He’d thought it was high bloody time they’d gone somewhere he wanted to for a change. Prague was a pretty place, filled to the brim with lots of throats and pumping hearts. Trust Dru to get all finicky and intuitive about the place. She couldn’t just come straight out and say she didn’t want to go. No. She had to make a song and dance of it. ‘If we go I’ll die, my Spike.’ It pissed him off how she’d use that brand of bollocks every time it was his choice where they went.

And where did they end up? The sodding Hellmouth, of all places. The one in California—a town that could better pass for a set out of Hollywood’s tackiest horror stories without any trouble at all. And as luck would have it, it was inhabited by a Slayer. Spike hadn’t decided if he wanted to face this one yet, being that he was still stewing in his anger and getting more pissed by the minute as soon as he felt the strain of family bonds. Felt the expectation of buckling under to his elders even though he’d been top dog in his own pen for the past century.

He should have known the moment Dru started acting battier than usual that something more than her imminent dusting was up. Trust her to bring them right back to the Poof and his Barbie Girl.

Well, bugger ‘em. He wasn’t budging from his stool till this weaselly looking human had managed to get him good and sloshed. And maybe not even then.

“Oi. Barkeep. More blood, more booze. An’ if you got anything by way of entertainment, pass that along too.”

The little twitchy guy got twitchier, his eyes darting to the back of the bar and back sideways to his bleach and leather patron before diving under the bar. Spike could sense what the little human barkeep was frightened of facing, and to tell the truth, he wasn’t up for this kind of confrontation yet either. He’d only been on this Godforsaken cesspit of hell for less than a night. If he could hold out for another century it would still be too soon to face his past.

The stinky scent of Angelus was blocking his sinuses pretty quick, and instead of turning and facing the elder of his once very close clan, he swept out of the bar with a swish of his leather jacket. Not like the ugly bastard had seen him in a while and knew exactly how he looked. And it wasn’t like he’d ever cared to be anything to Spike but a mean selfish son of a bitch. And when you factored Darla into the equation—as he suddenly had to do when he caught sight of her up ahead—that description wasn’t so far from the pail.

Well, this little trip was turning out to be all sorts of fun—for those that actually got a kick out of the old family reunions. He hated to think what other surprises Dru had in store for him. He was feeling pretty close to packing up the Desoto and squealing his way out of there—leaving Dru to fend with good old daddy now that she’d finally found him. Really didn’t do a bloke’s ego great walloping bags of good to know the chit you’d spent over a century following and loving had led you on a wild goose chase in search of her sire.

Well bugger that. He was sick of being Love’s Bitch. He was sick of being the one who came second, or third—or if he even rated a thought. He’d known from the week he’d been turned that as much of a destiny he might have attributed to Dru, Angelus buried deep between her thighs had altered his perception a little. Still, he’d been a blind fool, and deliriously happy when Darla had had a turn and turfed the overblown forehead out of the nest and cackled that he’d failed to fly.

Spike couldn’t get over the fact that the great Neanderthal could walk—and without dragging his knuckles on the ground. He never could get why the women fell head over tit for the big poof. Sure, he had the looks, and girls loved a bit of mystery, but surely that staid routine got old? Where was the fun? The excitement? Where was the bloody guts and glory that made unlife worth living?

Spike couldn’t stand the mystery. The waiting would have driven him barmy, always needing to jump right into the fray and quench his thirst for being in it. A part of it. And he didn’t mean the ‘it’ that Dru kept dragging him into. Still, Angelus had been out on his own for a century by now. Was still kicking along and seemed to be doing okay, if not actually flourishing. And whatever the Poof could do, Spike could do better.

Yeah, that’s the spirit! Spike grinned and decided to follow the tarted up matriarch on her little wander, almost flinching when they came to the door of a club that had thumping great crowds of teenyboppers. It was humiliating—even if she was there for the food. Place was likely to have a bar, though, and he was more inclined toward the booze than the gullible necks that swam around in his vision. So, passing through the door, Spike made his way through throngs of hot sweating bodies and found himself right back where he was recently interrupted. On a barstool with a bottle of Jack sitting patiently in front of him.

He couldn’t even be bothered looking around at the free range, more than satisfied to ignore everything for the night—the blood, his fangs—in favour of the sweet seduction of his booze. He loved the burn as it flowed down his throat. There was nothing like it, and over a century of getting his fill hadn’t altered the thrill at all. It was more than his friend—sometimes the only comfort he could get while Dru was off sharing it out for all and sundry. Yeah, he might be a faithful type—even now couldn’t bring himself to cheat in the way she did—but he was feeling pretty close to done sitting back and watching while she made him look more and more a fool in their world.

Despite knowing he’d unwittingly stumbled into a slayer playground, he hadn’t expected to feel the little buzz through his body indicating that she was here. Behind him somewhere in the throng. Self-preservation made him swivel suddenly, seeking out the killer of his kind. He might never have picked her out but for the obvious. Middle-aged bloke in tweed around a teenage Caligirl—blond, tanned and high with the bopperish. Yep, Watcher. God they were so bloody predictable.

He watched them up high on the balcony, watched the old lecher circle behind her, whisper in her ear and her eyes scanning the mob below her. A quirky finger point and she’d located her first demon, though Spike could immediately tell it wasn’t through any sense handed down slayer to slayer. Vamp hearing at it’s best and he knew it was the clothes that gave the git away, and when the Slayer tore down the stairs in hot pursuit, Spike felt strangely inclined to follow.

It was an enlightening travel. Keeping to the shadows, black duster swishing comfortably around his legs, Spike dogged her every step. That he was acting all cloak and dagger didn’t bother him a bit, even when he became aware that he himself was being followed by Darla and her catch of the night. In fact, it all just added to the excitement and he felt the thrill of the pursuit for the first time in ages.

He saw two humans escape from a crypt before the Slayer dived in, marching in on the impulse of Darla and then Luke’s booming self-important masculinity. Spike almost giggled at the situation and the over-confident way the idiots had no clue who they were fighting, but he seized the opportunity of getting near the kiddies, wondering exactly what he was going to do. Not like he’d had a plan when he’d chased after the Slayer’s scent. With a bit of luck, things might pan out the better for him without one.

“Hello there. Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was bad to wander off with strangers? And in cemeteries too?” he tsked at them, watching with a reverent fascination as the boy leaked blood from the vein at his throat and the girl startled and clung tighter to the weaker one. Another stood by them, brave and sure despite the scared pounding of his heart and Spike could tell that this one knew the scariness of the night, even if the discovery had been too recent. He knew and understood more by the way he eyed Spike back, making the blond both intrigued and disappointed that he couldn’t indulge in a little show and really bring them out of their safe delusional little world.

“She told us about scary monsters. We were just too stupid to believe.”

Oh yeah, this one had guts, and Spike felt oddly impressed. Enough to decide to leave this group alone, particularly if they belonged in the Slayer’s every day world. And as he made the decision, Darla and her groupie in the dated togs were back, sniffing and salivating over the spilt blood.

“Spike, what perfect timing,” Darla almost growled around her fangs, her gruesome smile ruining the prettiness of her face.

“How right you are,” he drawled, feeling once again the irritation and anger that had driven his sullen passage through the country to this hole of a town, Dru whining all the way by his side. One look sideways at the alarm the brunette boy was displaying and Spike had his plan—well, somewhat of one. He was going to liberate this trio from Darla and her boy—deprive old Batface of his welcome sacrifice into the here and now. Would bloody teach the lot of them for thinking they could force his hand at everything. With a bit of luck Dru would cop a bit of a burst over it all, but not before Spike made his merry way on out of the place.

With a renewed cockiness in his step, he moved just enough to flank the trio, showing his intent to take Darla’s claim of a meal on his own terms. “This lot’s off the menu,” he proclaimed confidently, feeling quite pleased at the easing of the stronger boy’s heartbeat.

Darla actually shook her head in shock, stepping up to look at him closely and finding as usual she didn’t like what she saw.

“For crying out loud, do you have a soul too?”

Well, that came out of the bloody blue. The concept actually left Spike speechless, and his mouth flapped open and closed twice before he thought of an answer.

“Too? I thought I was the only one.” Sodding hell! He suddenly felt like he had no clue what he was doing, and who ever heard of a vampire with a soul anyway? But it was the perfect cover, and as he felt the tingle of the Slayer’s approach at his back—his unprotected back—he felt like it was the solution and a completely unique way of getting into the Slayer’s good books.

What the hell. He could think on his feet. He could show that he cared—showing he had soul should be a piece of cake. For a few days at least. Until he had the Slayer exactly where he could snack on her.

“There’s vampires with soul’s now? Who ever saw that coming?” Her perky bewildered voice behind him actually hit something soft inside him and he thought—without his usual menace—that he’s struck gold on this idea to whittle away her normal defences.

Spike turned and got his first good look at her—blonde with green eyes and a slightly panting body, emphasising the more than cute little package. Oh yeah, getting close to this one wouldn’t prove much of a hardship at all.

“No one’s ever seen me coming, Goldielocks.” Feeling himself pumped with more balls than sense, Spike reached out and took her hand, marvelling for the briefest second the softness of her skin and the heat of her touch before tugging her behind him and into the group of her friends.

“On your bike now, luv. You’ve got no chance of winning here.” Spike watched in amusement; Darla looked confused.

She took one impulsive step, as if to attack, then grabbed hold of her hungry companion with the fashion-reject shirt and ran, vamp speed having them out of sight in minutes.

“Whoa,” Buffy panted, impressed. “You’re much more with the helpful than creepy stalker guy.”

Chapter Two

He didn’t need to fake his amusement. “Creepy stalker guy? And who’d that be, luv?”

The Slayer shrugged. “Just some random oddball that followed me into a dark alley and then gave me a mouthful of cryptic before slinking back into the shadows. He gave me presents, though.”

Her voice was cute, in that bubblegum way that Spike normally hated but this time found...well…cute. But not enough to forget the words that had passed those glossy lips.

Spike cocked a brow, trying and failing to adequately interpret that twisted explanation, though the modus operandi rang a bell or two in his subconscious. “An’ this generous soul didn’t cough up with a name?”

“Nope. But nothing to worry about, right. He’s with the silver crosses; you’re with the soul and the saving of my friends. I know which Good Samaritan I’m backing.” And she blushed as her interested look froze upon his eyes and she quickly found the ground fascinating.

It was the redhead—obviously light-headed in her shock—that brought the subject back from the brink of awkwardness. “I know I probably got hit in the head somewhere tonight, because dreams are kinda vivid in their oogyness, but soul? Can someone explain that to my woozy brain? And while you’re at it…vampires?”

The Slayer’s attention was back up from the thoroughly captivating grass and focused entirely back on him. It made Spike tingle in an unexpected, and yet not entirely unwanted way.

“Cool.”

It was just one word, but the gooey smile on the Slayer’s face—the one that indicated that she thought Spike was the hottest puzzle in the shop—nearly succeeded in making him colder than being dead had done in the first place. He was a bloody enigma now, and it scared him silly. Right then, he could do this. He could play this game and come out on top. Sod having a plan. He was a man—a bleeding master vampire for God’s sake. He didn’t need a plan to make this work.

“So how’d you get it?”

Bugger!

Spike felt a little buzzed at her enthusiasm. Her diminutive body fairly thrummed with excitement, and as catching as it was, it still didn’t prevent his near panic driven rush for a reason to be the only vamp in the world with a soul. It wasn’t like he had an example to follow—a real life story he could duplicate for the few days it would take to finish off his third slayer. So, he was left to grasp at straws. To conjure up some ridiculous reason why his demon was caged and intent on doing good.

Typical that his inspiration would have a blind spot. What other vamp would have thought to fake a soul in order to play a little game of cat and mouse with the Slayer without preparing a story? Spike felt a growl rumble low in his chest, cursing the thoughts and explanations that wouldn’t flow through his brain fast enough to make sense. There was only one possibility he could think of, and it was so bloody farfetched he felt like laughing right along with the delivery of his lies. Except for the classic ‘giving the game away’ part of that action.

“Right,” he desperately improvised. “Gypsy curse. Was a bad boy and the buggers stuck me with a soul and made me a good boy again. Veritable White Hat now.” He preened, hoping his cocky confidence would get him through this even if the banality of his excuse didn’t stand up.

The redhead looked at him with such a strong sense of respect that Spike almost felt guilty for the subterfuge along with his shock. No one had looked at him like that without being violently encouraged since he’d had to leave Dalton in charge of the minions, his haste to get Dru where she screamed to go forcing him to leave the nest without a holiday plan. He’d soon found that sucked all kinds of balls.

This was…nice. A human looking at him with such faith and belief that he really didn’t deserve. If it weren’t for Darla and his contrary nature to do anything the way she wanted, this little kiddy group would have already been slaughtered. Well, all right, the brave nature of the boy might have stilled his fangs momentarily too. But really, it was all Darla and Spike’s juvenile urge to stick it in her eye.

“Man, you really saved our lives. And gypsies. How old are you, anyway? I mean, vampire right? Walking undead. You must have a story or two to tell. Oh oh,” the brunette suddenly exclaimed, manners hitting him at full flight while he was steadily climbing the adrenaline rush that made him as gawky as he always appeared. “My name’s Xander.” And he thrust a hand out in Spike’s face, overly eager to make the acquaintance of one who could easily kill him.

The non-existent soul inside Spike cringed. He’d won this lot over remarkably easily, and while that had been his intention all along, the way they were treating him—as someone they could possibly like and be interested in hanging around for his own sake rather than due to the ferocity of his nature—niggled at something inside that craved that kind of acceptance.

He gave a brief nod, his voice almost raspy with unaccustomed emotion as he introduced himself. “The name’s Spike.”

As his cooler hand clasped the warmth of human flesh, the other boy slumped with a weak smile. Spike jerked his head at the wounded figure, reminding them of the close call they’d just avoided.

“I think your boy might need some medical attention.” They all followed his gaze and blinked, surprised, at the white pallor of their friend.

“Ohmygod, Jessie. We have to get him to hospital.” The Slayer raced in to take an arm, her eyes briefly catching Spike’s before darting away and another blush tinted her cheeks. Spike smirked before moving in and taking the human—now unconscious—and slung him over his shoulder.

“Where to?”

And they were off, a strange group of humans and pseudo-souled vampire internally shaking his head at what was without doubt the most bizarre couple of hours he’d ever existed through.

The Slayer kept close to his side, risking shy yet curious glances every couple of steps even during the seriousness of their flight. While every impulse in his body told him to toss his burden to the side and jump her, he wasn’t quite decided on what he wanted to really penetrate her with. It near did his head in that he even felt a response to those giddy girly looks she was shooting at him, never having wanted anything from a slayer before but blood and their timely death by his hands or fangs.

Right, this Spike was soulful. And what the bugger did that mean anyway? Well, cut to the obvious, don’t let the chit or her mates see him feeding. That would completely blow his story out of the water. Would probably do to distance himself a bit from Dru and her gaggle of gooselike minions for a while too. And why didn’t that thought sit a little less easy with him? Having a break from his manic sire actually sounded like a blessed relief. One that he’d almost pay any price for.

“So how long have you had a soul for anyway?”

Spike could see the curiosity and interest flare to life in her eyes and almost got lost in the thrill of the sexual heat he was almost positive she didn’t know she was creating. Still, there was a question in there somewhere and his mind struggled to grasp it before he mucked the thing up before it got started.

His pretend soul—came from his Wheeties packet that very morning. Should have come with a warning. ‘Proceed with Caution or the Slayer will cut your balls off for lying’.

“Yeah, ‘s been awhile. Back at the turn of the century.”

He almost laughed as three pairs of eyes bugged.

“Whoa. You’re like, really old, man. That’s kind of exciting and stuff. You must know all kinds of things.” The boy who’d introduced himself as Xander—and what an unbelievably poncy name that was—looked at him in awe and Spike could feel another flush of pleasure shoot through his body. This being liked for not having done anything much was kind of addictive.

Spike almost stumbled at finally recognising the look that these children were bestowing upon him. They looked at him like he was some kind of hero—even the Slayer, who was a heroine in her own right. It made him feel dizzy that, without doing anything but repressing his natural demon reaction to food, he’d managed to get a degree of respect he’d as yet not achieved amongst his own kin. A faux soul could do all that—create miracles. It became a struggle for him to remember that it was all make believe, that more than likely at the end of a few days he’d be snacking on this lot. An image of their eyes staring at him in betrayal hit him hard and he could feel a lump rise in his throat. It wasn’t what he wanted. Didn’t want the naïve redhead looking at him any different to how she was now, seeing him as something other than the animal he was perpetually reminded he was by Dru’s insane ramblings.

“I know enough. More than enough in some cases.”

Before they could quiz him more, before they could get too far inside his head and begin to pick him apart, the hospital loomed large. They barely made it through the door before the body was liberated from his shoulders to a gurney and the Slayer had taken charge, informing the staff of a rabid dog out in the streets striking indiscriminately at the neck. What was even funnier—they bought it.

Only on the mouth of Hell.

The others had gathered in the waiting lounge, spending their time sharing out vendor machine goodies while they waited news of their pale friend. Spike stood uncertainly at the entrance, unsure what would be the soulful thing for him to do now. Retreat quietly and wait for the next opportunity, or go and sit amongst them and do his best to behave like he was one of the humans. The itch on the back of his neck decided him and he saw the subtle lightening of the night through one of the few windows to the outside.

He was about to turn on his heel, casting one last longing glance at the surprising group he’d encountered, when he felt her arm at his elbow. The soft crunch of his leather was almost sensual as her touch lingered and he slowly turned toward her. She was smiling and it overwhelmed Spike in that second how truly gorgeous she was.

“I don’t think I told you my name,” she said earnestly, like she really wanted him to know that she wasn’t just the Slayer.

When she didn’t continue, Spike smiled, feeling the decided lack of need for his patented smirk. This was information he wanted, and suddenly not just for the purpose of psyching her out and killing her. He wanted to know the name that went with the face as badly as he wanted to stay in that room with a bunch of kids who’d appreciated him more in thirty minutes than his entire family had in a century.

“An’ what’s that, pet?”

“Oh,” she startled, realising that maybe she’d given herself away by the way she’d been intently studying every gorgeous plane of his face. “Buffy.” Her voice was a husky whisper, her hand still lightly resting against his forearm and Spike felt the automatic laugh die abruptly in his throat.

“Beautiful,” he felt compelled to say, and then he turned and left them behind.

He smelt Angelus while on his way to shelter. Feeling buoyed with spirit and a half cocked plan, Spike had wandered during the remaining night while he searched for an acceptable place to sleep. Somewhere that was far enough away from the caterwauling tripe Dru would no doubt be squealing and the possible meeting of his family line. Instead, he’d almost tripped over the stench of Angelus while traipsing around the Hellmouth too close to dawn. Spike was just thankful the poof kept his distance. He’d had enough daft lessons in spinning lies for one night.

Truthfully, he still didn’t know how to go about any reunion with his grandsire. They’d parted at a time when the foundations of their little foursome were slipping through each of their control. Angelus had left in the night while the rest were out hunting. Sure, Darla hadn’t been quiet in her efforts to shame him out of their existence, but truthfully, Spike hadn’t really believed he would go. At least, not without Dru.

Kicking Angelus from the pack had hidden Darla’s true agenda. She’d wanted to bolt and couldn’t be upfront about it, which was pretty true to form with the former prostitute. She’d never been the type to come out and be forthright. Underhanded and seductively dishonest, that was the granddame of their little family.

Without even meaning to, Spike stopped at the door of a crypt. It wasn’t the ideal place, being so far from the nearest shade if he needed to make a quick exit while the sun was out, but it would do in a pinch. He could always go looking for something else the next night, when he knew the lay of the land a little better. All he really needed was somewhere that no one would think to look for him. And if he couldn’t escape during the day, then Dru wouldn’t be able to locate him till he’d managed to think through what he’d done.

Managed to sort out his thoughts in relation to the Slayer.

She was perky, and he liked it. Not enough to let her live, mind. But enough to indulge in some fun. And the kind of fun he could envision with this Slayer had his mind and body turning in twists. The way she’d looked at him hadn’t been different to other women over the years—right before he’d revealed himself and ripped out their throats. That gush of horror mixed with attraction was an unbelievable high. No, not a different look, just more unusual for her already knowing what he was—assumed soul or no.

This time the game had changed. He’d unwittingly set himself up in an experiment that had provided him with time he’d never utilised before. Time he’d wasted with the quick kill. Drawing the Slayer out would be fun. It would be righteous to his vampire code.

It would be what Angelus had endeavoured to teach him over twenty long years of humiliation. And that thought alone froze his blood. That and the mental image of the Slayer’s friends staring at him with hurt for making them trust him when he was nothing but a cold-blooded killer. That look of horror wasn’t there when he imagined their deaths; only the hurt that a friend had turned on them. It made him uncomfortable and Spike was hard pressed to understand why. It’s what he was, what he did. Trick humans into trusting him before diving in for the kill. He existed for the blood. He lived through depriving others of the privilege and he had never felt guilty about it before.

Now he’d crossed paths with Buffy.

Buffy. He couldn’t even let his brain go down the path of laughter and sarcasm. He’d read a subtle perfection in her name and he couldn’t take the fun in its silliness like he would have ordinarily. That she’d shared it with him—and under the circumstances of hopeful friendship—hit him deeper than he’d liked. However, it shifted the balance and he suspected this eagerness of hers for him to know her as a girl was what was causing his sudden attack of conscience. He had to banish it and get back to normal. He’d kill someone when he awoke—somewhere out of her view of course. Wouldn’t do to blow the cover now he’d been received with open arms.

The distant alarm of pending sunlight made him drowsy and Spike found his way to the top of a sarcophagus. Letting his coat slip down his arms, he wadded it into a pillow and shoved it under his head. Arms flexed, he propped them under his skull and contemplated the ceiling. It was the first time he’d slept alone since Angelus was around to remind him Dru wasn’t really his. Having her infidelity shoved in his face over and over had weakened him, yet made him determined to make her love him. Now it was a century later, and he’d never achieved that goal. And now the paternal figure of their family was back in range; Spike just knew it would balls up everything he’d gotten used to over the years.

Weary blue eyes were shaded by lids determined to close and Spike shut down his unhappy thoughts, eager to get the rest that would bring him back to the situation refreshed and hopefully full of plans. Hoped the night would bring him back to the Big Bad that he seemed to have lost sight of at the appearance of his fake soul.

And the little blonde that would dust him if she ever sniffed out the truth.

The thought of her hate suddenly seemed wrong; painful. He just needed some sleep to get it all back into perspective. As the last remnants of conscious thought drifted away, Spike knew he’d wake up with a renewed desire to sink his fangs into the Slayer. He just needed forty winks and then his world would be back to rights.

Then he’d be back to being Spike.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Her dreams had been filled with the relentless swagger of a vamp she couldn’t stop thinking about. Buffy blinked sleepily before sinking back into her pillows and conjuring his image in her mind. His hair was radioactive, but it kinda suited him in a weird retro fashion. And that coat—she’d die to have a thing of beauty like that. Except maybe more on the newer side of the cow. And those eyes—they burned her insides despite being of an arctic blue. And it didn’t take much imagination to picture the muscular build hidden under his eclectic wardrobe. He suited black, and he was just too yummy for words.

Thinking of how obvious she’d been in her attraction brought a high flush to her cheeks and Buffy groaned aloud. Why did she find it so difficult to think after the fact? Usually she was so level-headed around the underworld, but the thought of this one demon with lips that were full and she just knew could kiss like sin had completely thrown her. He had a soul, so that made it okay…

Didn’t it?

Buffy smiled. Of course it did. He was one of them. Fighting on the side of justice alongside the good guys—and he was as hot as hell. She couldn’t believe her luck.

“Buffy. Hurry up or you’ll be late for school.”

Her mother’s voice floated up the stairs with all the dream shattering effects of a Jumanji stampede and Buffy groaned as she rolled from her bed. School: the necessary evil. Until two days ago, she’d been all set to be Normal Girl and do nothing but casually fail her classes like everyone else in her grade. With the abrupt acceptance of her duty in this new place, she’d shot that mission all to hell. Now that she’d managed to initiate her schoolmates to the realities of their nightmares. As well as get one of them hospitalised. It sure beat attending Jesse’s funeral, though. And now that she knew these people, refusing to try to keep them safe just seemed petty. And who could refuse to fight off the forces of evil when she suddenly had the likes of Spike by her side?

The thought of late night patrols with him by her side, his coat subtly battering her legs—which meant she’d be walking super close to him—really made her destiny something exciting for a change. She’d lived through the downright frightening aspect of it, and now with the prospect of romance, she could see more pluses than minuses to being a chosen one. Well, that was settled then. The Slayer was in heavy duty crush mode. Now she could drive herself crazy wondering if the sexy hot vampire felt even a little of the same excitement over meeting her.

She could find out when she dragged him out to patrol with her tonight. If he was all with the soul having, and being a white hat, then he wouldn’t mind watching her back. It’d be more than nice to have someone looking out for her for a change. Especially if it ended up that he was just as happy to watch her front as well. Buffy knew that she could pass out with delirious satisfaction if she could do some major watching of him, too.

It was amazing what a bit of Spike preoccupation could do for her ‘getting to school on time’ skills. Dressing, trading the usual side-step conversation with her mother at breakfast and heading off to school had all passed in a peroxide and black leather blur. Not that she would complain, except for when Giles raised an eyebrow and gave her the adult look of suspicion.

“See, ordinarily I couldn’t do this. The talk. About vampires. A talk with vampires in it. But meeting Spike, gave me a bit of hope, you know? Sure, the other guys were bad, all with the spooky…and the fangs…and the putting Jesse in hospital, but how freaking romantic to have a vampire with a soul save us all. I love this guy. You think he’d mind having a groupie?” Xander looked eagerly at Buffy, hope and excitement making her want to laugh.

They’d gotten passed the ‘demon’s are a human form possessed’ discussion and had flown straight into the ‘how is this possible’ conversation regarding the existence of souled vampires.

“I am certain you were rather lucky this Spike came along when he did. It sounds like disaster may have occurred without his help. But still, it is surprising that I haven’t heard of his existence before.” Giles’s posturing left the teens to shrug noncommittally as they became lost in thought.

Jesse was in the hospital still, though he’d be getting out by that afternoon. But surviving a close call didn’t mean that Buffy could avoid the job of finding out exactly what last night was about. She’d almost lost three of her new friends in one night and that reality didn’t sit well with her inherent slayerness and sense of responsibility. She may hate her life now, may hate her destiny, but if she could do something to make sure her friends were tucked up safe in bed at night, then she had a duty she couldn’t ignore.

And in typical freaky fashion, the conversation turned on its head—pushed away from the glorification of souled vampires and the romance of it all—to the guessing of what Buffy was.

Giles stood before them, all heart attack serious in his regulation tweed. “For as long as there have been vampires, there's been the Slayer. One girl in all the world, a Chosen One.”

“He likes doing this part.” Buffy didn’t mean to mock, but it was so easy to do while he glared at her with lack of humour. With impatience and frustration.

“All right. The Slayer hunts vampires, Buffy is a slayer, don't tell anyone. Well, I think that's all the vampire information you need.”

Xander begged to differ. “Except for one thing. How do you kill them?”

She thought they knew this part. “You don’t. I do.”

Xander was going to argue, and by doing that, he did bring up Jesse. They’d been so lucky the previous night. If Spike hadn’t been there, Buffy had no doubts the blonde vampire with the trashy school girl look would have dragged her new friends into Hell. If not terrifying them before their death, then recreating them in the face of evil. Still, it brought back the focus and what she still had to do.

“This big guy, Luke. He talked about an offering to the Master. Now, I don't know what or who, but if they weren't just feeding then Jesse and Willow may have been a planned sacrifice or something. I'm gonna find where they were going to take them.”

As much as she liked Willow, Buffy felt like rolling her eyes when the redhead suggested leaving the situation to the police to resolve. That would go nowhere near making Sunnydale safer and eradicating whatever this episode of badness was. If anything, it could make the bad occur faster by supplying whoever with a large group of useless officers for lunch. So, with minimal pointing out of stupidity, they moved on, trying to find a clue where to start the search. A lucky thing Buffy was switched onto the entirely too strange habits of the undead. A little technology and Buffy was ready and able with a place to start.

That didn’t mean it made sense.

“There’s nothing here, this is useless.” She felt useless.

“I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself.” Coming from a watcher, the words seemed far too forgiving.

“You're the one that told me that I wasn't prepared enough. Understatement!” It wouldn’t be so bad if she’d actually been paying attention. Slaying wasn’t just about the fight—and the death—of the creatures of the night. It was about foiling plots and making the world safe. Now that she’d decided to live with the inevitable, these were things Buffy felt she’d have to try honing her skills at. The observation skills that may keep herself and her friends alive. “I thought I was on top of everything, and then that monster, Luke, came out of nowhere...” And who said she was as dumb as Harmony? Light bulbs flashed in her brain and Buffy had her starting point.

Buffy stood still as she thought over her almost fatal fight with Luke. Until an exasperated Xander leaped in and jumpstarted her to consciousness.

“What?”

“He didn't come out of nowhere. He came from behind me. I was facing the entrance, he came from behind me, and he didn't follow me out. The access to the tunnels is in the mausoleum! The girl must have doubled back and escaped through there while we were distracted with Jesse and Spike! God! I am so mentally challenged!”

Dammit, nobody disagreed with her. And she was meant to be all accepting that they wanted to jump the superhero wagon and come seek out the baddies with her? Hell no. Not likely.

She sliced through all their objections with unintentional putdowns, leaving Xander feeling inadequate—and that kind of made her giggle on the inside—and left them with Giles to feel important in the fight against darkness by researching The Harvest. She’d almost forgotten creepy stalker guy and his warnings of vague doom.

Which was kinda dumb she soon found when he snuck up behind her in the crypt.

She could have sworn that there was no one behind her, but as she rattled the chain on the entrance to the underground tunnels, he snuck up behind her, his unnecessary breath exhaling on a note of expectation. First impressions had Buffy seeing him as some weird guy who stalked her in the shadows. This time she got a better look as he stood in a more moderately lit area, the sun beating down on the stone building from the outside. Maybe if she’d never met Spike, she could have considered him good-looking. Maybe. As it was, Buffy found it hard to think of him as anything but creepy. In that sleazy way you do when someone sneaks up behind you on an increasingly regular basis.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a key on you,” she asked by way of making conversation. Buffy almost didn’t expect him to answer, but if he did, being vague was really what she’d counted on. He didn’t disappoint her.

“They really don’t like me dropping in.”

That smirk was really off-putting.

“Why not?” If he knew what was down there—who was down there—then how come he kept his distance? Suddenly the thought of beating him for less obscure information seemed like a good plan. If nothing else it would let loose some frustration. Pity she wasn’t allowed to just go attacking innocent bystanders, even if they did annoy her with their obscure warnings.

“They really don’t like me.” He smiled.

Weird much? She didn’t know who this guy was or what his game was, but he was starting to spook her. Who followed young girls around cemeteries and into crypts to deliver such inane conversation and without asking her what she was doing? Better yet, how did he know all this stuff? Buffy could see through his game, though. He was playing with her, teasing her with half-delivered information and seeing what she would do with it. He knew the secret plans of these vamps who’d tried to eat her friends, and yet he hung around on the outside of the gathering. No, he was way beyond creepy. He was psychotic. She needed to be wary of this guy and watch that he didn’t attack her. Who knew what to expect from the crazies of Sunnydale?

“How could that possibly be?” Sarcasm obviously hadn’t been diverted by the simple calm placating that a wary slayer should have reverted to. Buffy’s mouth—as usual—was working faster than her brain, still she felt reasonably safe around him for now. Just.

“I knew you'd figure out this entryway sooner or later. Actually, I thought it was gonna be a little sooner.”

He was so smug, and she so did work this out fast. Nobody else had.

“Sorry you had to wait.” Buffy tried to be patient, but this guy was ruining her plans. “Okay. Look, if you're gonna be popping up with this Cryptic Wise Man act on a regular basis, can you at least tell me your name?” She watched him expectantly, all manner of possibilities running through her head. He looked like a…Ralph. Or maybe a Derrek.

“Angel.” The name flowed from his lips with a certainty that Buffy really questioned. As if anyone would name their baby Angel, knowing that one bright and shiny day that Angel would be a man.

Still, Spike hadn’t laughed at her name the night before, even though she could see that he’d initially wanted to. Wasn’t like she hadn’t had that happen before.

“Angel. It’s a pretty name.” So is, though slightly inappropriate for a large man with an evil leer and the distinct absence of wings on his back. Still, talking about names and remembering Spike’s reaction to hers wasn’t getting the info she needed. She needed to put the puzzle together, and getting the intel from dark and broody wasn’t doing it for her.

She turned back to the entrance of the cavern and held her breath. She really didn’t want to go down there.

“Don’t…go down there.” He spoke with a small edge of concern in his voice and it stopped Buffy in her tracks.

“Deal with my going.” He really should not be trying to tell her how to do her job. And who the hell was he anyway? She had his name but no rank and serial number.

“You shouldn't be putting yourself at risk. Tonight is the Harvest. Unless you can prevent it, the Master walks.”

And there he was again with the cryptic messages and the knowing so much more of what was going down in this town than she or her watcher did. That so wasn’t right.

“Well, if this Harvest thing is such a suckfest, why don't you stop it?”

It really wouldn’t bother her if someone else wanted a go at stopping the damage-bound monsters of the world from unleashing hell on earth. It wasn’t like she was a control freak and just had to stop all the bad guys.

“’Cause I’m afraid.” And the Angel grinned.

Buffy smiled, even though she couldn’t work out if he was kidding or truly worried. Still, if he didn’t want to help, and he didn’t want to tell her about this Harvest thing, then she was probably going to be making a big mistake by diving into a situation that she had no understanding of. It was just an assumption, but there could be a whole horde of vamps down there. Until she had more of an idea—or someone at her back—it would be foolish to take off into the unknown. She was kinda glad this guy had stopped by to talk to her some more and give her time to think the plan out a bit better.

“You know what? I think you’re right. I won’t go down there just yet. I’ll wait till my partner can go with me.” Buffy stopped and felt an enormous smile consume her face. “He’s got a soul, you know!”

The Slayer completely missed the look of bafflement that swept across Angel’s face as she pivoted and almost bounced out of the crypt. She left him standing in the shadows, a finger pointing at his chest and his mouth flapping silent words of shock.

“A soul? But I’m the one with a soul.”

And he stared petulantly at the fading back of Buffy Summers as she skipped away, confused and frustrated that someone had apparently stolen his identity. And then another word hit him in the gut.

“Partner?”

She’d tasted unsatisfying.

Spike propped himself against the stone wall of the alley, looking contemplatively at the stack of refuse behind the shop, not seeing the body of the girl he’d drained and discarded but thinking of it nonetheless. He was entirely lost in thought, wondering at the lack of thrill in the blood, and not seeing the usual poetry of the kill.

Buffy’s hand on his shoulder had him spinning in his mind and his non-beating heart almost exploding with adrenaline at being caught.

“Hey. Whatcha doing?” Her smile was beatific and excited. For him.

Spike looked dumbfounded, then remembered himself and quickly wiped his mouth in case any blood had remained on his lip. By the look on her face he assumed she had no clue what she’d inadvertently caught him at, and it was good if he could keep it that way. Right, leading her out of the alley was a bleeding brilliant first step.

“Actually, pet, was looking for you.” The lie popped out of his mouth without any real thought, but as her face lit up he wondered if maybe he’d wanted to be and that’s why the freshly tapped blood had lacked the usual zing.

It was no use. This confusion he felt wasn’t going to have him lose focus while only around the Slayer. Even with her presence far away from him he was all muddled up, wondering if he really knew what he was doing. He’d never questioned himself before, taking it for granted when things occurred to fuck up his perception. Now, it required contemplation to work out why he was waning in his determination to kill her. Needed explanation why her smiles made his body feel light and tingling in preparation for…something.

