Twelve Lords

by Max Jager

  Sitting down as he motioned for them to sit with him, Kai turned to the young miko as he smiled. "I would say it is not typical. My Lord she is not just your typical woman either. You have defied the odds and built a family with a miko have you not?"

  Nodding with a smile, Kiyoshi looked at his mate and son as he let his head fall slightly to the side. "Indeed I have."

  Moving closer, Kai held his hands behind his back as he looked at the moving blanket. "And this would be the pup that you have had together? Could I perhaps see him to see if my nose is indeed telling me the truth or if it is finally starting to go?"

  With a smile, Yokiyo removed her now wide awake son out of the blanket and laughed as he giggled and tried to grab her hair. Looking up to see the even warmer smile on Kai's face set her fully at ease. He smiled warmly at him, and as Katana turned to look at him he laughed even more and waved his hands in the air. 'Katana likes him so he can't be a bad guy.'

  After a moment of looking at the pup, Kai stood and went to a shelf that had many different scrolls on it and started to look through them as he smiled. "Tell me My Lord. What is it that is different in your bond with the miko?"

  Turning back to watch him, Kiyoshi nodded. "The only thing that is different for me, is that if I go too far away from her I change. Once I cross I certain point, I feel like lightning shoots down my spine and I turn into a savage beast the more I fight it. My only thought at that point is to get back to her. But Yokiyo….."

  Wrapping Katana back in his blanket, Yokiyo let out a long sigh. "Once he crosses that point and turns savage, I turn into a sobbing mess with a searing pain in my chest. I don't stop until he is home and I am in his arms. One time we were apart for two days. He was back to normal the instant that he touched me, but it took me a week to get back to normal. That was about eight years ago."

  Nodding as he kept going through scrolls, Kai knew what this was. He knew that bond. He hasn't seen it since he was young himself, nearly as soon as the country was created. But he needed to know if there was anything else. "Is that all that is different?"

  Both nodding at first, Yokiyo then gasped as she shook her head and looked up at Kiyoshi then to Kai. "Well yes two things actually. The first everyone said isn't normal for humans but just like his parents, his sister and her mate, and all other demon pairs that mate for life, I can feel his emotions. But unlike them, I can pinpoint where he is better than any of them, and have been able to do this nearly from the start."

  Blinking as he turned to look over his shoulder at them, Kai knew now that they were just like them. What seemed like eons ago. But while she never knew how she did it, it happened a few times. "Tell me My Lady how do you do this?"

  Blinking at him, Yokiyo bounced her son in her arms. "Well I just focus on trying to figure out where he is at. My eyes go cross and unfocused, my body goes limp, even when I am standing. It is almost like I can see where he is at, what his mood is and even who he is with."

  Turning with his scrolls, Kai nodded then turned to Kiyoshi. "How accurate is that?"

  "Very accurate." Looking back at Yokiyo as he talked he sighed. "We have tested this many times and each time she does it. She can even pinpoint my exact location when she is in the palace and I am in the forest of demons just behind the palace."

  Sitting down with a few scrolls, Kai began to read over them some. "I see that is a different bond. And I would gather to say that is why her scent is different from your normal human. And not just because she is a miko."

  Looking at each other, then to Kai, both Yokiyo and Kiyoshi blinked. What did he mean different? "What do you mean different?"

  Looking up as he found the scroll he was looking for, Kai smiled first at his lord than to his young mate. "You have a bond that I have not heard of for many thousands of years. Back when the land was just formed. I was very young then."

  Unraveling the small scroll he smiled as he read over the elegant calligraphy of the miko of the time. "You see, it is just the natural order of things. For everything that is on this earth, there is a natural enemy for it. For as long as there have been demons, there have also been mikos. And just like the two of you, he was a dog demon named Hiro, and she was a miko named Himiko. A warrior and a beauty in their own right. The shrine she trained at sat right where the dragon strong hold is now, right where the four corners of the lands meet. And by all rights was the most powerful miko of her time."

  Stopping for a second as he sighed when he came across a small doddle of the two that Himiko did, Kai half closed his eyes. "All it was that they wanted was to be together. Her want and love for him helped her to bond with him, and he to her as if she were a demon herself."

  Looking up at Kiyoshi then back to Kai, Yokiyo was more curious now. "So you are saying that like with them, because before we mated I truly fell in love with him and wanted to be with him is what helped us to have the type of bond that we have?"

  With a smile as he nodded at her, Kai rolled the scroll and lay it before him. "There bond was nearly identical to yours actually. They lived a hard life in the mountains where they fled too that now border the North and the East. They had only been mated for three years when they welcomed a daughter that was full demon as well, just like your son. Though the change in her was so gradual that it was not noticed by them. After young Hinata was born, they came to see me over it just as you have. Himiko kept this scroll telling everything."

  Though he was curious, Kiyoshi had his mask back in place. A glance with his eyes to his mate, then back to Kai, he pulled his eyes to him as he glared at the demon before them. He hated when others were not short and to the point with what they wanted to say. "What do you mean the change in her?"

