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Buffy didn't know where the knowledge came from, but she knew what Angel had tried to do when he started growling after drinking from her, and the knowledge pissed her off on levels that she hadn't even known were possible before this. "Did you, or did you not just attempt to put a childe claim on me without asking my permission first?" she demanded angrily.

He didn't answer, but she didn't need him to say it. She could feel the truth through the claim that she had turned around on him. And he could feel that she knew. Just as he could feel her rage at the knowledge.

"You fucking asshole!" she screamed at him. "I'm in fucking love with you and you want to me to be your childe! Something beneath you that you can control! What kind of shit is that? You can't handle me as your equal, so you'll make damn sure I can no longer be one?"

"Dammit Buffy!" he yelled back, "At least I gave you enough respect to make you a childe! You made me into a goddamn minion! Barely one step above a fledgling! Talk about not wanting to meet on equal grounds! A childe at least has a chance to become a Master! A minion will never be more than a minion, and that's what you've made me!"

She was flooded with yet more knowledge from the unknown source and was able to scream back at him with assurance. "Bullshit! A Master will never truly be less than a Master and you know it! The only change I've made is that you'll never be able to even try to master me again! Why would you do that in the first place anyway? Do you like to be the dominant one? Would that make you happy?" she emphasized the word so that maybe he could follow where she was going with this. "Cuz if it would, we damn sure don't want that to happen again! And if you love me the way you said you do, why the fuck would you put me in the possible position of being under the power of your soulless counterpart? Seriously, what the hell kind of love is that? You should be goddamn grateful that I did what I did! At least now I can stop Angelus if you ever get another happy and go completely insane again! And I won't have to do it by sending the man I loved to a hell dimension next time! I can just fucking growl at him and he's mine to control, and won't be able to try to end the world!" she ranted at him.

The anger dropped off of Angel's face and was replaced with sadness. "Loved?" he asked softly, emphasizing the past tense.

Buffy's anger also dissipated, turning into sadness. "I'll always care for you, no matter what Angel. But the man I love could have never tried to do that to me, to bind me that way without my knowledge,for any reason. I obviously don't really know you if you could do that. So even if you do have the face of the man I love, I think that that man must not really exist." she said softly before turning and walking to the door.

She stopped with her hand on the doorknob, without turning she told him that she'd send Willy over with some O negative human blood to help him heal faster and then walked out the door without waiting for his response. It was time to patrol now anyway, and she was in the mood to kill something. She only hoped that what ever it was could put up a good fight.

She was so angry as she stalked to the end of town with all the newer cemeteries that she didn't notice when her vampire senses started up the alert. Not until a man wearing a pair of old fashioned spectacle and carrying some heavy books that would probably send Giles into paroxysms of researchers ecstasy.

She recognized him as the minion Spike had always sent on breaking and entering jobs. The vampire that had almost gotten away with the judge's arm on the night of her seventeenth birthday over a year ago. The night Angel had lost his soul after they celebrated their pure luck in getting the arm away.

She stopped and waited for him to notice her. When he was only a couple of feet away, he quickly glanced up, human face in place and wished her a good evening.

Then he did a double take as her identity belatedly registered with his vampire senses. He goggled in abject fear before hitting the ground on his knees and placing his forehead on her feet.

"Please..." he begged, unable to force anything more past the lump of fear lodged in his undead throat.

Before she could even reach for the stake in her waistband, she felt the same force inside her that had stopped Angel from making his claim rise up and take control again.

"Rise, Scholar," she intoned in a voice that was filled with power. He looked up at her, the fear in his eyes now sharing space with awe, and then rose to his feet in front of her.

Despite the fact that he had a good three or four inches on her diminutive five feet and four inches, he somehow gave the impression of looking up at her.

She felt the now familiar shift in her mouth that heralded the appearance of her nifty new set of handy dandy fangs and reached up to wrap her hand around his neck. She pulled his head down closer to her face and stared into his eyes, watching as awe overcame his fear as he watched the silvery glints and twinkles in her eyes.

"Swear your eternal fealty to me and I will spare you and raise you up." she said formally.

He shifted into game face while he was still so close that she could hear the tiny grinding sound of his bones when his face changed. "I swear my loyalty and my life to you and your happiness, Mistress." he promised quietly.

