gave her.

Three months of severance. Not a generous package, not a padded exit. Just enough to imply civility without inviting questions. Twelve weeks of salary deposited in a single lump sum—efficient, transactional, detached. Like someone paying for the silence of a service they no longer wanted but couldn’t afford to leave noisy. And maybe that’s what she was now: a noise reduction strategy. A muted exit clause with nice teeth.

Kagome knew what that money was meant to buy. Time. Distance. Dignity. Compliance. It was the price of looking away from the wreckage with grace. The amount they had calculated would keep her from stirring up anything inconvenient while they scrambled to pretend she’d never mattered. Not in those meetings. Not in those metrics. Not in the dozens of QBRs she had handled alone while the account executives fumbled excuses and her VP used her reports to impress the board.

She hadn’t touched the resume yet. It sat on her desktop like a waiting room she refused to enter. Updating it would feel too much like giving up—like admitting she was truly unemployed, not just in between things. She wasn’t quite ready to sell herself again. Not yet.

Still, she’d done something. Something small. Controlled. She updated her LinkedIn banner.

Not the headline. Not the title. Nothing bold or obvious. Just the banner—the background image behind her name. A subtle change from the default corporate blue skyline she’d used for years to something she’d chosen herself: a soft, moody photo she’d taken of Tokyo Bay at dusk. The kind of photo people scroll past without thinking twice. Muted light. A wide horizon. Still water just beginning to ripple. Something calm. Something unfinished.

It wasn’t a signal, not exactly.

But maybe it was…a whisper.

She hadn’t expected anything to come of it. The platform’s algorithm was erratic at best and entirely unkind at worst. She’d seen people write entire TED Talk-length posts about job hunting and get nothing but polite likes from cousins. She had no illusions about the market. There were thousands of mid-level managers with her skill set, half of them louder, flashier, and still willing to slap inspirational hashtags onto everything they said.

So when the message came in—late, nearly midnight—her first reaction was confusion.

It wasn’t a notification she recognized immediately. No recruiter tag. No open job posting. Just a direct message from a company she didn’t remember ever hearing of: a strategic consulting group, supposedly based in Osaka. The logo was clean. The page was professional but light on content. No SEO fluff, no buzzwords piled on each other like insecure teenagers at a dance.

Curious, she tapped it open.

Hi Kagome,

We came across your profile while sourcing candidates for a flexible leadership contract focused on operational transformation. Your background in client strategy, incident resolution, and cross-regional performance tracking stood out to our team.

We’re offering a six-month engagement, with remote flexibility and a generous package. There’s room for autonomy. We’re not looking for titles—we’re looking for sharp thinkers.

Would you be open to a conversation?

Kagome stared at the message for a long, still minute.

No emojis. No flattery. No fake warmth.

Just…clean.

Unassuming, but not weak.

And deeply intentional.

She sat back, pulse steady but alert. Something about the phrasing caught her off-guard. Not in a bad way. In a way that made her read it again.

And again.

She hadn’t applied to anything. She hadn’t clicked on any job-seeking filters. She hadn’t even filled out the “open to work” badge. Her resume was untouched. The last PDF saved still had a formatting error in the skills section. There was no reason this firm—this anonymous, lean firm with no online footprint and no real breadcrumb trail—should be looking at her.

Except for the banner.

The one thing she had changed.

Was that enough? Could the algorithm pick up on something that subtle? Was it that reactive now? Or was this someone else? Someone human. Someone who had seen the change and read it for what it was—a quiet shift. A professional hum, not a shout. A soft declaration: I’m listening.

Her fingers hovered over the trackpad. She didn’t respond. Not yet.

Because it wasn’t just the message.

It was the language.

“We’re not looking for titles—we’re looking for sharp thinkers.”
It wasn’t unfamiliar. It wasn’t corporate-speak. It didn’t smell like a recruiter.

It felt like a line lifted from someone’s internal brief. Someone who had sat in meetings too long with people who didn’t know what they were talking about. Someone who had watched her from the digital dark and made no move—until now.

Her stomach tightened, not with fear but with recognition. Because something about this didn’t just sound real. It sounded precise.

Like someone who’d been waiting.

She left the message unread, technically. She didn’t want to trigger the “seen” notification yet. Not until she’d thought it through. Not until she’d done some digging.

But one thing was certain.

This wasn’t random.

And someone—somewhere—had noticed the moment she stepped out of line.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven: The Weight of Intent
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

At precisely 11:23 p.m., Kagome Higurashi’s LinkedIn status lit green.

Sesshōmaru didn’t need a notification to catch it. He’d been watching. Not obsessively—not in the crude, fumbling way others might. He didn’t refresh profiles or check timestamps with idle fingers. He assigned a script, let it track in silence, and reviewed her activity like any other data stream: calmly, clinically, with the full understanding that even digital footprints had pulse and rhythm.

The icon glowed for exactly nine minutes.

That was enough.

Not long enough for distraction. Not long enough to justify idly scrolling before sleep. But it was enough to read a message—once, twice. Enough to pause, narrow her eyes at the phrasing, go back to the company name, and open a second tab. Enough to search. Cross-check. To see the message and—not—open it, preserving its status as unread while still weighing its contents.

She was reading.

And she was already looking.

By 11:32 p.m., her icon went dark again.

No reply. No reaction. No digital trace. But the shape of her absence told him everything he needed to know. Kagome didn’t run from things she didn’t take seriously. She didn’t ignore nonsense—she deleted it. Blocked it. Walked away without blinking.

So the fact that she stayed online just long enough to read but not respond?

That was strategy.

Which meant she was treating it like a threat.

Or an opportunity.

Either was acceptable.

Sesshōmaru sat at the helm of his home office, a space built not for comfort but for dominance. It was high above the city, stripped of ornamentation. Glass and stone and steel, made austere by intent. The windows were blacked out, reflecting his three monitors in cold perfection. He hadn’t changed since the morning’s call. His dress shirt was still crisp, his sleeves rolled to the forearm with precision. His tie hung undone across the table, not sloppily—deliberately—like a hunter who’d set down his weapon because he no longer needed it to kill.

He looked powerful because he was.

And right now, he was building something from the bones of silence.

The company—the think tank in Osaka—had existed in concept for years. One of three dormant entities maintained beneath the Western Territories umbrella. He didn’t use them often. They were reserves, shadows, kept in cold storage like spare keys to doors that hadn’t been built yet. Each came with basic licensing, tax compliance, minimal legal footprint. They were tools. Leverage.

But this one?

This one was being reborn.

For her.

He opened his operations dashboard, the one only he had access to, and keyed in a new sequence of commands. The cursor blinked back in readiness. Every line he typed was clean, deliberate, stripped of excess.

Activate full digital presence for ThinkCo (Osaka).

– LinkedIn Company Profile:
• Executive bios (3, professionally ghostwritten)
• Mission: Clean operations, ethical consulting, strategic transformation.
• Company size: 30 employees, projected 60 within quarter.

– Launch hiring pages:
• Indeed, Wantedly, LinkedIn Jobs.
• Feature: Work-from-anywhere model, autonomy-first culture, founder anonymity.

– Reputation Seeding:
• Five internal employee reviews on Glassdoor, staged over 72 hours.
• “Transparent leadership.” “Growing fast.” “Highly ethical mission.”
• Include one vague but glowing review of a recent female project lead.

– Publish anonymous Medium launch article under employee pseudonym.
• Topic: “The Quiet Rise of Mid-Sized Strategy Firms.”
• Taglines: integrity, flexibility, transformation.

– Issue low-fidelity whitepaper by ‘lead analyst’ on cross-regional process optimization. Tie in soft references to former Fortune 500 consultants.

He hit send.

The sequence triggered his ghost team into motion—six people who handled corporate personas, digital trails, reputational architecture. They didn’t need context. They just needed instructions.

Within twenty-four hours, the company would appear to anyone looking—especially someone smart enough to dig—as if it had existed in quiet excellence for years. Like a gem overlooked. A rare, ethical outlier in an industry bloated with jargon and boardroom politics. The kind of place a brilliant, disillusioned operations lead might dream of working once the noise of corporate failure had left her raw.

He didn’t want to overwhelm her. He wanted her to believe it was her idea. But she would look deeper. So he gave her more.

He opened the secure channel to the recruiter—one of his best. A former executive herself. Silver-voiced, adaptable, sharp. He trusted her with stage one.

Send a follow-up to the candidate.

• Time-sensitive opening.
• First round interviews begin this week.
• Tell her her name was personally recommended for early consideration.

Additionally—expand hiring.

– Double team from 30 to 60.
– Post five new roles this week.
– Make them look like serious, funded expansion: ops manager, technical lead, internal strategist, junior analyst, and people experience director.

Because if Kagome was paying attention—and she was—she would see the signs of movement. Real hiring. Real traction. Real opportunity.

Not a company desperate for her. A company that deserved her. One she would feel drawn to. Curious about. Pulled toward.

And when she read that follow-up—when she saw her name referenced, not in praise, not in flattery, but in targeted recognition—he knew exactly what her first reaction would be.

She’d sit up straighter. Her heart would skip, just once. Her fingers would hover. And then she would start asking herself: who told them about me?

He leaned back, tea cold now, untouched on the desk beside him. He didn’t care.

This wasn’t about thirst.
It wasn’t about hunger.
It was about clarity.

Sesshōmaru Taisho didn’t chase women.
He didn’t seduce.
He didn’t beg.

He created inevitabilities.

And if she chose to walk through the door, it would be because he built the threshold precisely to her measure.

Not to win her.

To claim what others had been too foolish to hold.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight: Gut Check
(Kagome – POV)

By the next morning, Kagome couldn’t help herself.

She’d made coffee, walked past her laptop twice, told herself she wouldn’t open LinkedIn before noon—and failed by 9:17 a.m. The message from the mysterious Osaka firm still sat unread in her inbox like a dare. She hovered over it for a second before opening a new tab instead and typing the company name into the search bar again.

Just research. Nothing else.
Just due diligence.

Except—there were updates.

That wasn’t normal.

The night before, the company’s digital footprint had been lean—respectable, but minimal. A shell with good bones, the kind of stealth-mode startup that maybe hadn’t fully stepped into the light yet. Now, though, the profile looked…fuller. Sharper. Like someone had walked through the front door and started putting paintings on the walls.

A new banner. A mission statement. Executive bios that hadn’t been there twelve hours ago. Polished, clean, but not overdone. They spoke of transformation, innovation, decentralized leadership. Words Kagome normally skimmed over, but today they felt calibrated.

Then came the job postings.

Five new roles, all within the last hour. Multiple senior and mid-level tracks. Roles that seemed to echo her own experience, even parallel it—like someone had mirrored her resume and built the ecosystem around it.

“Okay,” she whispered under her breath, narrowing her eyes.

Then came the reviews. Five of them. All positive, all recent, all from “current employees.” They read like first drafts from a company genuinely excited about its own growth. Not perfect, not overly rehearsed—but optimistic. Internal phrasing like flat structure, real freedom, leadership you trust.

And just below that—
A recruiter had started posting.

She clicked through. The woman was polished. Former tech exec. Now head of strategic hiring for the think tank. Her profile looked real, lived-in. Kagome scrolled her feed and found exactly what she was expecting to find—but shouldn’t have.

A second message.

Time-stamped at 7:46 a.m.

Hi again Kagome,

I wanted to follow up as this is a time-sensitive opportunity. We’re hoping to begin first-round interviews this week and had flagged your profile for early outreach. If you’re available for a quick phone conversation, we’d be happy to speak today.

Her stomach twisted—not badly, just enough to send a ripple through her spine.

This was moving too fast.

Too fast for coincidence. Too polished for happenstance. The changes, the recruiter, the sudden public ramp-up of what had previously been a ghost firm—someone was behind this. And they were building something she wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t already been drafted into.

But she was curious. She was so damn curious.

And curiosity had always been her greatest gift and her worst impulse.

So she did something reckless in the smallest, quietest way: she hit reply.

Hi—thank you for following up. I’m available now if that works. Here’s my number.

She sent it.

The phone rang thirty seconds later.

“Hi! Kagome? This is Nanako. I’m with the Osaka team—it’s so great to connect.”

The voice was bright, confident, practiced. Friendly, but not fake. The kind of woman who’d nailed the cadence of a first call down to a science. They moved into the interview almost immediately. Background questions. Career trajectory. Her approach to operational planning. Situational problem-solving. Cross-regional collaboration. Nothing too invasive, nothing too technical. But everything was…on point.

The role was described as a six-month consulting engagement with potential to convert. Remote. Strategic. She’d have decision-making autonomy, flexible hours, and the space to design her own workflows. No legacy systems to clean up. No one to fight for budget against.

It was, frankly, ideal.

Kagome answered everything cleanly, calmly, with the easy poise of someone who’d been navigating C-suite expectations for years. But with each passing minute, her unease grew—not from anything wrong, but because everything was too right.

It was made for her. Built around her shape. And she couldn’t prove it.

Thirty minutes in, the recruiter said, “Honestly, I think you’re a perfect match. You’d move straight to the second round—we can schedule that today if you’re interested?”

Kagome hesitated. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t even blink.

And then, gently, politely, firmly—

“I think I’ll pass.”

There was silence. Not long. Just a breath.

“I…see,” the recruiter said, caught slightly off-guard. “You’re well within range to proceed. May I ask what’s holding you back?”

Kagome stared at the wall. She didn’t have a good answer.

Not one she could say aloud.

She couldn’t say the timing is too perfect.
She couldn’t say you sound too polished, too sure, too tailored.
She couldn’t say this feels like someone is moving the pieces around me, not with me.

So she just said, “It’s a gut feeling. I really appreciate the offer—it’s just not the right moment.”

The recruiter didn’t press. They ended the call politely. Professionally.

Kagome sat in the silence that followed and realized she wasn’t relieved.

She was rattled.

Because the job hadn’t felt suspicious. It had felt designed. And whatever instinct had made her say no? It wasn’t fear. It was the unsettling certainty that someone had already decided yes.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine: Revised Terms
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He had been expecting good news.

By the time his phone lit up with Ayaka Suda’s contact ID, Sesshōmaru had already moved his evening calls off the calendar. He had mentally cleared the space. Not out of arrogance, but efficiency. He did not prepare for failure. He prepared paths. And this one, meticulously drawn and surgically executed, should have ended in a single, clean outcome: acceptance. Her yes. The quiet, inevitable close of a door that had already been cracked open for her and only her.

Instead, he answered the call to the unexpected.

“Sir,” Ayaka began, her voice clipped and steady, the kind of neutral tone only used when something had gone wrong and couldn’t be spun into a win. “We received the post-interview report. The candidate declined to move forward.”

He stilled. Only slightly. The kind of stillness that didn’t look like pause so much as containment.

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

Ayaka continued. “She was polite. Expressed appreciation. But declined to proceed to the second round. When asked for context, she cited…a gut feeling.”

Sesshōmaru exhaled once through his nose, a breath neither sharp nor shallow—just long enough to mark the moment. Then he ended the call without further comment. There was nothing more she could give him.

He sat in the silence that followed, his office dark except for the low hum of the city outside and the faint glow of monitors that no longer demanded his attention. His hands folded in front of him, thumbs pressed together, and he stared not at the screen, but through it. As if looking at the problem would dignify it more than it deserved.

If it had been anyone else, he would have ended it here.

That was the truth.

He would’ve shut down the entire operation—ghosted the recruiter, shelved the brand, archived the website, burned the fabricated employee reviews to the ground. He would have deleted the firm from every server it touched and repurposed the shell entity for something cleaner, colder, more obedient.

But it wasn’t anyone else.

It was her.

Kagome Higurashi.

A woman whose instincts had saved her company from disaster half a dozen times, and whose silence had allowed them to take credit for every single one. A woman who, even after being gutted from her role, blacklisted from her clients, and excised from internal comms, had still chosen restraint over retribution. She’d conducted herself with grace, intelligence, and exacting poise. Even in a moment of perceived ruin, she’d never abandoned her integrity.

And now?

Now, offered something so precisely tailored to her needs it should have felt like a gift from the universe itself—she had declined. Not with suspicion. Not with ego. But with something far more dangerous.

Instinct.

She had felt it.

She didn’t know it was him—not yet. But she had sensed that someone, somewhere, had curated this offer too carefully. Moved too quickly. Written the language too intimately. The job wasn’t off. It was too on. And she had read the truth behind the polish and chosen caution.

He had to admit—it was impressive.

And it infuriated him.

Because Sesshōmaru Taisho didn’t lose. Not like this. Not because someone he wanted refused the elegance of inevitability. Not because a woman, in a moment where she could have chosen power again, had instead chosen principle.

He had built her a kingdom and she’d turned it down because she could smell the hand that offered it.

Fine.

So be it.

He rose slowly, jacket still draped over the chair, sleeves rolled to his forearms, the light from the windows skimming the cut of his collarbones beneath the open collar. He crossed the room in silence, glass of cold tea untouched, and looked out over the city—the grid of Tokyo spread like a circuit board humming with quiet allegiance.

If she wanted authenticity? Then he would give her something real. He returned to his desk and opened a secure channel back to Ayaka. His tone was clipped, but not angry. He didn’t yell. He didn’t need to.

He gave orders.

Proceed with full hiring track for ThinkCo (Osaka).

Let it breathe. Let it become what it should have been—a living, breathing strategy firm.

Accept real applicants. Interview thoroughly. Retain top 20%.

Double the team by quarter close.

One position only—leave it unfilled. Do not post. Do not pitch. Keep the chair open. If asked, say it is reserved. But do not say for whom.

The seat would wait.

He could already see the future—a company she would watch from the outside. Growing. Gaining traction. Earning credibility through slow, deliberate visibility. Reviews would accumulate organically. Webinars. Thought pieces. Strategic partnerships. It would no longer be the elegant illusion he built for her.

It would be real.

And when she looked again, she would no longer see an offer.

She would see a missed opportunity.

That, he knew, would sting more than any personal invitation. More than any tailored message. Because she was smart enough to recognize movement. Smart enough to feel when something had been built with her in mind—and smart enough to feel the ache of being left out of it.

He added one final note:

Begin publishing industry thought leadership by Q4. Prepare public-facing white paper with a female lead author. Organic exposure only. No PR campaign.

Then he shut the laptop, cold and final.

Let her watch the house she could have entered fill with others. Let her know the door she’d turned from remained unlocked. Let her wonder if the seat still waited.

And let her come to him.

Or don’t.

Sesshōmaru could use the firm either way. He always made his investments count. Even the ones that started with the word no.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten: The Shape of Regret
(Kagome – POV)

It had been a little over two weeks since the interview.

Fourteen days, ten cups of tea, and more LinkedIn refreshes than she cared to admit. The initial clarity of her refusal—the firm conviction that she had trusted her gut, protected her autonomy, preserved her dignity—had begun to dull. Not because she didn’t believe in instinct. Kagome always believed in her gut. It had never steered her wrong. It had saved her from bad hires, botched vendor partnerships, manipulative leadership.

But this time?

This time she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d finally misread the signal.

What had once felt like certainty had become a quiet ache behind her ribs. Something sour. Something sharp. Regret wasn’t a flavor she often tasted—it wasn’t in her nature. She wasn’t the kind of woman who said no and then cried about it. She believed in clean decisions. Own it, move on. That was how she survived. How she excelled.

But now? Now she was watching the world spin without her.

Every time she checked the company’s profile, it had grown. Not in some artificial, flash-in-the-pan way, but in slow, confident moves. She watched as real people—real people—began to post excited announcements.

“Thrilled to join the team at ThinkCo this month!”
“Excited to be part of something visionary, something flexible and human.”
“Joining the strategy team at this new consulting firm has already changed how I think about leadership.”

Some of the new hires even had backgrounds similar to hers. Not in content—no one had her exact niche—but in shape. Ex-operations leads. Client strategy consultants. People who’d clearly been handpicked not for resumes, but for fit. And they were grateful. Publicly grateful. Happy. Smiling in their photos with blurry Zoom backgrounds and captions about “day one wins” and “values-driven culture.”

The firm’s page had shifted, too. The hiring banner was gone. The roles she’d been tracking—quietly, discreetly—had all closed. The “We’re hiring!” enthusiasm had been replaced with new white papers, reposted thought leadership, and glimpses of internal culture that felt…real. Earned. Quietly brilliant.

She hated it.

God, she hated it.

She wasn’t bitter by nature. It wasn’t a state she liked. She didn’t do envy. But this? This was worse. This was that cold, hollow space between self-respect and what-could-have-been. She could see the edges of the life she’d said no to—watching it take shape, watching other people walk through a door that had once been cracked open just for her.

And the worst part?

She didn’t have anyone to blame. Not really.

The firm had done everything right. Courteous. Professional. They hadn’t followed up to pester her. They hadn’t tried to convince her. They’d simply moved on. Accepted her no.

And the universe, in turn, had simply replied:
Fine. Enjoy the view of your no.

That was what it felt like now. Sitting outside, pressed against the glass, watching something made for her unfold with other names on the roster. People she didn’t begrudge—but envied all the same. Because they hadn’t hesitated. They hadn’t second-guessed the gift. And now?

Now there were no open roles. The thirty-man hire was done.

From the looks of it, they’d been selective—ruthlessly so. Every announcement came with a hint of pride, of exclusivity. She could tell from the phrasing that only the top applicants had been chosen. They weren’t building a company. They were building a standard.

And she?

She had let her instinct whisper, This is too good to be real.

And the universe had whispered back, Then it’s not for you.

She closed the tab, pressing her laptop shut harder than necessary, and stared out the window of her small apartment. The sky was overcast. No metaphor needed. She ran a hand through her hair, exhaled slowly, and let the bitterness settle somewhere low in her chest.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t rant.

She just sat there—alone with her pride, and her no, and the shape of a door that would not open again.

Not now.

Maybe not ever.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven: When You Are Ready
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He didn’t wage many silent wars.

Sesshōmaru Taisho was not a man who entertained invisible battles. He preferred clean outcomes. Precise executions. If something was broken, he fixed it. If someone failed, he replaced them. If a door closed, he built a new one. He did not linger in thresholds. He did not wait.

Except—
her.

Kagome Higurashi was the exception he had not anticipated. Not because she was special in some over-sentimental way. But because she was sharp. Stubborn. Quietly principled in the way only people who had bled for their professionalism could be. She reminded him not of softness—but of steel wrapped in silk. A core that refused to bend, even under pressure. And when she had said no to the opportunity he’d laid out before her like a crown?

She hadn’t done it with arrogance. She’d done it with instinct.

And then she’d gone silent.

That was the part he hadn’t expected. He thought she might reach back eventually. Not immediately—but rationally. Logically. A week later. Ten days. Ask if the position had closed. Ask if others were opening. Ask if she could revisit the offer.

But she didn’t.

She stayed quiet. And more infuriatingly—she stayed proud.

He checked with HR daily. A simple request. A line item in his morning brief: any outreach from Higurashi Kagome? The answer never changed. No contact. No update. No sign.

But her fingerprints were still there.

He had the logs. He didn’t track her, not exactly, but he kept quiet tabs on the company’s digital engagement. She still checked the LinkedIn page. Not every day, but often enough. She lingered. Scrolled. Clicked through profiles. Monitored updates. She watched the company like a woman watching a former lover walk into the room—nostalgic, bitter, too proud to say a word.

And the absurdity of it?
The irony?

The company was thriving.

Thriving off the skeleton he had built for her. Off the breath he had poured into it. Off the vision, culture, mission, and identity he had designed with her strengths in mind. It was feeding itself now. Self-sustaining. Earning praise. Retaining talent. The team was growing faster than projected. Independent executives were reaching out to partner. Articles were being published by employees she had never met—but whose work echoed the very tone she had helped define during her own years of silence in leadership.

The thing he had crafted as an offering had become something more.

And she still refused to touch it.

She didn’t reach out to the recruiter. Didn’t update her resume. Didn’t leave a breadcrumb of reentry.

And he understood.

She didn’t want to admit she’d been wrong. Didn’t want to apologize for the instinct that had failed her this once. Because admitting fault, for someone like Kagome, wasn’t a simple act of humility—it was surrender. And she had survived too many power plays to give up that easily.

But she was tempted. He could feel it.

Because only someone deep in regret would keep looking that closely. Only someone truly bitter would keep counting the filled positions. Would check the banner had vanished. Would read every post from the new hires and imagine, just for a breath, what their name would have looked like next to that logo.

They were flirting.

That’s what it was. Not openly. Not through words. But through a kind of strategic courtship that neither of them had named. A slow dance at a distance. One step forward. One glance back. Silence, then stillness, then another look. She wasn’t rejecting him.

She was testing him.

As if she knew—instinctively—that once she crossed that threshold, once she accepted the truth of what had been made for her, there would be no turning back.

Because Sesshōmaru Taisho did not give gifts lightly. He did not build companies for just anyone. And once he brought something into his domain?

He did not let go. Not without teeth. Not without claw.

And she knew it. That was why she hesitated. Not because she feared the offer. But because she feared the consequence of acceptance.

She feared what it meant to belong somewhere after being discarded. To be kept in a world where she’d always been used.

And gods…if that wasn’t irritating.

He leaned back in his chair, one arm resting across the dark grain of his desk, eyes tracing the distant horizon outside his office windows—cold, quiet, and vast. A landscape as sharp as his thoughts.

He could almost smile.

Could almost close his eyes and whisper the words into the back of her neck if she were near enough to hear:

It’s yours.
When you are ready to accept it.

But she wasn’t. Not yet. So he would wait—not idly, not patiently. But with purpose. Let the company thrive. Let her pride simmer. Let the silence hold.

And when she reached again—and she would—he would not make it easy.

He would make it final.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve: Left on Read
(Kagome – POV)

Four weeks.

It had been four full weeks since she’d been employed. Twenty-eight days since her last systems login. Nineteen since she’d deleted her company’s internal Slack channels. And ten since she’d stopped pretending she wasn’t watching the new firm like a jilted lover scrolling through her ex’s vacation photos.

She hadn’t meant to become bitter. It wasn’t her brand. Bitterness was for people who hadn’t been taught how to land on their feet. She’d always prided herself on being the kind of woman who pivoted with grace, who made even disaster look like part of the plan. But pride had a funny way of turning inward when no one else was clapping. And this? This felt like a very quiet, very personal defeat.

She stared at the ThinkCo LinkedIn page the way some women stared at wedding albums they’d walked away from.

It was humiliating.

Not because it wasn’t hers. But because she’d been offered it. Handed it. And had said no like a fool. And now she was sitting on the outside like a ghost at her own reception, watching the new bride laugh and flourish and be loved.

The firm had bloomed. She couldn’t deny it anymore.

What once looked like a polished shell now pulsed with momentum. A culture was forming—clear, grounded, steady. More employees were posting now, not just about their roles, but about the way leadership responded, how voices were heard, how wins were shared. It wasn’t just a clever branding trick. Kagome had lived long enough in corporate PR to know the difference. This was real.

And it was worse because she wanted it.

Gods, she wanted it. And it was maddening.

How had she ended up here—jealous over a job like some bitter ex? As if she’d been wronged, betrayed, ghosted. As if the firm had cheated on her after she was the one who said no. It felt like scrolling through a lover’s feed, only to find him smiling with someone new in every photo. Healthier. Better lit. Thriving.

And she? She had front row seats to every update.

She hated that she kept checking. Hated the way she’d memorized job counts. How she could tell when the “We’re hiring” banner had quietly disappeared and how it hadn’t returned. Thirty positions, filled. Thirty welcome posts, each one a thorn under her skin.

And still, she hadn’t texted back the recruiter. Not because she didn’t want to. But because she had pride. A stupid, choking, aching kind of pride that refused to let her admit what every part of her now knew: she’d made a mistake.

And pride didn’t taste noble when you were sitting on your couch in sweatpants, calculating how much longer your severance would last.

Two months. That’s all that remained.

Two months before her bank account started shrinking instead of holding the line. Two months before her instincts would no longer be enough to keep the lights on. And the job market? A wasteland. She’d applied. Of course she had. She wasn’t lazy. She wasn’t naive. But not one interview had come through. Not one callback. Nothing but polite rejections or—worse—silence.

Kagome had been strong for four weeks. She’d held the line. But today?

Today, she folded.

She opened LinkedIn, stared at her inbox, and clicked on the recruiter’s message—the one she’d never replied to. Her fingers hesitated over the keys. For a moment, she almost lied. Almost pretended she was just now following up out of curiosity.

But no.

She swallowed the pride like acid and typed the truth.

Hi Nanako,
I wanted to reach out and see if any positions are still open with the Osaka team. I realize the window may have passed, but if there’s anything still available, I’d be grateful to know.

Thank you again for your time. I’m still very interested.

She sent it. Then she stared at the screen. Waiting. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. She refreshed. Twice. Still nothing. And it settled in with a weight she hadn’t prepared for—the ache of being too late.

She had made the first move. She had unwrapped the bandage over her pride and extended her hand back across the void.

Six hours.

That was how long she waited before the message came in.

Three hundred and sixty full minutes of clicking away from her inbox, then clicking right back. Of refreshing her LinkedIn tab so often it became muscle memory. Of staring at her screen until the words of every old post blurred into a meaningless wall of digital noise.

And still—nothing.

Every hour stretched like taut wire, a slow pull of humiliation and hope. The kind of purgatory that left her restless and simmering, ashamed of how deeply she cared. How much she wanted the kind of acknowledgment that wouldn’t make her feel like some washed-up former talent trying to crawl her way back to relevance.

By the fifth hour, she’d gone through all five stages of grief and circled back to rage. And then—

A ping.

A simple ping.

Her heart climbed immediately into her throat, stupid and eager, as if she hadn’t been ghosted for nearly a third of a day. She clicked faster than she wanted to admit, pulse prickling just beneath her skin, and opened the message from Nanako.

“Hi Kagome,

Thank you for reaching out. We don’t currently have any positions open at this exact moment, but there is a possibility of an internal promotion opening a vacancy within the next 24–48 hours.

I’ll follow up as soon as I have confirmation. Appreciate your patience!”

Patience.

That word—patience—hit harder than she’d expected.

Kagome sat back in her chair, blinking at the screen as the shape of the response began to solidify in her mind. It wasn’t a rejection. But it wasn’t acceptance either. It was a maybe. A possibility. A placeholder carved into time where she was welcome to sit—if she behaved, if she stayed, if she waited politely.

It felt less like opportunity, and more like a warning:

Be a good girl. Sit down. Wait your turn.

The bitterness was almost immediate.

She had reached out. She had swallowed the mountain of her own pride. She had admitted her mistake—if not in words, then in effort. And for that, she was offered not a warm re-entry or open arms, but a seat in the waiting room.

The universe had shifted from saying no to something far crueler:
Not yet.

She could almost laugh. Almost scream. Because wasn’t this the very thing she’d fought to avoid her entire career? Being placed on hold, being benched, being told that timing mattered more than talent.

And worse? She had no choice but to obey.

She needed work. She needed security. She needed to stop drifting in a professional limbo built from her own damned ego. And if that meant she had to wait like a desperate ex outside the gates of the wedding she’d walked away from?

Then fine.

She would wait.

But she wouldn’t do it quietly.

She wouldn’t sit in gratitude for a maybe and pretend it was a gift. She would watch. She would listen. She would remember every hour they made her sit in silence. And if—if—they finally called her name again?

She’d go.

But gods help them if they ever forgot what she was worth once she walked through that door.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen: A Lesson in Waiting
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

She had waited a month.

Thirty days. Thirty nights. Long enough for the sting of rejection to lose its edge and transform into the slower ache of consequence. Long enough for the silence between them to shift from pointed to punishing. Long enough, Sesshōmaru thought, for a woman like Kagome Higurashi to learn the quiet brutality of pride.

And still…she had not cracked.

Not visibly. Not desperately.

No, she had remained composed. Dignified. Professional to a fault. The kind of quiet that could be mistaken for control. But he knew better. He always had. Underneath that composure lived a tempest. A storm she had been trying to tame from the moment she said no.

And now, at last, the first fracture had come.

HR’s update had arrived without fanfare—just another ping in his filtered inbox. He read it during a meeting on digital infrastructure growth, hardly blinking as the email loaded. It was a short note, typed in the dry tone typical of internal staff.

“Higurashi has reached out via LinkedIn and requested to be notified of any upcoming vacancies. No further action taken yet.”

That was it.

And yet it was everything.

Sesshōmaru stared at her name for a moment longer than necessary, letting the taste of it settle at the base of his tongue. She had come back. After thirty days of silence. After a sharp refusal and a wall of distance. She had finally—finally—looked back.

And gods help her, she had done it with her tail between her legs.

Not openly, no. Not with apology or desperation. But subtly. Tactfully. The kind of reach that was supposed to feel professional. An expression of “renewed interest.” But he could read between every line. That wasn’t renewed interest.

That was fatigue.

That was defeat.

She had worn herself out trying to make the world work without him in it. She had applied to other positions. He knew. He had ways of knowing—digital footprints, HR chatter, the occasional recruiter who owed him a favor. None of them had moved. None had called her back. And now her severance clock was ticking louder every day.

Sesshōmaru didn’t gloat. That wasn’t his nature.

But he did sit back in his chair, exhaled through his nose, and let the moment stretch across the full breadth of his chest. Satisfaction, quiet and deliberate, settled behind his ribs.

He had offered her a throne. A kingdom with her name carved into its foundations. And she—oh, Kagome—she had said no.

She had said no with all the elegance of a woman who thought her pride would sustain her longer than opportunity. Who thought the door would remain open simply because she was worthy. And perhaps she had been. Worthy.

But worth didn’t mean immunity. Not in his world.

She had said no. And she hadn’t come back the next day, or the next week. She had made him wait. A power play. A silent standoff in a room charged with tension.

He had respected it. And now? Now it was his turn. He gave HR one response, clipped and final:

“Understood. Do not respond. I will advise if and when we proceed.”

Let her sit. Let her feel the same silence she’d weaponized against him.

It wasn’t about revenge. Sesshōmaru didn’t operate on pettiness. But there were rules—his rules. And if she wanted back in, she would learn the value of the seat she once rejected. She would learn patience. Obedience. Precision.

Because this wasn’t a game. This was his house. And she had knocked on the door only after the lights had gone out.

He imagined her now—fingertips tapping nervously on her laptop, refreshing her inbox every ten minutes. Wondering if the message had gone through. If she’d waited too long. If the door was still open.

Good.

Let her wonder. Let her trace the outline of her own silence and ask herself what it had cost.

Sesshōmaru had never needed to beg for talent. He never courted long. But this one? She was different. Sharp in the right ways. Scarred in ways he understood. She wasn’t merely competent—she was worthy. And that made her dangerous.

Because when someone like Kagome gave herself to something, she gave fully. And if she gave herself to him, to his world, to the structure he’d quietly built around her absence—

Then she would be his. His asset. His investment. His. And he would not let go. But she needed to earn that return. She needed to remember.

He leaned forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin, and allowed himself the smallest of private, mirthless smiles.

This was no longer a courtship. This was a correction. And if she wanted to step back into his world? She would do it on her knees, even if only metaphorically. Poised. Composed. The good girl she’d refused to be a month ago.

And when he was ready—only then—he would offer her the crown again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen: The Waiting War
(Kagome – POV)

She felt like she was playing a game without knowing the rules.

And Kagome Higurashi? She always knew the rules.

That was the whole point of how she operated—sharp, observant, ten steps ahead with a smile polite enough to put everyone at ease before she maneuvered the room like a chessboard. Her power wasn’t just her mind; it was how she wielded it. She didn’t guess. She didn’t bluff. She calculated. She anticipated.

But not this time.

This time, she felt like she’d been placed on a battlefield she hadn’t seen coming. A slow, creeping engagement with no defined enemy, no clear terrain—only silence. Controlled, suffocating silence. And her gut—her ever-faithful, never-wrong instinct—was screaming.

Something is off.

Not wrong. Not dangerous. Just…off. As if the timing, the structure, the momentum of everything around this supposed vacancy was being orchestrated. She could feel it. Not in anything that had been said, but in everything that hadn’t. And now? Now, it felt like she was in a war of attrition. The kind where one side holds until the other exhausts itself into surrender.

And the brutal truth?

She had already lost.

Kagome sat at her dining table, fingers tapping the ceramic of her tea mug, her laptop open and static. LinkedIn pulsed in front of her like an open wound she couldn’t stop picking at. She refreshed. Again.

Still nothing.

No message. No update. Not even a soft-pitched follow-up from the recruiter. It had been a full twenty-four hours since the reply. The one that had promised a maybe. A possibility. “We’ll know in 24 to 48 hours.”

And still, silence.

She knew better than to panic. She told herself this was normal. Hiring timelines shifted. Internal promotions had their own politics. But the longer she sat with the silence, the more it felt pointed. As if someone on the other side wasn’t just waiting for confirmation—they were watching her. Waiting for something else entirely.

Patience, her brain reminded her.
This is nothing. You’ve waited longer. This is nothing.

But the pride in her was louder.

It clawed up her throat, bitter and bruised, begging her to type a follow-up message—something cool and graceful like, “Never mind, I’ve decided to pursue other opportunities.” Something that would let her retake control of this slow burn of humiliation. Because she wasn’t used to being the one waiting. She wasn’t used to feeling…wanted less.

Except she didn’t believe that. Not fully. Not deep down. This didn’t feel like rejection. It felt like strategy.

And gods, that was worse. Because if someone was playing chess with her, and she didn’t know the board? She hated that more than any “no” ever could. Her mind kept circling back, over and over, to a feeling in her chest that tightened every time she thought of him. Of Sesshōmaru.

She hadn’t heard his name. Not directly. But the job offer had felt tailored. The firm too agile, too sharp, too focused for a team she hadn’t seen anywhere on the radar three months ago. And the recruiter? Polished. Subtle. Non-pushy. But efficient.

It all felt like his touch. Cool. Controlled. Absolute. And if she was right? Then she wasn’t waiting on HR. She was waiting on him.

The thought made her pulse flutter with something cold and electric, something equal parts fury and…fascination. Because Sesshōmaru didn’t play games. He moved empires. Quietly. Thoroughly. Without mercy.

And if he was the one holding the strings now? Then this wasn’t a job interview. It was a test.

Kagome closed her laptop slowly, resisting the urge to refresh one last time. Her tea had gone cold. Her jaw was tight.

Hold, she told herself. Just like she would in battle. When everything screamed for her to swing, to react, to protect. Sometimes the best move was no move at all.

Dodge. Wait. Watch. Survive.

And gods help whoever thought they could win by outlasting her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen: The Lesson
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He had made her wait.

Not for weeks. Not forever. Just long enough. Long enough for the silence to become a lesson. Long enough for her to start questioning whether she had imagined the offer in the first place. Long enough for the pride in her chest to begin caving in around the ribs, cracking just slightly under the weight of being left out in the cold.

And for someone like Kagome Higurashi—who had always been wanted, always been chased, always been the one who decided the terms—that was the most exquisite form of discipline he could offer.

Sesshōmaru didn’t believe in second chances. He believed in training. And she had rejected his first command. Not rudely. Not out of disrespect. But out of pride. And pride, he had found, was always the first thing to soften under prolonged isolation.

She had said no. She had declined the offer he’d built for her—custom fit, polished, silent in its power. She hadn’t known it was his. Not then. But she had felt it. Her instincts were too sharp not to have sensed something potent threading through the seams of that opportunity. Something too aligned. Too perfect.

And she’d walked away.

That was fine. He hadn’t stopped her. Sesshōmaru didn’t chase.

He waited.

And when she came crawling back—a month later, subdued, tired, pride unraveled just enough to reach out—he had watched her suffer in the silence she had once wielded.

It had pleased him. Because she needed to learn. And gods, did she.

He tracked her like a shadow. Watched the flicker of her activity on LinkedIn—the late-night refreshes, the paused scrolls on the think tank’s posts, the way her presence hovered around the company page but never dared engage. She was circling the fire now, but careful not to touch. Not after being burned.

She was cautious. Quiet. Waiting.

He allowed it. Let her sit in that discomfort for another day, another night. Let her chew on the silence and ask herself if it had all been a mistake. Let her start to wonder—really wonder—who was on the other side of the gate she was now begging to be opened again.

When the time came, he sent a message to HR.

Simple. Decisive. Final.

“Inform Higurashi that the position is now officially available. She may bypass initial interviews and proceed directly to the final round. I will sit in as observer.”

It would not be phrased like a gift. It would not come with gratitude or fanfare. But Kagome would feel it. She would sense the sudden, silent hand pulling her through the door. She would know—if not immediately, then eventually—that this wasn’t a coincidence. That someone had been watching her.

That someone had been waiting for her to behave.

And Sesshōmaru? He had plans. He would sit in on the interview. Quietly. Camera off.
No title. No introduction. Just his initials in the bottom corner of the call: S.T.

She would speak with the recruiter. She would think the process had returned to normal. That maybe, just maybe, she’d earned her way back through sheer merit. But halfway through the conversation—when her voice warmed, when her confidence started to slip back into place—she would notice it.

The initials. The timing. The interviewer’s sudden reference to “one of our primary benefactors” being particularly interested in the cultural integrity of the team. The realization would dawn slow and cold—like stepping into a room and finding the air already claimed.

He was there.
Watching.
Measuring.

And she would understand. That the man she had walked away from had never stopped watching her. That the opportunity she had rejected was not some random offer.

It was his.

That he had given her silence not as punishment, but as structure. As training. And that now? Now he had let her back in—not because she earned it, but because she had learned. Learned to wait. Learned to sit. Learned to submit.

Not in the vulgar sense. Sesshōmaru had no interest in humiliation. But there was something far more exquisite in watching a woman like Kagome—sharp, principled, brilliant—realize that the world did not always bend to moral high ground.

Sometimes, it bent to power. And he had all of it.

When she joined that call, he would say nothing. He would sit and listen. Like a god behind a veil, observing his creation.

And when the recruiter asked the final question—“Do you have any hesitations about rejoining the hiring process?”—he would wait to hear if she hesitated again. Because if she did? She would not get a third chance.

But if she answered right?

He might finally, finally allow her to step into the kingdom she had once refused—this time, on her knees, where she belonged.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen: The Quiet Obedience
(Kagome – POV)

She had been humbled.

No—trained.

And gods, wasn’t that worse?

Because Kagome Higurashi had always prided herself on knowing exactly who she was. She was measured. Assertive. The woman in the room with the straight posture and the better questions. She was the calm voice on a conference call that clients leaned into, the one senior leadership turned to when they needed hard truths delivered with honey. She ran teams. She made decisions. She didn’t wait for opportunities—she created them.

But here she was.

Sitting alone at her kitchen table with her hands curled tightly around a ceramic mug she hadn’t even taken a sip from in twenty minutes. Her laptop screen glowed with the fresh email from HR, sterile and polite, offering her a final interview.

It should have felt like a relief. A win. A closing chapter in the humiliating pause that had become her life.

Instead, it felt like a collar.

And she?

She had learned to sit. She had learned to wait. She had learned how to behave.

The realization made her stomach twist in disgust, not at anyone else—but at herself. Because this wasn’t who she was. Not the woman who used to schedule three executive briefings before lunch and shut down two contract disputes before her second coffee. She was composed. Controlled. Decisive.

She didn’t shrink. She didn’t submit.

And yet…

Here she was.

Sitting. Waiting. Obeying. And finally, finally being rewarded.

She let her eyes flick back to the email again, scanning it even though she had already memorized it. “We’re pleased to move you into the final round of interviews. You’ll be joined by one or two of our key benefactors who occasionally observe top-tier applicants.”

She swallowed. Once. Benefactors. Observers. Not hiring managers. Not HR. Donors. Big ones. And suddenly, like a cold shiver of recognition climbing up her spine, she knew.

He would be there.

He had to be.

The strings she couldn’t see had all pulled too tightly around this moment to be random. The pacing. The timing. The sudden silence. Then the precise crack of light when she’d bent enough to reach out again. She hadn’t just returned to the process—she’d been let back in. With minimal resistance. Almost…graciously.

And that? That was the biggest tell.

If Sesshōmaru was behind this—and gods, she knew he was—then this wasn’t just about recruitment.

This was a reckoning.

Because she had said no. She had walked away from something he had built for her. Something quiet and powerful and perfect. And if he’d been the architect of that opportunity from the beginning, then her rejection hadn’t been polite.

It had been a slap in the face.

Men like Sesshōmaru weren’t told no. They didn’t ask twice. They didn’t wait at open doors. They gave commands and the world shifted. One word from him moved capital, cleared roadblocks, rewrote partnerships.

And she—she—had spat on his offer.

Walked away with her chin high, like she’d done something noble. Only to come crawling back. Silently. Pathetically. With her pride in her teeth and her desperation clutched like a resume under her arm.

She didn’t know whether she wanted to scream or sob. She’d never been in this kind of battle before. It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t even fully personal. It was something primal. A slow, simmering war where no blows were ever thrown—but the submission was real.

And somewhere deep in her bones, she knew—he was winning. No. Worse. He already had.

Because this wasn’t about employment anymore. It hadn’t been for weeks. This was about obedience. About her learning to sit quietly, keep her mouth shut, and wait like a good girl until he decided she’d earned another chance.

And hadn’t she done just that? Hadn’t she waited, watched, paced, refreshed the company page like a woman haunted?

And now? Now she was being given a chance to prove herself worthy again.

Kagome closed her eyes slowly, letting her spine press into the back of her chair, the silence in the room suddenly louder than it had been in days. It echoed with shame. With anticipation.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, stiff and slow, as if even her body rebelled against the act of writing the response.

Thank you for the opportunity. I’m available at the scheduled time and look forward to speaking with the team.

It sounded polite. Grateful. Measured. She didn’t believe a word of it. But she hit send anyway.

Because pride didn’t pay the bills.

And Sesshōmaru?

He wasn’t just testing her loyalty. He was teaching her what it felt like to be handled. What it felt like to be conditioned. What it meant to kneel—not to a man, but to the idea of one who never had to raise his voice to bring you to your knees.

And the worst part?

A small, shivering part of her—deep, buried, ashamed—wasn’t just scared.

It was curious.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventeen: The Return
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

She had responded almost immediately.

Not five minutes. Not ten. No, she had written back right away, like the obedient little thing he had been patiently sculpting her into. There had been no hesitation. No delay. Her reply had slid into the HR inbox as if she’d been waiting for the offer to appear, eyes trained on her screen like a woman starving for permission.

And gods, the moment he saw it, Sesshōmaru nearly smiled.

She was ready.

No, not ready—ripe. Softened just enough by isolation and self-inflicted silence. Not broken, never broken. That wasn’t his intention. Not with her. He didn’t want her crumbling.

He wanted her trained.

Today was the day. Her final interview was in ten minutes, and everything was in place. His team had cleaned the call with polish, scripted HR’s side down to the second, adjusted her interview panel with just enough artificial weight to make it feel real. But none of that mattered.

The only detail worth anything?

His initials.

S.T.

Floating in the corner of the digital conference room like a phantom—nameless, faceless, present. A symbol. A claim. A hand sliding back around her throat without ever touching skin.

And she would know. Oh, she would feel it.

She would enter that meeting like a woman returning to the scene of her own unraveling, spine stiff, nerves alert, pupils shrinking the moment she saw those two little letters. Right on time. Of course she was.

Good girls were always punctual.

He had trained her without ever raising his voice. Conditioned her to obey without direct orders. She had walked away once, yes—but look how quickly she had come crawling back. Silent. Measured. Dignity fraying at the edges. He could almost taste her regret, sweet and trembling like a throat pressed open for forgiveness.

And now?

Now, she would walk back into his presence. Sit down. Straighten her blouse. Offer him the performance of a professional woman prepared to impress her judges.

But there was only one judge that mattered.

She wouldn’t see his face. Wouldn’t hear his voice. But his presence? She would feel it wrap around her like smoke. Cold. Inevitable. Controlling. A leash clicking back into place.

Because this wasn’t just an interview.

This was a return.

Her submission was threaded through every keystroke of her reply. Every inch of her presence in that digital waiting room. Every blink as she adjusted her mic and tried not to look for him—and failed.

She had insulted him. She had said no. Rejected what he had built and offered.

And he had let her.

He hadn’t retaliated. He hadn’t blacklisted her. Hadn’t burned her bridges. That would have been too easy. Too crude. No, instead, he had let her simmer. Let her feel the weight of silence like a collar tightening. He had waited until she was quiet. Still. Humbled.

Until she learned that the space he gave her was not permission, but punishment.

And now? Now she was back. And Sesshōmaru. Sesshōmaru was going to enjoy this. He leaned back in his chair, eyes sharp as he watched the meeting log blink again.

Higurashi, Kagome.

There she was. Punctual. Predictable. Perfect.

He didn’t turn on his camera. He didn’t need to. Power didn’t need to announce itself. It simply was. He existed in the gravity of the space. And she would squirm under it. She would sit up straighter, smile a little tighter, stumble just once on her words. Because she would know—he was watching.

Let her feel him. Let her squirm under the knowledge that she had been handled. That this room, this interview, this entire process was his leash snapping back around her neck.

And she? She had returned willingly. Because even after all the silence…all the refusal…all the pride…she had come back to him. Like a well behaved brat. Like something that understood, finally, what obedience meant.

This wasn’t about employment. Not anymore. This was about correction.

About watching her re-enter the space he had cleared for her with trembling reverence and pretend she still had power. That she still had a choice.

She didn’t. Not anymore. She had made the mistake. She had earned the silence. She had learned from it. And now? Now he would decide how far this would go.

He was curious. Dangerous with it. Was she just as stubborn in private? Did that spine crack when her breath hitched? Did she arch under pressure or bear her fangs? How much would she fight before she learned other lessons? And gods…how sweet it would be to teach her.

He straightened his cuffs. Watched the camera light flick on for her. Watched her blink and smile with lips just a little too tight. And settled in. Let the final interview begin. Let her perform. Let her know—

This was not a second chance.

It was a hand on her throat. And it would not lift until he decided it was time.

Her voice came through his headset like silk drawn over a blade—smooth, professional, cautious. Every syllable clipped with practiced polish, the kind that told him she’d rehearsed. Maybe even stood in front of a mirror, trying to summon the confidence that had once come naturally.

She was performing.

And gods—he loved her for it.

Because it meant she knew.

Kagome Higurashi had walked back into his domain with grace, yes—but also shame. That subtle edge to her tone? That was submission. Humiliation twisted into false poise. She was trying so hard to pretend this was just another interview. But she knew. Knew that behind one of the muted icons, behind the digital veil, he was there.

And more than that—she knew this was her penance.

It had started as protection. He reminded himself of that. The night she had been removed, scapegoated by weak men afraid of her voice, Sesshōmaru had moved swiftly to ensure she would not fall through the cracks. Not someone like her. He had respected her. Admired her. She had been an asset.

But then? Then she had said no. Not just a no. It had been an elegant, decisive dismissal. One that cut. And that…changed everything.

Because Sesshōmaru was not a man accustomed to being denied. He was not a man whose offers went unanswered. And the more she resisted, the more fascinated he became.

She was so careful now.

So polite.

So controlled.

He could hear it in every breath, the tension, the effort it took not to trip over her own pride. It was all there—in the slight pause before answering, in the tight smile visible on her camera feed, in the subtle way she tilted her chin upward when answering a question as if still trying to cling to what little power she had left.

He had taken it from her without touching a single thread of her life.

And now? Now he sat in silence, listening. Watching. Imagining. Not just how she’d look kneeling. But how long she would fight it.

Because Kagome had teeth. That was what had drawn him to her. Not just her intelligence, not just her competence—but her resistance. Her endless, infuriating, tantalizing resistance.

Gods, he could make a thousand women obey.

But teaching Kagome?

That would be an art.

He’d train her slowly. Meticulously. With intention and patience, like breaking in something wild. Not to destroy—but to mold. To reshape. To keep.

Because interest faded. But fascination? That was the start of possession. And now? Now he wanted everything.

He wanted to memorize her voice until he could hear it in his sleep. Learn every cadence of her defiance. Know the difference between the tone she used when she was trying to impress and the one she used when she was about to crack. He wanted to listen as she tried to hold herself together and hear—truly hear—the moment she stopped trying.

And when she did? He would reward her. Not with praise. No. That was too easy. Too simple. He would call her precious. He would call her mine. He would murmur things like obedient thing, clever little prideful pet, and finally, you’ve learned to listen, haven’t you?

Because that was what she needed.

Not just validation.

Claim.

She was meant to be protected, yes. But also trained. Owned. Watched. Admired. Broken down and rebuilt until she belonged to him in the way that mattered most.

Not in title. But in behavior. 

She’d asked for it when she said no. And now?

Now, he would show her just how far he would go to enjoy her future refusals. Each one more costly. Each one more intimate. Because every time she said no, she drew herself deeper into his orbit.

And when she finally said yes? It would mean something.

Because Sesshōmaru never gave a second chance. Not unless he planned to make someone pay for it.

And Kagome?

She would pay.

But gods, she would be glorious for it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen: The Crawl Back
(Kagome – POV)

The moment her cursor hovered over the virtual meeting room, she saw it.

S.T

Two muted little letters—harmless to anyone else. Invisible in meaning. Ordinary. But to her, they weren’t just initials. They were a mark. A presence. A collar cinched around her neck from a thousand miles away.

And suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.

Her heart didn’t race. No, it dropped. Cold and slow like a stone sinking to the bottom of something deep and unfamiliar. It wasn’t fear—it was recognition. Immediate. Primal. He was here. He was watching. And somehow, even from behind that blank icon, she could feel him reach through the screen and close a fist around her spine.

She was being observed. Judged. And not by the recruiter. This wasn’t an interview. It was a reckoning.

The same man she had rejected, silently and without ceremony, was sitting on the other end of the call she had now begged to be added to. The same man she had denied a connection request, declined a position from, and then ignored out of some desperate attempt to maintain her pride. And now?

Now she was here. On time. Prepared. Dressed like a professional and trembling inside like a sinner at the altar. And gods—gods, she almost told him to go fuck himself.

The words lived on her tongue, sharp and seductive, offering the only power she had left. It would be so easy. A single breath. A polite smile, followed by a cool, “I’ve changed my mind.” Close the laptop. Stand tall. Pretend that this wasn’t humiliation clawing its way up her throat.

But she didn’t do it. Because pride was expensive. And she had already spent too much of it.

So instead, she performed.

Kagome straightened her back. Tilted her chin. Smiled with the precision of a woman who had practiced exactly how to wear a mask over the collapse of her dignity. She nodded to the recruiter. Greeted the other panelists. Made herself look pleasant, prepared, employable.

But all the while, she felt the weight of him. Sitting behind those letters, behind that screen. Like a god watching from Olympus. Or a predator waiting behind glass, eyes sharp and patient. He didn’t speak. Of course he didn’t. That wasn’t his style. His silence was heavier than the others’ words. It hung over her, suffocating in its knowing.

And it said: I let you come back. I let you return to me. Now show me you understand the mistake you made.

She did. She fucking did.

Every breath she took was penance. Every answer she gave was an apology without language. Because this wasn’t about qualifications. Not anymore. This was about the moment she’d said no to a man who was never told no. A man who had built something for her, wrapped it in silence and control, and held it steady while she walked away.

And now she was crawling. She hated herself for it. Hated the heat in her cheeks, the way her stomach coiled with something low and burning—not quite dread. Not quite arousal. But something between.

What did he want from her? That question pulsed louder with every passing second. Was it because she had been good at her job? Because she had impressed him in some measurable, strategic way? Had he simply decided she was too valuable to lose?

Or was it something else entirely?

Maybe he’d felt a sense of duty. Responsibility, even. Maybe Sesshōmaru had seen what happened to her—the way she was removed, discarded like a liability—and decided that someone had to protect her. Maybe, in some detached, calculated way, he believed it was his to fix.

But if that had ever been true, it wasn’t anymore. Not after she declined his offer. Not after she rejected the hand he extended, cold and silent, through a recruiter’s title and a curated company banner.

Because now?

Now it had shifted. She could feel it. This wasn’t about protecting her. This was about punishing her.

He had built this company, this role, this interview pipeline. And when she turned her back on it, he didn’t close the door. No. He left it open. Just wide enough for her to crawl back through it on hands and knees. And when she did?

He said nothing. He simply waited. And now here she was—performing in a cage of her own making. Because this wasn’t a second chance. This was her lesson. And the worst part? The worst part was that a traitorous part of her liked it.

The pressure. The weight. The structure of it. The knowledge that someone was watching her fall and hadn’t turned away in disgust—but had simply stood, arms crossed, waiting for her to acknowledge her place. Her face burned as she answered another question, voice steady and clean.

She could almost feel his amusement.

Look at you now, she imagined him thinking. Obedient. Careful. Trying so hard to prove yourself worthy again.

And the shame? It laced itself with something darker. Because if this was a battle between them, it wasn’t ending in her favor. It was ending in submission.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen: Consequences
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He watched her.

Not like most men watched women. Not through the lens of hunger or lust, though that simmered quietly now—reluctantly acknowledged but never indulged. No, Sesshōmaru watched Kagome like a puzzle he already knew how to solve. A game he had set in motion and was now enjoying watching play out. She didn’t realize yet—hadn’t fully accepted—that this was not an interview. This was penance. A return. The opening act of her slow crawl back to him.

Her video was on. Her voice clear, controlled. Her expression polite, professional. But none of that fooled him. He could see it—in the corners of her eyes, in the faint hesitation before each answer. She was calculating. Gauging. Measuring the shape of her own humiliation and trying to fit it into something dignified. But dignity, he knew, had long since been stripped from this particular dynamic. She had given it up the moment she hit reply. The moment she asked for the interview she once refused.

And gods, how he admired her for it.

She had waited. Stubborn. Proud. For weeks, she’d watched the very company he built for her thrive without her. She’d seen the positions fill, the banner vanish, the celebratory posts flood LinkedIn like a cruel parade she hadn’t been invited to. And still, she hadn’t broken. Not immediately. Not when most would’ve. Not when others did. She had waited until the silence wore through her pride like acid.

And now here she was. Camera on. Suit jacket sharp. Posture straight.

Performing.

He had always respected that about her. Her poise. Her self-discipline. Even now, on a call where she knew—knew—he was watching, she hadn’t cracked. Not outwardly. But inwardly? Oh, he could see it. The moment HR said, “We’ll conclude the panel portion now,” her entire body shifted. Just slightly. Just enough for someone trained to notice. Her breath paused. Her jaw tensed. She was preparing for the final blow.

And when it came?

It came from her own mouth.

“Will this position be…exclusively remote?”

The words floated into the silence like a question wrapped in silk, but Sesshōmaru heard the truth beneath it. It wasn’t about convenience. It wasn’t about flexibility or comfort. It was about space. Distance. She was trying to create it. To carve out a safe margin between herself and the man she had insulted. The man she had rejected not once, but twice.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Let the moment stretch between them.

It was a clever question. Subtle. Framed with plausible deniability. But he knew what it was. A soft probe. A test of whether this leash—this role—came with a choke collar or a long, loose chain.

HR, in their oblivious cheerfulness, answered for him.

“Yes, the position is fully remote, aside from weekly in-person reviews every Friday. We hold those in either the Tokyo or Osaka offices, depending on your location and alignment.”

Perfect.

He could feel her reaction ripple across the screen. Not visibly—she was too well-trained for that. But inside? Inside, he knew her stomach dropped. Because her plan to regain control, to return without cost, had just been denied.

There would be no distance.

Not between them.

If she accepted this offer, she would come to him. Every week. Without fail. Like a penitent walking into church. Like an obedient thing returning to the hand that once offered salvation.

He had considered giving her that space. Once. In the early days, when this was still about protection. About lifting her out of the wreckage of corporate rot and offering her something better. A role worthy of her skill. A future crafted by someone who saw her value. That was how it began.

But then she said no.

And everything changed.

It had fascinated him. That sharp, sudden resistance. After years of quiet excellence, she had never said no to him. Never once, in all their brief but consistent interactions during her time as senior manager, had she denied his requests, fumbled her reports, or allowed others to mismanage his time. She was efficient. Elegant. Fierce when she needed to be. But obedient.

Until the moment she wasn’t.

And gods, what a beautiful rebellion it had been.

At first, he had considered it a mistake. Perhaps she didn’t realize the depth of what had been offered. Perhaps she misunderstood the gravity. But when she rejected the LinkedIn request, and the job offer, and then still didn’t reach out for weeks—even after her former company cut her loose—he began to understand. She had pride. Real, foolish, bleeding pride.

And that?

That made her dangerous.

It also made her delicious.

Because unlike others who begged, groveled, or threw themselves into his orbit, Kagome Higurashi made him work. She made him wait. She resisted. And now, she was his. Not by force. But by choice.

That was the difference.

He hadn’t dragged her here.

She had walked.

And now? He wanted to see how far she’d go. How much she would give. Because here’s the thing—he wasn’t forcing her. She could walk away. Decline again. Turn off the camera and disappear back into obscurity.

But if she accepted now, after all of this? Then she wasn’t just agreeing to a job. She was submitting. She was acknowledging that his hand had been the only one that stayed extended when the world turned its back. She was accepting that he didn’t just protect her.

He owned her salvation.

And if she dared come back after all of that? Then she would come back under his conditions. Every Friday. Every week. Until there was no distinction between her obedience and his design.

And if she thought he wouldn’t make her feel that? If she thought she could hide behind HR and calendars and remote work policies?

Let her. Let her pretend.

Because eventually? Eventually, she’d remember exactly what kind of man he was. The kind who never offers more than twice. The kind who expects gratitude to come in silence and submission. The kind who, when finally crossed, never forgets.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty: The Cost of a Gift
(Kagome – POV)

She had known the moment the words left HR’s mouth that she wouldn’t like the answer. Still, she’d asked. Because pride was a stubborn, sharp thing. Because she needed—needed—to believe she could still bargain. Still draw a line in the sand, even as the tide swallowed it.

“Will this position be…exclusively remote?”

Soft. Measured. Almost casual. But it wasn’t. It was her final defense. Her last shield.

Because if they said yes, if the answer was total remoteness, then she could take the job and pretend it was her victory. Her choice. Her boundary, accepted. But the reply that followed killed the illusion as swiftly as a guillotine.

“Yes, the position is fully remote,” HR had said with a smile in their voice, “aside from weekly in-person reviews every Friday. We hold those in either the Tokyo or Osaka offices, depending on your location and alignment.”

And that had been that. No room to argue. No outstretched offer of flexibility. Just a calm, corporate fact delivered like a well-polished dagger.

She had smiled anyway. Because that’s what she did. She performed. Even when she was bleeding beneath the suit. She offered thanks, gave the polite nods, and disconnected the call with hands that didn’t tremble, even though her gut twisted so tightly it felt like a punishment.

It wasn’t the weekly meetings that bothered her. It was what they meant. Every Friday. That was intentional.

She knew it. Felt it. In her bones, in her breath, in the way her body recoiled with understanding. It wasn’t about collaboration. It was about access. About presence. About proximity. It was a statement wrapped in professionalism. One that whispered: If you come back, you will come back to him.

There would be no hiding. No screen to protect her. No keyboard barrier. She would walk through a door and face the man she had said no to—twice. She would feel his silence like heat across her skin. She would perform under his eye, again.

And she would know—every damn week—that she had once rejected him and was still permitted to breathe inside his kingdom.

That was the cruelty.

Not the schedule.

The mercy.

She had barely caught her breath before her inbox pinged an hour later. Not long. Not too soon. Just enough time for the silence to stretch, for her pulse to settle, for her heart to mistakenly think she could escape what was coming.

Subject: Offer Letter – Strategic Solutions 

Attachment: Offer_K_Higurashi.pdf

She clicked before she could stop herself. The PDF opened crisp and clean. No fluff. No flattery. Just bold professionalism and corporate precision. Salary. Benefits. Position title.

She stared. Then blinked. Then stared again. It wasn’t a raise. It was a reconstruction of her worth. Nearly double her previous salary.

Her breath locked in her chest. She scanned it again. Base pay, bonuses, stock options. The total figure was obscene. The kind of number she had never dared to dream. The kind of number that made you owe someone.

Because this wasn’t market value. This was an answer.

A message written in yen: You will not be underpaid again. Not while I’m watching.

The kind of offer meant to say: this is what you should have always been worth. This is what happens when you step into the hands of someone who actually sees you.

And there he was again. Not literally. Not named. Not referenced. But present.

She could feel him in every comma of the contract. Every too-generous benefit. Every softly worded clause that made it clear she could work from anywhere, as long as she showed up in person one day a week.

Of course it was him.

No one else would have offered this. Not after being rejected. Not after being denied. No other man would have kept the door open without punishment. No other man would have made the punishment so subtle, so seductive.

He wasn’t just offering her a job.

He was giving her a gilded throne and daring her to sit in it while knowing who had built it.

It was an incredible offer. Life-changing. She could start fresh. Rebuild everything her last employer had torn down. Recover, quietly, with dignity. No begging. No crawling through the ranks.

And yet—her hands were cold.

Because it wasn’t just a job. It was a cage made of gold. And once she stepped in, once she signed, she knew—knew—that this time the collar would be tighter.

People had sold their souls for far less.

So why was her heart pounding like she was about to step into a confessional?

Because she remembered the man behind S.T. The man who never raised his voice. Who rarely turned on his camera. Who didn’t ask questions during business reviews, but made everyone shut up when he so much as cleared his throat.

He wasn’t the kind of man you said no to. Not twice. Definitely not three times. 

And if her math was mathing—and it always was—then this wasn’t just a professional correction. This was the next phase of a lesson. And she? She was out of time, out of options, and just self-aware enough to realize that this was not a job she was accepting.

