Spike fought back against the cloudy red haze swiftly creeping in along the edges of his vision, threatening to overwhelm him and take his consciousness. His legs were holding him up – but just barely, shaking and weakened from the extreme blood loss that the Slayer had caused with her vicious knives, and the pain of the numerous cruel injuries she had inflicted on his body.
He found himself leaning back, bracing most of his weight against the wall beside the bed, struggling just to stay on his feet, as he closed his eyes for a moment and just tried to regain the control that he felt was slipping away from him at an alarming rate.
*Focus, Spike…you have to do this, Honey…I know it’s hard…*
Buffy’s softly encouraging, yet intense, firm voice in his head, was the only thing that kept him from giving in to the darkness that was steadily creeping in on him.
*I don’t know if I *can* do this, pet…I can barely stay on my bloody feet…there’s no way I can even begin to *try* to beat her…*
His soft, whispered thoughts held a note of desperation bordering on panic; pain and fear and sheer exhaustion had made his thinking fuzzy and muddled, and he had nearly forgotten the plan that she had whispered to him earlier, the ironic truth that was the only way that this creature could be defeated.
All he knew was that the Slayer demon wanted to bring him into submission to her – and he was in no condition to stop her from doing just that.
*You don’t *have* to beat her…you just have to make it look good…don’t let it be *too* easy for her…remember…you’re always mine, no matter what…until the end of time…and nothing can change that…*
In that moment, he felt a surge of strength flooding through him, not so much physically, but mentally and emotionally, filling his mind with a sudden clarity of purpose, as Buffy deliberately allowed her love and devotion to him to surround him, to flood him and drive out some of the weakness and pain he was struggling against.
Suddenly his eyes flew open with a jolt as he remembered all at once, exactly what he had to do.
“Come on, Baby,” the Slayer taunted him softly, moving in slowly closer to him, her narrowed, feral green eyes focused on his face. “Don’t make this *too* easy for me,” she unconsciously echoed Buffy’s instructions to him only moments before.
With a deliberate effort, Spike leaned forward, standing shakily on his own feet and relinquishing the support of the wall behind him. Although he was weak and exhausted, his body naturally took on a defensive fighting pose, as he tried to force his eyes to focus on the slowly but steadily advancing threat. He was backed into a corner, unable to escape, as she closed the distance between them – but that was all right.
He didn’t really *want* to escape.
Well – that wasn’t exactly true. He *did* want to escape – badly. But that was not what he had to think about right now.
When she was only a few feet away from him, she brought her fist down across his stomach in a breath-taking blow, before gripping his arm and slinging him violently out of the corner, and out onto the very limited open space near the foot of the two beds, where he stumbled and fell, half sitting, half kneeling, on the ragged carpet, coughing as he tried to pull himself back to his feet.
“Wow,” she said in a flat voice tinged with disgust. “This is pathetic.”
“How ‘bout you let me go a round on *you* like you just did to me, pet,” Spike suggested in a low, raspy voice, unable to hold back a bit of angry resentment at her mockery, though he knew that her unfair tactics were going to result in her defeat in the end. “Then see how *you* hold up in a fight,” he muttered, his voice slightly slurred with his weariness as he struggled to pull himself back up to his feet.
The Slayer grinned wickedly, a little half-shrug acknowledging his point. “Nah,” she replied, shaking her head. “I like this way better.”
“Figures you would,” he muttered, his body tensing, watching her warily as she advanced on him again. “So quit your bloody complaining.”
The Slayer’s smile faded into a dark look of anger, her eyes widening in indignation.
Even weakened, knowing that he didn’t stand a chance – she still had not managed to break him.
But before she was finished – she was determined that she would.
She reached him just as he was getting back to his feet, grabbing him around the throat and forcing him back down onto his knees, holding him there as she glared down at him with a cold look of anger. He struggled wearily, weakly, against her grip – but they both knew that after the torture and agony she had put him through – this fight was a joke.
This *was* no fight.
This was a bloody massacre.
Spike suppressed a smile that would have seemed terribly suspicious given his current circumstances, as he reminded himself, taking strength from the thought, *The real fight will come later – and she won’t stand a chance…*
“You’re *mine*,” the Slayer declared in a hard, menacing tone, her grip tightening on his throat as she held him down, not allowing him to rise. “And you’re going to admit it. You’re going to accept my claim.”
