Giles walked out of the book cage, an open book in his hands. "I imagine not."
"So...this isn’t a vampire problem?"
Giles looked up from the book. "No."
"But it is funky, right? Not of the norm."
"Quite. Spontaneous human combustion is rare and scientifically unexplainable. But there have been cases for hundreds of years. Usually all that’s left is a pile of ashes."
"That’s all that would have been left if it hadn’t been for Buffy," Willow said, her eyes wide not yet used to all that she’d learned in such a short time.
"Fires and gyms are sorta my thing," Buffy replied with a roll of her eyes.
Xander and Willow shared a questioning glance before turning their attention back on their friend, while Giles dropped his head back into his book. "Am I the only one who has no idea what that means?" Xander asked.
Buffy took a deep breath, having no choice but to tell her friend’s of her not so squeaky clean past. Not that it had been entirely her fault, but nobody seemed to agree with her on that. "Well it was the night of the Spring Formal. We had one every year at Hemery and I had been elected Spring Queen." She smiled slightly at the memory. Not that it had been a surprise, she was the most popular girl in the entire freshman class, if not the whole school. "Anyway," she continued, caught up in her little trip down memory lane. "It was shortly after I’d learned I was the slayer, and I wasn’t exactly pro-slaying or ready to handle a gang of vampires..."
"And the Spring Queen is......Buffy Summers!"
Buffy beamed at her classmates as she made her way onto the stage. She accepted her crown with a bow of her head and stood next to her on again off again boyfriend, Tyler, who’d been elected Spring King. The couple descended the stairs to the left of the stage to engage in the traditional dance reserved for the winning pair.
The song began and Tyler took her into his arms, leading her around the dance floor in time with the slow tune. Buffy relished in the attention of her peers, knowing that many were jealous of her including the girls in her privileged inner circle.
Just as the song came to an end, the room filled with darkness. Irritated snickers and sighs were heard in the crowd of students. Buffy’s spine tingled which she chalked up as nervousness. The nagging voice in the back of her mind reminded her of the last time she’d gotten that tingly feeling-while she’d been patrolling. No, it couldn’t be the same. Not here, not tonight.
The feeling was growing stronger, as the students’ patience began to run out. They were shouting at the chaperones to put the lights back on, but Buffy had a sneaking suspicion that they had no control over the situation. She inched away from Tyler towards the back doors, not surprised to find them locked.
That was when she saw him.
"He was, in a word, hot!" Buffy told them, blushing slightly at Giles’ frown. Willow raised an eyebrow at her friend in surprise while Xander snorted at the idea. "I hadn’t really seen a lot of vampires before, but I could just tell he was different. He wasn’t all bumpy, he looked like an average Joe."
"Yeah, an average massacring Joe," Xander replied sarcastically.
"Quiet," Willow admonished. "Let her finish!"
"Well, well, what do we have here?" he asked sauntering towards her. "Little lamb trying to escape?"
Buffy froze in her tracks at the sound of his voice. Quite possibly the sexiest voice she’d ever heard no less. She stood, feet rooted to the floor, ready to fight.
"Not very talkative, are we princess?" he drawled. "Or should I say queen?" He extended his arm to touch the crown on top of her head.
Buffy slapped his arm away from her as hard as she could, feeling adrenaline surging through her at the contact. "Don’t touch me," she warned.
"Ooh, someone’s feisty," he teased her.
"Spike," a female voice whined from behind him. Buffy looked over his shoulder to the owner of the voice, a tall, thin, pale, brunette woman. "I’m hungry."
"Don’t worry, pet, I’m going all out tonight." He leered at Buffy hungrily. "Tonight we feast on slayer."
"You say she called him ‘Spike’?" Giles asked, heading back into the book cage before she had time to answer.
Buffy’s blood ran cold. He knew who she was.
