It was by the virtue of a gabby lackey that Spike discovered Angelus had decided to end the world by means of some demon from the stone-age. A demon that had met the business end of a knight’s sword. Ever since his post-Buffy-snogging encounter with the great sod and the former light of his evil life, Angelus and Dru had done little to include him in their plans. That much didn’t unravel him—he knew he didn’t have their trust. He’d never had Angelus’s trust. Granted, trust wasn’t something that Angelus handed out by the barrel. Not even Darla had earned that privilege, but after so much time, Spike would expect at least a smidgeon of respect.
And Dru? Well, Dru had made her feelings about him perfectly clear.
The only thing Spike couldn’t fully explain was the lightness in his heart. All things considered, he should be absolutely miserable. The woman he loved had betrayed him—physically, emotionally, and all of the above. Furthermore, Drusilla’s betrayal had forced him into a corner—one that he knew he should resent with every fiber of his being. He was walking through the darkened halls of Sunnydale High, running slightly late for the Scooby meeting Buffy had asked him to attend the night before.
Buffy.
She was Buffy to him.
That thought was rather frightening, but it did little to dampen his good mood.
Buffy had him in a good mood. The same scrawny little chit who had done nothing but muck up his plans from the second he barreled over the Welcome to Sunnydale sign. The bloody thorn in his side. The bane of his existence. The one that he’d sworn to kill. He’d come here to drink her blood. To mark her as his third all the while restoring his black princess to her former dark glory.
And the thought of seeing her now had him inexplicably happy. It made bugger all sense to him, but happiness was something that had been sorely lacking in his life in recent months. He knew basking in happiness provided by his mortal enemy couldn’t lead to anything good, and while there was a very large part of him that was thoroughly disgusted with himself, he similarly knew not to sneeze on whatever good fortune came his way. He’d admitted his attraction to Buffy seconds after first setting eyes on her; just as he’d vowed to have her throat torn open and her blood in his mouth. Now that they had a tentative understanding, the male in him couldn’t help but soak her up for the warm, luscious female that she was.
The fact that she was the owner of the pussy his cock desperately wanted to sink into didn’t hurt, either. And while she’d put a cap on his intentions to cart her to the nearest bed, the way she reacted to him had him confident she wouldn’t be able to ignore his advances for long.
Her scent flooded in his nostrils. He hadn’t wanted to wash her arousal off his skin, so he’d parked in one of Sunnydale’s motels and tended to his aching cock.
Buffy had certainly done her share to fuel his fantasies for the night. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her face. Every time he inhaled, he drowned in her flavor. He felt her breasts in his hands and the hum of her pulse against his mouth. At times, the fantasy became so intense—so real—that he was surprised when he opened his eyes and found he was still alone. That there wasn’t a warm and achingly female human beside him.
It was going to be hard maintaining composure when all he wanted to do was escort her to the nearest private area and shag her until she was no longer interesting. Until he was bored enough with her that he could off her good and proper. And bugger all if the thought of her dead didn’t make him ache. That needed fixing—the sodding soft-spot for the Slayer. It was one thing to crave her quim; caring for her was something completely different.
All in all, Spike knew what he needed to do. He needed to fuck her so he could get back to the place where the idea of her broken, bleeding body inspired joy rather than outrage. He comforted his torn psyche by asserting that he’d be able to kill the chit and move on once his lusting after slayer-pussy came to an end, no matter how unappealing the notion was currently. For whatever reason, his heart and hands were tied behind his back. He wouldn’t be ready to kill her until he’d fucked her.
And until then, he’d have to accept that he wasn’t ready to kill her. He didn’t want to kill her; he could only hope that fucking her would rekindle the oath he made to himself; that he would be able to spill her blood without regret, then move on.
It was what he told himself, anyway. Didn’t matter that every time his eyes landed on the sorry chit, his gut clenched and his heart warmed.
That would go away with time.
He hoped.
Trouble was, he’d never felt anything like it before, so he honestly couldn’t say whether the feeling would go away or not.