  With a smile as he looked into the now glaring Lord's eyes, Kai smiled. "She stopped aging as a human should age. She slowed down. Her want and desire to be with him out of true love stopped it. She instead started to age like a demon ages. She bound herself to his life span and lived as long as he did."

  Her eyes wide, Yokiyo was breathing hard ad her heart raced. Her mind jumping back twelve years to the day that Takahashi told Kiyoshi that her scent was different. Could that mean that she did the same thing that this Himiko did because she truly fell in love with him and wanted to be with him?

  Her eyes catching Kai's Yokiyo had tears building up. "The hearler Takahashi told us that my scent was different. Does that mean that I….."

  "How?"

  Shaking his head as he looked up at the shocked lord as he smiled. "You tell me if she did or not. No one knows when or how Himiko did this with Hiro. But that is the only reason that they could figure. Focus on the first time that you smelled your mate's scent. Then focus on her scent now and see what you can see."

  With the way that Kai was talking, that had to be it. Yokiyo had to have bound herself to his life span! Looking down into her tear filled eyes, Kiyoshi remembered the first time he smelled her scent clearly. The day that she saved Imae from the cat. Without warning he pulled her into his arms as he closed his eyes and focused on her scent. The second that his nose touched her head he gasped as he tensed and went wide eyed. Looking at her as he lifted her face up to look into his eyes he could hardly talk. "Yokiyo…"

  Grabbing his clothes with one hand as she looked into his eyes. There was a rush of emotions rolling off of him. Tears falling from her eyes she took a hard breath as her heart started to race. "You mean that…." Then she gasped as she was cut off when he dropped his mouth to hers and seared her mouth with a deep kiss.

  His own heart racing Kiyoshi pulled his mouth back from her's. "Your scent has changed."

  Shaking now, Yokiyo let the tears fall in waves out of her eyes as she kept her e yes on his. "You mean that I will get to….." She then turned and looked down at her wide eyed son as she smiled and chocked back a sob. "I get to watch you grow up!"

  With a smile as he watched the scene before him, Kai held the scroll in his hand. After a few moments he let out a sigh and brought Kiyoshi'
s eyes to him. "The distance was not ever something that Himiko and Hiro could get around. It may not be something you can get around. You may n ever be able to go that far away from each other. But My Lord so long as you are there to protect her, everything will be fine. We learned when Hiro died from illness and she died seconds later, if you die she will die. And I can only assume that it is the same if she were to die, so would you."

  Rocking her son side to side, Yokiyo smiled as she leaned into her mate's arm as she looked up at him. "Then we have nothing to worry about. He won't let anything happen to me and I doubt that anyone could hurt him." She then looked up at her mate as she smiled even bigger. "It was a perfect idea to come here. Though I have to wonder if it really did happen by the time Takahashi said that?"

  Looking between the two, and a little curious on that himself, Kai blinked as he landed on Kiyoshi. "How long have the two of you been mated for?"

  Make eye contact with Kai, a rare true smile on his face Kiyoshi sighed. He was going to keep his human mate forever. Yet something else they are defying the odds on. "For twelve years."

  Nodding as he dropped his head and crossed his arms Kai let out a sigh of his own. "I see. That is a long time to wait for a pup though. But it had to have been gradual. As to the fact that you didn't notice it."

  Gasping as she jerked her up to Kiyoshi then to Kai, Yokiyo had wide eyes. "I know why he didn't realize when it happened."

  "Yokiyo?"

  Turning her eyes back up to his as she smiled, Yokiyo laughed. "Well think about it. While I said I hated you, I could see that you were pleasing to look at though I never admitted it. The few moments when we would have good times between the fighting helped me to truly fall in love with you. Then in the course of only one month we stopped fighting, mated with each other and I was pregnant. It was then that Takahashi told you that my scent was different. When you thought I was getting sick too much."

  "It was…" His eyes wide now as he thought about it, all Kiyoshi could do was look at her. But she was right. In that time he was trying not to smell her, then with his parents, getting pregnant weeks after they mated. "The change in you was so sudden in the midst of mating and my parents and sister trying to fight it that…."

  Giggling Yokiyo nodded as she let her head fall to the side with a smile. "It was no wonder you missed it."

  Even more confused now, Kai let his head fall to the side as he looked between the two of them. "My Lady you were pregnant once before this then? Within a month of mating?"

  Smiling as she pulled a giggle from her son when she rubbed her nose on his, Yokiyo nodded. "That's right. Two weeks from our first time I was pregnant. I was alright for the first week or so of it. Even using my purification and it didn't bother the pup. But it was after my presentation when he went to go do his rounds we realized about the distance thing. That time not only did I have pain in my chest, but through my stomach also. The baby's heart was racing too so I was told later. By the time they got someone to him to get him back a few hours later, I lost the baby."

  "Well then." Smiling down at the infant as he stood, Kai smiled at him. "I could see how the midst of that would have changed your scent and no one realize it. And a miscarriage like that would be the reason why it took you so long to have another pup."

  Looking up at him as she stood with Kiyoshi, Yokiyo laughed as she shook her head. "Actually he is our third child. We adopted a human little girl that turned out to be a miko herself named Imae. And we have a ten year old daughter together, Kiara. She is also a demon just like Katana here."