Behind her, students were watching the exchange, oblivious to what was really happening. If it had been a different situation, she would have been embarrassed to have anyone know about her secret identity, but at the moment she was too preoccupied to care. This vampire before her was like none she’d ever faced before. He reeked of power and confidence, something she hadn’t acquired in her slaying yet.
The skanky vampiress clapped her hands excitedly. "Told you there’d be a surprise."
"And what a lovely surprise it is," Spike agreed, circling Buffy.
She spun around, never leaving her back open to him for more than a second. But it was enough to leave him wanting more than just one bite. His mate, Drusilla, had been teetering on the edge of insanity for a while now and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. She was needy, moody and at times a rotten bitch.
"So, this is the slayer. A little young, isn’t she?" he asked no one in particular, cocking his head to the side and looking at her as if he were memorizing every feature about her face. "Let’s see how she tastes." Without warning he lunged at her, knocking them both off balance and onto the floor.
Buffy searched nearby for anything that could be made into a stake. Kicking him in the face when he tried to reach for her leg, she crawled over to a chair and ripped off the leg in one quick motion. She jumped up quickly into fighter’s stance with her stake held tightly in her right hand.
Spike held his chin where she’d kicked him, bleeding from the heel of her expensive shoes. Licking off his fingers he vamped out, earning a gasp from the crowd of students, most of which were being attacked by Spike’s minions.
He charged her again. She blocked his first punch easily. Her head snapped back as she felt his fist connecting with her left cheekbone. He danced around, throwing and blocking punches with the grace of a boxer.
Buffy was clearly at the disadvantage as the fight went on. If he’d been in a hurry she’d probably be dead already, but he was taking his time with her. Throwing her up onto the stage, she fell in a heap to the floor. Reaching for the microphone stand, she tried to pull herself up only to be kicked in the stomach. Doubling over, she fell back onto the shiny wood with a cry.
He pushed her onto her back, hovering over her with one leg on either side of her body. Grabbing a fistful of her long blonde hair, he pulled her up to him exposing her neck. He licked the spot where her pulse was beating wildly, anxious for the pain to end.
Spike twisted her so she was staring up at him, staring down into the green eyes of his victim. Usually he saw fear and dread, fueling his hunger, but in her eyes he only saw hatred. And he knew it wasn’t only for him. She hated the hand she’d been dealt, hated her calling.
Seeing him lost in thought, Buffy head-butted his nose with a force that should have knocked them both unconscious. Briefly seeing stars dancing behind her eyelids, she felt him release the hold on her hair to clutch his bleeding nose. Backing away from him, she dealt him a swift kick to the hard surface of his abdomen, feeling power surge through her when he doubled over in pain.
Shoving him into the curtain behind them, Buffy jumped off the stage into the crowd of students and vampires. Running to get to the main entrance, she stopped to help out her peers and used her makeshift stake to dust a few vampires on her way. When she reached the doors, she already knew they’d be locked and began kicking with all her strength. With her third kick, the doors gave out, bursting open.
"Get out!" she yelled to her classmates. They didn’t need to be told twice and she was caught in the stampede of students trying to make it out alive.
"So you saved them," Xander interrupted her. "Did I miss the part with the fire?"
Buffy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "I wasn’t finished!"
"There’s more?" Willow asked in disbelief.
Buffy pushed her way through the students back into the gym, knowing she couldn’t run until the vampires were taken care of. She looked up to where she’d left Spike, but the curtain had been torn down and he was nowhere in sight.
Hearing a shout of pain, Buffy redirected her gaze onto one of her fellow cheerleaders, Vicky. A vampire had her from behind, his teeth closing in on her throat. Buffy sprinted to help, but was circled by three of Spike’s minions. Wanting to help her friend, she quickly began trading blows and kicks finding that her anger made her a better fighter. It wasn’t just a job anymore. They’d made it personal when they’d attacked her school and her friends.
Within a matter of minutes, the three distractions were dust, but she wasn’t quick enough. She stood frozen as she watched the lifeless body of her friend drop to the floor. The vampire, relishing in the kill, barely had time to lick his lips before he exploded into a cloud of dust.