It was submission in a prettier dress. And somehow, despite every internal warning…she already knew she would say yes.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-One: The Silence Between Yes and No
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

Two hours had passed.

One hundred and twenty minutes since the final offer had been sent. Since he had allowed the weight of his influence to land—gently, silently—at her feet. He had crafted the message with precision. The language was surgical. Polished. Devoid of pressure. But beneath the surface, every sentence thrummed with quiet dominance. It was a net without visible threads, spun so skillfully that she wouldn’t feel the pull until she was already caught.

And yet, she had not responded.

Not a whisper. Not a nod. Not even a lazy email to confirm receipt. Nothing but the sterile silence of a woman who, once again, made him wait.

Sesshōmaru sat behind his desk, motionless. His expression gave nothing away. But his eyes—sharp and ancient, full of intelligence so cold it burned—remained fixed on the glowing edge of his inbox. The absence of her reply was not unexpected, but it was irritating.

She had always been like this. A woman with a spine made of polished steel. Smart enough to speak softly but sharp enough to challenge even in silence. She wielded her self-control like armor, and had somehow managed, over the course of her career, to turn deference into command. She’d made him curious when she first walked into a meeting, all too young and all too cheerful. Too soft around the edges. Too warm in her laughter. A woman like that, he had assumed, would break quickly.

But she hadn’t. Not then. Not now.

Five hours.

Still nothing.

He had never—never—been this generous with anyone. And it wasn’t about the money. That was the least of it. The financial figure had been calculated for effect, yes—but it was only one weapon in an arsenal far more subtle. The position had been tailored. The environment constructed from the ground up to shield her from future corporate fallout. Entire teams restructured. HR mechanisms reworked. A brand created out of thin air. And all of it—for her.

He had not punished her for her first rejection. He had not retaliated when she denied his LinkedIn request. He had, against his instincts, done nothing when she left his offer unread for days. He had waited.

But patience, while one of his weapons, was not a virtue he enjoyed sharpening.

By the eighth hour, Sesshōmaru had stopped working.

Oh, he appeared to work—his team would never guess his attention was elsewhere. He signed the contracts. He skimmed the proposals. He offered curt approvals. But every motion was mechanical. His mind, razor-sharp, was wholly occupied by her.

The audacity.

The temptation.

The exquisite frustration of knowing he had offered her not just survival, but something close to power, and she still had the nerve to hesitate.

He did not need her. Let that be clear.

He wanted her. Which was far worse.

Twelve hours.

And with it came the cold realization that she was making him wait again. Just as she had when she turned down the recruiter’s first approach. Just as she had when she ignored his LinkedIn request. She was a woman who delayed, who tested, who peeled back the layers of submission one infuriating breath at a time.

And yet, she was the only one who ever had.

It didn’t feel like a negotiation. It felt like a war. One she had no chance of winning, but still chose to fight in increments. Minute by minute. Silence by silence.

He exhaled and moved to the window, drink in hand. The city sprawled beneath him, glittering and unbothered. It had no idea that a battle was happening above it in the quietest, most intimate corners of modern warfare. Not with missiles. Not with armies. But with pride. With power.

And with patience.

She was likely reading the contract again. Pouring over the salary. The benefits. The sickeningly generous stock options. She would be seeing her own worth reflected in a number that no other employer would dare offer her.

And yet…still deciding. 

He had included the clause himself.

Please respond within 48 hours to confirm acceptance or request revisions.

Polite. Professional. It gave her the illusion of time, the pretense of control. He wondered, as the clock ticked into its thirteenth hour—would she take the full forty-eight?

Would she cling to her last scrap of resistance, treat this like a test of her own, force him to acknowledge that despite everything he had done, she could still withhold what he wanted?

It almost made him laugh.

Because she could say no again. He wasn’t forcing her. He hadn’t once threatened her, hadn’t demanded anything that wasn’t entirely above-board. She could, even now, close the email, walk away, and pretend this had been just another offer from just another company.

But she wouldn’t. Because she was not stupid. She knew. Even if she didn’t have the words for it—she knew.

This wasn’t just a job. It was an invitation back into his presence. And with it came rules. Ritual. Submission of a different kind. A kind that tasted like control and power, and left marks long after the collar came off.

He could imagine it now—her sitting alone, staring at the screen, her fingers hovering over the keys. Not typing. Just breathing. Remembering.

He would allow her the full forty-eight, if she needed it. But he would never forget how long she made him wait. He would use it.

And when she was finally under him—truly, thoroughly under him—he would show her exactly what forty-eight hours of silence had cost.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Two: Curiosity Is Not Weakness
(Kagome – POV)

It was nearing twenty-four hours.

Twenty-two. Twenty-three. She didn’t know the exact count, because she hadn’t dared check the clock after hour twenty. Time had gone sideways since the offer landed in her inbox. It wasn’t the kind of nervous she felt in tight meetings or dates that might go badly. It was something older, colder—the breath-before-storm kind. The kind that meant power was in motion, and she was fluttering in its center without a clue of how to keep from being torn apart.

She rested her forehead against the cool leather of her desk chair and closed her eyes, as if it might offer some distance from the dread of decision. Because she knew. She knew in her bones that this wasn’t about salary. Not anymore. That figure—almost double—wasn’t benevolence. It was leverage. Permission. A way of saying, I’m paying you to obey—and you’ll obey, or you’ll pay the cost.

Because intelligent men didn’t lay out that kind of money for nothing.

Not billionaires. Not men with reputations lethal enough to be unspeakable. Not men who passed through global boardrooms like a quiet storm, leaving terrified whispers in their wake. Not men like Sesshōmaru Taisho.

And he wasn’t offering anonymity or pretense. He was offering himself. Not literally, but he would be there. Every Friday. Breathing presence. Unspoken weight. The question tattooed under her collarbone with nothing but the promise of collared submission.

So she hovered over the email again. One inch closer to acceptance than fear. Because if she hit “accept,” none of this would go away. Not the uneven pace of his control. Not the obligation. Not the burdened luxury of everything he offered.

She hesitated.

Because money capable of unshackling you from the past, from the wreckage of your last job…that was seductive. It whispered to her mind, You don’t have to run anymore. It whispered to her body, Lie down and let it wash over you.

But she was not weak.

Curious—if anything.

Curious about the man who could pay for it. Curious about the loading weight of his mind, tempered by discipline. Curious about how far she would bend before she broke. Curious about how many unspoken contracts might unfold with each signature.

She drew a breath.

A trembling breath.

Because she had been taught not to fear open power. But men like him…men like him leaked something unspeakable. Something that whispered of secrets buried in boardroom tables. That dissolved spouses, blackmailed CEOs, disappeared journalists. That greased the wheels beneath facades. A net with invisible threads, strong enough to snap ribs.

And now? Those invisible threads were threaded into her. Hooked in her gut. And if she said yes? She was caught. But still. Fingers crossing, she let her phone ping once more. The simple vibration shook the whole desk.

Forty-six minutes remained in the 48-hour window. He was watching. Waiting. 

So she clicked.

I accept. Thank you for this opportunity—looking forward to Friday.

And just like that, she pressed send. Warm blood pounded beneath her collarbone.

It was done.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Price of the Yes
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

Forty-five minutes.

He had watched the digital countdown like a man expecting either war or surrender. It was not often that Sesshōmaru Taisho waited on anything—especially not on a woman’s answer. Especially not on a decision he had already curated, cornered, and crafted for her. But she was not like the others. Kagome Higurashi had always made him wait. And worse—made him want to.

Forty-five minutes remained before the contract expired.

He had not trusted the passive ticking of time alone. He had set an alert—precise and mocking—a reminder of just how long it had been since she was offered the world and made to kneel before it. The screen blinked calmly beside him: Contract expires in 00:45:00.

And then—just like that—his phone buzzed.

A simple, impersonal message from HR:

Offer accepted. No modifications or negotiations. All documentation complete.

Silence pressed into the edges of his awareness. And for a moment, just one cold second—he didn’t know whether he wanted to praise her…or punish her.

Because the answer wasn’t clean. It wasn’t obedient or defiant. It was both. She hadn’t simply signed her name to the contract. She had signed with forty-five minutes left. After he had circled her like a hawk for days. After she had felt the full weight of his presence and his patience. And after he had given her every opportunity to walk away.

She hadn’t negotiated a damn thing.

Not the title. Not the pay. Not the reporting structure. Not even the once-a-week in-person requirement. She had accepted it as is.

Which meant she wasn’t stupid.

She had understood.

She knew the pay wasn’t a bonus—it was a message. She knew the protection he had offered wasn’t neutral. That it came with strings braided in silk and silence. That he was not a man who simply gave. He invested. He owned.

And she had signed anyway.

That meant she had known—clearly, consciously—what the contract was. What he was. That she was accepting a position not just in a company, but within the sharp, protective circle of his gaze. That she would belong to him in function, if not in name.

And gods, that made him want to grip the edge of his desk and bury his control.

Because she had not been easy. She had not folded at the first offer. She had not blinked at the first sign of comfort. She had not flattered or chased or pretended.

She had resisted. Hard. And in doing so, she had made her surrender carry weight. She had made it real.

That was what undid him—not the yes, but the reluctance behind it. The war she had waged with herself. The internal resistance he could almost taste through the screen. The slow, trembling logic that had brought her back to the line where her name was finally written beneath his. Not in ink. In understanding.

He leaned back in his chair, one hand curling over the armrest, thumb pressed thoughtfully against his ring finger. His gaze didn’t move from the screen.

She had done well.

Not perfectly. He did not reward hesitation without punishment. He would not forget how close she had come to saying no a third time. How hard she had tried to outmaneuver the invisible rules of the game. But he would reward the truth of it—the honesty of her conflicted decision. The intelligence in her delay. The submission in her final act.

She knew the price. And she had paid it willingly.

That was what made it delicious.

This had started as protection. That was the line he told himself—the fiction of safety for someone who had deserved better. But now? That mask had cracked. And the truth beneath it pulsed against his temples and tongue.

Now it was possession. Now it was personal.

And now, the clock that ticked in his office wasn’t counting down a contract—it was counting down to Friday. To her first day. Her first check-in. Her first step back into his world.

He did not waste time once the contract was signed.

The moment her acceptance was logged into the system and finalized, Sesshōmaru moved with the same deliberate precision he used to make acquisitions, dissolve partnerships, and cut billion-dollar losses without blinking. But this—this—was not a transaction. This was a choreography.

One she would perform for him.

He opened his calendar and set the status to Out of Office for Friday. No explanations. No meetings. No overlap. That day would belong to her—exclusively. Whether she understood that or not.

With a flick of his wrist, he accessed the internal communications portal and sent his instruction to HR.

“Kagome Higurashi currently resides in Tokyo. Inform her that the Tokyo satellite office I retain for independent board consultations will be used for her onboarding and collaboration check-ins. Confirm the address. Confirm the time. Tell her to dress professionally.”

He paused before hitting send.

That last line—dress professionally—was not included to conform to policy. She would know that. It wasn’t about a dress code. It was about presentation. Posture. The armor of professionalism she had once worn like second skin, sharp and invincible. He wanted it back on her—so he could take it apart piece by piece.

She had taken forty-seven hours and fifteen minutes to say yes.

Let her spend the next forty-eight wondering how much of that yes he intended to collect.

Because he did intend to collect.

He wanted her composed. Tailored. Polished. He wanted to see if her eyes would shift when she walked through the door and found that the room had been curated with her in mind. If her spine would straighten when she saw him seated in the corner—not at a desk, not behind a screen, but waiting. Observing.

She was his employee now.

And there was nothing unethical in a CEO attending a Friday check-in at one of his own offices. There was nothing unusual about ensuring one of your newest, highest-paid hires was adapting smoothly.

No.

There was nothing wrong with this at all.

He simply intended to watch. He wanted to see her in person. To observe whether she could stand straight after everything she had signed. To hear her voice without the protection of Wi-Fi latency. To watch her eyes flicker as she realized this wasn’t over. That this wasn’t relief. That the pen had simply opened the door.

Because Sesshōmaru did not move without purpose. And Kagome Higurashi, stubborn and brilliant and formerly defiant, had accepted something that didn’t just carry weight. It carried ritual.

Arrival, after all, was never casual in his world.

It was a kind of obedience.

And this first check-in?

It would be her first offering.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Door Between Them
(Kagome – POV)

She shouldn’t have worn the skirt.

That was the first thought that hit her as she parked outside the Tokyo building. It wasn’t tight, not indecent, not even short—it was just fitted. Black, with a high waist that hit just above the knee. She had paired it with a soft white blouse, sleeves rolled to her elbows, her hair left down in the hopes it made her look…disarming. In control. Put together.

She looked like the woman she had been before all this—before corporate betrayal, before the silence, before the offer that felt more like a leash. But now, as she sat in her car staring at the glass front of the building, she didn’t feel like that woman.

She felt like prey.

He’s a billionaire, she told herself firmly. He doesn’t want you. Not like that. This isn’t personal. He wants obedience. Control. You just happened to be the one who challenged it.

It didn’t stop her heart from racing.

Because men like Sesshōmaru didn’t offer things freely. The salary he had promised—no, commanded—wasn’t kindness. It was authority, gilded and sharpened with interest. He could have anything he wanted for that price. And she? She had accepted it. Willingly. That meant her compliance was no longer just theoretical.

It was bought.

She forced herself out of the car, heels clicking softly against the polished tile as she walked into the lobby. The secretary, a woman with blunt bangs and blood-red lipstick, looked up as if she’d been waiting.

“You’re Ms. Higurashi,” she said, tone professional but not warm. “You’ll be using this badge every Friday moving forward. It’s already synced with building access and the tenth-floor conference level.”

Kagome blinked. “Moving forward?”

“Fridays,” the woman repeated crisply. “Weekly check-ins. They’re recurring.”

Of course they were.

“Security will escort you today.”

That’s when she noticed the man stepping forward from a nearby wall.

Tan skin, black hair pulled back into a short tie, lean muscle threaded under a fitted black shirt. He was… striking. Sharp jaw. Coiled posture. And tattoos that curled up from beneath his sleeves like snakes.

“Kohaku,” the secretary said, gesturing casually. “Take her to the conference room. And stay.”

He nodded once. Silent. Efficient. The kind of quiet that unnerved rather than reassured.

She didn’t speak as they rode the elevator. And neither did he.

When they reached the floor, Kohaku gestured toward a glass-walled conference room, tucked at the end of a hallway that looked like it had been designed by money. Wood grain. Minimalist art. No signs. No noise.

“This is the room,” he said finally, voice low, neutral.

She stepped in. It was empty. He didn’t follow her all the way—just leaned against the wall just inside the door. Watching her.

“He’ll be with you soon,” Kohaku added. And didn’t leave.

He stayed. Arms crossed, eyes tracking every breath she took. Not inappropriately. Not even rudely. Just…assessing. Curious.

As if she were something newly placed on the table for inspection.

Kagome tried not to squirm. She sat at the head of the long conference table, hands folded, spine straight. The screen at the far end of the room was powered down. No laptop in sight. No projector. Nothing that signaled an actual work meeting.

And he hadn’t arrived yet.

Just her. And this man. Watching.

A flicker of heat curled low in her spine and she hated it. Hated how it felt to be studied. To be observed. Because wasn’t that what Sesshōmaru wanted? Obedience. Performance. Presence. She had said no. Then yes. And now?

Now she didn’t know what game she was playing.

Would he punish her? Strip her down with cold words? Remind her of her hesitation? Or would he do nothing at all and let the silence be its own kind of reprimand?

She adjusted her skirt slightly and saw Kohaku tilt his head, like she was a puzzle he hadn’t yet solved. And maybe she was. Because even she didn’t know what she was doing here anymore.

But she had shown up. And the door was still closed.

The silence had grown teeth.

It wasn’t just the room—it was the way Kohaku leaned against the wall like he belonged there, arms crossed over his chest, dark eyes never fully looking away. Not rude. Not unprofessional. But observant. Watchful. Like a man stationed, not simply assigned.

Kagome shifted in her seat, trying not to let her nerves show. The skirt clung to her hips in the wrong way when she sat too straight, but slouching felt like surrender.

The room still didn’t look like anything was about to happen. No agenda. No files. No water glasses. It was sterile, almost ceremonial. As if it had been designed not for meetings, but for moments. And her skin prickled with the weight of knowing this was no accident.

Kohaku finally spoke.

“What’d you do to piss him off?”

The question landed casually, almost carelessly—but the silence before it made the impact heavier. She blinked at him, caught off guard.

“I didn’t—” she huffed, clearing her throat, eyes narrowing. “This is a job. Not a punishment.”

He gave a low whistle and pushed off the wall just enough to shift his stance. Amused. Skeptical.

“Princess,” he drawled, not unkindly. “He’s never given a fuck about check-ins.”

She blinked. “What?”

He tilted his head toward the hallway behind them. “Check-ins for the think tank? Floor three. Every single one. Team meetings, collabs, client calls, the works. All on three. This?” He gestured around the high-ceilinged room with a faint smirk. “This is ten. No one uses ten. He specifically assigned us to bring you here.”

Her stomach dropped. It wasn’t a scheduling convenience. It wasn’t a logistical oversight. It was deliberate.

He had put her in this room—on the wrong floor, with private security, alone. Because he wanted her seen. Not just brought in. Not integrated. Presented.

And worse?

Kohaku wasn’t done.

“He told me to escort you. And stay. Not standard, by the way. Most people get a quick drop-off and a badge.” He paused, eyes narrowing slightly, his tone softening with reluctant interest. “So yeah. Whatever you did? It wasn’t nothing.”

Kagome clenched her jaw.

Because she had done exactly what he hadn’t expected. She had said no. Then waited. Then said yes. Not immediately. Not gratefully. Not begging.

She had walked back with her head high. And apparently, that was enough.

Because this didn’t feel like onboarding. It felt like trial. Like show-and-tell under glass. Like a test. And he hadn’t even walked in yet.

But she felt him already. In the room. In the silence. In the unspoken.

Her fingers tapped softly against the edge of the table before she caught herself. Kohaku watched that too. His eyes were far too perceptive for someone who didn’t ask questions. And she hated the way her body was betraying her—heart pounding, throat dry, spine rigid with anticipation.

This wasn’t about employment. Not anymore. It was about compliance. About understanding the rules…after the contract was signed.

The door didn’t open.

Still.

No heavy footfalls. No commanding presence. Just the thick, suffocating silence of expectation. And Kohaku, who—despite looking like he belonged on the cover of a combat magazine—had the unnerving casualness of a man entirely at ease in someone else’s territory.

He pushed off the wall again, and this time, came closer. To her surprise, he didn’t stand across from her. He sat—next to her.

Not too close. Not inappropriate. But there was something about a man that size sitting beside her like that, folding into the leather conference chair like it was a throne. The man was enormous. His biceps strained against the sleeves of his black shirt. His thighs looked like they could crush cinderblocks.

And her? She felt suddenly half her size.

He leaned back, arms folded lazily over his chest, gaze sliding sideways.

“I gotta say,” he murmured, voice smooth, low, and unhurried. “You’re brave.”

She blinked. “For…showing up?”

He laughed.

And gods, it was unfair. Deep, rough, real. The kind of laugh that disarmed without trying. That said he wasn’t mocking her, but also wasn’t surprised she’d ended up here.

“You’re sitting on floor ten,” he said, still grinning. “Next to a bodyguard. In an empty room. With no laptop. No meeting materials. Dressed like it’s a Senate hearing. I’d say that’s brave.”

She huffed, crossing one leg over the other and straightening. “Is he coming or not?”

Kohaku tilted his head back against the chair and gave a loose shrug. “Above my pay grade.”

“Right,” she muttered. “Of course it is.”

There was a beat of silence. And then:

“Is there a reason,” he said slowly, almost cautiously, “for him to teach you a lesson?”

She stiffened.

He noticed. A long exhale slid through his nose as he looked away, almost respectfully. As if he knew better than to pry, but couldn’t stop the curiosity anyway.

“Well, damn,” he murmured. “Princess has teeth.”

She didn’t answer. So he looked back.

“What’d you do?”

Kagome hesitated. Her hand twitched on the table. And then—quietly, almost bitterly—she mumbled, “Refused his LinkedIn request. And the job offer.”

Kohaku blinked. Then grinned.

“You rejected him?” he asked, half-laughing. “You told him no? Oh man.”

Her cheeks burned.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she snapped softly.

That shut him up. But not with mockery. With respect. Or maybe…pity. He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the edge of the table, eyes scanning her profile.

“Then buckle up, Princess,” he said, voice almost apologetic. “You’re the first person I’ve met that said no to him…and still got a second chance.”

She swallowed. Because he wasn’t wrong. And she didn’t know if that made her special. Or doomed.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Five: Four Hours is a Lesson
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He glanced at the watch.

It was a sleek piece—black, silver-lined, understated but expensive in the kind of way most men wouldn’t dare to wear without knowing exactly who they were. He liked it not for the brand, but for the precision. It marked time with the same severity he measured his empire.

And today? It marked a debt.

She had made him wait. Forty-seven hours and fifteen minutes. Almost a full forty-eight. She had sat with the offer. Thought it over. Picked it apart. Considered her pride, her fear, her independence, and whatever wounded instinct inside her had dared to reject him before.

So he would return the favor.

He would make her wait. Four hours. Alone.

He lifted his phone, thumb gliding effortlessly over the screen until the secure message app blinked open. No hesitation. No explanation.

Sesshōmaru: Stay with her for four. I’ll arrive after.

A single gray bubble, sent without ceremony. Kohaku would know what it meant.

He always did.

Sesshōmaru put the phone down and returned to his documents, but his thoughts lingered.

Kohaku was one of the few men he trusted completely. Not just with security. With discretion. With the kind of knowledge that would make lesser men uncomfortable. He had seen Sesshōmaru’s negotiations up close—watched the power games, the corporate chess, the way influence could fold men in half without a single raised voice.

And now?

He was watching her.

Sesshōmaru imagined it: Kagome sitting in the wrong conference room on the wrong floor, confused and trying not to show it, pacing her own breath against the clock. She’d know now—there was no real onboarding. No onboarding ever took four hours. Especially not in an empty room with no presentation materials.

He had designed it like this for a reason.

Kagome had been a sharp blade once. Polished. Loyal. Clean. But when she walked away from him, she had shown her edge. Now she was returning—but it wasn’t as the same woman.

She was returning tempered.

And four hours alone with his silence would teach her everything she needed to relearn. It wasn’t punishment. Not really. It was reinforcement.

The terms had been accepted. The contract signed. But obedience wasn’t proven by ink. It was proven by posture, patience, the way a person sat still when everything in them wanted to move. To scream. To flee. To assert.

Sesshōmaru didn’t need noise. He needed surrender.

Four hours was more than enough to begin softening her again. And when he finally stepped into that room, it wouldn’t be to explain. Or comfort. Or warn.

It would be to collect.

She belonged to him now. Not in law. Not in public. But in power. And power, as he’d always known, was most potent when earned…and then reminded.

It was not enough for her to sit and wait.

She needed to work while waiting. Idle silence would make her simmer. But tasks—measured, intentional, curated—would tighten the pressure around her spine. Make her second-guess her conclusions. Would this be reviewed? Would she be evaluated? Had she already failed by not knowing the rules?

He selected four folders.

Not digital.

Printed. Bound in thin leather sleeves, each marked with minimal identifiers. She would recognize the formatting immediately—quarterly metrics, project outlines, fiscal overviews. All familiar. But none tied to the think tank. These were from his other ventures. The deeper ones. The ones whose meetings she had never been included in, despite all her previous brilliance.

He left a small yellow note on top of each one.

“Review and summarize key insights.”

Simple. Deliberately vague. Not enough detail to ask questions. Just enough to feel like a test.

He handed the folders off to the courier, along with a brand new, unboxed laptop. Slim, silver, configured with no password and a blank login profile. She would have to build her access from scratch. It was a message in itself—you’ve entered my house. You will rebuild with what I give you.

Exactly one hour in, he checked his watch. Then lifted his phone again.

Sesshōmaru: Make sure she has water.

Kohaku responded within seconds.

Kohaku: On it.

He didn’t smile. But he felt something tighten at the base of his neck. The satisfaction of structure.

Hour two passed.

He imagined her by now—halfway through the first folder, posture stiff, hands beginning to clench. Wondering if she could leave. If she was being watched. If she could make a call.

She would be stewing in that seat, every minute stretching. Her pride would be fighting her, biting at her thoughts. She had taken the offer. She had signed the contract. So why wasn’t it over?

He sent another text.

Sesshōmaru: She is not to leave the room.

There was no need to explain. Kohaku would understand. 

An obedient employee follows instructions.

A good woman stays where she’s placed.

At hour three, he paused again. Almost time. He had changed his shirt. Rolled his sleeves to the forearm. Left his collar undone by one button. Not for her. For control. He needed to feel casual, coiled—not dressed for boardroom politicking, but for silent rituals.

He texted Kohaku one more time.

Sesshōmaru: When I arrive, stay.

There was a slight pause. And then Kohaku’s message came through, more curious than formal.

Kohaku: Am I staying in case I need to clean up?

Sesshōmaru exhaled softly through his nose.

Sesshōmaru: No. Not that kind of meeting.

Not today. There were no bruises to leave. No screams to stifle. But there would be silence. And weight. And understanding.

The kind of meeting where obedience had nothing to do with contracts. And everything to do with surrender.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Odd One
(Kohaku – POV)

When he was called to escort her up to the tenth floor, Kohaku had been curious.

They never used ten. Not for onboarding. Not for check-ins. Not for anything casual. Ten was cold and polished and intentionally isolated—meant for people who needed to feel distance, not just walk through it.

He’d seen her in the lobby—nervous, polite, dressed like she didn’t know whether she was heading into a job or a negotiation. Pretty, beautiful even. But not Sesshōmaru’s usual type. And Sesshōmaru had types. Two of them, really. Pain or pleasure. Tools or toys. And both came wrapped in a certain look—dangerous, sharp, willing to bleed or be bled.

This one?

This one looked like a woman who still believed in decency.

Kohaku had been doing this long enough to know that women like that never lasted long near men like Sesshōmaru. Not because they weren’t smart. Not because they weren’t capable. But because they still thought there were rules. Still thought fairness meant safety.

And this girl?

She didn’t look like a threat.

Which meant, likely, that she was one.

Because Sesshōmaru didn’t waste time. Or build meetings around ordinary women.

So when they sat in silence the first ten minutes, Kohaku leaned back against the wall and just… watched. Her fidgeting. The way she tried not to look at him. The way her eyes flicked to the door and then the clock, then back again. She wasn’t impatient—she was bracing.

Intriguing.

Then came hour one.

A knock at the door. One of the junior handlers delivered a slim stack of leather-bound folders and a fresh laptop—still in the plastic sleeve, untouched.

He’d watched her blink, then furrow her brows. Confused. Suspicious.

She peeled the sticky note off the top folder and read it.

“Review and summarize key insights.”

That was it. No header. No context. Just a command disguised as an assignment.

And gods, the sound she made.

A soft, indignant huff—half disbelief, half irritation. She muttered something under her breath he didn’t quite catch, but the energy of it? Spicy.

Kohaku smirked. This was getting good.

She cracked open the first folder anyway. Because of course she did. Women like her always did the work first. Complained later. He watched the shift in her jaw as she scanned the pages, already organizing. Already calculating.

So she was smart.

But more interesting than that?

She wasn’t afraid. Not in the way people usually were around Sesshōmaru. She wasn’t trembling. She wasn’t hyper-aware of the cameras. She wasn’t trying to perform. She was simply… bristling.

Which meant she wasn’t cowed.

She was angry.

And that was even more interesting.

Because angry meant she hadn’t broken yet.

Kohaku leaned his head back against the glass wall and let his eyes drift half-closed, one arm crossed loosely across his chest.

This wasn’t a meeting. Not really.

This was a lesson.

And he was front row to watch her take it.

When the second text came through, Kohaku didn’t even blink.

She is not to leave the room.

He read it. Tapped out a casual “Copy that.” Then leaned a little more into the corner of the room where he’d made himself at home—arms crossed, one boot pressed to the wall, gaze moving lazily between the woman and the ticking digital clock above the door.

She was still working.

Hadn’t even stopped when the folders were delivered. She’d taken one look at the metrics, another at the blank laptop, muttered something creative under her breath, and then got to it.

She worked like someone with something to prove.

Or someone trapped and trying not to flinch.

But gods, she was a talker.

Not to him, not directly. But to the air. To the laptop. To the margins of the folders. Mumbled curses, soft huffs, sarcastic little one-liners too quiet for anyone but Kohaku to hear. And he wasn’t the type to interrupt. He’d learned years ago that these rooms were confessionals if you were quiet long enough.

Then hour three ticked over, and his phone buzzed again.

When I arrive, you stay.

He blinked at that one.

Stayed? With her? He smirked, fingers tapping out a brief response.

Will I need to clean up?

It was a joke. Mostly. But Sesshōmaru didn’t joke.

No. Not that kind of meeting.

Kohaku leaned his head back and exhaled through his nose. Intrigue curled like smoke in his chest.

So that kind of meeting.

Not blood. Not violence. But something heavier. Something slower. A lesson.

He let his eyes drift back to her. She hadn’t noticed the exchange. Still hunched over the laptop, ponytail loosening, jaw flexing like she was biting down everything she wanted to say.

And then?

Then she snapped.

She didn’t yell. Didn’t throw anything. Just stilled mid-keystroke, lifted her head, and turned her narrowed eyes on him.

“Your boss is a petty fuck.”

Kohaku blinked.

Not what he expected.

Not from her.

She leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other like she had every right to demand answers. “Is it because I made him wait forty-eight hours?” she asked, tone edged with something between exasperation and disbelief. “Is that what this is?”

She waved a hand loosely around the room. “Is it the LinkedIn request? The job rejection? The thirty days of silence? Or the fact that I waited until the last goddamn hour before accepting? What part pissed him off enough for this?”

She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t cracking. She was trying to understand the rules of a game she had never been given the manual for.

And for the first time since she walked into the building, Kohaku nearly answered her. Nearly told her what few people understood—

That Sesshōmaru didn’t get angry like other men.

He didn’t throw tantrums. He built rooms. He made you sit in silence. He crafted entire afternoons of nothing. He let your own mind unspool and wrap around itself until you began to doubt every step you’d taken.

But before he could say anything—

The door opened.

And Sesshōmaru walked in.

Black button-down. Sleeves rolled once. A laptop under one arm. Not a glance spared for her.

He nodded at Kohaku as if they were switching shifts at a guard post, then moved to the end of the table and sat down.

Still silent. Still unreadable.

And Kagome?

Kohaku didn’t have to look at her to know her spine had gone stiff. Her hands had paused. Her breath caught somewhere behind her teeth.

Because now the lesson was beginning.

And she was realizing—

That this wasn’t a punishment.

This was ownership, being exercised in real time.

And Sesshōmaru had just taken his seat.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Onboarding and Obedience
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He said nothing when he entered.

Simply walked in, a file tucked under one arm, sleeves rolled once past the wrist. He nodded at Kohaku—precise, respectful, the kind of acknowledgment that needed no words—and took the empty seat at the head of the conference table. Not beside her. Not across from her. But far enough to make it known that this was not a conversation.

He did not so much as glance in her direction.

And yet every move was for her.

The laptop clicked open. The folders were aligned. He began typing, leisurely, reviewing something she could not see, but that she felt somehow was about her. About this room. About her response.

He didn’t speak for the first ten minutes.

Nor the next ten.

At the thirty-minute mark, she cracked.

He had expected it. Had timed it, even. Watched out of the corner of his eye as her shoulders squared, then rolled back, then coiled tight. She didn’t explode—no, that would have been too weak. She turned instead, voice sharp, biting.

“This is stupid,” she said. “This isn’t onboarding. This is you throwing a temper tantrum.”

He didn’t look up at first.

Just allowed the silence to stretch again. Then, deliberately, lifted his gaze—cold, calm, unreadable—and arched a single brow.

“Or,” he said quietly, “perhaps I am waiting on you to finish the files. Are you done?”

Her glare was nearly worth smiling at.

“My key insights are done.”

He tapped a slow rhythm on the keyboard, measured and quiet. Then: “And you do not wish to look them over?”

She blinked, uncertain.

He shut the laptop.

“Because,” he continued, tone like velvet stretched over a blade, “for every incorrect or incomplete insight, there is a consequence. And what have we learned about those?”

She stilled. Entire body drawn up tight.

He leaned forward slightly—not in threat, not in intimidation—but with the unbothered gravity of someone who had waited to remind her.

“You were not punished for saying no,” he said, voice low and smooth. “You were punished for thinking ‘no’ came without cost.”

He let that sit between them. Let her breathe it in.

“Rejection,” he murmured, “is a language. And so is obedience. We are simply translating.”

His gaze raked over her, slow and clinical. Not lustful. But watchful. Like a scholar dissecting a riddle.

“And I am fluent in both.”

The silence returned, thick and pressing. And still, he didn’t ask to see her insights. He simply waited.

She reviewed the files again.

Not with the detached boredom of someone who knew they were right, but with the slow, irritated motions of a woman who’d just realized she might have something to prove.

And Sesshōmaru watched. Not her hands. Not the papers. Her. The way she shifted in her seat, the hard exhale through her nose, the way her jaw ticked as she circled one line, then crossed out another, then underlined something with a renewed stroke of ink.

Ten minutes.

He gave her ten full minutes of silence.

And then, at last, with a quiet little huff of pride, she slid the folders toward him. Like a student who knew the answer, but hated the teacher.

He didn’t touch them. He only looked at her. Then, slowly, his gaze moved to Kohaku—still leaning against the wall, still unreadable, though the gleam in his eye betrayed his anticipation.

“You are confident in these?” Sesshōmaru asked, voice level.

She met his eyes, defiant. “I am.”

“How confident?”

Her chin lifted. “Very.”

He allowed the silence to sit just a second longer. Then, with the elegance of someone drawing a blade from its sheath, he opened the folder. Pages crisp, notes clean, her handwriting bold and steady.

He nodded once.

“Good,” he said. “Then let us begin.”

He lifted his head toward Kohaku.

“I have the insights for this folder documented. Kohaku, take it from me, will you?”

Kohaku stepped forward, slow and easy, the practiced movements of a man who’d done far more dangerous things than hold a manila folder. But still, the gravity wasn’t lost on either of them. Not in this room.

Kohaku took the file.

Sesshōmaru sat back.

“I will read her insights aloud. You will confirm if they align with the actual results or intentions. Mark them as correct or incorrect. No feedback is necessary. Just a verdict.”

Kohaku nodded, flipping open the folder to mirror his boss’s pace.

Kagome crossed her legs tightly. She said nothing. But the tension that laced her shoulders betrayed her. She knew what this was now.

This wasn’t onboarding. This wasn’t about metrics. This was about obedience.

Sesshōmaru read the first line aloud.

“Insight One: Client churn rate predicted to increase Q3 unless legacy infrastructure is transitioned by July.”

He paused.

Kohaku didn’t hesitate. “Correct.”

A faint twitch at the corner of Sesshōmaru’s mouth. He didn’t smile.

He turned the page.

“Insight Two…”

And so it began.

One by one, he read them aloud—her words echoing back to her like a judgment—and Kohaku answered. Coldly. Efficiently.

“Insight Five,” Sesshōmaru said, voice even. “Revenue losses in Q2 were the result of poor consumer trust post-merge, not campaign underperformance.”

He paused. Eyes flicked once, lazily, to Kohaku.

“Incorrect,” Kohaku said simply.

The room tensed. Not from surprise. But from understanding. Kagome didn’t breathe.

Sesshōmaru turned to Kohaku again. “The correct insight?”

Kohaku’s voice didn’t rise. “Consumer trust recovered by end of Q1. Campaigns were poorly targeted. Overspend with no ROI.”

Sesshōmaru said nothing. She flinched.

“Shoes off,” he said, gaze never leaving the folder.

There was a moment—a heartbeat of silence where everything stilled. Then her eyes widened. Not in innocence. Not even in shock. But in the sinking weight of consequence.

She looked at Kohaku, but he only stared down at the file, hands folded loosely over his front. She turned back to Sesshōmaru. Still, she hesitated.

“Shoes,” he repeated. The word clipped, indifferent.

Her fingers moved. Slowly. Mechanically. Like a girl walking herself toward her own verdict. She slipped them off. The sound was soft. Barely a whisper on the polished floor.

Sesshōmaru said nothing.

“Kohaku,” he said. “Continue.”

“Insight Six: Strategic hire in APAC will increase cross-border pipeline by fifteen percent by fiscal year-end.”

A pause. Then:

“Correct.”

Kagome didn’t move. But the flicker of pride—of tiny, grasped triumph—was sharp in her jawline, the way her shoulders didn’t slump.

Sesshōmaru turned another page.

“Insight Seven: Lack of internal cohesion between R&D and Marketing delaying product launch.”

There was a breath. A beat.

Kohaku shook his head. “Incorrect.”

And again, that cold professionalism as he flipped his own page and added, “It’s Finance and Legal. R&D has finalized timelines. Product isn’t delayed. Compliance is.”

Sesshōmaru did not look at her. He stared instead at the folder. Thoughtful. Measured. Then, with the kind of calm that stripped a man of all guilt, he said, “Your call, Kohaku.”

A pause. The decision was not a light one. Kohaku didn’t smirk. Didn’t falter. He looked up from the folder, eyes impassive.

“Tights,” he said.

And Sesshōmaru nodded—once, faintly. As if the verdict had merely confirmed what he already knew.

Kagome didn’t argue. But her jaw was tight. Her breath shallow. And still, she didn’t dare protest. She stood—slowly, silently—and reached for the hem of her skirt.

This, Sesshōmaru did watch. Not with lust. But with the exacting scrutiny of a man who demanded precision. Who measured obedience in inches, not intention.

And when her tights finally slid down—black, sheer, careful—he simply turned another page.

No praise.

No cruelty.

Only expectation.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Weights and Warnings
(Kohaku – POV)

Gods.

What had she done in her past life to defy Sesshōmaru?

Because this game—if it could be called that—wasn’t one Kohaku had ever seen played. And he’d seen a lot. Had followed Sesshōmaru into negotiations that turned to executions. Had sat quietly in rooms where board members left in stretchers. Had handled things—violence, death, disappearance—with the smooth efficiency of someone trained for the shadows.

But this?

This was something else.

This was Sesshōmaru rubbing her face in the dirt with surgical precision. Teaching a lesson that wasn’t just about power. It was about discipline. About control. About what happened when confidence came without calculation.

And gods, he did his job.

She stood now in bare feet, tights folded neatly beside her, spine stiff with defiance she no longer had the full strength to back.

When Sesshōmaru had made him choose—when those unreadable eyes had flicked to him, demanding a verdict—Kohaku had said “tights” because he’d wanted to give her a chance. He didn’t pity her. Pity was for people who never fought. But she had grit. And she had better be smart. Because this wasn’t a test with retakes.

Two strikes. Seven insights down. And all she had left was her blouse, skirt, bra, and underwear.

Kohaku watched the flicker of tension in her throat, the way her hands clenched at her sides. She was proud. Maybe too proud. And pride had a cost.

Sesshōmaru didn’t look at her yet. He simply turned another page. Calm. Quiet. Then paused, not to read, but to speak.

“You said you were confident,” he said, voice low and deliberate. “Seven insights in, and two pieces of clothing are already gone.”

Kagome’s exhale was sharp.

“I didn’t know wrong answers would result in my clothes coming off.”

A faint hum. Almost thoughtful.

“Better this lesson than losing millions from overconfidence,” Sesshōmaru replied. Then his gaze lifted—sharp, unyielding. “Or is your embarrassment worth more than that?”

She flushed. Not with shame, but with the heat of frustration. But she didn’t answer.

Because there was no answer that would save her.

Sesshōmaru looked to Kohaku, eyes cool. “Insight Eight.”

Kohaku didn’t hesitate.

“Eight: MENA region shows suppressed engagement due to region-specific UI incompatibility, not product disinterest.”

He paused.

“Correct.”

A beat. No movement from her. No reaction from Sesshōmaru.

Just the smallest shift of breath in her chest.

Then: “Insight Nine.”

He turned the page.

“Client loyalty index correlates to post-onboarding touchpoints, not initial acquisition satisfaction.”

And again: “Correct.”

She didn’t speak.

But Kohaku saw the tension melt just slightly in her shoulders. Saw the way she stood straighter, steadier. She was so close now. So close to passing this trial.

But Sesshōmaru wasn’t smiling.

And Kohaku knew: the last question was never the easiest.

It was the one that told you what she really was made of.

And gods, she’d better be smart. Because there was only one more chance before consequence outweighed clothing.

The silence before the final verdict wasn’t heavy. It was suffocating.

Kohaku had seen a hundred negotiations end in silence—some with signatures, others with body bags—but this wasn’t that. This was far worse. This was Sesshōmaru’s brand of quiet. The kind that stripped people bare before he ever touched them. The kind that cracked bone with precision long before pain was delivered.

He read the last line slowly.

“Insight Ten: LatAm region failing to meet targets due to cultural mismatch in copy tone, not localization delays.”

He said the words, and even as they left his mouth, he felt the drop in temperature.

Sesshōmaru didn’t move. Didn’t speak. But something in the air shifted. Sharpened. And Kohaku knew. Before the word even came.

“Incorrect,” he said, quieter now.

There was no joy in it. No vindication. Only a tightening coil of tension behind the ribs, the kind you feel when a line has been crossed, when there’s no undoing the step already taken.

Sesshōmaru looked at her. Not with anger. With disappointment. Cold. Measured. Lethal.

“You,” he said, slowly, “are normally smarter than this.”

Kagome froze. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. But something inside her went still.

“Tell me,” Sesshōmaru continued, his voice not raised but impossibly sharp, “is that all it takes to rattle you? Sitting in an office and being ignored?”

Each word cut not because of volume, but because of what lay beneath them—contempt cloaked in silk.

“Do you know who some of my competitors are?” he asked, leaning back just slightly, as if the chair were too good for what he had to say. “Do you think they’d offer you the dignity of silence? They will do worse. They will make you doubt yourself. Make you question every decision. Every breath. They will grind you down until your pride is dust beneath their heels. And if you crack under that pressure—”

His voice hardened. Just slightly.

“—then I do not want you.”

The room was so still it felt like time had paused.

And Kagome…

She stared at him. Not with tears. Not with apology. But with something deeper. A slow, simmering burn that started behind the eyes and spread like wildfire through her limbs.

She didn’t defend herself. Didn’t argue. Didn’t sputter or plead. She simply reached for the first button on her blouse.Unbuckled it. Then the next. And the next.

Each movement was precise. Mechanical. Quiet. But there was no shame in it. No submission. She folded the blouse with care, fingers steady, the cotton smoothing under her palm like parchment on a battlefield.

And only when it was placed gently beside her other clothing—neat, controlled—did she look up.

There was something new in her gaze now. Something forged in the fire. And when she spoke, her voice was a blade drawn slow and deliberate from its sheath.

“It won’t happen again,” she said.

Not a promise. A threat. A vow carved from humiliation and turned into steel.

Kohaku didn’t breathe for a moment. Because for the first time since this started, it wasn’t Sesshōmaru who owned the silence.

It was her.

And gods, he thought, maybe she would survive this after all.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Worth and Weight
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He hadn’t been disappointed in her answers.

Not truly.

It wasn’t the three incorrect insights that irked him—he expected imperfection. Anticipated it, even. No, it had never been about the mistakes. It was about the reaction. About what followed. About whether she would break.

Because in his world—where loyalty was weaponized, and power whispered through silence—strength wasn’t measured by how well one performed when certain. It was what one did when certainty fell away.

He had watched her carefully as Kohaku read that final line.

And when the verdict came—Incorrect—he had turned to her with the kind of cold scrutiny that undid most men.

You are normally smarter than this.

He had seen the tension flare in her jaw. Seen the way her spine held rigid, poised like a wire stretched tight over the edge of defiance. But then—

She’d moved. No words. No flinching. No resistance.

She reached for the buttons of her blouse with slow precision. Undid them one by one, as if each press of her fingers acknowledged her error. As if she accepted that the loss was hers—and would not happen again.

But it wasn’t indifference that moved through her body. It was fire. Quiet, slow-burning, unyielding fire.

She folded the blouse with care. Laid it down like it meant something. And when she looked up—her eyes meeting his, steady, unbowed—he saw it.

Understanding. Not submission. Not defeat. But the shape of a lesson learned.

She had bowed her head only slightly, enough to acknowledge where she had failed. But not so low that she gave away the rest. She had taken his correction like a woman who knew her worth—and knew, now, how to wield it more carefully.

Gods, he thought.

He was proud.

Pride was not something Sesshōmaru allowed himself often. It was dangerous. A soft thing, easily twisted. But it bloomed in him then, cold and sharp as steel—the pride of a mentor watching a student not just survive the trial, but emerge forged.

She would not crumble beneath pressure again.

And when the time came, when one of his competitors cornered her with charm turned razor and negotiations designed to unravel—she would remember this moment.

She would remember that silence is a language. That obedience is choice, not weakness. That consequences could be cloth stripped away or millions lost—and only one could be regained.

He turned back to his notes, calm once more.

No praise. No indulgence.

Just the quiet certainty of a man who had tested her thoroughly. And found her worthy.

He didn’t speak right away.

He let the moment hang, let the weight of it settle into the room like smoke—delicate, persistent, inescapable. Her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm now, not from panic, but from the discipline of someone who knew the fire had passed and left her standing.

Then, finally, he nodded.

“Get dressed,” he said.

His voice didn’t soften, not exactly. But there was no edge left in it. No blade hidden in the vowels. Only instruction. And something else beneath it—a faint flicker of approval so refined it might’ve been missed by anyone but the sharpest.

She didn’t hesitate.

She reached for her blouse. Redressed with the same care she’d taken when removing it, every motion measured. Nothing rushed, nothing fragile. And he watched—not because he needed to, but because he could. Because she had earned that watchful silence with fire, and now with grace.

When she finished, he closed the folder before him with a quiet click and looked up.

“You will not be working for the think tank.”

She blinked.

Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t that.

Sesshōmaru didn’t give her time to question. He continued, calm and absolute:

“I have my legal team in the process of dissolving your existing non-competes and NDAs. They’re aggressive, but not insurmountable. The contracts were sloppy. My lawyers are not.”

A pause. Deliberate. Then:

“You’ll be working for the main company. Effective immediately.”

There was no ceremony in the words. No show of grandeur. Just fact. Decision.

Her lips parted slightly—not with protest, but with the shock of being rerouted by a force she hadn’t seen coming. But he caught the flicker in her eyes. That spark. That curl of ambition that finally, finally recognized itself in the mirror he held up.

Sesshōmaru’s gaze was steady.

“You were never meant for shadows,” he said. “I needed to know if you could handle fire.”

Another beat.

“You can.”

And that was it.

Not a compliment.

A coronation.

She had been tested. Bent. Stripped—physically, yes, but more than that, intellectually, emotionally, strategically. And when all her armor had been taken, she’d stood up with spine intact and fire in her veins.

He would not waste her in backrooms and brainstorming sessions. She was sharp. And now she was tempered.

She was ready for war.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty: The Kingdom and the Key
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

The folder slid into his briefcase with the soft finality of a closing chapter. Papers aligned, corners crisp, silence absolute. Sesshōmaru’s movements were as exacting as ever—nothing rushed, nothing wasted. It was the discipline of a man who lived by strategy, who saw the world in threads of consequence and chose only the cleanest line through them. Kohaku stood to his right, silent and efficient, eyes trained on the floor in that same casual way soldiers looked away from executions they’d seen too many times. The matter was finished. The lesson delivered. The verdict, final.

He adjusted his cuff once, slid the silver clasp of his briefcase into place, and turned toward the door. His hand rested lightly on the steel handle, a signal more than a gesture—we are leaving. And he would have. Had every intention of walking out and letting her sit with the aftermath of what had just occurred.

But her voice—quiet but sure—cut through the stillness like a blade slicing silk.

“I wanted to work for the think tank.”

The words weren’t loud. Weren’t trembling or desperate. They didn’t even carry the edge of protest. But what they did carry—what made Sesshōmaru pause, just for a breath—was a kind of restrained boldness. A statement, not a plea. An assertion, despite everything that had just been stripped from her.

He hadn’t smiled during the session. Not when she snapped. Not when she buttoned herself back into composure like armor. Not even when she promised it wouldn’t happen again, eyes lit with cold fire. But now—now—he nearly did.

Because that was what he’d been waiting for.

The resilience. The assertion of desire. The want.

Most people, after what she’d just endured, would have wilted beneath the pressure. They would have taken the folded blouse and the hard-earned silence as permission to disappear quietly back into place. To be grateful they hadn’t been removed entirely. But her?

She was still daring to want more.

He didn’t turn right away. Gave her that same sliver of silence he always offered—space to reconsider, to measure her words. When he finally pivoted, slow and deliberate, the look he gave her wasn’t scathing or condescending.

It was assessing.

One brow arched, gaze sharp and heavy. A single word followed, laced with too much meaning to be brushed off.

“And?”

The question was soft, but it cut. And what? Do you think this changes anything? Do you think wanting earns you something? Or are you hoping I’ll reward defiance?

But that wasn’t really what he was asking.

Not to her.

Because Sesshōmaru—of course he understood what she meant. Knew what she’d been trying to hold on to, what thread of agency she thought had been taken. She had believed the think tank was her destination. That it was the peak she’d clawed her way toward. And he had watched, with detached amusement, as she clung to that vision like a promise.

But it had only ever been bait.

A lure.

He had crafted that illusion intentionally—built the kingdom with her in mind, yes, but only the outer halls. Let her see its systems, feel its rhythm, taste the edge of its power. She thought the think tank was the reward. A place of influence, thought leadership, creative space. And it was. For the average strategist. For people with sharp minds and even sharper limits.

But for her?

No.

She had been meant for more. And now, she was beginning to realize it.

He tilted his head slightly, watching her face. Watching the flicker behind her eyes as she began to rework the math. The brief widening of her gaze. The breath she took that wasn’t quite casual. The stillness—too careful to be natural—as her expression remained blank.

But he saw it. He always saw it.

Her mind was racing. Sprinting through possibility. Scrambling to understand what it meant. Why he would say no to what she had asked for and then offer her something even greater. Why he would pull her from the think tank like a pawn from a middling row and place her directly in line with the throne.

Because that’s what this was. Not punishment. Not reward. An offer. A key.

And a test of whether she was sharp enough to recognize the difference.

He nodded once, each word slow and immovable.

“Complete your one-year contract,” he said, voice smooth as silk over stone, “and it’s yours.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t react.

But oh, he felt it. The silence wasn’t still anymore—it thrummed with the tension of something that had been dropped into her lap with more weight than she was ready to show. A crown, still warm from his hand. An empire that could be hers—if.

If she earned it. If she proved worthy. If she didn’t crumble again.

She masked the flare of hunger well, he’d give her that. Kept her lips pressed in a thin, thoughtful line. Eyes neutral. Shoulders square. But there it was—the flare. The spark. That greed that made great men and greater women dangerous.

Sesshōmaru said nothing else.

There was no need to explain. No need to elaborate or dangle the opportunity like some gilded carrot. She was clever. Clever enough to understand that what had happened here today wasn’t humiliation.

It was refinement.

And this was her proving ground.

With one final glance—nothing more than a tilt of his gaze—he turned back toward the door. This time, when he pushed it open, he didn’t shut it behind him.

He left it ajar.

Because she had passed the first test.

And now?

Now she needed to walk herself through the rest.

The echo of his footsteps in the marble corridor was sharp, precise. Sesshōmaru moved like he always did—unbothered, unreadable, the kind of presence that didn’t need to command attention because the world already bent around it. Kohaku walked in silence at his side, expression flat, movements fluid. It had always been like this between them—order and execution. Thought and blade. Their rhythm didn’t require words.

Until it broke.

They reached the elevator.

Sesshōmaru stepped inside.

Kohaku did not.

It took him a second to realize it. To register the stillness just outside the door, the absence of shadow where there should have been one. He turned his head, slowly, brows lifting ever so slightly.

Kohaku stood there, hands behind his back, posture still respectful but firm. Not hesitant. Not apologetic. Just…rooted.

“I’ll escort her downstairs,” he said simply. “When she’s ready.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t speak right away.

The silence was never wasted with him.

He studied Kohaku. Not with suspicion, but with the kind of clinical precision he reserved for anomalies—changes in behavior that suggested a shift in pattern or allegiance. Because Kohaku never cared. Not about comfort. Not about kindness. Not about anyone outside the very few circles of command Sesshōmaru maintained. Kohaku followed orders. Delivered consequences. Handled bodies.

He didn’t wait for anyone.

And yet, here he was. Waiting for her.

The elevator doors started to close.

Sesshōmaru lifted a hand and paused them with a single press of his finger against the control panel.

He didn’t step out. Didn’t raise his voice. Just narrowed his gaze and held it on the man in front of him.

“This isn’t like you,” he said quietly.

“It isn’t disobedience,” Kohaku replied.

And it wasn’t. Sesshōmaru knew that. The distinction mattered. Kohaku wasn’t refusing to follow—he was simply choosing a task not explicitly given. And that, more than anything, made it interesting.

Sesshōmaru considered it for a long moment. Then gave a single nod.

“For now,” he said.

He stepped fully into the elevator again, but before the doors slid shut, he added, “If you’re going to stay behind, give her the address of the main office. Floor forty-three. And make sure her schedule mirrors mine until further notice.”

Kohaku gave a slight bow of his head. “Understood.”

The doors closed with a soft mechanical whisper, leaving Sesshōmaru alone in the polished chamber of steel and glass. His reflection stared back at him from the walls—sharp, composed, controlled.

But his mind lingered behind.

Because he had seen it.

The way Kohaku had looked at her—not with softness, no—but with a flicker of something. Curiosity, maybe. Respect, even. Like a man who had witnessed fire and decided it deserved escort. Not containment.

Sesshōmaru’s gaze narrowed just slightly.

She was changing things already. Subtly. Dangerously.

And he would be watching.

Very closely.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-One: The Crack in the Glass
(Kohaku – POV)

Kohaku had worked for Sesshōmaru for years.

Not months. Not cycles. Years.

Long enough to forget what fear looked like when it wasn’t weaponized. Long enough to learn the weight of silence, the calculus of consequence, the cost of breath. In all that time, he’d been many things—an enforcer, a shadow, a handler of inconvenient problems and inconvenient people. But fascinated?

Never.

He had never wanted anyone to succeed. Never given thought to the outcome beyond the job. Never stood beside a person and almost smiled at their audacity. Their grit. Their absolute foolishness in thinking they could win.

But as he walked toward the elevator behind Sesshōmaru, his gut—normally quiet, normally dormant—twisted. Just slightly. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t instinct born from danger. It was something rarer.

Curiosity.

And before he realized it, his feet slowed. Then stopped. His body turned back. He didn’t even think about it. Didn’t make a plan. Just knew, in that strange, silent way that warriors sometimes did, that he needed to be where he wasn’t supposed to be.

And so—for the first time in years—he did not follow Sesshōmaru.

He broke formation.

When the elevator doors sealed shut and Sesshōmaru disappeared behind them, Kohaku stood in the empty hallway for a moment, staring at the closed metal, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Then he turned. And walked back toward her.

The silence as he approached was thick. Not like before. Not that brittle, pride-fueled quiet of someone holding her ground. No—this silence was personal. Small. The kind of quiet that was only meant to be heard by one person. And when he reached the doorframe—when he leaned there, still cloaked in shadows and unseen—he froze.

She didn’t see him.

Her back was turned, hands braced on the edge of the long conference table, shoulders trembling just slightly as she took sharp, shallow breaths. The same woman who had met Sesshōmaru’s cold logic with fire and undressed without hesitation in the face of consequence?

She was gone.

And in her place? This. A woman unspooling.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to herself, each word forced out between shallow exhales. “It was just a damn blouse. You’re fine. It’s fine. He doesn’t know you bluffed the whole thing.”

Then softer, harsher:

“Holy fuck. Shit. Fuck.”

She didn’t sob. Didn’t collapse. But her grip on the edge of the table was white-knuckled, her breath choppy, and her voice—gods, her voice was breaking just enough to make his throat tighten.

Kohaku’s eyes widened.

He’d seen powerful men fall apart. Had watched bodies break and minds fray under far less pressure. But this? This was something else.

This was the aftermath of survival. And she had done it alone.

Gods.

He stood there, just beyond the threshold, and something unfamiliar cracked in his chest. Not pity. Never pity. But a slow, reluctant ache in a heart that hadn’t softened in years. Because she’d fooled them both. Him. Sesshōmaru. Had made them believe she had held the line, unshaken, when really—she’d been bluffing.

And she had won. 

Barely.

Kohaku looked down at his own hands, flexed them once. Then back at her trembling shoulders. A strange thought formed in his mind.

Protective.

Not because she was weak. But because she had been strong alone—and no one had been there afterward.

Not until now.

He stepped forward, quiet as shadow, and cleared his throat gently—not to startle her, but to announce himself. To let her pull herself together on her terms, with dignity, before the world could see what she’d just fought through.

She stiffened. Turned quickly. Wide eyes meeting his with embarrassment written all over her face. But he didn’t mock her. Didn’t smirk. He simply held out a single folded slip of paper.

“Main office address,” he said quietly. “And your new schedule. You mirror his now.”

Then, with a voice just a shade lower, he added, “You did well.”

And he meant it. Gods help him, he meant it.

She didn’t speak right away. Just stood there, still half-turned, her face partially shadowed by the dimming lights of the room, as if unsure whether she’d just been caught in something shameful—or something human. Her eyes searched his, quiet and fast, like she was trying to assess the damage. Trying to determine how much he’d seen, how much he would carry, and if—if—he would carry it forward to someone else.

And then, just as her gaze softened—just as the weight of vulnerability cracked through her carefully held composure—she whispered, so faint he almost missed it.

“Please don’t tell him.”

The words hit harder than expected. Not because of what she said. But how she said it. Small. Earnest. Not pleading, but intimate. Like a secret offered into cupped hands.

Kohaku blinked. And then—rare as snow in the dead of summer—he smiled.  Not wide. Not mocking. But real. Dry. Crooked. Quietly surprised. He shrugged, as if the whole thing were no more than a passing breeze.

“I have no reason to report it.”

His voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. Lacking the weight of judgment or cruelty she clearly expected. He tucked the schedule slip into her folder, then looked back at her with something that almost resembled kindness.

“You survived the battle,” he said simply. “If you shake after from nerves or exhaustion…that doesn’t need to be announced.”

It wasn’t pity. He wasn’t built for that. It was recognition. Acknowledgment that what she’d endured had weight—that her victory had a cost—and that the aftermath didn’t diminish what she’d achieved.

She stared at him for a beat. Really looked at him. As if re-measuring who he was. As if trying to decide whether this—this version of him—was a crack in the armor or something deeper.

And slowly—almost hesitantly—she composed herself.

Pulled her shoulders back. Lifted her chin. Took one last breath that still trembled slightly at the edges but steadied by the time it left her. Then, with a half-huffed exhale that bordered on dry humor, she muttered, “You probably think I’m stupid to care about a damn blouse.”

Kohaku turned, already stepping into motion.

He didn’t answer right away.

Just gestured for her to follow, and began leading her toward the elevators with the same unhurried pace he used after battlefield clean-up—efficient, quiet, the kind of calm that came after the storm had passed.

And as she fell into step beside him, he offered one last glance over his shoulder and said, voice low and even:

“You cared because you were still standing when it came off.”

A pause.

“Stupid would’ve been folding.”

And he meant it.

Every word.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty Two: Quiet Interrogations
(Kagome – POV)

She didn’t know what to make of him.

Sesshōmaru, she understood—at least in theory. He was brutal elegance wrapped in steel, a man who taught lessons by silence and moved like the world would kneel if it had any sense. She could read him, even when she hated what he was saying. She knew the language of cold men who wielded power like a blade. She had met them. Fought them. Endured them.

But Kohaku? He was something else entirely.

He had come back. For no reason. No benefit. No command. Just…walked back into the room and found her at her weakest—talking herself down from a full-fledged panic spiral, still trembling from the inside out—and he hadn’t mocked her. Hadn’t blinked. Hadn’t used it.

Instead? He had smiled. Dry. Rare. Almost surprised to find the expression on his own face. And gods, that had undone her more than anything. Because that wasn’t a man who was used to being kind. That wasn’t someone who made a habit of softness.

And yet, here he was.

Walking beside her through the polished corridors like her silence wasn’t awkward. Like her anxiety wasn’t visible in the rigid line of her shoulders or the way her hands clutched the folder Sesshōmaru had once touched. Kohaku didn’t fill the air with useless words. He didn’t try to reassure her, didn’t offer cheap praise or smug amusement.

He just walked. Calm. Watchful.

And when they reached the building’s lobby, he didn’t vanish. Didn’t hand her off like a package. He stood beside her at the front desk while the receptionist processed her onboarding—her new badge, her clearance, her new assignment in the heart of Sesshōmaru’s empire.

And when the receptionist looked up apologetically and said, “It’ll be about an hour—maybe two,” Kohaku didn’t so much as blink.

He just turned to her. Unbothered. Steady. And asked, “Where would you like to eat and pass the time?”

Like it was the simplest question in the world. And somehow, that broke her all over again. Not into panic. Not into fear. But into curiosity.

Who was this man?

She looked at him then—really looked. At the quiet way he stood, not relaxed, but not tense either. The way his eyes never stopped moving, scanning exits, reflective surfaces, tracking the rhythm of the people passing around them like he didn’t trust peace for long. The way he dressed: clean, fitted, sharp—but not for vanity. For readiness.

He was a weapon. One that smiled once every few years, apparently. And gods, she wanted to ask. Wanted to peel back that quiet and poke at the mystery underneath.

How had he met Sesshōmaru? What had led him into this work? Why was he being…kind? Not just polite. Not protective out of duty. Kind.

Even now, as he waited without complaint, no irritation in sight, offering her a meal not because she needed it—but because he knew he would’ve wanted one after facing a monster and walking away.

Her voice was quiet when she spoke. Tentative.

“I don’t want to go anywhere fancy,” she said. “I need carbs. And something I can hold without thinking too hard.”

Kohaku tilted his head.

“You like soba?”

“I love soba.”

He gave her a slight nod, turned to the receptionist, and said, “We’ll be back in an hour. If it’s done early, call me.”

He led her toward the doors then, his pace unhurried, like he wasn’t following orders for the first time in years—and still didn’t regret it.

And as they stepped into the street, she found herself glancing sideways, eyes narrowing with something half like suspicion and half like awe.

Who the hell was this man? And how had Sesshōmaru convinced him to stay in someone else’s orbit?

They had been walking for maybe five minutes when he stopped.

No warning, no lead-in—just paused mid-step, turned, and faced her with that same unreadable expression that somehow still carried weight. People on the sidewalk moved around them, barely noticing, the hum of city traffic filling the spaces between words not yet spoken.

She looked up at him, brows raised, unsure what had pulled him out of stride.

And then, with the same bluntness he applied to everything, he said, “I apologize.”

That made her blink.

Him? Apologizing?

“For…?” she asked cautiously, half-expecting him to hand her some strange, metaphorical lesson Sesshōmaru had planted through him.

But instead, he lifted a hand—not to gesture wildly, but to point, direct and subtle, to her feet.

“I’m fine walking,” he said. “You’re in heels.”

It was so simple. So direct. So…considerate that she almost laughed.

“Oh.” She blinked again, then grinned. “These? I’m fine. I’ve run in these.”

That made him pause.

“You’ve…run?”

She nodded, the grin widening into something more genuine. “Deadlines, meetings, clients who think their files are more important than my spine—yep. I’ve sprinted three blocks uphill in these exact shoes to drop off quarterly summaries once. A few blocks for soba?” She gave a mock sigh. “Please. Child’s play.”

He didn’t respond at first, just stared at her with that vaguely stunned look people got when their expectations were upended too fast to recalibrate. And for a second, she felt almost proud of the look on his face. But then—impulsively, maybe just for the hell of it—she made a choice.

“You know what?” she said, stopping beside him.

He turned slightly, watching her curiously.

“Fuck it.”

And with zero hesitation, she leaned against a nearby railing, bent down, and slipped her heels off. The sidewalk was cool under her tights, the breeze tugging at her blouse. She stood upright again, straightening with a soft huff as she tucked the heels under one arm.

Now barefoot, she adjusted her folder against her hip, brushed a lock of hair from her face, and said with a smirk, “There. No more guilt.”

He scoffed. Actually scoffed. Not dismissive, not cruel. Just that sharp little exhale that said he thought she was insane—but also couldn’t argue the logic.

And then his eyes dropped—just for a moment. Not lasciviously. Not even with curiosity.

Just…observation. Because without the heels, she was short. Like, seriously short.

And something in his expression shifted—just slightly. A twitch of an eyebrow. A flicker in the corner of his mouth. The faintest lift of amusement that didn’t quite become a smile, but hovered on the edge of one.

“What?” she asked, catching the look.

He tilted his head. “Didn’t realize how much those heels were doing.”

She rolled her eyes. “I like being five-three, okay? Sue me.”

A beat of silence passed between them. Then he turned, without comment, and resumed walking—this time slower, more in step with her now-barefoot stride.

And she followed, heart a little lighter than it had been all day. Because maybe the day had broken her. Maybe Sesshōmaru had stripped her down, layer by layer, and made her earn her place from nothing. Maybe the power games had cost her more than she realized.

But this? This quiet walk, this strange companion?