“I was kinda hoping you might wanna go on patrol with me?” Buffy was going for subtle-flirty-casual, but her eagerness made her forget herself. “I have to check out that mausoleum and try and work out this Harvest thingy. Might be a case of safety in numbers.” Buffy looked up at him, hope bursting from every tensed muscle of her body.

Her anxiety was a turn on, Spike found, but not in the way he’d been expecting. She wanted to be around him, and the shock still hadn’t dispersed. She actually wanted to be around a vampire—him—when he’d put an end to two of her kind this century. While he’d capitalised on the girlies being all hearts aflutter for him in clubs and other scenarios as a quick satisfying meal, he’d never had the opportunity of seeing them as anything but chow. Buffy was more before she’d even opened her mouth.

For one fascinating instant, Spike wanted to take time off from being himself. Go with the chit and see what it would be like to be something other than what he was for a change. What could it hurt? To take a time out and see how the other half actually lived—when he wasn’t making sure they got good and dead.

“Nothin’ better to do. Lead the way, luv.” He could feel the heat of her body as she moved beside him, felt the fire of her gaze when she thought he couldn’t tell. He felt robbed of all his sense and hard won identity by the time they drew to a stop outside the same crypt that had seen the action the previous night.

They hadn’t spoken one word on the whole trip. Hadn’t needed to as Spike tried to block out the easy way they were together with the image of a terrified redhead laying in a tangle of limbs back in the alley. That’s who he was—what he did. He had no real place for a soulful outlook, even if he was pretending to have one. Which begged the question, didn’t it. How bloody long was he planning on this pretence of goodness? How much of himself was he prepared to sacrifice just to get under the Slayer’s defences?

“Remember Creepy Stalker Guy?”

Buffy pulled him to a stop outside the stone structure and Spike tilted his head and watched her. She was so young, so innocent and yet so distracting in an uncomfortably appealing way. There was something different in her mix—something other than the rippling power of the universe making her the Slayer. Something that added to the complexity of her failure or death. Something that threw Spike completely off his game.

“Yeah. Is he still following you?”

Buffy grimaced, and then nodded her head. She was standing so close, her body barely a touch away from his and it made the air around them almost crackle and seem heavy and tense.

“Um, kinda? Well, if you mean does he pop up behind me wherever I go, then big with the affirmative. In fact, I was just bringing it up because I’m expecting him to be behind door number one. Wanted to give you a heads up, even though I told him I wouldn’t be going down in that vamp nest without my partner to back me up. He wasn’t interested in the job.” Buffy stopped and her eyes widened comically as the impact of her words on Spike finally registered. He looked totally gobsmacked.

“Do you need me to protect you from the Big Bad?” He should have sneered, really he should have. He’d meant to. Started to. His lips were obviously broken, or maybe it was just his brain. Every time he was around her she surprised him and his reactions became unfamiliar.

“Shyeah. As if. I just thought it’d be kind of nice—“ Her eyes dropped to the ground, hands and body shifting nervously as she admitted what she’d hoped. “If maybe you’d watch my back.”

The last time Spike had been shocked into have eyes that bugged was when he’d walked into the middle of his first ménage a trois, Angelus pumping into Dru like a racehorse while Darla rode his back complete with crop. At the mention of her back, all Spike could suddenly see was sweat slickened skin and his hands aching to touch. The answer seemed more than obvious.

“’Course, pet. It’s what us souled vamps are here for.” Such an abomination of words should have choked him to get passed his throat—yet they were delivered with an ease that Spike couldn’t have thought possible. This bloody chit certainly kept a bloke on his toes.

Mention of the dreaded ‘S’ word brought thoughts to mind he’d tried to keep at arms length while he’d rested. What it would mean to have a soul—to actually be the vamp she thought he was. The word itself had been like a trust switch and once thrown, he didn’t even have to prove himself. Sure, she expected him to turn on his kind—and being that the majority of those he hung around were a bunch of wankers, it wasn’t too big an ask. Even the prospect of leaving Drusilla behind didn’t cut as deep as it might have once. It was funny how much a man cut himself off and saw the outside world clearer when the woman he’d loved—convinced himself he’d loved—for the past century mentioned another name once too often.

Spike had been forced to follow the psychic whim of his sire as she searched for Angelus. Dru had refused to accept that she wasn’t loved. Some pretty twisted pixies had whispered lies in her ear, promising that if she could just find him, he’d want her back. It was nothing but smoke and mirrors and another example of how shot her poor mind was—again thanks to Angelus.

But if she was right—if they did find the bastard that had made a profession of tearing Spike’s world apart time and again by trailing his stubby hands over Dru and leaving the brunette shaking in lust—then everything Spike had been would be over. He knew enough—felt the urge deep enough—to believe that. He knew Angelus was here, residing in this hungry mouth of hell. He just wondered which one of them would be devoured first.

Now the Slayer was warning him that the demon Spike most wanted to avoid could be right behind the door, listening in on their conversation and hearing Spike’s distinctive accent. She didn’t know it, of course. Couldn’t have a clue about the family connection between the two master vampires who were playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with her. But he was brought into a possible confrontation a lot quicker than he’d planned. Took some skill to avoid those that were too close. He knew Dru had already found her way. Of course he’d heard how The Master was trying to get a leg back up into the real world. As far as he was concerned, the silly sod deserved his underground tomb and should bloody well stay there and keep out of the younger generation’s hair. It didn’t surprise him at all to know that Darla had slinked back to be at the old codger’s beck and call, and now Dru and Angelus had found their roots.

Well, not Spike. No bloody way was he getting involved in such a pissy plan. It would fail. As much as he didn’t know about the Slayer and her mates, he knew that she’d win. The scent of victory clung to her, and even though he’d managed to get himself under her wing and her trust in his absent soul, he didn’t want to be the spy in her ranks.

For one brief moment, he saw himself more as the lover in her bed. Though he suspected she was too innocent to allow him that close, he couldn’t stop the sudden phantom thump in his chest at the hope he could convince her to. As soon as the image of naked flesh began to make him stare at the reality in front of him, he remembered the sprawled body of his latest victim. He was standing beside the Slayer now, wondering at the pleasure the thought of naked Buffy flesh brought him even while he had another woman’s warm blood thumping through his veins. Suddenly he felt wrong, and in agonising confusion, Spike stared at the ground.

There was nothing he could do. If it was his fate to encounter Angelus behind this door—some kind of cosmic payback for wanting to keep the Slayer’s back—then he’d accept it. Embrace it for what it was. His penance for not being the right amount of demon. For letting his own side down while his evil nature battled with the desire to feel real. Wasn’t like the git wouldn’t expect it. He had always been saying Spike was never enough. Over a hundred years had proven him correct. Not enough for Angelus to stay and raise them right. Not enough for Dru to love him despite the magic she’d seen the night he’d died. Not enough for Buffy unless he lied about who he really was.

For the first time he wondered what it would be like: to be the Slayer’s lover—her beloved. To be the one she trusted above all others, the one who kept her balanced and alive. The one who fought by her side and kept evil as far from their pinnacle day as he possibly could. It was a fantasy that proved Spike should be dusted just for thinking it.

He hadn’t noticed that Buffy had caught his eyes and that they had begun staring at each other with longing and interest. She barely blinked as she seemed completely lost. Time passed slowly and Spike could feel the earth shift them closer together. He could feel the warmth of her body on the night—could feel it reach out and catch him in its spell. He didn’t want this, not really, and yet he couldn’t turn his back on it and let her know his lie. Really didn’t want to see the look on her face when she took that step back and placed a stake in her empty hand.

“We should probably do this.” Her voice was husky and it made her sound older than he guessed she was. He wondered if she was talking about the search, or if she was eager to explore the more obvious possibilities between them.

Spike nodded, willing to head off on either one of those options as soon as she let him in on which she’d chosen. As soon as she dropped her eyes, he knew. Right, they were risking the poofter. Great.

Spike took a deep breath as he dug into his duster pocket for his cigs. He lit up with sexual flare, smirking as he heard the escalating heartbeat of the girl beside him. She seemed awkward as she rushed passed him, brushing against him like a whisper in the dark, and pushed open the door.

The interior was black, barely any light from the moon shining inside. Spike inhaled, then let out the air in a relieved rush. “Whoever’s been stalking you, pet, he’s not here. Looks like it’s just you and me.” He saw her subtle shiver and felt himself grinning. He still had it, whatever it was. Just because it never impacted on Dru didn’t mean he was completely hopeless as a man.

Sticking as close behind her as he could without touching her, Spike followed her to a chained gate.

“Looks like they’re not eager to let us in, luv.” He reached passed her face and gave the gate a bit of a rattle. It may have emphasised his point, but that wasn’t his motive. Something was happening to him, and he couldn’t describe it, no matter how much he wanted to. But there was this compulsion to be near her, to tease the force around her to see if she’d break and allow him close. Allow him to flow into her skin and break his own barrier of propriety between soulless vamp and slayer.

He left his fingers curled through the wire of the gate, his face an inch away from her cheek. Buffy didn’t move, didn’t breathe from what he could tell. And then, slowly, her lungs resumed their normal scheduled activity and he marvelled at the rightness of it. And felt his body react in all sorts of ways as she gently exhaled and her body drifted closer to his. Felt movement of bits she didn’t need to be exposed to just yet as he felt the sheen of aroused persperation raise up on her skin.

Slowly Spike dragged the pads of his fingers over the wire until he reached the padlock keeping them out. He sucked in a breath of her, his face turned into the side of hers as she stared straight ahead, and then yanked the bolt free. The shock of it moved her, and Spike almost collapsed in giddy excitement as her jump had the side of her breast brush against the inside arm of his duster. He gulped, and then nudged her forward with his hand in the small of her back. Her skin scorched him.

And his journey began.

Chapter Five

She obviously belonged in the dark. Spike strutted alongside her, holding slightly back to watch her progress through the tunnel and finding himself apprehensive the closer they drew to the Master’s prison. Her stride was strong, purposeful, but he was a skilled vamp and could sense her fear—even if the scent hadn’t been as strong.

The waft of terror was strong all along this underground tunnel. Spike watched her but she didn’t sense everything that he did. Didn’t know that humans had been led down here, not so long ago, and had ended abruptly. As strong as she was, he hardly expected her to remain stoic in the face of death—in those that she’d failed to preserve. He could wait for her pain—not craving it nearly as much as he had even the previous day.

Their progress was steady but cautious, and for that Spike was grateful. Each step brought him closer to a lifestyle he’d been fully a part of until just days ago. He’d been thoughtless and accepting of the life he drained away alongside his princess and minions. It was what he was, and as much as this slayer intrigued him—for reasons other than the fight to the death—he couldn’t imagine being anything else. Didn’t mean he didn’t wonder at the possibility that he could.

And it didn’t mean he was in any rush to carry out the plan, though. Not now he’d felt the static of her presence. But agreeing to this—actually deciding to keep her safe and fight by her side—challenged a piece inside of him that he was loathe to admit still existed. Brought him to a place where he could confront the demons of his kin with a slayer by his side at a time when he’d not been thinking clearly. It was too dangerous and not part of the plan.

How would this look? He’d already allowed Darla to announce his supposed soulfulness to the vampire world. Had she passed the info on to Dru and the Master? More than likely. The little bitch always liked to be the instigator of trouble—especially if it got old Spike in deep. Bigger question was how did he feel about it?

They pulled up just outside the lair—hopefully far enough away that the vamps within couldn’t sense them. Couldn’t sense that a slayer and a master vampire were biding time just outside their door.

He didn’t want to go in there. He could hear Dru’s cackle and knew if he turned up with Buffy at his side, his sire would expose him for the fraud he was. And he didn’t want that. Didn’t want Buffy to hear how it had been his plan to knock her off as he rolled into town. Didn’t know why he wanted her to remain oblivious to his purpose, other than that he wanted her to keep the peaceful bliss between them.

Wanted her to believe he had a soul.

The thought should have made him nauseous, and in an attempt to reattach his balls, he conjured up the image of his latest victim, the redheaded lass, and suddenly the sickness intensified. He’d gone after a girl resembling Buffy’s friend, the one who’d looked at him with hopeful acceptance. Now he could see the exact shade of their hair and wondered if it had been a subconscious substitute—an attempt to kill what he really didn’t want to.

Buffy took a step—a hard determined step toward the hole in the wall. Spike felt himself flood with panic as he grabbed her arm, held her still and then yanked her back into his chest. His arm curled around her waist and he felt fire spring along his limbs, his body tingling inappropriately as she agreed to the contact. Agreed to it and sank further into his contours. A blast of her thumping heartbeat consumed his hearing and Spike could do nothing but hold still—very still so as not to make a decision he wasn’t ready to weather the consequences. Once he’d taken that defining step, he knew there wouldn’t be an easy escape, and killing the girl hadn’t completely escaped his game plan yet. Even if the thoughts did leave him queasy. The act in itself might be the balm required to sooth his itch.

The smell of her hair almost brought him to his knees and it was only the warmth of her hand hesitantly covering his at her waist that drove sense back into him. In a complete turn around, her heat was like a bucket of icy water and Spike mentally slapped himself up the side of the head. This was too dangerous, allowing himself to be lost in the sensual promise of her young flesh in evil’s backyard. It was like making out with the enemy’s daughter while he lingered at the front door. Romeo and Juliet they weren’t and the quicker he got his head together, the better they both would fare. Well, maybe not her. Not once he’d regained his focus and took her to the place he’d always wanted, ever since he was coerced into this deadbeat town.

Not enough steps away were his sire and the rest of his family—the ones that hadn’t bolted on him anyway. In his arms he harboured their enemy. Against all that power, Buffy didn’t stand a chance—and even though he wanted her dead, he would always be fair. And one little girl taking on plural master vampires in the name of saving the world was signing a death warrant. An’ it just wasn’t bloody cricket. Wasn’t fun. No, until he could take her out on his own terms, he couldn’t let her get herself slaughtered. Besides, knowing his luck she’d be just what the old bugger needed to escape his rather lovely underground prison.

Decision made, Spike squeezed his hand on her waist and pulled her with him as he took a step back. She resisted his physical message, but then the she turned and took in the silent force of his expression, and they retraced their steps out of the tunnel. Spike’s hand never left the contact on her body the whole way—their path silent yet trembly as they gave in to the strength of their mutual attraction.

Buffy grasped his cool fingers when they reached the gate, some blink of fate allowing her to link gently with his. Spike felt the rising lump in his throat, felt the prickle of something that was not tears at his eyes. Why her acceptance of him and her interest was having such a damning effect on him, he didn’t know. But he was failing to control it and he could see the worlds of disaster opening up right in front of him. Almost as clearly as he could see her glistening lips as she licked them almost nervously. She looked up and caught his gaze, Spike almost tripping in his mind at the naïve desire that was reflected there.

She wanted his kiss—and the knowledge stunned him.

Spike’s lips tingled in need, though. Wanted with some life of their own to feel the soft promise of slayer lips—even as Spike himself reeled from realising the incongruous behaviour of the pair of them. This was wrong—though if he had a soul then maybe it wasn’t so bad. If he had a soul—which he didn’t. And he wasn’t likely to get one anytime soon. Yet, her lips beckoned and the pull was strong. She still held his hand and Spike felt his other move to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking whisper soft against her skin.

The time for totally fucking up his life was at hand and Spike started to close in, his face falling closer as Buffy’s eyes drifted shut. He could feel the warmth of the air barely between them, his own need to breathe suspended as the desired touch of their mouths became inevitable—and then the throat clearing that ruined the moment and alerted Spike to what he should have been able to sense immediately. Company in the guise of family, and suddenly he was willing to fight to the dust for this petite girl who was stealing the breath he didn’t need, but felt a compulsion to cling to.

“Bloody hell, way to ruin the moment, Peaches.”

The brunette startled, his eyes narrowing on what he hadn’t even suspected. Living low and in hiding had made him rusty and with the overwhelming presence of his own sire, he was finding it difficult to use his vampire gifts the way demon nature intended.

“Spike?” His tone was disbelieving and Angel took a step closer to look at the girl who’d inadvertently redirected his path and taken over his heart.

The younger vampire had strategically positioned himself in front of the slayer—for what reason Angel could only guess. Spike had a reputation—had earned it on the eve of his own leaving, and Angel felt the twist in his gut that he might lose this girl before he’d even made much of an impression.

“Let her go, Spike.” Voice hard, body tense, Angel waited for the younger to do as he was instructed, the authority of his familial position being automatic and in no need of relearning like his other senses.


“Not bloody likely. Not lettin’ you step in to tear her to bits.”

All three stood still, tense as the wait stretched. Then Buffy decided she’d had enough.

“Hey, down with the testosterone.” The other words she’d planned died in her throat as Angel vamped out in front of her and growled around his fangs.

“Buffy, get away from him. He’s a vampire and he’ll kill you.”

“Oh what a load of bollocks. I’ve got no bloody intention of killing her, you pillock.” Spike was just getting started, finding a wealth of anger and hatred at being abandoned by the one who—maybe not cared exactly, but who held a duty toward him and Dru yet felt no hesitation in taking himself off and away to whatever draws a single unlife held for him. He wanted to twist that head off, see what colour his lumpy dust would be as it was sprung suddenly upon the air.

“Spike has a soul. He’s not going to hurt me.” Her green eyes and happy smile were proof enough that the option of souled Spike sat pretty with her. She watched Spike and simply thrummed with confidence in him.

If two thirds of the crypt’s occupants hadn’t already been dead, then the solid morbid silence might have been more overwhelming. As it was, the sudden quiet of the two males as they both reeled in shock would have been more entertaining if Buffy had been aware of the joke.

Angel recovered first. “W-what?” He was incapable of speech, the revelation too much for his lazy brain to cope with. It was pure luck that held him that way until Spike could get his head around the revelation and realise that all hell would break loose if he allowed the truth to come out now. Besides, it wasn’t as if Peaches could refute his story. He hadn’t been around for a hundred years so what would he know? And the existence of a souled vampire was just so fairytalish that Spike was banking on the fact that Angelus would be too stunned to argue.

“That’s right. Yours truly’s all souled up,” Spike smirked, practically daring the Great Almighty Angelus to come up with a plan even half as creative. He was finding a bit of an upside to the declaration too. The light that shone from Buffy’s smile almost singed his eyebrows. It caused an excitement to shoot through Spike’s body that had been missing in his days for a very long time. This girl liked him, enjoyed being in his presence simply because . Sure, his strength might have been a tasty bonus, but he could tell she wanted more from the arrangement than just his muscle. Though he wouldn’t be impartial to extending that little invitation a little further. Particular body parts had been a mite neglected of late. Dru had been practising abstinence in preparation to her big reunion. He’d thought it was for the Master, but now Spike could picture it easily. Dru, laid out on her back and legs in the air while Angelus pounded the living shit out of her.

The obscenity of those thoughts threw him and Spike was suddenly reminded whose presence he was in. Angelus, the greedy plonker that could never keep his mitts to himself. Well, not this time. Dru may have been his destiny, but Buffy was—well, did a bloke have to know these things in advance? She was something and he’d be dust before he let the evil greasy paws of his grandsire anywhere near the girl.

“Oi, what are you doing here anyway? Dru’s been expecting you and I’d rather we just said our piece and act like ships passing in the night—all nice and quiet like.” Spike very subtly began nudging Buffy to the open door of the crypt, ready to defend her if he needed to but knowing that she wouldn’t exactly be all damselly—which he really liked in a woman. Especially this woman. Even Dru still expected to be protected and act all weak and kittenish—though Spike knew she was far from it.

They were almost there when the dazed confusion began to dissipate and Angel took a step to stop them. Not thinking, just reacting, Spike sent him flying against the wall of the crypt with a thundering punch to the jaw. The heavier vampire lay slumped on the floor, stunned, and Spike took his chance. Grabbing Buffy’s arm, he tugged her forward and led her out of one brand of dark into the lighter pitch of open air.

Spike ran, only mildly surprised when slayer speed proved just short of a match for his own pace. Eventually he stopped, pulling her into an alley and watching around the corner to make sure they weren’t followed. And then the memory of what Angelus had interrupted started to ache with the deprivation.

“You know that was creepy stalker guy, don’t you? I don’t think he would have, oomph—”

With one feather soft kiss, Spike slammed another door shut. He couldn’t possibly kill a slayer he’d saved from his granpappy.

Not when her lips tasted of sunshine.

Chapter Six

There was dreaminess involved. Much with the dreamy that Buffy couldn’t wipe off her face, no matter how much she didn’t try.

“You should have seen it, Will. Sure, Angel wasn’t really much of a threat.” She paused and contemplated. “At least, I hadn’t thought so till he went all ridgy and fangy with the vampness. But anyway, where was I?”

“Drooling over the Spike kissage,” Willow gushed and then giggled. She was so envious of Buffy. The souled vampire had seemed so very different to what Willow would have expected a vampire to be like, if she’d ever known they existed. And she didn’t think it was even because of his soul, though that was a situation that definitely bore research requirements. And while she was happy her new friend had found love—or what was turning into the possibility of love—so soon after moving to Sunnydale, Willow couldn’t help the little pulsing jealousy that made her want to change places and be the one to have felt that closeness with someone. If she was honest, she even wished a little that it could have been with Spike.

It was hard to be too resentful though when she watched Buffy melt at the mere mention of the vampire.

“It’s so weird, Will. I mean, Angel has sort of been helping me out, you know, with giving me those cryptic clues about hellmouth badness, and his eyes looked so sad and he seemed to want to help, even if he was a little creepy. You’d think HE was the one with the soul, not Spike.” Buffy snacked thoughtfully on her apple and completely missed the shift in Willow’s comfort.

The redhead looked alarmed at that. “Do you think that’s possible? Two vampires with souls?”

“Pshyeah, so not. I mean, come on, Willow. Don’t tell Spike I said this, but don’t you think the idea of a vampire with a soul is totally lame? And to have it forced on you because you don’t have discerning taste in the people menu? Nope, I think it would be much more romantic to fight against the odds of your nature. To know that you were reborn into evil and yet fell in love with a beautiful girl and turned your back on it all, just so you could be with her forever.” Buffy fell neatly back into the dreamy land she’d been in earlier, her mind’s eye seeing a soulless Spike riding up on his swift black stead, sweeping her up into his arms and prodding the beast to gallop them away to safety.

“B-but wouldn’t that be kind of dangerous? In a Romeo and Juliet kind of way?” Willow asked with a slightly nervous tickle in her voice.

“Huh?”

A crease deepened between the redhead’s brows as she thought over the scenario. She could see the romance, just like Buffy said, but she could also see the danger, not least the possibility of herself being eaten on the vampire’s journey to redemption. The vision of Jesse on a gurney, looking too pale mixed with the reality of knowing how close he could have come to being dead—or worse, turned—kept Willow feeling a little on the skittish side when it came to considering soulless vampires and how much control they might even have over their demons. What Buffy thought was romantic might not even be possible. Those vamps they’d run into the other night certainly seemed to have nothing on their mind but draining Jesse. And her. Willow still had nightmares just imagining the reality of becoming lunch—or well, dinner was probably closer to the mark.

“Can soulless demons actually have enough free will to choose to be good?” Willow thought it was a good question, one that she was going to be thinking about the answer to alot. Not that it was relevant to anything, but she was nothing if not inquisitive and an overachiever. Still, she didn’t like that look of uncertainty and fear that clouded the Slayer’s eyes.

“I don’t know, Will. I guess not. They’re evil, right? So, I guess without a soul they have no reason to feel guilty about killing innocent people.”

Buffy looked so dejected, so unhappy that Willow wondered if she even realised that the existence of such an anomaly didn’t even apply to her.

“Buffy, Spike has a soul, so you don’t need to worry about it. Makes you wonder, though.” She’d dived into the philosophical and Willow felt the familiar excitement that came with learning new things and thinking about worlds of possibilities.

Buffy’s relief at being reminded that Spike was already restrained and fighting on the good side warmed Willow’s heart. She would have hated to be the one to make Buffy question herself—consider the validity and propriety of falling for a vampire, whether he was bound with a soul or not.

“Wonder about what?” Buffy had jumped from being worried right into intellectual interest. She nibbled again at her apple while Willow put her thoughts out on the air, knowing that Buffy’s attention span might not last. “Is everyone just born with a soul? I mean, do we all have a soul to lose? And if we do, how do some humans lose it. That could explain why some humans are beyond evil, right? There’s serial killers, rapists, Snyder.”

Buffy choked between a laugh and a chunk of apple in her throat. “Good one, Will. Not so sure we can lose our souls while we’re still human, but I guess the reverse makes my job a little less clear cut. If humans can go bad and act evil, what’s to stop vamps from trying to be good? And how can I dust them knowing they could have potential?”

Willow didn’t even have to think. A crisis of faith and conscience in her job could get Buffy really really dead and that was something Willow would prevent at all costs if she could. “If their snackin’, then you’re slayin’. No time to put labels on them when you have lives to save. I think it’s safe to assume that most vamps are out to put major holes in the population. Sure, there might be the odd vamp who wants something better. Maybe even one who falls for the beautiful girl and turns his whole existence around for love, but I don’t think you’ll find him in the graveyard, Buffy.”

Buffy nodded, feeling the expected confidence in Willow’s conclusions and recognising her need to eradicate evil from the world as something more than just her duty. It was something she needed. She never wanted to ever see another person she knew in a hospital bed—not if they were put there because she was being slack or Miss Avoidy Slayer. And if they ever made it to the morgue—well, that would only be because she’d gotten there first.

It was a quiet, contemplative walk back inside.

The library was filled with new soldiers to the cause. Xander sat at the research table, swapping jokes with a newly flushed Jesse while Giles flicked through some ancient tome in the background.

“Ah, yes, Buffy and Willow. I assume lunch was satisfying.” Giles ducked back into his book, not waiting for an answer to the inane question and so missed the girl’s conspiratorial amusement.

“Sure, Giles. It was a veritable feast and we had waiters and hey, even the merry ole Queen of England pulled up a square of turf to eat with us.” Buffy watched Willow, an expecting smile tilting her lips and then broadening as Giles betrayed his preoccupation.

“Really? That’s quite wonderful. Now, about this Angel you met on patrol last night—”

“So, Jesse, all up and about. How’s all that blood pumping through your body?” Buffy rushed out, somehow feeling guilty yet not sure if he knew about what actually happened to him or if Xander had tried to keep him in the dark so as to not make himself look like a nutcase.

“It’s the strangest thing, you know? I mean, I leave with this really hot girl, and wham…in the hospital with a chunk out of my neck. It’s like some kind of corny Anne Rice novel. If I wasn’t so sure I was hallucinating, I’d say that gorgeous blonde was a vampire. Freaky I know, but the accident must have caused me to hit my head or something. Stranger things haven’t happened, right?” he joked, smiling around the table at his friends as Giles coughed in the background. It brought Jesse’s attention to the strange group and he leaned over to Xander, his eyes watching everything warily. “Hey man,” he whispered. “What’s with the hanging around with the school librarian and making with the friendly? Did something happen while I was laid up?”

Xander giggled nervously, checking between the girls and Giles before he abruptly pushed his chair back with a screech. “You have no idea,” he grinned before leading the way out of the place. Jesse shrugged at Buffy and Willow and followed.

The sudden silence echoed in their absence until Giles stepped forward and nervously approached Buffy with anxiety inspired hand wringing. “I do apologise, Buffy. I had no idea that it was your intention to not confide everything in this boy. I just assumed—well, we have all learned it is dangerous to assume, so I will keep my peace until you advise differently.”

“No biggie. There was no harm done. Jesse’s got some serious denial in his life, though.” Buffy found it kind of amusing. She didn’t mind if he knew her secret, but as much as it was Xander and Willow’s choice to start accepting the darker side of life as real and to support her, it was their right to decide if their friend should know too. She’d already been a bad slayer and let the cat out of the bag. She didn’t want anymore responsibility, though she wondered how smart it was to let him continue his oblivious life while living on the Hellmouth. Without the knowledge and the tools to adapt to the danger, he may not live for much longer. She’d managed to save him once—or rather, Spike had—but she didn’t relish the opportunity of doing it again. She’d rather he made like a Star Trek guy and live long and prosper.

It was something she was beginning to accept she could never do.

“We’ll tell him soon,” Willow confirmed, somehow reading Buffy’s mind. If not then the frown on her face had extra special revealing powers.

Buffy nodded, but still there was something niggling at her, and even though it was daylight, she couldn’t help but feel whatever it was, it was too late.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Jesse stood and watched the blonde. Last night he’d gotten lucky and was able to walk by her side right out of there. Last night he’d looked cool to all those Sunnydale High sceptics that had expected him to finish school a virgin. He’d held his head high, strolled out confident and excited. Almost cocky. And then it had ended—he wasn’t quite sure how. Or rather, he believed he knew how, just thought he had to be insane for it to be so.

Tonight she was back—but probably couldn’t bear to look his way again. If what he remembered happening was true—and despite Xander’s weird story about a pack of wild dogs knocking him over and almost mauling his neck till he was bled to death, he really believed it was—then he’d shown himself to be a loser. Whatever purpose she’d chosen him to fulfil, he’d failed. He’d bailed by knowing a pretty scary girl with superpowers and some bleached blond stranger that bounced out of nowhere. He’d been saved and the beauty that had smiled his way, had tasted his blood, wouldn’t want to look at him again.

There was something locked far away inside that tried to argue that his way of thinking could very well get him dead, but that seductive thrill he’d felt at having sharp teeth slice through his soft skin like a heated knife through butter kept it weak and heading toward silent. She was dangerous. He couldn’t deny it—and yet that precarious link she held between life and death thrilled him beyond anything he’d ever been able to grasp.

So it was that he was pulled forward and across a crowded dance floor to be once again within her grasp, despite his heart pounding the warning that she didn’t want him—would only kill him, and without biting him at that.

Her eyes shone when she looked up and saw him. Recognition made something flare to life—anger at being made to look foolish, disappointment to find she’d wasted time on the likes of him, or eagerness to once again sip from his neck—but though he saw it, he could never put a name to it. He just wasn’t that clued into women, into people, and so whatever truths he could have discerned from her gaze became something unreachable for the likes of him.

Her smile was enticing, cheeky as a perfectly manicured set of nails came out to lightly scratch down his neck—scraping while she stared in fascination at the bandage that covered her bite. Suddenly he felt aflame, didn’t want the cover as the puncture marks flared to life and sought contact with their creator. The heat grew bolder, sharper and became so piercingly deep that he almost lost his breath. Sweat broke out on his skin as her hand wandered down over his chest. Last night had been all about appearances. Tonight was all about the pain, and he felt disturbed for craving more. Her hand caught at his and her fingers twined around his stiff digits, the tug on his hand a little more brutal than he would have expected from such a girl if he hadn’t known what she was.

It was wrong, he knew that, yet as she led him to the door, pausing to lick purposefully, seductively on the unmarked side of his neck, he couldn’t recall anything else feeling so right.

And so he was drawn out and back into the night.

Chapter Seven

Darla was changing her plan. As soon as the boy had entered the building, as soon as she felt his stare on her body, she knew that an opportunity had been too ripely offered to be refused.

He didn’t even have to be pursued, his eyes settling on her and making quick work across the room to be once again in front of her. His gaze was riveted on her legs and she grinned. The short skirt got them every time. Her lips formed a smile of satisfaction and the promising venture made her happy. Things were looking up, and if she played her hand as lightly as possible, she could use this one to all sorts of gain.

“Hey,” Jesse greeted, trying for casual as he leaned against a pillar. Bodies were sweating from dancing fun all around him, the music pounding a rhythm so hard and loud he could barely concentrate, and yet his heart thumping in fascinated terror played louder than it all. His adopted cool slipped a fraction as amber flickered in her eyes and he stood spellbound waiting. She didn’t keep him long, her hand curling around his and dragging him behind her into the dark that surrounded the club.

Her fingers were cold. He remembered it from the night before, but now he knew the cause. His heart seemed to jump a few beats before attempting to jam them back in between and making him almost faint with understanding. And against it all, his dick twitched. When had he ever cared about living? It was a given when he woke that each day he would draw breath and just be. This night had caused him to choose, and he wavered between desire and sense, his masculinity and need winning out.

It was a compulsion, though. This craving to be with her, to let her do to him whatever she was made for; turned for. He felt like she was there for him and him alone—to make him into something special. To teach him ways that had been denied to him by being sixteen and a loser. By being friends with nerds and geeks.

Darla turned to look at him, walking backwards while she still held his hand to guide. She was grinning, her smile sly and knowing. The tinkle of her voice was so girlish, so sexy and addictive. “I lost you last night. Not letting you get away again.”

In his head it was the death knell and he felt the zip of tragedy all the way to his toes. His body was numb, his eyes scared but sure, and his hand began squeezing hers in acceptance.

“No chance of that,” he told her, his voice only a little shaky. “I don’t plan on going anywhere that you aren’t.”

And then she kissed him, a brush of the lips so soft he thought he was dreaming and his frightening introduction to creatures of the night really had been in his hallucinations.

A flash of the yellow eyes and fangs was all it took for him to believe.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He was drunk. Fall-off-your-barstool pissed as a parrot, and giggling like one too. Spike kept tapping the bar, growling at any barkeep that refused to refill his glass for free. Waiting for something to kick him in the arse and shove him back into the dark cave of his former life before he woke up and realised the monumental cock up he’d caused by simply opening his mouth. It seemed bullshit always flowed with a rapid current. Always with the bloody foot insertion. After a century he’d thought he’d grown out of the habit. He was proven wrong far too often.

A sharp sting at the base of his neck told him she’d arrived and his head hit the bar with a beer nut shattering accuracy. He groaned, the alcohol fuzzing his brain nowhere near enough for him to ignore that he was caught. He’d bloody kissed her, let his lips touch hers and know the sweetness of her innocence. He was completely buggered and he knew it. But that didn’t have to mean he liked it.

He was almost tempted to go outside, lead her out by the nose, and off some poor sod right in bloody front of her. If that didn’t get the trouble fixed, nothing could. Several things prevented that course of action, though. One, he’d bleeding well die admitting it out loud, but…he liked kissing her. She didn’t have too much experience, and that naivety alone made him drown in her. She treated him as special. Girls don’t go kissing blokes just for the hell of it. Not as a rule. Nor do the blokes kiss them back when they don’t care.

He cared. And wasn’t that the rub. She’d ripped the evilness right out of his body and left him flapping around all soulfulwithoutasoul, trashing his existence and all the comfort of a lifestyle he’d known for a hundred years—and he cared. It was almost too much for him to handle—driving him to drink rather than the next sunrise. But it wasn’t all.

Angelus. His presence around the girl spoke of badness that Spike wasn’t so comfortable with. He knew how the guy operated, and though he still hadn’t worked out exactly what the drama queen was doing getting so close to a potential stake to the heart, his being around was enough to make Spike falter. He couldn’t let Buffy succumb to the sleazy charm of his elder. He couldn’t let Angelus win—whatever the prize was he sought. The pompous arse had taken everything from Spike at one time or another. He’d zeroed in on what was precious and he seized it with a malicious grin. Every. Fucking. Time. Well, no more. The Slayer would need Spike by her side, at her back and anywhere else he deemed necessary to protect her. He just couldn’t help the panic that need instilled.

She was at his shoulder before he could swallow another shot. That annoyed him. Spike felt desperate to be wasted, having much faith in his ability to make sense of his world when he was three sheets to the wind. Her hand on his back as she fell into the barstool beside him and he was stone cold sober. Well, that tore it. He’d have to give her a piece of his mind. He’d have to assert his position and put her in her pl—

He couldn’t think when she was kissing him. Silky soft lips brushed his in a tenderness of affection he’d never really experienced before. A small hand seemed to tangle with his, Spike spinning in his chair to better face her and allowing him to tug her closer. And then the hesitant point of her tongue slipped passed his lips and Spike felt the heat explode through his body like scorching magma.

