Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (for language, violence, and sexual situation)
Timeline: Season Two (Post Passion, although in a verse where Darla did not die in Season One’s Angel)
Summary: A brokenhearted vampire discovers that the truly important things in life often come from surprising places, and even more surprising people. Suddenly, Spike finds himself in a crisis of faith—the better angels of his conscience battling the restraint of his demon, all for the love of a girl he shouldn’t want. A girl he’s drawn to, even beyond his own reckoning.
Distribution: Mandi, Yani, Luba, and the ladies at B/S Diaries...it’s all yours. Everyone else, just drop me a line. You can have it as long as I know where it’s going.

Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant enemy. They are being used for entertainment purposes out of love and admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.

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The fact that he’d known she’d been playing him for a fool the entire time didn’t make the proof smart any less. He supposed it was no small thing to her—after all, all she had to do was smile and coo and murmur that she was his princess, and he’d melt in her hand. He was terribly predictable like that. A toy she enjoyed manipulating. After all, time had proven that there was little he wouldn’t do for her, and little else she couldn’t persuade him into.

Her illness hadn’t changed anything. Despite his outrage at the mob and the hell he’d brought down on their houses, a small, treacherous part of him had rejoiced. The Judas Iscariot to his own redemption; he simply couldn’t help himself. Perhaps with her illness, she’d change. Perhaps with her illness, she’d be more the woman that he’d needed her to be since the beginning. She’d see how much he did for her. How much he sacrificed. How much he gave her without asking for anything in return.

Perhaps he’d been able to fool himself for a while—not anymore. Not even when she batted her eyes at him and cooed about what a success the ritual had been. The second she was well, she and her bloody grandmum had gotten to scheming over his wanker of a grandsire, and various ways to get him defanged.

Their reunion with Darla had been one of the worst things to happen to Spike in the past thirty years. The bint had ditched them nearly a century prior after it was bloody obvious that Angelus wasn’t coming back. That the soul she so scorned was anchored, and he was now what she loathed beyond loathing.

A human. A human trapped in a vamp’s body. Not that Angel had made too much of a name for himself. Saving puppies, occasionally feeding off crime victims that were going to kick it anyway, and most recently, taking to gutters and exterminating New York’s rat population. Or so it was rumored. The Scourge of Europe reduced to a common pest control. Only not now. Now he was at the bloody Slayer’s beck and call. He was the goody-good guy. Bloody hell, the guy should don blue tights and a cape for all the fun he’d ruined since they barreled into town.

Darla had filled them in on everything that had happened since Angel and Buffy became the talk-about-town. Then she and Dru had become best buds, the past of hurt and hatred evidently lost on his sire, and forgotten by the blonde bombshell who, once upon a time, had suggested staking the loony vampire when she was particularly bored. They were thick as thieves with one common goal: kill the Slayer, torture Angel for leaving the fold, then dust the problematic wanker and have that be the end of that. Not necessarily in that order, even. Killing the Slayer had taken a backseat to making the honorary patriarch of the family pay for his numerous sins.

Now even their plans for making Angel pay had been placed on hold. All because Dru had been struck with one of her infamous visions.

Angel’s soul evidently had a clause. A clause they had yet to uncover, but it had given the Aurelius ladies hope that their man could come back to them. That they could find a mystic with enough power to tear the sodding thing from the wanker’s chest.

And now that Dru was fully healed, there was little stopping them. Neither she nor Darla had any use for Spike anymore. Not since he’d nearly allowed the Slayer to kill his great-grandsire during Dru’s ritual by nearly getting them all flattened under a huge organ. So he was in the doghouse, and the girls were planning Angelus’s welcome home party.

He had no doubt that they could get it accomplished. Dru’s visions weren’t monumental without cause—he couldn’t think of a single premonition that had failed to come true. If the stars were predicting Angelus’s return, then he’d be wise to trust them.

There simply wouldn’t be anything left for him when the grand wanker was back. Nothing left at all. The Slayer remained untouchable, and even with Angelus on the team, Spike had his doubts about getting under her sweet-smelling skin. He knew that grandmum and Dru were counting on her emotional collapse with the loss of her honey; he didn’t think it would be that easy. Oh no. Buffy Summers was one irritating chit who had moon eyes for the wrong bloke, but that didn’t make her any worse at what she did.

She was the best slayer he’d ever seen, and Angelus, while an asset when it came to muscle, had very little to do with the girl’s integrity.

He had the feeling that if she lost the boyfriend to the dark side, it would wound her but ultimately do no more than strengthen her resolve. It’d piss her off something mighty; of that, he was certain. And something told him that the attitude they’d glimpsed at through kicks and punches would explode in a fit of rage the likes of which none of them had ever seen before.

A pissed off slayer was nothing to toy with. He knew that much from experience.

The girls, though, didn’t care much. They just wanted their man back. Their burly hunka forehead with his diabolical plans of world domination, or better yet, world annihilation. Angelus and his stupid delusions of grandeur. There would be no end to his strutting. No end to his appetite or his ego.