This was hers.

And for now, it was enough.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Three: Without the Armor
(Kohaku – POV)

They reached the restaurant without fanfare.

A small, tucked-away place on a side street that didn’t try to impress—no glowing signs, no curated aesthetic, just the smell of broth that clung to the air like memory. It was the kind of spot that kept its regulars because the food didn’t need to be loud. It just was.

Before they stepped through the entrance, she paused.

Kohaku glanced down in time to see her slip her heels back on—practiced and casual, like she’d done it a hundred times before. And maybe she had. The shoes made a soft click against the stone as she straightened, brushing invisible dust from her sleeves and pulling her posture back into place.

Just like that, she returned to the woman he’d met this morning. Not physically taller, not truly stronger—but visibly armored. And somehow, he hadn’t noticed before just how much the heels had done.

Not just in height. But in presence.

Because without them? Without them, she had looked small. Fierce—but small.

Like stripping the heels off had peeled away something unspoken. Not weakness. No, she hadn’t seemed weak—not even close. But…unguarded. Like he’d glimpsed something not meant to be shared: the version of her that existed when no one was looking. When the meeting was over and the doors were closed and her spine didn’t need to be steel anymore.

It stuck with him.

Even now, as she adjusted her blouse and tucked her hair behind one ear, the moment clung to the edges of his mind.

He opened the door for her. Held it not like a man raised on chivalry, but like a soldier ensuring a clear path. She stepped in first, eyes sweeping the quiet dining space, taking in the lacquered tables and deep red walls with a quiet kind of hunger.

She hadn’t even realized how empty she was.

He had.

The host didn’t greet them. Kohaku had already nodded to him the moment they arrived, and the man pointed silently to the back.

He took the lead. Moved past low chatter and steam rising from pots and bowls and cast-iron kettles. And when she hesitated just slightly, unsure of the path or the protocol, he didn’t stop walking.

He just reached back. And grabbed her hand. Not hard. Not possessive. Just firm. Like an anchor. Like she was already part of the formation.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. Her fingers curled into his with surprise—but not resistance—and she followed as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He didn’t look back.

He didn’t need to.

At the far end of the restaurant, he slipped into the corner booth—the kind with walls that muffled conversation and shadows that hugged tightly to the edges. He released her hand only when they were standing at the table. Then, with the same silent command he used for almost everything else, he gestured for her to sit first.

She slid in quietly, clutching the folder to her lap again, and said nothing. But her shoulders dropped just slightly, the weight of the day beginning to melt under the smell of broth and the hush of the dim light.

Kohaku took the seat opposite her.

Not as a bodyguard. Not even as Sesshōmaru’s shadow. But as a man who had watched someone unravel, bluff, break, and rebuild in the span of a few hours—and had decided she was worth seeing again.

Even without the heels.

Maybe especially without the heels.

Silence sat between them like an old friend.

Not uncomfortable. Not heavy. Just…present. The kind of silence that came after exhaustion, after too many thoughts and too few places to put them. The server had already brought two cups of hot tea—no words exchanged, no menu needed. Kohaku knew the place, and apparently, the place knew him.

She sipped carefully, eyes lowered, the steam curling into the space between them as if trying to carry away what remained of the morning’s tension. He didn’t speak. Didn’t try to fill the quiet. Just sat, watching the way her hands curled around the ceramic, the way her lashes twitched when the tea burned a little on the way down.

And then—softly, almost like she hadn’t meant to ask—she spoke.

“Is there a story,” she murmured, “on how you started this?”

It wasn’t a demand. Not a challenge. Just…curiosity. Not about credentials. Not about qualifications. But about him.

He exhaled through his nose. And for the first time all day, allowed a small, genuine chuckle. It was short. Dry. The kind of sound that slipped out without effort—like dust shaken off an old book.

“Family business,” he said simply.

She looked up, eyes narrowing slightly—not in offense, but intrigue. Like she was trying to decide whether he was being literal, evasive, or just messing with her.

“You’re serious?” she asked after a beat.

He shrugged, leaning back against the seat, fingers curled around his own cup of tea though he hadn’t touched it yet.

“Father was military. Grandfather too. Mother worked contracts after she left intelligence. I was decoding encrypted files before I knew how to write cursive.”

Her eyebrows shot up.

He didn’t elaborate.

Didn’t need to.

Because that one sentence carried a weight that filled the room more than any long-winded explanation could. He’d been built for this. Molded. Raised to see threats and patterns, to read people like code, to make decisions without permission and face the consequences without flinching.

And somehow, all that training, all that lineage, had brought him here. Across from a woman who’d spent the morning bluffing her way through Sesshōmaru’s psychological crucible and now sipped tea with bare feet tucked under the table and questions dancing behind her eyes.

“I don’t remember choosing it,” he said finally, voice lower now. “It was just…where I ended up.”

She studied him for a moment. Then smiled—small, not pitying, not playful. Just there.

“You’re good at it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Bluffing?”

She huffed out a laugh. “Reading people.”

He didn’t smile. But his gaze softened, just slightly.

Their tea had started to cool.

Steam no longer curled between them, but the quiet lingered—no longer weighed down by silence, but shaped by it. Conversation came slowly with her, not out of reluctance, but deliberation. She wasn’t afraid of speaking. She was afraid of what she might give away by doing so.

He respected that.

She swirled the edge of her teacup with her fingers, eyes down again. Thoughtful. As if debating whether her next words were worth saying aloud.

And then—softly, without lifting her gaze—she murmured, “Thank you.”

He looked up. Still. Waiting.

“For picking tights,” she said, with a faint smile at the edge of her lips. “As the clothing choice.”

And for the first time in years—actual years—he let himself fully smile without hiding it. Just a bit crooked.

“So,” he said, “you noticed.”

She nodded, gaze still down, but her tone was warmer now. More sure. “You picked the least humiliating option.”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. Like it hadn’t been a small act of rebellion he hadn’t even known he was going to make until Sesshōmaru turned to him and gave him the choice.

“You weren’t wrong enough to deserve a skirt,” he said quietly.

That made her laugh—soft and surprised. And real. She glanced up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear again, then added, quieter this time, “And…thank you for coming back.”

Kohaku froze—not visibly, not externally—but there was a shift inside him. A tightening in the chest. The kind of tightening that made a man acutely aware of every part of himself that wasn’t armor.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Just held her gaze. Measured it. And in that breath of silence between them, he knew she’d meant it.

Not as gratitude for a task completed. But for the way he’d returned. For the fact that he’d seen her come undone and hadn’t run from it. Hadn’t punished her for being human in a room that punished humanity.

He looked down into his tea, then finally responded, voice low but honest.

“Didn’t sit right,” he said.

She tilted her head.

“You making it through a battle only to be alone after.”

Another pause.

He sipped his tea—finally—and then added, “Some battles don’t end when the room clears.”

And her expression changed. Not to awe. Not to sympathy. But to understanding.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Four: Observation and Ownership
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

It had been two hours.

Exactly.

Not approximately. Not “about.” Sesshōmaru did not exist in estimations. Time, to him, was a blade sharpened to a precise edge. And Kohaku—trained under that edge for years—was not the kind of man to let his timing falter.

And yet…

Two hours.

With no update. No location ping. No confirmation that the onboarding had completed or that the subject—his subject—had exited the building.

He had not been worried. Sesshōmaru did not worry. But there was a rhythm to his world. A cadence of control, well maintained and perfectly engineered. And deviations from that rhythm, no matter how small, were noted.

So he tapped his phone screen. Once. Twice. No messages. He opened the tracker.

Location: Soba restaurant.

He blinked once. Then closed the screen. He didn’t call. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even sigh. Instead, he composed a single message. No punctuation. No greeting.

Is she still with you

The reply came within ten seconds.

Yes. Waiting on badge.

Sesshōmaru stared at the message for a long moment, unmoving. The screen cast a faint blue light across his desk, but nothing else stirred in his office. No footfalls. No chatter. Just him. The response. And the unspoken implications beneath it.

Waiting on badge.

That he had expected. Processing times were slow today. That had been predicted.

But soba?

That had not been predicted.

He returned to the tracking app. No deviation. No indication of distress or disruption. Just two dots. Still. Unhurried. Within the restaurant’s perimeter.

And so—he leaned back in his chair.

And watched.

It was not that he was jealous.

That was a word used by men who feared losing something they had no claim to. Sesshōmaru did not lose. He decided. What to keep. What to release. What to ruin. What to rebuild.

He was not jealous.

He was…aware.

Aware that Kohaku, who had never broken formation, had done something unusual today. He had remained behind when the elevator doors opened. Chosen to turn around. Had taken it upon himself to escort a woman who had just been dressed down and broken open by the very system Sesshōmaru had built.

And now, he sat across from her in a restaurant.

Eating soba.

Of all things.

It was dangerous.

Not in the conventional sense—Kohaku could still follow orders. Still act within command. But danger didn’t always come in the form of knives and bullets.

Sometimes danger was silence that lingered too long. Conversations spoken in warm tones instead of clipped ones. A touch to the elbow. A shared laugh. A delay in a status update not because of forgetfulness—but because of comfort.

Familiarity was dangerous.

Sesshōmaru’s thumb hovered over his phone. He thought, for a moment, about sending a second message. Something curt. Something sharp. A reminder.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he slid the phone aside and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. Because there was another lesson to be drawn here—and Sesshōmaru valued lessons more than control.

He had stripped her down today. Intellectually. Emotionally. Strategically. He had exposed her weaknesses not to humiliate her, but to educate her. Because the world she was entering—the one he would place her in—did not tolerate fragility dressed in confidence. It would consume her if she weren’t forged strong enough to withstand it.

And yet…

She had not folded.

She had cracked. Yes. But quietly. Privately. And from what Kohaku’s prolonged absence implied?

She had rebuilt.

Interesting.

She was not Sesshōmaru’s yet. But she could be. And so, for now, he watched the little blinking dot on the screen. Watched it sit still, side by side with Kohaku’s. Not fleeing. Not panicking. Not unraveling.

Just…present.

At ease.

And Sesshōmaru, for the briefest of moments, allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch.

Because if she could survive today—be torn down, embarrassed, unmade, and still steady herself enough to eat soba across from one of his most unreadable men?

Then maybe—maybe—she would be worthy of what came next.

Thirty additional minutes passed.

Exactly.

He hadn’t moved from his seat. The screen had dimmed twice. A meeting reminder had pinged once, ignored. Outside his office window, the skyline had shifted ever so slightly as the sun dipped lower in the sky—but within this space, within the fortress of his control, nothing had changed.

Until it did.

His phone vibrated—once. No sound. Just the quiet buzz of precision.

He turned the screen toward himself.

Kohaku:
Badge is ready. She will be grabbing it now. Expectations have been provided. Same schedule as yours. As requested.

Sesshōmaru let the message sit there for a long moment. There was no flourish. No extraneous details. Just the necessary facts, delivered in Kohaku’s usual clipped rhythm.

But beneath those words, beneath the sterile packaging of professionalism, was confirmation.

Confirmation that she had not fled. Confirmation that she had eaten. That she had recovered. And now—she would begin.

Not as an analyst. Not as a woman sitting in a conference room wearing the wrong shoes and trying to bluff her way through inferno. But as an extension of him.

His schedule.

Not “company standard.” Not “department head.”

His.

She would wake when he woke. Work when he worked. Match the pace, the cadence, the pressure of his life—because anything less would mean she was still beneath the line. And Sesshōmaru had no time for half-measures or underwhelming returns.

He picked up the phone, reread the message, and then typed a single response.

Acknowledged.

He didn’t thank him. Kohaku didn’t require it. Gratitude was not the currency of their relationship. Execution was.

He set the phone aside.

Then tapped twice on the glass of his desk, summoning the screen to rise. Her name was already in the system—he had pre-authorized it when he decided, hours ago, that she would not work for the think tank. His legal team had already begun tearing through her NDAs. His contracts department had cleared the clauses preventing her from engaging with clients she’d previously signed exclusivity for.

Everything was in motion.

All she had to do now…was keep up.

He reviewed her assigned workload. The schedule he’d mirrored to his own. The layers of filtration and exposure she would need to weather daily under his purview. The clients. The expectations. The demands.

It was not a gauntlet.

It was a gauntlet every day.

And if she could last?

If she could learn to anticipate instead of simply react—if she could operate beside him, not beneath him—then perhaps she could have more than just a job. More than just proximity to power.

Perhaps…she could wield it.

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest, gaze cool and steady as it landed on the list of upcoming meetings now duplicated onto her calendar.

Welcome to the fire, he thought.

Let’s see if you burn.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Five: Instructions and Implications
(Kagome – POV)

By the time they left the restaurant, the silence between them felt different.

Not strained. Not awkward.

Just…lived-in.

Like the kind that existed between people who had walked through something not quite visible but still weighty. She’d finished her soba—well, most of it—and Kohaku hadn’t rushed her. He’d let her talk when she felt like it, let her fall quiet when she didn’t. And when they returned to the lobby of the building, she’d almost forgotten that he wasn’t just some oddly stoic friend—he was Sesshōmaru’s right hand. Or left hand. Or shadow. Or sword. She still hadn’t decided which.

Her badge had been waiting for her—crisp, laminated, tucked neatly into a sleeve beside a stack of onboarding paperwork that bore more legalese than her last two years of employment combined.

Kohaku had handled the formalities. Signed a few places. Checked ID. Waited beside her without a word while she flipped through policies, biometric registration slips, and the nondisclosure renewal that now included “client families,” “asset intelligence,” and the deeply concerning phrase “non-public adversarial environments.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

When it was done, he handed her a small slip of paper.

His phone number.

“In case anything comes up,” he said, tone flat but not unfriendly.

She blinked at it, unsure. “What kind of ‘anything’ would I need a bodyguard for?”

His gaze didn’t flicker. “In his world?” he said simply. “More than you’d expect.”

She held the slip a little tighter after that.

They walked together to the garage. The space was industrial and echoing, fluorescent lights buzzing faintly above as she unlocked her car. He didn’t hover. Didn’t lean. Just walked her all the way to the driver’s side, stood beside the door, and said one thing before he turned to leave.

“Drive safe.”

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cold either. But it landed deep in her chest anyway. Like it had come from a version of him she wasn’t supposed to see.

And then he left.

No wave. No glance back. Just disappeared into the concrete shadows of a world she hadn’t realized she was now part of.

By the time she got home, the sun had dropped. Her apartment smelled faintly of lemon from the candle she’d forgotten to blow out. Her heels came off first. Then her blouse. Then the weight of the day, peeling off in layers as she stood barefoot in her living room, badge still in hand, wondering what the hell had just happened.

The chime came ten minutes later.

Her phone lit up.

Unknown Number.

The message was short.

Your standard of work attachment is included. The schedule mirrors mine. Security protocols are in place. My security is for just that. Nothing else.

Below it—a single PDF.

Professional Conduct: Primary Liaison to Executive Operations – Expectations, Scope, Boundaries.

She didn’t open it right away. She just stood there, staring at the message.

My security is for just that. Nothing else.

She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe this was just the way his world worked. Cold. Contained. Exact. Maybe he was reminding her, gently in his own brutal way, that kindness didn’t mean connection. That usefulness didn’t mean trust.

And still—

Still, the slip of paper with Kohaku’s number was tucked into her onboarding folder. Still, her badge now bore his division code. Still, her schedule was synced with a man whose entire empire had tested her just to see if she’d crack.

She hadn’t. Not really. And now…she was in.

She stared at the message longer than she should have.

The words themselves were simple. Professional. No excess. No warmth. No malice. Just…there. Like a statement left on a post-it in the middle of a storm.

My security is for just that. Nothing else.

At first glance, it read like a reminder. A boundary marker. A clarification from a man who ran his empire with bloodless precision and didn’t like things stepping out of their assigned lanes.

But the longer she looked at it, the more it twisted.

Because another version of those words—one just beneath the surface—sounded less like clarity and more like a warning.

Do not utilize Kohaku for anything other than security.

And the fact that he had chosen to include it now—now, after her badge was created, her access was granted, and her time with Kohaku had extended longer than expected—well.

It meant he knew. Of course he knew.

Sesshōmaru probably had eyes on the badge logs, the building cameras, the GPS pings, the security timelines. He had likely seen the delay in her exit. Had tracked the unplanned restaurant stop. Had seen the way Kohaku stayed behind. And instead of asking why or confronting it directly, he had chosen—of course he had—to state the limit.

A chess move made from two floors away. And it shouldn’t have mattered.

Because she and Kohaku hadn’t done anything wrong. They hadn’t whispered secrets or traded favors or crossed any lines. They’d eaten lunch. Talked. Existed in the same moment of stillness after an impossible morning.

And yet—her fingers hesitated over the phone screen.

Because the implication was clear: Sesshōmaru had noticed. And Sesshōmaru did not like noticing things he hadn’t predicted. The man didn’t react emotionally—but he didn’t overlook either.

The more she read it, the more it sounded like: I saw. Don’t make me say it again.

It would have been easier—cleaner—if he’d called her useless. If he’d mocked her bluff or dismissed her entirely. But no. That wasn’t how he worked. His punishments weren’t always loud. Sometimes they were surgical. Precise. Designed to cut just enough.

And what unsettled her more than the message itself…was how she felt reading it.

Not frightened. Not exactly. But exposed.

Like a pair of eyes had traced every move she’d made today and waited, silent and patient, to remind her that nothing she did in this new world would go unseen.

She set the phone down. Walked away. Poured a glass of water she didn’t drink. Padded barefoot across her kitchen tiles and stared out the window as if answers might be hiding between streetlamps and power lines.

Was he jealous?

No.

That thought she banished as fast as it formed. Sesshōmaru wasn’t the type to feel jealousy. He was the type to feel displeasure. And he did not share. Not power. Not time. And certainly not the people he handpicked to serve under his gaze.

So what was this, then? A leash? A wall? Or just a test to see how she’d respond?

Because part of her wanted to text back something bold. Something cutting. To say, Thank you for the clarity, but I decide who I eat soba with. But part of her—a smarter part—knew that was exactly what he might want. To see if she would react emotionally. If she would misstep.

And she wouldn’t.

Not now.

She’d gotten this far. Survived the gauntlet. Earned the badge, the schedule, the first real crack into the world behind the curtain.

So instead, she picked up the phone. Typed two words. Clean. Compliant.

Understood.

And pressed send.

Then exhaled. Not in surrender—but in strategy. Because she wasn’t here to start fires. She was here to learn how to build them.

And if Sesshōmaru wanted her to play the long game? Then gods help him—

Because she’d play it better than anyone he’d ever met.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Six: Lines and Attachments
(Kohaku – POV)

He had walked her to her car in silence.

Not because there was nothing to say. But because saying anything more would have crossed a line he was already toeing too closely.

Her thank-you had been sincere. Her smile, tired but still blooming. Her fingers had curled around her badge like it meant something deeper than access. And gods, maybe it did. Maybe it meant survival. Or trust. Or something even more dangerous.

She’d unlocked the car. Slid inside. Given him a nod that wasn’t quite professional and wasn’t quite casual. Just hers. And then she was gone.

The moment she disappeared from his view, Kohaku felt his spine realign. His shoulders square. The soldier in him returning like armor re-fastened. He stood there for a second longer than necessary, watching the empty curve of the road before finally turning away.

He tried to return to form as his steps echoed through the parking structure—cold, efficient, distanced. The way he always was. The way he was supposed to be.

But his mind lingered. Not on her badge. Not on the fact that she now shared Sesshōmaru’s schedule. 

But on the damn restaurant. On the soba. On the quiet laugh she let out when he’d made a dry comment about her heels. On the way she had taken them off anyway, barefoot in tights and walking beside him like it meant nothing.

He had eaten with her. For two hours. Talked. Listened.

Told her about his family. Not the surface-level credentials, but the pieces of himself no one usually asked for. And gods, she had asked. Not prying. Just…curious. Not about his clearance level or his kills or his rank in Sesshōmaru’s structure. But about him.

And maybe that was what made it dangerous. Because he hadn’t been him in a very long time. Not in the way that meant anything outside of service.

He hadn’t dated anyone seriously in years. Hadn’t even considered it. Just the occasional release. Sharp, temporary, silent. Mutual needs. Boundaries clear. No sleepovers. No texts. No familiarity.

But she? She hadn’t even touched him and he was already off-script.

He’d sat at a table and let his guard down. Let the silence between bites mean something. And he’d given her his number. Not as an emergency line. Not as a corporate protocol. But because, beneath the training and rules and rank, something in him had wanted her to have it.

Because Sesshōmaru’s focus was already circling her like a predator who didn’t know if he wanted to own or devour her—and Kohaku knew what that meant. Knew that anyone under that gaze needed protection. From others. From enemies.

And from him.

So if that meant Kohaku’s job extended beyond the typical purview of threat management? So be it.

If Sesshōmaru was watching her, then Kohaku would watch back. Not out of disloyalty. But because sometimes, loyalty meant intercepting fire before the target even saw the bullet.

He reached his motorcycle, helmet in hand, about to slide the key into the ignition when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He glanced down.

Sesshōmaru:
Take the rest of the day off.

Kohaku froze.

That…never happened.

Sesshōmaru didn’t offer rest. He offered silence. Deadlines. Missions. And if there was nothing to do, you waited at your desk until the weight of that nothing became a test in and of itself.

But not today. Today he was being dismissed. Kohaku stared at the screen for several seconds before the second message came through.

Be careful of lines. And expectations.

The words were not aggressive. Not even accusatory. But they were clear.

Sesshōmaru had seen. He had known. And he was watching—not with jealousy. But with precision. With calculation.

Which, to Kohaku, was far more dangerous.

Because when Sesshōmaru began observing something closely, it usually meant he was deciding how to use it. Or how to eliminate it.

Kohaku locked his phone. Slid the helmet on. Let the familiar weight of the visor settle across his brow like a return to normalcy.

He revved the engine once. Twice. But the sound didn’t drown out the words. Not hers. Not Sesshōmaru’s. And especially not the ones forming quietly in the back of his own mind—the ones asking what exactly he’d gotten himself into.

The drive home was muscle memory.

Twists of the wrist, lean of the body, the gentle roar of the engine humming through his spine like a pulse he trusted more than his own breath. It wasn’t long—just fifteen minutes from downtown, a little further out from the chaos. Enough distance to feel silence again. But it had been so long since he used the house for anything but sleep, it barely felt like his anymore.

He pulled into the drive, slowed, and narrowed his eyes.

Another bike was already there. Matte black. Sleek. A little scuffed from recent use.

His sister’s.

Of course.

He exhaled and cut the engine, letting the silence settle over him like armor. Then unstrapped the helmet, slung it under one arm, and walked toward the front door already ajar.

The scent hit first. 

His leftovers.

She always had the audacity.

He stepped inside and found her exactly where he expected—barefoot, hunched over the counter in one of his oversized sweatshirts, hair in a messy bun, poking at his half-finished curry from two nights ago with a smug grin on her face.

Sango looked up mid-bite. Paused.

“You’re home?”

He arched a brow and dropped the helmet on the entry table. “So are you. Eating my dinner.”

She gave a lazy shrug and jabbed at the rice again. “It was closer than my place. And I’ve had a shit day.”

He didn’t argue. This wasn’t new.

She floated in and out. His place was halfway between her office and a few of their regular client sites. Once upon a time, they’d joked that they shared a crash pad like college students. Only instead of student loans and exam stress, their world involved high-threat intel, blood contracts, and rival conglomerates fighting over yokai-aligned assets.

He worked for Sesshōmaru. She worked for Naraku. And somehow, that was never awkward. Just a quiet, unspoken agreement between them—don’t ask too many questions, don’t offer too many answers.

But tonight, her gaze was sharper. Less amused. More curious.

“So,” she said slowly, between bites, “there’s a rumor going around at the company.”

He opened the fridge, grabbed a water, and leaned against the wall across from her without replying.

She took that as a yes.

“They’re saying your boss is trying to poach someone. Quietly. Aggressively. Full legal team’s tied up. No contracts for new clients going out. Entire focus is internal, and no one’s saying who it’s for. Just that it’s a woman.”

He drank. Watched her. Said nothing.

Her grin grew sharper. “That means it’s real.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t deny it, either.”

He looked away. Because she wasn’t wrong.

If the rumors were leaking out across corporate lines—Naraku’s line—that meant someone had noticed. That the kind of legal pressure Sesshōmaru was applying wasn’t going unnoticed. That NDAs were being picked apart and redrafted. That clause after clause was being surgically rewritten with the kind of intensity usually reserved for corporate acquisitions or territory disputes.

And all of it was for one person.

Kagome.

A woman who had survived one morning under Sesshōmaru’s eye and walked out not just alive, but promoted. Who’d made him pause. Made Kohaku stay behind. Made everyone shift their weight just slightly in her direction.

She was a variable no one had expected. And now? Entire departments were pivoting around her.

Sango finished the bite and leaned on the counter with her chin in her palm, watching him.

“Who is she?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. Because even if he could, he wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t his client. She wasn’t a threat. But she was something.

And if Naraku’s side was already sniffing for blood, if Sango was poking around—then the game had begun faster than he thought.

He capped his water. Turned to leave the room.

“Stay for a bit,” she called after him. “You look like you’re trying not to think.”

He paused in the hallway.

“I’m just tired,” he lied.

Her laugh followed him down the hall. “You never get tired. You only get involved.”

And gods—he hated how close to the truth that was.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Proximity
(Kohaku – POV)

His room was dark.

Not because he needed it to be. He wasn’t one of those who clung to blackout curtains or white noise machines or elaborate rituals for sleep. He just liked quiet. Shadow. Stillness. The hum of his building’s old pipes in the walls. The low tick of the clock across the room. Things that reminded him he was alone—and that was okay.

He lay on top of the covers, one arm folded under his head, phone resting on his chest. Sango was still out in the kitchen, probably asleep on his couch with a half-empty beer she never finished. He didn’t need to check.

But his mind hadn’t stopped pacing since the text from Sesshōmaru earlier. The warning had been vague. The kind of quiet jab that held meaning in its brevity.

And yet, when Kohaku picked up his phone now, it wasn’t to question that message.

It was to report.

His fingers moved quickly, silently.

Update: Naraku’s side is aware of the legal maneuvering. Rumor mill already turning. Focused attention on internal NDAs flagged. Probably not a leak—just their analysts doing their job.

He sent it. Waited. Didn’t pace. Didn’t even shift. Because with Sesshōmaru, you didn’t follow up. You waited. You earned your reply.

It came four minutes later.

Of course they noticed. I redirected 70% of legal for this acquisition. Not a concern. Everything is resolved. She will be announced Monday.

A second message came almost immediately after.

She will be in every room I am in. Which means you will be in every room we are in.

Kohaku exhaled slowly. Not out of stress. Out of recognition.

He hadn’t been sure—until now—just how serious Sesshōmaru had been. Sure, the legal work. The schedule mirroring. The onboarding with enough force to break most new hires in half. But now?

Every room. That was declaration. Integration. Claim.

And it meant Kohaku’s role had changed, too.

He was used to shadowing. To staying on the perimeter. Quiet, observing, stepping in when the need arose—one clean strike and done. Sesshōmaru rarely needed protection, only support. Kohaku was there for mop-up and aftermath, for subduing the chaos left in his wake.

But Kagome wasn’t like Sesshōmaru.

She didn’t radiate the kind of lethal calm that made even boardrooms go silent. She didn’t stride through fire with the knowledge it would part for her. No—Kagome had survived today not through force or silence but resilience. She was all heart and grit and stubborn fire. The kind of strength that didn’t arrive sharpened, but honed slowly—under pressure.

And pressure was exactly where Sesshōmaru was putting her.

Every room I am in.

That wasn’t onboarding. That was indoctrination.

For a brief moment, Kohaku was grateful.

Because at least now…she would be in his sightline. No guesswork. No distance. No wondering if she was being crushed beneath the weight of Sesshōmaru’s world without anyone noticing.

It would make protecting her easier. And gods, part of him hated that he thought that way now.

He rolled onto his side, phone still in hand, screen dimming to black. He didn’t sleep right away. Just stared into the dark, listening to the soft clicks of the building shifting around him.

This wasn’t the job he signed up for. But it was the one he had now. And come Monday? They would all be in the same room.

And for once, Kohaku wasn’t sure who he’d be watching more closely—Sesshōmaru, or the woman who had somehow changed the course of an empire just by surviving her first day.

Sleep didn’t come easy.

It rarely did these days. Too many years of watching shadows, of keeping one ear tuned to movements that shouldn’t be there. But tonight, as he settled further into the mattress and let his body finally slacken beneath the weight of a day that had knocked loose things he didn’t want to name, it was close.

Until his phone lit up again.

A single buzz against the nightstand.

He blinked, already reaching for it, half expecting to see Sesshōmaru’s name again. A recall. A change of plans. An order to meet at some ungodly hour because something had shifted in the grand strategy.

But it wasn’t him.

It was a number not saved in his contacts.

An unknown.

He unlocked it.

Unknown Number:
Is he going to tell me where to go first day? Or what I’m doing? Or is he just gonna send vague texts about how security is only to be utilized for security.

Kohaku stared at the message for a beat.

Then smirked.

Not because it was clever—though it was—but because he could hear her voice in it. That dry edge of sarcasm barely concealing nerves. The way she led with fire instead of fear. The quiet echo of a woman who had made it through one hell of a morning, sat across from him with no armor but sheer willpower, and still had the gall to text him at midnight because her boss was acting like a cryptic deity and she refused to flounder in silence.

He ran a hand over his face once. Exhaled through his nose. Then propped the phone against his pillow, thumb moving before he could talk himself out of it.

Kohaku:
He’ll have your full schedule waiting by 7. Likely delivered via someone else. Don’t wait for directions—just be early and ready for anything. That’s the direction.

A pause.

Then, after a moment’s consideration:

Kohaku:
And yes. He’s always that vague. You get used to it.

Another pause.

Then, because her message was still sitting there, casual and barbed in equal parts, he added:

Kohaku:
You know you could’ve just asked me earlier. Before the snark.

Her reply was almost instant.

Unknown Number:
Where’s the fun in that?

His smirk deepened into something dangerously close to a laugh.

Gods, she was something else.

He saved the number without thinking. Didn’t label it. Didn’t need to. He’d remember that tone anywhere.

Then laid back again, phone on his chest, watching the ceiling with the faintest shake of his head.

Apparently, they were texting buddies now.

He hadn’t exactly agreed to that status. But she’d declared it, as casually and confidently as she had taken off her heels and walked barefoot through downtown like the city belonged to her.

And really, who was he to argue?

Despite the fact that both of them had received pointed messages from Sesshōmaru—his phrased as a reminder of “lines and expectations,” hers as a tactically veiled version of “don’t play with the bodyguard”—Kagome had continued texting him as though none of it applied.

And that? That was what made her dangerous. Not the sass. Not the sarcasm. Not even the fire. But the willful persistence.

As if she’d decided something was hers—safety, support, a foothold—and wasn’t going to let even Sesshōmaru’s looming presence unseat it.

He should have ignored her. Should have let the silence stand and kept the boundaries intact.

But he didn’t.

When she messaged just after one in the morning—far too late for pleasantries, but still perfectly her—it was simple:

Kagome:
Monday feels like something I can’t actually prepare for. Even though I’ve tried. I’ve never worked somewhere that made “survival” feel like a listed job requirement.

He stared at the screen for a moment, thumb hovering over the keyboard.

Then typed back.

Kohaku:
That’s because it isn’t. Not on paper, at least.

He could practically feel her eye roll through the screen.

A minute later:

Kagome:
You going to be around early? Think I can bribe you into walking me in and making sure I’m where I’m supposed to be?

He should have said no.

Should have reminded her again—security is for security. Should have cited Sesshōmaru’s text, the lines he wasn’t supposed to cross, the appearances that mattered more than most would ever realize.

But instead?

Kohaku:
7:15. Front of building. Wear the badge. Don’t look nervous.

A beat.

Then, before she could get clever with him:

Kohaku:
And if you do get nervous, don’t talk. Just walk.

Her response was immediate.

Kagome:
You say that like I’ve never had to fake confidence before.

He smirked. Again. He was doing that too much lately.

But this time, there was something else underneath it. Not fondness. Not attraction. Something heavier. Like a soldier recognizing another one disguised in civilian clothes. Different battlefield. Same reflexes.

She was walking into a building where she would sit beside the sharpest mind in the corporate world. Flanked by predators dressed as CEOs, vice presidents, investment strategists with killer instincts. Sesshōmaru didn’t bring people into those rooms unless they were pawns to move—or threats to be shaped.

And she? She was already both.

Which meant Kohaku wouldn’t just be walking her in.

He’d be watching everything.

Because for all her sharp edges and fast retorts, she was still a person with skin, breath, and fear underneath.

And unlike Sesshōmaru, she couldn’t afford to bleed in front of the wrong eyes.

So yes.

He would walk her in. He would stand beside her. And if anyone tried to see her as weak? They’d find out exactly what kind of shadow Sesshōmaru had assigned to her.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Eight: War Paint
(Kagome – POV)

She woke at 5:30.

Not because of an alarm—though she’d set three—but because her body refused to let her rest any longer. Her mind had been wired since two in the morning, the tension sitting behind her ribs like a thread pulled tight, vibrating with something that wasn’t quite fear.

Not quite excitement either. Something else. Something heavier.

She showered in silence, steam curling against the mirrors as she scrubbed away the anxiety with hot water and steady hands. Dressed with ritualistic precision—black pencil skirt, crisp white blouse, high neckline, and sleeves just short enough to show the chain of gold she clasped at her wrist.

Her hair dried in soft, natural waves. No flat iron. No curls. Just the kind of polished wildness she’d decided would be hers today. Earrings clipped in—small, sharp gold triangles. Subtle. But pointed. Lipstick? Red. Bold. The kind that dared people to underestimate her.

And the heels? Red too. Three inches. Confidence stitched into leather and lacquer.

She didn’t know what this place was going to demand of her. But she knew what it had already taken.

And if she was going to pretend she belonged beside a man like Sesshōmaru, in rooms where strategy tasted like blood and power wore designer suits, then she was going to look the part. Because fake it till you make it wasn’t a cute slogan—it was survival.

By 6:30, she was on the road.

By 6:50, she was parked across from the building that would redefine her career, her life, and possibly—if Sesshōmaru had his way—her sense of self.

The building stood monolithic in the city’s early morning hush. It glowed faintly, tinted glass catching the sky’s earliest grays. She sat behind the wheel of her car, hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, eyes locked on the entrance. She had twelve minutes until 7:15. She hadn’t needed to arrive early.

But she had. Because control started before the doors even opened. At 6:58, a low, familiar rumble cut through the quiet.

She turned just in time to see a sleek black motorcycle glide up beside her. Engine low, steady. Controlled. No wasted movement. The rider parked with the ease of muscle memory, kicked the stand down, and killed the engine in a single motion.

Then the helmet came off.

Kohaku.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t wave. Just looked at her—cool, unreadable, composed—and gave her a slow, precise nod. The kind of gesture that wasn’t friendly or cold. Just acknowledgment.

She exhaled—once—then opened her door and stepped out.

The heels hit the pavement with a sharp click. She didn’t adjust her skirt. Didn’t check her reflection in the car window. She didn’t need to. She had become the version of herself she’d imagined last night—the one who could walk into war wearing red lipstick and make it look like an act of mercy.

He looked at her once. Just once. Down, then up. And maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was tactical.  But she thought she saw it. The flicker of approval in the set of his jaw. The faint raise of a brow. The brief, almost-imperceptible twitch of a smirk.

No words. Not yet. But she didn’t need them.

She just fell into step beside him. Because whatever waited in that building? She wasn’t walking in alone.

They didn’t speak right away.

The city was still waking up around them—early traffic a dull hum in the distance, the sun casting long lines of light across the sidewalk. Kohaku walked half a step ahead of her, every movement crisp, intentional. Even off duty, he moved like someone used to assessing threat levels, counting exits, listening for footsteps in a crowd.

She didn’t have to ask if this was part of the job. It was the job. And now, for better or worse, it was hers too.

They reached the base of the stairs just before the main entrance. The building loomed ahead—glass, steel, order. Polished but severe. She felt the pull in her stomach tighten slightly.

Kohaku paused and turned to her, voice low and even. Barely above a whisper.

“Once we walk in,” he said, “I go quiet.”

She nodded, instantly locking in.

He continued, eyes on hers, tone flat but firm.

“Keep your gaze either forward or on me. Don’t look around. Don’t scan the room. Don’t look like you’re curious. That reads as weak. Inexperienced.”

She swallowed, adrenaline sharpening.

“Don’t look nervous,” he added. “Or too confident. You’re not here to impress anyone yet. You’re here because he brought you.”

She nodded again, and he went on, checking her one last time like she was being prepped for deployment.

“Bored is better than alert. Detached is better than trying to prove yourself. Let them assume you’ve already proven yourself and they’re late to the news.”

She arched a brow at that, amused despite herself. “So…blank slate queen?”

Kohaku didn’t smile. Not really.

But his mouth did twitch.

“Follow my lead,” he said. “If I speak, respond. If I don’t, don’t talk unless addressed directly. Anyone stops you?”

He held her gaze for just a beat longer.

“Don’t. Stop. I’ll handle them.”

It shouldn’t have felt comforting. Being told to ignore confrontation. To let someone else deflect or intercept. But something in the way he said it—controlled, absolute—made her spine straighten.

He was giving her more than advice.

He was giving her cover.

He stepped up the first stair, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder.

“Nice heels.”

She blinked, caught off guard.

And before she could say anything, the smallest smirk ghosted across his lips. Gone in a blink. But it was there.

Then he was moving again. Ascending the stairs like he belonged there—like no one in the building could question him.

And she?

She took a breath. Rolled her shoulders once. And followed him into the lion’s den.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Red Heels
(Kohaku – POV)

He had arrived early.

It was habit—one Sesshōmaru had instilled in him long ago. Be early. Be still. Be ready before the world starts watching.

So when he cut the engine and pulled his helmet off at 6:58, he had expected to wait. What he hadn’t expected was to look over and see her already there.

Not just early.

Not just prepared.

Parked precisely beside the staff lot—like she knew proximity mattered. Like she’d looked up his schedule and wanted to match it down to the minute. Her car was familiar—he’d memorized the plate after their second meeting—but the sight of her, stepping out of it as if summoned by the hum of his bike, still managed to take him off guard.

And then there was the outfit.

Gods.

Black pencil skirt. White blouse, crisp enough to cut. Gold jewelry, not loud but deliberate. Her dark hair was loose in those soft, unpolished waves he’d seen yesterday—and it only added to the illusion.

But the makeup? The heels? That was what did it. The red. Not soft red. Not muted or sensible. The kind of red that dared the world to question why she was here. The kind of red that reminded you a throat could be slit in silence, and someone would still look beautiful afterward.

She didn’t look like someone coming in for her first corporate onboarding.

She looked like a woman going to war.

And he respected it.

They walked in together, just as they’d agreed. She kept pace without hesitation, half a step behind him. Never too far. Never too eager. He’d given her instructions, and she followed every single one of them without needing to be reminded. Eyes forward. No glancing around. No greeting anyone. She didn’t even touch her badge.

If she was nervous, it didn’t show.

Or rather—it did. To him. Only to him. In the tightness around her jaw. The subtle tension in her shoulders. The almost imperceptible way she shifted her weight into her heels like bracing herself for impact.

But no one else would catch it. To the rest of the world, she looked untouchable. And he was proud. Because nerves could be managed. Performance could be sharpened. But instinct?

Instinct was built.

They passed through the lobby, walking a clear line toward the executive elevators. The ones that required both clearance and confidence. A younger employee—a runner, probably—cut across their path, holding a clipboard and looking mildly harried. She glanced at Kagome and did a quick double take, like she was unsure if this was someone she should recognize.

Then she spoke.

“Hi—excuse me, are you—?”

Kagome didn’t break stride.

Instead, she sighed.

Audibly.

A sharp, clipped, irritated exhale that was too heavy to be performative and too measured to be accidental.

She didn’t even look at the girl. She just turned her eyes to him. Bored. Flat. Disinterested. Like the whole exchange was an inconvenience, and he was responsible for managing it.

Kohaku didn’t miss a beat.

He raised one hand, gestured toward the elevator, and told the girl—calmly but firmly—“If you have questions, take them to the front desk.”

And that was it.

The employee faltered, uncertain, and Kohaku pressed the elevator button. Doors opened. Kagome stepped in like this was her third year on the job and she’d been dealing with distractions like this since day one.

He didn’t speak.

Not until the doors closed and they were alone in the lift. And even then? He only looked at her. And gave the faintest nod. She was learning. Fast.

The elevator hummed around them—soft, sterile, still.

It was the kind of silence designed to be impressive. Not comforting. Not quiet in the way forests or bedrooms or midnight roads were. No, this silence was clinical. Corporate. Made to remind people how high up they were going, both literally and metaphorically.

But inside that capsule of glass and brushed steel, she sighed.

Not dramatically. Not with weakness. But with that tired, restrained exhale of someone who had held their breath too long and was just now remembering she could let go.

He didn’t look at her. Not directly. But he did lean slightly—enough that the words didn’t have to be louder than a breath.

“Well done.”

She didn’t smile. Didn’t light up with pride or preen like someone waiting for validation. She just nodded. Small. Controlled.

Then leaned back against the elevator wall, arms loosely crossed, and whispered with wry exhaustion, “You owe me a beer after today. Or anxiety medicine.”

That nearly did it.

He bit back the laugh—caught it in the hollow of his throat, pressed it into the corners of his mouth where it barely stayed hidden. Kohaku didn’t laugh often. Not in elevators. Not on duty. Not when delivering someone to Sesshōmaru’s floor with their career and reputation on the line.

But damn.

There was something about her—something in the way she layered fire over fatigue, sarcasm over stress—that cracked the armor he kept welded shut. She was still burning from the inside out, still wearing red heels like armor, but she hadn’t forgotten how to breathe.

Most people did.

Most people, by the time they reached this point—the polished corridors and glass offices of power—forgot who they were. They tried to blend. To impress. To survive.

She?

She cracked a joke about beer and anxiety meds like it was a Tuesday morning in hell.

He turned slightly, giving her a sidelong glance.

“Make it through the day,” he murmured, “and I’ll consider it.”

She arched a brow, unimpressed. “You say that like you think I won’t.”

And gods, that made him grin. He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

The elevator slowed. The soft ding echoed through the chamber as the lights above the doors flicked over to Executive Level.

And just like that, the moment was gone.

He rolled his shoulders once, sharp and practiced. The mask returned. The humor faded, though not completely. He stood taller. Straighter. The bodyguard again.

She followed suit. Heels adjusted. Chin lifted. Shoulders set. And when the doors slid open, she stepped out like she’d never doubted herself at all.

The executive floor was a different world.

Not louder. Not faster. In fact, it was the opposite. It was so quiet that even the sound of Kagome’s heels across the marble felt like a statement—controlled, precise, undeniable.

She didn’t look around, just like he’d told her. She didn’t falter or speak. Her chin stayed high, gaze forward, expression carved from the same stone they used to build monuments. If she had nerves now, they didn’t show.

And he admired that.

They passed assistants already seated, eyes tracking them from beneath the shadows of polished lashes and keyboard clatter. He caught a few glances exchanged, a whisper into a phone, a schedule opening behind a tinted screen. She was already noticed.

Which meant she was already being catalogued.

He led her down the east hall—the one very few people walked without an escort. Doors gleamed to either side, each marked with discrete plaques and brushed steel, but he didn’t stop. Didn’t speak. Just kept moving until they reached the final door.

Sesshōmaru’s. Unmarked. Always. He paused, glancing back at her. She didn’t fidget. But she did draw a steady breath. The kind that anchored. And he appreciated that too.

He leaned slightly, voice low—lower than before.

“You’re his shadow now.”

Her eyes flicked to him. Alert. Focused.

“Same rules apply,” he said, a little slower this time. “You mirror him. When he stands, you stand. When he sits, you sit. You will go where he goes unless told otherwise. If he speaks to someone, watch what they say more than what he says. They’re the unpredictable variable.”

She nodded once, absorbing it.

But then he added—just as she reached for the doorknob—

“But me? I’m your shadow.”

Her hand stilled. She blinked at him, brows pulling slightly.

He held her gaze. Calm. Certain.

“I will be wherever you are. If you need me, look. I’ll see it. If you’re unsure, hesitate. I’ll cover the pause. If someone questions you, don’t answer—redirect to him, or to me. You don’t need to prove you belong. That’s already been decided.”

Her mouth parted slightly. 

He didn’t let her respond. He just stepped back. Let her be the one to open the door. Let her take the first step. Because this wasn’t him leading anymore. This was her crossing the threshold. And he would follow. Silently. Invisibly. But without fail.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty: Red
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

Sesshōmaru had been in the office since six.

As always.

The building was dark when he arrived, quiet in the way he preferred—before assistants began filing in with noise and coffee orders, before the elevator pings and forced smiles, before the performance of the corporate theater began. It was the hour for precision. For control.

He sat behind his desk, reviewing contracts with one eye on the badge system.

An internal upgrade. His idea.

Every employee’s ID badge synced into a real-time tracker across key access points. Not for surveillance. For awareness. Efficiency. The illusion of omniscience was sometimes more effective than the fact of it.

At 6:50, her badge blinked active.

She had arrived.

Early.

He leaned back slightly in his chair, gaze narrowing on the screen. She was parked in the south executive lot—not visitor parking. Not front-facing optics. She had learned the system. Or studied someone who had.

At 6:58, Kohaku’s badge blinked active directly beside hers. He raised a brow. Pulled up the camera feed—not for confirmation, but curiosity.

Kohaku parked beside her. Helmet removed. Turned. A nod. Simple.

No words exchanged that he could see. But still…curious. He wasn’t sure whether he should be suspicious or impressed.

By the time the knock came at precisely 7:15, he had closed the laptop and returned to reviewing his meeting schedule. He didn’t speak—just pressed a key on his desk to unlock the door.

It opened with the soft hiss of pressure, and they entered.

He didn’t look up right away. Let them stand in silence for a moment. Let the room breathe them in.

Then, slowly, he raised his gaze. And almost—almost—tilted his head in acknowledgment. Because she had come prepared. Red lipstick. Red heels.

Hair styled but not artificial. Jewelry light but deliberate. A black skirt tailored to just above the knee, white blouse crisp and buttoned, expression neutral.

A woman entering a battlefield. And acting like she’d been there before. She said nothing. Didn’t smile. Didn’t fidget.

Good.

He gestured to the seat beside his desk. She moved without hesitation and sat. Straight-backed. Silent. The image of someone who belonged.

He let a beat pass.

Then began.

“You will follow me to every meeting this week,” he said, voice low and clipped. “You sit beside me. You do not speak unless you know the answer. If someone asks something of you, ensure they get nothing. No information. No promises. Not even politeness if it isn’t required.”

She nodded once.

He continued.

“You are not here to contribute yet. You are here to observe. To be seen. Your presence at my side is the statement. Do not underestimate what that does.”

Another nod.

He leaned slightly, tapping one manicured finger against his schedule.

“This week includes a series of preliminary meetings with competitors. Some will smile. Some will provoke. None will be allies.”

Then he turned his head slightly, finally acknowledging Kohaku behind her.

“Naraku and Kagura will be in the eight a.m.”

A pause.

Kohaku nodded, tone dry. “My sister will be there.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t react. Didn’t need to. That information had already been presumed, calculated, and absorbed.

“Good,” he said. “Sango is predictable when she’s informed. Less so when she isn’t.”

His eyes flicked back to Kagome.

“If they test you—and they will—look at me. Do not answer. Do not flinch.”

She didn’t nod this time. Just met his gaze, still and calm.

And he wondered, fleetingly, how someone with such visible emotion in her energy could master that stillness.

Red. It was a color of war. Of blood. Of danger. But on her, it read as intentional.

He opened the drawer to his right.

No flourish. No announcement.

Just the deliberate, quiet clack of steel hinges as he retrieved a matte black phone—thin, high-grade, unbranded. The kind of device that never made it into stores. Custom firmware. No logos. No distractions. Just tools.

He placed it in front of her.

“Work phone,” he said.

She reached for it without hesitation.

“The VPN is preconfigured. Calendar is linked to mine and updates in real time. You’ll receive briefings ahead of each meeting—five minutes before we enter the room. No earlier.”

She didn’t ask why.

Good. Because timing was the point. Too much prep created false confidence. Too little forced panic. But five minutes? Five minutes bred instinct.

“The device also contains internal policies, personnel maps, project histories, and a summarized psychological profile for each competitor we’re meeting this quarter.”

He didn’t bother watching her reaction. He already knew what to expect. Overwhelm. Disbelief. Questions.

But she didn’t give him any of that. Instead, she unlocked the screen with the biometric already keyed to her fingerprint and immediately began scanning the calendar. Thumb smooth, eyes sharp.

A flick through today. A swipe into tomorrow. She tapped on an item—Competitor Profile: Naraku, Q2-Q3 Maneuvering—and expanded the attachment.

Analysis first.

Not message logs. Not policies. Not even the list of names.

Her priorities were correct.

His gaze returned to the schedule in front of him, but his focus never truly left her.

He listened. To the silence. To her breathing. To the measured speed at which she scrolled—not too fast, not too slow. She didn’t freeze. She didn’t fidget. She absorbed.

He didn’t offer further instruction. If she was going to survive at his side, she would learn by proximity. By pressure. By watching the ways power moved and mimicking it without needing to be told.

Still…

He allowed himself a single, almost imperceptible nod. Not approval. But acknowledgment. She would not be coddled. But she had been given every tool she needed.

What she built with them?

Was up to her.

The minutes ticked by in silence.

She read. He worked. Kohaku stood sentry near the door, ever-watchful, ever-silent.

Efficiency was the language of power. And in this office, there was no small talk. No wasted breath. Everything had purpose, precision, and weight.

At 7:30, exactly thirty minutes before the first meeting, Sesshōmaru set his pen down.

She didn’t flinch.

He appreciated that.

“Now,” he said quietly, “we discuss entrance.”

Kagome lifted her eyes to him, phone still in her hand. Her thumb stilled mid-scroll. She didn’t speak. Just listened.

Good.

“We do not arrive early to meetings with competitors. Ever.”

He rose from his chair, moving to stand beside the window, where the skyline glinted like cut glass beneath the morning sun. He didn’t look at her when he spoke. He expected her to follow with her ears, not her eyes.

“Our internal staff will already be present. They arrive ten minutes early. They are briefed. They are seated. We,” he said, voice lowering slightly, “arrive last.”

He turned back to face her, eyes cool.

“Not rushed. Not late. But last.”

Her brows furrowed slightly—not in confusion, but in focus. In analysis.

“You arrive last when you lead. When you are the reason the meeting starts,” he said. “And you are the reason this meeting will end when I decide.”

Kohaku gave a subtle shift behind her, a flicker of approval in his otherwise unreadable posture.

Sesshōmaru continued.

“You do not greet anyone unless I greet them first. You do not shake hands unless I initiate. You take the seat to my right. If Naraku tries to sit beside me, interrupt him.”

Her eyes widened—just for a second. “Interrupt?”

He nodded. “Step into the space. Take the seat. Politely. Apologize, even. But do not let him have it. Not for a second.”

A pause.

She absorbed it. Let it settle.

He walked back to the desk and placed a folder beside her phone.

“These are summaries of prior negotiations with Naraku and Kagura. You will not have time to read them now. But they are for you. Study them tonight.”

She nodded again.

No questions. No complaints. Only tension—pulled taut and purposeful—beneath a veneer of calm.

And he watched her like a man observing a knife being forged. Not complete yet. But sharpening.

The alarm went off at precisely 7:58.

A subtle vibration on his watch. Silent, calculated. A signal to rise.

Sesshōmaru stood. He didn’t glance at her. Didn’t need to. Because she rose too—half a second later, smooth as a ripple on glass. No scraping of chair legs. No fumbling with the phone now tucked into her sleek black bag. No last-minute readjustments. She simply followed.

Behind her, Kohaku fell into step without a sound.

They moved as a unit now. A formation. A living structure that did not need words to function. And that was exactly as it should be.

They crossed the executive floor like it was theirs—because in essence, it was. The space made itself silent for them. Conversations quieted as they passed. Assistants straightened. A few competitors’ liaisons tried to catch Kagome’s eye, but she gave them nothing. Not even the flicker of awareness. Her focus remained steady, slightly off-center, following the line of his shoulder.

They reached the boardroom. He didn’t pause. Didn’t knock. He simply opened the door and walked in.

The room was already occupied—fifteen, perhaps sixteen people scattered around the long obsidian conference table. The walls were polished glass and soft lighting, but the atmosphere was pure blade-edge.

All eyes turned the moment Sesshōmaru entered.

They didn’t rise, not all of them—but the shift was there. A stillness that dropped like tension before a storm. The kind that always came when power walked in late and unapologetic.

Naraku stood from his seat first.

Kagura followed, sweeping her hand down her designer blazer like she was brushing away dust. Behind them, near the corner of the room, Sango stood—lean, quiet, eyes locked onto her brother with the kind of detached analysis only another bodyguard could manage.

Sesshōmaru said nothing.

He simply walked to the head of the table, unhurried, and took his seat.

And just as Naraku made his move—sliding out from behind his chair, lips parting with that faux-friendly expression he used when preparing to push a boundary—

Kagome stepped forward. Without a word. Without looking at him. She reached for the chair at Sesshōmaru’s right. Pulled it out. Turned it just slightly—toward the table, not the guests—and lowered herself into it with the ease of someone who belonged.

And never once did her eyes stray to Naraku. Not to acknowledge. Not to justify. Not to defend.

Naraku froze mid-step.

Left standing with half a smile and no place to sit.

Intrigue flickered over his face for a fraction of a second. He tilted his head, eyes sliding over Kagome with the hungry curiosity of a man who had just realized there was a new variable at play—one he hadn’t accounted for.

And Kagome? Didn’t flinch. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t gloat. Didn’t adjust herself in her seat like she’d stolen something. She just remained still, eyes flicking down to the folder in front of her, like she hadn’t even noticed him.

That was the statement.

That was the power.

And before Naraku could cover the moment with more than a laugh, Kohaku—cool, unreadable—stepped forward and slid a chair out for him. Not beside Sesshōmaru. Not even directly across.

A little to the side. A little too far. Not an insult—but not quite neutral. Just enough to sting. Naraku took the offered seat with a short chuckle, and the games began.

Sesshōmaru didn’t say anything. But in that first five minutes? Everything he needed to know had already been confirmed. 

She had absorbed the rules. She had followed the rhythm. And she had earned the seat at his right.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-One: The Woman in Red
(Sango – POV)

Sango walked into the boardroom first.

As always.

Kagura followed, lacquered nails already drumming on her folder, and Naraku brought up the rear—cool, composed, smiling that same predatory smile he used when he thought he was already winning.

But Sesshōmaru wasn’t there.

Which was unusual.

Sesshōmaru Taisho was never late. He didn’t arrive at meetings—he occupied them. He bent the room to his presence the moment he crossed the threshold. His absence now? Strategic. Deliberate.

Naraku noticed too. He didn’t say it aloud, but Sango saw the twitch in his mouth. The brief flick of interest in his eye. The tilt of his head as he turned toward Kagura.

“He’s building tension,” Kagura murmured under her breath, sliding into her seat. “Old game. But still effective.”

Naraku didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. He was watching the door now.

And Sango? Sango was thinking about the rumors.

For a few days now, whispers had circulated across the upper tiers of rival companies. Sesshōmaru’s legal team had gone dark on four pending projects—redirecting all resources to negotiating someone out of a contract. Not a hostile takeover. Not a corporate buyout. A person.

A woman, allegedly. Nobody knew her name.

No department affiliation. No title. Just that she was new. And that Sesshōmaru was backing her with more force than most mergers.

That alone had drawn Naraku’s interest.

Who was she? Why now? What could she possibly be worth to him?

The door opened. And every answer came wrapped in one entrance.

Sesshōmaru entered first, immaculate and unreadable as always, shoulders cut sharp against the dark lining of his suit. But it was the woman behind him—small, poised, eyes forward and lips blood red—that made Sango’s brows lift.

She’s the acquisition?

And trailing just behind—quiet, steady, a pace off her left shoulder—was Kohaku.

Sango felt her lungs still.

He’s watching her, she realized instantly. Not the room. Not the perimeter. Not even Sesshōmaru.

Her brother’s eyes never left the woman.

She took in the subtle positioning. The way Kohaku mirrored her movements with a protectiveness so understated it could only be intentional. The woman didn’t fumble. Didn’t look lost. She didn’t even acknowledge the stares. She walked like she’d been born to this.

And then—

Naraku rose from his seat. Predictable. Tried to move into the empty chair beside Sesshōmaru.

But before he could even speak, the woman stepped forward. Quietly. Unbothered.

She reached for the chair at Sesshōmaru’s right. Pulled it out. Adjusted it just slightly. And sat. Right where Naraku had intended to be.

Sango’s brows shot up.

Not just at the action—but at the lack of performance that came with it. No glance toward Naraku. No apology. No false innocence. She simply took what was clearly already hers.

Kohaku, smooth as ever, stepped forward and offered Naraku another chair. Slightly off-center. Slightly less.

It was war, and it was subtle. And it was flawlessly executed.

But it wasn’t until ten minutes into the meeting, while Naraku was speaking about shifting market positions and Kagura was detailing merger timelines, that Sango noticed the truly strange thing.

The woman still hadn’t spoken. Not a word. Not even an introduction. And more surprising?

Her brother still hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Not in a leering way. Not in a foolish way. In a way that knew. Knew she was the variable. Knew she was holding the line.

And she?

She stole glances at him too.

It wasn’t flirtation. Not exactly. It was something quieter. Something newly born, half-curious and half-terrified. The kind of glances that happened when two people realized a battlefield was safer with the other person in it.

Finally, Naraku—impatient, amused, always wanting to draw blood—leaned back in his seat.

“Well, Sesshōmaru,” he drawled, “are you going to introduce us to the new face at the table, or is she just here to make a statement?”

A pause.

All heads turned to Sesshōmaru. He didn’t smirk. Didn’t soften. He simply inclined his head once in acknowledgment. Cold. Formal. Final.

“This is Higurashi,” he said. “She will be wherever I am.”

A ripple moved through the room. But he wasn’t finished.

“If I’m not in the room,” Sesshōmaru continued, voice smooth as silk over steel, “she’s in charge.”

And just like that, the hierarchy shifted. The murmurs died. And Sango? Sango looked at her brother again.

Kohaku hadn’t blinked.

It should have ended there.

The introduction. The declaration. The silent ripple of unease spreading down the long, polished table.

But Naraku never let things rest.

He leaned back into his seat, steepled his fingers, and fixed Sesshōmaru with a lazy smile that never quite reached his eyes. “And what exactly does ‘in charge’ mean?” he asked, voice oiled with curiosity. “Because we both know how important specificity is in this business.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t blink. “It means what I said.”

Kagura raised a brow. “That she speaks for you?”

“She doesn’t need to speak to represent me.”

“And we’re to treat her,” Naraku cut in, still smiling, “as an extension of your authority?”

Sesshōmaru turned slightly in his seat, not to show emotion—he never did—but to sharpen the angle of his gaze. “You will treat her,” he said, low and smooth, “exactly as you would treat me.”

Sango glanced at Kagome.

She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t even changed expression. But her fingers had stilled against the folder in her lap, holding a page half-turned. Not a twitch. Not a tremble. But something about the way her pulse beat faintly at her neck, the quick shallow inhale she tried to hide—it told Sango everything.

The woman was absorbing all of this. Feeling every ounce of it.

And still not flinching. That alone was impressive. 

But then…then Sango noticed something else.

Kohaku.

Her brother—her emotionally inexpressive, ruthlessly professional brother—shifted ever so slightly from his position at the wall. Just enough to see her hands. Her throat. Her eyes.

And when Kagome swallowed—barely—he stood up.

No sound. No words. Just stood. Walked to the side table where bottled waters and untouched refreshments sat waiting for posturing executives to pretend they weren’t dehydrated by power.

He selected one.

Twisted off the cap.

And without a single beat of hesitation, crossed the room.

He didn’t make eye contact. Didn’t interrupt. Didn’t break the rhythm of the meeting. He reached Kagome’s side, slid the bottle gently onto her lap, and turned away. 

Like it was scripted. Like it was reflex. Like it wasn’t the most unusual thing Sango had seen her brother do in years.

Sesshōmaru’s eyes tracked the motion. Not a protest. Not even surprise. But Sango caught it. The shared glance. Kohaku gave him the smallest of nods. And Sesshōmaru…returned it.

Something settled in Sango’s chest then. A thought she didn’t like. A realization she wasn’t sure what to do with.

Because Kohaku didn’t do that.

He didn’t anticipate needs. He didn’t scan expressions or read nervous swallows. He didn’t care like that.

Not for strangers. Not for colleagues. And never for women.

Not since they were kids and he’d watched the world teach him—too quickly—how fragile emotions made you a target.

But for her? For this woman in the red heels and unshakable silence? He moved like it was instinct.

And that, more than anything, told Sango exactly what kind of war was coming. Not one across corporate lines. But one inside walls they thought were already secured.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Two: Stillness and Strategy
(Kagome – POV)

Kagome sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her legs crossed at the ankle, the red heels biting silently into the thin carpet beneath the table.

Every fiber of her body screamed.

And not in panic—not exactly. It was worse than that. It was calculated discomfort. It was the knowledge that if she breathed too deeply, she might shake. If she shifted too suddenly, she might draw attention. If she broke character—just once—someone in this room would smell the weakness like blood in the water.

So she didn’t breathe too deeply. Didn’t shift. Didn’t break.

She followed Sesshōmaru’s orders to the letter. Every rule he’d laid out that morning—how to walk, how to look, how to speak only if necessary. She had prepared for battle like a soldier forced to wear lipstick and heels to war. And gods, when he had told her to take the chair before Naraku could?

She had wanted to groan. To roll her eyes. To ask if this man—this legendary, stoic powerhouse—really expected her to engage in corporate musical chairs with a grown man in a suit like they were playground rivals.

But she hadn’t.

Because this wasn’t a normal job. This wasn’t about etiquette or professionalism. This was about territory.

Dominance.

It had been a test.

And like every other moment since this madness began, she had chosen to pass.

So she had stepped ahead of Naraku—his hand still reaching for the chair—and slid into it like it was meant for her. Like she hadn’t just nearly fainted on the elevator ride up. Like her heart wasn’t galloping like prey beneath her ribcage.

She had not looked at Naraku. She had not apologized. She had simply sat.

And when Sesshōmaru introduced her—calm, casual, absolute—“She will be in every room I am. If I am not in the room, she is in charge.”

Kagome nearly swallowed her tongue.

Power.

He had given her power.

On record. In front of rivals. Without warning.

She wanted to ask why. Wanted to demand what game he was playing. But instead, she nodded once—barely perceptible. A mirror of the way she had seen him nod. As if this had been decided weeks ago and not fifteen seconds prior.

And then—because apparently the universe never gave her reprieve—she felt it.

The catch in her throat. The way her chest tightened. The cough. It was crawling its way up her spine like betrayal—and gods, she wanted to panic.

But she didn’t have to. Because before the cough could humiliate her, a cold bottle of water appeared in her lap.

She didn’t look up. Didn’t thank him. Didn’t have to.

She just took it with steady fingers, lifted it, and drank. The water was cool. Grounding. And somehow more than hydration—it was proof. Proof that Kohaku was watching. That he understood. That there were eyes on her that weren’t waiting for her to fail.

And for the first time since stepping into that building, she felt like she wasn’t alone.

The meeting wore on—hours compressed into sharp conversation and veiled hostility.

Kagome said nothing. Just nodded when appropriate, jotted mental notes she would write down later, and kept her expression locked in something between calculated boredom and mild disinterest. She was a shadow, and for now, that was safe.

But then, a flicker in the corner of her eye.

She turned, subtly—just a shift of lashes, a pivot of pupils—and met the gaze of the other woman in the room. The one who had entered with Naraku and Kagura. Tall. Strong. Dark-haired. Unsmiling—but not unfriendly.

She had noticed her earlier. The way she walked in sync with Naraku, but with a distance that felt personal. Protective, but not deferential.

And now? She was looking directly at Kagome. Appraising. But not unkindly.

There was something in her expression—an echo of familiarity. The way women sometimes saw each other clearly through the haze of boardroom posturing and masculine power plays. Not a threat. Not yet. Just curiosity.

And Kagome? Unable to help herself, gave her a polite nod. And the woman? Smiled.

Just barely. But enough. Enough to say, I see you.
Enough to mean, You didn’t flinch. Not bad.

And for the first time since Sesshōmaru handed her that phone and that power, Kagome felt something like validation.

Two hours. She had lasted two full hours without breaking. Without blinking too long. Without glancing around the room. Without revealing that the butterflies in her stomach were armed with razors.

And now, Sesshōmaru stood.

His chair slid back with a controlled scrape, the sound sharp against the conference room silence. Kagome stood too, instinctively, without instruction—her skirt falling smoothly around her legs, her hands at her sides, still and ready.

Sesshōmaru’s gaze didn’t linger on her. It didn’t need to.

He faced the room—Naraku, Kagura, a few lieutenants, and Sango still leaning near the wall—and said, with that cold, effortless chill only he could conjure:

“These talks are going nowhere.”

Kagome didn’t react, but gods, the way the air changed—like someone had opened a window during a storm.

Naraku tilted his head, a little smile curling at the corners of his mouth like a snake preparing to lunge.

Kagura sipped her tea with mild amusement. She knew better than to step in too quickly.