Blinded by rage, Buffy spotted Spike’s anorexic girlfriend standing off to the side dancing by herself. She gripped the stake tight in her hand, not caring that it would be the easiest kill of her life. He had brought these monsters onto her territory, and she was going to show him he couldn’t attack her without paying a price. In one moment her innocence had been taken from her, and he was going to have something taken from him.
The vampiress sensed the slayer approaching her and turned to face her with a manic grin spread on her pretty face. "Sunshine wants to play..." she hissed.
Buffy noticed the discarded red curtain on the floor near their feet, and hoped Spike was around to watch the demise of his girlfriend. She felt a cold liquid splash onto her open toes as she approached the vampire, barely noticing the trail of liquid that had spilled onto the floor.
To her credit, she fought well for a weakened vampire, using her nails to slice through Buffy’s tender skin and averting the punches Buffy was throwing her way. It was a kind of grace that only came from centuries of fighting.
Dodging the vampire's attempt to slice Buffy’s throat, Buffy caught her in a strong grip from behind, aiming the stake over her heart. Just as she’d wanted, Spike was standing on the other side of the gym, just in time to watch her die.
"Dru!" he cried out, tossing the cigarette he’d been smoking onto the floor in an attempt to save his mate. The lit butt of his cigarette fell onto the spilt alcohol, igniting a flame that spread the length of the gym, trapping Buffy and Dru and preventing Spike from reaching them.
Without a second’s hesitation, Buffy thrust the stake into Dru’s chest never breaking eye contact with her blonde assailant. She coughed as smoke and dust invaded her lungs, dropping to the ground when she couldn’t breathe anymore.
"So when I woke up I was outside the school on a stretcher. The principal had called my parents and blamed the whole thing on me," Buffy explained. "Instead of rewarding me for saving most of my class, he accused me of having the cigarettes and alcohol and carelessly starting a fire that killed some students. They didn’t have enough evidence to press charges, but they said I was a ‘danger to the school’ and expelled me."
"Wow," Xander took the liberty to vocalize what he and Willow were both thinking.
"What a meanie!" Willow exclaimed, feeling sorry for her new friend. "Just think of what could have happened if you hadn’t been there."
Buffy shrugged her shoulders. "It wasn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but it certainly wasn’t the worst," she told them. "If I hadn’t moved to wonderful Sunnydale, I never would have met you guys."
Willow and Xander both smiled and nodded their agreement. Giles, who had remained silent throughout the tale, was now sitting at the table across from Willow and Xander his head buried in multiple books.
"You say his name was Spike?" Giles asked.
"Yep."
Giles pointed to a page in one of his books. "Is this the vampire you killed?"
Buffy took a second to look down, nodding her head. "That’s her in the skanky, undead flesh," Buffy declared with a glare. "Well actually now she’s just dead."
"She’s called Drusilla. A sometime paramour of Spike’s," Giles told her. "Buffy, this is phenomenal! You’ve encountered two master vampires and not only lived to tell the tale, but slayed one."
"This Spike guy sounds dangerous," Willow said, a frightened look in her eye.
"Yes, very dangerous indeed," Giles agreed. "He’s killed two slayers in his time. Spike, or William the Bloody as he’s better known as, doesn’t usually come across a slayer and let her live." He looked at Buffy questioningly. "And you haven’t seen him since?"
"Nope," she replied off-handedly. She looked up at the clock on the wall and then down at Willow, sending her a knowing look. "We better get going."
Willow’s brow furrowed in confusion, trying to read the look Buffy was giving her. "Yeah, go do that...thing."
She turned to Xander and Giles after picking up her school books. "Will’s helping me study for our bio test tomorrow."
"And you can’t study in the library?" Xander asked sarcastically.
"Yeah, like we’d really get anything done with Giles asking me a million questions!" Giles made a motion to protest, but the girls were already on their way out the door.