*You gotta make this believable,* Buffy reminded him. *Don’t give in too easy…*
*You call this easy, love?* he shot back with a disbelieving laugh heard only in his mind – and instantly felt himself surrounded with a warm feeling of comfort and sorrowful affection.
*I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this, Spike…but it’s going to be over soon…and then she won’t be able to touch you…*
“I’ll dust first,” he declared, glaring up at the Slayer in defiance, taking courage and strength from Buffy’s unfailing support.
He saw the fury and frustration flare up in the Slayer’s eyes, but she smiled coldly, calmly, crouching down in front of him, easing her grip slightly but not releasing him as she moved in very close to him, deliberately increasing the intimidation factor with her very nearness, blocking off any thought of escape.
“See – the problem with that theory is – I’d have to actually *dust* you,” she informed him in a soft, patronizingly patient voice. “And I’m not about to do that, Sweetheart…” She leaned in closer, whispering softly near his ear, “…you’re *way* too much fun to play with…”
Spike smiled, not intimidated by her chilling words – because he knew something that she did not. Remembering his mate’s instruction to “make it look good”, he summoned all the strength that he could muster, just to shift his features into game face, and suddenly lunged for the Slayer.
She had relaxed her grip on his throat, and was caught off guard by his sudden aggression, ducking back just in time to miss his fangs piercing her throat. As it was, as she staggered back, she raised her hand to her cheek, shocked to pull it back bloodied from the twin gashes he had left across her face.
As she stared at him in horror, he had to remind himself that the enemy he was facing was not his mate, in order to keep a similar look of horror from appearing on his own face at the damage he had done to hers.
*So sorry, love…didn’t want to…*
*You’re doing what you have to do, Spike,* Buffy reassured him. *When this is all over – we’re *both* gonna have a few scars.*
Alarm filled him at those word. *That’s not gonna…?*
*Nothing good old-fashioned Slayer healing won’t fix,* she replied in his mind.
Apparently, the Slayer demon was not inclined to react so calmly to the bleeding wounds the supposedly helpless vampire had just left on her face. Her eyes narrowed in menace, and she stepped closer to him, her hand striking out, fingers spread like claws to rake across his face in vicious retaliation.
He let out a hiss of pain, drawing back as she raised her foot to kick him hard in the stomach, reaching down to grip his hair and slam his head back hard into the dresser behind him.
He struggled to stay conscious as she pressed in close to him again, snarling, “You’re gonna pay for that, Baby…you’d be much better off to just make it easy on yourself and accept my claim right now, before you make me *really* angry. Then maybe I’d be willing to let this slide once you’re under my control…”
Spike laughed weakly, opening his hazy eyes to meet hers boldly. “Right. I’m not bloody stupid, pet. I know you’re gonna have your bloody fun no matter *what* I do, and cowtowing to you’s not gonna make this any easier on me. So why should it be easy for *you*?”
The Slayer’s sharp fingernails found their way swiftly to the badly burned mark on his throat, viciously gouging the tender flesh, which had not healed as it ordinarily would have, due to the loss of the blood in his body that he would have needed in order to heal properly.
Spike could not hold back a strangled cry of pain, as she sneered softly in his ear, “You’re right. That smart mouth of yours *is* gonna make things pretty tough on you, Baby. I can’t wait ‘til I can make you shut it completely whenever I get sick of hearing it!”
Still, he was defiant, as he stared back into her eyes boldly and opened his mouth again to declare, “Never gonna…”
Suddenly his words broke off and his eyes closed with pain as her brutal nails scored his throat savagely again. He let out a low, barely stifled cry of pain, taking no care to attempt to hide the effect she was having on him. After all, it was best if she *did* know she was hurting him – in order to make his submission later all the more believable.
It *did* hurt, badly – but not enough to have ordinarily made him show it so openly. But the Slayer had no way of knowing how badly it would hurt – only that the mark on his throat held a strange power over him, and would serve to help her control him.
Or rather – it would have…had she still had anything of his mate within her to allow her to use the bond.