And Sesshōmaru continued, unbothered.

“I will have my team reach out. Perhaps we reconvene in a month. Two, at most. This,” he gestured vaguely toward the negotiation summary on the table, “has been a waste of my time.”

That was the dismissal.

That should have been the end of it.

But Naraku leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on the sleek dark wood and threading his fingers together with the casual menace of a man who didn’t like being walked out on.

“I understand your frustration,” he said, voice honeyed and full of feigned diplomacy. “And perhaps we can avoid wasting more time in the future… if we narrow the discussions. Strip away some of the noise. Get to the point.”

His eyes slid to Kagome. And then lower.

She didn’t flinch, but she could feel it—like oil on her skin.

“Perhaps,” Naraku said smoothly, “I could schedule a separate meeting. One-on-one. Just to get to know the queen by your side. Surely, if she’s to assist in your ventures, it would be helpful to understand how she…contributes.”

Kagome didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. But something in her spine locked like a loaded spring.

Naraku’s smile widened.

“Tell me, Sesshōmaru. Did you hire her for strategic planning—or more personal reasons?”

Silence. Tight. Barbed. Even Kagura tilted her head with something like interest. Kohaku didn’t move from his position behind them, but his posture shifted ever so slightly—straightening, eyes unreadable.

And Sesshōmaru? He was quiet. For just a moment. Then, with the air of someone deeply unimpressed, he turned his head—just slightly—toward Naraku. Not a full look. Just a glance.

And then he spoke.

“She holds three degrees—business, analytics, and economics. She’s fluent in two languages, and conversational in a third. Her insight accuracy rate, when reviewing failing regional models, was above ninety-seven percent across five sectors.”

He didn’t blink.

“She writes reports that are passed through departments without revision. She identified systemic losses in one of my subsidiaries within thirty minutes. She’s efficient, decisive, and unafraid of difficult truths.”

His voice sharpened, not louder—but colder. Finer.

“And when I placed her in a room with executives known to cannibalize weaker talent, she didn’t flinch. Not once.”

Kagome felt the heat rise to her ears. Not embarrassment—something worse. Something like awe and disbelief tangled with a fierce, grateful fire.

Sesshōmaru didn’t look at her. He kept his gaze on Naraku, dead calm.

“If she ever contributes to this company in a personal way,” he said, smooth and lethal, “it will be after she has been acknowledged for her professional achievements. Because unlike some of your staff, Naraku—she does not need proximity to power to justify her presence.”

Naraku’s smile had tightened. Just enough to notice.

And Sesshōmaru added, flatly, “But if it helps you sleep at night, rest assured—I did not hire her for her beauty. That was merely the inconvenience that came with brilliance.”

No one spoke. Not Kagura. Not Kohaku. Not Sango, whose eyes had snapped to Kohaku again. And Naraku? He leaned back, the smirk slowly draining from his face. A chuckle under his breath. But no more words.

Sesshōmaru adjusted his cufflinks.

“I look forward to our next productive meeting. Until then, good luck with your restructuring efforts.”

He turned. Kagome followed. Behind her, Kohaku did the same.

They left in silence—but Kagome’s heart was thundering behind her ribs, her mind burning with every syllable that had just been spoken on her behalf.

The door closed behind her with a soft click.

Too soft.

Because everything else inside her screamed.

Kagome followed Sesshōmaru silently into the office, her heels precise on the marble floor, her back straight, her head high—but every step felt like a betrayal of how she really felt. Like the shape she had crafted this morning—of poise, polish, readiness—was beginning to crack.

She was screaming. Not out loud. Not where it could be heard. But in her chest. In her lungs. In the place behind her eyes that burned even now.

Two hours. Two hours of being a silent weapon seated beside a man who treated negotiations like war. Two hours of watching Sesshōmaru dismantle their rivals without ever raising his voice, of learning that in this world, the battlefields were rooms like that, and the casualties were self-worth and comfort and the ability to sleep without clenched teeth.

And then—Naraku.

His words. The tone. That slick, patronizing smirk as he leaned forward in his chair, fingers steepled like he was evaluating inventory and not a human being.

“Tell me…did you hire her for personal reasons?”

Gods, she’d nearly broken character. Had almost risen, mouth open, a thousand sharp retorts loading in her throat—but Sesshōmaru had beat her to it.

Not with anger.

With precision.

He’d rattled off her resume like he had memorized it. Pointed to performance metrics, strengths, competencies. Laid out her worth with clinical pride, like he had no interest in defending her existence—only correcting someone’s ignorance. And then—then—he delivered the final blow:

“If she ever contributes in a personal way, it will only be after she is acknowledged for professional accomplishments. Otherwise, such contributions would be beneath her.”

It was everything she should have wanted to hear. Respect. Loyalty. Public vindication. But it wasn’t enough. Not when her hands were still shaking and her stomach was in knots and her molars ached from how hard she’d been clenching her jaw to stop from screaming.

Because this? 

This wasn’t the corporate world she knew. This wasn’t metrics and project deliverables and 360 feedback and management presentations.

This was bloodsport.

This was walking into rooms knowing she would be measured and dressed down by old men with younger egos. This was being sized up as a chess piece, as a pawn—or worse—as a queen whose only worth came from the shine of her crown, not the way she moved on the board.

And maybe that was why it hurt.

Because she’d wanted this. Had tried so hard to believe she could learn it. Shape herself into it. Had worn the heels and painted her lips and stayed silent when her pride had begged her to scream.

But now, standing here in Sesshōmaru’s office—doors closed, silence thick—Kagome realized the truth:

She was in over her head.

This wasn’t a learning curve. This was a drowning tide.

And Sesshōmaru?

He was already at his desk. Calm. Efficient. Typing into a digital file like nothing had happened. Like Naraku hadn’t all but tried to humiliate her. Like she hadn’t been carved open, examined, and found lacking in a matter of seconds.

Her lips parted. Then closed again. 

Because how do you say, I can’t do this—to a man who had just defended your honor like it was gospel?

How do you say, I want out—to someone who had handed you power like it was a crown?

She couldn’t. Not yet. But gods, she was close. Her hands trembled where they hung at her sides. Her throat felt raw. Her heels hurt. Her chest ached.

She had to say something. Anything. And still—she hesitated.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Three: Miscalculations
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

She had done well.

More than well, if he were being precise.

Kagome had followed his instructions without deviation. Her posture had remained perfect throughout the meeting, her gaze steady, her silence practiced. She had neither flinched when Naraku tried to provoke her nor reacted when Kagura’s glances turned predatory. She had stayed seated, shoulders square, chin high, taking everything thrown at her and showing nothing in return.

It was the mark of someone who understood that intelligence alone would never be enough in this world.

Obedience—disciplined, tactical obedience—was just as valuable.

And she had delivered.

Sesshōmaru had not expected her to falter. Not truly. But it had been a question mark. A hypothesis to test. And she had passed with distinction.

Especially when Naraku, snake-tongued and smirking, had all but asked if he was sleeping with her.

Any lesser woman would have spoken. Defended herself. Broken ranks. But she had not. She had waited. Watched. Trusted.

And so he had answered for her. Not with shame or defensiveness, but with facts. With reverence. With the kind of steel-toned correction that left no room for mockery.

If she ever became his in any personal way, it would be because she had earned her place professionally first. She would never be another pretty face behind the desk. Not under his roof.

Because her last company had underestimated her—had dismissed her, overlooked her, chained her to mediocrity—and that? Was an error he had no intention of repeating.

So he had shown the room what she was. Had handed her her crown in public. And expected, perhaps, a spark of pride. The faintest glimmer of recognition that she understood what he’d just done. Not for her, but because it was right.

But now…

Now, something was wrong.

He knew it the second they returned to the office. The moment she stepped inside, silent and restrained, not with the poised calm of earlier but with the brittle edge of someone fraying.

She hadn’t asked a single question since. Hadn’t moved to review the debrief documents waiting on the table. Hadn’t looked at him once.

He took his seat behind the desk slowly, noting Kohaku’s quiet position against the wall. The man said nothing, but Sesshōmaru could feel it—the watchful stillness. Even he noticed.

Kagome remained standing near the opposite end of the room. No shaking. No tears. No explosive emotion. Just…withdrawal.

He turned back to the reports, thinking perhaps she needed a moment. That the weight of the morning had settled heavier than expected and she would shake it off, as she always had.

But then—

A small sound. The softest intake of breath. And then her voice—clear, steady, and measured with razor restraint.

“I want out.”

Sesshōmaru’s eyes lifted. Slowly.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding, but I’m not qualified for this.”

The silence that followed was immediate. And sharp. 

He studied her carefully, unsure at first whether he had misheard.

But no.

Her posture confirmed it. So did her tone. She was not bluffing. Not pushing back to provoke. This was not rebellion.

This was resignation. And it made no sense. She had arrived early. Dressed for war. Endured every test. Excelled. Triumphed.

And now—now—she wanted out?

He didn’t speak right away.

Didn’t let the reaction show on his face. But his mind, usually an unshakable fortress of logic and strategy, faltered. Just slightly.

Because she was wrong. She was not unqualified. She was, in fact, one of the most adaptive, sharp-minded, politically astute hires he had brought into his inner circle in years. He had built entire layers of defense to ensure she would succeed.

And she had.

So why the retreat?

He looked at her again. Not just at the surface. Not at her clothes or her stance or her breath control. But her eyes. And what he saw there—behind the calm, behind the lipstick and the heels and the poise—was fear.

Real. Quiet. Suffocating. 

It didn’t rattle him. But it did something worse. It disappointed him. Because this—this breakdown—was not the failure of her skill. It was the failure of her belief in herself. And that? That was far more difficult to counter.

He placed the report down slowly. Folded his hands. And without raising his voice, said simply:

“Explain.”

The silence dragged. Heavy. Dense. Unyielding. Kagome didn’t speak. Her jaw clenched once. Her fingers twitched by her sides. But the words—the explanation—did not come.

Sesshōmaru waited.

He didn’t ask again. He didn’t prompt her with mercy or softness. He simply waited, like a glacier unmoved by the passing of time.

But when another five seconds passed in dead quiet, his gaze shifted—to Kohaku. And the signal was clear.

Kohaku straightened. Didn’t say a word. Just walked to the door, placed a palm flat against the steel panel, and then stood firmly in front of it.

A wall. A warning. No exit. Not until she spoke. And even if she did, Sesshōmaru had no intention of letting her go.

This wasn’t her old job. This wasn’t a flimsy contract she could walk out of with two weeks’ notice and a farewell cupcake party.

The paperwork she signed to join his company. Ironclad. It had taken six of his top legal staff weeks to build the clausework to protect her—and him—from interference. Her NDA was brutal. Her competitor clause even more so. And her tenure?

Twelve months minimum. Or until he dismissed her. And he had no plans to do so. Not now. Not after seeing how Naraku’s insinuation had rattled her. Not after watching her endure it without breaking in front of them. Not after she had proven that she could become a weapon—sharp, silent, and perfectly honed.

But she didn’t understand the game yet. And it was time she learned the rules.

He spoke, calm and lethal.

“You don’t get to walk into my office, whisper that you’re leaving, and expect to retreat before I’ve even processed your delusion.”

Her eyes snapped to his. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to.

“You are not unqualified,” he continued, voice like glass under pressure. “You are overwhelmed. There is a difference. One can be treated. The other is fatal.”

Kagome’s hands curled slightly. Not into fists—but into something tighter. Smaller. Like she didn’t know whether to defend or fold.

“You think I would waste my time—my name—my company—on someone who isn’t capable?”

His voice dipped lower. Not soft. But controlled.

“Naraku insulted you. He will do worse next time. Kagura saw you as a pawn. That will not change. But neither of them are your concern.”

He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the desk. Eyes locked to hers.

“I am.”

There it was. The line. The rule. The reminder.

“You follow my lead. You answer to me. If you have doubts, you bring them here. If you panic, you do it behind this door. And if you want out—” he paused, watching the way she flinched slightly at that phrase, “—then you better have a stronger reason than hurt feelings and shaking hands.”

Her breath hitched. But she didn’t back away.

So he pressed on.

“This position is not a test run. It is not contingent. You accepted the contract. You read the terms. You chose the kingdom. You do not walk away from it after a single battle. You endure.”

A long silence followed. Kohaku didn’t move.

Sesshōmaru watched. And finally—finally—he let one word break through the steel. Soft. But not gentle.

“Higurashi.”

Kagome didn’t move. She hadn’t spoken. Her silence was no longer poised—it was taut, brittle. The kind of silence that preceded either collapse…or combustion.

Sesshōmaru stared at her for a long beat, then shifted his gaze toward Kohaku.

“Leave.”

The single word sliced the air with the weight of a command, not a request.

Kohaku didn’t question it. He turned without hesitation, opened the door, stepped out—and just before the panel could close behind him, Sesshōmaru moved. Smooth. Silent. Lethal.

He crossed the room in a single, deliberate line and pressed his palm to the steel plate beside the frame. There was a quiet click—the lock engaging with mechanical finality.

They were alone.

The silence returned. Not passive. Not idle. But heavy. Intentional.

He turned back to her. Kagome still hadn’t moved. Still stood like a statue carved from tension and restraint, hands curled slightly at her sides, breath shallow in her chest.

Sesshōmaru took three steps toward her—measured, unhurried—and stopped just inches away.

She didn’t back up.

Good.

He reached out slowly, deliberately, and tilted her chin up with two fingers. Her jaw was tight. Her skin warm.

“Do you wish to leave,” he asked quietly, “because your honor was tainted?”

Her lashes fluttered, and that alone betrayed her—just enough to confirm he’d struck the nerve.

“I will correct your understanding then,” he continued, tone sharpened into silk and steel. “Your honor was not compromised. Naraku’s was.”

He dropped his hand. Didn’t step away.

“I displayed your worth to the room with more truth than they deserved. I named your strengths. I reminded them why you are feared, not pitied. And if you are so ashamed—so paralyzed—by the insinuation that I’m fucking you…”

He stepped closer, the space between them narrowing into something that trembled with heat.

“…then perhaps I should. Right now. Here.”

Her lips parted—but no sound emerged.

Sesshōmaru’s voice lowered further, every word cut from heat and command.

“Perhaps I bend you over this desk, fuck you until the accusation becomes fact, and we move past this fiction you’ve built around shame.”

He reached for her wrist, gently but firmly, and placed her hand on the edge of the desk behind her. His body followed—close, towering, his breath brushing her cheek as he leaned in.

“Then you will know—unequivocally—that you are here for your qualifications and your body,” he said. “Because both belong to me now. And neither are why you are failing.”

He wasn’t touching her inappropriately—not yet. But every inch of his body radiated proximity, power, the promise of possession.

“You are afraid,” he murmured. “You are humiliated. But leaving is no longer an option. I will not permit it.”

Kagome’s pulse throbbed visibly at her throat. Her breath came in shallow bursts. Still no words. But her eyes locked to his now—challenged him with the last flickers of her pride.

He smiled—dark, slow, a blade unsheathing itself.

“This is very simple,” he said. “You will get through whatever this is. You will sit in every meeting this week. You will be silent when I need you silent and sharp when I give you the floor. You will keep your back straight, your chin high, and that fire you carried into the boardroom? You will burn with it.”

His hand moved—not to caress, not to soothe—but to cup her jaw, thumb pressing just below her lower lip.

“Your job, for the next seven days, is not to win. It is to endure. You are mine. And I do not let what is mine be insulted, or tarnished. And I most certainly do not let it walk away.”

The contact held—not soft, not cruel, just undeniable. And the proximity? Devastating. His body bracketed hers against the edge of the desk now. Not touching her fully. Not kissing her. But pressing the inevitability of both into the moment between them.

“If what’s rattling in your chest is fear that I see you as anything less than the strategist I hired…” he murmured, lips near her ear now, “then allow me to remove the ambiguity.”

He leaned in just slightly more—so close her breath stuttered against his cheek.

“I don’t fuck my subordinates,” he whispered. “Unless I want to.”

His hand slid down her arm, slow, leaving heat in its wake. Then, just as slowly, he stepped back. The space left behind felt like gravity being severed. He looked at her—fully. Eyes locked, expression unreadable except for the dark weight behind it.

“And I do want to,” he said. “But not because of your lipstick. Not because of your skirt. Not because of your silence.”

He paused.

“But because you are mine. And nothing I claim ever breaks without my permission.”

Then he walked around her. Back to his desk. Picked up a folder.

“Now,” he said, like the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “You have four meetings on the calendar tomorrow. You will review these briefings and be in my office at 6:45. No earlier. No later.”

He set the file down.

“And if you’re still trembling by then,” he added, “we’ll finish this conversation with fewer clothes.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Four: Breach

(Kohaku – POV)

When she said the words I want out, Kohaku knew what was coming.

It didn’t matter how softly she said it. How controlled her voice was. Or how clearly she tried to separate herself from emotional collapse. The phrase had weight. Finality. And no one—not a single person under Sesshōmaru’s domain—got to say that twice.

They said it once, and then they were excused.

Permanently.

Kohaku stood still against the wall, breath shallow, expression blank. But inside, something knotted in his chest—low and tight. Not fear. Not exactly. But something adjacent. Something shaped like dread.

Because he got it.

He understood.

He had watched the meeting unfold with the same silent stillness he’d perfected over the years, and even he—seasoned, jaded, damn near unflappable—had felt the heat behind Naraku’s words. The smug provocation. The insinuation that the only reason Kagome had made it into Sesshōmaru’s orbit was because she was letting him inside her.

The comment was poison. And it had landed.

She hadn’t flinched—not outwardly. Hadn’t broken posture. But Kohaku had seen the way her fingers tensed around her pen. The flicker in her eyes. She’d held the line. God, she’d held it beautifully.

But she wasn’t built for this.

Not yet.

And Sesshōmaru, for all his brilliance, had miscalculated.

Kagome wasn’t the kind of woman who used her body for advancement. That much was obvious. She didn’t flirt. Didn’t lean in close or speak in sweet, poisoned tones. She fought with words and silence. With patience and strategy. And that—ironically—was why Sesshōmaru had chosen her.

But gods, Kohaku wished she had held out just a little longer.

If she’d said something after the meeting—anything—he would have found a way to talk her down. To pull her aside and explain that Naraku’s filth wasn’t her fault. That no one in that room believed it—at least not the ones who mattered. That when Sesshōmaru had stood and spoken, he’d spoken for her. Not as a man defending a mistress, but as a commander protecting his best asset.

But Kagome had let it fester.

And now, as she stood inside that office with shaking shoulders and breaking pride, she’d said the one thing that couldn’t be unsaid.

So when Sesshōmaru finally turned to him with that silent, surgical command, Kohaku obeyed.

He left.

And when the door closed behind him, he heard the click of the lock. And that? That made his pulse spike.

Because he could only hope it was a warning shot. A controlled conversation. A cold, calculated dressing-down meant to strip Kagome of her naivete without shattering her completely.

But even as he tried to believe that, another thought coiled in his gut—dark and quiet and much harder to dismiss.

The only thing worse than Sesshōmaru’s new obsession saying she wanted out… was her implying that she hated the idea of people thinking she was fucking him.

Because if that’s what she was really reacting to—not shame, not fatigue, not fear of failure—but the very idea that Sesshōmaru touching her would be offensive?

Then she wasn’t just cracking.

She was insulting him.

And Kohaku didn’t know if she realized that. Didn’t know if she’d even processed it through the fog of her own panic. But Sesshōmaru would. He would hear that subtext in her silence. And if there was one thing Sesshōmaru didn’t take kindly to, it was a woman recoiling from him like proximity was a threat instead of a privilege.

Kohaku exhaled slowly. Leaned back against the corridor wall. And waited. He wouldn’t knock. Wouldn’t interfere. That wasn’t his place.

But if the lock disengaged and Kagome didn’t come out? If she was broken—really broken—then Kohaku would know exactly what happened.

Sesshōmaru wouldn’t yell. Wouldn’t raise a hand. He would simply remake her in fire. Or discard what he couldn’t mold. And all Kohaku could do now was pray she was strong enough to endure the heat.

It hadn’t even been ten minutes.

Kohaku stood just outside the locked door, leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes on nothing in particular. He hadn’t checked the time. Hadn’t shifted his weight. Just waited. Still and ready.

When the lock finally disengaged, the sound was loud in the silence.

The door opened, slow and smooth, and Sesshōmaru stood on the other side—composed as ever. Not a wrinkle in his suit. Not a hint of tension in his stance.

Only his eyes betrayed anything beneath the surface. Glacial. Sharp.

“She will have the rest of the day off,” Sesshōmaru said calmly. “You will too.”

Kohaku nodded once, accepting the instruction without question.

But Sesshōmaru’s gaze held his for a beat longer. And when he spoke again, his voice dropped a fraction—still quiet, but with that unmistakable weight of command laced in ice.

“Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

There was no clarification. No blame assigned. Just the directive—quiet and lethal.

Kohaku inclined his head again. “Yes, sir.”

And then, without fanfare, Sesshōmaru turned to Kagome—who remained inside the room, just a step beyond the threshold. Her posture was stiff. Her gaze was lowered. But her body… still clothed. Her face… not shattered. And her spirit?

Not broken.

Kohaku felt something unknot in his chest. A small exhale of relief, buried under practiced stoicism.

Sesshōmaru addressed her evenly.

“Do your research. Be braver tomorrow.”

And with that, he turned and walked away—his footsteps silent, final, and full of unspoken judgment.

Kohaku didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. He just stepped away from the door and headed for the elevator. No glance behind him. No gesture for her to follow. But he knew she would. And she did.

Her heels clicked softly against the tile as she trailed him, head down, arms wrapped loosely around herself.

He didn’t comment. Didn’t ask if she was okay. That wasn’t how this worked.

She had survived Sesshōmaru’s office. That was step one. Now she needed to process. And he wasn’t about to do that where cameras might be watching.

They reached the ground floor in silence. Security glanced at them—curious, maybe, but not enough to ask questions. Not when Kohaku’s expression was set in stone.

They stepped out into the late afternoon light, and he kept walking. Straight to the side lot. Past the executive row. Past the reserved SUVs.

To his bike. Matte black. Minimalist. Fast. He reached for the spare helmet and handed it to her without a word.

Kagome blinked, brows pulling together faintly.

“…What?”

“Put it on,” he said.

Her confusion deepened. “You’re taking me somewhere?”

Kohaku finally looked at her—really looked. She still wore the pencil skirt, blouse, heels that had carried her through a battlefield of stares and insinuations and power plays. She looked like she was barely holding herself together. And yet she was here. Upright. Moving.

That mattered.

“I’m going to talk to you,” he said simply. “But not here. Not where walls have ears and glass sees everything.”

She hesitated. 

So he stepped forward, voice dropping lower.

“If I’m going to help you survive this, then we do it on my terms. My ground. Where Sesshōmaru can’t hear how I speak to you.”

Her lips parted slightly. But she didn’t argue. Just looked at the helmet again.

He saw the flicker of hesitation—the reminder that she was in a skirt, in heels, and the last thing she probably expected today was to be mounting a motorcycle with her body still humming from something she didn’t want to name.

But she took the helmet.

Good girl.

He swung onto the bike first, adjusted the throttle, then looked over his shoulder.

“Up.”

She climbed on. Hesitant, a little clumsy in her outfit. But she managed. Her hands hovered at his waist for a second before finally settling there.

He didn’t speak. Just took off.

The ride was short. Ten minutes, tops. Fast enough to cut through the tight coil of tension in both their chests. Not enough to outpace it entirely.

When they pulled up outside his house—a sleek structure tucked against a row of trees just beyond the corporate zone—Kagome climbed off slowly.

Her legs wobbled a little when she dismounted. Kohaku caught her elbow, just briefly. Just enough to steady her.

“Come on.”

She followed him through the gate, up the path, into the house. No security. No servants. No cameras. Just silence. Wood floors. Clean lines. A leather couch. A coffee table covered in files and tools and a few stray screws from something he’d been fixing the night before.

He didn’t offer her a seat. He didn’t take one himself. He just turned to face her once the door closed behind them and said—quietly, evenly:

“You did well today.”

Kagome blinked.

“What?”

“You held the line,” he said. “You didn’t flinch. You didn’t cry. You didn’t snap. You followed protocol.”

“But I—”

“You panicked after,” he cut in. “Not during. That matters.”

She looked down. “Sesshōmaru—”

“Sesshōmaru isn’t human,” Kohaku said bluntly. “He doesn’t process shame or fear the way we do. He doesn’t understand the weight of certain accusations. He only sees what you do with them.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

So he continued.

“You’re new to this. That’s fine. But next time, you need to remember what that meeting was. It wasn’t just a presentation. It was a test. Naraku knew exactly what he was doing.”

She swallowed. “And I failed it.”

“No,” Kohaku said, voice firmer now. “You passed. But you cracked after. And next time? Don’t.”

He stepped forward—not threatening, not crowding, but enough to make her lift her gaze.

“You want to survive this world?” he said. “Then grow calluses in the right places. Let it sting. But don’t let it sink.”

Kagome stared up at him, lips trembling just slightly.

And then he did something unexpected. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Gently. Fingers grazing her jaw.

“You’re smarter than half that boardroom,” he said. “But if you let every snake with a microphone get under your skin, you won’t last the month.”

Her breath hitched. He leaned down a little, just enough for his voice to graze her ear.

“So, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to shower. You’re going to borrow something comfortable. And you’re going to sit down, and we’re going to go over the next two days of strategy. And then? I’ll order food.”

She didn’t move.

“And if you cry,” he added softly, “do it here. Not there. If you need to vent, hide, or scream? Your place, or here. Nowhere else. Especially not work.”

He stepped back. Walked toward the hallway that led to the guest room.

“There’s a t-shirt and sweatpants on the bed. They’ll be big, but you’ll survive. And Kagome?”

She looked up. His eyes met hers. Steady. Unflinching.

“Brave doesn’t mean unshaken. It just means you get back up anyway.”

Then he disappeared down the hall, giving her space.

He would wait. And if she came back out? He’d be ready to teach her how to burn the right way.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Five: The Quiet Between Battles
(Kohaku – POV)

He heard the water turn on exactly six minutes after she disappeared down the hallway.

Not immediately. Not with the rush of someone trying to scrub the day off. No—there’d been a pause. Hesitation. Likely the weight of everything catching up to her in the privacy of a stranger’s home.

But then the pipes hummed to life.

He stayed where he was—seated on the far end of his sectional, legs spread slightly, one hand resting across the back of the couch while the other held a half-drained beer. His gaze was fixed somewhere in the middle distance, not quite focused, not entirely distant. Just…listening.

The steady hiss of the shower was oddly grounding. Normal. A reminder that beneath the boardroom battles and the locked-door conversations and all the unspoken rules of power and proximity, they were still just people. Flesh. Bone. Bruises.

Ten minutes later, the water shut off.

No dramatic exits. No signs of sobbing or shattered resolve.

And then he heard her again—the faint shuffle of feet, the creak of a drawer, a door opening and closing. She was getting dressed. Not in her suit, clearly. And not in the sweatpants he’d laid out for her.

When she finally stepped back into the living room, her hair was damp, cheeks pink from steam, and her eyes were still guarded—but not glassy.

She wore nothing but his oversized hoodie.

No pants.

Kohaku didn’t react at first. Just watched her cross the room barefoot, legs bare and hoodie swallowing her frame. She didn’t even glance at the sweatpants folded neatly on the guest bed.

He didn’t mention it.

Didn’t even smile—though the temptation was there, tucked behind the edge of his teeth.

Instead, he reached into the mini fridge beneath the counter, cracked open another beer, and handed it to her.

“Food’s on the way.”

She nodded once. No small talk. No apology. Just the quiet resignation of someone who didn’t want to be alone but didn’t know what to do with company either.

She sat beside him on the couch—not curled up, not leaning in. Just close enough that the edge of her thigh brushed his. Still silent.

He didn’t scold her. Didn’t push. He just let the quiet settle for a moment. Let her find her breath again. Then, finally, he spoke—low, firm, with no room for argument.

“Next time you think you want to quit?”

She looked up at him slowly.

“Don’t say it,” he said. “Not to him. Not in that office. Not until you’ve talked to me.”

Her brows furrowed slightly. “Why?”

“Because Sesshōmaru doesn’t let his favorites go,” Kohaku said, voice like iron laced in smoke. “Not easily. And definitely not kindly.”

She stilled at that. Thought about it. Rolled the words around in her mind before asking, softly:

“Are you a favorite?”

He didn’t hesitate. Just nodded once.

“And so are you.”

That startled a small breath out of her. Not quite a laugh. Not quite disbelief. Just surprise, hushed and sharp.

“I’m assuming,” she muttered, “he doesn’t threaten you with fucking.”

Kohaku snorted—an actual laugh, deep and unexpected.

“Honestly?” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the female population wouldn’t consider that a threat. They’d call it a privilege and ask for a contract.”

She huffed, shaking her head, but didn’t argue. He took another drink, then looked at her sideways.

“You didn’t answer, though.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Is that what rattled you after?” he asked. “That he made it about sex?”

Kagome hesitated. Then, without quite meaning to, she muttered under her breath, “He’s not my type.”

Kohaku froze. For one full second, he didn’t react. Didn’t breathe. Then, low and amused, voice rough with disbelief, he laughed—slow and sharp, like gravel in his throat.

“…I would hate to know what your type is if it’s not Sesshōmaru.”

Kagome’s face flushed instantly.

He grinned, couldn’t help it, but his gaze stayed grounded. Steady. He wasn’t teasing her for sport. He was pulling her out—one thread at a time.

“Let me guess,” he said dryly. “You like soft men who wear sweaters and apologize for breathing too loud?”

She gave him a flat look. “I’m not into sociopaths, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Sesshōmaru isn’t a sociopath,” Kohaku replied smoothly. “He’s just…efficient.”

“And terrifying,” she added.

Kohaku tilted his head.

“Good. You should be scared of him. That’s how he keeps you alive.”

She sighed. “It’s hard to learn anything when you feel like you’re constantly in danger.”

His expression softened. Just slightly.

“You are.”

She looked at him.

“But danger doesn’t mean death,” he continued. “Sometimes it just means discomfort. Growth. Fire.”

She fell silent again. So he leaned in a bit, voice lowering.

“You want to make it in this world, Kagome? You need to figure out how to stay steady in the fire. Because he won’t put it out for you. He’ll just watch to see if you burn.”

“And you?” she asked, quietly. “Would you put it out?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then, with that same low, careful honesty he always used with her, he said:

“No. But I’d stand next to you while you learned how to breathe through it.”

Something flickered in her eyes.

And he added, casually, voice like velvet over steel, “And if anyone so much as looks at you the wrong way again in a meeting, I will stab them under the table.”

She smiled. It was small. But it was real. And that? That was a victory. He finished his beer. Stood.

“You hungry?”

She nodded.

“Good,” he said, stretching once, muscles pulling tight under his shirt. “Food should be here in five. You’re gonna eat, drink, and review tomorrow’s schedule. And if you fall asleep on the couch, I’m not carrying your ass to bed.”

She snorted. And he paused at the kitchen threshold, glancing back at her with a dry smirk.

“Oh. And if you’re still convinced Sesshōmaru’s not your type?”

She raised a brow. He winked.

“Then maybe next time, wear the pants. Or I’ll start assuming I am.”

He left her blushing on the couch. And if the smirk didn’t leave his face the rest of the night? Well. He had his own theories about her type now.

Dinner arrived just past seven.

Kohaku moved through the motions with the kind of effortless control that made everything feel normal—like they weren’t licking wounds from an emotional ambush, like the world hadn’t cracked beneath her heels hours ago. He laid out the takeout across the table with quick, clean motions—containers of gyoza, karaage, rice bowls, a tub of spicy miso soup—and handed Kagome a pair of chopsticks with a nod toward the couch.

Then, casually—almost too casually—he reminded her:

“Documents.”

She blinked.

“The ones Sesshōmaru told you to review,” he clarified. “Get them out. You’re going to go through them. Out loud. With me.”

She stared at him like he’d just assigned homework mid-therapy.

“Now?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You want to learn it, don’t you?”

Her mouth opened. Closed.

Kohaku tilted his head, half-daring. “Unless you’d rather go back into his office tomorrow unprepared and wait for the next psychological ambush.”

She groaned. Stood. And stomped—hoodie flapping, bare legs flashing—back down the hallway toward her bag.

He tried not to stare. He failed. She returned a moment later with the folder and a slight pout. He didn’t comment on either.

Instead, he grabbed them both fresh beers, set the open file on the low table in front of them, and pointed to the first page like this was any other debrief. Like she wasn’t curled up beside him in nothing but his hoodie, thigh-to-thigh and flushed from steam and beer and something heavier hanging in the air between them.

“You read,” he said. “I’ll ask questions.”

They worked like that for a while.

Three beers deep. Then four. Each page another layer of tension peeling back. She read. He prodded. She answered. He corrected—gently, but firmly—praising her memory, calling out weak spots, keeping her just on the edge of focus. It was more than study. It was… steadiness. A rhythm. A rebuild.

Until page nineteen.

Kagome flipped it, chopsticks still in hand, and paused. Her gaze lingered on a photograph attached to a client summary—someone named Kōga Morimoto, a CEO of a logistics company tied to a demon family line. Sharp suit. Sharp smile. Bronze skin. Dark hair. The kind of confidence that looked natural, but cost blood to earn.

She hummed.

“Well, finally. A businessman who understands the art of the tan. Subtle. Real. Not overdone. No Oompa Loompa spray-tan tragedy. Just… quality skin tone.”

Kohaku blinked. Then turned toward her, a slow grin forming.

“Is that your way of telling me I’m your type?”

She shot him a look—half startled, half amused.

“What?”

He leaned in just slightly, gesturing between his arm and the photo. “Dark hair. Tan skin. Clean jaw. You know he’s got a good back.”

She stared at him, and then back at the photo. Back at him. And something in her brain clicked. Slowly. Visibly. Her lips parted. She looked at the file again. Back at his arm. His hand. His throat. And flushed.

“Oh my god,” she mumbled, blinking fast. “You have the same—” She gestured vaguely at his neck and forearms. “That tone. That—dammit.”

Kohaku laughed. Full-throated. Rough.

“You gonna start humming when I walk in too?” he teased. “Start calling me a quality specimen?”

She shoved his shoulder, but it was weak—half-hearted and warm with laughter.

He nudged her back with his knee, and when she twisted toward him with a glare, her thigh slid right over his lap.

Both of them stilled. Silence settled—thick and deep. Kagome froze. Her lips parted like she’d meant to say something. But she didn’t move. She didn’t climb off.

And when Kohaku looked up at her—really looked—he saw it.

The panic behind her eyes. Not fear. Not uncertainty. But that raw, bone-deep need not to be alone. To be held. To do something with the chaos still pulsing under her skin.

She moved first. Not subtly. She crawled into his lap. Straddled him. Bare thighs folding over his jeans, her palms bracing on his shoulders, her eyes wide and wild but locked to his.

He didn’t stop her. Didn’t move, didn’t flinch. Just watched.

She exhaled, soft and shaky. Her arms looped slowly around his neck, and she leaned in—careful. Testing. Her mouth hovered a breath above his. So damn close he could taste the beer on her breath. Feel the heat radiating off her skin where the hoodie hitched up against his chest.

Kohaku’s hands flexed at his sides. Not touching. Not yet. Her lips brushed his. He didn’t kiss her back. Not yet. He let her come to him.

Because this wasn’t about lust—not right now. This was about reclaiming control. Her body. Her proximity. Her choice.

And gods—gods help him—he was letting her do it.

Because if this was what she needed to remember she wasn’t a toy, a rumor, a pawn?

Then he would give her that. Even if it left him burning. Even if tomorrow she said it meant nothing. Even if she broke in his lap and walked away.

Because right now? Right now she had her arms around his neck and her thighs wrapped around his hips and she was looking at him—not Sesshōmaru, not Naraku, not any damn ghost of a man who made her feel used or small.

Just him. 

And Kohaku? He’d never felt more dangerous. Or more gentle.

This shit had never happened before.

Not in the office. Not in the field. Not on assignment, not off it. Kohaku had worked with women—brilliant ones, beautiful ones, dangerous ones. But never had he felt one crawl beneath his skin like this. Never had one linger in the back of his mind like a challenge he couldn’t unhook from. Never had one done something as simple as sit in his lap and made it feel like the goddamn earth tilted.

He kissed her back. No hesitation. No mercy. Just heat.

His tongue swept into her mouth, and the moment it did, he groaned. Low. Deep. The kind of sound that came from somewhere far older than lust—bone-deep, blood-hot. His hands came up. One to her hip. The other to her hair, fisting it lightly, tilting her head just enough to deepen the kiss.

She clung to him. Tight. Like she didn’t know what else to hold onto but him.

And gods—he let her.

Let her climb into his space, into his breath, into the private vault he didn’t let anyone near. Because this wasn’t about territory anymore. Not really. This wasn’t about Sesshōmaru, or office hierarchy, or whispered rumors.

This was about her. The woman in his lap. The one who didn’t break when they tried to shatter her. The one who shook with shame and still came back swinging. The one who wrapped herself around his neck and kissed him with her whole body like maybe—just maybe—he was safety wrapped in sin.

And that?

That was a hell of a drug.

He adjusted her slightly on his lap, pulling her tighter against him, her thighs bracketing his hips, and hissed between his teeth when her core brushed right over the growing strain in his jeans.

Fuck. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

She mumbled something into the kiss—barely audible, barely coherent.

“…will this be okay?”

That. That almost broke him. Because she wasn’t asking about the mechanics. She wasn’t asking about the kiss, or the couch, or the beer still sweating on the table beside them. She was asking if this—whatever this was—was allowed. Was safe. Was sanctioned.

She knew the rules. Knew what Sesshōmaru’s attention meant. Knew exactly how dangerous it was to let someone else touch her, even like this.

But Kohaku?

Kohaku didn’t falter.

He kissed her again. Slow. Deep. Then pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. His hand still in her hair. His other hand gripping her hip.

And his voice—when he spoke—was pure fire-draped steel.

“My job is to protect,” he said. “Not yours.”

She blinked at him. Breath catching.

“You don’t need to worry about what’s okay. Or what’s dangerous. That’s my fucking job. You understand me?”

She nodded, barely. He leaned in—forehead against hers.

“You just keep kissing me,” he murmured. “And I’ll handle the rest.”

It wasn’t a permission. It was a vow. And when she surged forward again, mouth to his, hips shifting just enough to send another bolt of heat through both of them?

He didn’t stop her. Didn’t hold back. Because this wasn’t claiming. This was sanctuary. And if she needed a place to lose the weight of the world for five fucking minutes—if she needed him to be that place?

Then Kohaku would carry the fire himself.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Six: Let Me Burn for It
(Kohaku – POV)

He should have stopped.

Gods, he knew he should have stopped.

But it was too late for that. Too late the second her lips found his. Too late the moment her thighs slid around his waist like they’d always known where they belonged. Too late when she looked at him—not with polished confidence or office poise—but with raw, panicked want she was too new to this world to mask.

He had known—known—she’d be trouble on day one. Not because she was dramatic. Not because she was loud. But because she was real.

Because she didn’t shrink when Sesshōmaru threatened. Because she didn’t flinch when Kohaku challenged. Because she took off her damn shirt in a power meeting to prove a point—because she took off her heels to walk beside him down the street like she didn’t care what anyone thought. Because she asked about his family. Texted him dumb questions late at night. Joked that he owed her anxiety meds and alcohol if she made it through a week. 

This? This chaos had been building for days. And now it was here. And neither of them were stopping it.

So fuck it. If he had to burn for something in this life—let it be her. Her body. Her mouth. Her damn fire.

He growled low in his throat, stood in one smooth motion, and caught her with ease—strong hands sliding beneath her thighs as he lifted her like she weighed nothing. She gasped, but didn’t stop him. Arms still looped around his neck, wide eyes watching him as he shifted his grip, wrapped her legs higher around his waist, and turned.

The hallway blurred behind them. His bedroom door swung open under his foot. And when he kicked it shut behind them? It felt like crossing a line he’d never come back from.

He set her down gently at the edge of his bed.

She stayed there—bare thighs against the dark sheets, hoodie still drowning her frame, hair messy from his hands, lips bruised from the kiss they hadn’t even begun to process. And she hesitated. A breath. A flicker of panic. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was Sesshōmaru’s ghost hanging over her shoulder like a vice. Maybe it was just her own sense of right and wrong clawing up her spine.

Her voice—small, shaking—broke the silence.

“…he doesn’t have to know.”

Kohaku exhaled through his nose. Rough. Controlled.

His body screamed yes. Every part of him howled for agreement. Every muscle, every cell, every base instinct said let her keep you a secret. Let this be a hidden thing. A private rebellion. A shared sin.

But instead? He leaned in. So fucking close. Brought one hand to the back of her neck. The other to the inside hem of the hoodie.

And whispered:

“Shhh.”

Not a dismissal. A promise. His lips grazed her temple.

“Let me worry about him,” he murmured, voice all gravel and smoke. “Your job? Is to let go. Just tonight.”

She looked at him. Trust. Fear. Heat. All tangled. And then she nodded. Slow. Reluctant. But there.

He kissed her again. Slower this time. Deeper. Like he had all the time in the world. Because this wasn’t about marking territory. It wasn’t about claiming what wasn’t his. It was about giving her something that was. Freedom.

His hands slid beneath the hoodie, lifting slowly—asking, not taking. And when he peeled it up, inch by inch, and saw that she wore nothing underneath?

He groaned. Soft. Pained.

“Fuck.”

The hoodie came off. She was bare in front of him. Flushed. Glowing. Breathing fast—but unbroken. His hands didn’t grab. Didn’t squeeze. He touched her like she was something to be studied. Revered. Memorized. Fingertips at her waist. Up her sides. Across her ribs.

“Look at you,” he whispered, voice husky and reverent.

Her breath hitched. He kissed her again—lower now. Down her neck. Across her collarbone. Then lower. Took her breast in his mouth—soft, careful, but with a hunger no amount of discipline could cage. He kissed. Then nibbled. Then bit—just enough to make her arch.

“Swhhh,” he soothed against her skin when she gasped. “Let me help you relax.”

His hand slid up her thigh. Not rough. Not rushing. Just present. Anchored.

“It’s okay” he murmured. “Just breathe.”

Her hands threaded through his hair. Clung. And still—he didn’t ask for more. Didn’t demand. Didn’t push.

But oh, he took. He left bruises along her hips with his mouth. He traced reverent filth against her ribs with his tongue. And all the while he whispered between every sinful press of lips and teeth:

“Let me keep you safe.”

Because if this was a sin? If Sesshōmaru’s two favorite toys had climbed into bed together? Then let it be a fucking masterpiece of a sin.

Her moan was small.

Desperate.

Grinding against him with that sudden fire—the kind of instinct that overtakes thought. That begged to be touched, filled, ruined. And Kohaku?

Gods, he had no plans on stopping now. Not with her pressed against him like that. Not with her hands tightening in his hair, her hips rolling with increasing need, her eyes fluttering like she didn’t know if she was drowning or about to scream.

Not now. Not after everything. 

He shifted. Stripped. Shirt first. Then jeans. Then boxers. Unbothered. Unapologetic.

And when she stilled—watching, breathing hard—he only pulled the covers back, slid her down into the bed with one hand braced behind her head, then climbed in beside her and yanked her body flush to his.

No rush. Just need. His. And hers. He kissed her again—slow, dark, messy—and then pulled her up, coaxing her thighs over his waist, guiding her with hands on her hips like she was always meant to fit there.

She whimpered softly, hips unsure.

He adjusted her. One arm around her back, the other wrapped low to support her. Nudging her forward, upward—until the thick head of him brushed exactly where it needed to be.

Her breath caught.

“Kagome,” he said lowly. “I’ve got you.”

She swallowed. Closed her eyes.

“Be gentle,” she whispered, barely audible. “Please. I haven’t been with someone in—”

Her voice broke off as he shifted. Slid the tip of himself just barely inside. Her arms looped around his neck, face pressing into his skin as she murmured, almost pleading:

“—in years.”

Years.

His eyes went dark. His jaw clenched.

Years.

He slammed his mouth to hers before the heartbreak of that confession did something reckless to his resolve. Kissed her hard. Possessive. Deep. And kept kissing her as he slowly, deliberately, pushed further in.

One thick inch. Then another. And another. She was tight. Too tight. So damn wet. So warm. Her walls clung to him like her body was trying to remember what it meant to feel held from the inside out.

And gods, the noises she made—choked, helpless, real—they about undid him. He whispered against her lips, barely able to keep his voice steady:

“You poor, stressed-out, perfect little thing…”

She moaned again, burying her face in his neck, shaking. And still he moved—slow, deliberate, aching control—as he filled her completely.

“You don’t carry this alone anymore,” he rasped, hips stilling when he was all the way in. “You let me take it. Every bit of it.”

Her walls clenched in response. And gods, the way she held him—tight, trembling, like he was her last tether to anything sane—he knew right then:

He’d burn his whole damn life to keep her like this.

She was unraveling in his hands. Every soft moan, every quiet gasp, every twitch of muscle and roll of her hips sent a signal straight to his spine. And Kohaku—Gods, he didn’t just feel it. He responded.

With control. With precision. With the kind of masculine rhythm that only came when instinct met experience.

Her head tipped back slightly as he shifted beneath her, angling his hips just so—finding that perfect alignment that made her cry out his name, short and sharp. Her walls clenched around him, and he gritted his teeth, one hand stroking up into her hair, the other locking firmly around her waist.

“There,” he murmured roughly against her temple. “That’s it. That’s where I want you.”

She whimpered in reply, forehead falling to his shoulder, fingers curling into his biceps.

He began to move.

Slow at first. Measured. Letting her body adjust to the rhythm as he lifted her slightly with every stroke, guiding her hips down with strength wrapped in reverence. Her thighs trembled. Her breath hitched.

And then—

He picked up speed. Not brutal. But intense. Like the slow burn of wildfire learning how to run. Up. Down. Nearly all the way out before he pulled her back onto him with a groan.

Again. And again. And again.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her hips followed now, finding the rhythm on their own, riding each push with more desperation than control. She wasn’t speaking—she couldn’t. Just moans and breath and soft gasps of sound as she climbed faster, higher.

Gods, she was riding a high.

And he could feel it. In the way her body arched. In the helpless twitch of her thighs. In the rising pitch of her whimpers, like she didn’t know whether to cry or scream or stay in this moment forever.

He kissed her jaw. Her throat. Whispered right into her ear:

“Stay with me.”

She whimpered. He held her tighter. Lifted her hips higher. Slid deep. Again. And her whole body shook. No fear now. No hesitation. Just Kagome—free, undone, and riding the rhythm he gave her like it was the only thing tethering her to gravity.

And maybe it was. Because here, in this bed, in this heat, with sweat sliding down their skin and breath coming in ragged pulls—there were no politics. No company. No Sesshōmaru.

Just her. And him. And the kind of connection neither of them could name—but both of them felt.

He felt it—saw it—before it fully hit her.

The way her breath caught, the sharp jerk of her hips, the wild flutter of her lashes as her whole body locked down around him. Every nerve in her seemed to light up at once. She clenched, arched, gasped—his name on her lips like it was the only thing she could remember.

And gods. She was gorgeous like this. Unraveled. Unmasked. Radiant in release.

Her body trembled against him as the wave crashed over her, and he held her through it—one arm around her back, the other cradling her head, his hips still moving slowly, drawing out every last second of that high.

He whispered to her—nonsense, comfort, worship—until her grip softened and her breath returned.

And then it hit him. The way she clenched one last time. The way her body stayed hot and close and perfect. And the dam inside him finally—finally—broke. He thrust up once. Twice. Groaned her name so deep it came from his chest.

And he didn’t pull out.

Couldn’t.

His fingers dug into her hips as he spilled into her, head tipping back, jaw clenched as the pressure left him in waves—sharp, sweet, complete. It was more than release. It was surrender.

To her. To this. To whatever the hell they were about to be now.

His hands were shaking. Chest rising and falling like he’d just run a war zone.

And Kagome? Still curled over him, still soft and warm, her arms looped lazily around his neck, her hair sticking to her damp skin.

Neither of them said anything at first. Not because there was nothing to say. But because nothing they said would undo it. Or explain it. Or change the fact that she was still on him, full of him, his in a way that went so far beyond professional lines that it was laughable.

He kissed her shoulder. Once. Then leaned his forehead against her collarbone and just breathed.

This was going to be a problem. But right now? Right now, she was tucked against his chest. And not shaking. And not crying. And not asking to quit the job or break apart or disappear.

Right now, she was quiet. And gods, he’d give her that peace for as long as he fucking could.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Seven: I’ll Handle It
(Kohaku – POV)

Gods, she was still panting.

Her body, boneless and warm, draped over him like gravity had chosen him as the anchor. He could feel her twitch—subtle, involuntary pulses still echoing the aftershocks of everything they’d just done. Her thigh trembled once, then again, like her body hadn’t fully caught up to the storm it had just weathered.

And he stroked her hair.

Slowly. Deliberately. Fingertips dragging from scalp to nape, again and again, like calming a wild thing that had finally let someone close enough to rest.

She breathed like she hadn’t in weeks. Like someone had finally let her exhale. And gods, he wanted to keep her like this. Wrapped in warmth, in rhythm, in the low thunder of his heart under her cheek.

Her voice was a whisper. So soft he almost missed it.

“Are you sure we aren’t…gonna get in trouble?”

He huffed. Not because it was a dumb question. But because she sounded so damn earnest asking it. Like she already knew the answer might be yes—but hoped it wasn’t.

He didn’t stop stroking her hair. Didn’t change his tone.

“You let me worry about that.”

She lifted her head just slightly. Looked at him with those tired, vulnerable eyes that had seen too much war in too short a time.

And nodded. Just like that. Like his word was enough. Like she trusted him. And it knocked the wind out of him in a way no blade ever had.

She yawned then—tiny, soft, like a kitten—and dropped her cheek back against his chest with a satisfied sigh. Her arm looped around his waist, fingertips brushing lazy patterns against his skin.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He blinked. “For the overall day,” he said dryly, “and not…this part?”

She snorted against his chest. Didn’t answer. And he let himself smile. Not wide. Not open. But real. They lay like that for long minutes. Her breath slowing. His hand still in her hair. The room warm with silence, not tension.

But the thoughts? They moved beneath the surface like ripples under ice.

If Sesshōmaru found out…

Kohaku exhaled through his nose. If Sesshōmaru found out, then fine. He’d handle it. He’d take the hit. He’d wear it with calm and professionalism and whatever sharp consequences came with it. Because she had needed something tonight. And he had given it. Not just sex. Not just tension. But safety. Control. Choice.

And if the cost was Sesshōmaru’s disapproval? So be it. If Sesshōmaru wanted to throw him aside for crossing a line? Fine. It made things simpler. Cleaner. Easier to stand beside her without guilt. If he wanted to throw them both aside? Even better. Because that would mean they were free. Free to build something outside the tightrope of expectation and hierarchy.

But if not? If Sesshōmaru decided to keep them? Then Kohaku would do what he’d always done. Stay sharp. Stay disciplined. And prove that whatever happened in this bed had no bearing on what happened at the conference table.

He didn’t say any of that out loud.

He just said, “Either way. It’ll be okay. I’ll handle it.”

She didn’t ask what “it” was. Didn’t ask how he’d manage it. Or what would happen if Sesshōmaru already suspected. Or what they’d do if the world came knocking.

She just murmured, “Okay.”

And that was it. Because she believed him. She believed he would protect her. That if lines got crossed, it would be his name on the fallout, not hers. And maybe that was foolish. Or maybe that was exactly what trust looked like. 

So he kept her on his chest. Let her drift.  Her skin was soft. Her breath even. Her hair tangled but still perfect, and her fingers moved only once before she slipped fully under.

He stayed awake. Because someone had to. Because she’d fallen apart and put herself back together in his arms tonight. And because he had no intention of letting anyone—not even Sesshōmaru—make her feel like what they’d done was a crime.

If it was? Then he’d plead guilty with a smirk. And make damn sure the verdict never touched her name.

It was nearly two in the morning when his phone lit up.

He hadn’t meant to sleep. Not fully. Not while she was curled against his chest, hair a mess across his collarbone, her breath slow and even like the storm inside her had finally stilled. Her body was warm and bare under the blanket, one leg thrown over his waist, her arm tucked against his ribs like she had the right to be there.

And maybe she did. Maybe after the way she whispered thank you and fell asleep with no tension left in her limbs—maybe she did.

But his phone didn’t agree. More specifically—Sesshōmaru didn’t.

The screen glowed silently in the dark, no sound, no vibration. Because only one number was allowed through after midnight. One override in his entire system.

[2:07 AM] – Sesshōmaru:

Your badge and Higurashi’s both pinged from the same location.
Same home. Yours. As of three minutes ago.

Kohaku’s body didn’t move. But his mind?

Clicked. Cold. Unforgiving. Inevitable. The kind of message that came from someone who didn’t guess—someone who knew.

He stared at the text. His heart didn’t speed up. He didn’t flinch. But the temperature of the room dropped a few degrees all the same.

[2:08 AM] – Sesshōmaru:

You either have her badge in your home.
Or you have her.

This is not what I meant when I told you to handle it.

Kohaku exhaled quietly through his nose.

Fuck.

This was not a warning. Sesshōmaru didn’t warn. He simply stated the breach. Let the offender realize their crime and choose how they wished to burn.

His thumb hovered over the phone. No panic. Just the sharp assessment of fallout.

Sesshōmaru hadn’t said she’s in your home. He’d said her badge was. Which meant the ping data had confirmed their proximity, and Sesshōmaru had waited to see what excuse Kohaku might offer.

And now?

[2:09 AM] – Sesshōmaru:

Which is it?

Have you brought her home?
Or are you merely holding her badge like a fool?

Because I assume you wouldn’t be touching what belongs to me.

Kohaku stared at the words.

Not shouted. Not italicized. No expletives. Just owned. Every word laced with icy possession and the knowledge that everyone—everyone—knew not to lay hands on what belonged to Sesshōmaru.

And gods, he had done more than lay hands.

Kohaku’s jaw flexed once.

There was no denying it. No talking around it. Her breath still ghosted against his skin. Her body was still tangled with his. And Sesshōmaru, wherever the fuck he was, had just calmly pointed a sniper rifle at the heart of the situation.

Which is it?

Kohaku didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached out, carefully pulled the phone off the charger, and slid out from beneath her with the quiet efficiency of a soldier used to moving without a trace.

She stirred faintly. Curled into the blanket. Didn’t wake.

He stood at the edge of the bed. Naked. Phone in hand. Eyes narrowed at the soft glow of power wrapped in clipped phrasing.

He could lie. Could claim she dropped her badge at his place and he picked it up for her. Could say she needed space and he offered the guest room.

But that wasn’t his way. And it sure as hell wasn’t going to fool him.

So instead, he typed.

[2:12 AM] – Kohaku:

She’s here.
She’s safe.
I’ll take the consequences.

He stared at it. Didn’t hit send. Not yet.

Because Sesshōmaru’s next move would determine everything. Whether he called them into a meeting at dawn. Whether he dropped both of their names from every privileged document in rotation. Whether he scorched the earth and started fresh.

And Kohaku? He was okay with that.

If he wanted to toss Kohaku aside, fine. That just meant freedom. Consequence. Clarity.

But none of that mattered yet. He hit send. And waited.  Let the fire find him. Because gods help him—

She’d been worth it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Breaking of Protocol
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He had known this could be a problem.

From the moment she stepped into his war room with fire in her spine and uncertainty in her eyes, Sesshōmaru had calculated the risks.

Kagome Higurashi was bright. Raw. Fractured in places she didn’t yet understand. But she was also adaptable. Ambitious. Sharp enough to read between the lines without needing the lines explained. She listened. Learned. Endured.

And she was beautiful.

He had seen what others would see. Had anticipated how it could become an issue. But he had told himself it would not. That he had built the walls high enough. That professionalism—particularly Kohaku’s—would hold.

Kohaku had been with him for over a decade. Loyal. Quiet. Efficient. Never insubordinate. Never reckless. And surely—not even with Kagome’s presence—he would not overstep.

Had he taken her to lunch while waiting for the badge pickup? Yes. Sesshōmaru had noticed. Logged it. But it had not raised alarms. At least not many. They were colleagues. He was her field escort. He had access to her onboarding. Lunch had been permissible.

Everything else had seemed under control.

When she’d faltered after the Naraku meeting—when she whispered “I want out” like it was a prayer—Sesshōmaru had been the one to remind her what it meant to stay. To endure. To survive this kingdom she clearly didn’t yet understand.

And when he’d told Kohaku to handle it, he had meant: stabilize her. Ground her. Remind her who she was becoming.

Not take what belonged to him.

But apparently—

Apparently, he had underestimated them both.

He hadn’t been trying to track her. Not initially. He had merely opened the security overlay to confirm she’d arrived home safely after being excused. She had the rest of the day off. As did Kohaku.

Simple.

But her badge? Didn’t ping at her address. It pinged at an home he knew well. Kohaku’s. Sesshōmaru had stared at the screen for exactly six seconds. Then he checked Kohaku’s badge. Same location.

The timestamps were precise—both badges registered proximity in the same confined square footage. The same radius. Recent. Three minutes ago.

Which meant there were options. None of them good.

Option One: Kohaku had mistakenly taken her badge home—careless, but fixable.

Option Two: Kagome had been brought to his home, and Kohaku, the loyal second-in-command, had offered her the couch or the guest room—unprofessional, but forgivable.

Option Three: Kohaku was touching what belonged to Sesshōmaru.

He had sent a message. Not a threat. A statement. He had given him an out. A chance to lie. To claim ignorance. To hide behind logistics.

But Kohaku didn’t lie. Didn’t stall. Didn’t run. He texted back three minutes later, a message so calm it might’ve been read in monotone.

She’s here.
She’s safe.
I’ll take the consequences.

Sesshōmaru read it.

And threw the nearest object across his office. A heavy crystal paperweight—meant for aesthetics, not function—crashed against the far wall with a sickening crack. Shards scattered across the marble. The sound was clean. Loud. Final.

He stared at the text again. Because it wasn’t just disobedience. It was betrayal. Kohaku had known the rules. Everyone did. You don’t touch what Sesshōmaru claims. Not metaphorically. Not politically. And certainly not physically.

And he had claimed her.

Not with a mark. Not with a contract. But with words—in front of enemies and allies alike. He had shielded her from Naraku’s venom. Spoken on her behalf. Reinforced her presence in the hierarchy.

He had told her, in clear language, what she was becoming.

His.

Her brilliance, her obedience, her potential—his. To shape. To elevate. To wield like a blade. And what had she done? Turned around and fucked his bodyguard.

Sesshōmaru paced once. Slowly. Deliberately. This wasn’t jealousy. He didn’t indulge in such weak human constructs. This was ownership. This was protocol. This was control.

And now—

Now it was broken.

The woman who had flinched at Naraku’s insinuation—who looked offended at the mere suggestion that she would sleep with her boss—had wrapped her legs around someone else within hours. And not just someone. His guard. His most trusted lieutenant.

And gods, the irony scraped like broken glass. Because he had tried to prepare her. Had tried to harden her, discipline her, ready her for what this world demanded. He had exposed her to wolves to build her teeth. Had handed her classified knowledge. Had opened the goddamn gates to his kingdom and said, Here. Stand beside me.

And she? Had made a fool of them both.  He didn’t sit. Didn’t touch another file. He stood in the center of his office and recalculated everything. Because Kohaku had made his choice. And Higurashi? She had made hers. But Sesshōmaru? Sesshōmaru would make his next.

He read the message again.

I’ll take the consequences.

And again. The seventh time, the meaning settled in his mind like ash on a battlefield.

Kohaku believed this was survivable. That a single sentence would cover the damage. That the word “consequences” could be shouldered like a weight, carried alone, and that the world would somehow keep turning.

But Sesshōmaru knew better. This was not just overstepping. It was betrayal. And it had started burning from the very beginning.

He should have seen it sooner. The way Kagome looked at Kohaku with too much familiarity. The way Kohaku hovered longer than needed. The signs were there—subtle, quiet—cracks in the ice that had gone unnoticed. Or rather, willfully ignored.

Because Sesshōmaru had believed, foolishly, that loyalty meant discipline. He had been wrong. This wasn’t about a misstep. It was a fire. And they had both fanned it.

He leaned back in his chair slowly, the leather creaking faintly beneath the shift of his spine. The screen of his phone had gone dark, but the words were etched behind his eyelids.

She’s here.
She’s safe.
I’ll take the consequences.

Safe.

The word grated.

As if her being warm and sated in someone else’s bed was a form of safety. As if he hadn’t spent years—years—building a professional wall around her voice, her brilliance, her presence, only to finally break it down and offer her a place in his kingdom.

And Kohaku had the gall to fuck her in less than a week.

He had stayed professional for years. Listened to her speak on behalf of vendors and budgets. Watched her navigate negotiations with efficiency and wit. She had been across the aisle, behind a screen, a voice through fiber optics. Unreachable. Untouchable.

Until her company had cut her loose.

Fools.

And when the ink dried on her termination? Sesshōmaru had moved. Crafted a position for her that didn’t yet exist. Wrote clauses so sharp they bled. Ready to hire her, trained her, defend her.

And when Naraku insulted her in front of allies and enemies alike?

He had risen.

Publicly. Powerfully. Cleanly.

He had silenced Naraku with words more dangerous than violence. Had corrected him—not as a man embarrassed, but as a sovereign protecting a dignitary. He had placed Kagome above mockery. Above question.

And in that moment?

She became untouchable.

That was the moment she lost the right to leave. Not because she was bound by ink and clause. But because he had defended her in public. Because she had stood beside him in silence and allowed it. Because he had presented her to the room not as a plaything or assistant or consort—but as a crown-bearer in the making. And once such a defense is made, there is no retreat.

She may not have known it. But he had.

The second he silenced Naraku on her behalf, Sesshōmaru understood the truth: Kagome Higurashi was no longer free.

Not in the political sense. Not in the territorial one. But in the cold, brutal logic of their world—she was his.

And Kohaku had dared touch her. Claim her, in the dark, behind Sesshōmaru’s back. After a decade of loyalty. After everything.

He stood, slowly, pushing back the chair with a calculated grace. The office around him remained dim, sterile, silent. Outside the window, the city twinkled, oblivious.

He crossed to the console at the wall. Entered a biometric code. A hidden drawer slid open.

Inside: a sealed black folder marked Confidential – Higurashi, K.

Her integration profile. Her contract. Her escalation protections. The quiet background reports he’d kept to himself. He didn’t open it. Not yet. But the message was clear:

Kohaku may have touched her. But she still belonged to him. And if they thought he would let her walk?

Let them fall in love in the shadows? Build a future from betrayal?

No.

Perhaps Kohaku would be excused. Quietly. Relocated. Reassigned. Perhaps not.

But her? Never. Even if they both tried to keep it hidden. Even if they pretended it had no weight. Even if Kagome had whispered lies into his subordinate’s mouth about what this wasn’t.

He would burn it down.

If Kohaku thought he could fuck her and still hold a position near Sesshōmaru’s side? Then Kohaku had misunderstood the entire game.

And if Kagome thought Sesshōmaru would forget the way her lips had trembled when Naraku said his name beside hers? Then she had no idea who she was dealing with.

Sesshōmaru’s fury was not flame. It did not consume. It erased. It rewrote kingdoms from the inside out. This wasn’t possessiveness. It was design. Control. Order.

He had offered her the crown. She had worn it. And now she would carry it. And if she dropped it? She would shatter beneath it.

He reached for his phone again, thumb hovering over Kohaku’s message.

He didn’t respond. Didn’t need to. Because now, it was no longer about punishment. It was about reminding the court that Sesshōmaru does not share what he claims.

And they? 

They had just become the perfect example.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Nine: Terms of Correction
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

It was nearly five in the morning.

The city outside his office window had begun its slow crawl toward wakefulness—flickers of lights turning on in towers, a faint hum in the distance as automated trams began their schedule. But inside the executive floor of the building, the world remained frozen. Controlled. Silent.

Sesshōmaru stood with one hand resting against the cool glass of the window, unmoving. Still in his dress shirt from the night before, sleeves rolled to the forearms, collar unbuttoned—but only barely. Even disheveled, he was immaculate. Precision incarnate. Every breath he took felt like it was for calculation, not survival.

They were scheduled to arrive at 6:45. If they were smart? 6:30.

He wasn’t sure which he preferred.

Because by now, they both had to know something had shifted. A ripple in the otherwise perfect order of his kingdom. And gods, he had allowed so much—had turned a blind eye to subtle tension, ignored proximity in rooms, even let his own possessive instincts bleed into the edges of their professional space. But this?

This was disorder. This was chaos they had brought into his home. And for that, they would be corrected. He had not yet decided how. 

But he would.

He had already crafted the three outcomes. Strategically laid. Weighted. Brutal in their simplicity:

Option One:
Both of them end it. Immediately. No lingering glances. No communication beyond what the job demands. They keep their roles. Their status. Their silence.

Option Two:
Kohaku reassigned. A different city. A different sector. Still in the kingdom—but at distance. Far enough that the temptation cannot follow. Kagome stays.

Option Three:
Kohaku’s last day. No ceremony. No thank-you. Just erasure. Kagome stays.

He turned from the window and walked back to his desk, his steps measured. Unrushed. Every decision he made today would ripple through the walls. Through them. Through her.

He sat, opened his phone, and crafted a message with the kind of clarity only Sesshōmaru could deliver.