She gently slid her fangs into the vein in his neck and pulled the blood from him until she knew he was almost completely dry before she guided his mouth to her neck and encouraged him to drink deeply from her.

When he had drained enough blood from her to slow down her heart she stopped him and growled a few 'words' in the same arcane language she had used earlier. She knew that these words bound him to her as her childe rather than her minion, and she knew that this bond was much more powerful than the one Angel had tried to force on her.

Permission had been granted this time and the bond had been reciprocated, allowing him to sense her when she wanted or needed him to. After he growled his permission, she drank from him again, to replace the blood her body needed and to strengthen the bond even further.

She didn't take as much this time and when she finished and licked the bite mark to speed the healing he hit his knees in a gesture of submission to her again, promising to do anything she asked of him.

She pulled him to his feet and asked him to walk with her. While they walked she unloaded on him all the changes she had lived through for the past few weeks. The new and improved senses and strength. The freaky fangs and glowy eyes. The knowledge that seemed to rise up in her with the force that took over her body and had so far claimed two vampires and bonded them to her. He seemed surprised and pleased when he learned that Angel, a well known Master had been bonded as a lowly minion, he knew that the bond she had chosen to share with him was that of a childe. And not just any childe, but a cherished childe.

After she was done explaining everything to him, he leaped to the request she was working up to and promised to research and learn everything he could for her. After all, the unknown could hold unknown dangers and he couldn't take the chance of any harm coming to his mistress, the first one to ever show him love and affection in his entire existence, alive or undead.

It took five weeks for Dalton to find the information he was looking for. Buffy was only thankful that she hadn't been compelled to make any other claims on the evil undead during that time. The only freaky thing she did was renew the claim with Dalton a few times because she understood how much he needed to feel loved.

She decided to not renew the claim with Angel knowing that it would fade in time, overcome by his status as a Master, if not renewed. She had felt the need to punish him for what he had tried to do, and she felt the job was well done. Dalton had informed her that he was a laughing stock for having been given a lower position than the weak willed scholar, although none of the other demons were able to suss out who had claimed the pair, no one messed with them because of the palpable power that came off of the claim marks.

When Dalton finally found what they were looking for, Buffy was stunned.

According to the book he had found (a book that was rumored to have been ordered destroyed by the very council that Buffy had quit just after her eighteenth birthday), the Slayer powers that were passed to one girl in every generation since the beginning of time was the female of the same species that had blended with humans making the half breed known as vampires.

Where the male lived and thrived on death and destruction, the female thrived on one thing and required it to live. That one thing was love. She could get by for a limited time on any love, but was doomed to die young without the love of a male of her species.

The book went on to explain that the female was accustomed to bringing order back to that which the males had destroyed and that's why those whom she entered became Slayers. The need for order is also the reason she occupied only females and only one at a time, unlike the male who was a lot less picky about the sex of his possession and spread it as thin as he could get it.

Keeping herself contained to one body at a time kept her stronger and helped enable her to bring about the order that she craved. After so many generations with out the love that she needed however, she had been weakened anyway, allowing the human side to take precedence, an event that the council had encouraged and facilitated. So she remained in the background and all Slayers died young, overtaken eventually by the despair the demon felt and giving some lucky vamp a good day when the death wish became strong enough.

Until Buffy.

The first Slayer in centuries to have family and friends and a Watcher who allowed love to overcome his loyalty and duty to the council. The first Slayer in millenia to be loved by a vampire. Even if it was a twisted possessive love that the demon wouldn't accept, it had still helped strengthen the demon inside and help her merge more fully with her human than had been possible in millenia.

The ancient text was the diary of a long ago Watcher, and it outlined his disgust with the idea of the one created to dispose of the undead loving and being loved by one of them in return.

Apparently his Slayer had found one of the rare vampire's capable of love without a soul and they had joined. After he realized that his Slayer had joined with a soulless vampire he decided that it was his duty to dust the one that had claimed her, despite his knowledge that doing so would kill her. Then he outlined the system that the council had followed ever since which ensured that Slayer's would die young. A system that denied not only the chosen one, but all the potential Slayer's of love, guaranteeing that the demon which gave them their power would never be strong enough to fully merge with the human she occupied.

Until Buffy.


Chapter End Notes:
Spike in the next chapter, I promise!!



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