And if he was really honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to.
Wasn’t that a kick in the balls?
Spike shook his head hard. If he started down this road, there was no way he was going to be able to focus long enough to tell the Slayer and her chums what he’d discovered. He sighed, stuffed his hands inside his duster pockets, and barreled through the library doors before he could talk himself out of it.
Buffy was sitting cross-legged on the front table with a book settled in her lap and her chin resting in her palm, tendrils of fallen hair hiding her eyes from him. And even though she was a good seven yards away, he could feel the exhilarated rush in her pulse. She was thriving on adrenaline, and judging by the sweet smell she exuded, she’d just gotten through a hefty training session.
The idea of Buffy in her element killed his resolve to remain professional. His cock stirred and his fangs itched. She was glorious when she fought.
Even if all she had to fight was a padded-up watcher or a worn-down punching bag.
It was a decidedly juvenile, male voice that interrupted his exceedingly distracting thoughts. And from the distinctly unmanly shrill, he couldn’t tell whether or not the distraction was a godsend.
“Spike!”
Spike blinked and turned. Oh. Right. The Slayer’s friends. Seemed the whole merry lot was present. The redhead. The over-bearing boy and his cheerleader girlfriend. The werewolf. And, of course, the Watcher. The bloke responsible for nearly giving him a black-eye. They were all staring at him dumbly, as though he hadn’t popped by the previous day and already gone through this time-wasting mess of explaining his motives.
Granted, only the Watcher and the redhead had been there to see it, but a bloke would think that news would travel…especially since this lot fancied themselves a crime-fighting force to be reckoned with. Demons of Sunnydale beware, and all that.
“’Lo all,” he said, waving dismissively before turning back to the Slayer. She looked like something had bitten her; she was pale and wide-eyed, and too gorgeous for words. Were it not for their rather attentive audience, he’d be seeing about bringing that rosy blush he loved so much out to play.
“Spike,” she said. “I…oh…”
“Forget I was coming, love?
“No. I just…”
It took very little to pull the breaks on his good mood. Something wasn’t right. Buffy was too pale. Too dazed. And while he’d love to entertain thoughts that she was shaken by the very sight of him, he was too jaded to allow his ego the stroke, however needed.
“Got news,” he said, eyes narrowing. “’Bout Angelus.”
“So do we!” the redhead chimed in, raising her hand like an attentive student. “We found the curse!”
“The curse…” Spike froze, his world crashing. “The curse. The sodding curse. You found it?”
“Buffy found it.”
Buffy couldn’t look at him. She was suddenly very much interested in the book in her lap.
“In Ms. Calendar’s desk,” the overgrown boy with the girl-voice tossed in. “You know? The teacher you murdered?”
Spike’s eyes flared angrily. “Don’t go pinning that one on me.”
“Like it matters. Point is, we have a plan, and you’re not needed anymore.”
That much was enough to snap the Slayer out of whatever inner pity-party she was attending. Buffy’s head shot up so fast it’d be a sodding miracle if she didn’t have whiplash come morning. And in an instant, she’d bounded to her feet. “Wait,” she said shortly. “We never decided that we couldn’t use Spike.”
The word hit him like holy water.
Use.
“Use me?” he repeated, disgusted. With her. With himself. With the notion that he could ever be anything more to her—that the night’s promise could actually be kept. God, he was such a git. Such a bloody useful git. “Well, Slayer…fancy that.”
She burned him with a look. “Don’t start.”
“Don’t start? I walk in here with news about what your lover-boy is plannin’ an’ get the bloody third degree from some wanker who’s still tryin’ to grow outta his Pampers.” Spike shook his head in disgust. “An’ you—”
“I haven’t decided anything!” Buffy snapped. “So don’t start, Spike! Not you, too. I swear, I can’t…” She wandered off, chopping the sentence short with an abrupt jerk of the head, wiping her eyes before anyone could get another glimpse of slayer vulnerability.