5:04AM
Prepare her. If she doesn’t already know.
I will present three options. You may decide how you respond. She will not.

Option 1: You both end it. You both stay.
Option 2: You are reassigned. She stays.
Option 3: You are dismissed. She stays.

You were the favorite.
She is my chosen.

When you arrive, speak plainly. I do not appreciate delay.

He stared at the words for a moment before hitting send.

It was not a warning. It was a curtain call. Because Kohaku, for all his years of loyalty, for all the times he’d protected Sesshōmaru’s back without question, had made a fatal mistake.

He had touched what Sesshōmaru had claimed. He had crossed into territory not marked with blood or threat, but with intention—and that was far more dangerous.

And Kagome? She had no idea. No true understanding of the world she now lived in. She didn’t know what kind of creatures her office was filled with. What kind of court this was. Her mind still processed power through human lenses.

She thought this was about business.

She didn’t know how rarely youkai removed their glamours—how few even dared expose their true faces except in life-and-death moments, behind council doors, or in the privacy of homes where only blood and bond granted entry.

Kohaku did. 

She didn’t know how close she had been to being told the truth. She didn’t know how long Sesshōmaru had been waiting for her to be ready. Ready to join him. Ready to join his world. 

But now? Now she would learn.

He would offer Kohaku a chance at dignity. One final opportunity to bow out with spine intact.

But her? There would be no out. Her body, her mind, her rise to power—they belonged to him. She had accepted the role. The title. The path carved in shadow and strength. She had been offered the crown, and she had put it on. And he would not allow her to drop it. Not for lust. Not for fear. Not for another man’s hands.

He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, eyes locked on the door across the room.

Soon, it would open. And they would walk through—either as professionals seeking mercy, or fools already burning.

Either way, Kagome Higurashi was not going anywhere.

If she tried?

He would bury her in legal fire. The NDA she signed was not symbolic—it was lethal. Every clause was an iron net. Her departure would set off alarms across industries, species, territories. She would not be welcomed elsewhere. Not when he blacklisted her name.

He could blacklist her. He wouldn’t. But only because she was his. And if she needed reminding? He would do so. Gently, if she obeyed. Harshly, if she didn’t.

One way or another? She would be his. By surrender or by ruin.

And if Kohaku tried to stand in the way again?

Sesshōmaru would teach his old favorite the difference between being valued—and being disposable.

The message came through like a blade across porcelain.

“If I’m removed, who protects her?
There will be no interference with the role. Hers or mine. 
I can guarantee that.”

Sesshōmaru stared at it. Read it once. Twice. And on the third read, the interpretation snapped into place.

Kohaku’s words were not defensive. Not remorseful. Not even careful. They were territorial.

Who protects her.

I’ve kissed your queen. Fucked her. Maybe filled her. I’ll do it again. But I’ll be polite in meetings.

That’s what Sesshōmaru heard. That’s what the message meant.

Kohaku hadn’t just made a mistake. He had claimed. Tried to draw lines around something that wasn’t his to touch.

And not just something—her. His woman. His strategist. His human. His queen. His.

Sesshōmaru rose slowly from his chair, the movement silent, but edged with barely contained violence. His fingers flexed once, then stilled.

He wasn’t angry. Not in the way mortals knew it. This wasn’t rage. This was something colder. Sharper. Possession sharpened to fury. Because Kagome wasn’t just a name on a contract. She wasn’t just talent acquired or intellect cultivated. She was a plan. A future. A design.

She was meant to be at his side—always. In boardrooms. In jets. In hotel suites. In shadows and in battle. In bed. She was to be his to guide. To temper. To train. To fuck. To use.

Not like a whore, but like a queen trained to rule with him, taught through discipline, sharpened through pressure. Hers was not the body of a secretary or a side piece. Hers was the body of a consort to a king.

And now?

Now he had to wonder—did Kohaku lay her out on cheap sheets? Did he touch her thighs with those same hands he once used to swear loyalty? Did he use protection? Or did he leave himself inside her, like a dog claiming territory that never belonged? And gods—did he praise her? Did he tell her she was beautiful? Did she whisper for him to be gentle? Did she look at him like she trusted him?

That trust was not his to have. That trust belonged to Sesshōmaru.

And now she had been touched. Dirtied. Not ruined, no—he would never allow her to be ruined—but altered. The symmetry had been disrupted. And he would have to fix it.

He would have to strip away every piece Kohaku left on her skin. Wipe away his scent. His fingerprints. His praise. Erase it all. And start again. Re-teach her what was his. What would always be his. Rebuild the image he had been sculpting—one perfectly tailored to power, elegance, obedience. Not vulnerability. Not softness. Not casual affection passed between whispers on a couch.

Sesshōmaru clenched his jaw.

He had chosen her from a distance long before she ever knew the power of his name. Had moved pieces across industries. Had arranged her exit from a dead-end company and prepared a throne under the guise of a job.

He had tested her. Honed her. Protected her. And in return? Kohaku had fucked her. Used what should have been sacred. Holy. Untouched. And she had let him.

Sesshōmaru stared down at the phone again, at the absurd pretense of civility in Kohaku’s words.

“There will be no interference with the role.”

As if Sesshōmaru cared about the role. As if the boardroom could hide the scent of betrayal in her hair.

He didn’t type a response. Because there was no version of this where Kohaku walked away clean. No scenario where Sesshōmaru simply watched as his woman was defiled and claimed and then politely returned like borrowed equipment.

He would decide what happened now. Kohaku had given up the right to choose. And Kagome? She would learn that there was never a choice to begin with. She belonged to him.

Body.
Mind.
Soul.
Legacy.

And anything left of her—any part that dared remain tied to Kohaku—he would burn out himself.

If he had to clean her? He would. If he had to bend her? He would. If he had to fuck her so thoroughly the memory of another man turned to ash? He would. 

Because she wasn’t a pawn anymore. She wasn’t even a queen. She was his kingdom.

And Sesshōmaru never lost what he built. Not to rebellion. Not to confusion. And certainly not to a man like Kohaku.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty: Last Day
(Kohaku – POV)

He had always been calm.

Even when he was young—when most kids panicked at fire alarms or bruised their egos over scraped knees—he didn’t flinch. Not when the noise got too loud. Not when chaos bled into order. Not even when men twice his size tried to intimidate him in the field. His was a calm born of discipline. Of control. Of decades spent navigating danger with a quiet readiness that never cracked.

But this morning? That calm sat like glass under pressure. Fine. Brittle. About to break. He hadn’t slept. Not really. Not after Sesshōmaru’s text came through like a death sentence delivered in three elegant, unforgiving bullets.

Three options. Three paths. Three fates. None of them favorable.

He’d reread it a dozen times through the early hours—sitting on the couch, phone in hand, screen glowing against the wall of his kitchen like a quiet bomb that hadn’t gone off yet.

Option One: Stop. Cut it off. Never touch her again. Pretend last night didn’t happen.

He nearly laughed. Bitter. Exhausted. Because that option didn’t come with a reset button. It came with shackles. Surveillance. Leashes disguised as protocol. Sesshōmaru wouldn’t trust him again—not near her. Not in private. Not in silence. Not even in passing. Kohaku could already see it: repositioned furniture, split assignments, redirect orders meant to avoid overlap.

He’d be within reach, but a ghost. A former protector demoted to background noise.

And worse? Kagome wouldn’t know why.

He would have to watch her unravel under that pressure alone—watch her lose the one person who could explain the rules of this world to her before they drowned her.

Option Two: Reassigned. Another sector. Another post. Another city. Absolutely not. She was here.

And Sesshōmaru knew that. Which made the option not a mercy, but a threat in disguise. Relocate, and you lose her anyway. Stay close? Fine—but not too close. Controlled distance. Structured exile.

Which left Option Three: Leave.

Resign. Walk out. Turn in his badge. End the career he’d built under Sesshōmaru’s command for over ten years.

And yet? It was the only option that kept him near. Because he couldn’t be in the building with her and not speak to her. Not defend her. Not step between her and the cold weight of Sesshōmaru’s fury. And if he was going to be punished—branded as disloyal, reckless, insubordinate—then fine.

Let it happen. Let it end with him. But not her. Never her.

She stirred around five. He heard her moving from the bedroom—soft feet against tile, the shift of the oversized hoodie she hadn’t bothered to return. She looked half-asleep, blinking blearily as she wandered into the kitchen, rubbing one eye, the other arm curled under the hoodie hem where it nearly swallowed her frame.

He could’ve told her then. But gods, she looked so trusting. Like she expected him to have everything figured out. She sat across from him, tucking her knees into the chair like a kitten still waking up, and grumbled about the coffee needing more cream. He got up, wordless, and fixed it for her without being asked.

She joked about surviving another day of Sesshōmaru’s disappointment. “He’s probably still mad I tried to quit,” she said, smirking. “You think I should bring muffins or something?”

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t smile. Just slid the coffee back across the table and sat down again slowly, eyes dropping to his phone screen.

She didn’t know. Didn’t know that this wasn’t about quitting anymore. This wasn’t about meetings or reprimands or a cold stare across the conference room. This was about power. And who got to keep it. Who got to hold on to her.

Sesshōmaru had drawn the lines last night.

You or me.

And the moment Kohaku had wrapped her in his arms, kissed her throat, pulled her hoodie over her head and made her whisper his name? That choice had been made. And now? The board was closing in.

He should’ve told her. But what was the point? She didn’t get an option. Never did. Not in the fine print of her contract. Not in the expectation Sesshōmaru laid at her feet. Not even now.

She would stay.

He would go.

And she might not even get the chance to protest it.

He glanced at the time. Twenty minutes before they needed to leave.

She was already tapping through emails on her phone, distracted and humming softly to herself. He watched her shoulders, the slope of her back, the delicate bones of her neck—and tried to memorize all of it. Because gods knew when he’d get to see it again.

If ever.

He took a slow sip of coffee. Then picked up his phone. Not to respond to Sesshōmaru. There was no point. He’d already said what he needed.

But he opened a new message. To his sister.

Does your client need a secondary bodyguard?

She wouldn’t question it. Not at first. But she’d understand. And she’d help. Because she knew Kohaku didn’t ask for transfers lightly. She knew what this job meant. And maybe even what this woman meant already.

He hit send. No hesitation. And looked up to see Kagome glancing over at him, curious.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded once. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

A pause.

Then: “Just thinking.”

She gave a little smile. “Dangerous.”

Gods, she had no idea. No idea what had already been lost. Or what he was giving up this morning just so she wouldn’t have to carry it.

He wouldn’t tell her all of it. He’d just protect her. Even if it had to be from a distance now.

She dressed in silence. There was no music this time. No offhanded joke or sleepy comment to fill the stillness. Just the slow, habitual motions of a woman preparing for war with no idea the battlefield had shifted under her feet.

Same blouse. Same skirt. Same damn heels she’d worn yesterday—scuffed from the walk, from the stumble out of the office, from the climb onto his bike and the decision she didn’t know she’d made when she’d come home with him instead of returning to her own.

She moved like muscle memory was the only thing keeping her upright. The mirror lit her in soft morning gray. She pulled her hair up, twisted it once, twice, then pinned it into a simple knot—something neat, something functional. Something that said I’m ready for today when everything in her body screamed otherwise.

He watched her from the hallway—leaning against the wall, arms folded, coffee cooling in his hands.

It should’ve been a normal morning. It almost looked like one. Until she paused—brush half-way through a loose strand—and turned to him, asking in a voice too steady to be casual:

“Do you think he’ll know?”

A question asked with the kind of quiet that already knew the answer. Kohaku didn’t soften the blow.

“He already does.”

That stopped her. Cold. The brush froze in her hand. Her spine went stiff. The composure she’d been practicing shattered all at once. She turned fully, staring at him like he’d spoken a curse aloud.

“What?” she asked, voice tight, almost childlike in disbelief.

He stepped in, slowly, grounding each word like it might be the last thing he got to say.

“Today’s my last day.”

It didn’t hit all at once. It wasn’t a scream or a breakdown or fists. It was a blink. One blink. Then another. Then the weight in her chest shifted, and he watched the realization claw its way up through her lungs.

“You’re…leaving?” she asked again, like maybe she’d misheard. Like maybe gone didn’t mean what it always meant.

He nodded once. And the fear bloomed across her face like ink dropped in water. It was the kind of fear that wasn’t loud. It was silent. Frantic. Confused.

Her lips parted, then closed. Her jaw moved, but no sound came. And he could feel her calculating—how fast it had happened. How little warning there’d been. One night. One moment of peace. And now—

“You don’t get a warning?” she asked, voice cracking.

He shook his head. “I got a choice.”

“And you…chose this?”

“I chose not to watch you suffer under his control because of me.”

That shut her up. Again.

He hated the way her shoulders curled. The way her arms wrapped tight around her middle. Like she was trying to make herself smaller. Trying not to fall apart.

“My place is still open,” he said gently, stepping forward. “What happened here? Still open.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t breathe for a second.

“I don’t want this to stop,” he added. “I don’t want to walk away.”

“But you are,” she whispered.

“I won’t be far.”

“That’s not the same.”

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

Her eyes flicked away. Down to the floor. Then back up to him. There was something fragile in her gaze—anger mixed with sadness, wrapped in disbelief.

“But he won’t let me leave.”

Kohaku nodded. “No. You’re not going anywhere.”

“You said I could talk to you. That I could rely on you—”

“And you still can.”

She gave a small, broken laugh. “Not if you’re gone.”

“I’ll still protect you.”

“How?” Her voice was shaking now. “If you’re not there, how—how is that supposed to—”

“I’ll find a way,” he said. Firmer. Sharper. “But if I’m in that building, he’ll make sure I can never get near you again. Not as a guard. Not as a man. Not even as a fucking friend.”

Her throat moved around a tight swallow. “Why are you the one who has to pay for this?”

“Because I’m not the one he chose.”

And that? That finally broke something in her expression. She stepped back, breathing too fast now. Her lips trembled—not from weakness, but from trying so hard not to say something she’d regret.

“Do you regret it?” she asked.

“No.”

Even after everything?

No.

He would not regret touching her. He would not regret the way she kissed him like she needed to breathe through him. He would not regret the way her eyes fluttered when he touched her waist or the fact that she’d whispered thank you while still twitching around him in the dark.

He didn’t regret any of it. He just hated the cost.

“I’ll get another job soon,” he said softly. “Already sent the message.”

She didn’t answer. Just stared at him with the kind of look people gave when they realized the world they lived in wasn’t as fair or safe as they’d hoped. She had seen politics. She had survived corporate. But she hadn’t yet understood power—not like this.

Not the kind Sesshōmaru wielded. The kind that punished overnight. The kind that decided where you’d sleep, work, live, or suffer.

“I’ll walk you in today,” he said. “One last time.”

And she nodded. Like her brain was still catching up. Like she was still waiting to wake up from a dream that had turned inside out in just a few hours. 

But she followed him to the door. Still trusting him to lead. And that? That trust would be the hardest thing to give back.

He didn’t take the bike.

The thought didn’t even cross his mind when he saw her curled on his couch that morning, wearing yesterday’s clothes and the kind of expression that didn’t belong to someone who’d done something wrong—but to someone who had no idea how wrong the world around her could be. The heels she’d worn were beside the door, scuffed, one strap barely hanging on. Her blouse was rumpled, her skirt folded at the hem, and her hair still smelled like the citrus rinse she’d used in his shower.

So no. He didn’t take the bike.

He took the car because it had a roof. Doors. Insulation. He took it because she needed somewhere to feel hidden, even if it was only for ten quiet minutes. She needed a space to breathe that didn’t feel like it could be stolen from her the second someone else looked too closely.

He didn’t speak as he opened the passenger side. Just held the door and waited, eyes lowered, shoulders broad and still like the only damn anchor either of them had left.

She stepped in slowly. No fuss. No conversation. Just one soft sigh as she sat down and pulled the seatbelt across her chest. He closed the door gently and rounded to the driver’s side, not even thinking about what came next until his fingers brushed the small metal compartment beneath the stereo.

He paused there. Felt the familiar shape of it beneath his palm. And then pulled the spare key free from its hiding place and turned toward her.

Her gaze was still distant, cast out toward the windshield, but the second he spoke, it snapped to him like a magnet.

“Here,” he said, his voice low, rough from sleep and emotion. He held the key between his fingers. “It’s for my place. Keep it.”

She blinked once, startled. “Kohaku, I—”

“Use it whenever you need to,” he interrupted, not harshly, but firmly enough that the words cut through the fragile quiet between them.

Her hands moved slowly. She didn’t reach for it immediately. Like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to. Or if taking it would confirm something neither of them could say out loud.

Still, she took it. Fingers brushing his palm. Light. Barely there.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Why now?”

He didn’t look at her right away. Just stared at the steering wheel for a moment, grounding himself. Then:

“If you ever come back here,” he said slowly, “leave your badge somewhere else. Apartment. Glovebox. Somewhere you’re comfortable with him knowing.”

Her brows furrowed.

“You mean…”

“I mean,” he cut in gently, “don’t bring it through the door. If you’re coming here—really here—then make sure it doesn’t come with you. Sesshōmaru tracks every badge, Kagome. Even if it’s off. Even if it’s ‘private mode.’ He doesn’t miss anything.”

She sucked in a quiet breath, and he didn’t need to look at her to know what expression was on her face.

The slow realization. That this wasn’t just paranoia. This was fact.

“Why are you—” she started, but he already knew the question.

“Because I’m not going to be there anymore,” he said. “You’ll need a place that doesn’t answer to him.”

She looked down at the key in her palm like it had suddenly caught fire. And maybe it had.

He started the car, the low hum of the engine breaking the tension for just a moment. The road unfolded ahead of them like it always had, but this time? It felt different. Like something sacred had been severed. Like trust had found a faultline and didn’t know where to settle.

He drove in silence. Let her process. Let her sit with it. And about three blocks from the office, he spoke again.

“When we get there,” he said, “this is how it goes.”

Her head turned slightly, watching him.

“You walk in like nothing’s wrong. Sit down. Get to work. Don’t cry. Don’t ask questions. Don’t draw attention. Just move.”

She nodded, slow and deliberate.

“I’ll go upstairs. Drop off my badge. No scene. No goodbye. Just…done.”

Her lip trembled for half a second before she caught it between her teeth.

“But I’m not gone,” he added. “Not for real. I’m not far. You have my number. You have the key. You will have me. If you want it. And if you need anything—anything—you call. Or you come.”

Still, she didn’t speak. She looked like a glass bottle someone had shaken and dropped without hearing the shatter.

He reached across the console and gently touched her wrist. No pressure. Just a grounding point. His thumb brushed her pulse. Steady. Too fast. Too light.

“You’re not alone, Kagome,” he said again. “No matter what happens in there today.”

She still didn’t speak. But she didn’t pull away either. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t let go of the key. And when they turned into the familiar parking garage and coasted toward the elevator, he knew—

She wouldn’t forget. Not him. Not this. Not today.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-One: The Third Option
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

They arrived precisely at 6:30.

Not early, not late. The kind of precision that would normally earn respect. That would signal discipline, composure. But today, it felt like provocation.

Sesshōmaru sat behind his desk, back straight, suit immaculate, the skyline behind him washed in gray morning light. The city was waking. The building was quiet. His office—his domain—still cloaked in silence and order.

But inside, his mind was anything but.

He’d spent the night reviewing their files, his contracts, her badge data. He hadn’t slept. Not because of indecision—but because the silence offered more clarity than sleep ever could.

Three options. That’s what he’d told Kohaku.

Option one: They both end whatever this is. Immediately. Quietly. Without resistance. He would allow it to vanish behind closed doors. No public consequences. No stain.

Option two: Kohaku is reassigned. Somewhere outside this division. Far from her. A demotion in proximity, not in title.

Option three: Kohaku’s service ends. Permanently.

And Kagome? There were no options for her. She was not up for negotiation. He could blacklist her from every agency and company with demon involvement if she ever thought to leave. NDA violations? Irrelevant. His power eclipsed legalities. She wanted this kingdom. She walked into it, begged to be part of it. And now she would stay.

No matter the cost.

A knock at his door pulled him from thought. He didn’t speak for a moment. Let the silence settle thick in the room.

Then, flatly: “Enter.”

The door opened with a soft hiss. And it was her.  

First.

She stepped in alone. Still in yesterday’s outfit—the blouse she’d worn when Naraku had tried to insult her, the skirt that had brushed his office chair when she tried to resign. The same clothes she’d worn while Kohaku had his hands on her. 

That single fact told him everything.

She hadn’t gone home. Hadn’t changed. Hadn’t even tried to pretend. She’d gone with him. Stayed. Slept. Fucked. The silence stretched, oppressive. He didn’t speak. Didn’t stand. Just stared. Not at her face—at her badge, still pinned. Her collarbone, where his eyes had once lingered with intent. Her mouth, which had once dared to challenge him.

It wasn’t rebellion that poured off her now. It was something worse. Guilt. Confusion. Fear. She stepped aside as another knock came. This one firmer. No hesitation.

“Kohaku,” he said, without turning his head.

The door opened again. And his second entered. Not with shame. Not with excuses. Just…purpose.

Kohaku didn’t flinch. He crossed the room in even strides, pulled the badge from his chest, and placed it directly on Sesshōmaru’s desk. A single metallic click echoed like a gunshot. Then he stepped back and nodded. The gesture was too calm. Too resolved.

Sesshōmaru didn’t look at the badge. He stared at the man across from him. And felt the fury ripple low beneath his skin.

Ten years. Ten years of loyalty. Ten years of watching his back. Ten years of silence, obedience, tactical brilliance. He had chosen Kohaku as second because the man had no weakness. Because he had known the rules of the kingdom and followed them without complaint. And in less than a week, he’d broken the most sacred of them. He had laid his hands—his mouth—his cock—on the woman Sesshōmaru had already claimed. Not publicly. Not formally. 

But it didn’t need to be said.

She was his strategist. His chosen. His human. His queen. And Kohaku had reached for her anyway.

“Dismissed,” Sesshōmaru said, voice flat as obsidian.

But Kohaku didn’t move. Not right away. Instead, he turned to her. Just for a moment. And that—that final look—was the most unforgivable.

Because it said everything. Said that Kohaku hadn’t touched her out of lust. He’d touched her out of something dangerous. Something binding.

Sesshōmaru’s jaw clenched so tightly it ached. Still, he didn’t roar. Didn’t move. Didn’t shatter the desk or the window or the badge still sitting between them. Because he was calm now. And that was far more dangerous.

As Kohaku turned to go, Sesshōmaru’s voice broke the silence once more.

“You traded loyalty for comfort,” he said, quiet but cutting. “Let’s hope she was worth it.”

Kohaku didn’t turn back. Didn’t respond. And when the door shut behind him, Sesshōmaru finally exhaled. But it wasn’t release. It was control. It was preparation. Because this wasn’t over.

He looked at Kagome. Still standing. Still silent. Still in his colors.

And he stood. Slowly. Walked around the desk. Closed the space between them in four steady steps. Her breath caught. Her shoulders tensed. She didn’t move when the door shut. Didn’t speak. Didn’t look up.

And Sesshōmaru allowed the silence to stretch again—because it served him. Because it forced her to feel the weight of it. Because in silence, there was no way to hide from what she had done.

But she didn’t speak. She didn’t beg. She didn’t try to explain. And perhaps that, above all, irritated him most.

She had the audacity to sleep in another man’s bed, to show up in his office in yesterday’s clothes, to witness her lover place his badge like a sacrifice between them—and say nothing?

So he turned without a word, walked to the far cabinet, and retrieved the bag he had ordered delivered an hour before. Black. Leather. Heavy.

He placed it carefully on the table beside her. When she glanced at it, confused, he gestured once.

“Open it.”

She hesitated. Hands curling slightly at her sides before reaching forward and unzipping the sleek case. Inside: a full outfit, neatly folded.

Cream blouse. High-waisted slate trousers. Undergarments. A pair of modest nude heels. All tailored. Her exact size. Tags removed. The fabric smelled faintly of sandalwood—his scent. Pressed and arranged with precision.

A pause. Then she looked up at him. Confused. Hollowed out.

And he said nothing for a breath—until he tilted his head slightly and offered a cool explanation:

“I assumed,” he said, tone unreadable, “you might need a change of clothes. Before your meeting. It would be a shame for our associates to mistake you for careless.”

There was no cruelty in the way he said it. But there was no comfort, either. Only fact. A reminder that she still had responsibilities. That the kingdom still moved forward, whether or not her body had been taken by another man.

That she was still his.

Not because he said it. Not because she admitted it. But because of every choice that had led her to this moment. Because of the doors he had opened. Because of the contract. Because of the crown he had placed at her feet and dared her to wear.

And now? Now she would wear it with her spine straight and her mouth shut.

Kagome stared down at the clothes again, fingertips brushing over the fabric like she couldn’t quite believe they were real. And still, she didn’t speak.

So Sesshōmaru stepped closer. Close enough that she had to tilt her head slightly to meet his gaze.

“I expect you dressed and prepared within twenty minutes,” he said, eyes never leaving hers. “You’ll brief with me privately before we enter the boardroom. You will be calm. You will be intelligent. You will not shake.”

Her lips parted—but nothing came out.

He didn’t wait for agreement. He didn’t need it.

He turned on his heel and returned to his desk without another word. Because the woman who stood in his office may have betrayed him. But she was still the only one worthy of standing beside him. And he would drag her back to form if he had to. Even if it meant ripping every last trace of Kohaku off her skin.

He returned to his chair without another glance at her. Pulled up the morning’s schedule. Four internal reviews. Two external meetings. A briefing with the development team. Lunch with the Pacific contingent. And her—his strategist—was scheduled to co-lead three of them.

He would not reschedule. Would not allow personal chaos to bleed into professional structure. But as he scrolled through his calendar, he realized the air behind him remained still.

She hadn’t moved. Not a rustle. Not a step. Not the telltale zip of a bag. His jaw flexed once before he turned his head—only slightly. And there she stood. Still near the table. Staring down at the clothes like they were foreign, like they might bite her if she touched them again.

And then—without fanfare, without flourish—she sighed. Just a quiet, tired exhale. And began to undress. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t ask him to turn away. Didn’t flinch. Just…moved. A shoulder bared. A blouse falling. Skirt slipping down her hips.

Her fingers worked the clasp of her bra like they had done it a thousand times. Calm. Efficient. Exhausted. No seduction. No shame. Just necessity. By the time the lace hit the floor, Sesshōmaru had set the datapad down and turned his chair slightly—not enough to leer, but enough to see.

She stood for a moment, completely bare, spine curved in thought. Then reached for the cream blouse with slow, deliberate movements. Slid it on. Buttoned it up.

His eyes stayed on her. Not because he sought arousal—though it came, uninvited—but because she was his. Every inch of her. Even now. Especially now.

By the time she stepped into the trousers, she still hadn’t looked at him. She was quiet. Focused. But he didn’t miss the tension in her shoulders, or the faint tremble in her fingers as she zipped them closed.

And that? That small slip of vulnerability? It made his voice colder when it came.

“I don’t want his name on your lips. Not during work. Not in this building. Not in my presence.”

She froze. Not visibly. Not fully. But he saw it—in the subtle shift of her stance. The way her hand paused over the belt loop. The breath she held for half a second too long.

He didn’t clarify. Didn’t elaborate. He wasn’t asking for understanding. He was laying command.

Because Kohaku’s name no longer held weight in this office. Because Kohaku no longer existed in this world. Because what Sesshōmaru had built—this empire, this command, this kingdom—would not be cracked by human sentiment or the warmth of a traitor’s hands.

She gave a faint nod. Didn’t argue. Didn’t explain. And he let that silence serve as her acknowledgment. It would do.

For now.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Two: Mercy by Comparison
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He had been kind.

Not merciful. Not forgiving.

But kind—by his standards.

And whether Kagome or Kohaku realized that truth was irrelevant. Because reality did not shift to suit perception. And the reality was this:

He could have ended Kohaku.

Could have blacklisted him from every reputable organization that touched their realm—human or otherwise. Could have whispered his name to those who made people disappear, and the world would’ve forgotten him within the week.

He could have had his family watched. Pressured. Could have taken back every favor, every protection, every shield that came with being his second.

But he didn’t.

Because ten years of service, of silence, of bloody-fingered loyalty, meant something.

It didn’t outweigh betrayal. But it bought him a single grace: to walk away with his bones intact. And that? That was the kindest Sesshōmaru had been to anyone who had dared to take what belonged to him.

His gaze drifted to the couch.

To her.

Kagome sat in stillness—dressed in the clothes he had selected, wearing the scent of his fabric, her silhouette softened by the morning light through his windows.

She hadn’t spoken since. Not after he dressed her down without raising his voice. Not after Kohaku’s badge was dropped like a gauntlet on the desk between them.

She just sat. Back straight. Hands in her lap. Composed. But not calm.

He could read it in her scent—an unstable storm of fear, confusion, and something that smelled dangerously close to guilt. Her face gave nothing away. But her body was a canvas, and Sesshōmaru had read that kind of art for centuries.

And still, she said nothing.

So he did.

“I will have a rotation of outfits kept in my office moving forward,” he said, not looking up from his desk. “Should the need arise again.”

He turned the page on his report.

“But do not make a habit of arriving in yesterday’s clothes. This kingdom does not tolerate the appearance of carelessness.”

No response. Not even a twitch. Just another subtle shift in the scent she gave off—embarrassment now. Regret.

He almost welcomed it.

But not quite.

They still had thirty-eight minutes until the first meeting. Plenty of time. He set the report aside. Laced his fingers together.

And without shifting his tone, asked:

“Tell me something.”

Her head lifted. Just slightly.

He continued.

“You were disgusted—offended—at the suggestion Naraku made. That you and I were…involved.”

A pause.

“Even your resignation, as misguided as it was, stemmed from that implication.”

Her shoulders tightened. And still, he continued, voice cutting slow and deep:

“And yet the same night, you went to bed with my bodyguard.”

Silence. Not even breath. Just that same look on her face—that unreadable expression she had worn when she walked in. But the air around her? Thicker now. Hotter. Coated in shame.

He didn’t stop.

“So tell me, Higurashi. Sleeping with ‘the help’ is acceptable—” his eyes finally met hers, cold and bright and sharp, “—but not the one who offered you power? Who opened the door to the court? Who had your size delivered to his office in preparation for your recovery?”

Still, no answer.

“Not the man who defended your name in a room full of enemies. Not the one who silenced Naraku. Not the one who told you you were his?”

Her lips parted slightly—but nothing came out. Just breath. Barely.

His voice was softer now. More dangerous.

“I offered you a kingdom.”

He leaned back slowly, eyes never leaving hers.

“And you spread your legs for a knight.”

Her breath caught. Still, she didn’t move. Didn’t recoil. Didn’t run. But her lashes lowered. Her gaze dropped to the pattern of the carpet beneath her feet as if answers could be found in the thread.

He let the silence bite again. Let it chew through the raw nerves between them. She needed to feel it. All of it. The shame. The error. The aftermath of making a decision without calculating the weight.

And then—barely louder than breath:

“It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

A whisper. A truth. A prayer. His head tilted just slightly, a twitch of his jaw the only visible crack in his composure.

“No?” he said, voice perfectly even. “And yet, somehow, it did.”

She flinched. Not visibly. But her scent betrayed her again—salt and shame and confusion.

“I didn’t mean—” she started, the words fragile and cracked. “It wasn’t like that. It was just—”

Her voice trailed off. But Sesshōmaru’s eyes sharpened. Because that moment—that unfinished sentence—was the fracture he needed. It was just…what? Comfort? Escape? A moment she thought no one would witness?

But not love. Not devotion. And gods—not permanence.

And something clicked. It wasn’t just Kohaku who had fallen. It was Kohaku who had leapt. Who had bent the knee to her. Who had thrown ten years of loyalty into flame for a single, fevered night.

But Kagome? She hadn’t jumped. She had tripped. And now—she was standing back up.

That was nearly poetic. A soldier who had fallen in love with the queen. But the queen? She had not fallen for the soldier. And Sesshōmaru? Sesshōmaru almost smiled. Because this? This he could work with.

“I see,” he said slowly, voice still dipped in disappointment, but no longer cutting.

And he did see. Clearly now. The mistake had been made. The line crossed. But she hadn’t meant to. She hadn’t known how to navigate the terrain, the rules, the weight her name carried now. She hadn’t fully understood yet what it meant to be his.

She would learn.

He would make sure of it.

“Your actions,” he said, steepling his fingers, “have consequences. This world—my world—does not forgive betrayal lightly.”

Her mouth opened to speak, to defend, but he held up one hand.

“And do not insult us both by claiming you did not betray me.”

He stood. Moved slowly around the desk, closing the distance until he stood just in front of the couch where she sat, still folded in on herself.

“I offered you a place at my table. At my side. You were not a secretary. You were not a pet. You were to be my strategist. My second mind.”

His tone cooled even further.

“And instead, you let a bodyguard be your keeper. You let him touch what belonged to me.”

A flush of heat spread down her neck. But again—no denial. Only silence. Sesshōmaru exhaled slowly.

“But you do not love him,” he said, almost as if to himself. “You are not tethered.”

She looked up at that. Just slightly. And in her expression, he found exactly what he needed. The guilt of a woman who had made a mistake—not shattered her future. And Sesshōmaru? He almost laughed.

Because how typical of Kohaku—strong, stoic Kohaku—to be the one who fell. Who jumped first. Who burned everything for the queen. And how rare, how impressive, that the queen had not returned the favor.

Sesshōmaru folded his hands behind his back. His voice dropped to a near whisper.

“That is the only reason you’re still sitting here. Do you understand?”

She nodded. It was faint. Small. But enough.

“Good,” he said. “Because the next time you let someone else into your space, Higurashi…”

He leaned forward just slightly, enough for his breath to brush her cheek.

“…it had better be me.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Three: One Step Behind
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t argue. Didn’t flinch. But when he’d whispered, “It had better be me,” he felt the ripple run through her.

Saw the shock in the stillness of her hands. Smelled the embarrassment as it bloomed down her skin like perfume laced with heat. And—buried just beneath it—the soft, restrained scent of arousal. She could hide it with expressions. With silence. With posture. But she could not hide it from him.

Not anymore.

He watched her for a moment longer, confirming what he already knew: she had heard him. Not just the words, but the truth within them. And then he stood straight again. Composed. Unshaken.

“Come,” he said coolly. “We’re due in the boardroom.”

She rose quickly, still quiet. Her movements careful now, like every step had consequence. And it did.

“Same rules as yesterday,” he said as they began walking. “Observe. Listen. Do not speak unless I prompt you.”

He didn’t look at her.

“Should any issue arise, I will address it. Not you.”

She gave a faint nod, her heels clicking softly beside him. But Sesshōmaru’s gaze was sharp.

“And tell me—” he added, tone like a scalpel, “—did you complete the research brief I gave you last night?”

He paused just enough for her to feel the weight of the question.

“Or were you otherwise occupied?”

There was a beat of hesitation, then a small nod. And he arched a brow.

“Ah. Good,” he said. “So the moment wasn’t spent entirely between bedsheets.”

She stiffened slightly. He didn’t care. They neared the corridor leading to the boardroom. Staff parted for him on instinct. The early hour did little to dim the dominance in his stride. But before they reached the doors, he stopped.

Right in front of her. Turned. Looked her squarely in the eyes.

“I shouldn’t have to ask,” he said, voice low, nearly private, “but I will—because I must.”

She blinked, startled by the tone. And then:

“Protection,” he said evenly. “It was used. Correct?”

Her expression cracked. Her eyes went wide. Mouth opened—

But no sound came out. Just the smallest soundless plea. And he knew. She didn’t speak. Didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. His jaw clenched. His spine locked.

And for a breathless moment, Sesshōmaru imagined dragging Kohaku back by the neck and asking—no, demanding—what kind of fucking idiot dared to risk his queen’s body like that.

The body he had spent weeks preparing for power. For legacy. For rule. The body he had defended in front of Naraku. That he had chosen in front of the court. That he had whispered promises into with every plan and contract drawn.

And another man had entered it carelessly. Without permission. Without consideration. Without a fucking barrier. His breath left him in a slow, controlled exhale. Fury rippled down his arms and across his shoulders, but he kept it caged. Barely.

He gave the faintest nod, lips tight.

“I’ll have medicine brought up,” he said. “After this meeting.”

Then he turned and walked ahead without another word. Because if he lingered? He wasn’t sure whether it would be her he snapped at—or the empty space where Kohaku should no longer exist.

They entered the room in silence.

But the energy hit like a pressure front.

Kōga was already seated near the head of the long obsidian table, surrounded by six of his personal guard—flanked on one side by his business partner and mate, Ayame, who sat casually but alert, her fire-bright hair pinned in an elegant crown braid and her gaze far more calculating than it appeared.

This meeting had been arranged carefully. Quietly. Not broadcasted, but not hidden either.

The wolf court and Sesshōmaru’s territories had maintained a careful relationship for centuries—occasional allies, rarely enemies. Of all the beings he’d tolerate at his table, it was them.

Because their empire, though wild, was loyal in its own way. And what Kōga brought to the table—logistics, territory intelligence, product distribution channels Sesshōmaru had long been eying—was not something he would dismiss lightly.

Still. When Kōga’s eyes locked onto Kagome as she followed him into the room? Something in Sesshōmaru’s chest twisted. It was not rage. It was something colder. More ancient. Possession.

Because the wolf’s gaze did not linger innocently. It swept down—slow and appreciative—from the curve of her hips to the line of her legs. Measured. Curious. And tinged in something else entirely.

Arousal.

Sesshōmaru smelled it before he saw it. That sharp edge of hunger that wolves never masked. And even though Kōga said nothing, did nothing, everything in his scent spoke clearly:

He was interested.

Sesshōmaru felt his jaw tighten.

Ayame exhaled beside her mate with the long-suffering sigh of someone used to this exact spectacle. Her foot tapped once beneath the table. Her hand gave a subtle flick of fingers. A silent message passed between them.

Kōga. Restrain yourself.

But Sesshōmaru didn’t wait for restraint. He didn’t growl. He didn’t speak. He let his youki roll. A slow, deliberate wave of pressure slipped out from beneath his skin, coiling around the room like a sea of thorns dipped in silk. It kissed the edges of the table. It wrapped around ankles. It pressed lightly at throats.

It warned.

Kagome didn’t react—because she couldn’t feel it. She didn’t know this world. Couldn’t sense what the others in the room now did. But Kōga?

Kōga’s pupils sharpened instantly. His lips twitched in a grin that was all teeth and mischief. Intrigued. Because once again—just as it had been with Naraku—Sesshōmaru had made a declaration. Without words. Without claims. Without petty territorial posturing.

His youki spoke for him.

She is mine.

Ayame rolled her eyes.

“She yours?” she asked lightly, eyes sliding to Sesshōmaru as if they were discussing weather patterns. 

Sesshōmaru did not look away from Kōga when he answered.

“Yes.”

That was all. And it was enough. Because in their world, such a statement had weight. Even if the human seated beside him didn’t know it yet. Even if she thought this partnership, this job, this kingdom he was building her into—was still something she could walk away from.

Kōga gave a low chuckle but leaned back in his seat.

“Didn’t realize you were accepting humans into court positions,” he said casually, clearly aware he was poking the beast.

Sesshōmaru offered a calm smile.

“I make exceptions,” he said, “for the exceptional.”

That earned a bark of a laugh from the wolf lord. Ayame, to her credit, only arched a brow and tapped a single note into her tablet.

But Sesshōmaru watched it all with a practiced mask. Because even if this meeting went smoothly—even if contracts were signed and hands shaken—he knew something now with certainty:

The moment she walked into this room, every male—not just human, but demon—looked at her. And not as an assistant. Not as a secretary. But as a potential claim. And that? That would not be tolerated. Not here. Not ever.

The meeting began as it always did—ritual first, formality second.

Introductions were kept brief; their courts had known each other too long for pretense. Still, protocol was tradition, and Sesshōmaru honored tradition like a weapon. One to be polished, sharpened, and used at the correct time.

“Kōga,” he said, offering a slight nod to the wolf lord seated opposite.

“Sesshōmaru,” Kōga replied with a flash of canines and the lazy confidence of someone who’d never once feared entering this room. “You’ve redecorated.”

“Efficiency demands it,” Sesshōmaru replied. “A room should serve its function.”

“And here I thought you just hated natural light.”

A flick of Ayame’s eyes silenced him.

Sesshōmaru said nothing—he didn’t need to. The longer Kōga smirked, the clearer it became that this wasn’t a business trip for him. At least not entirely.

But Sesshōmaru had already accounted for that.

Ayame, in contrast, was all precision and purpose. She opened her tablet, synced it to the room’s projection system, and began outlining the mutual interests between territories: border logistics, trade routes, technological alignment in the bio-security sector. She spoke fluently, clinically, efficiently—like a wolf who’d had to run beside predators sharper than her mate.

Sesshōmaru listened. Took notes. Kagome sat silently beside him, tablet in hand, as instructed. Her expression was composed, body still. The perfect shadow.

Until it wasn’t.

“Of course,” Ayame continued, “our last quarter data showed a twenty-three percent increase in transport time, which, while not ideal, is consistent with the—”

“Darlin’,” Kōga interrupted, tipping his chair slightly as he leaned forward, “do you do anything besides follow your lord around and look pretty?”

The room stilled. Kagome didn’t blink. Didn’t answer. She had been told not to. But Sesshōmaru felt it—the way her fingers twitched once on the screen. The faint sigh that left her lips.

She rotated the tablet in her hands, slid it across the polished table, and positioned it directly in front of him. Her posture never changed. She didn’t glance at Kōga. Didn’t address him. Only murmured quietly enough that only Sesshōmaru could hear:

“Her supply chain model includes outdated customs checkpoints that were phased out four fiscal quarters ago. She’s running numbers from the Q1 forecast, not Q4’s post-deregulation shift.”

Sesshōmaru looked down. The data she referenced was already pulled. Highlighted. Cross-compared. Efficient. Accurate. He didn’t speak, but he did allow a single glance—acknowledgment—and the faintest nod.

Beside him, Kōga chuckled.

“She’s got claws after all,” he said, eyes gleaming as he leaned toward her. “I like that.”

“She wasn’t speaking to you,” Sesshōmaru said flatly.

Ayame didn’t miss a beat. “Nor should she have to,” she added, not bothering to look at her mate. “You are a guest in this kingdom, Kōga. Do try to behave like one.”

The wolf gave a mock bow, grin still wide.

“Apologies, Lord Sesshōmaru,” he said. “Your human shadow’s just so quiet, I couldn’t help being curious.”

Sesshōmaru’s gaze didn’t waver.

“She is not a shadow. She is my strategist. And should she ever respond to you directly, it would only be because I instructed her to waste the effort.”

That silenced him. Briefly.

Ayame returned to her presentation with the quiet exasperation of a woman who’d had to clean up her mate’s messes too many times. “As I was saying—if the deregulated checkpoints are now fully ratified, we can adjust the proposed model to increase throughput by a projected 17.8%. Our teams can align coding protocols by mid-quarter if your infrastructure allows.”

“It will,” Sesshōmaru said, his voice smooth. “Continue.”

But his eyes didn’t leave Kōga. Not fully. Because while the wolf lord was still smiling, still posturing, Sesshōmaru knew exactly what had just happened.

A line had been drawn. Not in blood. Not in contracts. But in intention.

Kōga saw something he wanted. And Sesshōmaru? Had already claimed it. 

He let his youki settle again, this time lower—near the baseboards of the room. Just enough to whisper to the guards. To Ayame. To Kōga himself.

She is mine.

This kingdom is mine.

And if you so much as look at her like prey again, I will remind you why the West never falls.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Four: The Look of Wolves
(Kagome – POV)

Of course, the first meeting of the day would be him.

The man she had pointed out the night before to Kohaku. The photo in the file—tan skin, dark hair, sharp grin—Kōga.

She hadn’t expected to meet him in person so soon. Or…ever, really. But now, here he was. In the flesh. More intense than the image had suggested. And looking at her like—like he saw something she didn’t even know she was showing.

Not just curious.

Hungry.

It was the kind of look men sometimes gave her when they didn’t know she was watching—when they thought they could catalog her for a later fantasy. But this wasn’t that. This was different.

This was something older. Something more animal. Like he wasn’t looking at her body, exactly—but at the potential of it. Like he was cataloging her temperature, pulse, bloodline. Like he was tracking her without needing to move.

And the way he spoke to Sesshōmaru? Gods. She wasn’t wrong.

Kingdom. Knight. Strategist.

They weren’t metaphors. Not really. Not when every word they exchanged carried weight like an unspoken oath. She’d thought maybe Sesshōmaru was just eccentric. Aloof. Arrogant in a way that belonged to men with too much power.

But now she was listening to two of them talk. And Ayame—the third—though composed and sharp-eyed, didn’t speak like a typical executive either.

No one in this room did. It was an old language. Formal. Territorial. Calculated. And it clashed so thoroughly with the modern skyline outside Sesshōmaru’s office window that Kagome couldn’t help but feel disoriented. Like she’d stepped out of a business deal and into some strange chessboard, where power wasn’t measured by titles—but presence.

Still, she did what she’d been told. Sat quietly. Took notes. Spoke only once—when Kōga had made that absurd comment about whether she “did anything besides follow her lord and look pretty.”

She didn’t even look at him. Just rotated her tablet, passed it to Sesshōmaru, and pointed out the outdated logistics data that Ayame had missed.

It was surgical. Controlled. Professional. And it earned her a grin from Kōga and the sharpest look of approval she’d yet received from Sesshōmaru.

But now, minutes later, as she sat still and composed, she felt it again.

The stare.

Her gaze had wandered—just a flicker—back to Kōga. And she’d been thinking it, honestly: that all three of them were beautiful in a way that felt surreal. Sesshōmaru, with his impossible calm. Kōga, with that wolfish edge. Ayame, with the kind of cool beauty that could draw blood without ever raising her voice.

And she hadn’t even meant to look that long.

But Kōga caught her. His eyes were already on her. And when their gazes met—just for a breath—he didn’t smirk. He didn’t wink. He just…watched. As if whatever he was thinking had nothing to do with charm and everything to do with instinct.

Kagome blinked and looked down. The air felt tighter. The room heavier. And when she dared glance again—just for a heartbeat—Sesshōmaru’s hand shifted slightly, as if reminding her:

You are seated beside me. You answer to me.  You do not look at wolves.

Gods.

If she didn’t know better—if she weren’t staring directly at the numbers glowing on her tablet—she would’ve sworn Sesshōmaru was…jealous.

Not that he showed it. Not in the way most men would. No scowl. No sharp inhale. Not even a twitch. But she could feel it. The weight of his presence beside her—how his stillness became pressure, how the temperature in the room shifted like something unspoken had coiled tight just beneath the surface of his skin.

She could feel it in the way his fingers paused over his stylus just long enough to be noticeable. In the deliberate neutrality of his face. In the slow, quiet pulse of a man measuring every possible threat in a room—and deciding who would bleed first.

And then Kōga spoke again.

“Where’s your usual guard?” he asked suddenly, leaning back in his seat, gaze flicking toward Sesshōmaru but voice light with interest. “The built one. Smart eyes. Little too watchful for a man on salary. Thought he might be glued to your hip by now.”

Kagome’s stomach dropped. She didn’t look up. Didn’t need to. Because her eyes—traitorous—glanced downward in a flash of instinct. Just a flicker. Just enough.

But enough.

Sesshōmaru didn’t look at her. Didn’t need to.

“His assignment has concluded,” Sesshōmaru said coolly, flipping to the next page of the proposal as if discussing the weather.

Kōga whistled low.

“Shame,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Might see if I can hire him, then. Always good to have someone quiet around. Especially if they appreciate the view.”

And then—just like that—he looked at Kagome. Dead in the eye.

“Oh,” he added, almost lazily. “Was that the problem?”

The silence was instant. Taut as wire. Kagome didn’t breathe.

Sesshōmaru’s stylus paused mid-stroke.

Ayame sighed. “Kōga.”

“What?” he grinned, shrugging. “It’s a compliment. We’re guests. I’m observing.”

“No,” Sesshōmaru said softly. And the cold behind that word could have split bone.

“You’re testing.”

There it was. The shift. No more formality. No more veils. Just two rulers. Two predators. Inhaling each other’s scent and weighing who could afford to draw first blood.

Kagome’s pulse thudded in her ears. Her skin felt hot. Not from shame. Not from guilt. From understanding.

Kōga had seen something. They all had. Even though she had never met them before.  Whatever she and Kohaku thought they’d kept secret? It had only been secret to her. Everyone else? Playing an entirely different game.

And Sesshōmaru—

Gods.

She didn’t dare look at him. Not now. Not when she was already wearing clothes he provided, already sitting in a chair that belonged to him, after a night he hadn’t given permission for.

There was a silence that followed. Not a thoughtful one. Not professional. Not polite. 

Predatory.

She felt it before she saw it—the weight of Kōga’s eyes dragging across her chest. Then her throat. Then her mouth. Leisurely. Unapologetic. Like he was sizing up a meal. And then came the laugh. Low. Self-satisfied.

“So,” he drawled, still staring at her. “You cool with me hiring the boy, Sesshōmaru?”

He turned now, wolfish grin widening. “Can’t punish a man for looking at something pretty, right?”

Kagome clenched her jaw. Her spine stiffened. And then—as if he were solving a riddle out loud—Kōga paused, smirk curling sharper.

“Unless,” he murmured, “he wasn’t just looking.”

The blood in her body went cold. Mortification. Rage. All tangled into one vicious knot. Because what was it about these damn meetings? First Naraku, with his smirk and insinuations. Now this—

This wild-eyed, too-handsome, too-loose man speaking like a wolf who’d found a scent he couldn’t ignore. The words weren’t even subtle. He was discussing her. Talking about her body. About Kohaku’s interest in it. As if she weren’t sitting right there. As if her consent, her dignity, her professional status didn’t matter in this circle of kings and queens.

Kōga didn’t stop. He leaned back in his chair, still too damn relaxed, eyes now flicking to Sesshōmaru with a grin full of teeth.

“Seems to me,” he said, “that the only reason I noticed him was because he was always your shadow. Ten years, wasn’t it?”

Kagome felt her stomach twist. Gods, that made it worse. She wasn’t some stranger he’d gotten distracted by. She had meant something to him. Enough to walk away. Enough to get in trouble for.

Kōga, meanwhile, had turned to one of his guards.

“Send out a feeler,” he ordered lazily. “See if we can snag him. My kingdom appreciates loyalty like that.”

Even now—kingdom. Not business. Not office. Not division. Kingdom. It was like the vocabulary of the room had aged a thousand years.

The guard—barely older than she was, but looking carved from flint—glanced down at some kind of tech. “Our files show he’s pending a new contract. As of an hour ago.”

Kōga raised a brow. “That fast, huh?”

The guard nodded. “Just got uploaded to our system.”

Kōga whistled.

“Damn,” he laughed. “Boy eye-fucks the West’s toy, gets banished, and snatched up in less than twenty-four hours?”

The bile rose in her throat. Toy. That was the word. Not strategist. Not employee. Not woman. 

Toy.

And then came the final blow. Kōga tilted his head and asked, almost idly: “Who snagged him?”

The guard didn’t hesitate.

“Naraku.”

And gods—she couldn’t stop it. The whisper. The curse. The taste of it on her tongue.

“Shit.”

She didn’t even care who heard. Because it wasn’t just humiliation anymore. It wasn’t just the scandal of the week. Now it was something more dangerous.

And when she looked to Sesshōmaru—still composed, still eerily calm—she saw it in his shoulders. In the tension rippling just beneath the suit. He hadn’t moved. But she could feel it. Like a coil being drawn tighter.

Kōga just grinned.

“Well,” he said casually. “The spider’s got both siblings now. I’m sure he’ll use them to full value.”

She blinked. Spider? She didn’t understand. Not the reference. Not the layers. But Kōga saw the confusion on her face.  And smiled.

“Does the queen not know?” he asked, half-smirking at Sesshōmaru.

Kagome turned to her boss. Her partner. Her—whatever he was now.

“Know what?”

But before anything else could be said, Sesshōmaru’s voice cut clean through the tension.

“If I wanted this meeting to be about gossip,” he said coldly, “I would’ve skipped it.”

His eyes flicked to Ayame. “Control him.”

Ayame gave the faintest sigh, as if this wasn’t the first time. “Kōga.”

But the wolf only chuckled again. Still looking at Kagome. Still enjoying every ripple of discomfort her body couldn’t quite hide.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Five: The Queen That Didn’t Know
(Ayame – POV)

Over five hundred years old, Ayame had seen many things.

Kingdoms rise. Kingdoms fall. Alliances forged in blood and broken over something as trivial as a look. But never—never—had she thought she’d live to see the day the Lord of the West chose a human as his queen.

A human who didn’t even know she’d been chosen.

She sat beside him now, unaware of the gravity of her position. Unaware of the eyes that followed her every breath. And certainly unaware of what it meant to walk into a room filled with apex predators and sit next to one like she belonged.

But gods—she did belong.

Not because she had earned it yet. Not because she understood what it meant. But because Sesshōmaru had placed her there. That alone made her more powerful than most beings who’d fought for centuries to sit in that seat.

Ayame watched her carefully, watched the tremble in her hands, the way she curled her shoulders slightly—as if she could fold in on herself to avoid being seen. But it was no use.

Kōga saw her. Everyone saw her.

And gods, Kōga…

Ayame knew her mate well. Knew every tick of his wolfish interest, every twitch of his nose when a new scent intrigued him. And for all his strengths—his loyalty, his power, his uncanny ability to lead their kind—this was not one of them.

Restraint had never been his best virtue.

They were mated. Had children. Had spent centuries finding peace in the way wolves did: through freedom, occasional lovers, shared rule. Fidelity was marked in loyalty to the bloodline, not to the body. But even Kōga had never shown a taste for humans. Not beyond combat. Not beyond blood.

Until now.

And here he was, solving the puzzle of this woman out loud while the poor thing sat there—frozen. Mortified. Eyes wide and scent full of shame, confusion, and a quiet, crumbling pride.

Ayame didn’t blame her.

This room? Was filled with monsters. Centuries old. Powerful beyond understanding. And this girl—this human—walked in with clothes that smelled of Sesshōmaru’s power. His money. His name. Draped in it like armor she didn’t even know she was wearing.

And Sesshōmaru? Let her.

Even when it embarrassed him. Even when Kōga, in all his bluntness, made it known he knew exactly what had happened the night before.

She had fucked his guard.

Fucked his help.

Ayame had expected rage. A freeze. A reaction from Sesshōmaru that would end the meeting in a bloodbath or a disappearance. But instead? He had stayed seated. Cold. Collected. Silent. And graceful. That’s what struck her. Because Sesshōmaru did not give grace. Not for disobedience. Not for betrayal. Not for loss of face in front of rival kingdoms.

Yet here he was, letting her sit beside him in clothes he had selected for her. Still defending her. Still claiming her with nothing but presence and silence and the low thrum of power that dared anyone in the room to reach for what was his.

Ayame’s mouth tightened faintly. That told her everything she needed to know. This wasn’t political. This wasn’t lust. This wasn’t some odd distraction or novelty fetish.

This was genuine.

Because Sesshōmaru only ever granted grace when something mattered. When someone mattered.

And gods…that poor girl. She had no idea what she had stepped into. No idea who these men were. What they’d built. What kind of weight their names held outside of the business world. No idea that the same man who had just handed her a garment bag full of designer armor had probably once gutted kingdoms with his bare hands.

Ayame felt a small twinge of sympathy for her.

This woman—this human—was still navigating mortals. She was still playing chess when the rest of the room had long since shifted to something far bloodier.

But somehow…somehow…

She had caught the eye of the Lord of the West.

And Ayame had to admit—whether it was brilliant or a catastrophe waiting to happen—she couldn’t look away.

She let him talk.

She let her mate push boundaries like he always did—charming and vulgar in equal measure—because Ayame had learned long ago that letting Kōga speak often revealed more than silencing him. But more importantly, she had noticed something that the rest of the room, perhaps even Kagome herself, had not:

Sesshōmaru wasn’t ready to reveal the truth yet. Not about this world. Not about them. Not to his queen. And because of that, this meeting wouldn’t become a bloodbath.

Not yet.

Kōga seemed to sense it too. His usual mischief softened at the edges, not from guilt—gods, no, wolves didn’t do guilt—but from recognition. The moment the insult came too close to touching something sacred.

But still, he pushed.

Kōga chuckled and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head like the tension of the room hadn’t tripled in density.

“Don’t feel bad,” he said lightly. “We all have regrets with our choices.”

Ayame glanced at the girl. Kagome sat motionless beside Sesshōmaru. Her eyes stayed on the table, but her aura? Her scent?

Fury.

She was trying to contain it, to keep her expression neutral like she had been trained, but every creature in that room could smell the heat rolling off her skin. That volatile blend of shame, rage, and something darker—betrayal. Humiliation.

“You know how many women I’ve fucked and regretted?” Kōga went on, as if this was casual banter over drinks and not an international briefing with billion-dollar implications.

That was the line.

Sesshōmaru stood. Not slammed his hands. Not bared his teeth. Not growled or threatened. He simply stood. Tall. Imposing. Icy. And said, without a shred of warmth in his tone: “Ayame.”

That was all it took. Ayame caught it immediately. The signal. Handle him. Or we walk. Because his grace? Had just hit its threshold.

She reached over without even looking at Kōga and placed a hand on his thigh. A silent warning. Her fingers squeezed, nails like claws beneath the silk of his pants.

Kōga stiffened. His grin stayed, but it dulled.

“I’ll be good,” he said after a pause, raising both hands in mock surrender. “Damn, no one takes a joke anymore.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t respond. He just sat back down. Like a king returning to his throne after deciding not to start a war.

Ayame knew that posture well. Knew the way his shoulders flexed with restrained rage. Knew he had been seconds from destroying this room in every way that counted. Knew the only reason he hadn’t was because of the girl—his human queen—sitting silently next to him, dressed in his scent, flushed with quiet humiliation and fury.

She didn’t know yet. That was the difference. Had she known what they were—what he was—this meeting would’ve ended in blood. But instead, it ended in tension. In silence. In a restraint that took centuries to master.

Ayame didn’t delay. She pivoted smoothly back to the presentation, picking up where they had left off, her voice cool and polished.

“Our logistics proposal for the coastal expansion remains on the table. The northern routes offer greater yield if we utilize our carriers, but the southern line—”

She didn’t look at Kagome. Not yet. But she would. Later, when this girl realized just how close she’d stood to something ancient. Something eternal.

Because the Lord of the West? Had chosen his queen.

And Ayame? Was watching history happen in real time.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Six: Boundaries and Consequences
(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He shouldn’t have been shocked.

Kōga had always been vulgar. Crude in speech, careless in tone—but observant, too. He spoke like a drunk mercenary, but his words always struck nerves with surgical precision. Especially today.

Even after dressing his queen in fresh clothes—his clothes, selected specifically to soften the morning’s shame—he couldn’t mask the scent she carried with her into the boardroom.

Regret. Guilt. Self-loathing.

It clung to her like static, and maybe that was good. Because she should feel shame. Not from the act itself—he could forgive her humanity—but from the disrespect. She had embarrassed him. His house. His court. And worst of all? She hadn’t even realized it.

But that ignorance came with consequences. She was learning. Painfully. Visibly.

Still, it didn’t mean he would leave her exposed. Let her suffer the consequences, yes. Let her hear her missteps echoed aloud by the crass tongue of a wolf. But when Kōga crossed the line—when he all but offered her forgiveness for a betrayal that Sesshōmaru had not? That was the moment the air shifted.

Because Kōga might fuck everyone in his den. Might confuse chaos for freedom. Might believe that loyalty was something that could bend to appetite.

But Sesshōmaru did not. And neither would Kagome. Ayame had seen it. Picked up the signal and reined her mate in before this room became an arena. Now, with the presentation back on track, Sesshōmaru allowed himself a single glance.

Kagome sat perfectly still. Her hands folded in her lap. Shoulders tense. Eyes low. Her fists were curled—tight and trembling like she was anchoring herself to her own breath.

He moved, almost imperceptibly, and placed his hand atop hers. A single gesture. Calm. Measured. A claim.

She flinched—but barely. Surprise flickered in her eyes, not panic. And she didn’t pull away. Not even when he used his other hand to navigate the presentation Ayame had sent to his tablet.

From across the table, he could feel Kōga’s gaze shift. Brief. Curious. Then quiet again. Wise. There was nothing else to say. Nothing else to warn.

When the presentation ended, Ayame’s voice clear and clipped with efficiency, Sesshōmaru gave the simplest response:

“Draft the paperwork.”

Ayame nodded, eyes not lingering. Kōga, for once, said nothing. Sesshōmaru stood. And Kagome followed, just a second too slow.

But her steps were steady. Her chin lifted just enough. And as they left the room, he felt it—not forgiveness, not yet—but something close to ownership being accepted. Like she had finally realized just whose shadow she now walked in. And if she needed more reminders, he had no shortage of them.

The walk back to his office was silent, but not empty. It pulsed with unspoken things—embarrassment that clung to her skin, guilt she didn’t yet know how to purge, and a volatile shame that danced just beneath the surface. He didn’t need her to speak. He didn’t want her to. Words, after all, were often the least reliable form of confession. Her scent said everything.

He opened the door, gestured for her to enter, and closed it behind them with a finality that echoed through the room like judgment.

“Sit,” he instructed quietly. Not a demand. A directive.

She obeyed.

The tension was still fresh in his shoulders. Koga’s remarks hadn’t been the problem. The wolf had always been crass and observant. What cut deeper was the way Kagome’s head had bowed just slightly lower with every implication. The way her silence had screamed the truth. That something happened. That she had done what she had sworn—through her expressions, her disdain for Naraku’s comment—she would never do.

And worse, that it had hurt her to realize it.

He moved to his desk, fingers gliding over the biometric scanner. The screen lit up, and he opened her file, then Kohaku’s. Just as he suspected. The bodyguard’s contract was finalized. Hours ago. Naraku had wasted no time. The ink was still wet, but the chains were already forged. And Kohaku, fool that he was, had stepped willingly into the trap.

Sesshōmaru exhaled slowly through his nose.

One week ago, he would have moved worlds for that man. Now? He would let him learn firsthand what betrayal cost.

He pinged his assistant.

“Bring the herbal kit. The tea I indicated in the last file note.”

“Of course, sir.”

He returned to the screen, noting the date and timestamp. Foolish. Kohaku had mistaken mercy for clemency. Had thought love or lust gave him leverage. He should’ve bowed out with dignity the moment Sesshōmaru caught the scent of Kagome on his skin. Instead, he had gone to Naraku—a choice that could not be undone.

When the knock came at the door, he didn’t glance back. Kagome didn’t move either.

The tea was placed on the table behind him, steaming gently. Neutralizing. Safe. Final.

He turned and walked it over to her.

“Drink,” he said plainly, handing her the cup. “It will ensure no… residual consequences from your poor decision.”

He didn’t watch her drink it. He didn’t need to. The silence between them was thick with compliance. When he returned to his desk, he folded his hands neatly and regarded her with that sharp, cold stillness she was beginning to recognize as dangerous.

“You do not know the world you’ve stepped into, Higurashi,” he said finally, his voice measured, deceptively calm. “But I intend to show it to you. Slowly. Deliberately. And under my control.”

She didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch. But he saw her jaw tighten.

“Moving forward,” he continued, “should you feel overwhelmed…unsure…or lonely—do not reach for those who no longer have my protection. Kohaku has made his choice. He is no longer yours to lean on. Or mine to tolerate.”

He picked up his phone. Opened a locked directory.

“Take out your phone.”

She hesitated for a beat, then followed the command.

He recited the number clearly, and she input it silently.

“This is a direct line,” he explained, tone sharp as blade steel. “It bypasses all routing and security filters. It is not company-registered. You will not abuse it. If you need something—anything outside the scope of work—text this number. Do not call. Text.”

She blinked at him. Still silent.

“If you use it, I will not punish. I will not question. I will provide. You want something fixed? It will be done. You need assistance, resources, a place to escape? Use this number. If someone harms you, angers you, if you are lost or broken or unmoored—use this number. And I will correct it.”

The silence vibrated with meaning.

“But,” he said quietly, “if the matter is professional, you ask me in person. If it is personal, you use that line. This is your reward for loyalty.”

She looked down at the phone.

He watched her.

This was the divide. The line in the sand. Not of power, but of protection. This was how kingdoms were kept. Not by silencing women—but by weaponizing them properly.

She was his strategist. His queen. His. Not Kohaku’s. Not Naraku’s. Not even her own, not yet. And until she understood what that meant, he would keep teaching her. With rules. With rewards. With the kind of calculated protection she didn’t yet know how to name.

And when she looked up, something in her eyes shifted. Like she saw it. Some part of it. Some thread of meaning she couldn’t yet put into words, but which made her feel something other than shame.

Good.

Progress.

He leaned back in his chair. Watched her drink the last sip of tea. And then—only then—did he nod once.

“Now,” he said, glancing toward the glass conference clock. “Prepare yourself. We have three more meetings today. And I expect your focus. No more miscalculations.”

No more distractions. And definitely, no more men who thought they could take what belonged to him.

The silence between them had settled again. Not awkward, but contemplative. He had returned to reviewing documents. She, for once, sat still—perhaps thinking through everything that had unfolded in less than seventy-two hours. Her posture had relaxed slightly, tension fading as the tea settled into her body and the heat of his words replaced the shame left behind by Kōga’s ridicule.

Then she asked, quiet but not meek:

“Why do you and your partners speak like that?”

