A/N: Just two parts left!
Part XV
The crash to the floor made every cell in his body ache.
“I brought you a present, my sweet,” Drusilla cooed, brushing herself off. “Nasty doggy chased me home.”
Angelus arched a cool brow. “That Dalton?” he asked, his eyes following the cloud of dust that fell to the ground around Giles’s head.
“He wanted to be my prince.”
“Looks like he died a martyr. I swear, Dru, we lose more lackeys protecting your hide than we do fighting the fucking White Hats. Though honestly, I guess we should’ve guessed Dalton would be the one to get staked in the back.” The vampire grinned at that and stalked toward the sealed window, inhaling sharply. “Don’t tell me—it was—”
“The boy. The one I wanted.” Drusilla’s shoulders slumped and she dug her heel harder into the side of Giles’s head. He let out a pitiful, purely reactionary moan which seemed to please her, though the effect was fleeting. “He wanted to come to the circus, Daddy. He wanted to dance with the lions, but I would not let him.”
“Xander.” Angelus shook his head and stepped back, seemingly dismissing Giles entirely. “He really followed you?”
“He chased me down in a chariot.”
“Dru, we’ve been over this before. They’re called cars.”
“Don’t you like your present?” She fixed her heel over Giles’s throat and giggled. “He’s a bad, nasty dolly. He can’t join us for supper.”
“Ah, yes.” A slow, predatory smile crept over Angelus’s face as his eyes trailed downward to the librarian. “You did good, baby. This is exactly what I wanted.”
She squealed in delight and hopped over to her sire like a child eager for a treat. He kissed her savagely and squeezed her breast before returning his attention to the Watcher that littered his floor. “Ahhh, Rupert,” he said softly, a mocking note of fondness tagging his voice. “You can’t imagine how long I’ve wanted to see you bleeding on my rug.”
Giles rolled onto his back, gasping for breath.
The ceiling seemed so far away.
“The doggie’s gone back now,” Drusilla chimed melodically. “Back to fetch his master.” She huffed then. “She’ll spoil the milk for our party.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“My William is with her. He’s so very cross with you.”
Angelus’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I have a word or two I’d like to say to him at the moment. If little Buff and her trained lapdog decide to show up, well, it’ll be a real party then. In the meantime…” He glanced back to Giles and grinned. “Well, we need to figure out how to wake up the guest of honor.”
Giles looked up then—really looked up, and his eyes went wide with realization.
“Oh God,” he mumbled.
“No,” Angelus said softly, shaking his head. “God can’t help you here.”
That was the last thing he heard before the world faded to black.
*~*~*
She liked to maintain that she possessed a quiet dignity. While she flaunted and taunted and teased like any other self-respecting vampire, she similarly understood the necessity of subtlety. She hated that Angelus would know that she’d bled recently almost as much as she hated that she’d, well, bled recently. It was degrading, and the circumstances of her humiliation didn’t help matters any. She was crawling into the mansion, fresh from selling her lot to the enemy, and little Buffy had practically beaten her to a pulp.
Darla wasn’t especially surprised at her apathy, even if she had expected to feel more. The decision to betray Angelus had been an easy one. The human world had many flaws, and while she enjoyed watching her food wiggle, she had sense enough to know that she didn’t have what it took to withstand Hell. The actual Hell—that was a realm of darkness beyond her.
Should Angelus stop to think rationally rather than vengefully, he’d come to the same conclusion. And even if he never forgave her for siding with the enemy—she still couldn’t wrap her mind around that one herself—he’d at least come to appreciate the pride she’d sacrificed to offset his unbelievable bout of stupidity.
“You’re bleeding.”
Darla whirled around in surprise. Angelus shadowed the doorway. She hadn’t even sensed his approach, hadn’t bothered to close her chamber door. She had just peeled away her ripped blouse, and stood nude in the middle of the room, bare and vulnerable to his assessment.
“Your observational skills are astute as ever, my love,” she retorted after a delayed second, gathering her bearings. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
Her brows arched appraisingly. “Don’t tell me you suddenly care.”