It was enough. It gave him enough. She was reeling, and it was the fire in her eyes that lent him pause. Something was off; very off. She looked, on closer inspection, like a woman at the edge of a very steep cliff, waiting for the slightest sign to send her over. And it occurred to him that he’d just walked blind into something very personal.
Something that had nothing to do with Angelus at all, and everything to do with Buffy and her relationship with vampires. Any vampire.
And right now, Spike was the perfect target.
It didn’t take much to put that together. As it was, Angelus had delighted in telling stories about the large git—Xander, his name was—and how the boy lusted after the Slayer with no thought to discretion or tact. And despite the arm-candy at his side, Spike would bet his smokes against the odds that Boy Wonder had thought to sneak his way into the Slayer’s knickers in the fallout. After all, he’d been proven right about vampires, and the Slayer would need some comfort in the difficult days following her first great love’s death.
What a sodding waste. As though a fumbling teenager of a human would ever be enough for Buffy.
“Y-yes, quite,” Giles concluded, his glasses falling into a waiting handkerchief. Spike briefly entertained the idea that the old man had been spurned into the world with a bloody square of cotton sewed to his palm. The Watcher was well engaged in a polish session before he continued his thought. “What news do you bring us?” he asked.
Spike paused, his eyes drifting back to Buffy. She’d reinstated her campaign to avoid eye-contact, standing now with her arms crossed, her weight shifting from one leg to the other. “Acathla,” he said shortly.
Giles paled. “Acathla?”
“A-what-a?” Buffy echoed, her head darting upward briefly. Electricity flared between them when their eyes met, but the contact was so brief he barely had time to enjoy it before she was again paying attention to every nook and cranny in the library except for him. Which made it interesting, seeing as she intended to continue the conversation. “What’s an…whatever you said?”
“Nasty bugger, pet.”
“Acathla is a demon from ancient antiquity. The Watchers Council actually thought him to be a fabrication until sixty years or so ago, when more modern records of his existence were uncovered with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Giles shook his head incredulously. “Oh dear.”
Spike nodded. “Now some museum has hold of it. Here in ole Sunnyhell. It was all over the mornin’ paper.”
Xander blinked, not even bothering to mask his surprise. “You read the paper?”
The question wasn’t deserving of an answer; a point made well when Spike refused to even toss the wanker a glance. “But if your lot thinks reensouling the Great Poof is the way to go, best of luck to you.” His eyes landed on Buffy again, agitation swelling in his chest. He didn’t want to feel for the chit, but the lost look on her face was enough to melt the hardest of facades. It had to be hard for her; admittedly, he knew the tennis game the Powers were playing with her heart would eventually cause her to completely crash. Right now, she didn’t need him around making things even more confusing for her.
Granted, why he should give a bloody damn was beyond him. The girl had her tongue down his throat just last night, and with a little coaxing, he knew that he could have convinced her to part her legs and take his cock into her small, perfect body. If she was now tossed up because her beloved one and only had another undeserved shot at redemption, he had every reason to be brassed. She hadn’t fought his advances. Fuck, turning away from her last night had been the hardest thing he’d ever done—forcing his ears to listen to her whispers of no all the while her skin hummed and the throb of her pulse told him yes.
“I saw Acathla this morning,” Giles said softly. “The curator of the museum in question wanted my opinion.”
“And what did you tell him?” the redhead demanded, her voice an octave away from summoning every dog in town. It was a wonder her mutt of a boyfriend could tolerate anything that piercing.
“‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ were my exact words, I believe.”
The cheerleader’s brown eyes widened. “Did anyone order a mass panic?”
“Acathla’s missing now,” the Watcher concluded.
Xander wasted no time in pointing an accusatory finger at the vampire, his body trembling with disdain. “You!”
Spike’s hands came up. “Oi!”
“Y-you came here to lure her into a trap!”
“How you figure? By the way I’ve compromised Angelus’s master plan?” He rolled his eyes. “Bugger this. I’m out.”