She never got so close as to touch his body. The need to have that contact was akin to maddening, Spike’s body buzzing in desperation. Though he could scent her unease and he held himself back as much as an experienced soulless demon could. This soul thing was becoming ridiculous, knowing beyond doubt that this mess would never have been created if he hadn’t been inspired to spin webs of deceit.

Pushing him to his limits, Spike almost groaned when she stepped back, though the happy smile on her face left him stunned.

“Hey,” she greeted, and Spike focused uneasily on the luscious green of her eyes and the healthy warmth of her skin.

What the fuck was he doing? Kissing the Slayer? Wanting more than her young body should be giving? He was out of his bleeding mind, make no mistake. Which completely explained why his hand lifted and brushed a stray hair off her face.

“Hey yourself,” he agreed huskily, wanting to badly get back into either the kissing or the drinking, He’d be buggered if he knew at this stage which he wanted more.

Buffy looked at their hands still clasped together and felt giddiness wash over her. The music was pumping, life thrummed through the building, and she was with a really gorgeous vamp. One that she was falling hard for. It was a night made for fun and her friends were eager to see him again. Wanting to hear his side of the story in regards to Angel and going down to The Master’s mystical prison. But first, she needed time for her—for them—and did her best to peel him from his stool and lead him out to the dance floor.

He looked confused once they stood in the centre of the throng of sweating dancing teens, almost as if he hadn’t noticed her making him walk away from the bar. But once she’d wrapped her arms around his neck, placed her head against his non-vibrating chest, he melted into her and let the music envelop them. She was an addictive and persuasive bint and Spike was finding once his hands were on her, he couldn’t let her go.

He couldn’t have buggered things up more if he’d tried.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He’d woken up in her bed, her naked body curled around strangled sheets with her back to him. She was pristine but he was covered in bite marks and blood. His stare focused on the ceiling, admiring the brave experiment of a darker canvas against the relief of paler walls. It was nice. Sort of calming.

And then his lungs forced him to breathe.

Jesse couldn’t work out if he was disappointed, though that would be pretty selfish considering all that he’d gained throughout the night. Or more accurately, what he’d lost. Blood wasn’t even the half of it—not if his own birthday suit and sticky cock was to tally up. He was too exhausted to smile—too shattered to decide if he wanted to smile. All he could tell right now was that he had left that loser club of geeky virgins and that he wasn’t dead.

Oh, and that vampires, and possibly other creatures that go bump in the night, were totally freakin’ real.

Darla moaned and rolled onto her back, giving him a luscious view of her breasts. He felt crippled in hunger, realising too late that now he’d tasted her—that she’d taken blood from him—he needed much more to satisfy his urges.

Her greeting wasn’t all it could be.

“Oh, it’s you.” Her cold calculating eyes fell to the stir of his cock, licking her lips as she moved to straddle him. He felt more afraid as she slipped his stiffness into her body than he had when she’d vamped and struck at his neck. The bite had quenched some thirst he had to be drunk. To renew that link that was created the first time she’d sipped from him. Her eagerness to taste him wasn’t as desperate as he wished, but when he was in the throes of ecstasy with his blood leaking away from his neck, he didn’t much care, as long as she didn’t stop. As long as she fed his new addiction and allowed him sanity through provision.

He’d never felt anything so moist and tight around his cock before. Not even when he’d tried the age old apple pie routine. Nothing could match this sensation and Jesse rejoiced in his courage. Without it he may have been cast aside and never brought back here. Never felt the joy of being screwed within an inch of his life while she snuck blood from naughtier places.

All up, though, she was fearsome. She growled at him for pumping too slow, her claws slashed at him for coming too fast. And she bit him for just not knowing.

She terrified him and made him shake. But every little dig, every little cut told him his choice had been wise. Told him he’d found life by risking becoming dead.

And Darla just smiled.

Chapter Eight

It was wrong. No matter which way he twisted around the events that had dumped him on his ass, he couldn’t make it look anything but horribly hideously wrong. But then, any occasion that had Spike dragging around its edges was enough to tip it toward bad right from the start.

He didn’t have a clue what had happened. One minute he was paving his way into the Slayer’s life—into Buffy’s life—looking eagerly down the track of his redemption, when along came Spike with a cock and bull story that just happened to be his own existence. Well, as confused as he was, Angel had had enough. It wasn’t fair—he was the one with the soul. He was the one who had allowed himself to fall so low through his certainty of damnation and guilt. Why did Spike get to walk in and claim everything Angel had been moving toward, all with a smile on his face and a fake soul in his flashy corpse?

Well, it stopped now. Stopped before the bleached pain-in-the-ass managed to snack on Buffy and bring an apocalypse down about their heads. As if there wasn’t enough to be worried about with The Master trying to retrieve power and importance, now Spike had to come and complicate things even more. And again, Buffy. How had he managed to get to her, anyway?

He frowned, his brain tossing around the animosity and irritation he felt toward his grandchilde, focusing on how perplexed and frustrated he was that his plan had been interfered with. He had no choice but to get back on track, to reclaim his story from Spike and then spit in the ingrate’s dust.

He was at a loss how to do it. Buffy was obviously already half enamoured with the hyperactive idiot. It wasn’t like Angel was so blind he missed the dismissive glance she’d sent his way as she was half dragged out of the crypt. He’d built up the legend of this Slayer in his head so high that to see her gullible and trusting of a soulless vampire was a little too much for him to cope with. He didn’t quite know how to protect her from the mess she’d gotten herself into. His only real option was to expose Spike for the lying, despicable fraud he was.

Angel wouldn’t even consider the possibility that Spike could have a soul. He’d struggled with the pain and anguish being forced into a conscience entailed, and he’d spent a hundred years paying the price of a century and a half of evil depravity. He was unique and no way was Spike going to come along and steal his truth, his life, and his girl.

No way in hell.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It was the fifth day in a row that Jesse had turned up all but stoned. His skin was a waxen shade of sick, he shook, and his eyes were twitchy and unfocused. He’d become almost completely uncommunicative—even catatonic on occasions—and Willow, Xander and Buffy were just about freaked right out of their minds.

Xander tried to draw him out with jokes, failing miserably when the smiles Jesse rewarded them with were sly and sinister. Willow’s attempts were with books, and his monosyllabic responses were enough to almost drive her round the bend. Buffy tried activity, hoping that if he came running with her, he’d either pick up the pace or collapse at her feet, thus making medical intervention necessary. He never showed up.

The big secret was still very much that: a big secret. Xander was jittery every time it looked like he needed to say something about the evil predators of the night, but chickened out before the words could escape his throat. The three teens shared worried looks, wondering why Jesse now turned to life altering drugs when he’d just survived an experience many didn’t get to come back from. Buffy tried to stay out of much of it, sitting and doing little more than adding her silent worries about the mental state of her new friend to the pot. They were at a loss of what to do, his paleness and decreasing health frightening Willow into finally reporting it to Giles during one of their secret Jesseless meetings.

“He’s pale and unresponsive, you say? Perhaps he is iron deficient after the attack and it has kept his energy reserves low. Also, it is possible that such a brush with death, no matter how confusing the actual brush might have been, would do something by way of frightening the poor boy into questioning his mortality.”

Buffy considered. The first thing she had done when she noticed his pallor was check his neck. Other than the healing first bite, there was nothing there to indicate that he’d been the victim once more of an unexplainable attack. So, lack of iron could work. He had lost a lot of blood so it really was possible.

It was his lack of friendly banter and Xander-like sucky humour that really told her there was something wrong.

“Even if he’s just tired, he wouldn’t have a complete personality change. And he watches us. When he thinks we won’t notice, he stares at each of us.” Buffy stopped and shuddered, wrapping her arms around her suddenly cold self. “It’s kinda like he’s taking notes.”

Giles dismissed their concerns with little interest, much preferring to go on to discuss any leads Buffy may have retrieved in regards the Master and his possible plans for escaping the Hellmouth.

There were none. “Sorry, Giles. Every vamp we come across is much more into the fighty and fangy than the talky. But next time I’ll let one get extra special close just so I can try and get him to tell me something The Master would dust him for as soon as he got home.” Her sarcasm was obviously lost on the Watcher as he mumbled about time and the lack of it remaining to sort it all out.

The frustration Giles felt was obvious as he twisted his glasses and shelved a book. “I can’t abide all this waiting. Something disastrous is about to happen and we have absolutely no idea what it could be.”

“I might be able to help you with that.”

The man was a stranger to most, so his unexpected entrance made three of the library’s occupants gasp. He stood in the back of the room, lurking in the shadows of the stacks as he had the undivided attention of four sets of eyes. They stared transfixed…

Until Buffy rolled hers eyes and huffily introduced him. “What are you doing here, Angel?” Her voice betrayed boredom, her expression too relaxed for a slayer around a vampire. Yet he took it as a good sign, believing she thought him safe and not the vicious monster Spike had treated him as inside the mausoleum. It was just more proof that the moron was going to go down, as soon as Angel managed to clear up the misunderstandings.

Still, it was a formidable audience. He cleared his throat and slowly made his way down the stairs, a book jammed under one arm. “I came to warn you.” He brandished the ancient title with a flourish to Giles. “The Pergumum Codex. I thought it might be useful.”

The researcher in Giles rejoiced at such a treasure, his hands smoothing the cover down respectfully. “Wherever did you get this? I thought it lost for good as it was last seen in the fifteenth century.” The Watcher didn’t even look up, allowing his hands to touch such essential and old information before his eyes could unravel the truth of the tales.

“Who cares where he got it, Giles? The issue right now is, why is there a vampire in our school trying to help me. I was kinda under the impression the handy dandy slayer’s guide was all about the killing of the evil undead. Spike, I can understand the not dusting, what with the soul and all. But you, you’re another story.”

Giles grew white with alarm, taking an urgent step closer to Buffy as the truth of their interloper was revealed. He rather thought she could have dropped that little gem a bit sooner.

A squeak of impatience was intriguing to them all, however, as the one called Angel almost stomped his foot before sitting dejectedly in a chair at the research table.

“Look, you’ve got it all wrong. I have no idea how Spike made you fall for it, but you’ve got the wrong souled vampire. As in, I am, he’s not.”

Buffy laughed, the sound happy and carefree before seguing seamlessly into pissed off.

“You don’t get to go around telling lies about my boyfriend.” She ignored the gasps of surprise around her. Just because she hadn’t told Spike she thought he was her boyfriend, didn’t make it any less so. There had been kissage, and hand-holding. It put them on a step above friends and Buffy was more than happy to call it as she wanted it.

“I’m not lying—”

“Shut up. You say you have a soul, and sure, you’ve been kind of helpful in a really not kind of way. You may have given me the hints, but it’s Spike that’s been by my side with the actual action behind the information. He’s the one that’s been watching my back and helping me with the hands on fighting. So, how can you seriously sit there and tell me he hasn’t got a soul?”

A flash of her conversation with Willow made Buffy stop—though to all it appeared she was finished anyway. While Angel sat spluttering, Buffy became lost in thought. How could she prove either way if one of them was lying? She really didn’t think Spike was. He’d been around her for long enough now for her to have known if he had some sinister motivation for getting close to her. And if he did have some kind of plan—how did he intend to carry it out while he was kissing and dancing with her?

“Spike is nothing but a vicious murdering monster. He has no soul. He’s been killing as recently as last week—” he stalled at Buffy’s look of thunder, his own certainty dwindling a little without concrete proof. “—I’m willing to bet,” he fudged, standing back up and straightening until his height had Buffy dwarfed.

She wasn’t having any of his intimidation tactics. She kicked him hard in the knee and smirked at his look of agony before pushing his now slumped form back into his chair.

“I’ve seen Spike drink blood from a cup. If he was feeding I’d know. So good try, but no biscuit.”

Giles, Willow and Xander looked at her askance. Buffy shrugged before explaining; “I heard it on a show once. It sounded much cooler when someone else said it though.”

“Look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but Spike is dangerous. If you don’t start working that out soon you’ll be dead.” Angel cringed at the look of black fury that passed over and settled on Buffy’s face, realising that standing back up might have been a bit presumptuous on his part and quickly slumping back into the chair.

“Okay,” she said at last, said through gritted teeth and an urge for decapitation. “Just say what you’re telling us is true and Spike doesn’t have a soul. Why would he be doing this? Why would he be working with me to fight evil and The Master?”

The obvious answer was just on the tip of his tongue, but Angel felt the possibility of a pop to his nose could be very high if he dared suggest Spike was planning to kill her. And then the reality of it struck him. Spike didn’t do plans—not well at any rate. Spike screwed them up on a fairly predictable basis. So if he’d entered this lie with the purpose to off the Slayer, he would have broken down now and attacked her. The alternative possibilities made Angel feel nauseous so he ignored them as best he could.

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t do or say anything more to stop him looking as stupid as he already did. “I just know he is a soulless demon and if you aren’t careful something bad will happen.”

Buffy seemed satisfied with his answer, her rigid stance relaxing slightly as she turned her back on him and looked at her friends. Some kind of decision was reached and she turned back to their unwelcome visitor, studying him with the same degree of seriousness she often contemplated the demon goo on her designer shoes. “Look, I promise I won’t take any risks. I’ll stay on guard around him, but in my honest opinion, you’re wrong. And from where I’m standing, actions speak louder than words, and Spike’s actions so far shout so loud he’s made me deaf. Think about it.”

And she stared at him so hard that he felt uncomfortable and left.

Chapter Nine

“It’s been so cold, Spike. Princess was worried. Why have you been hiding in the sun?” Her voice tinkled inside the crypt he’d made home, sharp eyes assessing shrewdly the benefits of his seeming defection from both his family and his partner. Nothing of what she saw made sense and instead of instigating a petulant tantrum, Dru dissolved into insecure whimpers and fell seamlessly to the floor.

Looking up, insanity nudged a smile to her lips as the tears made her cheeks glisten in the muted moonlight. “You’ve seen the light, my love.” And she giggled, losing the sense of herself as she ghosted the sign of faith against the cross of her torso. “It’s just so funny. Daddy’s laughing at you. My Spike lies, but Daddy has the real prize. Naughty Slayer doesn’t believe. Her time will come.”

He’d spent a good decade thinking about why he’d been saddled with Dru. What bloody great crime against the world and creation he’d carried out to have met her in that dark alley so long ago. Surely it couldn’t be that he’d pissed off the Big Guy for being so pathetic a wanker as to strive to be a poet. Of course, he’d actually known he was pretty bad at it. Awful in fact. Didn’t make it a crime against humanity—just one against good taste. Those that chose to mock and drown him in cruelty were far more deserving of punishment—and that’s when he’d found he’d answered one question. Maybe becoming the undead was its own reward. He’d had to think so or become as mad as Dru.

When he’d first seen her, he hadn’t recognised her darkness for what it was. Even now, Dru didn’t look like the great evil he knew her to be. Didn’t appear to be the one who whispered truths as she tore with force at a bloke’s devotion and love. She’d suck a man dry, all while having him so oblivious to her true nature that when the shock of it came—when the great rising terror of a manipulating Angelus came and usurped his destiny—it left him seething and tired.

And ultimately, that’s what he was now. He saw her histrionics on his crypt floor, listened to her confused ramblings with so little care that it left him shocked and reeling. But so very very tired.

His time with Dru was long gone. He realised that now. With Angelus in town, it was an opportunity that he’d refused to consider—not while he’d thought the death of the Slayer was his next goal to achieve. How royally that plan fucked him over should really have come as no surprise. He was getting used to being fucked over by ideas far too grand for execution. And Buffy was a very pretty shaped spanner to throw into his mess of a works. He was beginning to think that if he couldn’t kill her, he had nothing left but to love her.

His eyes fell on Dru once more, panicking a little as her green eyes watered and settled upon him sadly.

“You promised me you’d kill her, Spike. Why can’t you kill her?”

Her expectations infuriated him. For over a hundred years she’d been forcing him to live for her, keeping him at her beck and bloody call, and one look at a blonde beauty had him scattering his devotions. He felt like he’d grown more than a measure since crossing over into Hellmouth territory. Like he’d grown beyond Dru and the life he’d led since his turning. Like he needed more and meeting Buffy showed him a way of having it.

Looking at Dru hurt now. She would always need something he didn’t have—something she’d found to limitless depths in the wanker that, no matter how many years went by, he could never thoroughly leave behind. Cruelty—something the trace of William within him couldn’t bear yet the one thing Angelus had in abundance. Thrived upon. And here, in this godforsaken mouth of Hell, she could have it to her heart’s content. He’d be relieved to never have them around him again.

That’s what he’d found in this most unlikely place—what he’d found in the acceptance in Buffy’s eyes, as much as he tried to reject and ignore it. A chance to start over. He just didn’t know if he had the courage to take it. Saying yes to Buffy might put him on a new path—but it was a real wrench to let go of everything he’d had. As lacking as he may suddenly find that to be.

“You should know why, pet. Always could read me better than I could myself.” He chanced a look and sure enough she was tearful, yet not choked with grief. Dru wasn’t one to rally behind the laws of being Sire. She was too barmy to even know there were any. So letting Spike go was relatively easy—losing him from the throb of evil seemed to cut much deeper.

Her eyes glittered with anger, the tears evaporating before he’d barely had time to register their existence.

“Princess doesn’t like when one of the party leaves before he’s been excused.”

And wasn’t that the rub. He hadn’t asked if he could leave her, had made the decision without her input after leaving her for a week at the mercy of Darla and The Great Ponce himself. Not that he guessed there’d been much mercy—not if the healing lashes on her neck and arms were a true indication. She didn’t seem resentful of his actions, though. More irritated that he hadn’t sought the ancient out alongside her. Well, too bloody bad. He’d brought her here on her demand. If she didn’t like that she’d lost him for good, it was her own bleeding fault.

“Sorry, Dru. But just this once you forgot to serve the bloody tea. Now I think it’s time you got back to mum, pet. She’ll be wondering where you got off to.”

She hissed at him. Him, who’d been by her side since he’d been enslaved to her mystery. “You’ve lost yourself, William. Telling lies to the Slayer, making her believe in you. What will Daddy think when he finds out you’ve tampered with the Gypsy vengeance and started to wear his face?”

There was no doubt the first part of her speech had him cringing—he just knew claiming to have a soul would bugger things up good and proper. But he was on an out-of-control spin now, needing to cling to the excuse that kept him by Buffy’s side. The deprivation of her favour would hurt more than he’d ever thought possible in regards to a slayer—in regards to his food.

“Yeah, I lied. What of it?” His stubborn stance was blown all to hell as his door was kicked forcefully off its hinges and laid to rest halfway to the back wall.

A vision of slayer betrayal stood in the moonlit opening, tears coursing down her cheeks and deep breaths struggling to make it into her lungs. Spike registered the twist in his gut as pain, just as his whole world was thrown into chaos.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

She really didn’t want to think about what Angel had told them, but Buffy couldn’t tear the doubt from her mind. Not when it was her life that could be affected. The lives of her friends. But no matter which way she turned it around, Spike had given her no reason to have doubts. No reason to trust this Angel guy over him. There was no test that she could administer to measure the existence of a soul. All she had to judge was the word of a slimy guy and the deeds of both.

So far, Spike was so far in front he was lapping the other.

Thinking of Spike made her smile. Since that night she’d found him at the Bronze, they’d spent every night together patrolling. Being near him made her senses almost explode on overload and her craving for him was increasing with every glance he sent her way. She was more than a little attracted to him—it would surprise her to find someone who wasn’t—but if she were really truthful, she could admit that what she was feeling about him had an intensity that left her starry-eyed and breathless. She’d passed the crush stage, learned as much about him as she could while he was as tight-lipped about his past as he could be—not that it had bothered her at the time. She’d felt the gentleness of his embrace when he comforted her after nearly being taken down by a pack of vamps—the Master’s lackeys eager to take her to him. She’d felt the cool sensation against her buzzing palm, her skin so sensitised she was almost bouncing along at his side. And she’d felt his kisses—so molten with natural magic that Buffy wasn’t so with the remembering of her own name. So yes, she’d drifted through the stages of romantic interest until she’d stumbled awkwardly into love, and she was so blessed by it that she couldn’t tear the smile from her lips.

She had no clue if he felt the same, though the looks of longing when they pulled away from each other made her heart beat harder for the hope that he did. He never talked about his feelings, didn’t press her to share her own, but each time he brushed his fist against her arm in a move so tender it nearly made her drool, she knew. Knew herself if not him. Knew that if she lost Spike to the lies Angel insisted he was telling, it would surpass hurt. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about—even if it did compromise the life of her friends and family. Even if it endangered her own.

Giles had argued that the stupid prophecy book was such a great gift to them that she should believe Angel’s motives for wanting to help. Should accept he was ensouled and be willing to listen to his story. Only problem was, she already believed he had a soul. She’d looked up the history of Angelus—well, honestly, she’d only read a paragraph or two before her stomach objected to more. What the account had told her was that Angelus had not been the one giving her hints about badness around the Hellmouth. In his own mysterious way, he’d been trying to help. Not terribly efficiently, but she guessed it must be kind of hard to try and slip into a world of humans if you were feeling guilt for destroying so many of them.

That thought stopped Buffy cold, and a sudden chill of foreboding spread through her body right as she came to a stop at the door of Spike’s crypt. It was propped open slightly, a sliver of air existing between the door and its frame. Enough to warn her of another presence as she was about to enter and make out with her hot new boyfriend.

It was a woman’s voice—one that she’d never heard before. Belonging to someone she no doubt had never heard of before. And she knew Spike well, judging by the intimacy of her tone, the hurt as she accused him of something.

“Yeah, I lied. What of it?”

Spike’s reluctant admission slammed into her with all the force of a building collapse and Buffy felt the horror sink down to her toes. What did he mean he lied? Had he been sneaking around with her behind someone else’s back? Was Buffy suddenly cast in the role of ‘other woman’ when she was only sixteen? Oh God, what was he lying about and why was he doing it? Without knowing what lay behind the claim she was falling apart, the pain driving into her heart like a lethally sharpened stake

She’d put so much trust in him—hadn’t even considered he might be lying about any part of himself. It never even occurred to her to wonder how such a specimen of salty goodness was available in the first place. She’d just gone with it, decided she wanted him and went about showing him that he wanted her back. Learning you may have made a monumental mistake was a little hard to take. Learning it in the presence of another woman? Intolerable.

Buffy felt sick at the rushing swell of anger and disappointment that swept away all commonsense as she planted her boot flat against the door and sent it crashing inward. Spike’s surprise and dread filtered through her already quaking sense of supposed understanding, yet it was the malicious glee she caught in the woman’s eyes before she attacked that Buffy deemed more important. Without thinking, by trusting her heart before her head, she’d barged into the lair of two vampires. Ordinarily that wouldn’t have been a problem, her usual confidence in her abilities allowing that most double-act vamps she came across would be dusty remains before they could share an ounce of their stupidity. This time, she could sense the power from both of them, Spike’s almost heightened by his company, and Buffy at last realised her mistake.

Hands were around her throat and strangling her before Buffy could even call his name. Darkness beckoned as she tried to kick, tried to claw her way free. All the while the bitch was cackling like she thought Buffy’s imminent death was funny and Spike stood shocked to the spot. Buffy saw it and didn’t adjust her beliefs to the look of horror on his face, the fear that that reached out and met her own.

Not until Buffy was gasping did the pressure cease, only to leave her screaming as fangs sunk through tissue and sucked greedily at her blood. Buffy cried as her foolishness slammed into her and her mistakes flashed behind her eyes. Then it was over, blood leaking from her neck and weakness threatening to keep her collapsed on her knees. Partially in shock, she met furious midnight eyes feeding on terror and shrunk as he poured all his fear and anger into damaging punches that hit a too responsive Dru.

The woman Buffy didn’t know—the one she hated and now feared with a very healthy does of reality—collapsed into a sobbing bundle of olden styled velvet. Everything about her was blood red—the out of fashion gothic styled dress, the murder in her eyes, Buffy’s plasma that dripped from her fangs. And now she acted helpless against Spike’s anger, remaining on the floor as she rubbed her face and whimpered about duty.

It was too much, Buffy cringing as Spike dragged the woman into the air, throwing her across his crypt and rushing back as she slid down the stone. The evil laughter was back, her eyes stripped of artifice as she maliciously entered the fight. Fists and fangs slashed through flesh and air, leaving Buffy scared and confused. She stood slowly, pushing her spirit and determination to support her legs, forcing one final look to confirm the preoccupation of both vampires as she painfully sidled out the door.

Spike had not stopped the movement of his kicks and fists until Dru lay bloodied and whimpering on the floor. He’d never felt such fear, such gut-clenching terror that he was going to lose the very thing he needed to keep him alive. Buffy. The image of his former’s fangs hidden within the Slayer’s throat had been enough to budge him from his catatonia, desperation to save Buffy—to really watch her back—spurring him to finally force Dru from her. Dru had taken him over completely during his past, but this encroaching on his territory—whether to kill or love a slayer was still the debate—it fuelled an intolerance he wasn’t aware he had. No one could beat him, take away his purpose and so he had saved the girl. Didn’t want her hurt anymore than he wanted to come to this hellhole in the first place.

Whatever had Dru worried about the situation now was not his problem. He’d beaten her into submission for the first time ever and amidst it all wondered if this was what he should have done if he’d really wanted her to be his all those long years past. Whatever he could have done, should have done, was long ago and he had his future now to protect.

It was time he surrender his stranglehold on his evil persona, allow himself to recognise there was so much more than killing and feeding. No matter how evil he was, how consumed he was by the demon within, there was always love. He’d never had it in Dru, but he knew he could with Buffy. Knew that he half did already.

He would not let her die, and especially not on the end of Dru’s viciousness.

By the time the violence had stopped, Buffy had long disappeared into the night.

She’d not quite forced her stumbling steps to reach home before he caught up with her, seizing her in quivering arms and kissing apologies into her hair. Buffy wasn’t in any rush to pull away, she could wait to face the thing that had nearly killed her for a few more minutes while she filed away the smell and feel of him. It was a pity he could tell she was crying—even if it was the great body shaking sobs that clued him in.

She clung to the leather of his coat as she delayed delving into a truth she didn’t want to know. Not really. If she was the other woman, then she’d deal, because being held tight in his arms felt more right than being wrong. Felt like something she should fight for rather than give up. But betrayal hurt much more than she’d expected. She never thought it would be something she’d have to face this soon in her life.

Within a minute of the embrace, Buffy realised she was finding it harder to breathe. Having that automatic body function deprived for the second time so soon after the first, she was beginning to think she could develop a complex.

“Spike!” she gasped, feeling the pain in her heart as it spread to her lungs.

Buffy could feel the grit of sorrow on her face as she ducked her head in an attempt to hide. But one of the fingers on a hand that she loved so much slipped along her jaw and lifted her chin, making her see that her eyes weren’t the only ones that shimmered.

“I’m sorry, Buffy.” And strangely he was. He felt a true glimpse of what it must be like to have a soul and was ever grateful he didn’t have one. If this was the kind of pain he’d be stuck with every day for the rest of his existence, then he didn’t want a bar of it. Sure, he really preferred to not go through another scene like the last anytime soon, but daily torment he could do without.

“I heard her, Spike.” A hard edge entered her voice—an edge that was pure bravado and self-defence. “I heard what she said. That you lied. What about, Spike? And who were you lying to? Her, or me?” Tears of frustrated expectation were again sliding down her cheeks, her nose throbbing and her throat all seized. But this wasn’t something Buffy could allow herself to avoid. As much as she didn’t really want to know—didn’t want to know about HER—there was much experience that told her the dangers resulting from ignoring certainties.

Spike did not look like a man keen on broaching the subject. He looked over her shoulder, searching hard for something that could alter perception so he didn’t have to go through this. He’d saved Buffy from Dru’s bloodlust—saved her from being hurt—and was on the verge of losing her for good. What did he do then? If he told her the truth, would she still want to know him? Would she still need his lips to kiss her goodnight or would she wipe at them in disgust?

He could choose to tell her nothing. Let another lie pass his lips and come back to bite him on the arse. He didn’t want to lose her, but if he did, what then? If he told her the monumental lie that had presented him with the perfect cover to get close enough to kill her and her friends, told her that he’d fallen hard and changed his desire from one of death to life, would she still allow him close?

He didn’t think she could. Not as the Slayer. Maybe Buffy could have forgiven his deceit—if she really loved him. But the Slayer would have to punish him, and the worst possible way of doing that would be to withdraw her affections and shut him out of her life. He had no answer to what he would do then. He hadn’t completed any kind of transformation toward good, was still reeling from falling for the common enemy of his kind. But he’d been testing himself, trying to hold back on the killing. Well, bloody hell, not really, but he’d been thinking about it. And had cut back. Only one a night—and a quick death, not one as brutal as in his past life. Not one who’d been his plaything for the night—no more chase and consume. Now it was feeding for the sake of it, but becoming something he was getting closer to believing was wrong. Would whatever process he’d begun come to a screeching halt as soon as the damning words fell from his lips and she discarded him completely?

One look at the shadows developing beneath her eyes, her skin pale for the loss of blood, and he knew the choice was not in his hands. Whatever happened after, it was time now to be honest—to be himself. To be Spike. If she couldn’t be with him after, well, one step at a time would get him either comfy on the Hellmouth or completely out of the place.

“Pet, can we go somewhere to talk?” He still held her hand, even as she looked warily at the two of them entwined together before squeezing him in what he could only interpret as terrified clinging.

“We can talk at my place,” she told him quietly, taking two steps in the direction of her front porch before realising that he wasn’t moving. She didn’t speak again as she stared at him, hoping the urgency wasn’t quite showing.

“Not sure I should, Buffy. Think after this you might not appreciate me having unlimited access to your home.”

He was serious, she could tell. And it made her stomach feel all tight and flamey, making cold shivers beat and tickle against her skin.

“Are you having an affair with me?” Buffy couldn’t hide the vulnerability she felt, her voice cracking with too much emotion. God, this pain wouldn’t stop, not unless he told her it was a mistake and that other woman wasn’t his legitimate girlfriend.

Spike looked shocked at his question, then pensive. “Never thought of it like that, but in a way, I guess I am.”

Buffy yanked her hand free and backed up toward her house, pain obvious in every wobble of her lip. “How could you do that to me? I thought you l—” She slammed a lid on that line, refusing to bring herself closer to not recovering this blow. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t suspect…

“I do love you.”

Her face was on fire as she stared at him stunned, and then the sobs erupted from deep in her throat as she cursed the weakness of her knees when he was around. He lifted her with grace, and carried her around to the back of the house and cradled her in his arms while he sat on the seat in the garden. It was as private as he was going to get—not wanting to risk her hating that she took him into her house to learn the awful truth about a monster with her in his heart.

“Buffy, I did lie to you—and you wouldn’t believe how sorry I am about that—but not about Drusilla. That was more a slip of the mind I guess. I didn’t not tell you on purpose, I just forgot about her as soon as I saw you.” Spike grinned nervously, his teeth biting his bottom lip while a brow quirked higher. “She was a mite upset that I’d left her for you, I guess, but that’s not what she was getting at, luv.”

Buffy beat down the panic that threatened to burn her throat with bile. So much already and he hadn’t even told her the information she’d requested. What lie had he told? Why, it was looking like the one big fat lie about his hobag betterbe-ex wasn’t even the start of it. She was no closer to understanding the cause of her near death experience than she had been before Spike followed her and promised explanations.

The grief in her expression wasn’t alleviated even a little with what he’d shared so far and Spike sighed deeply, gathering strength from the fact that she hadn’t removed herself from his lap or his touch yet. His arms tightened around her and he looked off passed her shoulder, gaining distance and courage by not seeing the pain he was sure to inflict reflected in her eyes.

“I’m a bad, rude man, Buffy. I was dragged to this place kicking and screaming by my sire—Drusilla, the mad bird you unfortunately met back at the crypt. She was hellbent on reuniting with the family, convinced she’d find Angelus and our unlives would go back to being hunky-dory. Never bloody knew it wasn’t, you know? I didn’t want to come, but I’ve been devoted to her for over a century and like the whipped fool I am, I gave in and here we are.” He could feel the pressure against the circle of his arms as Buffy tried to push away, could feel the increase in her temperature as she fought an internal battle not to stake him, was his guess. Whatever it was, he was grateful that she hadn’t yet broken free and he could finish his tale. It wasn’t going to paint pretty pictures for him, but at least he was telling it and not some other interfering wanker that didn’t know the full truth.

“It didn’t seem so bad a move when I found out the Slayer was here guarding the Hellmouth.”

He very clearly noticed the second she stopped breathing, hoping that she would begin again as soon as he rushed in with the rest. “Still, wasn’ in any hurry to seek you out. Had my own decisions to make, my own thoughts to sort out. When I met you and your mates in the graveyard…it wasn’ intentional, yeah? I wasn’t looking for a fight, not right then. Was following, just out of interest. When I helped, wasn’t even planning on eating any of your friends. Then Darla gave me an out, a way to be there and look good as well as give me an in to you.”

Ah, there it was, the air sucked back into her lungs and the vibrations of her body increased. It broke something vulnerable inside that she was crying and he couldn’t stop the need to crush her against his chest and compound the problem with apologies.

“You were going to kill me? So Angel was right?” She didn’t act like a chit who just heard her boyfriend had plotted her death. She didn’t move away as one would if they feared for their life.

The desperation to never let go was filtering through him and seizing his fingers, causing bruises where he gripped her hard. “I’m a monster, Buffy. Killing slayers is what I do. What I’m known for.”

She gasped in horror. “You’ve killed other Slayers?” And then her wet forest green eyes accused him with all the sadness he’d never been expected to react to. While such weakness in a human always made Angelus laugh, to Spike it reminded him of the moment his mum had caught onto the truth of what he was telling her, what he wanted to share with her.

“Two.” The admission he was sure sealed his fate. How could he come back to be anything worth looking at now that she knew what he was and all he’d done before meeting her.

“Why haven’t you done it yet?” She searched him deeply, finding something he wasn’t sure about but feeling relieved it kept him where she was for now. “You’re soulless; there was nothing in your way. I totally trusted you and fell for you. You could have killed me eighty times over. Why haven’t you?” The repetition didn’t quicken his answer and when it came, Buffy both melted and wished she could take it back and never have to hear it.

“Because I found things in you and your friends I thought I could never have.” The tense hunch of his shoulders was enough to herald the world that he was uncomfortable with revealing such a weakness, and that he really didn’t want to elaborate. Buffy seemed to settle in his arms, though, and he felt the prickle of tears.

She stared at him for what seemed like hours, the night growing around them and greeting all the routines of its arrival. “You’ve never been liked before?”

Spike startled, opened his mouth to deny it but knew. No more lies or he could guarantee a brutal end to this heartfelt bare-all. “No, not really.”

And she kissed him.

“I like you,” she whispered bravely against his lips, trusting her heart and knowing that she could be wrong and end up dead tonight. It was a risk. Every night she wandered around it on her own, prepared with nothing but a pointy stub of wood while some evil demon could take her out whenever one came along that was stronger than her, bigger or just more prepared. She could live each day in fear that a decision she made was wrong, that she was the sole reason people continued to die in this town, or she could just believe in herself and take whatever happiness passed her way.

Spike made her happy, and though he had no soul, he’s shown her a great deal more about himself and the way he could love by protecting her and being honest when he could have taken the easy way out.

If admitting that he was with another girl while messing around with Buffy was taking the easy way.

“So, this Dru? She’s out of the picture?” Eager eyes watched his and Buffy felt a light inside lit to a powerful flame as he nodded his affirmation.

“Completely,” he voiced in wonder, his lips being teased by the presence of hers barely a breath away. “She knows how I feel about you.”