  Reaching out and letting the pup grab his finger, Kai laughed. "I see then. Two demon children born from the union of a miko and a demon." He then turned his smiling face back to Yokiyo. "You My Lady are truly strong to birth two of them. And I have a feeling that your children are going to do great things.

  Watching as Kai moved his hand from her son's hands to lay it on his head pulling a giggle from him she gave a nod. "Thank you very much. I am just elated that I get to watch them grow up and make families of their own. I get my happy ending as Mama would say."

  With a sigh as he looked down at his son, Kiysohi put his mask in place. "That also means that you will have to go to war with me whether we like it or not. So we need to figure out what to do with them to keep them safe while we are away from them."

  Blinking at him, Kai crossed his arms. "War? You have said that twice now. What is going on beyond the forest?"

  Looking him in the eye, Kiyoshi growled as he narrowed his head. "Near a thousand years ago my father, Koraen, Torakus and Chirio all signed a blood peace act that would keep Motoichi, the current Lord of the North and Chirio's son at bay if he ever did take over the North. He murdered his own father to get that title. And he has tried to kill Yokiyo twice and my son as well. I in turn took out his son. He will move on us soon. Soichiro, his little brother is with us to help take Motoichi down and take over the North and restore peace between all four lands."

  Dropping his head as he sighed and closed his eyes, Kai was all to familiar with Motoichi and how he does things. "I see now. I have heard much from demons that escape into my woods seeking refuge from him. I knew his father as well and he is so unlike him. He has a cold and ruthless cunning about him that even his mother could not match."

  Looking down at her son as he yawned, Yokiyo smiled. "But that is alright because both Kiara and Katana are going to be with family. Sorae, Yukani, Zokeni, Kamui, Yoite, Takara. And many more I am sure will all be with them both wherever they go so they will be fine."

  Turning to Kiyoshi, Kai was serious now. "My Lord, might I suggest not doing that."

  Turning a growl and a glare on him, Kiyoshi tensed. "Why not?"

  Turning to walk to another shelf, Kai reached up for a specific scroll. "As I have said I have heard much about Motoichi and his cruel ways. Including how meticulous he plans things out." He then turned and gave the scroll to Kiyoshi as he sighed. "He will expect that to happen and if you have already taken down his son, he will no doubt plan for you to send them somewhere else, or leaving them at home and have men in waiting. The situation here is a little different than that scroll with your mate going to war with demons. Yet it was a war none the less. Just read what they did and then make your choice wisely. And this is the scroll about the bond."

  Taking the scrolls and putting them in a pocket of his haor, Kiyoshi nodded to Kai with a half-smile. "Thank you." He then lifted his mate, walked out the door and was in the air seconds later. Once they were in the air and found a wind blowing the way they needed to go, he smiled down at how relaxed she was being so high. "You are relaxed."

  Laughing as she looked up at him with more tears and a bright smile, Yokiyo couldn't help but be on cloud nine right now. She was getting the one thing she wanted most of all. Watching her children grow. "I couldn't be happier than I am right now. Knowing I get to have my happy ending and watch Katana and Kiara grow up. I couldn't be anything but relaxed right now. I don't think I have ever been happier."

  "Agreed." Kiyoshi then kissed her forehead as he looked straight and focused on getting them home. Though he did have to admit that it was a great relief knowing that they were going to get to spend the rest of time together after all. And he would make sure nothing ever happened to her so that would never be an issue for him. He was never going to have to figure out what they were going to do when she wasn't there anymore. He was never going to be without her. A glance at her smiling face and he couldn't stop the smile he had as well. 'Just another reason why she has proved beyond a doubt that she is perfect for me in every way.'

  X

  With fearful eyes, the maid rushed through the palace toward her Lord. She feared what he would do when he saw who the message she carried was from. Yet she also knew he would do much worse to her if she didn't tell him the second she was told too.

  Falling to her knees before the door of the study that he shared with his mate, she held the message up in both hands as she bo
wed her head extra low. "Lord Motoichi. Lady Rinako. You have a message from the South."

  Slamming the door open, Motoichi growled when he saw the Southern seal on the scroll she held. Reaching out and snatching the scroll, scratching her with his claws he narrowed his eyes. Slinging drops of her own blood on her Motoichi turned as he slammed the door. "Get lost."

  Moving to stand in the middle of the study his snarl grew even louder as he opened it, and it wasn't from Kiyoshi. It was from his bitch!

  "Lord Motoichi and Lady Rinako,

  If you can't tell already by the different handwriting, I am Yokiyo. You know the miko that you sent the two stupid idiots to kill twelve years ago? And then again just a few days ago? Well now let me see. Kado, the so called head of your son's guard fell at the hand of our eldest daughter Imae. Who is also a miko. Your son must have never been safe if he couldn't stand up to an eighteen year old miko.

  And then there was Shoji. Poison? Did you really think that would work? Sorry not a chance. Yes his bomb went off, but no one was hurt thanks to the head of MY SON'S guard. So ha on you. And I was the one who turned him to dust for what he tried to do.