A short, humorless chuckle rumbled through his throat, and he shook his head, taking a step forward. “Now, now. No need to get all pissy just because you got your ass handed to you by the Slayer.” He sniffed the air suspiciously. “Not Spike, though. He was there but he didn’t touch you.”
“He didn’t need to,” she grumbled, limping over to her vanity. The three-paneled mirror reflected only empty space, and yet, four hundred years had done little to quell her all-too-human habit of glancing upward to catch her likeness. The surprise to see nothing had long ago waned, but the habit itself showed no signs of following suit. At least not in this lifetime. “Mousy Little Buff took care of it herself.”
“Yeah. Here’s the thing, though.” Angelus lifted her silk robe off the end of her bed and held it out for her. “I don’t see why you were there in the first place. I thought we had an understanding.”
Darla rolled her eyes. “Well, God, Angelus, what did you expect from me? Dru’s so cock-up determined to impress you that she didn’t want grandmummy stealing her thunder when she went to snatch the old man. You’re heading off the Slayer. What the hell was I supposed to do? Sit here and knit?”
“So you decided to head out on your own?”
“Yes. I made a decision for myself. It’s this crazy thing I do from time to time.”
“I’m still not sure how your exercise in independence led to thwarting my killing of the Slayer.”
“It’s not like I have advanced knowledge of where she is and isn’t going to be. This is a small town, and unlike our resident psychic, I know basically as much as anyone else.” Darla sighed and flipped her hair. “I said something she didn’t like, and our newly mated friend just couldn’t contain herself.”
She was only moderately surprised when her reference to Buffy and Spike’s claiming ritual earned little more than a fleeting irritated look from Angelus. The past few days, he’d been screaming about a lot while he wasn’t planning the apocalypse, and chances were, his wayward grandchilde’s presumptions had made the top of the list. Not that she listened—unless directly addressed, Darla had adapted the habit of tuning him out. His constant bitching and exaggerated ego-trips had done little more than relegate him to a place of respect just slightly higher than Drusilla, and she did as much ignoring of people that irritated her as possible.
“So she beat you to a pulp,” he drawled instead.
“No, I’m just extremely partial to limping.”
“You let the Slayer beat you to a pulp.”
She tossed him a dirty look. “Seeing as she was likely channeling both Spike’s rage and his strength at the moment, I don’t think it’s particularly fair to say she beat me as much as she had an inequitable advantage.”
“What you’re telling me is you gave the pavement a fairly good mop-job with your ass.”
A growl tore through her throat. “Would you stop?”
“Why?”
“It’s humiliating.”
“Yeah, but you have to look at it this way.”
“What way?”
“It’s incredibly entertaining for me.” He reached out to finger the material of her robe, flashing her a predatory grin before fisting the lapels and baring her body to his hungry eyes. “Plus, I like seeing you bloody.”
“You like seeing me bloody because you know I hate it,” Darla retorted, shivering as he captured one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. Despite her current uncertain status in the world of all things Angelus, he’d always had the uncanny ability to turn her into an annoying puddle of feminine goo whenever he touched her. Her reaction to Angelus had always been a source of frustration just as much as it was a source of pleasure. It just seemed wrong for someone as strong-willed as she was.
His icy lips grazed her throat. “I like seeing you bloody because it makes you smell delicious.”
“We don’t have time for this—”
“The apocalypse isn’t on a timetable, Darla.”
“Well, obviously.”
He lapped at a cut on her collarbone. “So I think we have all the time we like.”
“Angelus—”
The next thing she knew, she was against the wall, her legs hiked up around Angelus’s waist as he tugged at the fly to his trousers. She released a long gasp and dug her nails into his upper arms as the head of his cock slid against her folds before he grinned and thrust inside her.
“Gah!” She scowled and slapped his chest. “I wasn’t ready, you jackass.”
“Hasn’t stopped you before,” he snarled. “Me, either, for that matter.”
“Jackass.”
“Well, hold on tight, darlin’.” He withdrew sharply then slammed into her again. “’Cause I ain’t slowing down.”
Darla’s eyes fluttered shut and she arched against the wall, stretching her arms around his neck. “Apocalypse?”
“All the time in the world.”