"What was that about?" Willow asked when they were outside the school.
"Well, I wasn’t completely done with the story, but I couldn’t tell the last part with Giles and Xander listening," Buffy told her as they walked through the streets to her house. It was late afternoon and her mother would still be at work, giving her privacy to share with Willow.
They arrived at her house quickly, both anxious to be in the safety her bedroom. Once Buffy was sure the door was securely locked and her mother wasn’t in the house, she sat down on the bed next to her friend.
"Remember how I told Giles that I never saw Spike again after that night?" Willow nodded, still having no idea what was so secretive that her friend couldn’t tell the others. "That was only partially true. After I got home that night I got into a fight with my parents about starting the fire. I couldn’t stand listening to them fight over me after I’d been sent to my room so I decided to do some patrolling." She sighed heavily. "It was stupid, I know. Spike being all homicidal especially after I killed his girlfriend, but maybe I wanted him to find me."
Buffy shivered despite the warm California breeze. She hated it when her parents fought, especially when it was over her. It had started out with quiet disagreements, but now they had full blown screaming matches while she cried herself to sleep in her room.
A tear rolled down her cheek as she thought of them. She wasn’t stupid, she could see what was happening in front of her. They’d be another statistic of marriage ending in divorce, and she’d be shuffled back and forth on weekends and holidays. But at least the fighting would stop. She hoped.
Brushing a hand over her face to wipe away the evidence from her tears, she took a deep breath and continued walking through the deserted park. She needed to concentrate on patrolling if she wanted to return home alive.
She didn’t feel him until she heard his voice.
"Real brave of you to come out here tonight," he slurred.
She turned around in time to see him stumble towards her. "Are you drunk?" she asked in disbelief. He looked the same, his eyes glassier, but the vibes radiating off of him made him seem like a totally different person.
"Not drunk, luv. Pissed.."
"You expect me to feel bad because you’re mad I staked your girlfriend?" she asked, misinterpreting the meaning of his words.
"This isn’t about her!" he yelled taking a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his duster pocket. He gestured back and forth between them. "This is about us."
"Us?"
"Yeah, you ‘n me," he said as if that would explain everything. "It’s not often I fight a slayer and she lives."
Buffy crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively. "You’re really in no condition to fight right now," she warned, inwardly groaning at her stupidity. Why did she feel the need to help him when he could so easily be dusted at that moment?
"Worried about me, pet?" he asked now standing so close she could almost taste the alcohol on his breath.
"No," she breathed back, unable to form a coherent thought with him in such close proximity.
His hands reached out to grab her hips, pulling her towards him for a passionate kiss. Her brain was telling her to resist, pull away and run as fast as she could to the safety of her house, but her body wasn’t listening. Her body was feeling more alive than it had in all her sixteen years of living.
The kiss seemed to last forever. Her arms slowly worked their way up to wrap around his neck, pulling him even closer to her. His tongue darted out of his mouth, caressing her lower lip until she opened for him. He tasted like alcohol and cigarettes. No one had ever kissed her this way, with such an intensity it scared her. He was a virtual stranger and a cold blooded killer, yet she couldn’t bring herself to move from his embrace.
She pulled back when she thought she’d pass out from the lack of oxygen. He rested his forehead against hers, taking shallow, unnecessary breathes and staring at her with a desire in his eyes. "What are we doing?" she asked quietly, more to herself than him.
He shook his head in response. "I don’t know, but it feels bloody fantastic."
Without further hesitation, she brought her lips up to meet his again. His hands gripped her ass, roughly yanking her against his body. She gasped as his hard bulge dug into her stomach, but didn’t move away from him as he held onto her even tighter.
Suddenly they were moving backwards. Losing their footing, they landed on the freshly cut grass beneath them. Spike looked down at her, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face. She stared back up at him and she could almost convince herself that he was looking at and touching her tenderly.