She wasn’t going to press, already having heard it once—probably only by accident. She could wait longer, determined to give Spike all the time he needed to prove himself to her friends and Giles. She had a feeling that a soul wasn’t as big a deal as Angel made out. If Spike could change his whole world around for her without one, then was she really supposed to be impressed by Angel’s mediocre efforts with one?

She could feel an eyeroll coming on and to prevent an immersion into Angel annoyance, she snuggled deeper into Spike’s arms, feeling his affection in the unconscious efforts to breathe as well as his tight hug.

“Spike?” Buffy made a decision, ignoring the implications if she was wrong. No way did she believe Spike was still planning to kill her. Not even an evil vampire filled with hate could sustain this level of intimacy with just the desire to kill her to fuel him.

No trace of her decision had passed through to him yet, his shoulders stiffening for the rejection Buffy suspected he felt sure was coming his way. He was so gorgeous, all wounded and unhappy at the thought of everything between them being irretrievable.

“Come into my home, Spike.” Buffy bit her lip as his awestruck gaze bathed her in happiness.

“Buffy?”

He didn’t move until she’d moved upright, linking their fingers and leading him to her back door. She opened it, and slowly dragged Spike through it. Progress to her room was slow, eyes locked as they trod each step carefully. Buffy tugged him down fully clothed onto her bed and quickly positioned herself for healthy and happy vampire snuggles.

“Spike, I really like you.”

There’d been no kiss in her little girl room. Spike laid back the length of her plush bed, holding her tight, and feeling like he’d never been this close to anyone in his entire life. And all without a kiss or a caress. It felt a lot like how he’d expect Heaven to feel, this giddy sense of comfort. This loving sense of fulfilment. And just like the git he was, he felt the urge to test its validity—to seek the end of something that made him feel so special and wanted if it wasn’t truly right.

“Buffy?” he asked, his voice hesitant but hopeful. “You sure this is what you want, luv?”

Buffy giggled, Spike’s eyes widening as he looked at her in amazement. Watched her as she propped herself up on her elbow and looked down into his awestruck face. “Spike! I just found out my boyfriend—who I really really liked a lot before I found out he was a cheating, lying yet adorable soulless vampire—is a soulless vampire. Of course I’m sure this is what I want.” Her smile revealed so much of her tender heart, her eyes betraying her sincerity of feeling for him, and all he could do was stare at her in wonder. The simple ecstasy of it crackled on the air around them.

But then he felt the doubt seep back into his body with the flashing images of her friends and watcher in his mind’s eye. The shade of his eyes clouded as sadness consumed him. “Don’t expect your mates will be half as forgiving or welcoming as you, pet.”

He looked down at her comforter and missed the fear that cast a shadow over Buffy’s face. Then determination swept it away as her mind was made up.

“They’ll be fine.” A heavy pause. “We just won’t tell them.” She avoided his eyes, knowing that she should be seeing a look of censure in them at her behaviour, but suspecting immense relief instead. Buffy could feel the undercurrent of hope and knew that she was making the right decision, even if it provoked derision when everyone eventually found out. But he needed a chance, and she wasn’t ready for her friends to judge her fairytale and bring it to an early and less happy conclusion.

Angel’s smug face when she told her friends the truth about Spike’s lack of soul—and his original plan to take her down—made her feel petulant and fiercer in her need to protect the relationships Spike had formed with her friends.

“And…well…I have to admit it would be funny to see Angel explode from the inside. He’s all ‘my soul makes me so great. I am the one true soulful vampire; Spike is an imposter. Pick me, Buffy. Pick me!’”

Buffy’s attempt to impersonate the brooding whiney voice of the Angel she’d been getting to know was hysterical and Spike couldn’t help the small puff of a laugh that escaped his lips.

“Bloody brilliant. You should go into acting, pet.”

She looked him up and down with a glint of mischief slipping through her grin. “I’d give you a run for your money, blondie.”

“Oy! I’ll have you know I was being perfectly…’m not gonna get away with that, am I?” he realised with a pout. She’d be onto every evil action now, leaving him totally buggered.

Buffy shook her head, even as amusement kept her smile in place. He was evil—and had been viciously so not so long ago. She couldn’t expect him to take up the honesty train completely overnight. That didn’t mean she didn’t have standards—just that she’d cut him some slack as he moved up to meet them.

A shy searching look and Buffy let her head fall to his shoulder, her hand free to trace slow, light circles over his abdominals. Her fingers stroked over the bump of each muscular ridge, her body thrumming with electrified tingles as quiet breaths seemed forced through Spike’s lips. Lids heavy with a desire that wasn’t so new since meeting him, Buffy let her eyes close and follow the internal lustiness. She kept her hands innocent even as her mind explored the obscene.

“So, are we okay now? You’re all free of insano vamps and duty, etcetera?” Buffy could feel his nod of affirmation against her cheek, his chest moving with the action. Her next words left him rigid, though, but Buffy was too absorbed in her imagination and where their new understanding of each other could lead to. “And you’re soulless, though all with the good, right? No eating of the population with a pulse and helping me defend the Hellmouth against those vamps?”

His nod this time was slower, affected poorly by the sudden kick of what this choice would mean for him. It was one thing to start feeling a little peculiar in his belly when he drank his victims down, completely another to recognise it as guilt and give it up in the name of love.

It wasn’t really an argument. He had Buffy in his arms right now after expecting her to shove him to the curb. He’d been a lucky bloke and it wouldn’t do now to risk it all being stripped away with her discovering his secret little pastime. So yeah, he was going cold turkey off the happy meals.

He could rip someone’s head off about it later.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He watched from the shadows as she led one of the Slayer’s friends into the dark. The door of her place was left open, the weakened body slumped against the doorframe as he struggled with a satiated smile and a quickly abandoned attempt to reach out to her. Darla’s lip curled in contempt, her demon’s eyes glaring at the boy who just wouldn’t take the hint. He was useful for some things, it was true, but he’d not yet learned the subtle art of disappearing when she’d had her fill.

“Sweetie.” Her voice dripped with saccharine, more than a hint of her impatience for him to be gone in the forceful shove of him out her door. “You really should be getting home. You do have school tomorrow, right?” She tilted her head, knowing that it showed her off to a lovely advantage. He may not be the best toy she’d ever had, but he was sure fun for now. His connection to that frustrating little slayer added to his marketability no matter how annoying his tiresome flirting grew to be.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess.” Jesse stared at her unblinkingly for a moment, his eyes dazed and unfocused as the blood made a sludgy trek through his veins.

He swayed drunkenly on his feet and swerved sharply once he lost the support of the building’s solid structure. He fell, laughing hysterically as he struggled back to his feet. The sloppily dressed teen missed her flash of irritation as he stumbled again and finally rolled her eyes.

“Guess I took a bit too much this time. Better stay at home tonight and rest up. If you don’t replenish your supplies then you are of absolutely no use to me. Understand?” She grabbed his chin and forced him to look her in her amber eyes, her loathing plain for anyone not half drained and drowning in lust to see.

Finally he blinked and instead of rearing back in horror at the monster less than an inch from his face, he grinned, a look of relief and desire making rapid imprints on his features.

“Don’t think I can do that, baby.” His voice was slurred, his body heavy on his legs as he smirked and looked her curves up and down. He was going for sexy; she thought he was pathetic.

“Look, as much as I don’t care if your organs shut down from the loss of blood, I’m not ready yet for your superfreak friend to come bashing down my door. Be a good little stray and scat.” She said it like ‘boo’, obviously thinking she still had enough menace to make him wet his pants, but instead he lunged forwards and latched onto her lips with an amorous kiss.

“Ewwwww, can’t you take no for an answer?” A violent push sent Jesse careening against the wall of the next building, his head cracking on the bricks as he slumped down them and flopped on the ground unconscious. She felt such revulsion that her body shook, yet her gaze wandered almost immediately to find another hassle she didn’t want to have to deal with.

“If you’re planning to stalk me to death, at least be original about it.”

Angel fell away from the shadows, his moves slow and calm as he casually walked up to his sire and one time lover.

“You planning on leaving the boy there?” He stared at her, his eyes soaking up the blonde beauty that had rejected him and his soul while he purposefully blocked out the very real existence of the Slayer’s friend passed out through injury and loss of blood.

“Believe me, it couldn’t have happened to a dumber geek.” She turned her back and made to leave him, showing her disdain for his presence that made his jaw clench and his hands squeeze into tight fists.

“I need your help.” The words were out before he could think them out thoroughly, and he cringed at his stupidity when she laughed uproariously. She was beautiful when she laughed—as evil and dangerous as she was at any time, the radiance of her smile always stunned him. It explained so much about him—his attraction to Buffy for one—and he was momentarily startled speechless.

“Why Angelus,” she purred as she turned and began to stalk him, her fingers reaching out and walking up his arm to rest with a pat on his chest. “Whatever could I help you with?”

He couldn’t miss the malicious glint that challenged him, couldn’t suppress the growl that rumbled beneath his breast for the pleasure of her touch. It had been so long, too long since she’d cast him out, rendered him homeless and without family to love and provide for. He’d been a good provider—bringing home the bacon on a viciously regular basis. He felt a momentary pang of disgust before shirking it off and finding her again.

“I need you to help me find out what Spike’s up to.” His lips were tight as he watched every flicker of emotion on her face. She was an expressive woman, yet usually she settled on derision and flirty, two ends of the spectrum while she pursued her prey.

He’d expected her to refuse. Instead she looked confused which quickly changed to intrigued.

“Why, I thought our baby boy was all shiny like you. Has he been naughty?” Her smile was so infectious, so stunning that Angel often felt she’d inspire a man to breath, counteracting the undead part of his curse.

“Well, I don’t know for sure,” Angel admitted bashfully, but envy churned in his gut until he could barely stand there without committing violence. The little creep had stolen his life, had slipped in when he wasn’t looking to take over his mission and pinch his girl. “I might not have the proof, but I know Spike. You know Spike. No way is he telling the truth. Can’t you ask Drusilla?”

Darla waved her hand dismissively at that option. “That fruitloop hasn’t said a thing that made sense in over a hundred years. I doubt I can decipher her babble now if my life depended on it. Which it doesn’t.” A slow disturbing grin spread over her face and consumed Angel in its glory. “But I have an idea.” She stepped to the side and they both took in the crumpled form of Jesse. “Meet my own little pet spy. He’s got an in with the Slayer. I shouldn’t have to promise much for him to do exactly what I want. Lucky for you the boy is so desperate for me that he’ll do anything I wish.”

Angel cringed. He could feel the weight of his guilt settle heavily on his shoulders, but could feel the futility of his presence in this place even more. Buffy wouldn’t need him if Spike were to stay by her side. She wouldn’t need his soul, his muscle, or even his affection. It hurt even more that because of him, the biggest mistake of their family, Buffy didn’t even want Angel. He’d never been last on the list before. Even soulful the Powers wanted him. Had expectations of him.

Still, his soul rejected he allow his sire to use this human. Angel felt the pain of it as it ate away at the thing in him that fought against evil every day. One more look at the brunette and he closed his eyes, stubborn and selfish need making up his mind. There were always casualties in war.

“Do whatever you need to. I’ll be in touch.”

And with the swish of his coat he was gone, not even watching as Darla turned her back on her fucktoy and headed back inside.

Jesse didn’t even moan as Xander came out of hiding, the fear and shock making him shake violently as he heaved up his friend and dragged him to safety.

Chapter Twelve

Xander was fuming, and not a little scared. He’d managed to get Jesse all tucked up in a hospital bed before wandering home, his head full of vampire flambé. Seeing bleached hair enter the library behind Buffy was like waving a red flag. Xander was out of his seat and jabbing furiously into Spike’s chest with his finger, emotion tying his voice up even as he spat out his hatred for the undead.

“Whoa!” Buffy gently shoved Xander away from her boyfriend, her eyes wide and disbelieving that her friends could possibly know Spike’s truth. How could they? They hadn’t believed Angel totally yesterday so it was quite a stretch that they suddenly did overnight. “What is going on here? I thought we were giving Spike the benefit of the doubt.”

Xander stood, agitated and confused as he glared holes into a suddenly wary Spike. “This whole soul thing is a great steaming pile of horse crap.” His arms crossed, he stared at the blonde couple and dared them to correct him.

“Oookay.” Was it bad that Buffy felt fearful that they knew the truth and would judge him? “What exactly brought this on?” God she hoped it was something else. Something other than the truth she’d spent the night processing and forgiving. Buffy took Spike’s hand, neither of them taking their eyes from the angry teen as Xander began to pace and throw out his arms in frustration.

“Creepy stalker guy, that’s what brought this on. He says he’s got a soul and he’s all good? Well, big on the NO to that one, folks. Either he’s lying or his soul isn’t worth the…I can’t think of a good way to finish that sentence, but he’s full of it, and I’m not talking of a nice shiny soul.” Xander practically threw himself back in his chair, his head falling forward hard to the wood of the table with a dull thump.

Spike squeezed Buffy’s hand and then slowly took an opposite seat and sat down. He felt suddenly very insecure—and worried about these kids getting on any side of his grandsire. None of them would survive that meeting, except maybe Buffy, but the rest were too puny to go up against the wanker’s games and come out of it alive.

“You saw Angelus? He didn’t see you, obviously, or you wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.” Then the information that had spewed out in a colourful vitriolic message of hate hit him right between the eyes—in that place that was often a bit slow on the move. “Wait, what? What bloody soul? Bugger. I thought you were just taking the piss.”

Buffy cringed under his intense stare. With all her wigging over his own soul status and his undead ex, she’d kind of forgotten to go into details about what late breaking news was discovered regarding Angel. Her crude joke about the vampire and his pompous claim of soul haveage was something that seemed to have skipped right past Spike. His look of confusion and panic tore at her heart and she was suddenly afraid that he was going to reveal everything in his shocked realisation that though his own soul was made up on the spot, Angel had supposedly possessed one for countless years.

Buffy caught his eyes and very slowly, sincerely told him what they all knew—if they’d been told the truth. Again, not with the easy tests for the soul existence. “Angel came by and told us he has a soul. He had some book thingy that made Giles’s eyes bulge, but his main point was to tell us he was the real vampire with a soul.” Please don’t anyone ask Spike if he really has one. Don’t let them find out now it was a trick. Buffy felt almost light-headed with holding her breath, then found herself trying to be inconspicuous about needing to drag in great gasping lungfuls of air as Spike’s expressions of doubt caused her pain.

He felt like his very foundations had been taken to with a sledgehammer. Was the girl he was falling for making fun of him? Setting him up to fall not only in front of her friends, but against the tosser that had always ensured his failure in the past?

“There is no way Angelus has a soul. I would’ve known about it.” Except niggling little images came to barrage his brain. Darla and Angelus had been rigidly supportive of each other, never allowing for either of them to be placed in the way of danger without a way to back out of it. Lessons had been learned was all they’d say, but Spike had always envied the way they had always watched each other’s back. Even when it looked like they didn’t.

He’d always thought it made no sense when she’d kicked him out. Made even less sense how quietly he’d gone. Any normal Angelus behaviour would have alerted him and Dru to the expulsion from their close knit group, and suddenly Spike felt the weight of his misunderstanding heavy in his gut. The bitch had never told him. She’d let them believe that Angelus had bolted because he was sick of them, that it was HER call to split them up. The years of disappointment and hurt that he’d been abandoned suddenly was lifted, and though it didn’t give him any warm cuddlies for his grandsire, it removed some of the responsibility he’d felt at the loss. Altered his feeling of destiny that he’d finally gained Drusilla to care for. Events outside his control may have kept them together, but it wasn’t some preordained destiny like he’d always romantically believed.

Still, knowledge didn’t suddenly buy loyalty, not as much as this little group had earned just by trusting him and allowing him into their lives. He’d felt Angelus was off in their earlier encounter, and now that he was a little more advised of the facts, he understood Xander’s concerns.

“What did you see?” he asked, his voice low with suppressed fury. Too many times had he stood by and been made a fool of by his own family. Too many times he’d been used, lied to, and callously tormented and denied simply because he was never enough. Well, he seemed to be enough for Buffy, and in a twist of irony that hadn’t stopped his head yet from spinning, Spike was feeling bloody alright with that. Completely satisfied with the uncanny about turn of his life.

And her mates were more than enough for him. Thoughts of feasting on their blood were long gone; he saw them now as potential friends, and felt as well as saw the wisdom in waiting to reveal his lack of spiritual guidance. His soul was Buffy, and in time, he hoped they would hear that devotion and allow him to live with it.

Xander seemed startled at the anger in Spike’s voice. The vampire had so far been especially careful to remain even tempered in front of Buffy’s friends. While his plot had been to lure the Slayer in and be victorious in her death, he’d been gentle and unobtrusive so as to allay any fear they may have had that a vampire near was something to be rejected—whether with soul or not. It had worked like a charm, and now he was reaping the benefits of Harris seeing exactly how furious and concerned Spike was that Angelus had upset him with some scheme the boy had witnessed.

Their eyes met, warm chocolate brown melting the reserve as he found the sincerity that Spike didn’t have to act to own. And Xander spoke, telling them all the scene he’d overheard and where Jesse was now.

“I went to the Bronze last night. I waited an hour or two and when no one showed—” he glared at Willow and Buffy, then shrugged and smiled sadly. “I started off for home. Thought I heard Jesse in one of the alleys, and after the other near death experience, I headed down to check he wasn’t being someone’s snack.”

Buffy had taken a seat near Spike at the table across from her friend, watching with fear filled lungs that suddenly deprived her of air. Xander nodded in acknowledgement before dropping his head in his hands.

“I think we made a mistake, not telling him. I found him falling out of this blonde chick’s place. The same one that took him before.” He raised tortured eyes to the group, his guilt radiating off him so that they all felt it and sunk into the misery by his side.

“Darla,” Spike offered, though he knew that they knew her name. “Bloody game of her to take him to her place. She’s not one to take her food home with her. She doesn’t like the clean-up.”

Xander stared in shock, then the light of innocence that he’d clung to over the past week slowly faded until there was nothing left but the dark shine of a boy that had learned too much of horror and life to ever be carefree again.

“He told me it all on the way to hospital. He’s been going to her for sex—” He screwed up his nose in disgust, even as the envy battled valiantly. “And letting her feed off of him. He knew she could kill him, but he doesn’t seem to care.” Xander seemed to space out before them all, his mind repeating the details Jesse had relayed rather vividly and fought extra hard to keep his cock flaccid even as the bile trekked up his throat.

Spike felt the apology teeter on his lips. “Some are seduced by the bite.” He wanted the words to be more, but couldn’t make it expand in meaning to these that had no real knowledge of what they were beginning to deal with. They were new to this game, to his breed, and even the Slayer, as young to the role of warrior as she was, didn’t know the fools sex and blood could make of a man. Particularly a spotty one lured in with the promise of some mind-blowing sex and blood play.

But the Watcher was aware. He knew the lure of a vampire’s bite, knew the danger many put themselves willingly in once they succumbed to their curiosity and danced with almost certain death. Spike could see the acknowledgement in the stuffy git’s eyes and was surprised at the level of compassion he felt for these humans that chose to rub shoulders with his kind and come out winners. And righteous. It was enough to make Spike determined to fight, to show he was more than what his family had claimed him to be.

“I-I believe it’s almost impossible to reject the desire one feels when they are bitten,” offered Giles hesitantly, knowing that it was small explanation to Xander who was obviously hurting a great deal.

“And so not the point,” Xander huffed, his hand suddenly slapping hard down on the table and making them all jump. Giles stepped forward, ready to intervene if this tale proved too much for the boy he was just getting to know.

“We can help Jesse. Chain him up somewhere till he gets his head back in the right place. It was this Angel guy that worries me. He came in here with the big talk, soulful warrior of the people yadda yadda, and he made a deal with this really dangerous babe. They plan to use Jesse as bait to find out what Spike’s deal is. If not saving a human from the evil clutches of the monster that almost killed Jesse isn’t part of his new job description, then it’s beyond time the guy got terminated. All in favour, say aye?” And he gathered up the stick of wood he’d been concealing up his pant leg in his sock and brought it down with an emphatic crack against the table.

Buffy felt almost too afraid to turn to Spike—was desperate to not reveal in some subtle glance or worry that her boyfriend would fail the tests Darla and Angel set up for him. The truth of what this was finally hit her and Buffy felt sick at the responsibilities that were pushing brutally hard on her shoulders.

“He was so desperate to out Spike as an impostor that he was going to sacrifice a human?” Buffy’s voice lacked the usual strength that made them all step back in respect to her position. This revelation had her rattled. If someone who claimed to have a soul was willing to let a boy possibly die in the course of proving his argument right, then he wasn’t one to be trusted. She’d known both Angel and Spike for the same period of time, and not once had Spike threatened one of her friends. She’d never felt unsafe with him; never had to question if he would protect as well as inform her about his opportune warnings.

“Not only a human, pet. But one of your mates.” It was so matter of fact that there was no argument and Buffy knew that the time spent considering the soul versus no soul debate was superficial and stupid. To compare them wasn’t enough. She had to search deeper to know what to do, though losing Spike at this time was something she wouldn’t contemplate. His lack of soul didn’t concern her, and she was sure once he’d shown his new loyalties that it wouldn’t bother her friends either.

“So, we have to take this Darla out as soon as possible.” Grimly determined, the Slayer sat back and marvelled at how simple the solution was. To save her friends, to save her love life, she had to rid them of this one vampire. How hard could it be?

“Won’t be so easy, pet. She’s an elder and she’s the Master’s get, favoured childe and all that. Strong, cunning and vicious as hell. She taught Angelus everything she knows.”

Giles stepped forward again, his eyes suspicious as he looked warily at Spike and kept himself on the opposite side of the table. “Yes, Buffy. Angel without a soul is not a vampire you want to tangle with normally. It would seem that the Aurelian clan are an imposing group. I should think you would be careful and tread lightly.”

Spike glared. Something was up. Looked like the little Watcher had finally done some homework. “No need to pussyfoot around with the details, Rupes. Slayer knows my history. She met Drusilla last night. It’s sorted. Yes, Darla isn’t going to be a walk in the park, particularly if Angelus is in the background. But I’ve got Buffy’s back. Nothing is going to happen to her as long as I’m around.”

“And how long exactly would that be, Spike? What are your plans?” Giles shifted nervously and wondered at the spontaneous snort of amusement from Spike before the blond shuffled his feet, dug his hands into his duster pockets and leaned forward to stare intently at the one whose job it was to put Buffy in the line of fire every day until she perished.

“Plans always have a way of buggering me up, right and proper. I’m wingin’ it.”

And that was that.

Spike stared the Watcher down, his lips shaped in smugness that had the older human squirming.

“That’s all well and good for you, but for Buffy to have any measure of success in this venture she will undoubtedly need to rely on a plan.” Giles stood tall, nodding at his slayer before offering his thoughts on what he considered to be the most logical course of action, and Spike just leaned back to soak it in.

He was in, finally in the Slayer’s circle and for all intents and purposes tolerated. The redhead kept darting him looks until he dared to return them, and her encouraging smile did everything to warm his heart. So many years he’d existed without true acceptance and he’d never realised he’d craved it quite to this extent. Never really knew how it would feel to be included in a plan that was to save lives rather than destroy them.

As the group discussed the pros and cons of attacking Darla before she could influence Jesse further, plotting sneaky ways of surprising Darla with a shapely stick to the heart, Spike sat back and admired them all. The stalwart Watcher who guided his slayer with a steady yet frustrated hand, her friends who stood by her despite not knowing her for long or being previously acquainted with the world of their nightmares. There was so much about them that was impressive and it was all that Spike could do to stay seated and not give in to the sudden urge to show affection. He couldn’t do that. ‘Big Bads’ didn’t hug their food, except now they were friends and not something he’d easily select off his menu. Still, it seemed somehow too awkward and not something he wanted to expose himself over. Tying himself up in emotional knots for Buffy was enough for now. So he let his heart swallow these knew emotions, felt them swirling around and influencing the smile on his face.

At last they’d decided and it was time for action—the part that Spike excelled at and looked forward to sharing with his…girlfriend. Grinning giddily, Spike realised how innocent that term was and how much he loved it. He loved everything about his current existence, this diversion into the light, and if that included a blonde petite slayer who smelled delicious and who had a heart the size of the continent, then he’d just have to suffer it.

“Right, let’s bleeding well get on with it then.”

Buffy gave last minute encouragement to those staying behind and took his hand in her warm fist.

He just couldn’t get rid of that smile.

A/N Many many thanks go to my betas, Holly and Schehrezade for getting me through this chapter.I can’t tell you how much you saved me from bombing.

Chapter Thirteen

The plan, as he’d suspected it would be with his uncanny luck with such things, was blown all to fuck as soon as they reached the hospital and found Jesse’s bed empty. It was simply too much energy to even roll his eyes. Spike tensed, finding himself in such new territory that he didn’t know how to act, wasn’t sure how to care that this boy was more than likely back in the clutches of his greedy great grandsire. He knew what was likely on the cards for him, and even if they did manage to restrain him and keep him away from the cravings Darla had been capitalising on, Jesse was more than likely on borrowed time. Spike had never seen a human seduced into the darker realms of life and made it out with any semblance of their former existence intact.

Buffy felt like screaming, but instead she just kicked the bed. Through the window, she watched the foreboding night that the turning in of Mr. Sunshine had left behind, feeling the swell of defeat on her shoulders. Its weight almost buckled her knees forcing her to the floor. She had this feeling, a leaden ball swirling around in her gut that something bad was about to happen, and whatever it was it would destroy their innocence for good. Well not her, she’d been deprived of innocence the second she’d killed a person with a demonic face—the first time her life was touched with murder by the loss of Merrick.

Spike draped an arm across her shoulders, hugging her to his chest as if he knew what she was thinking. He knew vampires though, unlike her with her limited experiences and associations anyway, so perhaps he did. Maybe even better than her. She was betting that his being of the demon would be an edge on understanding the realities of vampirism that an outsider could never grasp. Slaying was still of the new as far as her nightly activities went, but he’d been out in the darkness a lot longer. He’d been around for worlds longer. He knew the depths of the evil Jesse had immersed himself into. And most horrifying of all, he knew Darla.

The look on Spike’s face scared Buffy the most. It was a look that said he knew it was too late, and that he just didn’t know what to do about it. Tears prickled and she felt the cover of slayer slip precariously as she gave into the weakness of grief, barely held on her feet by a persistent vampire with need in his heart.

“Buffy? Pet, you can’t give in to it. He’s not dead yet, luv. Not if Darla plans to use him to follow me and dish up the dirt.”

Momentary hope blossomed in her eyes and Spike cursed himself for giving it to her. He knew it was unlikely that Darla would stick to the plan, not if she now knew Xander was aware of it. And she’d know. She’d wonder where the silly git got his fresh blood and why he wasn’t looking as peaked as the night before. Why he was flushed in his almost overwhelming need to be bitten hard, again, before the new blood had a chance to take.

Still, Buffy dealt with the realities of the world and no matter what he said, or which bubble he burst, he knew it would be just one at the front of a long line of them. If she wanted to cling to the string of this one just that little bit longer, he’d tie it to her wrist. He could do that.

“Where is he?”

The anger in the voice behind them made them both jump guiltily. They were in effect already mourning, and Buffy had thought she’d been very convincing in managing to keep Xander and Willow at the library. Seeing the hard determination in the boy’s eyes now, Spike felt like chuckling at how naïve she’d been. The life of Xander’s best mate was in the balance. No way was he going to stay out of danger while Buffy sought a little justice.

“W-we think he’s gone back to Darla.” Buffy tried to hide her quick swipe at tears but Xander saw it and his jaw flexed in fury.

“He isn’t dead yet. I’d know it—in here,” he claimed desperately, slapping his hand over his heart. “I am his friend, right? I didn’t save him last night to lose him to that bitch now. Let’s go.” Xander turned on his heel and strode down the corridor, his hand flexing in preparation of when it would hold a stake over the black heart of the one who had seduced and ruined his friend. He’d assumed the role of General and Buffy was faltering to catch up and gain it back.

“No, Xander. This is my job. I’ll get him back, but I can’t have you in danger too. Angel’s a loose cannon. We don’t know if he’ll be there or what he’d do if he was faced with losing his chance to out Spike.” Buffy’s voice was frantic, seeing too closely the possibilities of losing everything and everyone. Another friend narrowly bent on revenge could easily end up in a matching casket to Jesse, and had she really just admitted Angel had something to out?

The boy didn’t notice the falter in her step when she verbally slipped and virtually admitted he had been lying about the soul, that there really was something for Angel to find, but Spike did. And he hurt for her. Holding his secret shouldn’t be something she did, not if it was going to cause her pain. Now that he’d had the luxury of real friendships, he knew what it would cost her to be cast aside if her friends found out he was soulless and that she’d known and continued to lie. If they left her side, he didn’t know if she could remain strong every night. It was something slayers had never had—friends. Not even family that he could recall. Except the two he’d fought against and won. The Chinese girl—he’d pretended to not know what she asked him, knowing she was more than likely off her nut to ask him, her killer, to go and tell her mum she was sorry. Only way he’d be calling on that lady would be to see if she tasted as sweet as her daughter—or if the fire of her blood was strictly a slayer delicacy. The one in New York—he’d heard rumours and had even thought he’d detected a heartbeat as he fought her, but even that tenuous link hadn’t been enough to rid her of her lethargy. A son hadn’t been enough to fight for when she was surrounded by no one but the kid and her watcher. Keeping them emotionally bereft had seemed to make them fighting machines, but no one could exist without love forever. Not even when the burden of responsibility was a weight heavier than the world.

No one should exist without love forever.

Bloody good thing he was determined to stick around, even if her friends wouldn’t have him once they learned the truth. He couldn’t let Buffy know what it meant to be alone. The darkness would be too deep for one such as her to keep clear of, and he felt his heart unload that little bit more toward her that he had something to offer. Wasn’t much. He didn’t even know if it was good. But it was pure and he didn’t feel like she was revolted by it—not if the previous night was any indication. As dark as he was, he could hope that his love would be a light for her. He’d always been raised to believe in love—the power of it and the vast need of it in this world. He’d loved Drusilla—or thought he did, at least. Didn’t hold a candle to the wealth of sacrifice he felt when he looked at Buffy. His love was pure, and it was deep. And it was hers. For as long as she wanted it.

For now they were on the move. Xander continued to shrug off Buffy’s attempts to not just slow him down, but get him out of the mix completely.

“Xander, you can’t go into this with us. It’s just not safe. How can I do my job if I’m worrying about you too?”

The brunette jerked away, his eyes hard in their temper as he stared down his friend.

“I’m doing this, Buff. Nothing you and your wonder dog can do will stop me.”

Buffy stepped back as if slapped, Spike staring at the boy that he’d thought he’d had a shot of being mates with.

“You wanna have a go, Whelp?” He was all gruff and vigour, though he felt something inside seize up with the unexpected pain of losing something he’d never expected to have in the first place.

Xander had the grace to look embarrassed, and took a small step back before turning an apologetic expression to Spike.

“Look, I didn’t mean that. You’ve given me no reason not to trust you, and you’ve done more than help us in all this. I’m upset and I let my mouth do unnecessary laps of the Xander Hall of Insert Foot. I’m sorry.” His eyes implored Spike to understand his panicked reaction and see the insult for the desperate attempt to be in control that it was.

Spike could feel his body—previously taut in defence and ready to spring—loosen and risk a softening toward the boy. He knew what it felt like to fear the loss of someone that was cared about. Too many times to mention he’d thought Drusilla was as good as gone. As much as he was impatient with her now, as at an end as his reign of deluded love was, he never wanted her to be gone from his world.

He shrugged, a look of geek-like understanding passing between them before Xander turned and started back on his purposeful march. Buffy made as if to renew her objection, but Spike held her arm, shaking his head ‘no’. He understood the need that flowed through Xander for vengeance. The sadness in Buffy’s eyes showed that she did too. She was just afraid to lose more to this situation than she had to.

It was in a charged silence that accompanied their walk behind Xander, Spike feeling the warmth through his body as he ventured a touch to Buffy’s arm, feeling the tingles of happiness that she wanted him, him the man even as they made their way into battle.

Xander paused on the corner and turned a hate-filled glare down the alleyway, his hand up to stop them moving beyond him. A finger drifted to his lips to indicate quiet and they all stood and watched, stunned, as Angel stopped at a door, raised his fist to knock before thinking better of it and twisting the knob till it clicked and opened for him.

His angry voice burst loudly down the alleyway to their ears before the door was snapped shut. Buffy was just a second too late from grabbing Xander’s arm and preventing him jumping into a situation he wasn’t prepared for.

The boiling rage that evil had tainted his friend was enough, sparking Xander into motion he hadn’t planned on. He’d thought Jesse would see the foolhardiness of his actions and would still be lying and healing in his hospital bed waiting for visitors. In no part of his mind had he believed his friend was so stupid as to go back to his own personal freak show.

Not sparing a thought for thought, not caring about back-up or preserving his own life, Xander was off.

And the Slayer was left with the wretched vision of seeing her friend burst into a vampire nest with no details about what he would encounter and armed with nothing but bravado and a stake he wasn’t that used to wielding. Buffy’s heart rate increased even as she felt her feet turn to cement blocks and hold her motionless in the face of danger. Spike dragged her fast in the same direction Xander had bolted, his hands not quite rough but very urgent. Numbed in mind and body, Buffy couldn’t help but wonder as she was dragged into evil’s den—if not for Spike…

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Angel hadn’t been able to lift his head from his hands since he’d signed the death warrant of that boy. His sense of competition and pure intolerance of the vampire who had contributed a large injection of risk and danger to their family from the beginning was working hard at making him relinquish control. Not for the first time since he’d left Darla, with her pet collapsed in the alley, had he considered going back and retracting the deal. As much as he needed to know the score with Spike, as much as he suspected his grandchilde was up to something evil and dangerous, his soul cried that sacrificing a human to get the dirt was not the way to go about it.

Raising his head, he stared at his hands and marvelled at how well they shook. He looked convincing, like this tearing of motivations was not a small thing that he’d decided. That the pain of sacrificing life was not something he’d chosen lightly. Yet it had been something that had easily tumbled from his lips, his acceptance of Darla’s offer, and as much as he grieved for the life he already knew Darla would extinguish as soon as his use was at an end, Angel was ashamedly content to let the arrangement stand.

That didn’t alleviate his anxiety that she would doublecross him. Once his soul had made peace with his selected casualty of war, Angel felt the need to be sure Darla would do as she’d promised. Would use the little bite victim to good advantage and sort out his Spike problems.

With a lightness that both worried and relieved him, Angel donned his coat and left his apartment, the eyes of a predator scanning the surroundings. He hoped against hope to come across his bleached family so he could take action now and not have to depend on the reliability of Darla’s pet.

The term didn’t even make him cringe now. It seemed that once his head had resigned the boy to death, he didn’t need to worry about the decision. It was done, and the end results could be nothing but a benefit. If he found out Spike was pretending to be trustful, if he could prevent Buffy from being slain by her supposed boyfriend, then he’d more than done his job. It wasn’t like he didn’t know that the boy was as good as gone, whether Darla did the honours or not. He knew what happened to those that craved what Darla was freely giving him.

He’d been brought here, his presence sanctioned by Powers far higher than any other he knew of, to keep his eye on the Slayer and to help her whenever she needed it. Angel didn’t feel any doubt at all that she needed it now. She was trusting the wrong vampire, letting Spike too close to her where he could strike without warning and do more than a little damage. He felt like she’d made a fool out of him—with Spike’s help—and it fuelled a rage deep inside that Angel feared.

He’d reached Darla’s door before he knew it, paused and inhaled the ghastly stench of human flesh that had been fucking his sire and getting off on the flow of his blood down her throat. Angel couldn’t hold back the growl, didn’t even think to let his soul out to berate this primitive response to mate and food. He’d left, she’d moved on and this boy wasn’t that close to Buffy yet. Wasn’t someone her heart had become too attached to. What did it matter if he perished through becoming involved in dangerous addictions?