He didn’t look up. Just turned the page of the file he held, even as his mind sharpened.

“Like what?”

“Like…” she hesitated. “Like you’re all older than you look. Like the way you talk is from a different time. You call your business a kingdom. You call people knights. He—Kōga—called it a den. You all speak in metaphors, but they don’t sound like metaphors.”

Now he looked up. Her eyes were curious, intelligent. Still wary, but seeking. 

He considered what to say. He could tell her the truth. Could unearth centuries. Let glamours fall. Let power breathe in the air between them until she either submitted or shattered under the weight of it.

But not yet. So he hummed—a low sound in his throat, thoughtful.

“I’ll explain it,” he said, his voice velvet and steel, “when you’re ready.”

She blinked at him. He could see the mild frustration in her eyes, but also the acceptance. She was beginning to understand that he never said anything prematurely. That his world unfolded like a strategy—not a conversation.

A moment passed, and then another question came. Her voice this time was careful.

“Won’t the number you gave me…blur the lines?”

His lips twitched. Blur the lines? There had never been lines. Not for him. He closed the folder, finally giving her his full attention.

“There should be no lines between us,” he said plainly.

She frowned. “But—workplace hierarchy—”

“No,” he cut in softly but firmly. “There are no lines between us, Kagome. There is only clarity. What you see as ‘blurred’ is simply the edge of a much larger picture.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. Not combatively—she was still trying to understand.

“I don’t think I follow.”

“You don’t have to,” he said. “Not today. You don’t need to understand it. You don’t need to believe it. But you will come to realize it.”

He stood slowly, pacing behind his desk, voice calm and glacial.

“I do not want a corporate relationship with you. Not just a mentee, not a subordinate, not even a strategist assigned to me through channels.”

She tilted her head, a furrow between her brows. “So…you want a relationship?”

He stopped. Turned. And gods, the look on her face. Confused. Innocent. Entirely unaware of how deeply she was already inside his orbit.

He smiled, barely.

“Eventually,” he said, voice low, unapologetic, “of every type.”

The air changed. Her body stilled. He could feel her pulse stutter beneath her skin even from across the room. He moved closer—just a step, not enough to frighten her, but enough to remind her that he could.

“I will not rush it,” he added. “But you should know: what I want from you does not fit into neat compartments. I don’t assign value in fragments. I do not divide my intentions into day and night. If I claim something, it is entirely.”

She looked down, processing. Swallowed. He could see it—the slow formation of comprehension. The dawning weight of it. This was not flirtation. This was declaration. And now she knew. He reached forward, gently lifted the untouched pen from in front of her, and returned it to his desk.

“That number,” he said finally, “is not a privilege. It is a responsibility. Use it wisely, and you will find that I reward discretion more than loyalty.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she whispered:

“What do you reward trust with?”

He gave her a look that was all intent, all ice, and all fire.

“Everything.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Quiet Realizations
Kagome – POV

She had never, not once in her life, been more confused.

Sesshoumaru’s words—“Eventually? Of every type.”—played like a loop in her mind, quiet and haunting, as if they belonged to a different lifetime, a different woman. And maybe they did. Because whoever she was now, she didn’t fully recognize. Not the woman who sat silently in a corner of his office, dressed in clothes she hadn’t picked out, sipping medicinal tea that would erase evidence of an impulse, or the one who had become the subject of powerful men’s conversations behind closed doors.

And yet, he had said it so simply. Not arrogantly. Not lustfully. Just… as if it were a truth already settled. A relationship of every type. As if there were no question to whether she belonged to him—it was only a matter of when.

She had wanted to laugh. Wanted to cry. Wanted to ask him what type of man spoke like that. What type of woman he thought she was. But Sesshoumaru did not entertain spirals of doubt. He only made declarations. Final. Absolute. And now, she was left holding the weight of them, unsure what to do with their meaning.

So when he stood from his desk, silent and composed, she had simply risen too. Followed his lead like she had in every meeting. Her limbs felt too light and too heavy all at once—nerves clashing with exhaustion, a kind of emotional static that made her skin itch. Her mind raced with questions she had no right to ask. Not yet.

But then, as they crossed toward the meeting room, she drifted. Her thoughts knotted in silence. She barely noticed the movement of her feet, and when she bumped into his back—only half a step but sharp enough to tilt her forward—he caught her.

His hand went out, firm and unbothered. She half fell into his side, and he caught her like she was weightless. His gaze fell down on her, blank but faintly amused. Maybe. Or annoyed. But more than that—expectant. A slow breath pushed from his nose, not quite a sigh but close.

“You are distracted,” he said, voice low and composed, one brow barely lifted. “Focus on my words later. Right now—focus on the meeting.”

And he adjusted his grip—his hand sliding from her arm down to her hand, linking them briefly, and then turning the handle of the meeting door with his other. And gods, she wasn’t ready.

Inside the boardroom waited two individuals.

Beautiful.

Not in a normal, magazine-polished sort of way, but in that uncanny, almost alien sense of presence she was beginning to associate with Sesshoumaru’s circle. Predators wearing polite smiles.

The man was tall and broad, with a single long braid that spilled down the front of a crisp, dark suit. His features were sharp, sloped, with eyes that were a shade too intense to be human. The kind of man who walked into a room and made people straighten their spine before they realized why. His stare settled on her within seconds.

Beside him sat a woman—short-haired, sleek, angular. Effortlessly poised in a deep red pantsuit. She reminded Kagome of Kagura in sharpness, but with none of the wind. This one felt like fire barely contained beneath lacquered nails and silk cuffs.

They were already seated. Already waiting. And their eyes followed her like she was the topic of conversation before she had even arrived.

Sesshoumaru did not release her hand until they were steps inside the room. And then he did—calmly, deliberately, as if to say: Now, watch.

“Kagome Higurashi,” he introduced smoothly. “My strategist.”

A title again. Another mark of claim.

The woman nodded once. “Yura. It’s a pleasure. I’ve heard quite a bit.”

The man—Hiten—smiled lazily. “So this is the one Naraku mentioned. You weren’t exaggerating.” He gave a low whistle as his eyes flicked down her body. “Cute.”

Sesshoumaru did not react. At least not outwardly. But Kagome felt it—the pulse of tension in the room. Like a thin thread had been plucked.

Yura didn’t so much as glance at her companion. Instead, she launched into the beginning of the proposal—percentages, global spread, joint infrastructure. Kagome struggled to process the words.

Because Hiten didn’t look away.

Every few moments, his gaze would flick back to her. And it wasn’t just the way he looked at her. It was what he reminded her of. There was something in the shape of his grin that made her think of Naraku. Something in his boldness that echoed Kōga. Something dangerous in his amusement.

The room felt off.

Not hostile. But layered. Heavy. A game being played she didn’t have the rulebook for.

And still Sesshoumaru sat at the head of the table, calm and composed, as if this wasn’t his second power play of the morning. His eyes never left the presentation unless they landed briefly—intentionally—on her.

And gods, she wanted to know what he was thinking.

Why had she been introduced with a title? Why were these people speaking like they were older than they looked? Why did they feel not quite human? And what did it mean—eventually, of every type? She didn’t know.

But she was beginning to understand that this place, this company, this kingdom—it wasn’t built on the rules she thought governed the world. And Sesshoumaru? He didn’t live in her world. He was inviting her into his.

She had just begun to settle her breathing, to will her brain into some semblance of a working rhythm, when Hiten smiled again.

It wasn’t like before—not idle or dismissive. This was pointed. Deliberate. A curl of lips that said he knew something she didn’t. And gods—his teeth.

She blinked.

No, she wasn’t imagining that. His canines were… sharper than they should be. Almost animalistic. Not in an “I filed these for fashion” kind of way. More like I was born this way. As if he had been made to tear through things. Not metaphorically.

And it wasn’t just his teeth. The way he moved when he stood, slow and prowling, like he was testing gravity rather than obeying it. No awkward fumbling with his tablet or papers. Just a smooth shift in weight, one foot in front of the other, and a presence that draped over the room like smoke.

Yura continued presenting from her tablet, flicking through slides without glancing once at the man beside her. And Hiten? Took the moment to circle the table.

A lazy pace. Like a lion stretching its legs.

She followed his path with the corner of her eye. Didn’t dare turn her head too obviously. Sesshoumaru didn’t react. He just sat there, as if unmoved. But something in his posture changed. A stillness. Like a hunter deciding whether to strike.

And then Hiten came to her side.

He leaned down—fingers braced on the edge of the table as if pretending to peer at something Yura had displayed. And his hand—

Gods.

His hand brushed against her leg.

Not hard. Not intentional, she could’ve argued. Just a graze of knuckles across her thigh. But it felt like she had grabbed a live wire. A quick, jarring jolt ran up her entire side. Static, pressure, heat. She startled, just a little. Enough to blink. Enough to wonder if she imagined it.

And Hiten? Didn’t look at her. Not immediately. He just smiled and kept talking to Yura, his tone smooth and dismissive as he offered some comment on logistical distribution chains.

But then his eyes slid to her.

Just for a second.

That grin deepened. Slow. Knowing.

And Kagome swore her stomach dropped.

Something about him was wrong. Not just flirtatious or smug. Wrong. Like an echo of something she couldn’t quite place—dark and charged and out of place in a boardroom. And the way her leg tingled still, the way her skin burned under her blouse despite how cold the room was, made it hard to breathe.

Sesshoumaru’s voice was the anchor.

“Do not touch her again.”

Flat. Unmoved. But final.

The entire room stilled.

Yura didn’t pause her presentation, but her eyes flicked toward Hiten with sharp precision. Hiten’s smirk widened for a beat, but then—hands up, palms out—he stepped back with a chuckle.

“Relax, Lord Sesshoumaru,” he said, the title slow and mocking on his tongue. “Was just curious.”

“She is not for your curiosity,” Sesshoumaru replied, voice like ice over steel.

And that…that sent something through her. Because Hiten had seen it. Yura had seen it. Hell, she had seen it. 

Sesshoumaru had claimed her again. Out loud. In front of strangers who felt like more than just strangers. And still, he didn’t look at her. Just kept his attention on Hiten as if daring him to try it again.

Kagome didn’t know what was worse. The jolt of electricity she had felt from Hiten’s touch… or the awareness that the calm, collected man beside her had likely already calculated all the ways to make him pay for it.

And yet—he hadn’t stopped the meeting. Hadn’t dragged her out. Hadn’t let his rage boil over. He had protected her without breaking the illusion.

Hiten held up his hands in mock surrender. “Message received. Hands to myself,” he said with a grin that made her stomach twist. He sat back down beside Yura with a casual flick of his braid and a wink that wasn’t for her benefit—just for the game.

And gods, that’s all this was to him. A game.

She could feel the shift in Sesshoumaru even without looking. Not anger—yet. But annoyance. A tension that started in the stillness of his body and pressed outward like expanding steel. He didn’t make sudden moves. Didn’t speak in raised tones. But the silence around him changed, like air folding in on itself before a storm broke.

Yura kept speaking. Elegant, poised, completely different than her companion. But there was something rehearsed about her now, as if she’d slipped into a script designed to redirect attention.

And then she did it.

Her voice light and seemingly off-hand: “Your hair is interesting. Untamed but soft.” She tilted her head at Kagome. “Is it natural?”

The question wasn’t rude. But the way she said it? The smile she didn’t quite wear? The glance at Sesshoumaru after the words left her mouth?

It wasn’t a compliment. It was bait.

Sesshoumaru had not moved, but Kagome heard the inhale. Short. Sharp. A warning she only understood after the silence stretched too long.

He closed his tablet with an audible snap.

“Enough,” he said quietly.

Even Yura paused.

He stood then, finally—slowly. Deliberately.

“You have presented no contracts, no proposal of value, no specifications that benefit my company or my house,” he said. His voice was like carved obsidian—cold and glinting and sharp around the edges. “Instead, your associate gropes my employee. You question her presence. And now, hair commentary.”

Hiten looked amused again. Of course he did.

“Is this a business visit?” Sesshoumaru asked, not to either of them specifically, but to the air between them. And then: “Or are you here on Naraku’s leash, sniffing around what he couldn’t control?”

The room dropped ten degrees.

Even Yura straightened slightly, her eyes narrowing—not in surprise, but in defense.

Kagome, for her part, went cold.

Naraku.

That name again.

And gods, if it wasn’t that the room now smelled different. Like something old. And raw. Sesshoumaru hadn’t raised his voice, but she could feel something in the air now. Like tension humming just beneath her skin, electricity with nowhere to go. Like a pulled thread in a carefully woven tapestry.

Yura recovered quickly. “We represent our own interests, Lord Sesshoumaru,” she said with smooth disdain. “Though you may see ghosts in every shadow lately, I assure you—our visit was business.”

But even she knew it was too late to untangle this.

Because Hiten laughed—laughed—and rested his chin in one hand. “Relax. I told him we’d play nice. And we did.” He gestured at Kagome, a flick of fingers in her direction. “Mostly.”

Kagome didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Her hands curled tighter in her lap.

Sesshoumaru’s gaze didn’t leave the two across from him. “Then next time, arrive with something worth selling.”

It wasn’t a dismissal. Not verbally. But every syllable said they were one breath from being escorted out.

And the strangest part?

Neither Yura nor Hiten argued.

Yura gave the barest nod. “We’ll return with a revised proposal.”

And Hiten, still half-grinning, gave Kagome one last look before rising.

When they left, the silence remained. Like smoke that wouldn’t clear. And Sesshoumaru hadn’t looked at her yet. He simply stood there. Thinking. Calculating.

And Kagome? Had never felt smaller or more furious all at once.

Because even if she didn’t understand all the rules…she knew enough to recognize the moment she had become a prize in a power game she hadn’t asked to join.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Eight – The Flaw in the Armor
Sesshoumaru – POV

It had been a graze.

Not a grasp. Not a scandal. Not enough to justify violence in most settings.

But Sesshoumaru had nearly ended Hiten for it.

The flick of knuckles against Kagome’s thigh, as if she were furniture. A gesture so slight it might have been passed off as a misstep, a casual movement. But he had felt it. More than the contact. He had felt the deliberate pulse of thunder-youki threaded through it. Testing. Teasing. Not her.

Him.

And that had changed everything.

The moment had been surgical. Controlled. Purposeful. Not the actions of a man swayed by beauty or curiosity. No—Hiten had been sent with a mission. And Sesshoumaru, gods help him, hadn’t seen it clearly until that pulse echoed in his own youki like a question demanding a response. Because for centuries, such things had always required blood. But he hadn’t moved. Hadn’t drawn a line in gore. Because Kagome had reacted first.

Not with fear. But confusion. Irritation. The flare of her scent blooming with unease and offense, yes—but not terror. Not understanding.

And that’s when the game revealed its first crack.

They weren’t testing her.

They had been testing him.

What would the great Lord of the West do if someone laid hands on his chosen? If someone released youki in a business meeting? If someone marked his woman in any way—physically, energetically—and he did not react?

The answer had come with a silence so loud it rattled the bones of the room.

He hadn’t reacted. Not in the way they expected.

Because she didn’t know.

And they knew she didn’t know.

They had guessed. And now they had confirmed it.

That was the play. Not a flirtation. Not an insult. But a calculation.

They had found the one flaw in his otherwise impenetrable armor—his queen. Brilliant, beautiful, endlessly stubborn—and entirely uneducated in the true world she had been walking blind into. And now Naraku knew.

Sesshoumaru’s fingers tapped the side of his desk, controlled and rhythmic, even as his mind sped through a dozen scenarios. Yura’s deflections, Hiten’s amusement, the scent of curiosity twisting just beneath their practiced professionalism—it all clicked into place. Every action today had been planned. Every word sharpened to slice at the ignorance wrapped around Kagome like silk. And it wasn’t just about embarrassing her.

It was about exposing her.

She was the only human in his inner circle. The only one unmarked. Untrained. Unguarded in the way that mattered most—not her body. But her knowledge. Her understanding.

She hadn’t sensed the youki. She hadn’t flinched or bowed or challenged it. She didn’t even understand what it meant. And that? That had been the answer they had come for. How much did the queen know? How far had Sesshoumaru gone in binding her to him? What rules had been broken by allowing her to stand beside him without even knowing the war she had entered?

The answer: none yet. And that silence had been a gift to Naraku.

The wolf had tested loyalty. The spider? Tested weakness.

And gods, it had worked.

Sesshoumaru leaned back in his chair, still, silent, eyes narrowing at the data on his screen though none of it held his focus. What concerned him now wasn’t just how exposed she was—but how fast he needed to move to close that gap.

He had wanted to be gentle. Slow. Give her time. Let her choose the pace of her education into this world that would demand everything from her. But time was a luxury no longer afforded to either of them. Not with Naraku watching. Not with the wolves curious. Not with even his own allies poking for leverage.

She was reading files when he stood.

Quiet. Absorbed. Her brow furrowed, mouth parted ever so slightly. Her fingers tapped the edge of the tablet rhythmically, a subtle tell that her brain was starting to override the emotional chaos of the morning. She had returned to productivity.

He should have been satisfied.

He wasn’t.

Instead, he crossed the room without a word, pressed the button that locked the door, and waited as she slowly looked up at the sound of the click. Her scent told him everything. Nerves. Wariness. The faintest pulse of guarded curiosity.

But to her credit, she didn’t flinch. She sat straighter. As if pretending she wasn’t nervous would make it so.

He allowed it.

From the top drawer of his desk, he retrieved a dark leather folder. Thicker than any she’d been handed. No gold emblem this time. No formatting for PR polish. Just a single seal pressed into the leather: the old crest of his house, disguised to human eyes as a decorative flourish.

He handed it to her silently.

“If you have questions,” he said, his voice low, “I’ll be at my desk.”

She blinked. But took the folder.

He sat.

And watched.

She opened it. Slowly.

Page one: a red-stamped label with one word—CONFIDENTIAL—and beneath it, the name Naraku Tsujimoto. She frowned. Read.

He didn’t watch her directly—but his peripheral vision was fine-tuned, his awareness trained. He heard the way her breath changed when she reached the paragraph on Naraku. Not Naraku the client. Not the investor or founder or CEO of some forward-facing, impossible-to-fully-dismantle empire of influence. But Naraku the spider. His bloodline. His history. His penchant for webs—not just metaphorical.

Sesshoumaru didn’t flinch when she turned the page faster.

Then slowed.

Hiten.

There, too, were things not mentioned in the professional briefings. The bloodline of thunder youkai. Elemental disruption. An old lineage that once ruled storm fronts and natural disasters before the veil between species had demanded glamour and silence. And his title—Thunder Lord. Not earned. Inherited.

Another page turn.

Yura.

He saw the moment Kagome stilled. Her fingers held still on the paper edge.

Yura of the Hair.

The title wasn’t metaphor. It wasn’t fashion. It wasn’t branding. 

Hair that killed. Hair that moved without wind. Hair that hunted. A power woven directly into a body that looked sleek, harmless, temptingly human. It was not.

Kagome exhaled slowly.

The scent that followed was layered—disbelief, confusion, a thin edge of humor—sharp like a bark of laughter she wasn’t brave enough to release. But she didn’t speak. Didn’t ask if this was a joke. He wouldn’t have answered. Because he didn’t joke.

Sesshoumaru clicked open a file on his computer as if reviewing mundane reports. But his focus was split.

Another page turn.

Kōga.

And now, the scent deepened. Something flickered across her face—recognition. Tan, attractive, magnetic. But now she was reading that he was not just a CEO with charm. He was the Wolf Prince. One of the last direct descendants of a bloodline of pack-born daiyōkai who once ruled the East through muscle and speed and the ferocity of bite and claw.

Kagome lingered on Kōga’s section longer than the others. And Sesshoumaru’s jaw tensed.

When she turned the final page of the overview section and found the family tree diagrams—Naraku’s spider clan stretching back through centuries of confirmed sightings and documentation—he heard her tiny inhale.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He let the silence wrap around her. And then—finally—his file. Bare bones. Just enough to verify the data.

Sesshōmaru Taisho.

Born to Western Lineage. Age: Unlisted. Known as: Lord of the West. Power class: Elite. Territory: 4th generation Western empire. Glamour: Perpetual. Classification: Daiyoukai.

She didn’t react to his file. Not yet. But her scent had changed. It rippled with disbelief. A silent storm of internal rejection and forced composure.

Because what was she supposed to do with this information?

He remained quiet. He could smell her brain turning over the math. That the people she’d sat across from in the boardroom weren’t thirty. Weren’t forty. That they weren’t even human. That they had seen kingdoms rise and fall. That they had learned patience from war. Wealth from conquest. Survival from slaughter.

And that she—Kagome Higurashi—had been brushing shoulders with beings who no longer measured their lifespans in years. A full minute passed. She flipped back to the first page and read it again.

And he let her.

Because now the weight would settle. Not all at once. But steadily. It would start with doubt. Then shock. Then denial. And eventually, the knowing. She would come to understand that nothing about her new life had ever been human. That she had been plucked from one world and dropped into another.

And even then?

She hadn’t run. He watched her fingers tighten at the edge of the paper. No tremble. Just pressure. She was grounding herself.

He could almost admire it. Because now? Now she had no excuse. No false veil to retreat behind. This was the truth.

She had returned the folder without so much as a tremor. No questions. No outburst. No demands for logic or explanation. Just a silent exhale, a quiet slide of the manila file back across his desk, and a woman who simply walked back to her seat like she had not just had centuries of history rewritten in front of her.

He watched her.

And she…ignored him.

Her eyes were on the screen again, fingers lazily tapping her tablet like they hadn’t just read that the man who flirted with her was a wolf who had lived long before the Edo Period. Like she hadn’t read that Naraku was called the Spider because of what lived beneath his skin. Like she hadn’t just skimmed through a file that openly stated thunder and hair manipulation were not metaphors, but gifts granted through blood and battle and unholy pacts.

“There are no questions?” he asked at last, his voice low and calm, but edged with something colder underneath. “Nothing at all?”

She looked up. Quiet. Measured. But her scent carried weariness.

“Questions don’t seem wise right now,” she replied, not defensive. Not meek. Just… honest. “And I can’t find the right ones. What should I ask? If this is a joke? If you’re over a hundred years old?”

His eyes narrowed. She wasn’t being sarcastic. She was serious. She didn’t not believe him—she just didn’t know what direction to run with it. And it was somehow worse. She was taking it in stride. Almost too well.

Then she sighed again. “My grandfather would have a field day with this. Demon bloodlines. Gods know I don’t miss it.”

That gave him pause.

Your grandfather?

He kept his expression even, but something inside him ticked. Humans had no way of knowing about this world unless they were touched by it. Marked. Scarred. Dragged in by force or bred into it through old bloodlines and older obligations. And if Kagome Higurashi had even a whisper of that legacy in her bones, it would explain…a great deal.

Still, he said nothing. Let her speak.

She paused for a moment, then gave him a sidelong glance.

“Fine. I do have a question. If you’re as old as your records claim you are—and as that file says you are—then you’ll know how to answer this. It’ll be how I know you’re not lying.”

His brow lifted ever so slightly. She leaned forward. Intent. Testing. Just a little.

“Tell me what you know about the priestess Midoriko.”

He froze. Not visibly. Not fully. But deep within the marrow of him, something stilled. Midoriko. That name had not passed mortal lips in…centuries. Millennia. She had been legend. Power. A being of force and mercy in equal measure. She had not belonged to the world of humans. Or demons. She had belonged to the gods.

And he had only crossed her path twice.

The first time: on a battlefield, surrounded by the charred corpses of demons who had tried to feast on human flesh during the Famine Wars. She had bled from her shoulder, temple and side, but stood. Face streaked with soot. Her power nothing like the pale reiki humans used now. It had been divine. The kind of spiritual pressure that made even highborn daiyoukai hesitate. And he had not interfered. Just watched. Measured. And then turned his back and walked away.

The second time?

He met her on the edge of death.

She had been sitting by a riverside. Pregnant. Wounded. Bones broken. Skin torn. Her power weakened but still present. And still, when she saw him, she had not drawn a blade. Only touched the curve of her stomach with a trembling hand.

“I won’t die here,” she had said to him. “Not today. I still have to name her.”

She had smiled at him.

And he had let her go.

She had told him the name she would give her daughter. Something old. Something powerful.

He repeated it now.

Kagome listened. Silent. No emotion passed her face. But her shoulders loosened. Her breath steadied. And when he was done?

“I have no other questions,” she murmured.

He stared at her.

Because now he had questions.

Too many.

She had known the name of a priestess most modern temples would assume to be folklore. She had asked with the confidence of someone raised on her name. And she hadn’t asked about demons, monsters, powers or politics. She had asked about Midoriko—the one who had nearly brought an age of demons to an end. The priestess who could bend mountains with prayer alone.

Who was your grandfather, Higurashi?

Who are you?

But Sesshoumaru said nothing.

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifty-Nine — Kagome POV

She had been doing fine. Truly, she had. File after file, client after client, project after project—each one a step toward reclaiming the life she thought she wanted. And then Sesshoumaru had handed her a folder that might as well have shattered reality at the seams.

Demons.

It wasn’t fiction. Not folklore. Not poetic metaphors tucked inside religion or myth. No—these people she had met, who looked no older than thirty, had lived for centuries. Some five hundred years. Others more. She had read that name—Naraku—and then found his alias, “The Spider.” And she had seen his date of birth. Sixteen-hundred-something. A war general in one century, a hedge fund manager in the next. Koga of the Eastern Wolves. Hiten of Thunder. Yura of the Hair. Glamours, bloodlines, yokai classifications, abilities. An entire world hidden beneath paperwork and boardrooms. One she hadn’t even known she had stepped into.

And now? She was sitting here in clothes Sesshoumaru had picked, sipping tea that may or may not have magical contraceptive properties, after accidentally sleeping with his apparently demon-adjacent bodyguard—who had just defected to a “spider.”

So no, she wasn’t fine.

But gods, she could not let it show.

If this world had rules—and clearly it did—then keeping calm was her armor. She had walked into the lion’s den, or maybe the demon’s court, and hadn’t even known it.

She stole a glance toward Sesshoumaru as he typed at his desk, quiet and collected. And her mind spun.

Kohaku.

He had known. She was certain of it now. The way he had warned her. The way he had offered protection. His bloodline, his calm, his loyalty. He had fit too well. Slid into place in this system like he had been born to it.

And he had still touched her.

Still taken her home.

Still let her climb into his lap and kiss him like none of this mattered.

Was he a demon too? She didn’t know. Maybe he wasn’t a full one. Maybe he was part. Maybe he was something else altogether, but what she did know was that even after being handed this folder, what frightened her more was what she didn’t know. How many others knew. How many watched her and smiled politely while secretly measuring how little she understood.

She was the human walking through ancient courts. The girl sitting on thrones she didn’t realize were carved from centuries of violence and war. And Sesshoumaru? He was letting her do it. Letting her walk deeper and deeper into his world.

Why?

What did he want?

He said eventually, he wanted everything. Of every type.

Her hands clenched in her lap.

She hadn’t even figured herself out yet. Let alone what it meant to be something to him.

But she remembered the way his hand had rested on hers. The quiet claim. The unspoken gesture that said you are mine, even if he didn’t use those words. And even though she was reeling, even though she wanted to scream at the absurdity of demons walking the same streets she did every day—she couldn’t deny one truth:

Sesshoumaru had not lied to her. He could have. Easily. But he didn’t. And somehow, that grounded her.

She didn’t say anything about her grandfather.

Didn’t speak on how he used to pull out yellowed scrolls from the attic every summer, laying them across the floor as if the ink still carried power. How he’d point to names that sounded like poems and battles and bloodlines all at once—Midoriko, Sayo, Kaori. He’d told her, as early as age six, that their family was descended from the most powerful priestess Japan had ever known. Midoriko.

Not directly, of course. But somewhere along the branching paths, seven or eight bloodlines out—through daughters, he always stressed—the power supposedly flowed.

“Girls are more common in our line because boys can’t hold the reiki,” he’d whisper over mugs of barley tea. “But the power skips. Four generations, Kagome. Maybe five. That’s why your mother never felt anything. That’s why you might.”

And she’d thought it was sweet. A story, like magic that lived in bedtime tales and local shrines.

But now?

Now, she was sitting across from a demon lord who had handed her proof that demons were real, old, and very much still running the world. Powerfully. Quietly. Beautifully. She didn’t feel like Midoriko’s descendant. She felt like a chess piece caught mid-game, trying to remember the rules while her opponent already knew how it ended.

Still—she had to ask.

Because it mattered. Because if any of that ancestral lore was real, if her grandfather’s obsession meant anything, she needed to know.

Her voice was soft when she asked, almost too soft for the silence between them.

“Do priestesses still exist? In this age?”

She caught the faintest flicker in his expression. Not surprise. Not disbelief. But something unreadable. Calculating.

Sesshoumaru’s brow lifted, elegant and sharp, and he shook his head once. “If they do, their power is all but obsolete. That kind of spiritual energy—reiki—was forged through war. Through trauma. Danger. Purpose. And we’ve given the world peace. Glamours exist for a reason. Disguises protect identities. There is no need for a priestess to fight what she cannot see.”

Obsolete.

Like she was the last CD in a digital age. A relic.

“So you’re saying,” she said quietly, trying to keep her voice even, “that even if someone had it, there would be no way of knowing?”

“There would be no reason to know,” he replied evenly. “Unless provoked. Unless pushed.”

And gods, something inside her twitched at that. Not fear. Not exactly. But some old thread deep in her stomach pulled taut, humming.

She thought of Naraku. Of how furious he’d been when Sesshoumaru had defended her. Of the energy in the room. Like a thick wave of pressure and threat she’d walked right through and hadn’t even known was there.

She thought of Kohaku. The way his sister had been described. How both siblings had ended up with Naraku. And of the way Sesshoumaru had described her that day after the Naraku accusation—how she was his chosen. His strategist. His human. The girl he kept in his orbit despite everything.

She had been quiet for a while now. Long enough that the clock on Sesshoumaru’s desk ticked past the half-hour mark and the shadows on the office floor shifted an inch. And maybe she should have stayed quiet. Maybe she should have left it alone—let this entire day, this entire week—settle like dust on the floor.

But the question had formed anyway.

And she asked it before she could think too long.

“Then why did you have Kohaku?” she murmured, not looking at him. “If you’re all as powerful as these files say, why would someone like him…why did you need someone like him?”

The silence that followed was colder. Not hostile. But sharp—like the pause before a knife is drawn.

She didn’t have to look up to know Sesshoumaru’s eyes had narrowed.

Still, he answered.

Not immediately. But he did.

“Kohaku,” he said evenly, “was never just human.”

The way he said it made her stomach twist.

“His bloodline—his clan—is known as demon exterminators. An ancient line of humans that were born and bred to kill my kind. They’ve existed for over a millennium. They use inherited techniques, rituals, charms, poisons. They do not rely on strength alone. Many of them,” his voice dipped slightly, “sustain their line by taking demon blood into their own. To survive long enough to go toe to toe with us.”

He glanced at her then. Calm. Dismissive.

“If you believed Kohaku was weak because he was human, you are mistaken. He was in my service for nearly eleven years. Trusted. Effective. Dangerous.”

Her chest tightened.

Eleven years?

She thought back. Back to his easy smirk and the relaxed way he cracked open a beer and handed her one without a second thought. How he had picked up after her, coaxed her to study files with him. How he’d told her to come to him before he quit.

None of that screamed “demon slayer.”

None of it screamed “ritual bloodline.”

None of it screamed monster hunter.

And yet.

“And it’s easier,” Sesshoumaru added, voice cold, “to employ someone who doesn’t need to remove a glamour. Who isn’t bound by demon laws or territorial councils. Humanity does not yet police its own when it comes to our kind. Only we do. And he—Kohaku—was useful because of that. Until he wasn’t.”

Until he wasn’t.

The phrase echoed in her head like a slammed door.

Her hands tightened in her lap.

She couldn’t help it.

The man who had let her steal his oversized hoodie. Who had held her while she whispered about her fears. Who had stroked her hair while she fell asleep on his chest. He couldn’t be…He couldn’t be that. Could he?

Sesshoumaru must have caught the flicker of disbelief in her scent.

“You think the boy who fucked you is harmless?” he asked, arching a single brow. “He’s killed more demons than you’ve likely met humans in this company. His sister was better.”

The words hit like a slap. His sister was better. And gods, there was a story there too, wasn’t there? But Kagome couldn’t ask. Not now. Not when she was already trying to reconcile her childhood stories with real monsters wearing designer suits and silk-lined tempers.

She swallowed and said nothing.

And Sesshoumaru—ever the observer—did not press.

But gods, her head was spinning.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixty – Petty Truths and Sharp Tongues

Kagome – POV

There weren’t many moments in her life where Kagome considered giving in to pettiness. She’d always been the rational one. The voice of reason. The one who could take a breath before retaliating.

But this?

“You think the boy who fucked you is harmless?”

The words burned. It wasn’t the language. Not really. It was the dismissal. The reduction of something complicated into something vulgar. Cold. Cheap.

Her fingers curled in her lap, nails biting into her palm. He didn’t even look at her when he said it. Just that same damn calm, unreadable expression from behind his tablet. But she saw the flick of his eyes—just enough to let her know he knew it would sting. And gods, for a split second, she almost laughed. Loudly. Bitterly. Wanted to bite back with something ugly and fire-hot.

“I fucked him,” she wanted to say. “I asked for it. I crawled into his lap. I took off my own damn clothes. I let him hold me, even when I was scared.”

But she didn’t. Because if she said it aloud, it would mean something. It would be used against her. Like everything else had been this week.

Still—he must have sensed something shift. Maybe the air. Her pulse. Her scent. Because his head lifted from his tablet and his golden eyes narrowed slightly. A silent calculation flickered across his face.

Then—

“It was you?”

Not cold this time. Not even disapproving. Just… surprised. Sharp, but not cruel. And that stunned her more than the words themselves. She didn’t respond. Didn’t nod. Didn’t look away. Her face stayed blank, because she didn’t know what the right answer was anymore.

And then—he hummed. Quietly. Not amused. Not pleased.

“So,” he said, setting the tablet down. “You fucked him to reduce stress. And got him removed from almost eleven years of service.”

Her jaw clenched. It was the same tone he’d used when criticizing an underperforming executive. When dismantling a contract with perfect, surgical cruelty.

“You make it sound like I used him,” she said, voice low, tight. “Like I wanted someone disposable to take the edge off.”

“Didn’t you?” he asked smoothly.

“No,” she snapped. “I wanted someone who cared. Someone who didn’t look at me like I was a mistake every time I opened my mouth.”

And now he went still. That stillness he did so well. Like a storm had frozen mid-crash.

Silence.

She exhaled. Looked away.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” she admitted quietly. “It wasn’t smart. Or fair. And I didn’t think about what it would cost him. Or me.”

There. Truth laid bare. Ugly and exposed. She didn’t expect forgiveness. Or kindness. But he surprised her again.

“You were afraid,” he said simply.

Her head turned.

“You weren’t weak,” he clarified. “You were afraid. And you wanted something soft. Something easy. Something that didn’t require you to fight.”

Kagome stared at him. And for a moment, she saw past the ice. Past the measured cruelty. To the man beneath. And gods, he looked…tired. Frustrated.

“You keep punishing me,” she said softly, “for being thrown into a world I don’t understand.”

And that? That made something flicker in him again. Not guilt. Not regret. Something deeper. He inhaled slowly, then looked at her—not as a CEO, not as a lord, not as a predator to prey. Just a man. Looking at a woman he didn’t quite know what to do with.

“We will correct this,” he said at last. “But not by making more mistakes. If you want soft, you ask. You don’t break my soldiers.”

That…stung. More than she expected.

And gods, if she didn’t want to huff. He didn’t make it easy. Nothing about Sesshōmaru ever was. He was sharp where others softened. Cold where others gave grace. And always, always so damn measured—as if he existed on some higher plane where emotions were irrelevant and everyone else was foolish for having them.

So she did the only thing she could in the face of that tightening frustration. She narrowed her eyes and snapped, “And what was I supposed to do instead, Sesshōmaru? Fuck a stranger?”

It came out hot. Clipped. Bladed.

He blinked. Just once. Then his gaze sharpened like the slice of a drawn blade. And just like that, she knew she had said the wrong thing.

“Preferably,” he said, voice smooth but steeped in irritation, “you would have fucked no one.”

He didn’t yell. He didn’t have to. Every word struck like ice cracking underfoot.

“I had assumed,” he continued, “you were above that sort of desperation. That perhaps you were the kind of woman who knew how to compartmentalize needs. Delay gratification. Exercise discipline.”

Kagome’s breath hitched—but he didn’t stop. He never stopped.

“But if that’s not the case,” he went on, tone turning colder, “if you are someone who cannot go without being touched, or kissed, or filled—” a flicker of something dark crossed his expression, but his voice remained level, “—then say so. Now.”

She opened her mouth, stunned, but the words wouldn’t form.

“Say so,” he repeated, calm and direct, “so I can schedule a time. A day. Perhaps a night. Get it out of your system so you can return to functioning without dragging my staff down with your impulses.”

She recoiled like he’d slapped her. But he wasn’t done.

“Or,” he said, standing slowly, “if this is your way of telling me that you do require regular fucking to remain composed—then I am more than willing to accommodate you myself.”

Her eyes flew wide, and her face went hot.

He stepped closer, each word deliberate now. Dark silk laced with steel.

“At least then, you wouldn’t look so disgusted when others accuse you of fucking me. If I’m going to be insulted for something I didn’t do,” he murmured, “then I’d rather just do it.”

Kagome’s mouth opened, breath shallow. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

“I—” she started. But the words choked, caught between fury and shame and the ache of something she didn’t want to name.

Because the worst part was that she couldn’t tell if he was serious. He sounded serious. But his face—his voice—was so collected. Like this was just another problem to fix. Another department to restructure.

And somehow, that cut deeper than the accusation.

She dropped her gaze, lips tight. “You make it sound like I’m broken.”

“No,” he said quietly. “You make it feel like you are.”

That—that—broke something in her chest.

He studied her a moment longer. “Your wants,” he said lowly, “are not a burden. But if you intend to indulge them recklessly—then yes, I will take issue. Because whether you like it or not, Kagome, I do not share what is mine.”

Her breath caught.

“I am not—”

“Yet,” he said, cutting her off. “You are not mine yet. But we both know you will be. And when that happens, I will not have you choosing scraps from my floor when I’ve offered you the crown.”

Her eyes flicked up. And the way he looked at her—possessive, unreadable, and calm in a way that made her bones ache—told her everything she needed to know.

He wasn’t angry she had sex.
He was angry she hadn’t come to him.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixty-One: The Crown and the Floor
Sesshōmaru – POV

He didn’t admit to being shocked often. In fact, Sesshōmaru couldn’t recall the last time something had managed to shock him. Surprise? Occasionally. Disappoint? Certainly. But the emotional spike that bloomed in his chest when she huffed—that small, petty sound laced with defiance and embarrassment—had come dangerously close to the edge of something he had no name for.

Because now he knew.

His future queen—his strategist, his carefully selected human—had chosen to fuck his knight.

And for the godsdamned life of him, he could not understand it.

Kagome was not an impulsive woman. She wasn’t a flirt. She didn’t linger in doorways or bat her eyes. She didn’t dress for attention or speak with seduction. She was a professional. A creature of discipline, intelligence, subtlety. And yet, she had done the one thing that no version of her should have done.

She had crawled onto his knight’s lap.
Not a stranger. Not a lover. Not someone vetted or trusted or distant.

But his.

Sesshōmaru had vetted her past. Extensively. He’d read her school records, combed through public and private database access. Not a single dating history past the age of eighteen. No photos of lovers on her social media. No scandal. No lovers’ spats. Even her family had lived quietly—settled in the same Tokyo suburb for decades after moving from a location with no digital trail.

But Kagome? She had no exes. No former partners. No reputation of recklessness. She had her urges under control. Until she didn’t.

Until him.

And it wasn’t the sex that infuriated him.

It was that she refused to even entertain the idea of touching Sesshōmaru himself.

She looked at him with fear. Resentment. Caution. As if the idea of being with him was some sacrilege. But the boy who served him? Who lived in his house? Whose loyalty he had praised more than once? That was acceptable.

It was insulting. It was maddening. And it was dangerous. Because while Sesshōmaru had offered her the world—resources, protection, influence, power—she had chosen instead to dip her hands in the blood of what could not be unbroken.

So he had said it plainly. Clearly. With intention.

“You are not mine yet. But we both know you will be. And when that happens, I will not have you choosing scraps from my floor when I’ve offered you the crown.”

He’d expected some reaction. Denial, confusion, or perhaps silence. But she had glared at him, eyes hot with emotion. Disbelief. And then came her words, cut from raw flesh.

“Is that all you care about?”

Sesshōmaru’s jaw tightened.

“No,” he answered, voice controlled. “But it is one of the most important things.”

Her mouth parted, disbelief etched across her features.

“Why?”

He stepped forward, slow and cold, his presence a shadow that covered her whole.

“Because when I introduce you to my world,” he said, “when I stand you beside me in rooms of monsters older than countries and more powerful than kings… they will know you are mine. And that comes with weight. With expectation. With reverence.”

He leaned closer.

“And if they smell another man on you—one of my own—they will not see a queen. They will see an opening. A weakness. Something they can take or touch or torment.”

Her breath faltered, lips parting slightly as he continued.

“This world, Kagome, is not built on kindness. It does not forgive. It does not forget. And it certainly does not respect a woman who fucks the help while wearing the crown.”

She flinched—but not with shame. With realization.

“And if you think,” he added, tone a dagger wrapped in silk, “someone is more qualified to fuck you—tell me. I will evaluate them myself.”

Her eyes snapped to his, fury flaring bright. “Do you think this is about qualifications? Do you really think that’s all this is to me?”

“I think,” Sesshōmaru said evenly, “that you made a mistake. One I am still willing to overlook. But do not pretend it was innocent. Do not insult both of us with the delusion that it wasn’t a choice.”

His gaze narrowed, voice soft but absolute.

“Next time, choose me. Or choose no one.”

They stared at each other, breath locked in a silent battle neither of them could win without blood. But he didn’t step back. He didn’t soothe or fold or offer comfort.

Because this was not a lesson of affection.
This was a lesson of power.

She sighed.

A long, human thing—frustrated, tired, unsure. It floated out between them like an accusation or a plea. But he didn’t flinch. He only waited, eyes steady, fingers still clasped at his side.

“You understand that’s not how relationships work, right?” she murmured.

Ah. That word again.

Relationships.

He raised a brow slowly. Not mockingly, but with the deliberation of a king considering whether to acknowledge a courtier’s insolence—or answer it.

“Are you allowing us to have such a status?” he asked.

And that? That made her blink. It had been an honest question. One devoid of sarcasm or pretense. But it disarmed her all the same.

Because he could see the moment her thoughts fractured under the weight of his response—when her mouth opened slightly, then shut again, and her eyes flicked toward the carpet like she might find answers woven into the threads. She hadn’t expected him to meet her challenge with a greater one.

Sesshōmaru took a step forward, voice even but not gentle.

“You speak of relationships like they are based on equality. On compromise. On shared decision-making. That is not what we are.”

Another step. She didn’t retreat, but she didn’t move closer either.

“You are not my equal yet,” he said. “But you are my choice. My intended. And when I say you will wear a crown, it is because I will place it on your head. Not because you reached for it.”

She swallowed. Hard.

And he continued.

“So if you wish to speak to me of relationships, Kagome, you must be clear. Is this what you want?” He paused. “Because I have already chosen. I do not waver.”

Her arms crossed over her chest, whether in defense or to hold herself together he wasn’t sure.

“You don’t get to just…decide that we’re a thing, Sesshōmaru. That’s not how it works.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Then enlighten me. What does work?”

Her lips parted, eyes narrowing. She looked furious and exhausted and maybe—just maybe—a little lost.

“People fall for each other. Gradually. It’s messy. It’s not logical. You can’t control it.”

“I do not require control of your emotions,” he said, voice low and smooth. “Only your body. Your loyalty. Your presence where I command it. The heart will follow. As it always does.”

She looked at him like he was insane. Maybe he was.

But gods, she had no idea what world she had been dragged into. And he wasn’t sure she could ever understand it on her own.

“This world is not built on slow affection and uncertain promises,” he said. “Not the one I rule. In this world, decisions must be made. And you have already made several. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”

Her jaw clenched. And he could smell it—uncertainty. Confusion. But beneath it all, the scent he had been waiting for:

Curiosity.

And perhaps—if only the barest wisp—something else. Something dangerously close to understanding. He didn’t press her further. Not yet. He only turned away and walked back to his desk.

“When you are ready to give me a real answer,” he said without looking at her, “we will revisit your idea of how a relationship works.”

And though she didn’t respond, didn’t follow, didn’t speak another word—

She didn’t leave, either.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixty-Two: Realizations and Regrouping
Kagome — POV

This was getting them nowhere.

Not forward. Not backward. Just suspended in this dizzying, static tension where words cracked like lightning but never cleared the sky. Kagome could feel it in her spine, in the sharp press of Sesshoumaru’s gaze even now, though he had turned away.

And maybe it was the silence that made it worse. Made it louder.

She sat, arms folded tight over her chest, eyes fixed on the grain of his office table while her mind raced. No more questions. Not today. Not with him. Because whatever this conversation was? It wasn’t a negotiation. It was a collision—between his world and hers, between his expectations and her reality.

But still, she was no fool. She knew enough now to know when a battle wasn’t going to be won. At least, not today.

There were three things she had learned so far.

One: Sesshoumaru had marked her. Not physically, not with claws or blood—but with possession. Language. Power. Behavior. He had decided she was his. There was no point debating that in this moment, because in his mind, it wasn’t up for debate. And if he wanted to believe he could claim her without her full acceptance? Let him. For now.

Let him believe it.

Because if this was a game of chess, she’d already seen how he moved his pieces. Slowly. Deliberately. Always in control. But maybe—just maybe—he had underestimated her ability to see the board.

So for now? She would play along.

She was his professionally. That was it. Let him cling to his empire and whatever archaic form of loyalty he expected. Let him believe she’d bend. She would smile. Sit beside him in meetings. Observe. Learn. And gather every tool she needed to reclaim her own footing.

Two: She had to be careful. So careful. With her words. With her actions. With every relationship she even breathed near. Because Kohaku had been the exact example of what happened when Sesshoumaru’s rules were ignored. One mistake. One night. And he had been erased.

The thought made her chest ache. Kohaku didn’t deserve that—no matter how wild or selfish or unprofessional their moment had been. But Sesshoumaru had made it clear: mercy was selective. And fleeting. So she would make no more mistakes. Not like that. Not in this office. She’d keep her head down, keep her boundaries visible, and if anyone asked? She was simply the woman who worked late and answered her emails on time.

And three? She needed to see her grandfather. As soon as possible. 

Because demons were real. Real and powerful and embedded in the very bones of this empire. And if even half of what Sesshoumaru had said was true—about Midoriko, about bloodlines, about how priestesses once had the power to stand toe to toe with these creatures—then she needed to know everything. Everything her grandfather had ever muttered during childhood talismans. Everything he had whispered while lighting incense. Every forgotten lesson about old gods and ancestral threads.

Because if there was any power in her veins—no matter how dormant, how faint—she needed to find it. Wake it up. Learn how to use it.

She wasn’t going to survive this world as someone’s possession. She was going to survive it as herself. And Sesshoumaru? He would either have to accept that…

“Or find out what happened when a priestess refused to bow.”

The thought lingered like static on her tongue—sharp, defiant, and pulsing with a quiet charge she hadn’t dared to explore before now. She could feel it beneath her skin, like something old and stubborn waking up.

She paused near the doorway, holding her tablet close to her chest, fingers tightening around the edge. The light of late morning filtered in from the glass wall behind Sesshoumaru, casting soft shadows over the sharp lines of his desk and suit. He was unreadable, as always—still seated, one leg crossed, golden eyes calmly watching her as if every step she took was another move in some unseen game.

And maybe it was.

She cleared her throat lightly. “Since you canceled the last meeting, how long should I stay today?”

A pause. His gaze didn’t waver. His brow arched. Slowly. Sharply.

As if he were trying to see through her question.

As if he were already asking himself if she intended to leave this building and return to him. To Kohaku. As if the hours she gave today would tip her allegiance one way or another.

And maybe they would.

“You stay,” he said, voice low and cool, “until work is complete.”

Of course.

His eyes flicked back to the screen in front of him, fingers poised with intention over the tablet resting on his desk. But then—

“And longer,” he added, tone shifting just enough to make her breath catch, “if I need you.”

The implication hovered between them like smoke.

Her brows rose—flat and unimpressed. But her stomach turned, her body tensing in that uncomfortable space between defiance and understanding.

Is that what we’re doing now?

So she smiled—sharp, tired, with too much behind it. Let out a dry, bitter laugh.

“Is that the game we’re playing?” she asked, cocking her head slightly, voice soft but pointed. “Working late hours until I fall for you?”

He looked up again.

Gods, that gaze could unmake a person. Cold enough to freeze over, hot enough to burn straight through. She didn’t know which he would choose next.

There was a flicker—almost a smirk, but it never reached his lips. His golden eyes sharpened instead. Focused. He leaned back in his chair slowly, folding his hands beneath his chin.

“That would be a waste of time,” he murmured.

Her stomach dropped.

“Because you will,” he added, voice like silk over steel. “Fall. Not from overtime. But from inevitability.”

She blinked. Scoffed. “So you’re just…that confident?”

“No.” He tilted his head slightly. “I am patient. And I know the end of this story.”

Kagome stared at him, trying to decide if she wanted to throw something or laugh.

“You sound like you’ve already written it.”

“I have.” He looked at her, unblinking. “You’ve only just begun to read it.”

She said nothing. Because she didn’t have an answer for that. Not yet. So she nodded slowly. Tight-lipped. “Then I guess I’ll be here late.”

She turned on her heel, pulse thudding in her throat. The carpet barely made a sound beneath her steps, but Sesshoumaru’s gaze remained like weight on her back.

If this was a game of patience and power? She would not be the first to blink.

Chapter Text

Chapter 63 : Doubt and Departure
Sesshōmaru — POV

He watched her.

Every breath. Every shift of posture. Every flick of her fingers against the fabric of her borrowed clothes. Her scent was a storm of things—resentment, exhaustion, sharp-edged defiance—but beneath it all, a thread of something heavier. Something uncertain.

Irritation. Resistance.

She didn’t fidget, not quite. She wouldn’t give him that. But the tension in her body was a weapon being sheathed slowly, blade still singing in the air. She sat on the couch in his office like a soldier made to kneel—waiting for either command or execution.

And inside him, a quiet war raged.

Where was she so eager to go? Not home. He’d checked her schedule—her mother wasn’t expecting her. Her brother had exams. And her phone hadn’t buzzed in the last hour. So what was it?

Who? The answer snapped in his mind like a cold lash.

Kohaku. 

Even after everything. Even after he had told her who he was. Who they all were. After he had protected her in meetings, defended her from council members who saw her as an amusement, given her knowledge that no human on earth had touched in centuries—

Was she still thinking of going back to him?

His jaw ticked. His fingers curled loosely over the armrest. The part of him that governed wrath, the one that had lived through blood and empire and conquest, wanted to snarl.

Had he chosen poorly? Had the creature he’d marked, defended, outfitted and warned—was she a liability wrapped in allure?

But another part of him, the one who had watched her kneel by his desk without understanding her power, the one who noticed her restraint in the face of every cruel, humiliating comment—that part waited.

He didn’t like being made to wait.

As the sun dipped behind the skyline outside his office, casting long shadows over the marble floor and heavy furniture, he let out a slow, annoyed sigh. Just loud enough to make her flinch.

“You may go.”

She looked up. Didn’t speak. Just nodded once. Quiet. Still holding herself too tightly. Not quite defeated. But not ready to fight.

He watched her stand. Gather her things. She didn’t meet his eyes. Her heels clicked softly against the polished floor as she left, shutting the door gently behind her.

And still—

She didn’t say where she was going.

He stared at the closed door for exactly five minutes.

Then rose.

If she was in such a hurry to leave?

Then he would know where.

The moment her scent disappeared behind his office door, Sesshōmaru moved.

No hesitation. No deliberation. He pressed a single key on his desk, powered down the room’s systems, slipped his jacket on, and exited into the evening air without so much as a farewell to his assistant. The moment the elevator doors closed behind him, he was in motion—long strides and crisp precision. The sun hadn’t fully set yet, the air still clung to the warmth of late afternoon, and Tokyo’s traffic hummed like a living organism around him.

He slid into the driver’s seat of his private vehicle, the door shutting behind him with a muffled finality. His fingers tapped once against the steering wheel before a discreet panel in the dash came to life, pulsing faintly with a holographic trail.

Her location signal lit up instantly.

But not from her badge.

From the custom inlay built into the lining of the shoes he’d provided her—flats that bore no logos and yet would cost more than what most made in a week. A silent precaution. One of many. For her safety. For his peace of mind.

She had no idea they were traceable.

Just in case, he’d told himself when slipping the order through to logistics. She’s human. She’ll get lost.

But now?

Now he had to know. And as he pulled into traffic and followed the signal, tension curled low in his chest like a string pulled taut.

Fifteen minutes of measured turns, tailing her car from five vehicles behind, watching the route update on his screen in real time.

And then—
She turned away from the route to Kohaku’s neighborhood. A sharp, unannounced swerve. Not even a hesitation.

Interesting.

So she wasn’t going to him.

A flicker of something eased in his shoulders. Not relief—he would never grant her that kind of emotional control—but data. Data that said her instincts, at least for now, had not betrayed him twice in a row.

And then?

She pulled into a narrow gravel road. Parked. A residential neighborhood lined with ancient gates and faded wooden beams. One of the last few pockets of Tokyo that had been left untouched by modernization. Traditional. Holy.

A shrine.

A fucking shrine.

He coasted past slowly, windows darkened, his car silent as a whisper. Her badge blinked, unmoving now. Settled. He watched as she exited the car. No hesitation. Like she had done it a thousand times.

A white-robed figure stepped out of the main hall, lantern light catching against the crimson trim and gold tassels. The man was old—human—but his posture still carried the sharpness of training. His face was creased, eyebrows heavy, and his aura? Strange.

Not powerful. But familiar. Like a flicker of the past. 

Then the man smiled. Wide. Deeply. No fear. Just affection.

“Well, if it isn’t my little Midoriko,” he chuckled warmly, voice carrying clearly across the quiet yard.

Then, softly, “Welcome home, Kagome.”

Sesshōmaru’s blood ran cold.

The name. 

The name that no one should speak in this era. Not aloud. Not in that tone. Not with such authority. That priestess had made sure to destroy records of her family tree. She had descendants. There was just no record of surviving lineage to trace back. 

Until now. 

And Kagome? Kagome hugged him. Sank into his arms like she had done it for years. And then?

“That’s actually why I came, Grandpa,” she said, voice steady, soft.

Grandpa.

Her grandfather.

Sesshōmaru sat still, hands motionless on the wheel, while the implication detonated inside him like a silent explosion.

Midoriko.

She hadn’t been bluffing. She hadn’t stumbled across the name by accident. She had known. And the man before him had likely been the source. Or worse—one of the last living keepers of the old priestess bloodlines.

His queen hadn’t merely wandered into his court blind.

She had been born into the war.

And chosen, perhaps by fate, to return to it.

Chapter Text

Chapter 64: Records and Lies
Sesshōmaru — POV

Sesshōmaru prided himself on precision. On thoroughness. On control so absolute that even chaos bowed its head when he entered a room.

And yet here he sat, in the cocoon of his luxury vehicle, watching her walk into a shrine as if it were a second skin she hadn’t worn in years. Not the curated professional from his boardroom. Not the reserved woman in tailored suits and too-large shoes. But this. Bare-faced. Unarmored. Almost peaceful as the older man welcomed her like something sacred returned home.

The scent of incense drifted from the open gate. He could see her silhouette in the doorway now, slipping off her shoes, bowing, stepping inside like she’d done so a thousand times.

But this wasn’t the address he had in her file.

Her employment paperwork had listed a Tokyo suburb home registered under the Higurashi family. Her mother and younger brother. Her school records aligned. Her university transcripts. All traced back to that modest, mundane house—a family lineage that had appeared utterly unremarkable.

And now?

Now he was staring at a place that didn’t exist in any of the data. He tapped a key on the dash, a direct line to his private investigations bureau ringing through with a near-instant answer.

“West Division, Subset 1,” came the crisp reply.

“I need a scan run on this property. Now,” Sesshōmaru said coldly, reading out the shrine’s address. “Ownership history, residents, known aliases. Prior surveillance flags. I want it within five minutes.”

He kept watching the shrine.

The man she called ‘Grandpa’ had not appeared in any of the records previously pulled. Which meant this entire location had been hidden. Or worse—protected.

The line crackled as the response returned. “Sir, the property is registered under a Takanagi bloodline. No registered link to the Higurashi family. The current titleholder is one Tako Takanagi. Sixty-nine. Former priest. Retired from the Bureau of Spiritual Integration fifteen years ago.”

“Integration?” Sesshōmaru echoed.

“Unofficial,” the man clarified. “Used to be part of the faction that liaised between government and remaining priestess sects. Before glamours became widespread.”

Sesshōmaru narrowed his eyes. “Anyone else listed under that property?”

A pause.

Then—

“Yes. One Midoriko Takanagi. Female. Born April 30th, 1996. Registered birth location matches Tokyo Metropolitan Hospital.”

Sesshōmaru’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, jaw clenching slowly.

That date…

That location…

That was Kagome’s birthday. It was her hospital.

“What are you telling me?” he asked coldly.

“Sir…the name is Midoriko Takanagi. Not Kagome Higurashi. But the date of birth, the place of birth… they’re identical. We’re running biometric overlays now to confirm if it’s the same person, but this looks like an alternate identity.”

His silence was long. Heavy.

A beat passed. Then two.

Finally, the investigator’s voice crackled in again, lower now. “Sir. Visual overlays confirm 97.6% match. The woman currently in your employ—Kagome Higurashi—and the record of Midoriko Takanagi… they are the same. Slight alteration in public documentation and schooling records post-2009. It seems…she had two aliases maintained separately. Possibly to protect the bloodline.”

Two names.

Two lives.

Two entire identities. One, an ordinary woman with a brilliant mind and stable corporate background. The other, descended from a hidden shrine bearing the name of the most powerful priestess to ever walk the mortal plane.

And somehow, he had missed it.

He, Sesshōmaru. Lord of the West. Strategist. Visionary. He who had crushed empires with a word, and cracked nations with a whisper—had overlooked the fact that the woman he had begun to claim as queen had been hiding in plain sight.

Or someone had hidden her.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch. Just stared at the shrine door where her shadow was still visible, moving deeper into the back.

How had she slipped past him? Not just once. Twice. And if her name had been changed, split—why? What war had her family been hiding her from?

More importantly, who else knew? Because if he had just uncovered this? Then it was only a matter of time before Naraku did too.

Sesshōmaru did not pace. Not in the traditional sense. His kind didn’t fidget, didn’t show emotion through idle movement. But the drumming of his fingers on the steering wheel—slow, methodical, controlled—was the closest thing to tension he’d allow the world to see.

“Pull Midoriko’s original bloodline records,” he ordered into the still-open line.

Another pause on the other end.

“…Sir, that might be difficult.”

His eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“Midoriko’s official bloodline records end with her,” the man answered cautiously. “There is no documented offspring. Public record—and demonkind archives—claim she died in combat, sealing her soul in conflict with the Shikon no Oni.”

“That’s the legend,” Sesshōmaru murmured, voice like a blade unsheathing. “I’ve seen her alive. Wounded, yes. Carrying a child. She lived long enough to name it. That child must have lived.”

The investigator hesitated. “Then it was undocumented. Either the child was hidden…or the family line was deliberately erased.”

Sesshōmaru’s voice chilled. “Who would have erased it?”

A long beat.

“The Shikon war—if the child survived, it would’ve been hunted. Priestess clans were nearly wiped out by internal blood feuds over that artifact’s fate. It would’ve made sense to disappear the child to protect the lineage.”

“And the Takanagi line?” Sesshōmaru pressed. “When did it appear?”

“Two documented generations after Midoriko. First mention was a shrine wife named Ameka Takanagi in the Edo period. No proof of her connection to Midoriko. But she claimed descent. So did her daughters. And the daughters after them. All females. No males carried the name forward.”

Sesshōmaru sat back, fangs pressing lightly to the inside of his cheek as he thought. “And the reiki? Any record of true power in the last few centuries?”

Another pause. This one longer.

“No verified reports. At least…not strong reiki. Nothing over threshold. Minor spiritual resistance and occasional charms. Last registered priestess from the Takanagi shrine died over three hundred years ago. No one has wielded substantial spiritual energy since then. At least not enough to draw demonic attention.”

“Then the bloodline is considered dormant,” Sesshōmaru concluded.

“Correct. And unproven,” the man added. “There’s no record tying them legitimately to Midoriko.”

Which meant her claim—if it was even hers to claim—had no merit. No official weight. And yet…

Sesshōmaru looked toward the shrine again.

Kagome had walked into it with ease. Her scent—though masked by city air and fear—had held a faint tinge of something… ancient. Not quite reiki. Not quite divine. But something close enough that it might awaken under pressure.

Dormant, perhaps. But extinct? That remained to be seen.

And gods, how had he missed this?

She wasn’t just interesting anymore. She was dangerous. Not because she knew her power—but because she didn’t. And he had let her walk around his kingdom unaware. A ticking force neither trained nor claimed.

A stray thought rose—something his father had once told him during the war for the northern territories:

“The most dangerous being in the room isn’t the strongest. It’s the one that doesn’t know how dangerous it is.”

He ended the call with a quiet snap and exhaled slowly.

Sesshōmaru leaned back against the headrest of the car, eyes half-lidded and calculating.

Perhaps she hadn’t known. Not truly. Not enough to act.

Or…perhaps she had been told, the way children are told myths before bed, brushed with ritual and softness instead of truth. You are a priestess’ daughter. Midoriko’s kin. Reiki may one day awaken in you. But only if the world needs it.

He could almost picture it: an old man in priest’s robes spooning stories into her childhood like warm tea—half fable, half forgotten history. A lineage passed like old parchment between generations, thinning each time until it felt like mere paper, not power.

Maybe she had stopped believing in the power entirely. In demons. In priestesses. In a world behind the curtain. Maybe she had accepted her place in the human world so thoroughly that she had buried any idea that there might be something more inside her.

Until now.

Until thunder pulsed against her leg during a business meeting. Until glamoured creatures stared too long. Until the man who ran her company locked a door and handed her a folder explaining why her coworker was literally named “The Spider.”

Her urgency to reach the shrine suddenly made sense. She wasn’t running from something. She was chasing proof.

Clever girl.

He adjusted the rearview mirror slightly, angling it toward the small, aged steps leading up the shrine’s hillside. A half-broken lantern flickered under the breeze. The warding spells were long faded—if they had ever held real power—but the structure held a distinct sacredness that prickled faintly beneath his skin. An echo. Not active. But watching.

She had grown up here. Or, at the very least, been brought here enough to call it home. That wasn’t in any of her records.

Which meant she had more than one life.

And until today, he had only known the version she showed to the public: sharp, composed, brilliant in boardrooms and predictable in performance. But now he realized there was another—one who kept secrets behind shrine doors, listened to old men call her “Midoriko,” and clung to stories her blood had yet to prove.

She was verifying. Testing. Learning.

Which made her far more dangerous—and far more his—than she even realized.

Because a woman who sought answers at her feet would one day demand them standing. And when she did? There would be no unseeing. No pretending the veil hadn’t lifted.

And gods, when she awakened—if she awakened—there would be no undoing it.

That was the kind of queen who could stand beside him.

The kind who asked quiet questions. Who didn’t flinch when presented with impossible truths. Who walked into shrines after surviving wolves and spiders and storms.

He hadn’t chosen poorly. No…he had chosen well. Better than he could have anticipated. And now, he just had to make sure she realized that too. Before anyone else did. Before Naraku could use her ignorance against her. Before Kōga could sniff out her worth. Before even she questioned it herself.

Sesshōmaru tapped a single finger against the steering wheel.

She was learning.

He would give her space to do so.

But soon…he would give her no choice but to learn with him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 65: The Way a Priestess Learns
Kagome — POV

The wooden floors of the shrine creaked beneath her feet as Kagome followed the familiar scent of incense and old tatami into the small study behind the main altar. The sun was beginning to dip below the treeline, casting golden streaks across the old sliding doors, bathing the room in warm light that didn’t match the weight she carried.

Her grandfather was seated at the small wooden table, pouring tea with steady hands that trembled only slightly from age, not uncertainty. He looked the same as he always had: thin silver hair tied back with a cloth, priest’s robes that seemed a size too big, and eyes that had seen far more than he let on.

“Sit, little Midoriko,” he said gently, a nickname from childhood that used to embarrass her. Now, it made her stomach tighten.

She did as told.

There was no ceremony. No pretense. The tea was placed in front of her, and he poured his own without speaking.

And then, softly, she asked, “What else do you know about Midoriko?”

He paused—just long enough for her to notice—and then set the teapot down with deliberate care. “More than I’m supposed to. Less than I want to,” he admitted.

Kagome stared into her cup. “How do priestesses… know? If they have power, I mean.”

“Normally?” he said, rubbing his chin with two fingers, “A girl would know by her teens. Early twenties at the latest. A strange pull. An aura others don’t see but feel. Dreams. Reactions to spiritual sites or death. That sort of thing.”

Kagome frowned. That had never happened to her.