Still, he had to make her believe that there would be *some* reason why he would eventually give in to her demands and accept her claim, didn’t she? After Spike had made such a big dramatic show of insisting that he would never let her break him? Thus, it served his purposes perfectly to allow her to think that the mark on his throat gave her more power over him than it actually did at the moment.
“Yes, you are, Spike,” she assured him in a whisper with a chilling certainty, a cold, smug smile on her lips as she tightened her hand around his throat. “You’re going to accept my claim – because if you don’t,” she whispered, “you’re going to die in agony. And then – I’ll just go next door and kill your precious Dawnie and Joyce by myself. It’s a bit riskier – but I think I can get to the trigger of the gun in my hand before Dawn can get to me.”
She paused, leaning in to soften her whisper, her wicked words sending a shiver of dread down his spine in spite of the fact that he knew the horrific events she spoke of would never actually happen.
“But don’t worry – I won’t aim for the head or the heart…if *I* have to kill her – don’t think she’s gonna die easy! I’ll take my time – make it last – it’s what I’m good at, you know,” she informed him with chilling calm. “It’ll be so much easier on both of them if you just submit to me now – and do them in yourself when I tell you to.”
There was a false understanding in her voice as she shrugged slightly and finished in a barely audible voice.
“At least this way – you get to say goodbye…”
*It’s okay, Spike…you know you have to do it…let her believe she’s getting to you…but know this…we *have* to keep her away from Dawnie now…Dawn can’t fight her anymore, not any better than I could alone…we can’t let her get to Dawn, she’d be defenseless right now…not that that matters at the moment, anyway…it’s time…*
Buffy’s calm, encouraging words, reminding him of their plan, were nevertheless tinged with her own fury at the demon’s threat against her family, and the vicious cruelty she was showing to Buffy’s mate.
Spike allowed his fear, his desperate love for the two human females in the next room, to show in his voice, as it broke slightly over his words. “Please,” he said softly, lowering his head in defeat, “don’t do it – don’t hurt them…”
“There’s really no choice in what happens to them in the end, Baby,” she told him with a falsely sweet sympathy, using her fingernail to slice across the badly injured mark again, making his back arch with very real pain as he tried to pull away – to no avail. “All you can do is make it as easy as possible for them – if you *really* love them…”
She was silent for a moment, allowing her chilling words to sink in, before she added quietly, “The best thing you can do for them is *exactly* what I say.” She leaned in closer, increasing the painful pressure on the mark as she whispered, “Submit, Spike. Accept my claim.”
*It’s all right…* Buffy whispered in his mind, her soft, loving tones drowning out the Slayer’s cruel seduction to slavery. *Mine, Spike…you’re mine no matter what she does…it’s time…you have to…*
Spike lowered his head, the resolve in his face crumbling slightly, as he replied in a quiet, uncertain voice, “No…I – I won’t…” then added in a desperate whisper, “*Please*…”
That was the moment in which the Slayer came to believe that she had won – she had him exactly where she wanted him.
The Slayer smiled coldly. “Yes, you will,” she repeated with an oddly gentle surety, removing her hand from the mark, sliding it up behind his head to grip his hair and yank his head back, hard.
Suddenly, her mouth plunged downward over Buffy’s mark, her teeth locking onto the sensitive flesh cruelly, tearing at the already ravaged mark. It was terribly painful, terrifying, sending a shock of dark sensations through him, to feel the touch of someone not his mate on the mark, so possessive and violent, attempting to break Buffy’s claim and replace it with her own.
The only thing that helped him to push back the fear, that allowed him to bear it as he knew he had to, was the knowledge that no matter what she did, the Slayer would *not* be able to break Buffy’s claim.
“*Mine*,” the Slayer demon snarled as she pulled back from his throat, her mouth stained with his blood, as she jerked his head back harder, deliberately jarring the wound and sending a fresh wave of pain through him. “Mine, Spike – say it! You have no choice!”
*We have to do this, Sweetheart…there’s no other way…she can’t make you hers, Spike…she can’t…*
Spike turned his head away slightly, allowing a soft sob of pain and confusion to leave his lips – just before the barely whispered word that the Slayer sought, pronouncing his doom.
Or perhaps, her own – though she could not have known it.
The vampire’s voice came out in a broken sob of resignation and defeat, as he finally gave her the answer that she longed to hear.
“Yours.”
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