It was all he could do not to punch a hole in the door to announce his presence and then intimidate the boy into unmanly fear as he whipped Darla off the parody of a cock and beat them both senseless. He stopped at the sight, feeling his control slip as Darla growled at him, blood dripping from her fangs and tongue with the boy laid out unconscious and pale on the bed. His heart faltered, his body ghostly and Angel had to fight to control his hunger.

His soul didn’t feel a thing.

Chapter Fourteen

Spike had never felt such seething hatred toward his family ever before—not when they’d chastised him, or made fun, and not even when they’d beaten him bloody to remind him of his place in the group. Always he’d held an underlying perception of awe that he’d been chosen by someone to exist—to be meaningful within the world, even if it was one he’d never even known about. Now the disgust oozed throughout his body and he felt no fear at all that the Slayer would go hell bound on each of their asses—if Harris didn’t get there first.

He stood back and watched as the scene unfolded—observed his supposedly souled grandsire as he slowly reigned in his lust for the kill that had so obviously been taking place when he’d burst onto the scene. Spike wasn’t fighting any kind of struggle within himself; he barely even noticed the scent of freshly spilled blood as he lit up a cigarette and leaned up against the doorframe. The show was just too entertaining to make him want a snack break—not that he’d ever be stupid enough to get the munchies for one of the Slayer’s friends.

Xander had been on the end of a vicious shove that had sent him careening to the bed his drained friend lay upon and there he gratefully stayed—his face a picture of grief and horror—as Buffy whaled on the cause of all this heartache. Darla.

It was the first time Spike had ever seen the blonde bitch scared. She’d obviously just managed to grab an oriental satin robe before the Grand Imposer barged into her boudoir, possessive growl at the ready though he told all and sundry he was souled up. What a load of absolute bollocks! Not having one himself didn’t make Spike stupid. He had enough of William left in him to know what a conscience and a will to do right by others meant—how wanting something good altered a body’s perceptions and actions. Peaches had done little by way of proving his new status—other than the lack of corpses piling up in the area with his own especially artistic bite. If Angelus had a soul, then Spike couldn’t work out what exactly it was doing for him. His complexion might have suggested a less than stellar diet, but the way he’d surrendered up a life in order to jockey positions ahead of him in the Slayer’s favour…well, it was a bit much for Spike to believe this soul he professed to have was that meaningful, nor much in the way of guidance. It was barely even a leash for the more disturbing of Angelus’s personality traits.

Spike grinned at the magnificent sight of Buffy and Darla going at it, fists both making impact too accurately to leave nothing but mere bruises behind. Both girls bled and again Spike marvelled at the extraordinary control his demon had over his normally lustful urges. A twitch in other parts told him that the lust wasn’t altogether absent but it was the lithe grace of his girl that turned him on, not the delicious sweetness of her life’s blood.

While not exactly in control, Buffy seemed to be holding her own, hurling emphatically crude observations at Angel’s decidedly soulless behaviour over her shoulder. The useless git was cowering in the corner, the confrontation and the inability to justify his actions apparently making the guilt finally surge forward and overwhelm him. That, or he’d taken some acting lessons since he’d left.

All of a sudden, Buffy was propelled with blinding speed into the far wall, her petite form leaving a matching imprint in the cheap plaster. Her furious thrust to her feet did it in and her arm disappeared into the dusty remains of a once solid wall, Spike chuckling at how his girl just didn’t know her own strength.

She glared at him—initially, and then she winked, a gentle smile teasing her lips until she felt her gaze falter back to the bed and her deathly pale friend and his lack of movement. Spike almost gasped as the veil of the Slayer visibly inched into place and the furious warrioress stomped her way back into the fight. She stood back a little way, her eyes never leaving the threat in front of her as she challenged Angel about his duty.

“If you don’t stake her, I will,” she hissed, tolerance and understanding long absent from her voice. Tears made her voice crack, the girl in her struggling with the burden of seeing a friend dead as a supposed ally stood useless and conflicted.

Spike could see the shock reflected boldly in Angelus’s midnight dark pools of menace and wondered how he could suck anyone in with his puppy dog act. The great lumping forehead shook as the wanker met the eyes of his sire, her furious gaze almost striking him down where he stood. The lines had been drawn, Spike could see it as clearly as he had seen the moment Dru had betrayed him with this tosser. Buffy didn’t see it and he doubted she was quick enough to catch onto Darla and Angelus’s age old tricks to protect each other.

The stupid bitch rocked and parried, slowly manipulating Buffy into a position on her own on one side of the room and Darla with two of her familial vampires at her back. Spike could see, from his angle, the gloat that was already spreading across her face, her sickly sweet grin taunting Buffy with a knowledge she only thought she had. While she consolidated that line, renewed her power over the biggest git on the planet, Spike stubbed his cigarette into the carpet, smirking with evil pleasure at the fizzle and melt of the cheap blend. He took a stake out of his inside pocket, marvelling at the feel of his own instrument of death in his hands—something he’d never thought he’d need to possess. He spun it in the air, a supernaturally fast rotation before he caught it and almost playfully plunged it into Darla’s back. Her scream of mixed outrage and terror amused him as she just managed to turn around and stare at him in shock before she crumbled into dust. She settled on the floor in front of him and Spike didn’t even bother to step over her filth as he made his way to the bed, knowing without any doubts that Buffy could handle Peaches in a castigating minute. He ignored the snarls of fury, and Buffy’s surprised yet amused ‘eep’ at the resolution of her fight as he stared down at the forlorn figure of Xander.

“You alright, mate?” He was hesitant in his approach, feeling confused and out of place for the first time since he’d entered this balls-up of a confrontation. The sight of the boy’s tears did something to Spike that he’d not felt in almost a hundred years—not since he’d failed the dying wishes of a Chinese slayer by not knowing her language. Once he’d learned the meaning of her words, he’d felt a sadness that he was never meant to feel as a vampire. He was never meant to know compassion for the pulsers, not even for his own kind really.

As he looked at the lifeless form of Xander’s friend, he felt that chilling sense of not being enough or never being on time to make a difference. The slowing thud of the nearly dead teen’s heart suddenly meant something other than the glee over a good healthy feed. This one would have consequences, and he only hoped it wasn’t against him that they materialised.

“How could he let this happen?” Xander turned wet shimmering chocolate eyes toward Spike and almost begged him to answer in a way that made sense. Though looking at it from an entirely different angle was enough for Spike to see that none of it could make sense. Death was death. It was selfish; it was inevitable. But the timing of this one—so soon—it had been preventable. The boy had had a death wish. Spike wished that for the sake of his new friends it wasn’t so, but he wasn’t God. He couldn’t have done anything different. They chose to keep Jesse in the dark, and as much as he hurt for them, all Spike could do was step aside and be haunted by their pain.

“You should give him a nudge, mate. Get to say goodbye.”

“W-what?” Xander turned from Spike, checked over Jesse and saw an infinitesimal shudder where his heart should be strongly beating. Xander jolted to his feet in surprise, a wobbling finger pointing at what he thought was already a corpse. “H-he’s still alive? Oh my God, can’t you do something? We should get him back to the hospital.”

Spike held his gaze as he shook his head slowly, deliberately. “He’s just barely alive. Not even if I was Superman and I gave him my powers could I save him now. Best to just accept it and try an’ say goodbye.”

“No. I can’t just accept that. He can’t be dead.” Eyes that refused to let go stared down on his friend and Xander gulped to hold back the flood of tears as they choked his throat. Cold hard calculation suddenly entered the moment though, and Xander turned back to Spike with steady intent. “So, if you were really Superman, you’d give Jesse your powers to save him?”

As bizarre as the question was, Spike felt it was some kind of test—felt his own paranoia at the outcome of an ‘I don’t really have a soul’ discussion would be explosive in a really bad way, and he needed to show his sincerity from the start. And the truth was, maybe not for the whelp—not yet—but definitely for Buffy he’d do whatever it took to minimise her pain.

His nod of affirmation was strong and steady, and Xander returned it with decision.

“Turn him.” The words were shot at him, only a thin sliver of tolerance dividing the hate from need.

Spike slowly shook his head, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You really don’t want me doing that.”

Xander glared with the look of a boy seizing the last of his options—despite that option being both scary and repulsive.

“I really do,” he confirmed, his lips tight and his hands splayed on his hips.

It was one of those moments that Spike knew he was bound to face from time to time—if not even more frequently than that. A situation where he’d be confused between the ambiguity of right and wrong. Would granting the boys wish be doing the right thing, or creating a bad even more than if they’d left Jesse to die of his own ignorance? He was tempted to turn to Buffy and demand she take this responsibility off him by making the decision, by consoling her friend into commonsense before things spiralled out of control. But having her cuss Angel out was both entertaining and essential, and Spike had never surrendered his free will to anyone in the past. He couldn’t ask it of her. He couldn’t make her be responsible for the death or unlife of her friend.

The responsibility of either agreeing or torpedoing the plea was agonising. Spike felt caught, despite being totally off Buffy’s radar as she chewed Angel out for being the gutless wonder Spike had always known him to be. The desperation in every jerk of Xander’s body made him feel nervous and he couldn’t help but dart worried glances at all the players in the room. The boy that was minutes away from a full organ shutdown, the Slayer that would stake him for turning her friend, her other friend that would surely dust him if he didn’t, and Angelus that would sit on his high and mighty stool the second Spike was revealed for the demon he never refuted being.

The only thing that felt right to Spike was his urge to fight it, to make Xander see sense before they did something they couldn’t come back from. Before Spike had added to the terror of the night with the shape of someone this boy and the redhead had cared about for years.

“Look, Harris, he won’t be coming back as your friend. You’re not doing him any favours by making him a demon.” Spike blanched at the fight that surged in the powerful puff up on the school boy.

“We can help him come back right. Help him not give into it and be a monster. Look at you. You did it.” There was an age old wisdom in the chestnut eyes that shocked Spike. He had been worried about encountering this moment and finding out what it meant for his security amongst this crowd. “Maybe it was something Buffy said, or maybe it was how you don’t act all cut up about the past like him.” He jerked a thumb at Angel and Spike could see the curl of his lips and the repressed desire to spit on him. “I don’t know how I know, and I don’t know how it makes me trust you over him—other than the fact that he did nothing to save my friend—but I know that even without a soul, you’re twice the vampire he is. If Jesse can be like you, where’s the bad?”

Fuck, he wanted to argue so badly, catalogue each and every time a rabid beast had replaced the unassuming human possessed by evil. But all he could remember was himself, his shyness and his need to impress his new family. To be the best vampire he could be to make them proud of him—just like he’d strived at his crap poetry to have his mother’s good favour.

So, despite the warning bells, and despite the sense of wrong that almost screamed through his blood, Spike bent and lowered his lips to the mark on Jesse’s neck, and made a man a monster.

Chapter Fifteen

Spike knew he’d made a colossal mistake the second the boy’s hungry lips fed from his wrist. The minute he found Xander’s stare of fascinated horror fixed on the act. The moment he saw the sweat break out on the terrified boy’s brow. Spike just knew it. Should have known it before. Instead, he stared fearfully at the body that collapsed on the bed once he took his arm away, and wondered how much time he had before Buffy would kill him. Or Peaches would gloat before stomping over in his heavy footed hypocrisy and stake him in front of those he was starting to love with everything he had.

He raised wary eyes to Xander, already taking a step back in self-defence and thinking of a way that might justify what he’d done and still hang on to Buffy’s affections. Not love. How could she love him for adding to her nightly worries? Before he even took in Xander’s censure, Spike’s gaze had flitted back to the bed, panic rising sharply as he took another step back. He’d added another monster to the line-up, a young boy who’d had everything to live for before Darla came to this town. All he could see was HER. The one he should have remembered but always forgot.

Tried to forget.

He could feel the shakes starting already, even as he saw the soft waves of renewed healthy silver hair hanging long around her shoulders, the healthy but pale pallor of her skin as she looked at him in disgust masquerading as lust. Saw her lips move as she suggested the most revolting heinous things a good son could never have contemplated with his mother in a million years. A century on and Spike felt wilted by the shame, horror that he’d not learned the lesson, and no matter what he’d decided, he was as good as fucked. He’d let Xander appeal to his vanity—his own belief that he was different, in a way above the others on the demon scale of evil. He’d retained heart and that’s how he was able to love—adore the girl so much it was killing him standing here and observing his huge mistake, all the while waiting for the whip to crack and his ashes to fall.

Fear gave him energy and he couldn’t help but run—run so fast so he wouldn’t have to look at them or face what he’d done. He bolted for the door, leaving Buffy in the presence of his grandsire and his newly made…something. What made the difference between a childe and a minion? He’d never been allowed to know, was never permitted to do anything other than suck them dry or create a little army of servants. Spike didn’t know where that fine line was that would make him responsible for the new demon that lay in jeopardy even as his sire ran like a coward. All he knew was that given the choice, that boy would never have been picked by him to wander immortal throughout the world.

“Spike!” Buffy called at his rapidly departing figure, but he didn’t stop. The last thing he wanted was for her to see the blood from her friend on his lips. He couldn’t outrun the memories though, and suddenly what he felt he needed—what the in-your-face vamp desperately searched for—was a quiet venue where he could grasp firm to calm and try to work out how best to come back from this event. If it was even possible.

The last thing he heard as he powered away from the scene of his latest crime was Buffy’s frantic call for him to wait.

Problem was, he had nothing left to wait for. Judgement would be harsh for this one and he knew it, expected it and even forgave it. How could it be anything else when he failed the test, when the Slayer was his girl? Miracles didn’t happen to evil bodies like him, and…well, he ducked his head in shame. He was off his nut to think it could have ever worked with Buffy. One little appeal from a desperate boy unwilling to lose his friend, and Spike had buckled—raced in to do the easy thing, and now he’d lost everything.

Deserved it. He did, bloody deserved every fucked up thing that came his way. So with a head filled with his impending destruction, rising vampires that wore his mark, he slipped hazardously into the night and into the arms of the Master’s minions.

He was too surprised to put up any resistance as they grabbed his arms and twisted him this way and that, battering him and making him weak before dragging him off to his ancestor. Bugger, he’d forgotten there would be retribution for offing Darla. Just another mistake he’d made of the night.

Spike closed his eyes and surrendered.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy threw her hands up in the air as she watched Spike streak through the really dark shadows of the alley and out of sight. She’d just turned around in time to see Jesse’s shiny red lips fall from Spike’s arm and her once lively friend slumping deader than dead on the sheets beneath him. Spike had appeared shell-shocked by his actions, and Buffy couldn’t help but want to kick his ass for doing something so inherently true to his nature. She thought he could be good, was trying to be good and he couldn’t resist taking a final taste of her friend and then making him into a monster she’d have to kill?

Something so didn’t sit right about this mess.

Buffy was loathe to turn around. For as long as she stood staring out the door and into the now empty but smelly alley, she could ignore a friend grieving and another beyond dying. She could forget that she was led into this situation by a supposedly souled vampire that obviously had trouble seeing where the wrong was. She could forget she was a slayer with a destiny and a duty to rid the world of vampires and just be a girl in love with one. She couldn’t kill the guy she wanted to be hers in all ways possible—eventually—so how could she lift her stake to someone who could potentially have been her friend for the next however many years?

She didn’t have the answers. Buffy never wanted to have the answers. That’s what the Council paid Giles to have, and in deciding what to do about Jesse, he could make with those answers, too. She so was not going to be the one that ruled he had no chance of being good—of being how she thought Spike could be—simply because she was irrational and trusted a vampire she thought was more soul-having than the actual one was.

“Just what the hell went on here?” Eyes squeezed tightly shut, Buffy had no choice but to turn around and face the know-it-all smirk of a brunette she was coming to totally detest, and Xander, his expression a mix of shattered grief and hope.

“Let me go after him, Buffy. I’ll be able to scent him and then dust him so you won’t have to even face it.” Angel stood before her, eager and renewed in purpose now his grandchilde had screwed himself over and was surely on borrowed time. He reminded her of a hyena, that bloodlust very firmly showing on his shirtsleeve.

The thought of Spike’s fate being nothing but indiscriminate ash in some dirty, public yet unknown point was too much for her to bear and the knowledge that if she didn’t find him and bring him to safety—Angel surely would, but so without the safety part.

“No.”

The cold derisive snort that came along with the denial didn’t come from her and Buffy looked at Xander in surprise. Sure, she hadn’t known him long, but God his moods were unpredictable. Nobody knew how another would respond to the death of a friend, but this was even beyond that. This was Xander’s best friend from childhood about to be raised a soulless demon. And that really should have sounded more doom and gloomish than it had in her head.

Buffy took tentative steps toward Xander, her hand reaching out for his as they stood looking at the body.

“What happened, Xan? Why did Spike do this? Why would he put me in this position of having to stake my friend?” The sadness of failure was creeping up on her and Buffy felt the smallest wobble of her bottom lip even as her eyes felt the sting of tears. Her other hand clutched her stake and she marvelled briefly that it hadn’t even known the thrill of piercing an undead heart tonight, and yet the devastation of death was rife in the little room.

“I asked him to do it. He didn’t want to, so you can’t punish him for it. I-I didn’t know…not that he’d feel bad about it. Didn’t know he’d run off—” Xander shook his head, his eyes never wavering from the stillness of Jesse as they waited.

“Oh,” Buffy began before Angel jumped in, oozing confidence now that Spike had dug his own grave and run off like a monumental idiot.

“He knew he’d be staked, that’s why he ran off. Knew Buffy would plant that stake as deep into his heart as she could push, and his self-preservation kicked in.”

Pure rage ran through the two humans, passing from one to the other through the hand clasp that whitened their hands with the tightness of the hold.

“Then he was worlds of wrong,” Buffy spat, her frustration and irritation at Angel climbing notches faster than Spike disappearing into the night. “There will be no staking of Spike. Go near him and it will be you who gets to feel the wind rushing through more than your hair. Capiche?”

Angel stepped back in confusion. He’d finally been provided with the perfect opening to get rid of the most irritable boil on the butt of vampirism, and he had every right after the blond fool had destroyed his sire. Darla. Oh God! The thought suddenly hit him and all strength departed his body and left him fumbling on his knees so close to her ashes. The pain in his chest built and burst into a crescendo of howls that he couldn’t control and it was as if the demon spawn of her making had curled in on itself and huddled Angel into a corner of the room.

Buffy and Xander watched in a mixture of disgust and ethical interest before sinking down to the bed, adrenaline sapped from them due to the death at their side. It was way too easy to ignore him.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy.” Xander couldn’t even look up as Buffy started, but firmly squeezed his hand.

“None of this is your fault. Maybe he’d have been a little more careful if we’d warned him, but somehow I’m guessing that her being a vampire wasn’t that big a surprise.” It was a brave but tragic smile that graced her lips, yet Buffy couldn’t bring herself to stand and walk away. Her friends needed her, both boys needing something that only she could give at this point. Strength of protection against the evils not so beyond their current door, but also the truth of knowing what had happened. Even Willow wouldn’t have been enough this time. She hadn’t seen the devastation, the choices left to them with Jesse’s heart beating every beat like it was about to be his last.

“He was thinking with that thing most of us guys think with. It’s a highly productive thought—most of the time.” He chuckled humourlessly, the sound difficult to hear against Angel’s wailing the opposite end of the room. “God, can’t he put a cork in it?”

Buffy giggled. “I guess he’s having memories of when HE only thought with that thing boys think with.”

The shared humour, the laughter was too short lived and they were quickly focused again on Jesse.

“Spike really only did this because you asked him to?” Buffy watched Xander’s eyes harden through her watery view on the world and sighed as his jaw ticked.

“Nope. He did it because I ordered him to. I don’t think I was probably very fair, but this is my friend. He deserves the chance, doesn’t he, Buffy? Please don’t tell me I did the wrong thing.”

All Buffy could do was be silent.

Chapter Sixteen

It only hurt when he opened his eyes.

He did it once, at the beginning when he first regained consciousness. Dru was there, her face serene in that confused little girl way of hers while she held her doll—that bloody meddlesome Miss Edith—and looked at him like he’d been the saddest most upsetting thing to happen to her in a long while. When the sword was thrust through his gut, wrenching a shout of ragged agony from his lips, he saw her tiny smile and could guess the way she would have it be made better. She stood back from her minions as they thrust more sharp blades into his broken body, wary of getting his blood spatters on her spotless filmy white dress. It was her encouraging little clap and bounce that finally did it, and Spike closed his eyes.

It didn’t hurt if he couldn’t see. He wouldn’t let it hurt. They could slice open his testicles for all he cared, on the inside of his eyeballs was a vision in the sunlight, her golden hair swept about her face in a sudden gust of wind as she giggled and the tinkling sound of her happiness gave him something to hold onto.

Something that wasn’t Dru and her disloyalty.

If he was honest with himself, he’d let go of Dru in that moment of irritation and sarcasm when they’d first rolled into town. When it became clear that his opinion was again inconsequential to her bigger plan, Spike had had enough and allowed his feelings for her to dull. And then she’d left him wandering around the town while she shacked up with the wrinkled up old git and the rest of their family. It had been, for the most part, convenient while he researched the Slayer with his unusual soul card. Until the impromptu deception turned into something else entirely. Until it became opportunity that showed him many different paths and ways toward true happiness.

Like was apparently his tradition, he’d buggered that up in no short order. His commonsense had become skewed from a century of evil thoughts and actions so he wasn’t quite aware of what was acceptable or not in this world of many alternating shades.

Buffy might be smiling in his dreams, but he knew his nightmares would be closer to reality. Each hot painful lance in his body, each and every blunt punch that shattered his bone could have been her. He knew that hatred could be the only response to what he’d done. It seemed only fitting that he realise his mistake and almost immediately being captured by Dru and her minions.

Up to now he just hadn’t wondered why.

He knew that Drusilla wouldn’t react well to rejection, but he never pictured her going this far. He’d never taken her for a hypocrite, not really. Mixed up for sure, especially if she had her git of a sire prodding her into confused loyalties. So why was he here when he could be ducking and diving into hiding spots until he was ready to face the stake that Buffy had most assuredly carved his name upon?

As holy water was thrown in his face and he felt and smelled the way his flesh burned, he gave up caring. It seemed more than apparent that whether Buffy or Dru had him, he was the proverbial toast. And as the image of a drained Jesse and a desperate Xander came to his mind, he couldn’t summon up the will to care.

To be condemned was to be condemned, didn’t much matter who took care of the sentence. At least he wouldn’t have to see her face as he fluttered into dust. At least he could die remembering her lips and her smile for him, and imagine that that one time they’d committed their feelings for one another had been more explicit and she’d said the words to his face.

His jaw clenched until his teeth felt pained, his eyes flowing water through the tightly squeezed barrier, Spike imagined how her lips could convey the words, and he felt it alright to give up.

His last moments had been an effort to do good by her, to try to turn the leaf she needed to be with him guilt free. He could pass with the knowledge that in his last he’d made peace with himself and his actions. He made peace with being a demon and killing indiscriminately until pain painted the world over.

Feeling serenity sweep over him, Spike opened his eyes and soaked in Dru’s frown. He smirked and winked at her, knowing that she could tear him apart limb by limb and he wouldn’t even feel it. Self-absolution was powerful.

He waited for the final toll to be paid and his chance to pass beyond.

Bloody hell it was slow.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy kicked Angel out of the apartment so he couldn’t stand over them with his ironic judgement about what they should or shouldn’t do with Jesse. One missing vampire was all the stress she could handle from that quarter and to have a souled yet unrepentant demon staring at them with judgemental disdain and disapproval was too much even for her.

Buffy had phoned Giles, requesting he take Willow home before meeting them with the intention of transporting Jesse somewhere they could control the situation when he rose. Not that she’d told Giles that. Only that they had a man down and needed his trusty car. It was only after as much of the plan was relayed that she felt comfortable sharing over the phone and she’d hung up the receiver that Buffy marvelled at the existence of a phone line in an evil vampire’s apartment in the first place.

And a comfy bed, though the ewwness of that discovery so didn’t want to be visited at this time. Buffy felt like she was doing pretty well at holding the consuming grief at bay, but realising the truth, she knew that she ultimately hadn’t gotten that close to him. It was that fact that upset her more than anything—even that Spike had sired him and run. This was what made her feel the tight constriction of guilt in her throat. It seemed like as soon as she’d arrived in the school she’d come between such a strong trio of friends, offering up a secret that only two of them became privy of. Oh, it had been Xander’s call, and evidence was pretty good at showing that that may not have been the best course of action to follow, but she’d still given Xander enough of a situation for him to make such hard decisions.

It was like she’d walked in and just taken his place in the group and it made Buffy feel such wrenching guilt that she almost felt the need to collapse and cry against Xander’s shirt.

“You’re not gonna stake him, are you?” Xander looked at her with big earnest brown eyes and Buffy felt the anger that had begun to rise at being put in this position falter and dive. She’d thought all vampires were black until Spike had introduced the concept of a soul. Now that she’d met the true vamp with soul, she was glad that she’d learned of it from Spike first or she might have felt the need to disbelieve the possible good in whatever incarnation. Despite the tableau spread out dead centre of the bed—and she was so ignoring that unintentional pun!—Buffy still believed it was loving motives that made Spike do something so monumentally stupid.

“What did you think was going to happen?” She couldn’t stay mad, even though she had every right to be. “Why did you ask Spike to do this, Xand? You know that vamps are evil. It’s my job to take them out.”

He hefted a crazy sounding sigh in a mix-up of laughter. “Well, thank God that’s not true or that crazy blonde bitch might have killed us all. If it was your job then you’ve slacked off with Spike—and that so isn’t a criticism right now.”

Buffy jerked in surprise. Did that mean that Xander suspected…

“I know, Buff. I know Spike is soulless and yet, I’m so not with the caring right now. I know it’s something that’s supposed to make me wig spectacularly, but he’s been nicer to us and more helpful when we’ve needed him than Angel—and he’s the one who claims to have the real soul.” He snorted, his lip curling in obvious disgust for what he saw as soulful behaviour. His friend was dead because of that soul. “Nah, I took advantage of him. Kinda goaded him into doing it. Yeah, he might be trying hard, but I could see he didn’t quite have all the knowledge the soul crowd have inbuilt to do the right thing. Strangely—not that concerned. He still seems no worse than Cordelia on a bad hair day. So yeah, he may struggle with the technicalities, but he tries to do the right thing—if he can work out what that actually is.”

They shared snickering laughter before settling with a fond smile. Buffy knew she should have been worried—should have started to prepare herself that Xander might one day take this act and hold it against her. Use it to drive a wedge between her and Spike. Ever since they all discovered her secret they’d had the badness of vampires almost beaten into them. Hopefully this relaxed and accepting attitude he held now would exist long enough for her to show them that Spike really did intend to do good, and that he was a great vamp to have around. Obviously the collar of a soul wasn’t enough to keep them safe, just using Angel as the only example they had, so it was left to their instinct and reliance on example to decide if being around any vampire could ever be considered risk free.

She so hoped nothing would happen to jeopardise the one thing she had full belief in.

The hesitant knock on the door broke her from the uncomfortable reverie and Buffy felt a tightening in her stomach. Giles poked his head around the door and found them sort of shielding the body on the bed. He stepped inside, shutting the door with a determined click before making his way around the bed and stopping at the obvious corpse.

“Oh dear lord. I-I understand why you wanted Willow home.” Giles’s eyes seemed to focus on the ragged puncture marks at Jesse’s throat and he slumped a little in sadness. “I’m so sorry, Xander. This must be tremendously difficult.”

Xander shrugged, about to open his mouth and get on with the telling of the dilemma when Buffy subtly elbowed him in the ribs and he clamped his lips shut.

“Giles, we have a bit of a sitch. Jesse’s kinda about to be undead. We need somewhere we can keep him comfortable for when he rises, but somewhere that we can chain him up and stuff.”

Giles looked at them as if they were insane. “Are you mad? Your job is to stake vampires, Buffy. Not make friends with them. We are not about conducting experiments with our friends. A-as painful as it is to lose a friend—” Giles paused and both Buffy and Xander could see the sudden hollow guilt that tinged his eyes. “You can not expect that he will rise to be anything but a monster in the body of a boy you once knew. He will not remain your friend. He will wake a vicious monster who will want nothing from you but your blood.”

Buffy swallowed hard, knowing in her heart that in this situation that was exactly what would happen. But she had to support Xander and she also owed Spike the benefit of the doubt. Besides, if he’d created a disaster it had to be one he dealt with on his own. Perfect learning opportunity for him, too.

Xander’s face was lined with tragedy and a knowledge no boy his age should have to deal with. “I know that this is probably a mistake. But I have to give him the chance, right? He’s my friend. He’d do the same for me.” He implored the Watcher to see what he meant—and hoped that he could recognise the desperation that had spurred on this act by a vampire who would now be struggling with these people to be trusted and accepted.

Rather than fight further, Giles helped them carry the dead boy out to the car, glad that rigour had not quite started to fully set in as they manipulated him into the back seat.

“I guess my place is the only one that is even half set up for something like this. He can sleep on that old bed in the basement and I have chains—plenty of chains.” She studiously ignored the raised eyebrows aimed her way. “Ooh, but we’ll need blood and—” Buffy stopped babbling, running out of things to say and the energy to say it with. The night had been exhausting and she still had a wayward vampire to find.

The look on Spike’s face had been worrying, and teemed with his rather sudden disappearing act, Buffy felt a chill settle. Something was making her feel that it wasn’t so simple—not any of it—and not having Spike there to guide them was way beyond wiggy. This was his experiment—his childe. How were three humans meant to know what to do to pave the way for a newly born demon?

The little car zoomed through the streets of Sunnydale, preparing all of them for what was yet to come. The urgency of it all escaped none of them, and an edge of apprehension settled over all of them.

The night had been forever altered; a new level of darkness had corrupted their lives and Buffy was left staring out the window, imagining what kind of future there would be for them all.

Chapter Seventeen

The chill in the basement made her shiver.

Buffy clung to the cardigan she’d retrieved from her room as soon as the emotionally difficult job of chaining her school friend to the wall had been taken care of. Xander and Giles had been uncharacteristically silent while they waited, not knowing exactly how long the process of turning would take for a new vampire to exist in the world.

He was stretched out on a basic cot against the wall, the chains just long enough for his hands to lie beside his body. Buffy knew that it wasn’t just the atmosphere in the dank basement that caused ice to creep through her veins. Prolonged looks at this boy that she’d once walked in the sun beside was enough to add an element of gothic horror to her night.

It was late. Spike hadn’t returned and anxiety ripped at her to go and find him. She had a bad feeling, despite suspecting that he wouldn’t come back to them quite so willingly. There was nothing to indicate a need to anticipate problems—if you could exclude the fact that a grief-stricken yet defectively ensouled vampire was gunning for dust.

“How long do these things take, Giles?” She’d always been under the impression it was a couple of days from the draining to the dusting, given that most were in the ground before she got to them. Things like funeral services took planning. But what did she know? It was probably outlined in that nifty little handbook that gave her all the nitpicky hints about being the perfect slayer, but being that she never got one, she was operating under a severe lack of knowledge.

I wonder how Giles justifies not letting me read it? Maybe he knew me and study, not so mixy.

“I’m actually not that certain. The Council was able at some point to gain access to a number of…er…bodies, and observed the length of time it took for each to regain consciousness. I rather think the length depended on the sire. O-of course, Spike is a master vampire—”

“Huh?” Xander butted in, his face a picture of confusion before understanding shifted and anger took its place. “But, isn’t he kind of young? And what did he have to do to get that honour?”

Giles was suddenly shifty, looking at Buffy before quickly diverting to the floor, his hands scrabbling for the ear piece of his glasses as the nerves set in.

“I-it would seem that Spike was—is—known as the Slayer of Slayers. He’s killed two in his time, Buffy. If what Angel said is true, and Spike doesn’t have a soul, then it seems more than reasonable to assume he was here to make you his third. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.” Compassion settled around his eyes and he let go of the stiffness that was his calling as a watcher, moving decisively to hug Buffy awkwardly around her shoulders. “I know you care a great deal for him.”

Buffy nodded, her heart beginning to ache with how much. She was scared now. Terrified about him being out on his own when he was obviously reacting emotionally to something that she had no clue about, as well as knowing that Darla’s dusting wouldn’t remain a secret for long if it hadn’t already reverberated throughout the clan, and Spike was a sitting duck for The Master.

“Giles, that whole soul thing? So not what it’s cracked up to be. And if Angel has one, it’s defective. Spike doesn’t and yet I trust him anyway. I—” She wanted to say the words to her friends, despite not having been explicit with them to Spike himself, yet the stunned look in Giles’s eyes forestalled her confession. “Look, what you just said? So not news. Spike told me everything already and I trust him. I…care about him. He didn’t do this to be evil. He did this to be good.”

Everyone looked again to the deathly pale prisoner of the Summers’ basement and Buffy felt tears prickle at her eyes. She didn’t want this to be happening. It was one thing to have this as her calling—to go out every night and stake the badness of the night so the rest could sleep safe and indulge dreams of things better. It was entirely another to have to look at one of her friends and see the life bleach from their skin only to be replaced by artificial animation in death. A horrifying monster. Despite Xander’s hopes, Buffy knew this would only end in badness.

The silence this time was a little more comfortable, though it stifled through the shared knowledge that none of them really knew what to do—what to expect. There was little to do but wait, and unfortunately none of them were much with the patience. There was nothing left but to fill the emptiness with talk, and as soon as Giles opened his mouth, Buffy felt twitchy.

“So, you knew then? That Spike made up the story of having a soul. Was it to get into the group and slaughter us all?”

Yup, straight for the jugular.

“Yes, I knew. Well, okay, I just found out, and before you hold your breath and go purple, it was my idea not to tell you. Spike thought it was over, and I wanted you to just have some time to see that he wasn’t just a monster and that he could be good if we just gave him a chance.” She stopped, held herself strong and clenched her jaw. Catching Giles shocked glance, she stared him right in the eyes and said the words that would change everything.

“I love him.”

Either her watcher would accept how they felt about each other, or not. Heart thumping wildly in that scared way it does when you wait for parental trouble, Buffy watched and took her turn at bating her breath.

He said nothing.

Looked at her for one shocked and disappointed moment, and turned away. Buffy stood confusedly to the side as Giles flopped down on an uncomfortable slab of the floor near Xander and then took a book from the duffle bag he’d carried down the basement stairs from his car after Jesse had been settled.

Well, that hook had been kind of weak—as in letting her off it really fast. Buffy sighed in relief as she took to pacing in front of the huddled pair. The older man took his time to open the book carefully, his fingers reverent of the pages as he turned them slowly. Only when his eyes widened and he sat forward, repositioning his glasses to see more closely something so entirely captivating did Buffy feel the urge to interrupt. To push her luck. She was getting a bad feeling, and added to the previous fear she’d felt welling inside at Spike’s absence, it was adding up to all sorts of scary images in her head.

Giles’s head whipped up too fast and his glasses dislodged, allowing Buffy to catch the flash of guilt there. Somehow, in the pocket of time between his disbelief of her actions and his tentative reading of the cryptic book, he’d found something that Buffy wasn’t meant to know.

“What?” she demanded, her voice all kinds of hard now that there was something other than Spike’s motivations at hand. “You’ve got ‘uhoh’ face. ‘Uhoh’ face is never good.” Beneath it all she was wide-eyed and innocent, scared of all the baddies that were out there and targeting her because she was the Slayer.

“I-it’s nothing, Buffy. Just a prophecy that I will need to do some further work on in order to translate it accurately.” He tried to brazen it out, taking to his feet and shuffling uncertainly until he quickly stuffed the book back into his bag—at complete opposites with the way he’d venerated its very existence earlier—and sat back down.

“So, Xander, how are your studies coming along?” Giles smiled at the adolescent, being both desperately encouraging and panicked.