“But that was,” he added, “during the time of demons. When the world was unhidden. When evil and danger called holy power forth like a drawn blade. These days, demons… if they exist… they hide.”

She glanced up sharply at that. “If?”

He smiled faintly. “We believe. But belief and proof are different things. And for holy blood to activate, the threat has to be seen. Felt. Challenged. A bloodline like Midoriko’s doesn’t stir in safety. It sleeps in calm waters. It waits for the tide of battle to rise again.”

Her fingers clenched slightly around the teacup. “So if someone…wanted to know if they had power?”

His expression changed—just slightly. A quiet, knowing look passed over his features. He wasn’t surprised by the question.

“They’d need to find a demon,” he said simply.

Her mouth went dry.

“And then?” she asked quietly.

He looked her in the eyes, calm as if he were discussing the weather.

“They’d need to let the demon try to hurt them.”

Silence bloomed between them like thunder under water.

“That’s how you’d know,” he said. “If your blood flared. If it shielded. If reiki surfaced. Midoriko’s blood does not run from danger. It fights it. The more desperate the situation, the clearer the answer.”

Kagome set the teacup down carefully, her hands colder than she expected. “And if it didn’t react?”

“Then the blood is too far gone,” he said with a shrug. “Too thin. Or never there at all.”

She nodded slowly. “And you think I might have it.”

“I think you might be the only one left who does,” he said gently. “But I also think… you’ve been safe your whole life. So how could it know to wake up?”

Her chest tightened. Her mind reeled.

Let a demon try to hurt you.

And she couldn’t help but think of thunder pulsing against her thigh, or fire in Sesshōmaru’s gaze, or the way Naraku had smiled like he already owned her.

Safe? No. Not anymore.

Her world had cracked.

She thanked her grandfather with a quiet bow, his weathered hand resting briefly on her head in that old affectionate way, the one she remembered from childhood blessings and scoldings alike. His presence had always been steady. A lantern in the fog. But now? Even the lantern flickered.

“I’ll come back,” she murmured, slipping her shoes on at the wooden threshold. “Maybe daily. Maybe weekly. I just…I think I need this place right now.”

He gave a small nod, but his words followed her out the door like a shadow.

“When the soul calls for something, don’t ignore it. Even if it scares you.”

She didn’t answer that. Just closed the door gently behind her and walked slowly down the steps to where her car waited in the fading dusk.

The engine turned over smoothly, humming like the world hadn’t just changed again. Like her grandfather hadn’t just told her that the only way to discover her lineage, her blood, her truth—was to place herself in danger.

Let a demon try to hurt you.

And gods, had she not already done that? Had she not stared down Sesshōmaru’s fury, felt the storm in his silence, the heat in his frustration? Or been toyed with by Naraku’s presence, even cloaked as it was in smooth civility and veiled threats?

She wasn’t safe anymore. And the world wasn’t what it had seemed.

The drive was quiet. Unsettlingly so. As if the streets themselves sensed the shift inside her.

She didn’t turn on music. Didn’t roll the windows down. Just held the steering wheel tightly and tried to control the way her mind raced. Flickering between images of Sesshōmaru in his office—calculating, cold, possessive—and the warmth of her grandfather’s voice calling her little Midoriko.

That name used to be a joke. A sweet nickname for a granddaughter he loved. But now?

Now it made her pulse pick up.

She pulled into a quiet parking space near her apartment. But she didn’t get out. Just sat there for a long while, staring out at the city beyond the windshield. Her fingers tapped against the steering wheel as her thoughts wandered.

Kohaku.

Would he know something?

He had to. If what Sesshōmaru said was true—that he came from a bloodline of demon exterminators and carried demon blood in his own body—then he must know more about this world than he let on. He’d been raised in it. Lived in it. Worked in it for eleven years.

And more importantly…he had seen her.

All of her.

She pressed her forehead lightly against the steering wheel.

Not that she wanted to see him. Not like that. But he had information. He had lived beside demons while she was only just waking up to their existence.

Did he know? About Midoriko? About priestesses? About her? Did he suspect the blood in her veins even before she began asking these questions herself?

Her hands clenched slightly.

She would have to see him. Just once. Not for closure. Not for apology. For answers. Maybe he’d give them freely. Or maybe she’d have to pry them from the wreckage of whatever it was they’d become.

But if she wanted to stand a chance in this world…

She needed to stop running from it. And start learning it. Every rule. Every danger. Every hidden thread. Before it swallowed her whole.

Chapter Text

Chapter 66: Firelines and Silence
Kagome — POV

She knew this was a bad idea.

Even as she turned the wheel, even as the city blurred past her windows and the GPS softly whispered the familiar address, everything inside her screamed abort mission. Her head. Her gut. Her stupid, fragile heart.

But logic had stopped working the moment Sesshōmaru had closed that folder of secrets and told her—with no ounce of softness—that the man who had held her was never going to be allowed near her again.

So she drove.

Not because she wanted to rekindle something. Not even because she missed Kohaku. No—what drove her now was confusion, guilt, and the goddamn need for answers.

Was it all a lie? Had he known the truth of this world? Had he used her?

She didn’t feel used. That was the problem.

And gods, the worst that could happen? Sesshōmaru would find out. Fire her. Be disappointed. But hadn’t he already been both?

The car slowed, then stopped. Her hands trembled slightly as she eased into a spot two houses down. Far enough to not be obvious, close enough to still watch the lights inside his home flicker in and out.

She didn’t get out.

Just sat in the driver’s seat, keys still in the ignition, watching the windows of Kohaku’s unit like they might blink back at her. Her fingers tapped against the steering wheel in a nervous rhythm, and she bit the inside of her cheek until it stung.

What the hell was she even doing here?

What was the plan, Kagome? Say sorry for costing him his career? Thanks for letting me ride you until I forgot my name? Do you know what I am? Do you know what you are?

She let her forehead fall against the steering wheel.

Gods, she didn’t want to ruin his life any further. Hadn’t she done enough damage? But he had been kind. Gentle. He had never once made her feel small or insane—even when she broke. Even when she couldn’t breathe from the weight of everything.

And now? Now she wasn’t sure who he really was.

Was Kohaku even human?

Her hands curled into fists on her lap. She didn’t know what the truth would cost her. But if she didn’t ask—if she didn’t face it—then she might never stop looking over her shoulder. She might never stop wondering what else was being kept from her.

She glanced at his house again. Still quiet. Still lit. Still holding too many of her questions. So she sat there, heart pounding in time with the blinking streetlight overhead, debating the worst of all fears:

What if knocking on that door doesn’t give her answers? What if it only gives her another goodbye?

But the car didn’t move.

Not yet.

She didn’t mean to fall asleep.

Truly, she hadn’t.

But after thirty minutes of spiraling questions and thirty more of silent war, exhaustion wrapped around her like fog. Her head leaned back, the cabin of the car warmed just enough from the last breath of a summer evening, and her eyes—god, her eyes—just needed to close.

She hadn’t expected to wake up like this.

The first thing she felt was a tap. Soft. Not loud enough to startle, but enough to tug her from the heavy lull of sleep.

Tap.

Tap tap.

She blinked groggily, the world blurry and smeared with streetlight haze, the clock on her dash reading 11:58 p.m. And then—another tap. And this time, when she turned her head, her chest clenched.

Kohaku.

Standing outside the driver’s side window in nothing but low-slung pajama pants and a gray t-shirt. His hair was slightly mussed, and his expression? A mix of concern, amusement, and something painfully gentle.

He didn’t look angry. He didn’t look ruined. He looked like a man who had already guessed what her silence meant—and had waited anyway.

Her face flushed with heat and shame and every emotion she had tried to bury beneath a nap she hadn’t planned to take. She fumbled for the door handle, heart skipping, but he reached out first—calm, slow—gripping it and pulling it open.

And then?

His hand.

Extended, steady.

“Come inside,” he said softly, like it was the most normal request in the world.

She stared at it. At him. At the way the streetlight hit his cheekbones, casting shadows across the subtle bruises under his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“Kohaku—” she started, voice rough with sleep and guilt, “I shouldn’t…I don’t want to make things worse.”

But he only smiled. Not bitter. Not broken.

Amused.

As if she hadn’t helped shatter the life he built for eleven years.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, tilting his head like he was trying not to laugh, “I gave you two hours to decide. Saw your car before ten. You passed out on me.” He took a small step closer, still holding out his hand. “You’re out of time to hesitate. Decision’s made.”

She blinked at him. “You knew I was here?”

“Of course I knew,” he chuckled. “You’ve got Tokyo plates, and no one parks here unless they’re avoiding me or confessing something.”

She hesitated still, unsure if stepping into that house meant stepping back into old mistakes. But when he leaned forward just slightly, palm still out, gaze still gentle, she felt her guard start to crumble.

“No games?” she asked. “No lectures? No guilt?”

His smile turned soft. “Just tea. Or silence. Or conversation. You decide.”

And somehow, despite everything—her shame, his ruined career, Sesshōmaru’s threats—her hand slipped into his.

Warm.

Steady.

And when he tugged her out of the car and onto her feet, her body moved before her mind could stop it. Because the truth was?

She didn’t come for closure. She came for answers. Maybe comfort. Maybe a friend. And right now? Kohaku was offering all three. She let him lead her up the walkway, through the door, and into whatever would come next.

Chapter Text

Chapter 67: The Watchman at His Gate
Kohaku — POV

He had wondered—of course he had—how her first day without him would go.

The thought haunted him the moment Sesshōmaru dismissed him.

Not if she would be safe. She was smart. She could navigate herself around people. But how she’d carry the weight of that office without someone in her corner. How long until her spine started to curve under that particular brand of pressure?

He wondered if she would forget him the second the next meeting began. If she’d shove him into the neat little box of bad decision. A name to be filed away under temporary comfort. Or worse—regret.

And yet…here she was. Sleeping in her car two houses down, with her forehead tilted toward the steering wheel like she’d waged war inside her head and lost.

Gods.

The last forty-eight hours had been something else.

He had chosen a woman over everything.

And yeah—maybe it was a dumb thing to do. But at the time? It hadn’t felt like a choice. It had felt right. For someone who rarely indulged in impulse, she had made him impulsive. She had crawled into his lap, looked at him like he was a lifeline, and he had let himself be the thing she reached for.

And it had cost him.

Eleven years of loyalty. Gone.

Sesshōmaru hadn’t even yelled. Hadn’t needed to. He’d simply raised a brow and said the words like they didn’t hurt:

“You’re relieved.”

But fine. He was a man. He could take the hit. And in less than a day? He had a new contract. Temporary. A trial run. Just a week, Naraku had said.

And yeah, the man gave off all kinds of warning signs—mystery, power, maybe a little too much ambition for comfort. But so did Sesshōmaru. At least this way? He could keep an eye on his sister and maybe, just maybe, still protect Kagome. From a distance. From the shadows.

And then the kicker.

An offer from Kōga.

He had received the alert while reading the contract over a beer. The wolf’s messenger had delivered it by hand. Sealed in lacquered black parchment with an emblem that meant honor in the old tongue.

Which meant only one thing—Kōga had been in a meeting with Sesshōmaru. Likely witnessed the fallout.

He debated.

Hard.

Naraku was rich, yes. Dangerous, definitely. Powerful, absolutely.

But Kōga? Kōga was known for loyalty. For giving his men homes, not cages. Out of the three lords in the game? Kōga was the one whose pack spoke of him like kin. And for a man like Kohaku? Who had spent more than a decade in service to a cold, controlling daiyōkai—honor sounded like a vacation.

He’d made up his mind. 

If Naraku crossed a line? He’d jump contracts and serve the wolf.

Simple.

And then—tonight. He had just settled in with a mug of hot tea when his security system pinged. A camera flashed an alert for an unregistered car two houses down.

He tapped the screen.

And smiled.

There she was. Sitting alone in her car with her arms crossed, chin tucked to her chest, eyes staring at his porch like it might bite. He watched her debate. Knew the expression—he’d seen it before meetings, before she’d open her mouth to fight Sesshōmaru on policy. It was her war face.

She was fighting herself. And when she finally slumped, cheeks pink with what looked like defeat. She fell asleep. It was almost endearing.

He waited. An hour. Just to see if she’d wake up and go. But she didn’t. So, barefoot and quietly amused, he stepped out into the night, knocked on her window, and tried not to chuckle when she jerked awake like a student caught napping in class.

She looked embarrassed. Stunned. Guilty. He didn’t let her stew. He opened her door, extended a hand, and told her the truth: he’d already given her two hours. Her time was up. She was coming in.

And when she slipped her hand into his?

Something clicked.

He led her inside—offering no words, no judgment, just silence and warmth and the low hum of the security locks clicking behind them. 

He didn’t think about how she looked curling into his sheets just nights before. Didn’t think about her thighs tightening around him or the way she had clung to his shirt when it was over. Didn’t let himself wonder why someone who barely knew him made him feel like he was responsible for more than just her safety.

But as she stood in his hallway, still half-asleep and clearly unsure if she should be here, he handed her a blanket, offered her tea again, and simply said—

“You’re safe.”

And he meant it. Even if he didn’t know what this was. Even if it was temporary. Even if, gods forbid, she was already slipping through his fingers.

She was nervous.

He could feel it from the second her shoulder brushed his as he walked her inside. Sleepy and disoriented, still blinking through the fog of exhaustion. Her steps were tentative, hesitant. As if she was walking into a memory rather than a home.

So, he didn’t push.

Didn’t lead her to the bedroom where she had left him ruined and speechless less than twenty-four hours ago. He simply gestured toward the couch, took the extra blanket draped over the back, and wrapped it around her without a word. Tucked it gently under her chin like she was something fragile he wasn’t sure he was allowed to want again.

Then?

He sat on the opposite side of the couch.

Gave her space.

Pretended his eyes weren’t already cataloging every soft detail of her face, every blink and breath. Pretended they hadn’t once been tangled in sheets, with her thighs wrapped around his hips and her breath against his throat.

He folded one arm behind his head and rested the other across his lap. Casual. Relaxed. Or at least the illusion of it.

And for a long moment, there was nothing but silence. The kind that stretched between two people too aware of what had happened—and too uncertain of what would happen next.

Then she shifted under the blanket, drew her knees close, and murmured—soft as smoke—“…I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t dramatic. No tears, no trembling lip. Just a quiet apology from a woman who looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, who carried the weariness of consequence in her bones.

And gods help him.

He still wanted her.

He turned toward her slightly, brow raised, offering the smallest of chuckles in place of absolution. “You askin’ if I’m okay?”

She nodded, the motion slow. Sleepy. Hesitant.

He let the grin slip in then, crooked and genuine. “I’m fine, beautiful. No permanent damage.”

And then he told her. About the temp contract with Naraku. The offer from Kōga. His plans to take the week, test the waters, and likely sign with the wolf.

She blinked at that, visibly processing it. But didn’t say much. Just nodded. Still wrapped tight in the blanket. Still quiet. Too quiet.

He tilted his head. Studied her. “And you?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she looked up—finally—and gods. It was like looking into the eyes of someone who had walked through a battlefield barefoot and bloodied, still unsure if she had survived it.

Her silence said more than words could. And he sighed. Ran a hand down his face. Exhaled slow.

Then? He opened his arms. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t explain. Just gave her the option. And she took it. 

Blanket and all, she crawled toward him without looking him in the eyes. As if she were ashamed. Or afraid of what this meant. As if her limbs still remembered the shape of him, and that frightened her more than anything else in the world.

She curled into his lap like she had done it a thousand times before. And gods, the feeling of her weight on him again—familiar and grounding—nearly made him groan.

Then? She whispered it.

“This is a mistake.”

And he laughed softly. Because wasn’t that the irony of it?

“You already said that,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Right before you fell asleep against my chest and made it the best sleep I’ve had in months.”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t argue. Just let her cheek rest on his collarbone. Let his arms wrap around her. Let herself forget for a moment what she was supposed to regret.

And he sat there. Holding her like a fool. Falling further without meaning to. Because if this was a mistake? Then gods help him. He was already too far gone to stop making it.

Chapter Text

Chapter 68: More Than Blood
Kohaku — POV

He had expected silence.

Maybe even sleep again. But instead, against the warmth of his chest, her voice—soft and quiet—pierced through the darkness.

“Are demon exterminators even human?”

And gods.

His entire body went still. Cold. The question wasn’t innocent. It wasn’t small talk. It was the kind of question that split time in half—before and after.

Because it meant only one thing. 

Sesshōmaru had told her. Everything. Demons. Bloodlines. Exterminators. Lords. Maybe even the wars that once scarred the very fabric of the world. All of it. Laid out bare in a folder or a conversation. He didn’t know which—but he knew the daiyōkai didn’t do casual confessions. Which meant she’d been deemed worth knowing.

And fuck, it hadn’t even been a full week.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, trying to keep the frustration from tightening in his throat. What had Sesshōmaru told her? That Kohaku was a half-monster? That he was something stitched together by violence and old rituals? That he wasn’t safe?

He shifted slightly, adjusting her in his lap. “We are,” he said finally, his voice low. “Just…sometimes our blood takes in demon blood. Not enough to change us. Just enough to help us stand toe-to-toe with them.”

He didn’t tell her how it worked.

Didn’t explain the old rites. The bloodletting. The sacrifices. How his grandfather had whispered ancient incantations while holding down a boy too young to understand what it meant to have a demon’s venom etched into his bloodstream.

No.

She didn’t need that kind of truth tonight. But to his surprise—his deep, bone-deep surprise—she didn’t recoil. Didn’t flinch.

She nodded. Slow. Thoughtful. And then? She curled into him. Like he hadn’t just admitted to being something other. Like she hadn’t seen how dangerous he could be. Her head rested against his shoulder, her hands folded near her chest.

And then came another whisper.

“Have you known any priestesses?”

He blinked. Furrowed his brow. That…wasn’t a random question. He wasn’t the brightest strategist in the room—never had been. But he wasn’t stupid either. If she was asking about him. Then about priestesses. And then curling further into his body like she needed protection from something invisible?

There was a connection.

Probably her.

He kept his voice even. Careful. “Not real ones,” he answered honestly. “They became obsolete a few hundred years ago. There hasn’t been a need for them since demons started using glamours. Most of the old blood just… faded.”

And again—she nodded. Not shocked. Not even curious. Just…resigned.  But then, she whispered, “But if they still existed… how would one, hypothetically—”

He nearly sat up.

The hairs on his arms stood on end.

“Beautiful,” he said slowly, brushing a hand over her hair, “are you trying to find out if have priestess blood?”

She said nothing. Didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. Just stayed pressed into him, breathing slow, letting the question linger like a fog between them.

He exhaled.

Ran a hand through her dark strands again, slower this time. Thoughtful.

“It’s not a good way to find out,” he said softly. “You usually don’t know until your life’s threatened. It’s like…it activates when you need it. When the danger is real enough. That’s the old way, anyway.”

And gods. 

She sighed. Like she knew that already. Like she had heard the same thing elsewhere, but wanted a second opinion to make it feel real. That was the confirmation, wasn’t it? Somewhere in her bones, Kagome already knew.

He let silence settle again. Let her rest there in his lap, wrapped in his blanket, tucked against his chest. And then, softly—firmly—he asked:

“Do you need to find out?”

Because it wasn’t just curiosity anymore. Not idle wondering. There was purpose in her questions. In the way she drove here. In how she looked at him like someone searching for something only he might understand.

He felt her exhale—soft, like the breath had been held in her lungs for hours. And then she whispered, so faint he almost thought he imagined it.

“My grandfather used to always call me Midoriko.”

Kohaku stilled.

That name—

Gods.

Even his kind knew it.

Even Naraku would probably pause at that name.

Midoriko. The priestess who, centuries ago, had nearly brought the demon world to its knees. Who’d fought armies of them with nothing but holy power and stubborn, bleeding faith. Who’d walked through fire and war and still stood—alone—at the edge of victory before vanishing into the threads of myth.

“Your grandfather,” he murmured, tone low, cautious, “had good taste in stories.”

But she shook her head against him.

“No,” she whispered again. “It wasn’t just stories. I thought it was. I thought it was just… something he called me. Something sweet. Like folklore passed down to children. But Sesshoumaru—he knew her.”

That made him pause.

Of course Sesshoumaru knew her. It made sense—the daiyōkai was one of the oldest beings walking the earth. But something in the way Kagome said it made it real. She had sat across from the demon lord of the West and heard him speak of Midoriko not as legend, but as memory.

“He’s old,” Kohaku said after a beat. “Him. Kōga. Naraku. They’re all…older than the paper we print our lives on. Five hundred. Six hundred. Maybe more. If he said he knew her…he probably did.”

She was silent again.

But this time, it wasn’t the silence of fear. It was something else. Something heavy and coiled in thought. Kohaku didn’t press. Instead, he sat with her, holding her weight, her warmth, her confusion.

And then, like a slow tide pulling at his thoughts—it dawned on him.

This wasn’t about curiosity. It wasn’t even about identity. Kagome—gods—she didn’t want to be helpless. She didn’t want to be the woman pulled into a world of demons and bloodlines and ancient wars only to stand on the sidelines, powerless and watching. She didn’t want to be used—not by Sesshoumaru, not by Naraku, not by her blood.

She wanted control. Control over her fate. Her strength. Her past and future. And suddenly, his chest ached with something quiet and deep. Maybe admiration. Maybe more.

“I get it,” he said softly, brushing a hand through her hair again. “You want to know. You want to be ready.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t have to. The truth was in how she stayed curled against him, finally resting without flight in her eyes.

So he added, with a quiet certainty, “If you are…or you aren’t. I’ll help where I can.”

The silence stretched, thick and slow, like honey in the dark. The only sound was the low hum of the heater and the quiet tick of the clock against the wall, counting past midnight. Moonlight spilled through the windows and carved silver across the wooden floor, glinting off the strands of her hair where it lay against his chest. Kohaku watched the shadows move outside, eyes narrowed slightly, jaw tight.

She hadn’t said a word since curling into him. And he let her stay. Let her breathe. Let her feel safe in a way he suspected she hadn’t for days.

But eventually, the question slipped from his lips without his permission.

“Is that why you risked it?” he asked, voice low. “Coming here?”

Kagome didn’t answer right away. He could feel the shift in her shoulders, the pause of thought, the quiet calculation she was trying to weigh inside herself. And he didn’t rush her. He just kept stroking her hair, slow and steady, like he’d done the night before when she broke apart in his lap and let him hold the pieces.

Finally, she murmured, “I wasn’t supposed to return. Sesshoumaru told me…no more. That I shouldn’t come back here.”

Ah. There it was.

Kohaku exhaled quietly. His fingers paused, then resumed their rhythm through her hair.

One of the most powerful demon lords in the world had given her a command. And she’d ignored it. She’d come back. Not out of rebellion. But because something in her—some thread of instinct or want or need—had told her that this was where she had to be.

So he bent forward and kissed the crown of her head, lips lingering for a second longer than they should have.

“Then you need to be careful,” he said gently. “But you’re welcome anytime.”

There was a tension in her that eased at that. A small breath escaped her chest, almost like a soft whimper, and he felt her sink further into him. The way she molded to his side made his jaw clench. Because gods, she didn’t even realize how much she was doing to him just by being near.

And then, her voice again—small and curious.

“Why aren’t you afraid?”

He almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because it was naïve. Sweet. Honest.

“It’s not that I’m not afraid,” he said, tilting his head to rest his cheek against the top of hers. “It’s more like I’m protected. If Sesshoumaru kills me, it puts him in direct conflict with whoever I’ve got a contract with. Right now? That’s Naraku. It’s simple, really. I’m not his anymore. So long as I’m in another lord’s service, I’m…inconvenient to kill.”

She didn’t respond right away, but he felt her breath shift against him—felt the weight of what she was processing.

Then came the softest murmur.

“I think you should take Kōga’s contract.”

His brows lifted a fraction, and then a chuckle rumbled out of him. Warm. Amused. A little surprised.

“Look at you,” he said with a smirk she couldn’t see but would’ve heard in his tone. “Already trying to protect me. Already caring. You gonna start giving me curfews next?”

She squirmed a little but didn’t pull away.

He grinned wider.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “After this week’s up, Naraku gets to decide if he wants to offer a full-time deal or nothing at all. At that point, I’ll accept Kōga’s.”

She nodded softly against him. Whispered one word.

“Good.”

The weight of her was soft against his chest, her breathing slowing with each passing second. Kohaku watched her eyes flutter shut, lashes dark and fanned against her skin like she was a child again, safe from the monsters she now realized were real. But before sleep fully claimed her, she mumbled, voice thick and slurred with exhaustion.

“Do you think it’s too late? To quit?”

Gods.

He nearly laughed. Not out of mockery—never that—but out of disbelief. Because only she, only Kagome, could be offered everything by a demon lord—status, power, protection, a fucking kingdom—and still ask if she could just… opt out.

He adjusted her gently in his lap, letting her body settle deeper, his thumb tracing a line down the side of her arm in thought. Then, because he owed her the truth, he answered.

“Yes. I do.”

He didn’t sugarcoat it. Didn’t soften the words. She deserved better than that. Because Sesshōmaru Taisho wasn’t just any man. He was a demon lord. A strategist. A conqueror in a silk suit. And men like that? They didn’t lose. They didn’t let go. Not unless they no longer wanted the thing in question.

And Kohaku had seen how Sesshōmaru looked at her. How his patience burned just beneath the surface. How he’d stripped away parts of his kingdom—his employees, his meetings, his timeline—just to usher her into his world.

No. That wasn’t the gaze of a man who would ever let go.

Not willingly.

Not kindly.

Not quietly.

Kohaku ran his hand back through his hair and sighed. Because this? Whatever they were doing now—her curled up in his arms, seeking comfort he couldn’t pretend he didn’t want to give—was probably suicide. Emotional or otherwise.

“If you leave a man like Sesshōmaru,” he said quietly into the space between them, “be ready for him to scorch the world in retaliation.”

He meant it. Every syllable.

“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t options, beautiful.”

His voice dropped, softened, like a thread pulled loose in the dark.

“Everyone deserves the right to choose how they live. With who. On what terms. But if you plan on telling a man like him ‘no’? Be ready for the storm that follows.”

But she didn’t respond.

She was already gone—deep in sleep, breath even and steady, lips parted slightly like she was finally at peace. The irony wasn’t lost on him. She could only rest in the arms of the man she’d been told not to see. Could only breathe when defying the one who’d sworn to crown her.

And Kohaku?

He sat there in silence, staring at the glowing moonlight spilling across the room, wrestling with the war inside himself.

He had options. A few. He could let her stay. Let her wake up in a house not belonging to a demon lord. Let her breathe a little longer. And handle the fallout when it came.

Or—

He could do the right thing. The smart thing. Get her up before dawn, return her to Sesshōmaru’s grasp, and pretend none of this had happened.

He looked down at her again. The way her fingers had curled into his shirt in her sleep. The way she burrowed, trusting.

And he realized—

No matter what choice he made, it was already too late.

For both of them.

Chapter Text

Chapter 69: Sesshōmaru – The Boundary Breached

He had never met a more maddening, confounding, frustrating human in his life.

Sesshōmaru stood by the large window of his penthouse, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie undone, the night crawling across the skyline behind him. The lights of Tokyo pulsed like a living circuit beneath his feet, but none of it held his attention. Not the glowing spires of Shibuya. Not the quiet hum of the city as it bled into silence. Only one thing held him now.

Her.

She had left the shrine.

He had watched her walk out of that compound with her head down and keys in hand, an image of quiet thoughtfulness that should have reassured him. She had returned to her registered apartment, confirming the digital trace and door logs. All should have been well. He had allowed himself a rare exhale. She had not gone back to Kohaku’s.

He had hoped—hoped, gods help him—that the evening had settled something in her.

That her curiosity had been sated. That perhaps the shrine visit, the truth, the history, had overwhelmed her enough to recognize she needed him—his guidance, his protection, his strategy to survive this world.

But then…an alert. Her badge trace. Not the one in her apartment keycard. Not the one in her bag. The one embedded in the sole of her new shoes.

It blinked red on the digital map overlay he kept open on the secondary screen in his office. The same beacon that, hours earlier, had guided him to the shrine where her grandfather—a man named Tako Takanagi—had greeted her with the words my little Midoriko.

Now? That same beacon was blinking near the outskirts of a quiet neighborhood.

Kohaku’s neighborhood.

His jaw tightened, knuckles flexing until they popped.

She had driven—voluntarily—to the house of the man who had spent the better part of a week with her, had touched her, had been inside her, who had been fired for breaching that line. And now she returned to him?

What did she think this was? A misunderstanding? A loophole in logic?

He didn’t forbid her from seeing Kohaku because of petty jealousy—though gods knew it scorched through his chest like acid every time he pictured it. He had forbidden it because the optics were lethal. Because a woman who stood beside him could not be touched by another. Could not choose someone else’s arms when he had already declared her his.

And yet, here they were.

Again.

Sesshōmaru paced once, slowly, resisting the primal urge to tear through glass and concrete to drag her home. His home. His office. His bed, if she would finally submit to it. But he knew better than to act without clarity. Emotion, especially this emotion, had no place in strategy.

He reopened the logs. Saw her route. From the shrine, to her apartment. A twenty-minute stop. Then—within the hour—her car leaving again. Driving quietly across the river and into the west. Pulling up not at a store. Not a friend’s.

Kohaku’s driveway.

She parked two houses down, but it didn’t matter.

He tracked her. He always tracked her.

His claws flexed slowly, rhythmically, against his palm as he fought the internal war. Let her stay. Let her pretend that she could play both sides of this line. That she could breathe in his world while crawling back to another’s warmth. Or—

Remind her. Who she belonged to. Who claimed her. And gods, wasn’t that the most maddening part? That he hadn’t claimed her yet? Not in body. Not in ceremony. Not in scent.

Because he had tried—so hard—to give her time. To let her come to him on her own terms.

But now? Now he was watching her choose again. Watching her make the wrong choice. And for what? Comfort? Rebellion? Pity? He grit his teeth and stared at the red pulse on the map. One more hour. He would give her that.

And if she was not home before sunrise?

He would retrieve her. And this time? There would be no more allowances. No more mercy. No more middle ground. She would learn that once a demon lord declared his claim—there were no other options.

The pulsing red dot on the screen in front of him was like a heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Mocking.

Sesshōmaru sat in the darkness of his home office, the only light bleeding in from the city beyond his window and the soft glow of his screen. He had not moved in over twenty minutes. Had simply watched her signal stay motionless in that quiet residential neighborhood—two doors down from Kohaku’s registered address.

A thousand thoughts warred in his mind. Pride. Frustration. Possessiveness. Disappointment.

And underneath it all—restraint.

He had spent centuries perfecting the art of control. Had learned when to strike, when to speak, and more importantly, when to wait. But never had waiting felt so loud. So weighted. So utterly maddening.

The chime of his phone vibrated against the desk, a sharp, unexpected break in the silence.

He didn’t recognize the number at first. But when he opened the message, he stilled.

“She came here to ask about your world.
She’s tired. And afraid.
If you pick her up, don’t tell her I texted you.”

Kohaku.

Sesshōmaru stared at the screen, not blinking. His mind parsed the message with clinical precision. The implications were immediate.

Kohaku had told him.

Voluntarily.

Unprompted.

He had no way of knowing whether Sesshōmaru was already watching. No way of knowing whether his former lord had tracked Kagome’s badge or if she had slipped away unnoticed.

And still—he told him. Not to win favor. Not to gloat. But because she mattered to him. And gods, if that didn’t land like a stone in Sesshōmaru’s chest.

For all the tension between them, for all the betrayal Sesshōmaru had labeled him with, Kohaku had done the honorable thing. He had not hidden her. Had not lied. Had not tried to steal something that no longer belonged to him—if it ever had.

She had been there for just over an hour. Likely restless. Likely asking the sort of questions Sesshōmaru knew she’d been too proud to voice in his office. And now? Now she was likely curled up on that man’s couch—exhausted, overwhelmed, and, if Kohaku was to be believed…afraid.

Sesshōmaru felt the slow pull of a breath fill his chest.

Then typed back.

“Is she alright?”

The response came quickly.

“She’s fine. Just stressed. She’s trying to understand. To choose.”

There was something about that word—choose—that settled heavy in his bones. Because that’s what this was. Not defiance. Not disobedience.

But choice.

Kagome was trying to decide which world to stand in. Which truth to believe. Which rules to obey. Hers? His? The ones whispered to her by memory and family?

Or the ones she now saw with her own eyes.

He closed the screen. Then opened a new message.

“I’m coming to retrieve her.
Don’t wake her.
I’ll handle the rest.”

No reply came.

He didn’t expect one.

Sesshōmaru stood slowly, buttoned the collar of his shirt, adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves. Everything was precise. Silent. Measured.

He would not barge in. He would not scold her. He would not make her feel trapped in the very choice she was still learning how to make.

But she would not spend the night there. Not because he feared Kohaku. But because he refused to let her forget whose hand had first offered her entry into this world.

She could wander. She could question. She could challenge him every step of the way. But she would do it under his protection.

And now? He would go claim her. Quietly. Before the sun rose. Before another part of the world tried to stake their claim again.

Because Kohaku’s text had done more than alert him—it had offered proof. Proof that Kagome still looked for him. That she hadn’t run from him. She had run to understanding. And he could work with that.

He grabbed his coat, keys, and phone—one last glance at the blinking red dot that had now come to mean more to him than any corporate ledger or power play.

And then Sesshōmaru stepped into the night.

Chapter Text

Chapter 70: Sesshōmaru – The Door Between Worlds

The drive was silent. Not because he lacked thoughts—but because they spun in measured precision, too sharp to speak aloud. He followed her badge, tracked her signal. Through narrow streets. Past slumbering streetlights. Until he reached the quiet neighborhood tucked away in a Tokyo curve where the shadows settled like old promises.

Kohaku’s house was modest—unassuming. Not the kind of place Sesshōmaru would expect a human-turned-demon-exterminator to live, let alone the woman who had become the center of his attention. And yet, her scent was here. Faint, mingled with his. His jaw clenched.

He approached the door.

It opened before he could knock.

Kohaku.

The boy-turned-man-turned-liability stood square in the threshold, backlit by the soft golden light of his living room. Beyond his shoulder, just past the frame of his body, Sesshōmaru caught sight of her.

Kagome.

Blanket draped over her. One arm curled beneath her head. Her breathing soft and steady.

Sleeping.

Safe.

His gaze snapped back to Kohaku.

The younger male stepped outside and, in one deliberate motion, closed the door behind him. The click of the lock was final. Deliberate.

Sesshōmaru said nothing.

But Kohaku did.

“Before you say anything,” he started, voice low and even, “I’m going to make this clear. She came here asking about your world. Not you. Not the business. The world. And I told her what I could.”

His eyes—dark, resolute—met Sesshōmaru’s without flinching.

“If she comes here again? I won’t text you next time.”

Sesshōmaru’s eyes narrowed, golden and sharp.

“You would be a fool.”

Kohaku shrugged, as if the threat didn’t matter. “Maybe. But it is what it is.”

Then, bolder—braver than Sesshōmaru thought he had any right to be—

“You cut our alliance first. Fired me. Discarded me.”

Sesshōmaru’s fingers twitched. But Kohaku continued.

“And still I did this. Still, I reached out. Because whatever else I am, I don’t want her caught in the crossfire of two demon lords playing a pissing contest over who gets to claim her soul.”

Sesshōmaru wanted to snarl. To say she was never yours to protect. That you were the one who crossed the line first.

But he didn’t.

Because the scent coming from Kohaku wasn’t arrogance. Or even defiance.

It was truth.

Kohaku wasn’t challenging him. He was drawing a line.

“And perhaps now,” Kohaku added, voice cooling with something more pointed, “is a good time to tell you… that what you’re doing?”

A pause. Long. Measured.

“Isn’t working.”

Sesshōmaru’s silence was thunderous.

“She’s not a piece to be moved. Not a contract. Not a subordinate. You can’t just slap the title of ‘queen’ on her and expect her to play the part. She’s scared. She’s confused. And no one—no one—has taken the time to ask her what she wants.”

Sesshōmaru’s mouth was a blade. His voice, when it came, was too calm.

“And you presume to know what she wants?”

Kohaku’s smile was tired. Sad.

“No. I don’t. But I’m not the one dragging her into a world that could eat her alive without telling her the rules.”

A long pause. The wind shifted. Inside, beyond that door, she shifted in her sleep. The sound of her breathing filtered through the stillness.

Sesshōmaru looked at Kohaku again. And for once—he didn’t know whether to strike him down or thank him.

Because Kohaku wasn’t wrong. The path he’d laid for Kagome? Had been marked by assumption. Expectation. Ownership.

But she hadn’t chosen him. Not yet. And even if she eventually would—he had to make space for her to want to.

After another long pause, Sesshōmaru exhaled once through his nose. No threats. No snarls. Just a quiet nod. And a question.

“Is she ready to come home?”

Kohaku glanced over his shoulder. Then turned back.

“She’s more tired than ready. But yes.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t thank him.  He simply waited. And when Kohaku stepped back inside—returning to gently wake the sleeping woman on his couch—Sesshōmaru stood alone on the doorstep.

The night was cold.

But he had never felt more warmed by restraint.

Kohaku returned a few minutes later, the soft scuff of his slippers padding down the porch steps as he closed the door gently behind him. He crossed his arms against the cool midnight air and didn’t look smug—but he didn’t look apologetic, either.

“She’s grabbing some water,” he said evenly. “Tired. A little dazed. And not…pleased to find you parked outside.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t flinch. He simply waited.

Kohaku went on, as if needing to get ahead of the coming storm. “She’s probably going to think you’re stalking her. Which—I know you’ll take as insult, but she’s human. And she’s tired. So maybe don’t lead with control or tracking. I told her nothing. You can figure it out.”

The demon lord’s gaze didn’t shift. But his voice was quiet steel.

“She wouldn’t be wrong,” Sesshōmaru murmured. “To think I was watching.”

Kohaku blinked.

Sesshōmaru exhaled, slow and measured. Then spoke with calm that cut deeper than fury ever could.

“Her shoes have tracking.”

Kohaku’s brows lifted slightly.

“I knew where she was before you texted.”

The silence stretched.

Kohaku ran a hand through his dark hair and let out a low laugh. “Gods, you’re really something.”

“I offered protection,” Sesshōmaru said. “Whether she accepts it or not is irrelevant to the measures already in place.”

“And she doesn’t know?” Kohaku asked.

Sesshōmaru gave him a single glance. Cold. Final. “She wasn’t meant to need to.”

Kohaku considered that, lips pressing together. Then nodded, as if weighing something unspoken and choosing—for tonight—not to press the point.

“So,” he said instead, “what’s the plan?”

Sesshōmaru’s gaze swept past him, through the window. Toward her shadowed figure in the kitchen, sipping water like it might give her strength to come face the world again.

“She returns with me,” he said. “She sleeps in her own bed. And tomorrow, she comes to work as if nothing has shifted.”

“Except everything has,” Kohaku murmured.

A long silence fell between them.

And Sesshōmaru—who rarely explained himself—said, almost absently:

“I did not expect her to come here.”

“No,” Kohaku said. “But she did.”

“And I didn’t expect you to tell me.”

“I almost didn’t.”

“Why did you?”

Kohaku didn’t answer immediately. Then, at last, with a tired shrug:

“Because she was looking for answers. Not comfort. Not sex. Not revenge. Just… answers.”

Sesshōmaru said nothing.

Kohaku tilted his head, studied the demon lord. “You want her as your queen?”

The taiyōkai’s golden eyes glinted in the dark.

“I want her ready to be my queen.”

“And if she never is?”

Sesshōmaru’s reply was quiet. Deadly soft.

“Then the world loses a woman born for the throne. And I… lose more than I planned for.”

Kohaku exhaled slowly. “You really are in it, aren’t you?”

Sesshōmaru didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Instead, the door creaked open behind them, her voice quiet and hoarse.

“Are you two done talking about me yet?”

They both turned.

She stood in the doorway, hair tousled, eyes rimmed in fatigue but still alert. Still watching them both with cautious wariness.

Sesshōmaru didn’t blink.

“Come,” he said simply.

She hesitated. Eyes flicking from one man to the other. Then sighed, stepped forward, and allowed herself to be led down the steps—shoulder brushing Kohaku’s briefly in farewell.

Chapter Text

Chapter 71: — Constant

Sesshōmaru POV

She slid into the passenger seat without protest. Didn’t offer a thank you. Didn’t fight him. Just folded herself into the car with a sigh and the weariness of a soul too heavy for the late hour. She tugged the blanket Kohaku had given her tighter around her shoulders and curled up like something trying not to be seen.

Another sigh. Then a yawn. Small. Barely audible. He didn’t glance at her, but he caught it. Felt it.

And then her voice, soft and scratchy from sleep:
“Do you need my address?”

He didn’t look away from the road.

“No. We are returning to my home.”

There was a flicker of hesitation. A silent moment where he could practically hear the battle inside her. But then—she gave a soft “M’kay.” No protest. Just a quiet nod of exhausted agreement, as if she didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore.

Good. She would lose anyway.

They drove in silence for a few miles, Tokyo’s edges falling away as the city began to still. Her breathing slowed beside him, not quite asleep but drifting. That space between waking and dreaming.

And then?

“You’re consistent,” she mumbled suddenly. Her voice was sleepy but thoughtful, like she had been thinking it for a while and was just now brave enough—or tired enough—to say it.

He arched a brow but said nothing.

“You’re just… here. Consistently.”

He allowed himself a glance. She was still curled into the blanket, half her face buried in it, eyes closed now but not entirely asleep.

“Yes,” he said simply.

And she nodded like she was agreeing with herself more than him. “Like… like a storm cloud that never goes away. But not always raining. Just always… there.”

That made him blink once, slowly. Storm cloud?

He didn’t bother responding to that. She wasn’t finished.

Then her voice dropped even softer, barely audible over the hum of the tires on the road.

“Did you… follow me before?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He could lie. Could dismiss it with a cool comment. Could say it was protocol or surveillance, or even concern.

But this was not a woman who would believe softness when it was laced with deception.

So he simply said:

“Yes.”

A pause. Then, “To the shrine?”

Another pause. Then, with perfect honesty:

“Yes.”

She didn’t tense. Didn’t pull away. Didn’t even look surprised. Just whispered, so tired it sounded like a thought, “Thought so.”

And then?

She fell asleep.

Sesshōmaru drove the rest of the way in silence. Her scent curled around the cabin like something warm and inexplicable—cedar, rain, guilt, and fatigue. But it was also starting to shift. Beneath the exhaustion, beneath the storm of thoughts she carried, there was something else now.

Trust.

Tentative. Unspoken. But there.

She had climbed into his car. Let him drive her. Agreed to his home. And believed his answers. Not just accepted them—believed them.

He glanced at her one more time.

She didn’t stir.

And Sesshōmaru allowed himself—just for a moment—to soften around the edges. Because perhaps her storm was finding its home in his.

The gates to his estate opened without sound, the sensors recognizing his car as it approached. The courtyard lights cast a soft glow across the polished stone and manicured hedges, the world bathed in silver under a cloudless night. He parked with precision, engine clicking into silence, and glanced at the passenger seat.

Still asleep.

He didn’t rush. Got out. Walked around the car and opened her door with practiced grace. The scent of her exhaustion hit him first—warm, dense, edged with the faintest trace of guilt. She stirred, head lolling, eyes fluttering open to the cool night.

“Come,” he said softly, voice not sharp but not indulgent either.

She blinked up at him, tried to sit up, and stumbled slightly as her feet met the ground. His hand went to her elbow before she could fall, steadying her without effort. She leaned into him just for a second before righting herself.

“Lead the way, storm cloud,” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

He didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he guided her through the front door, down the long hallway that wrapped the west wing of his home. The guest suite nearest his quarters—untouched, pristine—opened with a quiet click as he pushed the door in.

Neutral colors. Silken sheets. Quiet elegance. Fit for someone of status, if not a queen.

She didn’t say anything. Just walked in, dropped the blanket on the edge of the bed, kicked off her shoes, and climbed between the sheets like she had done it before. Like she belonged there.

He stood just past the threshold, arms folded, watching her settle in.

And then?

“So you’re okay threatening to fuck me,” she muttered, voice hazy with sleep, “and making me your queen… but not sharing a bed?”

His brow rose, one elegant line of incredulity and unspoken warning. “I do not recall threatening.”

“You always threaten,” she sighed, eyes still closed. “You’re just subtle about it.”

He didn’t answer right away.

She cracked one eye open.

“Scared I’ll keep you up?” she whispered, tone mock-taunting and weary all at once. “Or are you worried you’ll give in?”

His eyes narrowed. She was being reckless. Or perhaps just brave in the way only someone exhausted could be.

Fine.

He stepped into the room. Unbuttoned his jacket. Tossed it on the nearby chair. Then removed his tie with the ease of ritual. And finally, without a word, he circled to the opposite side of the bed.

Pulled the sheets back. Sat down.

“Sleep,” he said firmly, lying back. “We have work in the morning.”

She turned toward him on instinct, her breath catching the smallest bit, but she didn’t argue. Just gave him a small huff of disbelief.

Then silence.

He didn’t touch her. Didn’t look at her. Just stared at the ceiling and listened to her breathing even out.

This was not submission. This was trust. And trust, as foreign and strange as it was… was far more dangerous.

Chapter Text

Chapter 72: Kagome — Plans, Power, and Pretending

She had a plan.

In fact, she had two. And for a woman who’d spent the last few days being dragged along by forces greater, older, and more dangerous than she’d ever imagined, that felt like progress. Real, practical progress.

Step one: find out if she was a priestess with power.
Step two: apparently that required a demon.
Step three: well…one happened to be actively pursuing her. Relentlessly. Obsessively. Practically breathing down her neck with every inhale.

Sesshōmaru.

Fine. She could work with that. Use the resources at her disposal, as they say in corporate boardrooms. And if the ancient demon lord who claimed she’d be queen someday happened to be offering consistent presence and inexplicably expensive tea? Then perhaps she could afford to conduct an…experiment.

She had coaxed him into bed. Not sexually, not exactly, but close enough to set every nerve in her body on edge.

He had surprised her. Not by lying beside her—that had always been part of the plan—but by not falling asleep.

And that was the problem.

Because she was pretending.

Badly.

One arm tucked beneath her pillow, lashes relaxed just enough to look closed, breathing deep and slow. She lay there, infuriatingly aware of every second ticking by. Each one that passed with him still awake meant she couldn’t move forward with her test.

She needed stillness. Darkness. A quiet room. A sleeping demon. She needed to see if whatever old blood ran through her—whatever whispers her grandfather had fed her as a child—was more than myth.

She had planned to reach toward him. Carefully. Slowly. To focus on her breath and center herself the way her grandfather taught her with old incense and summer crickets. She had planned to feel something. Light. Power. Resistance. Anything.

Instead?

“I am not blind, Kagome,” his voice cut into the darkness, low and calm, “nor deaf. Your breathing pattern is shallow and wrong.”

Shit.

Her eyes snapped open.

He didn’t move. Didn’t even turn to face her. He remained where he was, one hand folded beneath his head, the other resting across his abdomen like he was carved out of cool, golden stone. His hair spilled behind him in a pale arc of silk against the pillow.

She stayed frozen.

And then: “Why,” he asked, voice deceptively even, “are you pretending to be asleep?”

Gods. Damn. It.

“Habit,” she muttered, instantly annoyed with herself—and with him. “Helps me think.”

“Think?” he turned his head finally, sharp eyes meeting hers. “Lying in bed beside a demon lord is when you find your best clarity?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, “depends.”

His brow rose. Barely.

She sat up slowly, tugging the blankets with her. “If you must know,” she added, tone clipped, “I was trying something. Trying to figure out if I have—”

“Reiki,” he finished for her.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “That.”

He studied her then, not just with his eyes but with his youki—she could feel it, like cold fingers along her spine. Assessing. Watching. Waiting. She thought he might laugh. Thought he’d chastise her for testing something so foolish.

Instead?

“You are practical,” he murmured. “I underestimated how much.”

She blinked. “That a compliment?”

He said nothing.

She huffed, brushing hair out of her face. “So? Did you feel anything?”

“No.” His voice was absolute. “But that does not mean nothing is there.”

She stared down at her hands. Small, human hands. She’d always thought if power ran through her, she’d know. That it would manifest somehow. But maybe it needed more than just proximity. Maybe it needed intention. Threat. A trigger.

“I’ll try again,” she said, quietly.

Sesshōmaru’s golden eyes held her for a moment longer, then drifted closed. “If you try to purify me in my sleep,” he said dryly, “at least aim for the limbs first.”

And gods help her—she laughed.

The quiet kind. The kind that came from nerves and exhaustion and absurdity, folded into a single breath.

He wasn’t even concerned. Not a flicker of hesitation in his breath, not a single tensed muscle. And that—that irritated her more than anything.

Was it because he believed she had no power? Because he thought she’d be too careful? Or was it the third and most probable answer? That even if she did have power, even if she stumbled across something ancient and holy and dangerous inside herself, it still wouldn’t be enough to harm him.

And damn it, maybe he was right. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try.

Kagome stared at him through the dim lighting of the guest room—if you could call it that. The linens were fine enough to be in a royal suite. The temperature perfect. And the scent—his scent—drifted on the air like polished cedar and frost.

She didn’t care if he was awake or not anymore.

Fine. Let him watch.

She reached out and pressed her fingers to his forearm. Nothing. No tingling. No light. No burning. Not even a flicker of a pulse. Her touch was no different than it would’ve been on a marble countertop. Smooth, indifferent. Powerless.

She rolled over onto her side, now fully facing him.

He was watching her. Of course he was. One golden eye cracked open, a single brow lifted in curiosity and faint amusement.

“Giving up already?” he asked, voice husky with sleep or amusement—it was hard to tell.

She scowled. “No.”

His lip twitched.

Without hesitation, she reached out again—this time to his chest. Her palm pressed over the steady rhythm of his heart, fingers splayed. If there was a center to his being, a core of power humming in him, surely this would be it.

She focused. Breathed.

Come on.

Still—nothing. Not even a buzz of static. No burning sensation. No instinct or warmth or divine signal that screamed yes, you are more than human.

Nothing but the rise and fall of his chest beneath her hand. She dared to look up—and found him still watching. Calm. Passive. Eyes sharp with that particular brand of reserved interest he wore like a custom suit.

“You’re oddly accommodating,” she muttered, hand still resting against his chest.

“I’m curious,” he said simply. “And you are, for now, under my protection.”

She gave him a look. “So letting me test out holy powers on your body is part of the benefits package?”

His brow lifted. “If you ever manage to summon them, I might need to renegotiate your salary.”

She nearly groaned. “This is so dumb.”

“Perhaps. But do you feel any different?”

She paused. Closed her eyes. Let herself really feel.

All she could register was the warmth of his skin beneath her palm, the rhythmic thrum of something ancient and inhuman in him—but not hostile. Just… there. Unmovable.

She sighed. “No. I feel the same. Weak. Normal.”

He didn’t offer her false comfort. Didn’t reach for her or lie. Just watched with that same unreadable calm. And still—he didn’t ask her to stop.

“Then keep trying,” he said.

And gods, she stared at him.

“You’re really going to let me keep poking at you like this?”

“Within reason.”

She frowned. “Define reason.”

“Don’t dismember me. And don’t attempt anything fatal until after morning coffee.”

She snorted, pressing her forehead into his chest now. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met.”

“I am not a man,” he corrected mildly.

“Oh, trust me, I know.”

His chest shifted under her with the faintest sound—like the echo of a chuckle in his throat. Rare. Unsharpened. Not for anyone but her.

And despite the failure, despite the ache in her chest and the hum of uncertainty in her blood, Kagome let herself stay there.

Palm to chest. His quiet breath beneath her ear. 

Maybe there was no magic in her yet. Maybe she wasn’t Midoriko reborn. Maybe she was just a girl with too many questions and not enough answers.

But he was letting her try.

And somehow, that felt like more power than any spell.

Chapter Text

Chapter 73: The Test, Continued

Sesshoumaru POV

This was…intriguing.

Of all the ways he had envisioned his evening ending—this was not it.

She had coaxed him into bed under the pretense of sleep, cloaked in her feigned exhaustion and vague answers, only to begin probing him like he was some divine battery. First, a tentative brush of her fingers against his arm. Then, her palm pressed flush over his chest. And now? She was leaning over him, hovering with her hair cascading forward like a veil spun of night and nerves, her breath warm against his collarbone.

And gods.

He should have stopped her. Should have told her it wouldn’t work—not like this. Reiki did not spring forth from curiosity or desire. Power like that was forged in fire and danger and wrath. Not…sleepless nights and awkward exploration.

But he didn’t stop her.

He allowed it.

Because there was something absurdly…entertaining in the whole thing. Something painfully intimate about being treated as an object of study by the very woman he would one day crown. And if this was the path she needed to take to become comfortable with him—if playing her little game meant she would keep touching him, then he would endure it.

With grace. With patience. With a calculated, absolutely strategic level of personal enjoyment.

“Perhaps assault,” he murmured, his tone silk-dry, voice barely above a whisper. “Might help draw something out.”

It was a joke. Light sarcasm. Bare provocation.

But she glared down at him with those storm-dark eyes, and he assumed—for a moment—she’d scoff. Turn away. Chide him.

She did not. Instead, she huffed—huffed—and lowered herself down over his chest. Her lips brushed his neck.

Then her teeth.

She bit him.

Not hard. Not enough to leave any true mark. But it wasn’t a playful nip either. There was pressure. Intent. A press of her mouth just below his jawline, right where his pulse hummed slow and steady beneath his skin.

His hands curled into the blanket at his sides. Not because it hurt—it didn’t. Not because he feared it would. But because fuck, her mouth was on his neck.

He stilled entirely.

Because in all of his centuries of conquests and courtships, in all his diplomacy and brutality, there was something about her that burned through every measured response he could manufacture. And in that moment, with her breath warming his skin and her body straddling his side, the only thought his mind could hold was—

Mine.

She pulled back. Confused. Frustrated. She met his gaze with furrowed brows and an adorable, almost petulant tone: “That didn’t hurt?”

He stared at her. No smirk. No sarcasm. Just the slow rise of one brow, and his eyes glittering gold in the dim light.

“No,” he said plainly. “You will not hurt me. Not like that. And you’re asking the wrong question.”

Her mouth parted. “Then what’s the right one?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He let the silence press in, let her squirm a little with her hand still on his chest and her body still flush against his side.

“The right question,” he said eventually, voice low and calm, “is what you’re truly trying to prove. That you have power? Or that I am vulnerable to it?”

Her eyes widened slightly. And he watched the gears turn behind them. Smart girl. Too clever for her own good.

She didn’t reply right away. So he reached up—one large, clawed hand brushing a strand of hair from her face—and continued in the same even tone:

“If power is what you want to find, you will not discover it this way. You seek proof in comfort, in safety. That is not where strength is born.”

She didn’t pull away. Didn’t flinch at his touch.

“Then where?” she whispered, still close enough he could taste the question in her breath.

“In the unknown. In fear. In blood.” His fingers drifted along her jaw, his thumb ghosting over her lower lip. “But there are better ways to draw it out than biting a demon lord in his sleep.”

She scowled. “You weren’t asleep.”

“And you aren’t as subtle as you think.”

A soft, strangled sound of exasperation escaped her, and she slumped forward, her forehead thumping lightly against his chest.

“I just wanted to know,” she muttered, almost to herself. “To not be helpless.”

He let his hand settle in her hair, fingertips combing through the strands slowly.

“You are not helpless,” he said quietly. “You are untrained. Unaware. That is not the same as powerless.”

She was silent. Breathing steady.

And he could feel it then. Beneath her skin. A hum. So faint it could be mistaken for nerves or adrenaline. But it was there. Potential. Raw, untapped. Sleeping beneath layers of doubt.

“Go to sleep, Kagome.”

She mumbled something against his chest.

“And tomorrow,” he added, “you can bite me again if you’d like. Just…aim lower. Perhaps my hand next time. It’s less distracting.”

Her groan vibrated against him.

And for the first time in hours, Sesshoumaru smiled—genuine, quiet, private.

Perhaps this method of training had merit after all.

Chapter Text

Chapter 74: Catalyst 
Sesshōmaru POV

She didn’t move.

For all her groaning and restless shifting and tossing of limbs, she didn’t move to actually leave. She remained exactly where he wanted her—tangled in the sheets, chest to chest, limbs brushing in shared heat.

She didn’t want to go to bed. Not really.

She wanted to win.

So when she muttered another protest under her breath, trying to reassert some edge of control, he simply reached for her—slow and fluid. One strong arm slipping behind her waist, palm braced against the small of her back. A single pull, deliberate and steady.

And she came with him.

Right into the press of his body.

“Hey—” she started, indignant, already flushing from the contact, hands braced lightly on his chest to keep some distance.

He ignored her tone.

“If you’re not going to sleep,” he said, voice silk and steel, “then I’ll make myself useful.”

She blinked up at him, eyes suspicious and cheeks warmed by blood and disbelief. “Useful how?”

“Close proximity,” he said, bluffing smoothly, “might help your powers. You want to awaken them, yes? I can assist.”

Her jaw tightened in frustration. “I have been trying. You saw me. I bit you, remember?”

He hummed. “Perhaps you were going about it too delicately.”

And then—

He released it.

His youki. The dense, ancient aura of demonic energy that lived beneath his skin and wrapped his presence in a cold, deadly precision. He let it bleed into the air—just enough. Just enough to raise the weight in the room. To let her feel what he was.

And gods, she squirmed.

Her eyes widened, lips parted as her breath caught.

“You can feel that?” he asked, the corners of his mouth tugging in amusement.

“It feels like—like the air is heavy,” she murmured, blinking. “Like something’s pressing down on my chest.”

“Good,” he said simply, his voice a shade lower. “Then this might work.”

She looked at him—truly looked. And for a moment, he could see it in her eyes. The conflict. The question. The dawning awareness that maybe this wasn’t just about priestess powers or ancient bloodlines.

Maybe she had finally realized where she was. In bed. With him. Close enough to kiss, to devour, to ruin.

Her brows narrowed.

“You’re enjoying this,” she accused.

He didn’t deny it. But he did lean forward slightly, his nose brushing the crown of her head, voice low and serious now.

“If you truly want power,” he murmured against her skin, “you could let me try. Eventually.”

She stilled. Pulled back, just far enough to meet his gaze with sharp, skeptical eyes. “Try how?”

He let a slow, deliberate smirk unfold.

“Fear,” he said first, his fingers dragging lazily up her spine. “And pleasure. Both are excellent triggers for divine energy.”

Her entire face went crimson.

“I am not sleeping with you for power,” she snapped, but her voice wavered—too many layers of feeling beneath it.

He arched a brow. “Then do it for curiosity.”

Her hand smacked his chest lightly. He caught it. Held it there.

“You said it yourself,” he added, still calm, still deadly sincere. “You want to stop being helpless. If your blood responds to threat or desire, and you’ve exhausted one…”

“You’re insane,” she muttered, exasperated, even as she failed to pull her hand away.

“Possibly,” he conceded.

“You can’t fuck your way into awakening holy powers.”

“Oh?” His gold eyes gleamed in the dark. “Would you like to test that theory next?”

She made a sound halfway between a groan and a scoff—but she didn’t move away. And her scent? It bloomed with curiosity. With nervousness. With heat.

“Sleep, Kagome,” he said after a long silence, brushing her bangs back with uncharacteristic tenderness. “The rest we can explore another time.”

And she said nothing. But she didn’t pull away, either.

Progress.

She slept like the dead.

Her breathing was soft and even, the weight of her pressed close, her limbs draped over him without care or calculation. One knee had found a home against his thigh. Her hand curled at the collar of his shirt, as if she feared he might disappear if she didn’t anchor him there. And her face—gods, her face—was nuzzled somewhere near his neck, lips brushing warm air against his skin with each soft exhale.

She mumbled nonsense in her sleep. Half syllables. Ghosts of words. And every now and then, his name.

Not Lord Sesshōmaru. Not sir. Just—Sesshōmaru.

It did something to him. Something low and hot and steady, curling under the surface like a coil warming by degrees. Not lust, not this time. Something older. More dangerous.

Possession.

And yet…

He did not touch her beyond what she had permitted in her sleep. His arm stayed secure around her waist, his hand resting lightly on the small of her back, unmoving. He did not push for more. He didn’t need to.

Because the victory was already his.

It had taken one night. One act of subtlety. Patience. Assistance, not demand. He hadn’t cornered her, hadn’t snarled orders, hadn’t baited her with veiled threats. Instead, he had offered presence. Support. Power without price. And what did that earn him?

Her.

Soft and pliant. Breathing his name in the dark.

This, he thought, smoothing a stray lock of hair from her forehead, had been the way all along.

He was a creature built from bloodlines and legacy. A demon lord born of the old world where possession was taken, not granted. But Kagome Higurashi was not of that world. Not yet. She was human in form and human in instinct, but something inside her vibrated with power. Latent, sleeping. Ancient.

And she would never give herself to anyone who took.

But she might choose him.

That was the difference.

And so he played the long game.

If he had to become her teacher in this—this awakening of whatever holy power slept in her bloodline—then so be it. If she required a demon to stand beside her while she found it, prodded it, coaxed it into the light? Then it would be him. Not Kohaku. Not Naraku. Not Kōga. Him.

Because who better?

He had the patience of centuries. The discipline of a thousand battlefields. And now, the proximity of a man who had watched his chosen fall asleep in his bed, against his chest, in complete and utter trust.

It was a victory made sweeter because he had earned it.

Not demanded.

Earned.

He tilted his head slightly, looking down at the dark strands of her hair fanned across his shoulder, then beyond to the slow rise and fall of her back under his hand. Her reiki—if she had any—hadn’t so much as flickered when she touched him. Not yet. But he had felt her reach for it. Try. Bite his neck, even. Gods, she had bitten him. And he had almost laughed.

He never laughed. But he had almost done so for her. He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the pillow. This wasn’t over. No, this was the beginning.

When she woke, he would take her to work. He would monitor her interactions. He would answer questions, if she had them. But mostly? He would be present. Consistently. As she had noted, half-asleep and unaware of the effect her words had on him.

“You’re just…here.”

Yes. And he would stay. Until she realized what he already knew:

Kagome Higurashi was his.

Not because he had marked her. But because when she finally saw what he truly offered?

She would choose him.

Chapter Text

Chapter 75: Sesshōmaru – The Fire Beneath Her Skin

She had slept like she needed it.

The kind of sleep that came not from a long day, but from a long life. A heavy one. The kind that dropped someone deep enough to stop pretending—past the masks, past the posture—and left only truth.

He did not often share a bed with others, especially not to simply sleep. But he had remained beside her. Her breathing, steady at first, had slowed even more as the night deepened. Her limbs, curled loosely beneath the sheets, eventually relaxed. And her scent—gods, it was calmer now. Exhausted, but not distressed.

Until he touched her.

A simple thing. A hand—hers—had fallen beneath his side sometime during the night. He’d moved it gently, intending only to keep her circulation from cutting off. Not even with youki. Not even with claws. Just his palm to her wrist.

That was when she jerked.

Still asleep. Still dreaming. But her whole body flinched with a low, animalistic growl—one born of reflex, not speech.

“Don’t touch me,” she snarled into the dark.

Holy power shot out of her skin, raw and wild. A single spark, like lightning under flesh, surged from her palm into his arm. It wasn’t enough to wound—but it hit. His shirt smoked faintly, fabric darkening where the force had made contact. The scent of char reached his nose.

And his skin beneath it? Tingled. A small patch prickled as though scorched by sunlight.

Reiki.

He stilled. Every thought in his mind froze around that one realization: She was a priestess. A real one. The bloodline was no longer in question. The speculation, the theory, the whisper of her grandfather’s odd endearments—it was done. This was proof. Kagome had the dormant spark of Midoriko’s lineage buried in her bones. And it was awakening.

He should have been pleased. Intrigued. Triumphant, even. After all, he’d chosen well.

But instead?

He was livid.

Because power like that didn’t wake from nowhere. Power like that—defensive, violent, instinctive—was a response to something. And it wasn’t just because he was a demon. She had relaxed around him. She had curled into him willingly. But when touched in her sleep? She fought like someone who had been conditioned to expect pain.

And that meant…

Someone had taught her body to be afraid. Not her mind. Not her logic. Her nervous system.

He swallowed a growl. Reined in the youki that wanted to rise like smoke from his skin. Not now. Not beside her. She didn’t need to wake up to him snarling with rage at ghosts he hadn’t yet found.

He calmed himself. Her power wasn’t fully formed. That much was clear. It had only sparked under sleep and fear, not intention. It was undirected. Untaught. But it was there. Real and rooted and holy. And if it had emerged once? It would again.

He exhaled slowly. Then, gently—so carefully he felt like handling a wound—he stroked a hand through her hair. “You’re dreaming,” he murmured lowly, almost to himself. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

Her brow furrowed for a breath. Then her eyes, fogged and confused, opened slowly. The world wasn’t back in focus for her yet, but at least she looked up at him without fear.

“What…?”

“You were dreaming,” he repeated, this time louder, warmer. “It’s nothing now.”

She blinked, disoriented, and then relaxed against him. No recollection. No panic. And most importantly—no awareness of what had just passed between them.

He shifted his arm subtly. Pulled the blanket up higher over her shoulders. Covered the scorched mark on his shirt and said nothing.

She mumbled something incoherent, a small puff of breath against his chest, and then nuzzled back in.

He watched her again—more carefully this time.

This woman. This mortal. This soon-to-be queen of his court and partner in power—was more than she knew. More dangerous than she imagined. And more wounded, too.