His back was already on Buffy by the time she snapped out of whatever inner debate she was entertaining. And though lead filled his boots, he refused to stop walking. Even when she called out after him. Even when she begged him to stop.
The world had already robbed him of too many things. If she thought she could have his pride on top of it all, she was in for a rude awakening.
The one thing Spike didn’t count on was Buffy running after him. That took moxy he didn’t think she had. To maul him with her lips in an abandoned classroom was one thing; to leave her chums and her Watcher, calling his name like he meant something to her…that was something else altogether.
It didn’t mean anything, of course. The Slayer’s chance had come and gone. He was through playing the perpetual whipping boy. Let her try to stop the apocalypse without him. Fuck, let her plunge Angel’s soul back up the git’s righteous ass—it didn’t matter to him. The way Angel and the Slayer had been going at it before her cherry was popped, they’d be fortunate to get a week together before Angelus reared his ugly head again.
Might be better if he told her to bugger off once and for all. And with that thought in mind, Spike whirled around angrily, only to find himself suddenly holding an armful of Buffy, her hands on his cheeks as her mouth ravaged his. Immediately, his cock sprang to life and his anger placated. There really was no remedy for outrage like a warm Slayer tongue caressing his, her legs parting just slightly to allow his denim-clad erection solace between her heavenly thighs.
“I don’t know what to do,” she babbled between kisses. Her body was burning up and her eyes had pooled with tears. Her mouth nipped at his flesh with desperation that had him calculating how long it’d take to get somewhere private if he tossed her over his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Spike. I just don’t know what to do.”
“What—”
“I didn’t want…God!” In a blink, she’d torn herself away from his embrace. And the sudden absence of her warmth left him frozen in ways he didn’t want to consider. “I didn’t mean to find it,” she said, every inch of her delectable self trembling with uncertainty he knew well. “It was just there. I was studying with Willow and it was just there. What am I supposed to do? He’s…I loved him so much, and I was so ready to kill him. I was so ready. If I kill him now…knowing that I could…”
She shook her head hard and forced her eyes upward, and the heartache reflected behind her tears was enough to gut the strongest of men. Any hope of escaping this without his heart twice broken died that second. Forget all talk of fucking her as means of getting past his fixation and back to the way God intended it. A man didn’t weep for girls who were breaking if he only felt for her with his prick.
How had she turned his world on its hinges in just two bleeding days?
Spike sighed inwardly and cast a hand through his platinum locks. Didn’t look like it mattered how. He was here now. He was staring at the Slayer, whose eyes were filled with tears she’d cried for someone else. And his heart, predictably, was mush. It hurt like hell, but there was bugger all he could do about it. He wanted Buffy—this he knew—but he wanted her smiling. The pain in her eyes…
Fuck me.
“Buffy, love…”
“I know…you…” She shivered hard and crossed her arms. “I’m crazy with the mixed signals and everything. I didn’t mean to…make with the lungy.”
His tingling lips didn’t mind. They just missed her warmth.
“I don’t know what to do,” she concluded, wiping at her eyes with a pitiful sniff. “And you…with the…kissing and the temporary not-being-my-mortal-enemy thing…my head hurts.”
Spike just looked at her. His hands were tied. If he stepped forward and caressed her aching head with his lips, he might well earn a punch in the gut. If he stood idly, she might take that as rejection and start again with the waterworks.
The only thing he could offer her was support, and that went against every innate stirring in his evil body. Ergo, the only thing he could offer her was total self-defacement.
Though anything was better than watching her cry.
“Kitten—”
“Kendra.”
Spike blinked hard. “No,” he said slowly, patting his chest. “Spike.”
“No, I mean—” Buffy paused, her eyes narrowing. “Doofus, behind you. Kendra.”
It took a few seconds for the words to register. A few seconds that cost him dearly.
The last thing he heard, following the hard and rather underserved kick to the head, was Buffy screaming the Riot Act to the slayer behind him.
And oddly enough, as the world went black, he found that rather comforting.
TBC