“Ah, you know,” Xander answered as his eyes darted questioningly to Buffy’s, asking for some kind of clue. “Pretty much as non-existent as it was the last time you never asked.”

Buffy felt the dead weight of dread as it settled in her stomach. Giles was keeping something from her. He’d read something in that ancient book that probably affected her and he didn’t want her to know about it. That just felt so wrong.

Her worried eyes settled on the body on the cot and Buffy suddenly felt like the walls were closing in. It was all happening again; the evil she’d escaped by leaving LA was following and spreading, and yet here she thought it could hurt her a whole lot more than before. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape it. Evil sought her out—and even if it was Spike and he changed for meeting her, it was never going to stop. Not until she was dead. Or all her friends were and she didn’t care anymore.

Looking at Jesse sprawled flat out on top of the sheets, she couldn’t help believing that it was starting already. Tears sprung to her eyes and Buffy felt the weight of helplessness.

One friend down, three to go.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He felt so cold. Wasn’t meant to; wasn’t meant to feel anything. Not now that he was so beyond physically broken that the pain was just a numbing backdrop to the emotional torment.

He’d not wasted any time berating himself for getting into this mess. He couldn’t even hold on, expecting the cavalry to gallop to his rescue. Not the way he’d run out like a coward. Even if Buffy hadn’t wanted to stake him after what he’d done, after what grief he’d more than likely caused her, and she didn’t hate him as much as he was beginning to hate himself, she had no clue that he’d been caught. His girly run out the door would probably be enough for her to think he wanted to hide and that would keep her hesitant long enough for him to be dust—or fulfil whatever nasty plan the bat-faced pillock had in mind.

Besides, she’d likely have her hands full. He didn’t even question that Xander would be as coercive toward her as he was to Spike, convincing her to give the newly turned school mate the benefit of the doubt by letting him rise. Not for one second did Spike contemplate that she would have planted her stake in the boy’s chest—even if he had no doubts that it was exactly what she should do.

Dru had surrendered her game to the minions—to that wanker Luke—and retired to wherever it was she wallowed her loss and dreamt up her insane predictions. Spike was relieved. No matter how much he loved Buffy now, it hurt to see the face of the woman he’d spent over a hundred years worshipping and caring for wanting to do him damage. And not the kinky kind, either.

Luke’s fists hit a whole lot harder and believe it or not, his punishments were much more twisted and devastating. As it now stood, Spike couldn’t move one small part of his body. He couldn’t even crack open an eyelid without feeling a tearing pain. He was covered in blood—could feel it dried and caked on his flesh. Sometime after Luke had entered the scene, Spike had been relieved of his jacket, the leather being ripped from him to show the manacles holding him helpless wouldn’t impede them taking it. He’d been rendered shirtless, then, and they’d painted their death patterns on his chest and poked him full of holes.

When his eyes were still under his command, Spike was reminded what the bitch Darla had first seen in Angelus. The ugly forehead look seemed to be a family trait and he only could thank his lucky stars Dru had seen something else in him and made him the black sheep. Black—because he wasn’t. Plutonic hair, a heart that loved the Slayer; he’d left black way back in Europe and it was Dru’s fault entirely. If she’d let them go to Prague he’d more than likely still be happily feeding on young, innocent virgins. Anyway, bugger the rambling. He was thinking about Luke and how the nasty bastard never changed out of his demon face. The Master was surrounded by demons of the purest intentions and Spike was left regretting his jump over the fence. At least—no. He couldn’t regret it, couldn’t feel that what had happened between Buffy and himself was wro…

“Argghh!”

Something white hot and sharp sliced its way through his gut and struck the rock wall behind him. Spike screamed out in agony, his eyes shooting open against the blood crust that had hidden the view of his own attack from him. Luke, a grin from one lopsided ear to the other, watched as the pain took Spike over and he sunk as far as the chains allowed.

“You’ve been bad, Spike.” The deep, amused tones were barely heard as Spike felt the groans against such intense pain fight their way from his internal darkness. “You must be punished for your transgressions. You will not be alone in this. Not once we catch Angelus and show him that there are consequences for not protecting one’s sire. How long do you think you have, Spike, before I show you mercy and end your miserable existence?”

He couldn’t answer. He honestly didn’t know. And to top it all off, he didn’t know what to wish for. Make it quick, something screamed in his head, wanting to continue his not so courageous night and have it finally reach its end.

But then another thought barged its way to the surface, just as his head was lolling and he was fighting the onset of darkness and unconsciousness. It was the voice that had turned him in Buffy’s direction and taught him that there was sense in falling in love with her. It told him to hang on, because no matter what he thought, no matter what he expected, she was coming.

Against the agony of his position, he waited.

She would save him.

Chapter Eighteen

He counted those minutes suspended between agony and consciousness with an altered mind. His face too slicked with blood to allow eyes to view the world, he existed inside his head and felt things he’d never known. The first was hatred, so overwhelming that he wanted to roar with it. Wanted to shatter the stone walls of his prison as he made it so known that no one would ever risk his displeasure again. Without a doubt he no longer had any loyalty to his sire. As barmy as Dru was, she was as good as dust if he ever got free.

Just as strong was love. It coursed through his stagnant veins and slammed into his long dead heart with a shattering impact. He’d known so little of it; thought he’d felt so much of it. Really, it had all been playing and the game had come to an end. Until she’d slipped beneath his barriers when he’d had his back turned, slipped and bashed them to splintering nothingness as she took his heart and made it beat.

She was everything beautiful, and all he’d ever hoped for in his life. The one where he’d lived the life of a poet. Not this half life where he’d thought he was thrumming with it, killing and slaughtering merrily along. He’d thought it had been satisfying. His emotions had been splashed upon Dru and not once did he question her lack of intensity in her return of them. Not once had he suspected she hadn’t loved him.

Not until he’d been taught what love really was by a slip of a teenage girl that he would worship until his dust littered the cave floor.

A new sensation battered his already raw senses, filtering weakly through at first and then wakening him with a hunger that had fled him a while back. It was fresh, this sensation of rebirth. Of waking with the instincts already programmed to kill, to rejoice in the death of others that had once filled your living days with joy.

The awareness grew stronger the weaker Spike became. A thudding need within his body for blood—for first blood—made him tremble and at last he knew what he’d done. Xander’s friend Jesse was rising and that meant only one thing: the Slayer had spared her friend the pain of not trying to help the newly turned, and Spike had turned him wrong. Right, two things then. He couldn’t be expected to count and be coherent when he was on the edge of finished every false breath he took.

Dru had disappeared and taken her flunkies with her, luring Luke with promises that the revolting pug probably hadn’t experienced willingly since the day he was turned. It hadn’t ended his torment. They’d left him swinging from the chains against the wall, the resounding blunted thump of many fists going for him at once leaving his mind and body swirling and careening into the meaner side. They’d ceased the active punishment, but this was where the head tricks began.

He couldn’t keep the swell of regret from surging and drowning him in its pool of intent. He’d been snagged before he could attempt to pry open his eyes. All right, ceasing with the dramatics, that wasn’t so swift in the case of them being welded shut with dried blood. Spike barked a laugh and wondered if insanity by sire was catching. It would be nice. Give him something of a certainty to cling to, something to get him out of this mess. If he was as bug shagging crazy as the rest of his loopy family they’d maybe loosen the shackles a bit and perhaps let him free.

A bloke could dream.

Fact was he knew it was over. Even if Dru merely thought she was punishing him back into the fold, Spike knew what Nest really did to those that defected. Truth be told, he was a little confused why the bugger hadn’t hunted down Angelus and given him what for. The arse must serve a purpose, he thought. Something that Spike never had. He’d dealt with it a century ago. Had emerged from raging obscurity even more well known than the rest of the Aurelian flock—cemented his place in the history books so that none of them could laugh at him again. Seemed like now was as good a time as any to acknowledge that that plan had backfired. No matter what kind of rep he fostered for himself, his family couldn’t give a fuck unless there was a way to use it against him.

Spike slumped against the wall, his shoulders burning along with the numerous bloodied lances crossing his body. He only had one chance, and he was buggered if he knew whether it would work. Exhaustion was tempting him back toward blackness and carefree Buffy porn, yet the tantalising newness of his get kept unconsciousness at bay. Jesse. Time would show him just how powerful he was, and whether his mistake had been in turning a teenager into a monster, or creating an opportunity for escape by extending his kin.

Deep down the connection to this boy made him feel ill. And even deeper still he felt a rage that the connection wasn’t with someone else entirely. He’d done well to block out the impulses that had formed him for the past hundred years, but now that his body was devoid of many volumes of blood, he felt the elemental pull of his primitive urges tenfold. And he wanted Buffy. He wanted part of him inside her—his blood, his cock. He wanted her to know where she belonged, that his side was the last place she would walk before she saw the end of the world. His face her salvation before they crumbled to the ground.

As his minds eye saw her naked and with fangs, his body jerked and he cried out in horror. He was hallucinating, allowing the demon side of him too much control. This was not the kind of Buffy he wanted—even if it meant being alone for the rest of his existence. He wanted to know her as she was, feel her heart beat as they made love.

Dreamlike images flitted behind his lids, of a Buffy he’d had a crack at until he’d blown it so spectacularly. His body reacted with contradictory moans and a rigid erection as she alternated between blushing virgin and demonic temptress, a fight between the elemental sides of himself, and as the stirrings of his newest creation stirred to life somewhere under the slayer’s watchful eye, Spike lost the battle of controlling his desires. Preferences bled into an indistinct Buffy and he was lost to know which was which. As the parts that made up the total of Spike lost control, his need for blood and sex did so too.

Fury, hate, need and desperation had him surging wildly against the chains, growling with feral intensity into the silence as every muscle strained against captivity. He had things to do: a vampire to train, a woman to fuck, a town to paint red. Ideas and actions snapped like whips in his head and Spike was lost to sensation, losing clear thought and his mental stability with each ear-shattering crack.

It was time to rage.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Xander had gone to pick-up Willow, and Giles had left to do some research. It had taken awhile to convince them all that she could cope with Jesse on her own. They conveniently forgot that she faced fledglings on a nightly basis and rid the world of them efficiently if not a trifle quickly.

On second thought, maybe that’s what they were worried about.

It had taken two hours of standing and watching before Buffy realised she should have brought down a chair. Another hour to actually go up and do it. It was obviously taking some time for Xander to break the news, and the longer they took to come back, the more relieved Buffy felt. She knew she was a coward in the way she took comfort in knowing she wouldn’t be the one seeing Willow’s face crumble with grief that her friend from childhood was no longer of the living, and depending on the very near future, possibly not of the unliving either.

It was amazingly quiet down in the basement. There was only one being drawing on breath, only one heart beating in the room, and yet they were things Buffy was so used to while being human that it felt like a betrayal beside the one who no longer could claim that affinity. Buffy looked at Jesse, already so pale before he’d gone to the lioness’s den that fatal night and submitted to a monster’s fangs.

He was an idiot.

Feeling suddenly agitated, Buffy bounced to her feet and paced away from the bed—away from the boy who was supposed to be her low-pressure friend. Like Xander, although she’d definitely picked up vibes from the newly turned demon implying a not so easygoing future with him in the group had ever been on the cards. The way he’d checked her out had been kind of slimy—not that she’d been worried about taking him on if he overstepped the very distinct friends boundary. It would have been the ensuing awkwardness that would have killed the friendship. In a way, Buffy was relieved it had happened this way as the fault fell far from her shoulders.

Twenty minutes into the fourth hour, Buffy began to feel the irritating itch creep up her spine and settle at the back of her neck. It had started so quietly, so subtly that she really hadn’t noticed until she began to feel angry at Jesse for putting them in this position. The sensation was new, unfamiliar despite Giles warning her she should have been feeling it for weeks. Been sensing vampires all along. It awoke a reaction that took her breath away with its swiftness and she felt her feet divert her pacing in search of a stake.

She was the Slayer and she was absent a weapon. It was wrong. It was foolish and a primitive urge inside her told her she needed it in her hand NOW. Looking around, Buffy discovered a distinct lack of wood. Even the chair was metal and useless in providing a makeshift weapon in this sudden urgency. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to go only to come back and find she’d been caught and lured into a web of a monster’s making.

A tiny part of her brain screamed at Spike for doing this to her—for creating something she’d have to kill. And she knew she would, could feel the increase in adrenaline that informed her a demon was in her presence and needed to be slayed. It was so much stronger than anything she’d felt before—much stronger than the non-existent urge she’d had to stake Spike. The difference was staggering and Buffy paused to wonder why. He was a master vampire, so much stronger and more powerful than a nerd like Jesse could have ever aspired to be, and yet he’d not sparked one single impulse to kill. This was her friend—a new and not very well known friend for sure, but still not an enemy. Not yet. Not like Spike had been when she first met him.

Desperately trying to put it in perspective, to get control of her feelings and her desire to slay, Buffy sat back on the chair and used her hands to grip the seat tightly. If she hung on fast, maybe, just maybe, it would be okay. The panic might go away and leave her to be just Buffy again.

And then a tear-soaked Willow clomped down the stairs and their world changed again.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~


So loud. Ripe. Sensations overwhelming yet delicious. Crave death; crave violence. Hungry—so very hungry it hurts.

The pain of waking raced through him until he felt agony in every limb, yet desperation to keep still and not allow anyone to know he was back. He felt so different, like a thousand parties had launched in his head and the party drugs had all been sunk into his veins. He buzzed, and everything was vibrant, even behind his closed lids.

Three rhythms echoed around him, his mouth salivating until he felt bursting teeth cut the inside of his lip. A snarl was so close to the edge of his tongue and Jesse struggled to keep it in, feeling so eager to experience himself with that kind of power behind him.

He awoke with a knowledge spurring him on to impetuous activity, yet automatic caution now that he recognised the appearance of power even greater than his own. It was Buffy—he knew in a second that she was a threat, yet so far he had been left alone. There were two others—two he knew and couldn’t wait to get to know even better. He could sense Willow’s tears and felt like hitting her violently for grieving his change. He wasn’t. He gloried in it.

Until he realised he couldn’t sense HER.

Jesse could hardly believe it. She’d been draining him and he’d known it was the end. She’d refused to save him, wanting to savour the taste of his fear as she sucked it into her mouth. Wanting him to be truly dead. Meaning so little to her after all he’d given so freely hurt. Not belonging to her was a hard blow against the face. Not sensing her at all made him feel weak and cheated.

His sire’s blood coursed through his veins at a phenomenal rate, and with it was dictated a respect that he would have refused given the situation. It wasn’t possible. He could feel it, the awe that surged through his blood despite his desire to hate and destroy.

And then other things imprinted his first moments as a demon—the certainty that his sire was in trouble, that he was needed for help and that importance puffed him up more than all of Darla’s kinky rounds of sex had done.

Remnants were there; the boy who was loyal though foolish was still on the outskirts of existence, but the demon banished them as irritations well gotten rid of. Jesse couldn’t continue what he was—and he felt it possible that he liked who he was becoming a whole lot better. It was like an alien at first, invading his body and changing his thoughts and memories until it was anger and violence he was consumed with, not failed flirting and hit-and-miss study.

He was new, improved, and deadly intent on showing it to those that thought themselves friends. He could tell them apart now, and he didn’t even have to open his eyes. Sweet sweet Willow, fresh yet cloaked in grief. She was a delicate one, but she’d sing as he drank her down. Xander, tired and resigned, and yet his blood would be so good teasing the back of his throat. He’d take long gulps of him, feeling how strong he was against a boy who’d always been his equal, in all things dorky. Not anymore. Jesse could feel himself drowning in the possibilities of his sudden cool factor, even if he did get to eat everyone who thought it.

They talked around him, and then Willow sobbed. It was like he’d planned it—the perfect moment. The muscles in his face groaned and cracked and then amber eyes rested on his new world, wide and bright. A smile tilted the end of his lips and then an attempt to smoothly sit up was foiled by the chains. Despite this blow to his plan, Jesse laid back and stared.

He’d watch them scurry around him like mice.

It had taken courage to come back this far. He’d lost himself in the mire of guilt and grief over the past two days and it had taken tremendous effort to regroup and attempt that bold step back on the right road—and right now the road led to Rupert Giles.

It wasn’t what he might have wished. A beacon of shining blonde hair might have made the passage brighter and less fraught with catastrophe, but he thought that way could lead to instant dust. That option he’d obviously miscalculated as the Watcher stared at him down the shelf of a lethal, loaded crossbow.

“What are you doing here?” There was no concession in the Watcher’s icy glare and Angel cursed himself again for not thinking of the wider ranging consequences of his actions. Of course, this man—this man who had devoted his life to fighting on the side of good and training the one girl whose sacred duty it was to save the world and the precious lives within it—would not look well upon a misguided vampire who believed it acceptable to sacrifice the one if it meant saving the many.

He’d had no choice but to show Spike up for the lying, scheming vermin that he really was, and there had been no other way he’d seen to do it. It wasn’t as if their little friend hadn’t had a death wish in the first place—even if Angel was more firmly placed to understand the seductive personality of Darla and her erotic promises.

He had no choice now but to put forth a good argument. If he didn’t, then he didn’t fancy how many times Giles would make him try and catch the bolts shot unerringly accurate.

“I thought I could help you fight the Master.” Not needing breath aided him in stillness and he thanked whatever star had blessed him that being undead robbed him of the adrenaline that notched up fear.

“We are currently managing…if not fine then definitely adequately, from your previous version of help. My Slayer is faced with the possibility of slaying someone she called friend—and before you attempt to lay the whole blame on Spike for doing the turning, let us wonder at your less than stellar actions in not coming to the rescue of the boy. Pillock.” The crossbow wavered just slightly, but the bolt remained fixed and sharp on its intended target.

“He was too far gone under Darla’s spell. You’d have had to chain him up for weeks to get him to let her go. The power of a vampire like Darla is indescribable, indeterminate—” Angel became lost in the lure of his memory—of the night he’d succumbed to her and all her promises. He felt the blow hard when the Watcher’s voice broke in and reminded him of his difference.

“Yes, for you, perhaps. And if chaining is what it would have taken, then chaining we would have done. You had no right to make a decision of such magnitude and then claim that you are good by virtue of possessing a soul.” Giles took a crucifix off the study table and held it tight before letting the still loaded crossbow rest on the polished wood. “Were Buffy here, she would have staked yo; make no mistake of that. She still bloody might—and I would be the last to step in her way.” And then he gave into the misery of being the smart one—of being her watcher, the trained one entrusted with her safety and her skill.

Angel glanced at the now relinquished weapon and stepped closer, his eyes narrowing at the human and seeing the pain that suddenly overwhelmed him. He watched as Giles slumped into a chair, his hand clutching at his glasses as his other swept roughly through his hair. In a room filled with books, only one stood out on the table.

The Watcher was lost in his focus of it to the extent of starting when Angel took a seat opposite. The vampire tried his concerned look, but it gave quickly away to curiosity as he identified the book as the Codex he’d left behind when he’d first dropped the soulless Spike bombshell. Not that it seemed to have the widespread results he would have appreciated.

“It would appear that I would need your—if not your help, then certainly your confidence.” Rupert Giles looked tired beyond measure and Angel nodded by way of acceptance, his curiosity piqued as to why this strong, knowledgeable man seemed weaker than the most oblivious human. He had information and awareness of an existence the world knew nothing about—and yet it wore on his efforts to even the fight. “It would seem that my slayer is to die in this battle against the Master. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do to prevent it.”

So that was it. Well, they hadn’t wanted his advice before now, and Angel couldn’t help the feeling of ‘I told you so’ that wanted to rocket off his tongue at their mistake.

“Why don’t you just ask Spike? He’s been more than creative in the past. Stealing my destiny was one of his more brilliant examples—and you all fell for it.” The churlish tone crossed the barrier and Giles sat up straighter, his stare harder.

“Spike would appear to have disappeared, and no, I don’t believe it is for any such nefarious purpose as setting Buffy up. I think you are more out of touch with your family than you even realise.” The suggestion that Giles knew more of Spike than Angel possibly could drifted untouched on the air and Angel felt like biting him for the audacity.

“If you’re about to ask me help you find Spike, you’ve really tipped back too much—”

“You really are blindly oblivious to the good around you, aren’t you? Spike is not the issue here, though I will admit that had he been I might have received some actual help with this awful miscarriage of justice. You claimed to be here to aid Buffy in her fight for good. So far, all I have seen in you is a vindictive streak that you bow to before all else. You sacrificed a human life so as to expose a vampire you haven’t even known for a century. Your view on this situation is wrong, and it appals me that you would rather continue on this childish expedition to change Buffy’s feelings than to actively aid in saving her life—and the world.” The passion died in the librarian’s eyes suddenly and he gave into the wave of hopelessness he’d been struggling against since the moment foreign words began to make sense to his tired brain and a prized book became his most hated possession.

The hypnotic jaw clenching almost made him snap as he took one final look at the vampire that could have become their greatest ally and decided he would be best to enclose himself in his office and contemplate the best way to circumvent these predictions.

“Just…just go, will you? There is nothing you can do here, and I rather think Buffy is far from wanting to see your face in her current predicament.” He dismissed the vampire with less than a look, just a callous wave of his hand as he stumbled to the back of the library in total preoccupation.

It’s the Codex. It’s never been wrong. The events have always come to pass. Oh God, Buffy. Whatever can I do? He mumbled, repetition of his mind and words mixing to create a horror in his heart that made it difficult for him to breathe.

And Angel slipped out as unwelcome as when he’d arrived.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Twisted little hearts danced around her in his mind. Naked and glorious, her breasts were young and pert and just straining for the first lick of his tongue. But she was covered, covered in the bizarre caricatures of love as they flipped and slipped across her skin.

His hands itched to pluck them away, to reveal the glory of her body, taste the richness of her flesh as his fangs raped her resistance away. He understood her fear—wasn’t he scared the first night Dru had shown him the pain of forever? Hadn’t he been afraid when she’d stroked his cock and he’d gathered his wits enough to slide in his possession, to lay rights to her nights?

As life altering as that moment had been, he knew Buffy would surpass it all.

Touching her would award him the taste of freshness he himself had offered Dru—fresh untainted blood with the spice of arousal. He’d kissed Buffy and knew. Till the day he dusted, she was meant for him. As irrevocably as Dru had known that particular something the moment she’d come across him weeping in a stable, he knew that Buffy was his and he’d make sure she understood how satisfying it was to know the place you belonged.

What little awareness he had left allowed Spike to know where he was. He hung in the drafty hall between caves and he burned from overextended muscles and a bleeding heart. She would come for him. He knew that—in between the times he felt like his body was crumbling to the floor, only to jerk awake and find that Dru was just pouring dirt upon his head.

He hated her now.

Where once her cool beauty had mesmerised him completely, now he heard her voice and felt every year of strain that he’d spent with her. Every year of resentment that she’d held out for the return of her precious sire. And every second she’d made Spike clear her path with his bare hands while she swept a parade laughing around his heart.

Fanciful visions flickered between the red of his hatred and the blood of his love. Yet Drusilla whispered, saying things that were sending him not so quietly insane.
She enacted his end, showed him how many particles he’d be on the floor when Buffy had had enough of him—warning that it was a ‘when’, and not his hoped for ‘if’.

Only when she was gone would he fight to remember the look on Buffy’s face the night they’d spent curled up in each other’s arms, the reality of Dru a distant hurt that had lost all its sting the moment he’d indulged in the truth. The moments were sweet and he could clearly picture her smile, the affection in her touch and the desire in her kiss as she visited him in this hell where he hung.

Fleetingly he was soft and gentle—the moments passing into the heat of sex and power where he was eager to have her dwell. He could feel the childe of his blood rising, could sense the anger and hatred that swelled in this new abomination and the demon inside of him relished it. Revelled in the test of Buffy’s love in her response to its existence.

He’d passed beyond using the creature to free him. He knew it would be automatic, that the boy would demand they rescue him and then attempt to eat them in gratitude. The part inside Spike that had been trying—no, succeeding to be good for Buffy, quailed at the notion that she and her friends could perish for trusting his get. It was the part that was being suppressed more and more as visions of his goddess nude and covered in marks seduced him to his darker side.

Fangs bursting from his gums, Spike slumped against his wall and swallowed up the image of his Buffy coming for him. She looked older, smaller, yet bore the ravages of time enormously well. As she walked closer, he could see her hands clenched, her jaw ticking as her eyes swept over his demon’s face and screwed up in disappointment.

“I don’t want YOU,” she said. Her lip curled in disgust as she swept a glance over his broken and pale body, noticing every small prick of his skin that had pained him, destroyed his flesh while he’d been waiting for a miracle.

Primal violence welled up within and Spike felt like he’d blacked out. It must have only been for seconds but by then he felt strength flow through him, felt anger at being rejected renew his efforts to break out, and he roared in reaction to his loss.

“Too fucking bad, Goldilocks. I’m what you’ve got.”

The creak of shattering rock and stretching chains filled his ears as he tried to hold in the snarl—and then he was free and on her, ripping her clothes from her body and punishing her for daring to discard any part of who he was. He bruised her and ripped her open as many times as he could find places, defying her treacherous mouth to open and tell him more lies.

“How’s that feel, Slayer?” And he thrust himself hard beyond her restricting passage, feeling her rip; loving her tears. Celebrating the song of her screams.

He was brought back to reality with a hard fist to his gut, and Spike choked and dry wretched into Luke’s hideous face.

“You were looking far too happy, Spike.”

There was no shame in the tears he shed for Buffy. The lapse would cost him as his control slipped well beyond his grasp.

Spike only hoped Dru staked him before she arrived.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Willow hadn’t believed the story that Xander had told her. He had a busted bottom lip to prove it when she’d been so overwhelmingly angry with what he was trying to say. Making jokes about Jesse becoming a vampire was really not funny.

It had taken hours for him to convince her he wasn’t lying and to come to Buffy’s basement to see for herself. And now she stood at the bottom of the stairs, tasting her dinner in the back of her throat as she fought to decide between throwing up, staking her friend, or running all the way back home.

He was staring at her. No, leering and licking his lips and it was the most unnerving—terrifying—experience she’d ever had. Jesse had never looked at her like that before. Oh, once she might have hoped he’d take an interest in her—for the five minutes before she’d pegged all her hopes on Xander—but not for a long time had she had the slimmest thought of him as anything but a friend. Now she could see why—because his lewd interest was making her sensitive skin crawl.

Though it was wrong of her to blame him now that he’d been taken over by a demon. Wasn’t it?

This was a friend—a friend Xander was apparently so fond of that the thought of letting him die with his soul intact and travelling to the good place people went when they were murdered by vampires, was just unbearable. That he’d actually encouraged—no wait, she remembered his explanation, emotionally blackmailed—Spike to do this was almost too much to process. Still, friend as human. Surely the example of Spike showed them that it was possible to have a friend as a vampire as well?

“J-Jesse?” She took one tentative step forward then felt a part of her childhood die at his callous laugh.

“Awwww, Willow. You didn’t even dress up for me.” His eyes lowered and stayed on the fabric gently stretched across her breasts and he laughed at her gasp of humiliation.

He’d never made her feel inadequate before—not enough to be uncomfortable around him. Until now. Just one foul opening of his demon’s mouth and she was shuddering and whimpering in confusion and fear. Where was sweet—do-anything-for-his-Willow Jesse?

“I-I didn’t know I had to,” the flustered red-head fumbled as an excuse—always feeling like she owed it even when commonsense told her she didn’t. Buffy and Xander were there with her, intellectually she knew that, but the experience of this Jesse overwhelmed her senses and she couldn’t recognise the security of knowing her friends—one super-powered at that—were right at her side.

Her eyes could focus on nothing but the vampire—and that’s what he was now. Willow could see the changes immediately—and not just the lumpies and the sharp fangs that were being traced by a roughened tongue.

“So sad. Poor fashion-challenged Will. I live in hope. Or not. Get it?” He cracked up at his less-than-funny pun and Willow felt the numbness take over, ignored the cracks at her composure as a river of tears flowed down her frozen cheeks.

“Stop it.” Xander stepped forward, horrified, yet clinging to one last hope that the change could be reversed. If only Spike would show; he could control his new little vampire recruit and make him the Jesse they all knew and loved.

“Stop it,” the evil demon mimicked before automatically flinching at Buffy’s authoritative step forward.

“I’m only letting your ass remain undusty until Spike gets here. If he can’t improve your manners for you, it’s bye-bye cruel world. Capische?” Despite the tough words, Buffy knew he could hear her heart beating faster, could, perhaps, smell her fear as she bluffed her way through this first conversation with the evil in her basement. If only her mom could see her now, she’d be certified crazy with her ass back in a pretty white cell faster than you could scream ‘vampire’.

“Yeah, should probably do something about that. Daddy Spike is kinda—all tied up? Well, you know what it’s like when the evil enemy vampnaps you and tortures you for days? Ah, guess you don’t. My bad,” Jesse mocked coldly, his tone betraying his lack of interest in the real fate of his sire.

Pure cold horror raced through Buffy’s nervous system at his implication and she felt the loss of control in several parts of her body. Bile rose in her throat, disgust at her own naïve ignorance barely allowed her to continue standing and she at last faced the reason why Spike had disappeared and not returned.

“H-how do you know? How can you know where he is?” Her tone held as much disbelief as she could muster, despite the building sense of terror that it made too much sense and Spike—even if scared of her reaction—wasn’t such a coward that he wouldn’t face this mistake. And one hard look at Jesse and his almost dripping fangs told her it was absolutely a mistake.

“I can feel it,” he said confidently. “In here,” he said with a grin as he tapped his head, and then continued with a jerk of his hips and a defined bulge in his jeans. “And most definitely here. He’s thinking of you, little pretty. He wants to fuck you raw.”

Willow gasped and Buffy vaguely heard Xander’s shocked placating ‘that’s so not nice, man’ before she could control the urge she had to step forward and rip his foul head off.

“Do you know how to find him?” she ground out, a burgeoning hatred developing in her heart, and yet a hesitant belief that maybe it wouldn’t be too late. Hoping, but not quite believing, that with Spike, this vampire could redeem himself.

She watched as Jesse tipped his head to the side, her stomach clenching in revulsion that he’d emulated one of Spike’s signature characteristics, and saw his contemplative nod.

“Think so. He’s kinda been calling for me for the past few hours at least. Sending some pretty interesting daydreams, too. Hey Buffy, how do you look with fang marks and cum dripping from your—”

Xander beat her to the punch; she was too weakened by the need to empty everything she’d ever eaten onto the floor.

“Y-you’re disgusting,” Willow sobbed at the boy she’d spent years growing up with, sharing sandpits and sandwiches, and then in a show of strength all of them were unaware of, grabbed Buffy’s arm and tugged her to the stairs.

The demoralised slayer stumbled her way upward to sanity and collapsed against the kitchen island, feeling the return of her strength only when she could finally push her lungs into accepting air.

Xander stood silent as he shut the basement door and watched his friends—these girls. And he offered silent penance for his selfish mistake.

They’d fought over this.

The tension was like an ugly, impervious shroud of doom that encompassed them all with badness. Buffy could feel the tautness of her skin, the terror-induced thumping of her heart and the bile in her throat every time she was forced to touch Jesse—forced to keep him from attacking the friends that had refused to stay behind. Willow’s fear was palpable and Buffy was sick for not bashing them both over the head and going to the serpent’s cave to retrieve her vampire with no one but an evil vamp that wanted to make her his first. First kill, first slayer—she didn’t know which and strangely that was more difficult than thinking of what other firsts he might crave.

They’d fought on it—Buffy terrified of leading her friends into a swarm of waiting vampires and possibly losing every sense of stability she had to the side of evil. Be faced with more ex-friends she would have to stake and lament their scattered physicality.

As they made their way to the cemetery—Xander loaded down with an innovative holy water supersoaker to end all supersoakers, and Willow heavily decked out in the religious icons of Christianity like a zealot on crack—Buffy tried hard not to give into the ocean of tears that made her want to break down. She couldn’t—despite sensing something so awful in her path that she wanted to give up the fight and run back home.

She’d never thought of her age as being a disadvantage before. Never thought of herself as young. Since getting the unwanted newsflash of her Chosen status, of being called to the duty of unwilling Champion of the people, Buffy had considered herself almost worldly. Experienced. But the things that kept dripping off Jesse’s smooth tongue—the obscenities he was telling her Spike was imagining of her—it terrified her and made her view her life in ways she’d never even thought of.

She’d been secure in the knowledge that her boyfriend was—no, is—a vampire, and after getting past the Dru debacle and spending a night curled up against his chest, she felt like he was no different to any normal guy she could have fallen for. But this, these things that Jesse was saying were confronting and dirty, and God, did Spike really think that way about her? Did he really want to mark her and debase her like that?

Buffy wanted to run to Giles and beg him to confirm that vampires could love. That Spike could love her and that this nightmare wasn’t happening—not really. She wanted to cuddle up in the arms of the man she’d fallen hard for and feel safe. She didn’t know how safe she could feel with a vampire that wanted to do those things to her. Not that she was a prude. She wanted to have sex. One day. When the time was right. And in her happier moments, she’d kind of pictured Spike as the recipient of her readiness.

But now…

This was unknown territory and Buffy shook with the fear of it. And then she struck Jesse in the face as he tried to sneak up on her and slash at her neck. He snarled furiously, licked at his bloodied lip before he offended her again with an overly familiar sweep of his gaze.

The thought of Spike taking her had for so long been sweet and full of love in her dreams. With a few—okay, much more than a few—disgusting words from Jesse, she couldn’t get the image of force out of her mind. It turned her stomach, broke her heart, and made her feel much younger than sixteen.

The closer they got she noticed a change come over the new vampire. He was already showing a confidence that startled Buffy as much as she should have expected it. This wasn’t some minion turned by a vampire barely a handful of years old. A master vampire had created this one, and he prowled as confidently and as full of swagger as Spike did. But without the appeal. Nothing about Jesse appealed to her except the big imaginary ‘X’ she could see over his dead heart.

Dread slowed her steps as soon as the crypt came into view. It was the same as it had appeared the last time she’d been here—big stone building acting all sinister in the moonlight and with the horror movie atmosphere. She didn’t want to go inside, even though she knew Spike waited for her in a not so good way. Then again, Jesse could be feeding them all crap. He could be taking them here as lambs to the slaughter to feed a trapped, hungry Master. She was so hoping that was just her imagination working overtime.

Jesse made it to the door and turned slowly, his face looking at each one of them in turn with a sinister smile moulding his mouth. Not a word crossed his lips, and then he was inside, passing stealthily into the darkness where Buffy couldn’t see.

“Crap,” she spat nervously and loped after him, her nerves so on edge already that losing him might very well make each one snap and leave her nerveless and collapsed on the floor, as useless as Harmony with a brain.

He was waiting at the internal entrance to the tunnels, no tricks, no escape, but with that hungry look in his eyes that made Buffy wonder if he was stripping her or drinking her blood in his mind. She waited for Willow and Xander, too afraid to leave them out here alone even though Jesse would be disappearing ahead of them.

Just as she was about to take a step into the dark tunnel, Xander grasped her arm and held her back. She flinched at the apology in his eyes, could feel the fear in his own shaking hand.

“Buff, I’m really sorry. I never meant—”

“It’s okay,” she said and felt a sigh of relief that she meant it. She couldn’t have predicted any of this, and now maybe her boyfriend was about to see her with all sorts of obscene greetings lodged in his head. How could she have expected a novice to this life know or deal any better?

She gave him a quick squeeze, and shared a watery smile with Willow, before taking the leap into the unknown.

And found Jesse gone.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~


She felt so weary.

Grandmum had told her to wait and to keep Luke happy—but now she was gone and Dru didn’t know what to do. Once she would have always depended on William—on her sweet Spike to help her, but she thought he might be a little bit angry with her now. He hadn’t laughed any of the times she’d been to visit him. He hadn’t called her Princess in so long and every time she looked at him she felt sickly from the sight of sunshine sparkling in his eyes.