Someone had made her like this. Someone had turned instinct into weapon. Reflex into armor. Fear into flame.

She shifted again, sleep reclaiming her fully. Her cheek against his chest. Her hand near his ribs. Her scent was peace again, her breathing soft. The storm had passed for now.

But Sesshōmaru would not forget.

His future consort had holy fire in her veins.

And a ghost to answer for.

She had returned to sleep, oblivious to the faint scorch on his skin and the storm she’d stirred beneath it.

Sesshōmaru did not move. Instead, he sat back, golden eyes open in the dark—calculating.

The revelation that his intended possessed holy power stronger than any seen in centuries was not unwelcome. In fact, it was preferable. Strategic. Efficient. She was proving to be more than an asset. She was power incarnate wrapped in soft skin and tired eyes. Midoriko’s blood ran quietly through her veins, just waiting for the correct trigger. And now, he had seen it awaken.

But that was not the part that consumed him. What haunted him, coiled sharp and cold inside his chest, was how that power had responded. She had not struck him with holy energy while awake. She had not fought him when their power collided in flirtation, in tension, in deliberate proximity.

No.

Her power surged in the dead of sleep—unconscious, vulnerable, and raw. It had attacked when she was most defenseless, with no conscious awareness of doing so. As if her soul had been trained, beaten, or molded to lash out without permission.

And that…

That was unacceptable. 

There were two possibilities. Both made his skin crawl.

The first—the tactical one—was that she had been trained this way. Conditioned for survival, as some humans had done in older eras. Royals, priestesses, nobles—all had been subject to brutal lessons. Humans and demons alike. Strike a child in their dreams, train them to react when vulnerable, so they would never die by ambush. He had seen it himself in the old courts. He had even approved of it once, long ago—believing strength demanded cruelty in its shaping.

But Kagome was not of the old courts. Not born to a temple of blades. Her world was coffee meetings, data files, and bureaucratic ambition. She had come from a Tokyo suburb and spoke like someone who trusted. Like someone who hadn’t been taught to fear her sleep. Unless she had family secrets that were not shared to her. Training her with no memory. Or in secret. 

But there was also the other possibility. That someone had hurt her. Not to train. Not to protect. But to break.

And that?

That would not be forgiven.

His hand flexed beneath the blanket, claws half-formed as the image took root: someone reaching for her in the dark. A figure she never saw. Pain she never recalled. Hands that left no mark but rewrote her instincts. There was no certainty—yet. But the fact that her holy power had struck him back while she was completely unconscious was enough to begin his spiral.

If that touch response had been born from real trauma?

He would find them. And he would obliterate them. Not kill. No. Killing was for enemies. This would require…ruin.

He would peel them apart, piece by piece. Shatter bone and rip tendon. Let them scream through a throat too ruined to form the words. There would be no grave. No closure. Just the slow unraveling of a life unworthy to continue in a world where she breathed.

And their bloodline? Would end. No child. No legacy. No mark left on earth. That was the only currency vengeance was worth.

Sesshōmaru exhaled softly through his nose and looked down again.

She shifted, curling closer. Lips parted, her breath ghosting warm against his collarbone. A woman unaware of the storm she had conjured. A priestess with trauma etched in her bones and fire in her veins.

Perhaps the error had been in his approach all along. He had been prepared to sharpen her—to temper her for survival. To make her harder so the world could not destroy her.

But someone had already done that. Crude. Invasive. Quiet.

He would not do the same.

He would undo it. Protect the edges she had left. Let her keep softness if she wanted it. All while ensuring no threat came close enough to touch her again.

Not while he breathed.

Not while he ruled.

So, yes. He would teach her the truth of this world. He would educate, protect, and prepare her. But not with threats or leashes. Not with intimidation or force.

He would build her. And when she was ready? When she stood beside him as his queen—holy power thrumming just beneath her skin—he would be the one to watch the world bow in her wake.

Until then? He would wait. Patient. Possessive. Lethal.

And ready.

For her power. 

For her past. 

For war, if it came to it.

Chapter Text

Chapter 76: Preparation

Sesshōmaru POV

He let her rest.

The early hours of morning blanketed the sky, but Sesshōmaru had not yet closed his eyes. Beside him, she slept soundly—finally. Her breathing had leveled into the kind of rhythm he’d only heard from the deeply exhausted. Arms curled in, legs pulled close, body pressed into the warm safety of the guest bed as if it had been hers for years.

She looked… untouched. Unharmed. But now he knew better.

Her sleep, peaceful as it appeared, had told him more than words ever could. Her unconscious self had protected her with a raw pulse of holy power. His shirt had the faint scorch mark to prove it. And though his skin had not blistered, he had felt the sting—the unmistakable bite of something meant to kill.

And she hadn’t even known.

His mind had not slowed since. His limbs relaxed, body still, but his thoughts raced like sharpened blades slipping through old, buried truths.

He stayed silent for hours. But silence was never stillness for him.

First, he took out his phone. Ordered clothes. A new set for work—something modest but fitted, with his preferences carefully communicated to the stylist in quiet code. No, not overtly possessive. But a clear indication that she was someone.

Then another set. Comfort-focused. Meant to be left at his home. She might fight him on it later, but for now? He would let her fight. The clothes would be here in the morning regardless.

Next, books. Some rare, most obscure. Volumes on Midoriko and the ancient priestess lineage. Some written by humans. Some by demons. One by a retired monk who had lived three centuries too long and written with the weariness of one who had seen too much. He wasn’t even sure if Kagome would read them. But they would be waiting if she did.

And if she didn’t?

He would.

Because he would understand what she carried, even if she didn’t yet.

What he wouldn’t do—not yet—was tell her she had confirmed power. Not until he knew more. Not until she did. Because the glint in her eye said she wanted strength. And the truth? She already had it. But if she wasn’t ready to wield it, it would only do more harm than good.

He turned his phone over in his palm and stared at the screen.

Tomorrow needed to be simple.

So he cleared every meeting from their schedule. No high-stakes alliances. No verbal warfare with Kōga. No back-and-forth pissing contests between factions. Just a clean workday. Just him, her, and the quiet rhythm of data sheets and planning decks. A day without demands.

He allowed himself the small indulgence of imagining it. Her—rested, curious, less sharp around the edges. Asking questions. Making notes. Sitting across from him with her legs tucked under the chair and a pen between her fingers like it was a sword.

He didn’t need much more than that. He just needed proximity. And time.

He checked the security feed again—gates locked, perimeter secured. Then glanced at the clock.

04:06.

His body finally shifted, slow and deliberate. He hadn’t moved much in hours, and though he didn’t need sleep in the same way she did, he wasn’t immune to fatigue.

The sun wouldn’t rise for another hour or so. But the house was dark, quiet, and—for once—felt settled.

He looked at her one last time before allowing himself to stretch out beside her again, careful not to wake her. She stirred faintly, her lips parting in the barest of sighs, and without thinking, he brushed a hand through her hair.

Warm.

Human.

His.

He had secrets to uncover. Trauma to map. A bloodline to trace and threats to extinguish.

He slept two hours. No more, no less.

The alarm went off at 6 a.m. sharp—set to his usual schedule—and the moment the soft chime reverberated through the room, Sesshōmaru opened his eyes.

His body obeyed without hesitation, trained through centuries of discipline. But he didn’t move right away.

Kagome was still curled into the warmth of the bed, her body half-blanketed and limbs tangled as if they had never left her dreams. Her breathing remained steady, shallow with sleep. She didn’t flinch at the sound, didn’t stir. Which—frankly—was fascinating.

He would have bet on her being a light sleeper. All her scent markers said she was anxious, reactive, too aware of her surroundings. Yet here she was, deeply rooted in sleep, untouched by the alarm’s second chime as if her body had gone into full collapse.

He reached over and silenced it. The room fell quiet again. Still, she didn’t move.

It was only after the alarm sounded again, the second round of his precisely timed backup alerts, that she finally began to stir. A faint, muffled groan sounded from beneath the covers. Then a small hand reached up, smacking the blanket away from her face with a grunt.

“Ugh…why do I feel like I got hit by a truck?” she mumbled, rubbing at her face as if it might restore her energy.

Sesshōmaru remained by the window, already dressed in casual loungewear—tailored slacks, no shirt, hair unbound and wild from rest. He didn’t respond to her complaint. Not yet.

She sat up slowly, clearly disoriented. Her fingers reached instinctively for the base of her neck as though trying to determine if she had been physically drained. Her brows furrowed, and she blinked at him with bleary confusion.

“Is that normal?” she asked, voice hoarse. “To feel like your body is…empty?”

He considered her carefully. The flush of her cheeks, the way she winced slightly as she rotated her shoulders—it all hinted at subtle spiritual exertion. The holy spark he had felt last night hadn’t been minor. No, not for her. For someone with untouched, dormant power, even a single pulse like that might have taken everything from her.

Still, he said nothing of it. She didn’t need to know. Not yet.

“You overexerted yourself,” he said mildly, with the sort of indifference that didn’t invite further questioning. “Your body wasn’t prepared.”

“For what?” she asked, then blinked as if her own question surprised her. But before she could follow it up, her gaze dropped to the floor near the edge of the bed.

His shirt.

Or, what remained of it.

Her eyes narrowed as she reached out and lifted it by the edge—her fingers running over the blackened fabric, frayed at the center like it had been singed by flame.

“What happened to this?”

Sesshōmaru turned slightly. “I dropped it near the fireplace,” he replied smoothly. “It caught at the edge. Nothing worth worrying about.”

She frowned. “Be careful.”

That made him pause.

Be careful.

The irony of it. Of her telling him to be careful. He turned away again, his eyes sharpening with something colder, darker, more primal. Careful was not a word he believed in. Not for his enemies. Not for himself. And certainly not for her.

Careful wouldn’t have kept her safe during that sleep-induced power surge. Careful wouldn’t erase the years—or generations—of subconscious training or trauma that had taught her body to react with force while unconscious.

No. Careful would get her killed. Or worse—exploited.

He did not respond to her warning. Not with words. But something shifted in the room—his energy, his intent. It coiled around the space like a warning too quiet for human ears to hear.

He walked toward the door.

“We leave in forty minutes,” he said simply, already texting the kitchen staff to prepare something light for her before work. “There are clothes for you in the closet.”

She blinked. “You ordered me clothes?”

He didn’t answer. Just opened the bedroom door and stepped out. He didn’t need to explain himself. He needed to protect her. And careful? Would never be enough.

Chapter Text

Chapter 77: The Shift 
Sesshōmaru – POV

She emerged from the guest bathroom dressed precisely how he intended—flawlessly. The tailored black dress hit mid-thigh, modest enough for the office but fitted enough that no one would mistake her as ordinary. The heels he selected added the exact measure of elegance and command. And though he gave her an hour to prepare, she took fifteen minutes.

Efficient. Excellent.

He had placed the charger in the passenger seat the night before. When she followed him down to the garage and asked, half-casually, when they’d retrieve her car, he didn’t humor the pretense.

“After work,” he said. “Kohaku will ensure it remains safe.”

Because that’s what the question had been, wasn’t it? A test. To see how long this game would go on. How long she would be his shadow. If she was still allowed autonomy.

She didn’t protest. Just climbed into the seat. He reached across her, buckled her in. Her scent was quiet this morning. Muted. Still half-exhausted, even if her face carried blush and color, her lashes long, eyes rimmed with careful makeup. The faint floral perfume he had chosen for her didn’t mask her fatigue.

He plugged her phone into the charger in her lap and she blinked, surprised. “I meant to bring mine, but it was dead.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’re always aware,” she murmured under her breath, turning her head to the window.

He did not respond. He slipped into the driver’s seat, keyed the ignition, and began the drive to the office in silence.

She was right. He was always aware. Her tone hadn’t been biting, not even annoyed—just tired. Acknowledging a truth.

And perhaps that was the problem. He was aware of her exhaustion. The residual power she had unintentionally released last night. Her ongoing resistance, the bite of suspicion behind her glances, the quiet calculation when he did things like buckle her seatbelt or bring her tea. He was aware that she was trying to survive in a world no one had prepared her for.

But she wasn’t crumbling. And that, despite everything, was infuriatingly admirable.

When they reached a red light, he glanced over. She had pulled her knees up into the seat, turned toward the window, cheek propped on her hand. Not asleep, but still distant. She didn’t ask about the schedule. Didn’t ask who they’d meet. It was as if she was conserving every ounce of energy for only what was necessary.

“You slept hard,” he said finally, keeping his voice level, not intimate.

She hummed. “It felt like I hadn’t in weeks.”

He almost commented. Almost mentioned the moment when she jolted in her sleep—how her body had reacted to his touch like a woman trained to defend herself against something far darker than dreams. How her power had come alive in that instant, unshaped and protective.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he kept driving, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the console. His shirt had burned under her palm. Just a small mark, easy to cover. The skin beneath it already healed. But it had told him more than any question or answer she could have provided.

She was Midoriko’s heir. And someone had likely ensured she would be ready for war, whether she wanted it or not.

His hands tightened subtly on the wheel.

He would find out who. And when he did… the punishment would be biblical.

But not yet.

Today, she would sit beside him. There would be no war in the office, no threats, no glamour. Just a quiet day. One meeting in the morning. One lunch with Ayame, who already knew better than to be unkind. Then reports, silence, planning.

He would let her settle. Let her adapt.

But the storm, when it came, would be his to control. And gods help anyone who had a hand in building a woman who burned herself in her sleep just to survive.

She stepped out of the car without waiting.

Sesshōmaru stilled, his hand halfway to the door handle. The audacity. The defiance. He had given her the morning to herself—granted her the illusion of rest, of control—and she used it to disembark without his aid?

Noted.

His gaze flicked to her as she stood, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. The heels were worn correctly. The dress unwrinkled. Her hair remained in the soft wave he’d liked best. At least she hadn’t gone so far as to abandon the image he’d dressed her in.

Still, when she turned to meet his gaze, he gave her a long, cool look of reprimand. Subtle, but clear.

I am capable of opening your door, little priestess. And you are not so far along that you get to forget that.

To her credit, she didn’t look away. Just held his gaze, quiet fire in her expression, before giving the softest tilt of her chin—acknowledgment, but not submission.

Fine.

He allowed it.

They walked in together through the polished glass doors of the corporate tower, side by side. Not quite touching. Not quite separate. The early crowd in the lobby—a mix of executives, partners, and assistants—paused. Heads turned. Eyes followed.

But not a single voice rose.

Of course not.

His presence alone was enough to keep tongues bitten and comments swallowed. No one in the building was foolish enough to openly gossip about the demon lord or the woman who now trailed beside him nearly every hour of the day. Still, their silence wasn’t blind. He could feel the shift in scent. The tension. The speculation burning just beneath the surface.

She felt it too.

He could tell by the way her breath hitched almost imperceptibly when the elevator doors slid open and they stepped inside. By the slight tremor in her fingers when she reached for the button—only for his hand to press it first.

Silence in the lift. Just the two of them. She stared straight ahead. Poised. Professional. Beautiful, despite the fatigue still etched beneath her foundation.

“You adjusted the schedule?” she asked softly, just before they reached their floor.

“I did.”

“Why?”

The elevator pinged. Doors opened. He stepped out, and she followed.

“Because I want a normal day,” he said. “And you look like you need one.”

He didn’t wait for her reply. She wouldn’t offer it anyway. She had spent the last few days walking tightropes of politics and power, trying to decipher her place in a world that no longer offered clear lines.

Let her rest her mind today. Let her sit beside him and work, as if nothing beneath the surface trembled. But as he led her toward his office, he felt the flare of something deeper.

No one said anything as they passed. No one dared. But he felt it—the way energy shifted around her. The way instincts prickled. They were sensing her now. Maybe not consciously. Maybe not with recognition. But her power, no longer fully asleep, had begun to scent the air.

And whether she liked it or not, the world was beginning to see her. Whether they knew it was a priestess they were looking at—or merely a woman held closely by the demon lord himself—didn’t matter. They saw her. And soon? They would fear her. 

Just as they should.

Chapter Text

Chapter 78: The Table

(Sesshōmaru – POV)

The quarterly reviews were tedious.

Not because the content lacked complexity—no, the intricacies of each division’s projections, the subtleties of expansion ratios, and the buried implications of compliance variances were all there, neatly arranged and coded with the precision he demanded.

But tedious because she was distracted.

She sat across from him, legs crossed, tablet in her lap, posture immaculate. She spoke when spoken to, offered insight when required. Her eyes moved over the documents with quiet diligence, and her tone was measured. Perfect.

And still—it was not enough.

Her spirit was elsewhere.

He watched it beneath the surface. The way her eyes lingered too long on a single figure. The way her lips moved with the shadow of a frown before she pressed them shut. She had not spoken more than two sentences at a time since they arrived this morning. And though she functioned, she was not present.

He allowed it. For now.

At precisely 11:58 a.m., he set the last report aside.

“We have a lunch meeting,” he said, tone casual, final.

She looked up.

Her features betrayed nothing—well-trained now, nearly flawless. Only a flicker of hesitation passed over her lashes before she responded, “With whom?”

“Ayame. Regarding the regional merger between her house and one of Naraku’s fractured subsidiaries. The wolves want the seat. We’re deciding if they deserve it.”

A pause. Then a nod.

She said nothing more. Simply rose, gathered the tablet, and waited for him at the door.

By the time they reached the car, she was composed again—silent, thoughtful, her gaze fixed out the window as they drove. He said nothing. The silence was useful now. Every breath she took folded into his observations. She wasn’t angry. Not quite. But something within her had gone quiet in a way he recognized all too well.

She was preparing for something. Or bracing for it.

Which meant he needed to know what.

They arrived at the restaurant five minutes early. He let the valet take the car, then opened her door himself.

This time, she allowed it.

Inside, the host recognized him instantly. No words needed. They were led to a private room near the back—low lighting, polished wood, high-backed seats. Executive privacy. All carefully arranged.

And already seated at the table?

Ayame. In a sleek plum suit, her copper hair tied back in a knot of coils and pins. Kōga beside her, shirt unbuttoned just enough to annoy him. The wolf prince’s grin was already in place.

But it was the third occupant that made Kagome still in her steps.

Kohaku.

He sat quietly. Posture formal. Eyes forward. A glass of still water untouched before him.

Sesshōmaru felt the tension in her body without needing to look at her. He continued forward anyway. He took his seat at the head. Kagome sat beside him a beat later, careful and quiet.

No reaction. No words. No betrayal of thought.

He was impressed.

Kōga leaned back in his chair, eyes dancing with mischief.

“Well, well,” the wolf said, raising his glass like a toast. “Good to see the queen still alive.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t glance at her. He didn’t need to. Her body remained still. Her hands rested on her lap. Controlled.

Kōga went on.

“I hope you don’t mind I stole your knight from Naraku’s clutches,” he said with an exaggerated wink. “Man’s got a good sense of loyalty. Hard to come by these days.”

Ayame gave him a flat look. “Kōga.”

“What?” he said, throwing his arms wide with false innocence. “We’re all friends here.”

“No,” Sesshōmaru said quietly, folding his hands. “We’re not.”

A flicker of caution crossed the wolf’s face, but only for a moment.

Kagome didn’t move. Not even when Kohaku’s gaze flicked briefly toward her. Not when the silence thickened like a storm cloud waiting to break. She was quiet. Dignified. And terrifyingly unreadable.

Good.

Because Sesshōmaru had brought her here for work. And loyalty. To show the court—subtle or not—that she remained beside him. Unshaken. Undisplaced. That Kohaku’s presence meant nothing. That Kōga’s provocations would not draw her voice. That her silence, in this moment, was power.

Let the wolves think she was unmoved. Let Kohaku see what price silence could carry. Sesshōmaru leaned back in his chair.

“Let us eat,” he said. “The merger won’t wait for nostalgia.”

And neither would he.

She didn’t speak.

Not once.

The food arrived—sablefish, lacquered vegetables, miso butter on greens that wilted beneath the heat of the plate—and she ate it silently. Poised. Chewing with elegance. Knife in her right hand, fork in her left, everything measured down to the fraction of a pause between bites.

Not slow enough to draw attention. Not fast enough to be careless. She was surviving the moment by folding into it like silk. And Sesshōmaru let her.

Because Kōga was already doing exactly what was expected.

Rambling.

“They say you should never sleep with your subordinates,” the wolf muttered around a mouthful of seared steak. “But gods, Kohaku—he’s loyal, efficient, dead-eyed in a fight, and built like he knows how to ruin someone’s week.”

He laughed at his own words. Ayame sighed. Kagome’s fork lifted, turned, settled again—no reaction.

Sesshōmaru kept his eyes on his glass. Water. Cold. Clear. Sharp.

“And I mean, I get it,” Kōga continued, swirling his wine like a bored nobleman. “I see why your queen wanted a taste.” His grin went sharp. “A girl’s gotta eat, right?”

Sesshōmaru’s gaze lifted. Slowly. Precisely. The silence that followed was brief—but surgical.

Ayame cleared her throat. “He signed this morning.”

“Kohaku,” she clarified, shooting her mate a look that clearly meant behave. “He’s under formal contract. Muscle, yes, but also client coordination. We needed someone who could manage hybrid accounts during the merger.”

Kagome’s knife clicked against her plate once.

Still she said nothing.

Ayame went on. “Given that he worked for Sesshōmaru for over a decade, Naraku for a week, and now us—he has a read on every major player’s preferences. Communication style. Escalation protocol. Even dietary needs.”

Kōga smirked. “And bedroom kinks, probably.”

This time, Sesshōmaru spoke.

“I suggest you stop speaking.”

The wolf chuckled, but Sesshōmaru didn’t smile. His voice hadn’t raised, but something in the air shifted. Denser. Icy.

Across from him, Kagome reached for her water glass. Smoothly. Calmly. Her expression unreadable.

But Sesshōmaru saw the way her fingers curled—tight, then looser. As if the weight of the glass was the only thing anchoring her in place.

Kohaku hadn’t said a word.

Smart.

Sesshōmaru leaned back in his chair, gaze sweeping the table once. Assessing. Categorizing. Watching Ayame’s measured diplomacy, Kōga’s arrogance, and Kohaku’s perfect silence.

He had brought her into the lion’s mouth and she had not bled.

But that didn’t mean the lions wouldn’t pay for licking their teeth too loudly.

He turned his eyes to Ayame. “So this is your official coordination team.”

Her jaw flexed. “Yes. Finalized this morning. Reviewed by legal.”

He nodded once. “Then I’ll require a detailed brief by Monday. Deployment schedule. Territory divisions. Known affiliations.”

Ayame inclined her head. “Understood.”

Kōga gave a mock salute. “We’re team players.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t look at him. Didn’t need to. He reached for his own glass, and the wolf fell appropriately silent.

The lunch continued. No one asked Kagome anything. No one dared. She ate everything on her plate. She said nothing at all.

And that—Sesshōmaru thought—was the most terrifying answer anyone at the table could have received.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seventy-Nine: The Misstep

(Sesshōmaru – POV)

He should have had the wolf muzzled.

It would have been cleaner. Quieter.

Instead, Sesshōmaru sat with perfect posture, hands steepled beneath his chin, gaze half-lidded, and listened to Kōga degrade every scrap of diplomacy Ayame had tried to salvage from the lunch meeting.

She had long since stopped trying to stop him. A single look had passed between them—her teeth clenched behind a pinched smile, his shrug unapologetic. Now she merely nursed her drink with the serenity of a woman who had surrendered to the chaos of her mate’s mouth.

Kagome had not looked at Kōga once since the last course was cleared.

She sat beside Sesshōmaru, silent and still, her hands resting on her lap in a perfect mimicry of composure. But he could feel the tension in her down to the bone. Could see the rigidity in her shoulder blades and the subtle quiver of her lashes. She was bracing. Steadying. And every time the wolf opened his mouth again, Sesshōmaru watched her body harden beneath her skin like stone under frost.

And still—Kōga pushed.

“Really is a shame,” the wolf said, leaning back with a lazy sprawl, one ankle on his knee, arms spread across the booth like he owned the room. “We were thinking of throwing a little welcome party for Kohaku this weekend. I even thought about introducing him to a few of the clan girls. There’s a she-wolf out of Kyoto who could use a little muscle in her line, if you know what I mean.”

He laughed, low and vulgar.

Ayame rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath about barbaric traditions.

Kōga went on.

“Course, none of them are humans. So he might have a hard time topping his last conquest.” He turned, full grin now, eyes burning with mischief. “Unless the queen’s still available?”

Kagome didn’t blink.

Sesshōmaru could feel her jaw clench beside him, but her expression remained unchanged. She reached for her water and took a sip, slow and calm. Not a single glance spared toward Kōga. Not even a flicker.

Unbothered.

Unreachable.

It was devastatingly effective.

But Kōga—too dumb to read the room, too smug to shut his mouth—pushed further, like a dog who’d scented blood but didn’t know whose.

“You know,” he said, drawing the words out like they amused him, “it’s a damn shame Kohaku gave you back to Sesshōmaru last night.”

Sesshōmaru did not move.

Kagome paused.

Kōga chuckled, oblivious. “I would’ve kept you at the house. Marked you. P—”

“Kōga,” Ayame snapped, her voice low, furious.

But it was too late.

The wolf kept talking, lips still curved in a smirk as he turned toward Sesshōmaru, finally registering the demon’s stillness.

“He texted you, didn’t he?” Kōga said, gesturing with his glass. “Hell of a move. That’s loyalty for you. After that, I knew I made the right call pulling him into our circle. The man’s still yours, even after all that.”

Sesshōmaru didn’t respond. Not yet.

But beside him, Kagome had gone utterly still.

Frozen.

Like a wire pulled too tight.

Her fork rested on her plate, untouched. Her body didn’t shift, didn’t move, didn’t breathe. But her eyes—her eyes were wide, locked on Kohaku like she was trying to decode a riddle with no words.

And Kohaku—gods, the boy knew. Sesshōmaru didn’t need to look at him to see the truth. Kohaku sat like a man caught in a snare, spine straight, expression controlled—but not enough. Not now. Not under her gaze.

Because she was staring at him. Hard. As if she hadn’t heard the words right. As if she was trying to reconcile what they meant with everything she thought she knew.

He didn’t lie to her. He couldn’t have. He hadn’t said a word last night. He hadn’t told her about the text. About the handoff. About the choice.

But now?

Now the mask cracked. Kohaku sighed. And looked away. Not down. Not toward Sesshōmaru. But away from her. And that, Sesshōmaru knew, hurt more than the admission itself.

There was a moment—long, unbearable, and precise—where no one at the table moved. Even Kōga seemed to register that something had shifted. The grin slid off his face. His brow furrowed. The tension in the room calcified.

Sesshōmaru turned his gaze toward Kagome.

She didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. But her hand had clenched into a fist on the white linen napkin in her lap. And her reiki—dormant, latent, bruised from disuse—flickered under her skin like a match being held just below the surface of water.

It hadn’t ignited. Not yet.

But it would.

Sesshōmaru exhaled once, quietly. Then he looked at Kōga.

The wolf held up both hands. “Hey, I didn’t know she didn’t know.”

“She didn’t,” Sesshōmaru said coldly. “Now she does.”

Another silence.

And then Kagome rose. Not fast. Not loud. Just smooth, clean movement—the chair sliding back, her napkin placed carefully on the table. Her posture perfect. Her chin lifted.

“I need air,” she said softly.

No one stopped her. Not even Sesshōmaru. He simply watched her walk to the door, her spine straight, her heels striking the floor like punctuation. She didn’t slam it. Didn’t run.

She left like a queen.

A deeply betrayed one.

And when the door shut behind her, Sesshōmaru turned back to the table with all the slowness of a blade being drawn.

Kōga had the good sense to look uneasy now. Ayame closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Kohaku didn’t move.

“I will say this once,” Sesshōmaru said quietly, evenly, letting every syllable bite. “If she bleeds again for your mistakes—any of them—I will burn your alliance to the ground. And I will begin with whoever fails to silence you.”

Kōga opened his mouth. Closed it.

Ayame nodded once. “Understood.”

Kohaku still didn’t speak. Didn’t have to. The damage was done. And outside that door, Sesshōmaru knew—his priestess had just begun to rewrite every truth she thought she could live with.

He found her by the valet entrance, where the sidewalk met a line of sculpted hedges and the faint echo of city traffic carried over stone and glass. She stood with her arms folded, her back to the wall, one foot tapping slowly against the pavement in her heels—unbothered by the chill, indifferent to the watching world.

Not a single tear. Not a tremble. Just a slow, simmering exhale as if the entire universe had conspired to mildly inconvenience her, and she was debating whether or not it was worth destroying.

He approached without announcement. She didn’t startle. Didn’t look at him right away, either. Her gaze was fixed somewhere across the boulevard—at nothing.

And then, with the most dismissive huff she had ever directed his way, she rolled her eyes and said, “For once, I’m not mad at you.”

His brow lifted, but he said nothing.

She finally turned her head, mouth set in a sharp line, and gestured vaguely toward the street, the building, the sky—whatever this whole orchestrated insult had been.

“You picked me up,” she said dryly. “But he? He texted you? That’s how you found me?”

Sesshōmaru didn’t blink.

There was no point in feigning innocence. No value in half-truths. She would tear through them with precision. So instead, he stood still, let the silence breathe between them, and then nodded once.

“Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment he thought she might yell—might give voice to the betrayal, to the wound stitched just beneath her ribcage. But she didn’t.

She scoffed. As if fury had no place here anymore. As if she’d moved on to deeper indignities. Sesshōmaru, ever attuned, let the moment settle before he spoke. Measured. Calm.

“I was already aware of your location.”

Her brows lifted. “Of course you were.”

“I track your shoes,” he continued, ignoring her sarcasm. “As well as your car, your office badge, and the security tag embedded in your coat.”

She tilted her head. “Of course you do.”

But he wasn’t finished.

“Kohaku did text me,” he said plainly. “Not because he wanted to betray you. But because nothing good would have come from keeping you.”

That struck.

He saw it—the quick flash of her eyes, the twitch at the corner of her mouth, the sharp breath she didn’t let out.

And then she turned, fully now, planting her feet as she glared at him with a heat that would’ve incinerated anyone else.

“So now I’m not good?”

The words hit like a thrown blade—not shouted, but edged with steel.

Sesshōmaru didn’t flinch. Instead, slowly, the corners of his mouth tugged upward in the ghost of something that might have been a smirk. Dry. Cool. Not quite amused.

“For his survival?” he said, voice low. “No.”

She blinked.

Just once.

He stepped forward—not to close the distance, but to exist within it. Letting the truth hang between them like smoke.

“He’s loyal,” Sesshōmaru said. “But not foolish. You were never meant to stay in that house. That bed. That space between two paths he could never walk.”

Kagome’s mouth parted, but nothing came out. Because it wasn’t an insult. It wasn’t even an accusation. It was the truth, unvarnished. And she knew it.

He watched her wrestle with it—watched her gather the broken pieces of expectation and rebuild them into something sharper, something less trusting. Less naïve. Something like armor.

She looked away again, arms still folded, lips tight with whatever remained unspoken.

Sesshōmaru let her be. He did not offer comfort. Did not reach for her hand or smooth away the hurt. That was not what she wanted. And certainly not what she needed. But he would give her this—clarity, even when it cost her peace.

“Loyalty,” he said after a moment, “does not always come dressed in kindness.”

She gave a breath of laughter—cold and humorless.

“Neither does betrayal.”

He inclined his head, conceding the point.

They stood in silence for a long moment, the world around them moving in muted rhythm—cars passing, wind brushing against tailored coats, city life continuing as if everything beneath their feet hadn’t just shifted.

Finally, she straightened her spine and looked at him directly.

“I’m still not mad at you,” she said again, quieter now. “But I don’t like being a secret that two men had to coordinate like a package drop.”

He said nothing. He wouldn’t apologize. It wasn’t his way. But he didn’t look away either. She stared a moment longer, then stepped past him toward the car as it pulled up, polished black and waiting.

He opened her door.

She hesitated, barely—then got in.

And for the second time in a day, Sesshōmaru closed the door behind her, a silent sentinel standing between her fury and the rest of the world. He circled to the driver’s side, taking his place behind the wheel with the precision of a man reclaiming control.

They drove in silence. But this silence wasn’t born of comfort. It was forged in knowledge. And somewhere beneath it, Sesshōmaru knew—

This would be the last time anyone returned Kagome to him. Because she would not trust Kohaku with such a thing ever again.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighty: The Gift
Sesshōmaru – POV

He could feel it.

The simmer.

It wasn’t rage. Not quite. Kagome didn’t seethe or tremble. She didn’t radiate heat or throw barbed words to fill the silence between them. No, her anger—when it came—was never petty. She had too much control for that. Too much pride.

But Sesshōmaru had known her long enough to recognize irritation when it wrapped itself tight around her composure like a vice.

He could feel it in the way she sat beside him in the car—legs crossed too neatly, shoulders pulled taut, chin high, eyes trained on nothing in particular. Her silence had weight, and it pressed into the cabin like storm pressure.

Not at him. That, surprisingly, she had made clear.

But at someone .

The wolf. Or perhaps Kohaku.

Possibly both.

And truthfully?

He should have been furious.

The lunch had been a disaster of tact and tone. Kōga’s mouth had smeared filth across a room meant for political precision, and Kohaku—while silent—had let the blow land without defense.

Kagome had learned something today she was never meant to learn. Not like this. Not in public. Not with witnesses.

It was a breach.

A betrayal.

And yet—

Sesshōmaru’s hands rested calmly on the wheel, his face the picture of cold elegance, and all he felt was satisfaction.

Because Kōga—loud, vulgar, unthinking—had given him a gift.

Unintentionally, of course. That much was obvious. But gifts didn’t always come wrapped in silk. Some arrived in the form of chaos. Spilled secrets. Unmanaged tongues.

Because now? Kagome knew.

Kohaku, the loyal knight, the boy with a sword in one hand and quiet comfort in the other—was not the unwavering protector she’d imagined.

He had texted Sesshōmaru.

Not as a spy. Not maliciously. But because, in the end, he had chosen pragmatism over principle. Self-preservation. Her preservation. A move not made in defiance, but in weary calculation.

And Kagome—so painfully human beneath all that power—had believed in something cleaner. Purer.

A knight who would stand until his limbs broke. Who would suffer ruin if it meant shielding her from obligation.

But Kohaku had done the smart thing. The safe thing. He had surrendered her to Sesshōmaru without asking permission.

And now? Sesshōmaru didn’t have to lift a finger. He didn’t have to draw lines between them, didn't have to wield power or stage interventions. He didn’t need to remind her of rank, or loyalty, or the cost of misplaced trust. Because the pedestal had cracked all on its own.

Kohaku wasn’t a villain. Sesshōmaru would not insult him with that word.

But he was no longer a fantasy.

And that was invaluable.

Kagome shifted beside him. Crossed her arms. Her reiki hadn’t risen—not a spike, not a tremble. But the silence, the way her lashes lowered just slightly, the tap of her fingernail against her forearm—he recognized the signs.

She was sorting through it. Reassessing. Rebuilding the narrative in her mind. The one where Kohaku was different. Safe. Unflinching.

And now she would learn the truth Sesshōmaru had always known:

Even good men break.

Especially when they believe they’re doing it for your benefit.

He didn’t gloat. That wasn’t his nature. But beneath the calm line of his mouth, something flickered in his chest—low and steady and satisfied.

He would not need to remove Kohaku from her life.

She would do it herself, in slow degrees. Not with anger, but with understanding. Disappointment was more enduring than fury. It carved deeper. And once she internalized it, once she accepted that the boy who once shielded her in war had chosen to hand her back like a parcel wrapped in regret?

That bond would fray. And he would not stop it. Because Sesshōmaru had no need for sentimental knights.

Not when Kagome was walking toward power.

Not when she sat beside him now, no longer unsure of where she stood—but uncertain of where she had been .

Another gift. Unintended. And all the more useful.

He turned the wheel sharply, taking the car down a quieter route, away from the main thoroughfares. She didn’t question it. Didn’t speak. Just kept her gaze forward, the only sound between them the hush of tires over pavement and the steady beat of a truth that had reshaped her world by inches.

Sesshōmaru let it all unfold in silence. He would not comfort her. He had no intention of softening the moment. Growth required discomfort. And he had no doubt—no hesitation—that she would rise from this smarter. Sharper. More his equal than ever before.

And if that wasn’t a gift?

Then the world had truly lost its meaning.

The car rolled to a stop beneath the covered awning of the office tower, the city glinting behind them, sterile and bright. Employees filtered past the front glass—interns with coffee, executives glued to phones—but none of it touched the insulated quiet of the car.

Sesshōmaru reached for the door handle.

And paused.

Because this time—unlike this morning—Kagome didn’t move.  

She made no motion to exit, no glance toward the handle. She simply sat there, spine straight, hands clasped in her lap. Waiting.

He glanced sideways, and she met his gaze with a flat, pointed look. Not mocking. Not defiant.

Just…patient. Deliberate.

He opened his door, stepped out, rounded the front of the car, and pulled hers open without ceremony.

She nodded once—imperial, as if acknowledging a gesture from a loyal retainer—and swung her legs out smoothly. The heels hit the pavement with a clean click. Controlled. Elegant.

And then—just before she rose—she sighed.

Loudly.

A breath full of exhausted disbelief and reluctant irritation, followed by a soft huff that vibrated with more truth than any argument could.

She stood slowly, straightening her dress, adjusting her bag. And then she looked at him. Not up, not down—just straight, level, heat in her stare.

“The world just falls in line for you, doesn’t it?” she muttered.

He said nothing.

Gods, he wanted to smile.

The corners of his mouth itched with it—the dry amusement, the satisfaction, the absurd beauty of being exactly who she thought he was in that moment. The world did fall in line. It always had. Not because of luck or charm or divine inheritance, but because he demanded it to.

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, he tilted his head slightly—brows faintly lifted in cultivated confusion—and offered the picture of aloof elegance.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he replied.

Flat. Perfect.

She glared. Narrowed eyes, one brow arched, a scoff threatening at the corner of her mouth.

He held her gaze. Unblinking. Impossibly composed.

Let her sit with it. Let her simmer. Let her shape that glare into whatever she needed—resignation, revelation, reluctant acknowledgment that the world had indeed tilted beneath her feet and somehow landed her right back in his orbit.

She exhaled sharply through her nose, shook her head, and walked ahead of him into the building.

No words. But her steps were less rigid now. Still purposeful, but no longer braced.

She didn’t look back. And Sesshōmaru followed, long strides measured, posture unshaken, the faintest shadow of a smirk tugging at his thoughts though never quite reaching his face.

Let her think he was oblivious. Let her believe he didn’t understand what she’d meant.

It was better that way.

Because she was right, of course. The world did fall in line for him. And now—slowly, piece by piece—it was beginning to fall in line for her, too.

He would see to it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighty-One: Alignment

(Sesshōmaru – POV)

Something had changed.

It wasn’t loud or dramatic—no shattering of illusions, no declarations of defeat or allegiance. Kagome had not knelt. She had not wept or stormed from the building. She simply walked through the lobby with a pace less sharp than before, less strained, as if she’d finally accepted something she hadn’t wanted to name.

That the universe—unjust, imbalanced, and irrefutably tilted—would never be on her side.

Because it already belonged to him.

And there was something almost beautiful in her surrender to that fact.

Not a surrender of will. No, that would have been too simple, too easy to break. Kagome’s spine remained straight, her chin lifted as they passed the elevators and headed toward the executive suite. She gave no outward sign that anything had shifted between them.

But Sesshōmaru had spent years refining his ability to sense fractures. And this one was quiet. Subtle. The kind that happened just beneath the surface—where resistance dulled, not into submission, but into a colder, sharper kind of clarity.

She had realized the truth: if she continued to fight him, she would lose. Not because she was weak. But because the world had already chosen its axis—and it spun for him. And her defiance, however righteous or brilliant, would never be enough to tilt it.

She knew it now.

And he—aloof, measured, patient—took that as a win. A quiet, devastating win. Because what use was rebellion when the ground itself bowed for the one you opposed?

They entered the division floor. The hush of reverent silence that always greeted him passed like a wave, subtle but absolute. Assistants paused mid-sentence. Screens flickered in peripheral retreat. No one dared meet his eyes directly.

But Kagome? She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away. She just walked two steps behind him, then beside him, then passed him altogether as they neared the office.

She reached the door first.

He let her.

She keyed in her code, entered the shared space, and didn’t wait for permission. She crossed the room with that new silence wrapped around her like armor and claimed the chair beside his desk— not behind it. Not at the corner table. Not across the room.

Beside him.

Then she pulled her laptop from the drawer, powered it on, and began reviewing the quarterly reports. No words. No questions. No visible resistance. Just the sharp, efficient slide of data across the screen, the occasional flick of her pen against the margin, the focused click of keys.

Sesshōmaru moved behind his desk, watching her without watching. He took his seat, retrieved his own device, opened the analytics suite—and allowed himself the indulgence of watching her peripheral presence. Calm. Quiet. Still wrapped in the tension of betrayal, perhaps, but now more anchored than frayed.

She worked as if nothing had happened. As if the lunch had been an unfortunate meeting and not a battlefield. As if her old ally hadn’t disappointed her. As if she hadn’t just confirmed what Sesshōmaru had long suspected:

That her place was not beside those who felt deeply and broke easily.

Her place was here. Beside the one who never bent.

She had finally started aligning—not just her choices, but her instincts . And that was something even more dangerous than loyalty. Something more potent than love.

Acceptance.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t interrupt her rhythm. She had chosen to begin the day again, and he would not fracture that momentum.

Let her read the reports. Let her comb through financials and incident logs and partnership metrics with the mind he’d always known she had. Let her anchor herself in the work, because the work was the only neutral ground left. In numbers, there was no betrayal. No politics. No wolves with sharp tongues. No knights who ran when the storm grew inconvenient.

Just performance. Output. Fact. And in that world, Kagome thrived.

For nearly an hour, they said nothing. Pages flipped. Tabs opened. She made notes—marked inefficiencies, tagged dissonant line items, highlighted projected shortfalls in division seven.

He let her. Let her wrap her mind around strategy again. Let her root herself in systems she could command, even if the rest of her world had begun to spin beyond her grasp.

He’d seen it before—in war, in boardrooms, in corridors soaked in blood and incense: that moment when someone realized they could no longer win their way.

And rather than collapse, they adapted.

Kagome was adapting.

Not with submission. Not with bitterness. But with precision. She was recalibrating. And Sesshōmaru, silent in his own chair, watched it unfold with the deep, quiet satisfaction of a man who had waited patiently for inevitability to bloom.

She would never be ruled. He didn’t want her to be. But she would no longer fight the current. She would swim in it. And one day—soon—she would begin to shape it.

Beside him.

Where she belonged.

The silence had become a structure of its own—dense, productive, heavy with purpose. The only sounds were the gentle hum of the ventilation, the muted tap of her fingers against her keyboard, and the soft swish of his pen across paper as he annotated legal summaries between glances at fiscal trend graphs.

It had been over an hour since they’d returned from the wreckage of lunch, and Kagome had neither spoken nor faltered. Her focus was exacting. She worked with quiet precision, teeth slightly pinched into the inside of her lip, brows drawn in deep concentration as she moved from document to document like a surgeon through flesh—clean, calm, and unflinching.

And Sesshōmaru? He was more than content to let her remain there.

She didn’t need him to interrupt, to advise, or to manage.

She needed space. To reorient. To reclaim what was hers in silence.

But when her phone vibrated—soft, insistent, against the lacquered surface of the desk—he watched, without truly meaning to, as the silence cracked.

Her hand moved instinctively. She didn’t even look up, just slid her fingers across the screen and lifted the device, her eyes scanning the message with a flicker of wariness.

He didn’t need to crane his neck. His vision was, as always, flawless. And the screen—tilted just so—offered the words without resistance:

Let me explain. It sounded worse than it was. I was trying to protect you.

Kohaku.

Of course.

Sesshōmaru didn’t smile. Not with his mouth. But his chest filled with something that was very near amusement.

The poor white knight had been tarnished. And now he stood outside the castle walls, lifting his helm with desperate hands, pleading for a second chance before the drawbridge finished closing.

He could almost hear the tone beneath the message— I didn’t mean to drop you into the arms of the most dangerous man alive, I only wanted to keep you safe.

A tragic, misguided confession.

And Kagome? Her expression didn’t change.

She stared at the message for a long, long moment—too long, perhaps—and then, without fanfare, her thumbs moved.

Three words.

I’m not upset.

She tapped send. And then, as if nothing had passed through her veins at all, she set the phone face-down on the desk and returned to her notes.

No sigh. No furrowed brow. No lingering attention. Just indifference.

Beautiful, clean indifference.

Sesshōmaru almost preened.

It was not triumph in the usual sense. There was no blood drawn, no rival vanquished. Kohaku, in truth, had barely erred. The boy had played his role as best he could and faltered only because the story required a different ending.

But still. There was a particular satisfaction in witnessing the quiet severance of illusions.

Kagome had seen through the veil. And she had chosen—not rage, not tears, not righteous defense—but apathy.

That response, simple and cold, was more telling than anything she could have shouted. It meant she was done grieving the idea of who Kohaku had been to her. That she no longer needed to mourn the version of him who might have stood against Sesshōmaru’s shadow.

She had stopped holding him to an impossible ideal. And in doing so, she had taken one step closer to him .

He resumed his own work without looking at her again, but he could feel it in the room—the subtle shift in air pressure. The weight of something realigning. Her posture remained calm, her scent steady. No spike of bitterness. No echo of pain.

She was not healed. But she was choosing. Choosing to stay. Choosing to work. Choosing to let Kohaku’s pedestal remain broken.

And Sesshōmaru, in his silence, let the moment pass unacknowledged. No praise. No indulgent commentary. No need to disturb what was finally settling into place.

Because some victories did not require applause. They simply required patience. And Sesshōmaru had always had that in abundance.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighty-Two: The Commute

(Sesshōmaru – POV)

The day ended without incident.

Reports reviewed. Numbers logged. A half-dozen executive decisions routed through his office and handled with surgical precision. The merger schedule had been finalized for initial vetting. Ayame had sent a passive-aggressive thank-you for lunch that read like a corporate ceasefire. And Kohaku had—mercifully—gone quiet.

Kagome had worked without complaint, without interruption, and with a level of detachment that made her dangerously efficient. Not distant. Not cold. Just focused. Methodical. Like someone who had decided to keep walking after a minor car crash. Limping, maybe, but still forward.

So when Sesshōmaru stood at precisely 6:04 p.m., shutting his laptop and reaching for his coat, he expected her to do the predictable thing. Close her device. Gather her notes. Offer some perfunctory comment—“see you tomorrow” or “text me if anything changes.” Perhaps even a sarcastic quip. Something sharp and irritating to remind him she still had thorns.

What he did not expect was the woman to rise, smooth down her skirt, pick up her bag, and fall into step beside him as if she’d always done so.

No question. No comment. No delay. Like a well-trained executive assistant—or worse, a small child—she followed him out the office door, through the corridor, into the elevator, and across the parking garage.

And said nothing.

Not a single word.

He gave her a sidelong glance at the elevator, watching as she leaned against the mirrored wall, eyes half-lidded, exhaustion rolling off her in waves. Her bag slipped slightly from her shoulder. She didn’t adjust it. Just stood there, arms crossed, gaze on the floor numbers like they were taking too long.

By the time they stepped into the garage, Sesshōmaru had made peace with the fact that she was simply on autopilot.

But as they approached his car—and she didn’t veer left toward the employee lot, didn’t slow down, didn’t even glance toward the street—it began to dawn on him:

She wasn’t pretending.

She genuinely had no idea she was doing this.

He reached the car.

She stood patiently at the passenger door, gaze unfocused, adjusting her bag strap as though this were routine.

And gods.

Gods, he should’ve said something.

He should have cleared his throat or asked, “Where are you going?” or simply stood still and let her notice .

But he didn’t.

Because Sesshōmaru Taishō, supreme strategist, apex predator, sovereign lord of bloodless power plays and institutional dominance…was stunned.

Not dramatically. Not externally. But internally? He was baffled.

Was this a power move? Some silent declaration that she belonged in his world now? That he would drive her, house her, make room for her in his home without question?

Or was it just the residual effects of her day—too many betrayals, too many calculations, too much exhaustion—and her feet simply carried her where instinct told her she would be…safe?

Should he be proud of her composure? Or alarmed by her submission?

He opened the door.

She got in.

Still without a word.

No thanks. No assumption. No awkward glance to acknowledge the strangeness of the moment. Just her sitting, adjusting her seatbelt, pulling her bag into her lap, and exhaling like she was waiting for takeoff.

Sesshōmaru closed the door, circled around, and slipped into the driver’s seat with the slow inevitability of a man walking into a room already on fire.

He keyed the ignition. Silence.

He merged into traffic. Still nothing.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t check her phone. Just watched the city slip by in streaks of late sun and glass, her lashes low, her posture soft with exhaustion, as though this had always been their arrangement.

As though there had never been a time she didn’t end her day by getting into his car and being ferried to his home.

And Sesshōmaru? He drove.

And refused— refused —to speak.

Because he didn’t know what this was. He had anticipated hundreds of permutations of her behavior. Rage. Coldness. Defiance. Even silence. But not…this. Not quiet proximity. Not this strange, surreal domesticity without announcement or agreement.

Was she claiming something? Reclaiming something? Had she even noticed what she was doing? The possibilities bounced in his skull like misfired spells.

He was not confused often. But this? This was confusion.

He kept driving. Chose not to ask. Let the weight of her presence in the seat beside him grow heavier with every passing block.

Until—

He pulled into the private drive, the gate lifting automatically with the sensor.

She didn’t react.

Not until he rolled the car to a stop in front of the main entrance, the polished stone of his estate glowing under warm lights.

Only then did she stir. Only then did her eyes lift from the middle distance and blink once. Twice.

And then slowly—slowly—her head turned toward him. Then toward the house. Then back to him. Brows furrowing. Eyes squinting. Mouth parting slightly as if realizing she had just teleported in a dream, and the dream had landed her in his driveway.

“Oh my god,” she muttered, voice hoarse and half-panicked. “Did I follow you home?”

Sesshōmaru did not move. He did not speak. Because if he opened his mouth now, he might laugh. And he refused to give her the satisfaction.

Instead, he merely unbuckled his seatbelt with slow precision and opened the driver’s side door.

She was still staring at him, mortified, as if trying to remember how her legs had moved, how her brain had let her do this , how she’d failed to realize until it was far, far too late.

He stood beside the car now, the picture of composure. Aloof. Untouched. And utterly, internally delighted. This was no power move. This was instinct. And that? Was far more telling than anything she could have said.

She didn’t move.

Even with the door open, even with the cooling evening air curling around her legs and the engine now silent, Kagome sat frozen in place—shoulders squared, eyes slightly wide, one hand still limp around the strap of her bag.

Mortification. It radiated off her in warm, deeply human waves. He could feel it in the way her mouth was set too tightly, the slight clench of her jaw as if bracing for an earthquake of her own making. Not fear. Not regret. Just pure, unfiltered realization .

She had, without discussion or direction, followed him home.

And not metaphorically.

She had gotten into his car. Sat in his seat. Let him drive her across the city to his estate. And only now , with the engine off and the front doors of his private residence yawning wide before her, did it occur to her what she’d done.

Sesshōmaru leaned against the side of the car and said nothing.

Because what was there to say?

She stared at him with the slow, dawning expression of a woman realizing she had walked into the wrong restroom, or answered a rhetorical question seriously in a crowded room. Her pride—sharp, reflexive, defiant—was now holding her hostage.

And he had no intention of rescuing her.

Instead, he merely waited.

And finally—finally—she moved. She exhaled, deeply and with feeling. A sound that practically shook the windows. Then, without looking at him again, she grabbed her bag, stepped out of the vehicle, and muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like kill me .

He made no comment.

He led her up the short steps to the door, his gait smooth, measured, unaffected. And when they reached the threshold, he unlocked it with the silent confidence of a man who owned every inch of this domain—including the mortified woman now trailing him like a reluctant shadow.

Inside, the house was warm. Dim. Clean. And quiet. He stepped out of his shoes, loosened the cuffs of his shirt, and turned slightly to point down the hallway.

“The guest room,” he said, voice smooth and unhurried, “is still yours. You may as well get comfortable in it, considering you slept there last night and marched directly back into it today.”

Kagome stared at him. Blank. Disbelieving. Her expression was the very picture of a person struggling to determine whether she was being mocked or merely reported on.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then simply walked past him—head high, eyes forward, spine stiff—and disappeared down the hall without a word.

He listened as the door clicked shut. And only then , standing in the silence of his entryway, did Sesshōmaru permit himself the faintest twitch of a smirk.

Progress.

Today, she had been betrayed by a knight, verbally mauled by a wolf, emotionally steadied by silence, and—whether she knew it or not—she had quietly chosen proximity to him as her default state.

Autopilot. Instinct. Not strategy. Not pretense. Not even punishment.

She had followed him home not because she was plotting anything, but because somewhere deep in the tangle of her exhaustion and confusion, her subconscious had already decided that this was the safest place to land.

His domain.

His car.

His home.

Him.

And Sesshōmaru—stoic, aloof, outwardly unmoved—was pleased . Confused still, admittedly. There had been a moment of genuine hesitation when he wasn’t entirely sure if she expected to be dropped off or offered a key.

But he had recovered.

And now?

Now he silently placed a dinner order. Simple dishes. Nothing excessive. One of everything he knew she ate when too tired to argue. And enough for leftovers—because if her instincts continued this trajectory, she’d be sleeping here again tomorrow.

He didn’t announce it. Didn’t call through the door or summon her to the kitchen.

He simply let her sit with her thoughts, her humiliation, her quiet recalibration of what today had meant. And maybe, eventually, she’d crawl out of that room and ask what they were eating. Or maybe she wouldn’t.

Either way, the point remained.

Kohaku was gone.

Kagome was here.

And the world, as always, had begun bending back into place.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighty-Three: Domestication

(Sesshōmaru – POV)

The food arrived twenty-three minutes after he placed the order.

Punctual. Predictable. Unlike the woman currently sulking behind his guest room door, no doubt still attempting to salvage her pride from the wreckage of instinctual proximity.

He did not knock. Did not announce the arrival of dinner. He simply accepted the delivery, plated the meal with quiet, methodical hands, and arranged the dishes on the low coffee table in the den. It was unnecessary—formality would’ve allowed her to eat in the dining room, if she asked. But she wouldn’t.

She had no idea what she was doing, and it was becoming more amusing by the hour.

He was halfway through placing utensils when he heard the soft creak of a door.

He didn’t turn. Just poured water into a glass with measured slowness as her steps padded into the room.

And then—

Then he saw her.

From the corner of his eye, a flash of soft silk and bare legs. She moved across the floor like it was nothing, like she had every right to exist in that particular shade of navy blue and silver—his colors—without explanation or irony.

The silk tank draped lightly over her shoulders, falling just below her ribs. The matching shorts barely skimmed mid-thigh. Subtle embroidery glinted faintly at the hems. Comfortable. Practical. Luxurious.

He said nothing.

But nearly—nearly—smiled.

He had ordered those.

Days ago, actually. In anticipation of long hours and overnight meetings. In case she ever needed to stay. In case she ever accepted that proximity to him required more than a suit and a temper.

She must’ve found them folded in the drawer. Hadn’t asked whose they were. Hadn’t asked why they fit. Just pulled them on like she lived here. Like she had always lived here.

She looked around the room only once, as if checking for some unspoken ritual she might’ve missed. Then sat cross-legged on the plush rug, right beside the coffee table, and reached for a glass of water.

No commentary. No acknowledgment of the absurdity. Just fatigue and silk and silent entitlement to his living room.

It was, frankly, astonishing.

He set her plate in front of her without a word and settled into his own seat across the table.

She eyed the food, then him. Then—unsurprisingly—sighed.

“My car,” she said dryly, poking at a piece of gingered chicken, “is still at Kohaku’s.”

He met her gaze. Nodded.

As if that explained everything.

As if she hadn’t boarded his vehicle like a duckling imprinting on the first thing it saw after trauma. As if following him home, walking into his house, and dressing in his colors were all part of some logical sequence of post-office errands.

Her tone was too casual to be accidental.

It was a defense.

A weak, tired, half-hearted attempt to reclaim the narrative: See? I didn’t follow you home. I just didn’t have another option.

But it was far too late for that.

The lie, if it could even be called that, arrived after the action. And he was not a man who concerned himself with the stories people told to save face. He cared about the patterns. The behavior. And the behavior? Was hilariously telling.

She had come back to his home. Unprompted.  She had dressed herself in the softest thing available. In his colors. She had walked into the den, sat on the floor beside him, accepted a plate, and offered the world’s flimsiest excuse—like a kitten caught inside a stranger’s house insisting the door must’ve been open.

He didn’t challenge her. Didn’t raise an eyebrow or issue one of his dry, surgical comments. Instead, he accepted it. Let her have the illusion. If it helped her pride, so be it. He would house her. Feed her. Let her wear his silk and sit beside him like it had always been this way.

He simply hadn’t expected her to domesticate so quickly. That, more than anything, had caught him off guard. He’d braced himself for weeks of resistance. For late-night arguments and awkward logistics. For the awkwardness of cohabitation forced by strategy or necessity.

But this?

This wasn’t war. It was fatigue.  Instinct. She had chosen the path of least resistance—and he had been standing in it.

And now? Now she was curled beneath the soft glow of the living room sconces, her knees tucked up near her chest, eating rice like she wasn’t quietly unraveling his entire sense of order.

He picked up his chopsticks. Ate in silence.

Let her think she was in control. Because this kind of surrender—soft, quiet, unspoken—was the rarest of all. And he would not scare it away by acknowledging it.

She ate in silence. No commentary. No sarcasm. No sudden glances or hesitant conversation to fill the space between bites.

Just quiet, methodical consumption.

As if this were routine. As if this weren’t the first time she’d followed him home without realizing it, dressed in his colors, and sat at his table like she belonged there.

Sesshōmaru didn’t disturb the stillness.

He watched, impassive, his own meal nearly forgotten as she lifted her glass with both hands, fingers curled around the cool water like a talisman, eyes half-lidded with something between exhaustion and resignation.

Defense mechanism? Likely. But not wholly. Because there was no edge to it. No dagger behind her silence. She was not bracing for the next blow or calculating her next escape.

She was simply…still.

And that was new.

She had begun this strange unraveling like a stray cat: wild-eyed, teeth bared, fur raised and ready to bolt at any sudden movement. She’d hissed. Clawed. Refused comfort even when it was offered in the softest tones. Every advance had been treated as a trap. Every kindness, a leash.

But now…

Now she was eating in his living room. In her sleepwear. In silence. No gratitude. No fear. Just quiet acceptance.

He was beginning to think she hadn’t been fed properly in some time. Not physically—he knew Kohaku had fed her. Perhaps too well.

The boy had offered her meals and warmth and something soft to collapse into. Not just pizza and beer—but his bed, his voice, his body. Kagome hadn’t rejected any of it. Had let herself be held. Had listened to lies wrapped in comfort. Had accepted affection delivered without condition.

And now? Now she sat across from Sesshōmaru, eyes lowered, posture relaxed, wrapped in silk, but so profoundly quiet it felt like she was trying not to breathe too loudly.

She hadn’t spoken a word since the comment about her car. And Sesshōmaru? He observed. Calculated.

What had the boy done that made her stay? What had he offered that made her soften? Cheap beer, likely. Easy food. Unfiltered praise. A space where she didn’t have to keep her shoulders up. That’s all it took for a stray. Not cages. Not commands. Just not being chased away.

Sesshōmaru could do better. 

He rose without a word and walked toward the bar. No fanfare. No question. Just instinct, honed over centuries, now turning toward something domestic—something precise.

He selected a bottle—rare, smooth, expensive. Demon-brewed, slow-aged in volcanic obsidian. Subtle bite. Elegant finish. Something worthy of a palate that had likely been dulled by canned beer and college pizza.

He poured carefully. Two fingers. No ice. Then walked back and set it beside her on the low table.

Kagome blinked. Her brows lifted slightly, and she turned her head to look up at him. Not suspicious. Not dismissive. Just mildly taken aback, as though she hadn’t expected generosity to come with such quiet deliberation.

She looked at the glass. Then at him.

“…Thanks,” she said, voice low, almost reluctant.

He nodded once.

She took the drink. Sipped. Didn’t recoil. And then—blessedly, wonderfully—returned to her meal without another word.

Sesshōmaru sat back down.

His own plate still full. Appetite second to the study of her small, unspoken behaviors. The way she curled her legs under her, leaned back against the edge of the sofa. She was finally sinking into the space, not just inhabiting it. Not flinching from its sharp corners. Not treating it like an enemy stronghold.

Progress.

She had followed him home, entered without prompting, dressed without shame, eaten without permission, and now sipped his wine like she didn’t remember what fear tasted like.

It would take time, of course. There were still spikes in her scent—residual anger, brief flickers of confusion, the lingering bruise of betrayal from Kohaku’s well-meaning treason.

But this? This was the beginning of something far more satisfying than a verbal victory. 

This was domestication.

Not forced. Not demanded. But chosen. Her eyes had stopped searching for exits. Her body no longer recoiled from stillness. And if the boy’s contribution to her recovery had been cheap food and idle praise, then Sesshōmaru would simply raise the standard.

No more instinctual comforts. No more scraps. He would feed her power and quiet. Wine aged in demon fire. A bed she didn’t need to earn. Clothes she didn’t need to fold. Orders she didn’t need to fear.

And in return?

He would have her. Not just in his house. But under it. Within it. Claimed not with force—but with consistency. She would be domesticated under his roof. With his hands. His mouth. His promises.

His actions.

It wouldn’t be fast. But it would be permanent. And Sesshōmaru had always been very, very good at permanence.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighty-Four: Standard

(Sesshōmaru – POV)

She finished eating without fanfare. Fork down. Glass half-drained. No dramatics. Just a soft stretch of her arms overhead before she stood and padded away from the coffee table, utterly unaware of the tiny victories she left behind with every step.

He rose as well.

Collected the plates. Her glass. His. Didn’t ask her to help. Didn’t suggest it, either. Because this wasn’t a transaction. There were no unspoken balances of labor being negotiated here. Not tonight. Not in this phase of integration.

This was territory. And she had just spent an entire evening walking through it barefoot.

When he returned from the kitchen, she was sitting again, this time curled on the edge of the couch, thumbing absently through her phone as if she didn’t live here now. As if she hadn’t eaten in his clothes, in his home, under his roof, like she was something permanent.

He remained standing.

“The guest bathroom is fully stocked,” he said, voice smooth, composed. “If something is missing, I’ll have it delivered.”

She blinked once, slow and owlish. Then nodded.

That was all. No thanks. No discomfort. Not even the twinge of suspicion he’d come to expect from her in earlier days.

He could almost hear the sound of soft claws retracting. The half-feral stray was adjusting. No hissing. No swatting. Just tentative nesting.

And because he was, above all things, a creature of calculated risk—he pushed.

Just slightly.

“I will join you for the night,” he said, tone so calm it might’ve been mistaken for a weather report. “After I’ve completed a few things.”

Then, without waiting for acknowledgment, permission, or inevitable protest, he turned and walked toward his room. Not a pause. Not a glance back.

Because he hadn’t asked. There had been no question in his voice. No softening in his eyes. No hesitation in his spine.

She had slept in his bed. Had allowed herself to be collected from another man’s home like a half-seduced secret and placed under his roof without protest.

She had worn silk in his colors. Sat at his table. Drank his wine. And now? Now she would share his bed. Not just once. Not as a fluke. But as standard. 

He would not make it an event. He would not make it dramatic. She had set the precedent. Last night, she had teased and tempted, all bluff and bravado beneath the covers. She had taunted him with her presence, with the softness of her limbs tangled in his sheets, with the familiarity of a woman who no longer knew how to sleep alone.

Well.

Let it be known: Sesshōmaru held to precedent with the precision of law.

This was now routine.

No matter how much she scowled. No matter if she sighed in annoyance, or threw a pillow at his face, or pretended she was still in control.

This was the cost of domestication.

His, too, in a way.

Because as he stepped into his room, he moved toward his dresser. Opened the drawer. And selected—without irony—the set of matching sleepwear he had never intended to wear more than once. 

Navy silk. Silver lining.

If she was going to keep creeping into his home like an exhausted stray, then he would continue providing her with structure.

Silk for silk. Bed for bed. Expectation for expectation.

And if she happened to burn through another set of shirts with her half-conscious reiki the moment he brushed a hand over her hip?

Well.

That was just another line item in the budget of this new, deeply personal project:

Operation: Domesticate Kagome.

He would break her in gently. No force. No traps. Just comfort. Until she no longer realized she was being tamed at all.

He reviewed the last of the flagged notifications with clinical efficiency.

Nothing urgent.

A soft acquisition was moving ahead without resistance. Two division leads were posturing over staffing allocations, but would settle once reminded of their positions. And the security report on the ongoing background investigation into Higurashi Kagome’s childhood—still incomplete, still frustratingly slow—remained at a plateau.

But not stagnant.

Not entirely.

A line in one report hinted at a transfer of custody in her adolescence. Something quiet. Legal, but private. No trauma flagged by the system, but he didn’t trust databases to understand the nuances of grief.

Her reiki didn’t flare from nothing. Not like that. Not in sleep. Not in instinct. Someone had carved a trigger into her at some point. A wound left to fester in silence. The subconscious did not invent violence. It simply remembered it louder than the rest of the mind.

But the files would wait.