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.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I know there have been some of you concerned about whether I intended finishing this story. Hopefully this new chapter will put you at ease. I appreciate so much your patience and promise that it will be finished eventually. And please, if you read the new chapter, think about leaving a word or two of what you thought.