*~*~*
“Buffy—Buffy!”
“I’m not slowing down, Spike. You’re just going to have to keep up.”
“Pet—”
“They have Giles. What part of that don’t you understand?”
“The part where you barge in like a maniac an’ get yourself killed.” Spike seized her wrist and jerked her to a fierce standstill. “Sweetheart, I know you’re brassed off, but you can’t jus’ go in there an’ start swingin’.”
“You want to watch me?”
“Buffy—”
“He has Giles.”
“Yeah, an’ I’m sure your bein’ dead is gonna go a long way in turnin’ that around.”
“That’s where you come in.”
“Believe it or not, luv, I don’ have superpowers.”
“And here I thought you did, thus the basis for the appeal of the whole vampire thing.”
Spike rolled his eyes, curling a hand around her upper arm. “Oh for Chrissake, pet, you know—will you bloody well slow down? I meant not more than the usual for my kind. An’ even so, I’m willin’ to bet that we’ll be outnumbered.”
Buffy’s anger melted just as quickly into frustration, stopping short when he tugged her to his side and shaking her head. “You’re just…I let him take Giles. I let him get the best of me and take Giles.”
He frowned. “Bollocks.”
“I let him—”
“You din’t let him do anythin’, sweetling. He wanted to get to Rupert, an’ so he did. There’s nothin’ you could’ve done about that. If it wasn’ this thing, he would’ve found another way.” Spike’s eyes softened and he brushed a kiss against her brow, and just like that, she felt a wave of calm wash through her. He had a way of making everything seem all right, no matter how bleak the world looked. “Angelus knows you’re anxious about meetin’ up with him an’ havin’ this bloody mess over with. That’s why he used himself as bait.”
“Which is why I fell for it.”
“We all fell for it, luv. It wasn’ just you.” Spike tugged her closer to him and kissed her temple. “Your lot did everythin’ they could. They relocated to a safe hold—”
“For all the good that did.”
“You did all you could. Honestly, Slayer, you’ve got to stop blamin’ yourself for every li’l thing. Like it or not, you’re not omniscient, you’re not all-powerful, an’ things are eventually gonna happen that you can’t help, much less predict.”
She exhaled and glanced down, her eyes falling to the sword in her hand. “And Darla?” she asked softly. “Can we be sure that Darla was telling us the truth?”
“No.”
Buffy frowned and slapped his shoulder. “Hey!”
“Ow!”
“Not much with the comfort, Mr. Man.”
Spike rolled his eyes and took her hand, tugging her back into the hasty stride toward the mansion. “I don’ think she was lyin’,” he explained quickly. “But what you asked me was if we could be sure, an’ of that we definitely can’t. Darla’s an evil bitch, but she’s not hankerin’ for the end of the world. An’ when he’s thinkin’ with a less crazy head, Angelus doesn’ want it, either.”
“So that means she’s willing to betray him?”
He shrugged. “She’s an odd bird to predict. She’s devoted to Angelus, but she doesn’ like answerin’ to anyone. She has an alliance to herself above all others. An’ since she came to you, I’m guessin’ that’s a fair indicator that she’s bein’ honest.”
“How do you figure?”
“Even if it was a ruse, Darla hates appearin’ weak. That an’ it’s too bloody, what’s the word…”
Buffy’s brows perked. “Lame?”
“Yeh. It’s one of those things that’s too lame to fall for, an’ Angelus would be more inventive than that.”
“Or maybe we’re just hoping that he’d think we’d think he’s more inventive than that.”
“That’s the million dollar question, then.”
She sighed again and fought off a grin, linking her arm through his. “You shouldn’t say things like that,” she said. “You sound silly.”
“I shouldn’t use American colloquialisms?”
Her nose wrinkled adorably. “Huh?”
Spike grinned. “Nothin’.”
There was simple quiet for several minutes. While her frustration with herself had subsided, she could do little to help her pounding heart or the sense of dread itching at her stomach. She had no idea what to expect—no idea if she could even count on seeing Giles alive again. She knew he’d die before he betrayed the secret to awakening Acathla, and that thought terrified her. Angelus had more patience than others, granted, but that didn’t mean he’d endure the silence of a defiant old man for endless hours before his temper flared and he hurled a lance through the Watcher’s chest.