As he started kissing her again, Buffy reached between them, tentatively cupping his erection through his jeans. She’d never been this close to sex before, not even with Tyler, and this was foreign territory for her. Spike let out a low moan into her mouth, his response telling her she was doing it right, and unconsciously rubbed himself into her warm hand.
His lips traveled south, trailing kisses down her body. Her jaw, neck, shoulder, collar, and finally the tops of her breasts that he could reach above her tank top. Soft little mewls and moans escaped her lips as he slid a hand underneath the cotton of her top and lace of her bra to cup her small breast in his cool hand. Using his other hand to push down the straps of her top and bra, her shirt bunched, exposing her flat stomach and naked breasts to his hungry gaze.
He nibbled and licked until he could feel her nipple pebble under his ministrations. Turning to it's twin, he gave it the same attention as she arched up into his mouth. Resuming his journey down her body, he licked down her stomach until he reached the button of her jeans.
"Has anyone ever had the pleasure?"
She hesitated before shaking her head and looking away in shame.
"Good." He hated the thought of anyone else touching her in this way.
He undid her pants quickly as she reached for the button of his own jeans. Why she felt so at ease with giving her virginity to a soulless monster, she’d never know. Maybe he had some sort of magic thrall over her, but she doubted he was capable of that in his drunken state.
Soon both their pants were discarded onto the ground next to them and Buffy was tugging his shirt over his head. The sight of his exposed torso was beautiful and she had to restrain herself from telling him so.
Knowing she probably didn’t have the most experience sexually, he rubbed her folds to get her wetter than she already was before inserting one long digit inside. He caressed her smooth walls, watching the pleasure displayed on her gorgeous face. Pumping his finger in and out, he inserted a second when she began rocking her hips, fucking his finger. He tried to stretch her inner walls as much as he could before he needed to be inside her.
His thumb found its way to her clit, rubbing frantically, wanting her to come from just his hands. Pinching the little pearl, he felt her tremble beneath him as she came, her juices coating his fingers. Pulling them out of her depths, he smiled as he lifted one to his mouth and sucked it dry before repeating the action.
He bent down to kiss her before aligning himself at her entrance. "This is gonna hurt."
She nodded, hoping he would go easy on her petite body, and wanting this too much to stop now.
Easing into her, he closed his eyes trying not to come at the feel of her tight quim surrounding him. Her breathes were shallow and labored, anticipating the pain that inevitably came before the pleasure. She brought her head up to his, capturing his lips as he slid all the way into her. Her sob was muffled by his lips and he kept kissing her willing the pain away.
"Sorry, baby. I promise it won’t hurt anymore." As repulsed as he was by his desire to sooth the teenaged slayer, he couldn’t bring himself to fuck her mercilessly as he had to so many others-many younger than her. Instead, he kept still until she was ready.
Taking a deep breath, she kissed him again pushing her hips up to meet his, letting him know she was okay. He started out with slow, shallow thrusts allowing both of them to get used to the feeling. "Slayer," he moaned.
"No!" she exclaimed. He looked down at her, hoping she wasn’t asking him to stop because he didn’t think that was possible. She brought a hand that had been resting on his forearm up to caress his cheek, looking into his wonderfully blue eyes. "Call me Buffy."
He nodded in agreement, but didn’t use her given name until he was screaming it as he rode out his orgasm. His name was a whisper on her lips seconds later.
Willow had blushed throughout the entire story. She couldn’t even think of anything she could say that wouldn’t make her friend feel uncomfortable or judged.
Buffy let out a long sigh of relief. "You have no idea how good it feels to finally share that with someone!"
"And you never saw him again after that?" Willow asked, regretting her question when she saw the dejected look in her eye.
Buffy shook her head sadly. "I was probably just another conquest for him to tell his vamp buddies about. I’ll probably never see him again."
Willow didn’t want to tell her how much she hoped none of them would ever see him again. Instead she shrugged her shoulders, "You never know."