She was coming—Dru felt it days ago, before Spike had received the first cut. Knew by the dead look he aimed at her as she cackled and tried to show him how to get back in—how to regain Grand-daddy’s favour so he could be a part of their new world—that he was lost to her for good. No matter how pretty Luke cut him up, it was at an end.

But it was not hopeless.

She’d been left in the lower chamber while Luke dealt with the family chores, making sure there was enough food on the table to make her new daddy happy. Dru missed Grandmum—had been overjoyed to find her in this place and revisited the closeness they’d shared so very long ago. It was almost too much to lose her like that—with such finality.

So terribly.

And Spike too, and no sign of where Daddy Angel had taken himself off to or when he’d ever return. She was alone and the pain of it cut so very deeply it screamed. But there was another, a baby of their bloodline she could take and mould and seduce as well as Grandmum ever could.

She could feel his journey closer and knew the time had come. The nasty slayer was coming to take her boy away—but she’d make it a good exchange.

Make it fair.

Dru dressed, not caring how she glowed with the pretty flowing white gown on, just loving how ethereal it made her feel. She was a ghost, wisping through the haunted tunnel to claim her lovely prize. Poor tyke was hungry. Nasty slayer hadn’t even fed him and he was all tetchy from having to bring her straight to Spike. Her new daddy would be very angry that she wasn’t telling anyone the Slayer was around, but she just wanted Spike gone. In some sad place in her heart she knew she’d miss him. He was very pretty to look at and he’d loved and cared for her very well all these years, but he’d moved beyond her touch and he didn’t want her anymore. He wanted her, the one who would likely kill him once he revealed his true face to her.

Time was winding down and Dru found herself in the tunnel, so close to her new boy. She could feel him, buzzing like a little bee around honey he couldn’t touch without getting his hand slapped away from the pot. Dru frowned as she felt them, felt Spike jerk awake with the presence around him and growl deep in his throat. It was just like she’d seen, her pretty pictures flashing in her mind. Malicious glee glittered in her eyes and she hugged the stone wall giddily.

It was about to come to pass—the thing that would ensure the Slayer took what she had come for and left them alone as she distractedly left with her new burden.

“Goodbye, my Spike,” she whispered sadly, and waited.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~


She’d come unprepared; she could see that now—by the way his amber eyes glared at her and leered all at once. Buffy felt filthy, felt the prickle of fear strike the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck until she was breathing fast and clutching her stake in a punishing grip. This was Spike, though. The vampire she loved and needed, and despite having lost him for days and seeing the evidence of seriously freaky torture, the weakened grasp on his sanity didn’t change how she felt about him.

Not even when she saw the slow, sensual lick of his lips as he swept a lecherous eye over her, growling as his amber eyes fed on her fear.

He was weak, and that frailty she was suddenly grateful for—even if it contributed to this change in his relationship to her. In the way he saw her. Which was really kind of icky and so not how she wanted him looking at her when they got to the more intimate phase of their relationship.

All the fear and the words that had been thrown at her the whole way over hit her in the face and Buffy stumbled back a step. Jesse had waited for them here; they’d found him staring hard at his sire as he hung a bloodied cripple on the wall and sneered in disgust. It had infuriated her—made Buffy see red that a little upstart like Jesse should look down on the powerful vampire that had created him. That he should withhold respect to a vampire that deserved it, despite his current predicament.

The three humans gasped as their once cherished friend treated them to an evil laugh and then disappeared. Buffy was about to run after him, drag him back or stake him until Xander grabbed her arm and held her still.

“We don’t have time, Buffy. He could be off getting reinforcements. He wants to eat each one of us. I vote for peeling the friendly bloodsucker off the wall and getting him out of here before we get thrown onto tonight’s menu.”

Willow nodded frantically, her voice a little squeaky as she agreed with that plan, still holding up her gigantic cross as a ward to whatever came near her.

Buffy turned back to Spike and felt cold fingers of dread scrape down her spine. Icy hands squeezed her heart as she took that first step, and then the rest before tangling with the chains.

From there it all happened so fast. The scream caught in her throat as terror raced through her body. Spike was free, growling and snarling at his audience as he pounced, his fangs sharp and deadly as they dropped to her view. Furious hands grabbed her and ripped her shirt straight down the middle, her bra suddenly in tatters with teeth tearing into the flesh of her breast. He held her so close, too close and she could feel angry hardness pressing into her flesh, rubbing against her thigh, aiming for other places supposedly more accommodating.

Buffy dropped the stake, felt her hands push ineffectually at Spike’s shoulders as he drank her blood, felt it leave her in powerful suctioned sucks as her nipple peaked and hardened in his mouth.

“Stop!” It was the only word she could manage and with it poured out all her anguish at having her dreams and hopes ruined. She was scared, sobbing as she batted his head with soft hands—useless hands. She felt his fingers, rough as they prodded between her legs and then she did scream, fear of it going too far down to a place that was impossible to escape.

Until Xander cracked his head open with a rock.

Chapter twenty-one


Blood soaked through the fabric of her shirt, hastily tied to hide her bleeding breast from the eyes of her friends. She stood silent, determined yet shattered with tear streaks down dusty cheeks, her arms tugging Spike at the armpits—not quite caring that his hands scraped against rock—as Xander grabbed his feet and Willow sanctified the rear.

They escaped, but Buffy’s heart was left behind.

The lump of misery in her throat refused to dwindle, even once her vampire was secured in the place Jesse had been not much more than an hour previously, and then the pushy reassurances and sympathy from Xander and Willow became too much and she felt close to totally snapping.

“Can we just…not?” She looked up at them, her face bare of artifice but filled with horrified reality.

“B-but Buffy, I think we should stay. And talk. ‘Cause it’s been a really disturbing night and, well, Spike—” Willow bit her lip, brought to a sudden end by the distinct absence of words that could describe Spike at this point of their night.

And that was apparently all that was needed to push Buffy over the edge, her control snapping almost loud enough to scare the pants off them as she sobbed loudly and buried her distraught face in her hands. Willow’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes darting to the unconscious vampire whose name had cracked the slayer, and as one, her friends embraced her.

Her shoulders shook and, for the first time, Willow understood the pressure that Buffy had had to bear every single day since she’d been chosen. It was a lot to ask of a young girl—she knew she couldn’t have turned her back on all she knew to dedicate her nights to fighting the bad guys. Well, maybe if she was able to use her computer she could do it—but risking her life night after night? That was a bit much to expect of anyone, and yet they’d not asked a question over Buffy doing it.

“Look, I’m gonna go out on several limbs here but, what Spike did…” Xander’s pause extended so that Willow had given up on her held breath, worried that Xander would say something insensitive to the lovesick slayer.

Buffy’s face was a human puddle of human misery when she pushed away from Willow’s embrace and stared down the now silent boy. “What about it, Xan? Come on, you’ve seen me…intimately now—” The tears were now dripping steadily from her chin and her bottom lip wobbled pathetically. “I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this moment. Tell me about what Spike did?” she implored, her voice squeaky with pain and dread and crushing disappointment.

All three turned to the subject, and so each of their true feelings were hidden from the rest.

Xander hadn’t even flinched at the escalating hostility from Buffy, just rubbed the back of his neck and thought things through thoroughly in his head. “He’s a vampire, Buffy. He’s been tortured, tormented and, I’m guessing by the hinky glow in his cheeks, probably drained. It’s my completely uneducated and ignorant belief that the Spike we know wasn’t quite in the driving seat.”

“H-he attacked me.” Gone was the fiery slayer and in her place was a wounded Buffy, lost and confused on how to act now that her boyfriend had touched her in a way she would never have believed she could be. Not as a girl with superpowers.

Willow wrapped her arms around her friend and rubbed her arms gently. “Maybe we should try and feed him—give him the blood we kinda forgot to give Jesse?”

Buffy turned to her, her eyes glassy. “And what do I do then?” Self-assurance lost, confidence shattered and feeling betrayed, the Slayer had scattered her essence to the wind and Buffy was floundering in a sea of unchartered territory.

Willow tossed a quick glance at Xander but found no answers. She gulped back the lump of concern that made her want to cry right alongside Buffy. This change in the vampire they’d thought they knew was as shocking to her too, and she was finding it difficult to accept the likelihood of Xander’s observations as she was offering comfort to the girlfriend feeling vulnerable and lost.

“I-I don’t know, Buffy.”

And that highlighted the collected feeling. Nobody knew what to do, how to act, or really even where to look.

“We need Giles,” Xander decided, and he left the huddle to make a call.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Xander took a seat in the Summers’ living room and tried to control his shaking hands. He couldn’t even process the relief he felt to be this far away from Buffy. So many emotions were swirling around in his head that he felt screaming at the top of his lungs couldn’t even get him close to calm. Images shot through his head like staccato clicks: Buffy shirtless, Buffy’s breasts all beautiful and tan, Spike’s fangs embedded in the flesh around her nipple as the other breast was uncovered and free to his gaze. And then the feelings—his arm brushing against her skin as he tried to wrestle the big bad off his friend.

Friend. Sure. That’s why he was sitting here fantasising about her while she stood traumatised downstairs next to the guy who was her real boyfriend.

Somewhere way down deep inside—somewhere far deeper than Xander suspected he even went—he knew that this would devastate Spike when he was back in his right mind. Something told him that the guy just wasn’t the type to force himself on women and whatever that was that had happened—that attack that had bared and claimed Buffy’s breasts for her closest friends to see—was raw behaviour in it’s most primitive, and with vampires, that was really kind of out of his realm of understanding.

Buffy’s too apparently.

He felt the burn of jealousy in his gut and instead of giving in and wallowing in those erotic images of primal vampire and slayer nudity, Xander tried to be the bigger man. No matter how he felt about Buffy, the girl was in love with Spike. He’d seen it in her eyes when Jesse had started saying all those things. Which, now that he was thinking clearly, added to the possibilities of the sense-making.

And Jesse. God, he’d really made the biggest of bad calls in that situation and he wouldn’t be surprised that once Buffy was all okay with the vampire lovin’ she’d come and plant her shiny fashionable boots firmly in his rear.

A great shuddering sob rocked his body and Xander felt himself finally crumbling under the knowledge his best friend was dead. He might still be walking and talking, but the words and the strut proved beyond any doubt he might have clung to that the Jesse he’d grown up with was gone forever.

It wouldn’t help to wallow in the anger that maybe it might have been different if Spike had been there when Jesse had first opened his amber eyes—not that it wasn’t tempting. And there was no denying that if Xander hadn’t seen Spike’s completely thrashed state he might well have decided it was time to dust the vamp. But he had seen. The guy had been kidnapped by his own kind, brought to within an inch of dust at their unfeeling hands, and that went a long way to saying that Spike wasn’t part of their crowd any longer in Xander’s book of wisdom.

If he could face the truth, it was a relief. Before Jesse had been played with by this Darla chick and drained, he’d considered his relationship with Spike pretty near friendship. He’d held out hope that the horror of vampires as a reality wasn’t as doom and Darth Vader as Giles had made out. Sure, they were evil and ate people and so needed to be staked, but Spike had convinced him that there might be something else—something less disturbing in his life with a vampire that wanted to fight alongside them for good. All the freaky Hellmouth activity aside, Xander enjoyed Spike’s company and he didn’t like what this message was shoving at him. Why was this vamp different? He was soulless, yet he loved the Slayer. He was soulless, yet none of them had been nibbled on let alone been made dinner. Well, except for Buffy’s succulent breast—and who wouldn’t want that as an entrée?

Right, enough on that pity train, was time to jump off and make his way back home before it got right out of his control. Because it always had been in his control. Yeah, right. Xander rolled his eyes at his own idiotic confidence. He did not suit being Optimism Guy. And if it wasn’t for the very real girl now suffering from his mistake downstairs, he just might have chosen to make himself scarce.

Taking a deep fortifying breath, Xander stood and made his way to the phone. If Giles didn’t know how to clean up this mess then they were all screwed.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It stung.

Buffy bit her lip and stared at Spike, wondering what she’d do when he opened his eyes and looked at her accusingly—looked at her lustily. She’d swapped the childe for the father and at this moment, she was seeing Jesse in Spike when before she’d seen Spike in Jesse. She didn’t like that Spike now appeared to her as the lesser vampire, merely because she’d been the recipient of his attack.

She was trying to think of it like Xander explained. Through the compulsive shaking, she was trying to cling to the memory of her sweet boyfriend who could see her soul just by looking into her eyes. The boyfriend she could see held so much potential to be more than a vampire was supposed to be. But right now, all she was seeing was the vampire who had ripped her clothes and marked her breast with his fangs.

God, her friends had seen her breasts, and while that might have been acceptable for Willow, it was not something she’d ever wanted to share with Xander. You just didn’t go there with guy friends, and whatever it was that Spike thought he was doing, it so wasn’t okay. Not by a really long shot.

She felt like what had happened had been something monumentally private, and Buffy felt frustrated and also terrified that Willow wouldn’t just go upstairs and leave her in peace so she could sort through all this in her head. So she could be alone around Spike for a while to decide how to feel. How to deal.

She couldn’t stand the concern Willow aimed at her during quick corner eye glances, almost as if she was scared and didn’t want Buffy to know she was under observation. It was stifling and conflicted and did nothing to help Buffy feel settled in her own mind about what she should do in this situation. She needed her mom, though she knew that would rate high on the Big Old Mistakometre. She could see it now. ‘Mom, meet my vampire boyfriend. He was kidnapped, drained to within an inch of a dusty end, and when I rescued him with my mighty superpowers, he ripped my clothes off, bit me and more than likely would have forced me to have sex. Oh, and I love him.’ Yeah, that would go down swell.

Another series of shudders rocked through her body and Buffy felt the tears well up painfully in the back of her throat. It was taking everything she had to act as normal as possible, but having Willow there was making it harder than she would have thought possible.

“Will?” Her voice was low, weak, desperate. Her answer was a startled widening of green eyes. “Would you mind…can you go upstairs with Xander for a bit? I-I need to think.”

Willow stared at her like she’d lost her mind, and Buffy wondered at the bubbling hysteria surging through her body if perhaps she actually had. Still, the redhead slowly nodded her head and backed toward the stairs, her eyes switching from a resolute Buffy to a damaged Spike. Admitted defeat in each step, Willow lowered her eyes, turned, and ascended the stairs into the kitchen.

Buffy had never felt so relieved to have her friends gone.

She stood unmoving as she soaked up the silence. Arms hugging her torn shirt to her body, Buffy let the tears finally fall, blinking rapidly so as to never lose sight of the one who had inspired them. On rubbery legs, she stole closer, wanting so much to just hold the cool security of his hand. She gasped as she reached out and felt his flesh. Even here his knuckles were worn, torn, and Buffy felt tears for the destruction of his beauty along with his heart.

“Buffy?” The croaked voice barely resembled Spike, yet it was enough to seize her heart and hope for more than was reasonable. The ball of tears grew in her throat, the discomfort now painful as more overflowed from her eyes and slipped down damp cheeks.

“Spike?” But when she looked up, it wasn’t the sexy blue that tantalised her senses, it was the cold calculating gaze of an amber-flecked demon. Her hand was gripped hard as she tried to abruptly pull away and Buffy cursed herself for being sentimental in a situation that had no room for it.

His growl wasn’t hateful—what she saw in that demon stare was want, need—not a desire to rip out her throat and bathe in her blood. And yet, it chilled her to the bone. It warned her that she was not the one in control of this, that she’d allowed the girl in her too much time on the outside to ever be back in control of this. And as she was just reaching the decision to shout out for help, Spike almost ripped her arm out of the socket as he brought her down.

Buffy cracked her knee on the side of the cot and yet before the pain could register, Spike had her wholly beneath him, rubbing his cock ruthlessly against her inner thigh.

“Please stop.” She couldn’t force more than a saddened whisper, feeling the hard prodding cock and feeling terrified beyond measure. “Spike? Please stop.”

He ignored her, nuzzling hungrily at the flesh at her throat as he continued to stimulate his cock against the heat of her still clothed crotch. She felt his fingers prod at her heat at the same second his fangs ripped into her neck, and all she could do was sob as her small hands clung to the fabric spread tight over his back. While her blood flowed from her body and into his, she experienced for the first time a man’s trespass into her body. Spike’s fingers were uncharacteristically gentle as he poked first one finger and then two into her scorching passage. She didn’t want to release the moan building in her throat, but she was so weak, getting weaker and with a tiny jerk of her hips it came flowing out.

Just as the light swinging from the basement ceiling caught and blurred in her unfocused vision, the fingers slowly slid out and a hand was stroking her hair as the beast kissed at the two holes in her throat. They burned, as did the bite marks at her breast and the stretched muscles of her pussy. Something was trickling into her panties but Buffy felt beyond tired to even care what it meant.

Finally he lifted his head and all she could see was the blue of the sky, of the ocean, of the vamp that she loved. A finger traced the line of her newest set of tears and a matching one ran down his cheek.

And her heart broke.

Chapter Twenty-Two


Buffy stumbled weakly from the bed, shaking uncontrollably in relief that Spike had let her up. Her energy had seeped out of her the second he’d retracted his fangs, just as her will to resist had the moment he’d bitten her. She didn’t know where her boundaries were anymore, and every time she felt anger well up and the little girl inside want vengeance, she looked into clear sky blue eyes and saw the man behind the monster—the man that loved her and hurt for his lack of control, for his need for her.

He’d let her go and seemed to collapse in on himself. Almost as if taking her energy had depleted his own. Somehow, Buffy could see it all unemotionally—coldly—and supposed she understood better than her friends could the situation Spike was in. Could identify that primal animal inside that thought of self-preservation above all else, and only shifted enough to let the love of a girl overwhelm the senses as soon as the power buzzed through the system.

His eyes expressed more wounded hurt than Buffy could deal with just yet. She bled over her heart and the base of her pulse, and her core burned with the touch of adulthood. She was irrevocably changed and yet it was without permission, without giving and that rocked her confidence more than anything else could.

She couldn’t look at him and feel hate. God, what was wrong with her? Xander was right—nothing he did now could be judged with a firm mind, not when she knew he’d been almost drained dry and had probably reverted wholly to his demon just to survive. Wouldn’t that be the choice of anyone if they had it? What human could go through such an experience and not break? There were moments he saw her and knew her—she was grateful for those moments, and so very eager to have them back. To have what they had back.

She needed to blow her nose bad so, on shaky legs, she made her way up the stairs and to a different world—one where kids watched TV and talked about school dances and the boys that took them. One where ice cream was plentiful in the freezer and mom’s argued about the lack of homework being done. Normal—that thing Buffy could never be again, and as her marks burned angrily on her neck, she wondered if she’d ever even had a chance.

Before Willow or Xander could focus on her, she passed like a blur and raced upstairs to her room, quickly shedding the torn and useless shirt from her naked torso and donned a turtleneck sweater that covered the marks. She felt cold, her body still shivering violently in reaction even as she refused to let the sobs free of the prison of her throat. Her hand hovered over her brush for a second before she snatched it up and began running it enthusiastically through her hair, her bottom lip giving into the wobbles as strands of hair cracked and floated up off her back.

Staring at the door, Buffy took one step before shrivelling in on herself. She couldn’t see them—not yet. Delaying further, she stepped out of her slacks and panties and flinched at the blood she found in the crotch. That was the last straw. Buffy dismissed the façade of strength and flopped on the floor beside her bed, vision blurring red as she clutched the loss of her hymen in her hands.

He’d pushed her along the trail to womanhood and he wasn’t even aware of it. He’d taken something she would have given him if he’d asked—eventually. She had no doubts that the way she’d felt about him would have led them here, and despite everything, she still trusted him. Still wanted nothing more but to hold him and ask him to help them deal with Jesse and the Master.

She needed to get him well, needed to fix this feeling inside and make it right. Take something of herself back. It was important that she reclaim her power. She wanted this, she did. No one else might understand, but she was ready, and she knew it was now and not when he was staring at her with love and sadness. It needed to be now, before he was back and blamed himself for hurting her—for breaking her. Back and saying no. It was too late for no. Too late for her to go back. The stain in her panties said so.

She’d show him she wasn’t broken, and then tonight they’d sleep.

She just had to get rid of Willow and Xander first.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“How did the call to Giles go? Is he on his way over?” Willow looked nervously from the kitchen to the front doorway, almost as if she expected Giles to just appear from nowhere and help them deal with some monumental issues that were building up out of their control. He should know what to do even more than Buffy—if Buffy wasn’t hurting and losing her way. He’d known of this kind of life for ages longer than them, probably for as many years as they’d been alive, so it was his experience they needed now to guide them through this ever expanding mess.

“I learned a really important lesson, Will.” Xander stared at her, his mind temporarily numb with wisdom.

Willow arched a brow while darting another glance at the kitchen leading to the basement, showing her hurry to have something happen soon. “What?”

“There’s no making of the sense if you call the Gilesmeister while he’s in the library and poring over books. I could hear him reading, and it was not a sound of the good.”

Willow grew alarmed and gripped Xander’s forearm tight. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means, he was too preoccupied with whatever he was reading to pay attention to me while I was all with the talking.” Xander smiled sadly at Willow’s gaping look of horror. “Rude, huh? I’d never be that rude when the world was about to go to Hell.”

“So, what are we going to do?” She’d finally given in to tears and Xander felt that dwindling ball of guilt swell back up and nearly choke him. The pitch of her voice stoked high with fear was a sucker punch to the gut and he had no words, no platitudes to offer to get them through this. There was no turning to Buffy, because she was drowning faster than they were. If only he hadn’t asked Spike to turn Jesse…

“I-I guess we deal. Help Buffy and feed Spike, but mind your fingers—that one bites.” Xander chuckled to let off some nervous energy and Willow offered a very small watery smile.

When Buffy darted past them for the stairs, the edges of her torn shirt flapping around her braced arms, the room seemed to get darker. Xander felt incapable of filling in the silence and so the two friends sat awkwardly, sharing nervous glances between the intent stares they aimed toward the kitchen.

Time passed and it wasn’t until they’d tried to renew the stilted conversation that Buffy returned. She descended the stairs slowly, her eyes hollow and red from crying, her body snug neck to toe in warm sweaters and pants even as the shivers still remained evident.

“I can handle Spike,” she said and walked through their shock into the kitchen. She took out a packet of blood and slit the top before pouring it into a coffee mug.

Willow stepped forward and took the mug from Buffy’s shaking hands and placed it in the microwave before pressing random numbers and staring transfixed at the light until the blood began to bubble and spit.

“Oops!” she exclaimed before switching it off and swinging the door open. Transferring it to the counter, they all ignored the crusty edge that presented itself.

“Are you sure, Buff? ‘Cause we’re here for you. We can do this together, and besides, it might not be so safe—”

“Really,” she interrupted, “its okay. He was different when I came back up, starting to come out of whatever it was he was stuck in. Everything’s going to be fine. You guys go home.” Buffy turned and saw the darkness sheltering the world and gasped at the awfulness of its fortune. “Oh, I should walk you guys home. It’s—”

“Don’t worry about us, Buffy. Giles is coming by soon and we’ll just divert him into taking us home. No biggie.” Xander quickly elbowed Willow in the ribs as she opened her mouth to quiz him on the sudden co-operation of Giles and she eeped before clamping her lips around an encouraging smile.

Buffy stayed several steps behind as they all moved awkwardly to the front door, looking up finally when they reached it. She plastered a confident smile on her lips and ignored the trembling in her body at what she was about to do.

Buffy could see it was dark beyond the front porch, despite the streetlights that bathed the green lawn with glowing light. Xander turned as Willow joined his side outside the door and they each struggled to find the words to summarise the night. Nothing could do it justice—nothing could convey the loss of innocence they’d all suffered so deeply.

The sadness he felt was crippling and Xander was grateful that Buffy was pushing them away. He’d caused so much of this heartache. Maybe not the Spike part so much—though it was likely he wouldn’t have been caught so easily if he hadn’t run with an attack of conscience. So maybe the blame for all of it could lie squarely at his feet and he really could think of other places he could wallow in that discovery.

Buffy bid them a farewell smile—sad as it was—and turned almost unwillingly to shut them out into the night. Willow took his hand and squeezed, both of them blinking back tears of battle defeat before taking that first step off the porch.

Reaching the path, a hulking shadow stopped their progress. Looking up wearily, Xander felt his heart fall to his shoes.

“Angel.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Slowly, quietly, she crept back to the cot in the basement. In her arms were blankets, brought down two-fold for love and comfort. He was sleeping, dark lashes sweeping torn and hollow cheeks. He was beautiful and Buffy ached for the pain he’d endured. She’d make it better, soothe them both and cure this madness that had settled in her heart.

There was a little problem that remained, and for once she didn’t have an easy solution. Not one that made her feel confident in his reaction once he was the Spike she loved again. This was her moment, her statement and she was terrified that Spike would take it away from her without understanding exactly what it was he was doing.

His wrists were already chained, as had Jesse’s been, but the links were long and left him free enough to do her damage this close to his body. Trying desperately to slay the guilt that was crippling her movements and making them jerky, Buffy spied what she needed atop an open box along the wall near the bed. She tied a small length of rope around the bolt in the cuff at the wrist and thread it through the chain to the original bolt on the wall. It made the links shorter, taut, and gave Spike less of a leash while she commanded control.

Her fingers tingled to get to the next part in her plan, and not once was she prepared to stop and consider the wisdom of the decision to do this. Especially not after she tore his tee down the middle and peeled it away from his chest. Fear was steadily being pumped away with adrenaline fuelled lust and her inner Buffy cheered for allowing this to happen.

His eyes opened to amber delights when her soft hands caressed from his collarbone, over firm pecs to even firmer abs and Buffy felt her mouth go dry. The face of the demon hungry and desirous of her—whether body or blood—didn’t faze her anymore and Buffy almost welcomed the power she had over such a creature. A low growl welcomed the pop of the top button of his jeans, reverberating in his chest as she slowly drew the zip down and peeled it away from the rigid flesh of his jutting cock.

Such a sudden intimacy motivated a heavy pause and Buffy’s breath became laboured, heavy with determination and desire. This was what she wanted; she had no more doubts. When Spike was Spike again, she wanted him to realise that. She wanted there to be no lingering suspicion for him that everything she did now was exactly what she wanted. He may have forced her body to accept him earlier, but the need to eradicate any boundaries between them was too powerful to wait.

She was hot. His body was droolworthy, and even in her mission she had the good sense to really look at what she was doing. Her hands lost their shake and with growing confidence Buffy allowed herself to explore, fingers slowly dipping between ridges of his abdomen before climbing a new muscular peak and dipping down again. Wetness pooled between her legs and Buffy knew that this also proved her a woman. That this went a long way to eradicating the shattering discovery earlier in her room.

The gasp was swallowed before Buffy could remember how to breathe. There was a tingling between her legs at the sight and yet the fear was still there about how it all worked—whether she could make it good for him. His flesh felt so good against the palm of her hands as she swept them under the denim and dragged the fabric over his hips and to his ankles. The boots had been removed before she’d started in an almost panicked need to not look goofy or virginal in front of an evil demon. She knew that was largely what she was dealing with here, and just hoped that by the end she’d have Spike back. There’d been flashes of remorse in the yellow eyes and Buffy knew that was her Spike trying to claw his way back in control. Knew he was trying to force his way past the demon that was still trying to bend her to its will. Angry growls broke through now and then, reminding her that not so long ago this demon wanted her blood—wanted her body too, and not to express love but domination. With her body she’d show him that love could exist for the demon as well—it wasn’t only when Spike drove that he’d crave the softer emotions from her. She’d make him whole by offering her love to both demon and man.

He was thoroughly naked now, and Buffy couldn’t hold back her need to touch him. Gentle hands skimmed over the hair covered thighs until she rubbed her fingers over a prominent hip bone. The vampire shuddered and she could see the absence of any hostility in his eyes, a relief flushing her with happiness and bravado.

And there it was—the stiff curve of his cock as it stood straining for her touch against his belly. He lifted his hips in invitation, and Buffy couldn’t stand it any longer. Curiosity and eagerness took over nerves and she reached out, her fingers tingling as soon as they made contact with the smooth, hard flesh.

“Oh,” she whispered reverently, each finger snaking around the girth and squeezing gently. “Oh, Spike,” she murmured and then let her fingers slide up his length, stopping at the tip and smoothing the skin around before venturing to the head. Butterflies suddenly were weighted with lead and fell with a thud, Buffy’s heart pounding so hard she thought she was going to pass out. It was an unknown scenario, but it was suddenly so very much what she wanted that it encouraged her to be bold.

A sudden yank on the chains was proof how much the demon at her hand enjoyed her self-appointed task and Buffy grinned into the face of a vampire—the face of Spike. She was unwavering as she held his gaze, lowering her lips to surround his tip and suck lightly while swiping her tongue over the slit. It was a revelation—something she’d never thought she’d feel comfortable doing in a million years on a real man—let alone a vampire. And yet the sexuality of it was peaceful, right. Every last doubt was washed away with the dribblings of his pre-cum down her throat.

It came as no surprise when just massaging his cock with her tongue and lips was no longer enough. A ferocious hunger burst to life inside her and Buffy felt the urge to not explore, but possess. Looking deeply into the inhuman amber eyes, she took him further down her throat, loving the slide of him as her cheeks first bulged and then hollowed out with her first powerful suck. His hips jerked up and she felt still more of his cock glide down her throat, and she wondered where the gagging reflex that she’d read about was, feeling him touch the back of her throat and abstractly swallowing his mini-spurts.

And then she lost that contact with the demon she was pleasuring as her eyes drifted closed, feeling overwhelmed by the pleasure of having him within her and the natural movement of her head. Her hand somehow knew to cup his balls and how to massage their heavy weight. Something she’d always expected to be dirty became love and she was glad, pleased she could do this and that the boundaries had been kicked down by the primitive in them both.

Growls were ripped from his throat in sync with each downward slide, instinctive swallowing when he filled her throat. Happiness bloomed and Buffy upped the pace, enthusiasm and a compulsive need to make him lose control driving her completely. She wasn’t even mad when he slammed his hips up and she lost the ability to breathe, her eyes bulging a little as he came and filled her mouth with cool, creamy liquid. She didn’t swallow, not having made that decision before he blew in her mouth, but there was some kind of sensual pleasure that made her body hot and tingly as his final spurts hit her lips and washed over her face. The mess settled everywhere, but rather than irk or disgust her, Buffy found it perfect. Found it to be exactly the experience she wanted for her first time. Untamed, untimed and perfect. She was going to lose her virginity to the demon lover she’d tied to her heart and it couldn’t have been clearer that this was exactly what the world meant for her. No matter what her age.

Her body was aflame and itchy and Buffy realised it was finally time, and with a yearning she’d not expected, she peeled off her clothes to a very captive audience. His eyes were flickering gold and blue now, and that made it all the better, knowing that her Spike—the in control Spike—was so near the surface and would experience this with her. The loss of her sweater drew eyes to her throat and she could see the fire burning in yellow depths, matching the inferno that was playing havoc with her own belly and crotch. Then went her pants and without even taking a breath, Buffy discarded her underwear—not shy, not a siren, but a girl: the slayer intent on a purpose.

She stood naked beside the cot, doing nothing but soaking up the approving stare, relishing the licking of fleshy lips around fangs, and feeling her body flush and moisten. The normal position she’d read about, the one she suspected the majority of the female population lost their virginity with, was impossible with Spike chained on his back. And again Buffy felt like it was perfect—her need take this at her pace satisfied as she slowly inched up from his feet, her hands trailing up his legs, until she straddled his belly. She felt sticky, and a little embarrassed that she was leaking onto his stomach, but one look at the leering supposed monster beneath her and she knew he didn’t mind.

Her gaze stole to his cuffed hands and Buffy reached forward and linked her fingers through and together they made fists. She felt awkward, now stretched out above him, her pussy lifting just a little from his flesh and her breasts dangling tantalising above his mouth. She ached for his touch—wondered for just one second about waiting until it was totally Spike and the tender, gentle lovemaking she suspected would tempo their first time. She rejected it almost immediately, knowing that her body and her excitement couldn’t handle a break in this increasing pleasure—not now.

The power of decision had fled her mind and she leaned forward just that little bit more and gasped as fangs lodged in her breast, feeling the pain of the sting but also the ecstasy of the bite. Her body took over and while a rough tongue sanded her nipple to exquisite pain, she felt the tip of his cock nudge her sopping heat and she allowed him to spread her, stretch her to capacity as she sank down, sucking him in slow and deep while the effort made her grunt and moan. The pain was harsh, splitting her open and scalding her and yet the pleasure was a rush that throbbed through her like a torpedo of hot, itching power.

He filled her. Spread her insides around him so that she felt so jammed full of his cock and it was the sweetest sensation any sixteen year old could cope with. Buffy felt her nipples ache, hardening painfully while one nipple was teased in his mouth and the other craved that sensation jealously. Buffy loosened her clasp with one of his chained hands and braced one of hers on his chest, the other gripping the metal ring fastened into the wall, and while she telegraphed her intent with a burning stare into fascinated demon eyes, Buffy took her first slide upward to heaven. She felt slick, her flesh burning all over as he slowly slipped out of her passage before she just as slowly took him back inside, using her hips in a torturous move to extend every single sensation. Pleasure rushed through her body and she felt the involuntary squeeze of her vaginal muscles. Body trembling, Buffy bit her lip hard, fever scorching her flesh like wildfire. She craved more, her body’s response making her hunger for the consumption of his cock more desperate than had the earlier visual alone.

“Spike,” she moaned around taut lips, her eyes closed as sensation broke like a wave over her body and Buffy found it difficult to cope. “Oh,” she almost sobbed, and the slayer in her relished it, found nothing wrong with making love to the beast of her nightmares.

Finally she felt his fangs retract, and Buffy sat up while slowly opening her eyes. She was giddy with happiness, with power and couldn’t hold back the smile that shone just for him. Her euphoric glance connected with shocked blue but she was too far gone to connect the dots and instead just leaned forward to brush a loving kiss against his full lips, barely escaping a torn lip from his fangs.

“I love you,” passed her lips, hidden under her breath as she raised her body up and then down, showing him just how with a move of her hips.

Amazing things were happening to her body, great waves of sensual bliss focusing first at her wettest centre and blossoming out and beyond till Buffy wondered if every cell was buzzing with joy. She lowered her head so that his fangs were gently scraping at the marks left behind earlier in the night and Buffy wondered at her brazen need to feel him there again.

What was happening to her? She never thought she’d be this kind of girl, this kind of slayer, but even as the thought filtered through and she decided to end the tease and pull back, sharp incisors were penetrating her flesh, making her burn at every point. Her face, breasts, toes and pussy were electrified with current, snapping and frizzing as her hips jerked rapidly on his cock.

“Ugh.” And it was done. She was a woman, joined now and powerful as only a woman-slayer could be with a vampire boyfriend. With a guttural moan, Buffy exploded into Fantasia, colours bursting along with some swollen ball of desire inside of her. She felt it all so heightened and then was racing to the tallest mountain, rapidly bracing against the wind at her face as she felt the sudden swell and release inside her body and Spike’s release spurted and ran down and out.

Buffy collapsed panting and exhausted on Spike’s chest, his fangs retracted. She felt weak, her muscles totally loose and had not the slightest urge to move. She was happy—happier than a frightened girl attacked by her boyfriend would normally be. It was beyond explanation. Belief in the two of them and their feelings for one another demanded she fix the situation before fear and resentment eroded everything they’d shared. By giving freely what the demon wanted fiercely to take, allowed her to pass beyond the earlier experience with some kind of acceptance. It returned her power and left her free to accept and love the demon as well as the man. It was right.

Sleep snuck up on her, and the drowsiness closed in even as she snuggled, arms wrapped tight around her lover’s neck and her cheek against his chest.

It was perfect.