Not to mention, once she knew whether or not saving Giles was a viable option, she still had a world to save and a vampire to destroy.
And then there was Drusilla. Buffy hazarded a glance at Spike. She knew how he felt about his sire, and despite the jealousy burning in her chest, she understood. Furthermore, her mate told her a couple of days ago that he didn’t want Drusilla to be dust, though he hadn’t said he’d stop her from rendering her as such. No, he’d let her dust Dru, but things might never be the same between them.
But if Dru insisted on becoming an obstacle to saving Giles, Buffy wasn’t going to sacrifice her surrogate father over her love for Spike.
A shuddering sigh hissed through her teeth when she saw the mansion. It stood against the black night like a castle in old horror films.
This was it, then.
Now or never.
She started to move forward, only to be tugged back into Spike’s arms, his mouth suddenly on hers, his arms cradling her to his body. He kissed her desperately, urgently, and it suddenly occurred to her that this might be the last time she knew the simple bliss of his embrace. She could die. He could die. The world could end.
Though that was a moot point. If he died, her would world end, anyway.
Though there was something in his kiss; the way his lips moved over hers only fueled her determination.
“I love you,” he whispered raggedly, kissing her again. “I love you. I don’ tell you enough.”
“You tell me all the time.”
“Could never be enough.” He trembled against her and pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat. “Jus’…no matter what, baby. No matter what. I love you.”
There wasn’t one nerve in her body that didn’t hum with delight. “I love you, too.”
“So whaddya say we stop this apocalypse, save the old man, then I take you home an’ shag you until you can’t walk?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Sounds brilliant.”
“That settles it, then.” He kissed her again before releasing his hold, patting her hand encouragingly. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can do the other.”
Buffy grinned and nodded.
No matter what, it seemed, Spike could inspire her with hope. She just hoped it wasn’t false.
Still, false hope was better than no hope at all.
*~*~*
He didn’t like thinking about what he was about to do, but really, Darla had left him no choice.
There were many things about her that he would miss. The way she laughed when she was torturing children. The way she rolled her eyes whenever Drusilla opened her mouth. The way she stroked him at night when she thought he was asleep. The century without him, it seemed, had made her more affectionate. Not to his face, of course, but when the mansion rested and she was curled at his side, he’d feel her cold hands mapping out the contours of his body. He knew her touch so well. So incredibly well, and he’d miss it.
He’d miss this, though, most of all. The way she clawed at his back as he fucked her. The way she sliced her fangs into his chest and feasted, her vaginal muscles squeezing the life back into his cock as she cooed her pleasure. The way she encouraged his own fangs to her already bloody and broken body, and the way she cried out when he gave her want she wanted.
He hadn’t wanted to believe Dru when the vision hit. God, how he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Angelus had seen much betrayal over the past couple hundred years; had orchestrated a coup once or a thousand times, but never against his maker. Never against the one he seemed destined to share eternity with. And honestly, he didn’t know what she was thinking. What could she possibly be thinking?
No, he hadn’t wanted to believe Drusilla or the stars that whispered such secrets to her, but Darla stunk of the Slayer and the sword was missing. The sword was missing.
Darla had betrayed him.
He’d managed to get one last fuck out of her, though. Angelus would miss her, but at least his last moments with her were good ones. There was no yelling. No screaming. No accusations. He just fucked her, memorizing every squeeze of her pussy, every gasp that tore through her lips, every time she laughed and bit at him. He’d miss this. He’d miss this a lot.
It didn’t stop him, though, from rolling her beneath him. And when he pulled out the stake he’d stashed under their pillow, he offered little more than a somber, albeit knowing grin and a shrug.
“Et tu, darling?” he growled. Then he pierced her heart, and it was done.
He hadn’t expected the astonishment on her face, and found it surprisingly moving.
“Angel?” Darla gasped.
And then she was gone. She dissolved beneath him, and he collapsed to the mattress, covered in her dust.
There would be no traitors on the streets of Rome tonight.
TBC
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