Chapter Twenty-Three


There were two things a man would never forget in his life. Seeing his best friend both seduced and murdered by a demon—the kind he’d always thought existed only in myth—and losing control of his bowels when confronted in the dark. While standing outside the Slayer’s house, no less, with a demon that was even worse in that he pretended to be good. Friend. Xander felt his back passage clench spasmodically and willed enough control over his bowels to not totally humiliate himself in front of Willow.

Leaving Buffy’s house on the pretence of waiting for Giles to come and pick them up had been apparently more foolhardy than he’d imagined, but not once had he even pictured the possibility of being confronted by Angel less than two steps from the curb. Okay, so it was three steps now that they’d been shocked backwards.

Willow squeaked the vampire’s name and then they clung to each other, Xander already having forgiven his friend the bruises he’d be sporting tomorrow if they lucked out and survived that long, and grinning when he realised Willow probably wouldn’t forgive him hers.

“You know, the Buffster’s kind of busy right now, and we’re waiting for Giles. So, maybe you can go find some other…situation…to…um…go away?” He finished very weakly, dragging Willow back toward the house and cursing his lack of superhero muscles that meant he’d likely die against a door he had no hope of kicking down.

The over-large vampire sighed like the weight of the world was crippling. “Look, I know that I got off on the wrong foot—”

“Pffft,” interrupted Willow in a spontaneous burst of disbelief before her eyes went abnormally wide and she cowered behind Xander’s shaking bulk.

Angel didn’t so much stare at them with dazed disappointment in his eyes as drowned them in fabricated hurt. No way was Xander making the mistake of believing this guy and his pretend remorse. Not when he was the sole reason that Spike was all feral-vamp in the Summers basement and his own friend was now the plaything to whatever psycho fantasies went on underground.

“We didn’t get off on the wrong foot so much as have dirt kicked in our faces. Kind of preschool of you, but I guess it got the job done. Now, get out of our way so we can go wait for Giles.” Xander may have decided to take a stand and do the big man talk, but he was so afraid that he felt like the vibration of his body might be all he needed to shunt the front door open.

“Look, I admit what I did wasn’t the best course of action, but you guys just don’t know Spike the way I do. I had to show you—”

“How evil he is? How easy he could kill our friends? How he could trick us into thinking his soul means he’s a do-gooder?” Xander could taste blood on his tongue, his disgust making him sick. He could admit that what they’d left Buffy with in her basement was far from the Spike that had convinced them he was harmless, and yet still Xander trusted him well and above this jerk that still fought for their unstinting faith.

Before he could open his mouth—whether to talk or flash his duplicitous fangs—they could hear the choking gurgle of a car storming down the road and screeching into the driveway. The librarian slammed his door, his glasses slipping down his nose as he ran around to the passenger side, diving in to arm himself with a pile of books before turning back and reeling in surprise at the strange crowd of figures huddled on the Summers’ porch.

“I-I must speak with Buffy. It is quite urgent,” he proclaimed, finding himself more than willing to completely ignore the presence of the souled-Angel while he ascended the steps.

“I’m thinking that’s not the best idea, G-man. Buffy kicked us out and I’m thinking she wants to spend some quality time with Spike,” Xander bluffed, forcing himself to appear unconcerned about the dynamic duo.

Angel and Giles stared at him dumbly, neither of them expecting the recovery of Spike to have occurred without either of their assistance.

“Oh.” He paused, surprised and concerned. “Really?” Giles looked to Willow, who confirmed the truth with an enthusiastic nod before her eyes went straight back to watching Angel’s every move.

“Well, you can’t just leave them in there together. His secret is out now. He’ll kill her.” Angel looked ready to storm the door, never minding that he had no access to do much else afterward.

The Scoobies offered a coordinated eye roll and Giles stepped forward. “Oh do go and be a broken record somewhere else.” He turned his back on Angel and studied the door thoughtfully before switching his attention to the two youths. “And Jesse?”

Xander clenched his jaw and felt the weight of his guilt bear down once again. “He got away. Ran as soon as he led us to Spike.”

Giles merely nodded, and gave up his determined meeting with Buffy relatively easily. “Right. I suppose there’s no point trying to go over this with Buffy now. It can wait until Spike has had a chance to recuperate. How was he?” he asked and then before they could answer, his distraction and eagerness to postpone unpleasantness fought its way forward and he turned back to his car. “Hop to it, you two. It’s getting late and I’m sure your families must be wondering what you do all night.”

Willow and Xander looked at each other, a sad smile tinging both their mouths as they happily left Angel behind.

“Oh, and Angel?” The Watcher waited at his car door as the two adolescents gratefully climbed inside. “Do give up lurking around Buffy’s house. One day you might end up staked, and wouldn’t that be criminal?”

Angel watched as Giles climbed behind the wheel, the car spluttering to life and his surprisingly careful reverse down the drive and onto the road. The evening fell quiet, though if he closed out the sounds of night—ignored the distant owls and cars—he fancied he could hear Spike tearing Buffy’s throat out. It was an effort to cling to his perceived feelings for the Slayer, a wrench to hold onto the purpose that had brought him to the Hellmouth in the first place. He was supposed to be a champion of the powers; was meant to fight by her side and yet that was impossible while she considered Spike the one of them that she could trust. And that contrasted with this perverse sensation inside him that egged on the violence—the hatred toward Spike and all he stood for that Angel had lost a century ago.

He couldn’t warn Buffy of the danger she put herself in. She wouldn’t listen. None of them would listen. The only way they would learn from the mistake now was to experience the devastation of it. Apparently having Spike turn one of their friends into a monster hadn’t been enough. While he felt guilty for leaving her to her fate, felt more than a little shame that he’d allowed it to end this way, Angel knew there was nothing else for it but for Buffy to die. They wouldn’t understand the extent of their stupid trust until Spike took her life.

And then they’d finally trust him. And he’d be right there. Waiting.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

His body felt tight in panic. He was being crushed by breath, though it wasn’t his own and the process was peculiar and foreign. Hair tickled his face and yet all he wanted was to growl and thrash, but survival dictated he stay still and wait to know where he was; know what he was doing.

The creature on his chest sighed in sleep and Spike wondered when his world had gone from upright to horizontal, and when the blood sucked from his veins had been partially replenished. The sigh against his flesh beckoned of the familiar and it touched a sweet spot that he denied existed when in more certain times.

It wasn’t Dru that was sprawled naked upon him. The scent was different, hinted at warmth and life—as if the very real thud of her heart against his ribs had pointed him in any other direction. There was vitality and life in the blood he could almost taste, and it made him feel frantic to consume some of it—more of it if the healing of his body and the strength that was flooding his limbs was to be trusted.

He knew her identity the second she stirred and whispered his name against his lips. Her voice grated at him, so soft and husky with the burr of sleep still clinging to her. Rubbed raw his sensitivities and he struggled to reign in the roar that wanted to warn her where she was, who she was with, and that nothing would ever—could ever—be the same.

Buffy moved and Spike felt the pull on his cock, the howl finally torn from his throat as he realised the depth of this moment. The monster was repelled, hiding deep within as the man screamed and clawed at it in anger and sadness. Something was wrong—something was devastating and Spike wasn’t able to connect the dots. Buffy planted sleepy kisses against lips puffy with surprise and shredded passion, her naked breasts rubbing against the course hairs on his chest and her pussy squeezing him into a new erection. Her moaned acceptance of his body and their subtle movements dragged her from her drowsiness and he was seized with firm, determined muscles as a girl with green eyes and golden hair sat up and milked him while smiling softly and gently touching his face.

“I don’t know if you understand, Spike. Please don’t be mad. I love you. Just remember that, okay?” She braced her palms on his chest and stared into exposed, confused amber and, together, they rode out the waves of sensation that both perturbed and burned.

“Buffy.” It felt like it was the only word he knew, and yet it was a struggle to push it past his lips. Even when she smiled her relief, nodded her encouragement, he was lost to everything else but the feel of her hot pussy scorching and branding him with her need.

His hands curled into fists and Spike pulled hard at the chains that held them over his head, instinct telling him he should be touching her skin, should be sensing her body on every level. Her fingers skated up his arms and curved around his. Annoying him with her lack of understanding. Confusing himself with who and what he was now.

His demon growled angrily at being tethered; it wasn’t used to being held against its better judgement. Fundamentally there was a lapse of control about this moment and Spike was furious that the issue that he should be fighting against escaped him, that his mind was so scattered and his strength still so wane that he couldn’t catch onto what the problem was.

The feel of her was exquisite as she tightened around his cock. He wanted to bounce her up and down, wanted to slide her with his hands around her waist, controlling the pace and the strength with which she slammed down and swallowed him whole. He wanted to see her face at the burst of pain as he hit her cervix, wanted to see her crumble in ecstasy as he nudged her sensitive spots, wanted to see her quiver as his fangs dropped and pierced her skin.

Lowering his gaze, he could see the marks on her breasts where he’d obviously bitten her before and he could sense the flush as it fought its way across her flesh. Intent made his eyes narrow and he licked his lips. His expression went glassy with anticipation, but then he felt the confusion radiating through his little cowgirl and suspected that there’d be no blood this time. His demon clashed with that realisation. The man in him might realise that it was beyond rude to expect certain things automatically of a bed partner, but the demon knew much more of the carnal delights between the sheets—knew the furore and heady intoxication of fucking and biting like no one else could.

Her attention drifted from his glowing eyes and gnashing teeth, and he felt anger so gripping and terrifying that he shook. Flashes of something…memory…dragged him away from this time and catapulted him into another and the audacity of the situation was breathtaking. He was a master—had earned it through blood and death and sod all else and this little chit had him chained up like her personal sex slave, and as much as he might enjoy the sensations, she’d broken his personal code.

The plans he’d had for this one surged back and forth in his gut, willingness to take and kill and create clashing with the need to save her. All he cared about was that she was his and as he distinguished the blood that tickled his nose, he could smell the difference of what he’d taken and what she’d given. Blood of torn innocence melted his demon and he couldn’t help the look of wonder that he bathed her with. No one had given him such a gift, and it took the edge off his fury.

Orgasm tackled them both back to earth—back to the old cot in her basement—and uncertainty and fear entered the once calm, powerful embrace of her eyes. It tugged at the part of him buried beneath agony and rejection and only a small amount was able to pass back through to meet her. Buffy watched the growling creature beneath her, her eyes flitting between his once again yellow dazed acknowledgement and her arm and the thumping vein that restrained her blood. She was impatient to have her Spike back, wanted so much to get past this hang up that was Spike immersed in demon fervour. Her blood could do it. Her blood could bring him back to her.

Trying hard to stop the wince as she offered her wrist to his lips and fangs, Buffy rested well with her decision.

And screamed in pain as her flesh was torn.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Willow wondered how Buffy was able to trust them. How she could look at one vamp and decide he was the one to believe in—to let him in. Know he was good and solid and wasn’t going to attempt to eat any of them the second they turned their backs. And then make him be the one choice they had that didn’t have a soul.

Knowing Angel didn’t make Willow automatically accept the presence of a soul as being his motivator for good. She had the loss of Jesse to show her that that measure was faulty. The loss of Jesse to make her suspect the danger in trusting any vampire too far—even Spike. And it sickened her to suspect him of always being evil and that maybe he was just tricking them all with some kind of act.

Giles had dropped her off with a stern lecture to not take Angel’s smooth words and proclamations to heart—and to never take him into her house. He needed an invite to kill her in her sleep, and he’d be very disappointed in her if she gave it.

There were no worries there. She’d be one dead teenager before she ever allowed herself be in Angel’s presence without back-up. And loathe as she was to insult Xander, she was thinking that slayer back-up would make her feel a whole lot more secure.

Still, this was the first night she’d had to sleep with the knowledge that one of her closest childhood friends was dead. And not only dead, but possibly intent on killing her. The first night she’d sleep with her head on her soft pillow and allow her body to sink into her comfy mattress, while Jesse likely got accustomed to slabs or dirt. The first night she had a quick sandwich before turning in while he had a quick freshman.

The tears weren’t a surprise and finding her pillow rapidly dampening beneath her cheek did little but make Willow want to sob her heart out. She’d been holding back all day—firstly for hers and Xander’s benefit, and lastly for Buffy’s. Because as new a friend as Buffy was, the blonde had crawled her way inside Willow’s heart and was lodged deep there. And Willow was not oblivious to her pain. The strongest girl she knew was devastated by the condition of a vampire, and as wrong as Willow thought that might be, she also knew you couldn’t help who you loved.

And there was no doubt in her mind that Buffy loved Spike.

Buffy was alone with him right now, more than likely NOT resting her head on a nice, fluffy pillow and releasing the stress of the days away in a deluge of tears. Willow could see that Buffy handled things differently to her. Buffy was tough; a fighter. Grown for great things where Willow was just a girl. And a geeky one at that.

It didn’t mean she didn’t worry about Buffy. Didn’t tire her brain on wondering why she’d asked them all to leave when they would have stayed and done all they could to share the burden of guilt. Willow wasn’t blind. She didn’t even wear glasses, and what she’d seen was a beaten Spike who had scared them witless with his unexpected attack. Yeah, Jesse had been crude in his warnings, but it didn’t mean any of them had believed Spike—the vampire that had quite obviously fallen hard for the diminutive slayer—would ever actually hurt Buffy.

It somehow hadn’t surprised Willow when she’d seen the glow of forgiveness, even as Buffy had pried his fangs from her breast. She’d handed him understanding of a level none of the rest of them could probably ever comprehend. She’d been humiliated, but Willow knew even then that punishment had been something below what Buffy would have wanted for him. It would never have crossed her mind as a plan. She was just glad to have him back before some crazy had made him indistinctive with the dirt at his feet.

Giles had been acting weird when he’d driven Xander and herself home. He’d been uncommunicative, except in his timely warning to not invite Angel or anyone else suspicious into their homes. He hadn’t wanted to know where Jesse was, and what had happened when they’d retrieved Spike. He’d barely looked at them even when he was talking to them and cautioning them on how to extend their lives past the night. Somehow, it made Willow feel even more alone.

How had everything gone so wrong?

How had a Hollywood horror movie come to life in her hometown and claimed one of her dearest friends?

Willow succumbed to the stress of the night and cried herself to sleep.


~ * ~ * ~ * ~

There was no denying that, in the grand scheme of things, he was very young. A newborn, in fact. But in his current state, youth begged in his favour. Particularly when a serpentine beauty was eager to coat him in sex and death until the heady flavour of it all made his eyes roll back and a greedy laugh break free from his throat.

Already his rebirth was a distant memory—but one that brought a smile to his lips. Though he’d been starved of a fresh meal, he’d been able to taunt and tear at the heart-flesh of his friends-in-life instead. It was something a sire should be proud of—the way he’d handled such a difficult beginning. But his sire was morally twisted and apparently less than worthless. Jesse had soaked it in, dealt with it, and moved on. It seemed completely natural to reject that try-hard who had had to be heavily coerced to share his gift, and Jesse was learning what a pleasure taking that next step could be.

He’d discovered a family under the ground. While his closest member was now gone—taken by the slayer and her sorry little group of off-casts—Jesse was still thoroughly embraced by those that were left, including the amorous Dru who had now taken him on as her own.

Made him her childe.

Very quickly he worked out that being with her was going to be a challenge. She was more than a little off with the fairies, and yet in some way that escaped him, he liked it. Loved her fluttery ways and her batty exterior that gave him ideas along with her words of warning and encouragement.

She introduced him to their Master in a ceremony of blood, and he tasted the fresh warm elixir of life fresh from the tap for the very first time. It was like nothing he’d ever consumed before—surpassed all those human tastes he’d shared with family and friends over the course of his life. Now human was the taste he was addicted to and if Dru had her way, he would be immersed in rivers of fresh blood until the end of time. With his teacher, he’d paint vivid pictures of violence and beauty and he’d laugh all the while. Life was grand. Unlife was better and it fed his confidence until he brimmed over with it. Until he experienced everything death had to offer him; until there was nothing left to discover.

Drusilla drifted into his line of vision: pale, ethereal, deadly and magnificent. His mind boggled at how her childe could have deserted her here, in this place so right for the makings of Hell on earth. But now that he’d appeared and she’d captured him in her sharpened claws, she wasn’t grieving for the once fearsome vampire that had held the demon world in the palm of his hand.

He liked the calculating way she peered at those around her when she’d convince herself they weren’t looking, skilfully eclipsing that vague, nutty persona that she’d used to draw everyone to her. The balance was a little mixed and Jesse was unsure which was truly her. Was she the one who plotted and schemed and understood more of the world around her than the majority of those who had assumed her care? Or the one who truly needed a prop to walk the nights and remain in undusty servitude to their Master?

Jesse groaned as sharp nails sliced across his belly and a cool mouth bent to consume his flavour. He hadn’t worked it all out yet, but he had an eternity up his sleeve to try. He shuddered as Dru sucked at the wounds she’d given him, drawing out his blood as she mounted his body. Her ride was always wild; she spurred him on to depths he’d never been able to imagine. She was so good at what she did to him that he’d almost forgotten his first lust—Darla. Almost, but not quite. If he forgot his blonde goddess then he’d forget how much he had to make Buffy and her group pay. Forget why he had to kill the one who’d sired him.

Forget everything, and in that lay a terror too deep to allow release.

But for now, he’d submit to Dru and allow her to ride him into ecstasy—and hope she’d brought something for them to eat after. She always worked up quite an appetite.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Jesse’s mom had phoned him. Jesse’s mom had asked if he knew where her son was and why he’d not returned home in several days. Jesse’s mom accepted his lie and cried her worry into his ear while Xander tried not to fall apart and tell her that her son was dead and now a human-slaughtering demon. Jesse’s mom rang off promising to call the police and letting him know if his best friend since kindergarten ever saw the light of day again, and Xander collapsed on his bedroom floor and tried to sob his pain away.

God, he’d screwed up plenty of times before, but nothing prepared him for the screw up of all screw ups—or that he was now responsible for complete and utter madness to have befallen them all.

His own folks hadn’t missed him. He’d not seen them in days and not once did they attempt to find him, relying typically on the liquid refreshment that made their world look much rosier than reality. So, because he wouldn’t have been missed, and Jesse was, he tried to justify why he was still here and breathing valuable air while his friend was not breathing any at all.

Nothing about his world made sense. For the first time in his life he’d found himself surrounded by monsters that weren’t just in his head and a girl alone in all the world to help him fight them—and yet between them all he’d still managed to allow his friend to be seduced and murdered. He’d made a bad judgement asking Spike to sire Jesse. Something that should have been so simple had turned so catastrophically wrong. A vampire who should have lapped up the chance to make minions under the watchful eye of a human should have been in Heaven—not be so wracked with guilt and fear that he ran out and got himself caught and tortured. His example of change should have been enough for Jesse to rise without the evil tongue that had almost thrashed them alive.

Too much that followed Jesse’s rise had gone over Xander’s head. Seeing his best friend turn into an evil being right before his eyes had been devastating, but seeing the fractured, primal state Spike had been left in for being different than what evil dictated for other demons had left him reeling. Buffy loved Spike. He’d been able to see it in her eyes, even if her forgiveness of the vampire’s attack hadn’t given him a big red tick clue. And because Buffy loved Spike, Xander hated himself for what he’d caused.

The night grew older and Xander finally pulled himself up from the floor, rubbing at his eyes with an angry swipe of his fist. He wanted to be violent; he wanted to give in and tear his room to shreds and lose his grip on sanity. But the thought of Willow’s stricken expression held him together. Willow had already lost one friend; it wouldn’t be fair to make her lose another—even if the remaining one was unworthy.

He collapsed in his bed, dragging the covers up high in the hopes of blinding everything out. If he couldn’t see anything of his world, maybe he’d be able to ignore it. Maybe he could block it all out and pretend he wasn’t so pathetic. Maybe he could forget for just a minute that he was grieving the loss of his best friend. Minutes before he succumbed to sleep, he wondered if he could ever find its release ever again. Wondered if he ever wanted to again.

And then he was gone, leaving himself open to numerous attacks on his subconscious by the evil that trespasses into dreams.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It was the smell of blood that aroused him. Blood on his lips, in the air, on his sheets. It was potent, blood he’d tasted once before and made his life mission to hunt down more and consume it as the rare delicacy it was.

As he opened unwilling eyes, Spike battled the demon that wanted to consume him. He was weak, though not as weak as he had been. He remembered little initially, but then too many images flooded his head and he couldn’t stop the cries of fury at what had been done. At what he’d done.

He should be dust. There was no reason for him not to be and he tried to figure out her possible reason for keeping him in her house while he wept bitter tears of self-reproach.

The cot creaked as she sat next to him, gently wiping his brow with a damp cloth while he moaned pitifully. He wanted to push her hand away but he couldn’t move.

His throat felt raw, hot agonising flames slashing him at the attempt to speak. “What…what…did you…do?”

He was answered with silence, and he concentrated hard on what his sense could tell him. Virgin blood still crusted on his cock and he felt the nausea rush up and make him writhe with the inability to release it.

“Oh fuck, what did I do?” he rasped, tears building in his throat until the pain made him howl.

“Ssh.”

She obviously had no words for him, nothing in her arsenal of womanly wiles that could settle his panic and tell him he hadn’t just taken her virginity. No, not him. His demon. His demon had attacked her, taken what it wanted and bugger the consequences.

It was just a matter of time now. He could smell her tears mingled with the pungent scent of her blood and while it made his every sense react, he didn’t want it to. Only time and the others would know what he’d done to her, what he’d brought Buffy down to, and the watcher would put a redwood in his chest. He’d probably have a fight on his hands. A fight over who got the privilege, and Spike was resigned to lying there and taking it. He was shackled to the wall and he was doomed to punishment. At least it wasn’t Dru. All his imaginings had seen Dru plunge him toward a dusty reward, but here he was, saved and yet damned.

It was just a matter of time.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It couldn’t be true. Not Willow. Not Buffy.

His closest remaining friends grinned at him around their dripping fangs and Xander felt his heart seize in his chest. Gone. Everything was gone from him now and he had no remaining purpose in this world. No reason not to fall upon their fangs and scream out all his pain and loss as they tore his throat apart.

Unless they had a different plan. As realisation sparked in his eyes, he slowly backed away, his hand raised in an unconscious plea.

“Please, don’t make me be like you. I couldn’t deal with it. I need to be punished, absolutely, but don’t make me into you. Please?” Tears stung his eyes, but they didn’t blur. He saw the look they shared, the decision they made with the upward turn of their lips, and his stomach sunk to his toes.

Horrified, he spun on his heel and began to run as fast as he could to shelter. Jesse’s house was closest and he fell up the porch steps and pounded on the door. It fell open and he slumped inside, quickly crawling past the threshold that would keep them out.

His heart was racing, overly loud even to him and he couldn’t hold back the tears that ran unheeded down his cheeks. The two girls had followed, standing just back from the door and watching him curiously while arm in arm, giving nothing away with their expressions. He panted in relief, turning toward the footsteps that had progressed from inside the house and smiled his gratitude for being let in.

Xander stumbled to his feet, turning with reluctance to present his back to the vampires waiting for entrance.

“Hey, Jesse’s parents. You have no idea how much I owe you for…” He stopped as his slow eyes encountered amber, and he shook with uselessness. Taking a step back he suddenly realised there was nothing now to save him. A quick glance over his shoulder proved to him his fate. The two girls took turns crossing the barrier that didn’t exist, and in one twisted, gut-churning second, all four were upon him and his fate was sealed.

The bites were agony, vicious and hungry as they taught him a short lesson and took his life. There was relief, but then as his heartbeat faded and his eyes were on the verge of closing for good, there was the blood at his lips and the powerful urge to sip. Just one, he thought, his lips slack and falling open to the offering. His tongue eased out to try a lick and then his mouth circled the small wound and he sucked, drinking the tainted blood deeply.

“NOOOO!” Xander jerked awake with an inhuman scream, his blood pounding through his body and reassuring him he was still in majority possession of it. Shaking and panting heavily, Xander tried to fight the hopelessness of the nightmare and took the glass of water from his dresser and drank deep. Calming slightly, he looked out his window into the night, and clashed with the demon eyes and feral grin of his friend.

He swallowed hard, huddling back against his pillow.

Nothing was ever going to be right again.

Chapter Twenty-Five



He jerked abruptly from sleep with a scream on his lips and a sheen of sweat on his naked chest. The terrified wails of at least a thousand of his victims reverberated in his head and Angel shuddered with arrogance-breaking enlightenment.

He’d lost his way.

He’d veered so far from the path gifted to him because of a stupid sense of competition with Spike. The bleached wannabe had stolen his history, as well as his girl, and Angel had practically stood by and handed over his destiny. Having to share so much as soon as he’d arrived in Sunnydale had soured the experience for him and Angel felt the shame of his superficiality clench his gut. For once it wasn’t the result of his grief at the loss of his sire. He was so stupid for allowing her presence to distract him, and even more foolish for basing his ability to do good on whether or not he got a schoolgirl to fall as far for him as he’d thought he had for her.

She’d dented his pride, choosing a lying sneak like Spike over him. Even now, he had no faith in Spike’s actions. Angel knew deep down that Spike was here to wreak havoc—and already had with the siring of Buffy’s friend. The kid had been doomed from the moment Darla had him in her clutches. It took quite a man to walk away from her unaffected, to not be seduced by her beauty; Angel himself hadn’t been that. How could he condemn an unworldly schoolboy for doing what he had gladly done over two and a half centuries before?

Xander Harris was an idiot. Angel wasn’t blind to what the fool had thought he was doing in begging Spike to give his friend new life. He’d bought into Spike’s game, seriously believing that Spike was the poster child for reformed demons everywhere. Even without the deceitful cover story stolen from Angel himself, he couldn’t believe Spike had chosen Buffy over an existence of evil, blood and death.

It was no longer his place to judge. He had a path to tread and he was sent here to help and so far he’d done everything possible to turn his necessary allies from his side. His example of help had been tainted and it would take a powerful show of selflessness to regain their favour. Handing over a book of prophecy thought lost to the human world just wouldn’t cut it. He needed to help Buffy take down the Master; he needed to make sure Spike hadn’t killed her.

Cold purpose propelled him from his comfortable bed and Angel dressed in a hurry, donning his usual and fleeing out the door into the night. It was never fresh evening air he smelt on the Hellmouth. The faint waft of blood always met his nose and despite himself, Angel felt his spirits perk. Yes, it was selfish for him to be pleased that death still tainted the town, giving him a usefulness that he wouldn’t have if creatures such as him didn’t wreak havoc with every non-breath. But despite how much the soul changed him, there were parts of him that were still demon-controlled, and the lust for blood was inherently one of them. He had control now and the lack of desire to see his fangs buried in some innocent’s neck, but he still craved the taste. He’d lost sleep about it in the beginning—a hundred years ago when there had been too much blood to educate his discriminating palette. Now he dealt with it; he didn’t embrace that side exactly, but denying its existence would only take him places he couldn’t allow himself to be.

It was a strange night. As he walked along, hushed quiet seemed to surround him. People stared at him nervously, voiceless as they hurried by. Did they suspect his break from his mission? Did they know he’d all but condemned their slayer to death?

Angel tried to shake the paranoia from his back but stepped up his pace nonetheless. He needed to know if he was right and Buffy was gone. He hoped he’d been wrong but found himself too inclined to accept the nature of his protégé of twenty years. He’d taught Spike to scheme, to taunt, to play and torture. He’d gloried in introducing the young fop to the more sadistic and macabre elements of his new existence. Spike hadn’t been an unwilling student, but he’d taken delight in being contrary ever since Angel had shown him how little of Dru he really had a claim on. Little fool had had his nose out of joint ever since. Maybe that’s why he’d pipped him at the Buffy post. Maybe somehow he’d learned of Angel’s new destiny and decided he was going to ruin it just as spectacularly as Angel had whipped his out from under him.

Angel really had no clue what to believe, and even if Spike had been kidnapped and tortured by The Master’s minions, it still wasn’t proof that Spike wasn’t playing some kind of elaborate game with the aim of taking Buffy out.

As a surprising bolt of remorse sliced through him, Angel found himself contemplating the prospect of a changed Spike. Was it possible for a demon to shed its spots and change their role in the world? He hoped so. For Buffy’s heart and her life, he hoped so, because if it wasn’t and Spike was just biding his time, Buffy was as good as dead.

And that sat heavily on his conscience.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He’d forgotten how to sleep.

Eyes bloodshot and stinging, Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his lids, finally giving in to the crushing sense of failure that he felt toward Buffy. His slayer was going to die. While that had been a pretty regular phenomena in all things slayers and the Council, Giles felt a bigger failure than ever because this slayer, he knew. This slayer had blood running through her veins, an education in progress, a mother oblivious to her nightly excursions to keep the world asafer place for all, and a destiny that gave her no real future other than death.

He’d never suspected it would happen so soon.

The very last thing he’d expected to do was to care for Buffy Summers. His training had continually emphasised a sustained detachment from the warriors that fought like an army but stood as a tiny girl. He’d never spent much time wondering about the mission of the others; he’d often immersed himself in the diaries of his forebears with astonishment and awe and had prayed he might one day get the chance to record events so life altering, so esteemed for those that followed.

He didn’t want to record the details of his slayer’s death.

He couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if the codex had never been placed in his palm. It had been believed to be fully destroyed, not available anywhere on earth for reading. Yet Angel had had a copy and had so easily passed it to him. What had he hoped for? Had the supposedly souled vampire read it first? Did he know that Buffy was to die at the hands of The Master?

It was plausible, as much as he didn’t wish to think it. The avid declarations that, if left alone with him, Spike would surely rip Buffy apart and laugh at the prospect was something that was perhaps the motivation of a vampire intent on allowing the prophecy precedence. And yet these things always prevailed, so by virtue of this fact, one could believe that Buffy was more than safe in the arms of her chosen vampire—soulless or not.

She would not be safe if she attempted to save the world this time. And yet, there was nothing that predicted the true end of the world. The codex foretold of Buffy’s demise at the hands of that Hell-dwelling monster, but not that he fully escaped and destroyed everything as Giles and his fellow human’s knew it.

He was weary with wondering what to do about it. He grew more afraid of telling Buffy the news the longer he put it off. And yet, how did one go about breaking such news? That doing their duty within a specified set of days would mean the end of their life. No options? No rewards?

Giles replaced his glasses with hands that shook and finally gave in to the wall of tears that had been pushing against his barriers for too long now. He felt broken as he gave in to the inevitable. His slayer was going to die for the good of the world, and rather than be proud of her, he was furious. Where was the free will? How could she choose without ties to fight the Master when it seemed already preordained that she was to fail? That she was to die for the cause of good? The sheer uselessness of it all almost crippled him, and as he’d not stopped doing for the days since he’d discovered this hateful passage, Giles bent his head and began to read again, hoping against hope that this time he’d find the solution.

Unless Spike had circumvented everything and already killed her.

He’d wondered at himself after he’d returned home, vaguely going through the motions of dropping off Willow and Xander to their homes while he muddled further around a solution to his dilemma. He’d not fully understood the dynamics of the situation, but since he’d collapsed back into his comfortable chair and considered what he’d left Buffy with—a vampire bereft of his senses and craving blood and strength—did he wonder if he’d already abandoned her to a fate worse than death.

Giles was confident that Buffy could take care of herself. And he felt more faith in an unsouled Spike not to hurt her than he would have done in a souled Angel, had the positions been reversed. Something very deep inside him said that Buffy had had a lucky escape by falling for the more dynamic Spike than if he’d not shown up and lied his way into the group. It was absurd how much trust he’d placed in a vampire renowned for the lives he’d destroyed with his violence and thirst for evil, but he would remain on his guard concerning both, and his senses were telling him right now that Angel was the bigger threat.

The night outside was growing tired and surrendering its hold on the sky, specks of sunlight pushing the barrier into the pits of nothingness. Giles warned himself that he’d be no help to Buffy if he didn’t get some sleep soon, and despite his fear that he’d not be able to close his eyes, he stood and stumbled his way up to the loft and tried.

It was the only thing any of them had left to do.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“You didn’t do anything that I didn’t want.”

He was barely conscious when the words filtered through, but they encouraged him to finish the process of waking up and Spike opened his eyes at the exact time his brain registered the searing pain that ripped through his body.

“B-Buffy?” Chapped lips and a dry throat distracted him from the thing he most wanted to ignore, but she was relentless, repeating the words until she’d raised his anger enough for him to respond to it, acknowledge the horror he wanted to believe never happened.

“How can you say that?” He felt like weeping. His eyes ached at the sight of her, her face ravaged by fear and worry and her body now the one of a woman, though not through choice. “How could you have wanted what I did to you?”

Her head jerked up and he gasped at the look of longing and amazement that reflected in her eyes. “You didn’t do anything to me, Spike. They tortured you, starved you and treated you like the monster you haven’t been in a long time.”

He couldn’t look at her. Had she somehow talked herself into believing it was okay to allow a demon to attack her and take one of the most precious things she had to give? “That’s poppycock. There’s no excuse for taking a woman by force.”

Her expression was riddled with guilt he couldn’t decipher as she blushed and tried to regain the courage to resume her argument.

“You give me no credit. I’m the Slayer; I know how primal you can feel when you’ve retreated inside yourself and all you want is to protect what you sense is yours. I know what it’s like to want someone so badly you’ll forget all sense of what society dictates is right to make sure that person knows it.” She gulped and then plunged in, nerves making her hands shake slightly as she scrunched handfuls of his blanket in them.

“I did feel…shocked when you tore my shirt and bit my breast in front of Xander and Willow.” She ignored his flinch, tried to show him with the touch of her hand as she released the bedding and reached for his tightened fist that it wasn’t something she would ever hold against him. “A-and later, when you…it was my decision, Spike. If anything, I forced you, and I won’t apologise for it. I don’t think I can explain how I felt, not in a way that will make any kind of sense to probably anyone but me, but it was something I had to do. For me. You’d taken it so far, and I needed to take some of the power back, take some of myself back, and so I…I…” The tears rushed down her cheeks and she dashed at them angrily, obviously annoyed that they’d entered the argument at this time when it had been far from her plan.

Spike felt misery so deep he wanted to die. That he’d made Buffy feel powerless, worthless, dirty and degraded… God, someone should take him out the back and shoot him until he was completely full of holes. Plug them up and then do it all over again. How could he claim to love her when he did something like this? How could he stay and fight with her when he couldn’t be trusted?

His own answering knot of tears clogged his throat and in a voice that was obviously choked, he rushed out the words that would make her back away. “You need to let me go, Buffy. I’m no good for you, not when I bring you down to this.”

“Stop it.” The demand was short and harsh and Spike flinched at eyes that glittered with determination, almost feeling singed by the fire that sparked down at him. “We are not doing this. This is neither of our faults and I’m not losing you just because of some misguided guilt complex.” She sniffled and all Spike could do was stare at her in wonder. “I love you, you big bleached poophead.” And then she burst into tears before collapsing onto his chest, her arms seeking to hold him tight around his neck as she finally gave in to the mountain of stress she’d borne in such cold detachment for days.

“I love you, Spike. I know this is all mixed up and I didn’t help things at all with what I did, but somehow I guess I thought you might not take on so much of the blame when I made the really big decision. I mean, you should be mad at me more than I should be mad at you.” Without a thought to his injuries, she pushed against his chest and looked down at him with heartbreaking fear leeching the life from her usually sparkling eyes. “Are you mad at me? I don’t think I could bear it if you’re mad and leave me now. Not with Jesse and the Master and Angel going all weird. I need you by my side now, so, you can’t be mad.” She was almost ready to launch into emotional breakdown, and as much emotional strength as Spike still had, he loaned it all to her.

“I’m not mad, sweetness.” He tried to smile in reassurance, though it was weak. “Disappointed how things happened, and maybe miserable that I hurt you and forced you into that kind of a corner, but no, not mad.”

He was shaking on the inside at the lie.