He’d also be mightily brassed, Spike wagered, at having spent the past century encased in some righteous pansy’s bleeding soul. Of course, there’d be big talk followed by a load of shadow-work as he taunted the Slayer with the same mind games that had driven Drusilla insane, and eventually he’d get around to the ‘killing her’ part of the plan. In the meantime, to satisfy his demonhood, he’d assert himself as the dominant male in the Order by fucking Darla blind, then fucking Dru blind, then fucking them together. He’d put on a show with enough decadence to shame Caligula, and he’d smile at Spike’s dismay.

But he couldn’t protest Angelus’s return. No. That’d be worse than a priest suggesting Christ might not have died a virgin. Angelus was the deity around here. The girls were his bishops, his legacy written in blood, and the endnote of his tale vaguely promising his eventual return.

Sodding. Wanker.

Spike couldn’t complain, though. Couldn’t complain.

He was, after all, the youngest member of the Order.

He couldn’t complain if Daddy was coming home.

Truth, at times, was easy to overlook in the face of its overwhelming simplicity.

Seemed that summoning a warlock was a fruitless activity. All it took to get the ugly beast out in the open was a young girl’s cherry.

And Angelus, being the superb wanker he was, couldn’t help but brag about every single second of his tryst with the unfortunate Slayer. He laughed and jested, recited the girl’s words of love and affection, commented roughly on how inadequate she was, and even staged a reenactment with the all too willing Darla. Had Spike not loathed the girl, he might have been moved to something resembling pity.

But, times being what they were...

There was nothing left to him beyond the simple abhorring of everything Angelus did and said. Every superior glance he cast his way, every smirk, every taunt, every everything that was played out if only to demonstrate how blasted superior he was. How Drusilla only whimpered for him when he was inside her. How she begged him for fangs and laughed as she bounced on his cock, delighted to have her Daddy back. Delighted to have a saving grace from the boring old curmudgeon she’d been saddled with for the past century. Once upon a time, Spike had respected Angelus; his days as a young vampire were filled with nothing but pure idolatry for his grandsire. Even after he established his ground with Drusilla, even after Angelus threw his misplaced love in his face by fucking the daylights out of her, if only to establish his territory, Spike’s favor for the old man hadn’t vanished. No, the eighteen years prior to that wonderful gypsy curse had been occupied by bending over backwards whenever it was demanded of him. He turned the other cheek, agreed wholly with the git’s judgment—passed, of course, that one wretched incident curbing his name-change from William to Spike. The prat had never forgotten that; never forgotten the audacity a young fledgling had in questioning the discernment of his elders.

A hundred years without him, and there was no room left for reverence. He couldn’t even sum up a smile for the irrefutable fact that four against one were better odds. Angelus’s boasting aside, Spike’s earlier assessment of the Slayer’s mental state, while perhaps altered by the events surrounding the change, remained overall unmoved. The girl had stones where no slayer before her had even tried.

In the years since the curse, Spike had tasted the lives of two slayers. He’d bathed in blood, showered Dru with gifts, tried to emulate the Big Bad that she so desperately wanted him to be. He’d offered her his heart on more than one occasion and attempted to claim her twice, only to be rejected for her devotion to Angelus. The legend that wasn’t so legendry anymore, and would never be hers even if he was. Angelus, for all his boasting, belonged solely to Darla. He’d fuck whomever he liked, of course, but his loyalty remained with his sire. He simply couldn’t get enough of her. Something about the old bat had him tamed, as far as he’d allow it.

Dru wasn’t bothered by the competition. She actually enjoyed it. She liked being the one who sucked Daddy’s dick while he indulged in grandmum’s pussy. She liked the comfortable relationship she shared with Angelus, sans affection, more than she ever had appreciated the gifts that Spike showered upon her. The love he proclaimed for her; the wealth of things he was willing to do to prove it.

A hundred years of knowing that, and Spike hated Angelus.

Now the bastard was back, and it was the girl’s fault. That rotten slayer and her inability to keep her mitts to herself. To resist Angel’s so-called dark temptation and save her virginity for someone worthy of the prize.

Not that Spike cared much for the Slayer’s pussy, but anyone was more worthy than the self-proclaimed head of the Aurelius clan.

Anyone in the whole bloody world.

He wished so bloody badly that Darla would get it through her thick skull that Angelus was a talking head whose ego rivaled hers, but in his case, he had no reason to assume leadership in their particular Order. It was simply for his sire’s needless infatuation with him that he got to be so fucking self-important. That he got to play the part of the enormous sod he was.

Spike absolutely abhorred this feeling. This sensation of uselessness. Dru wouldn’t let him touch her. She’d gotten what she wanted from him, after all. She was healthy as an undead horse, and he was reminded of her good fortune every day with the orgasmic screams that rang through the factory as she and her sire fucked each other senseless.

It would only be a little while, he told himself. Only a little while. Once Angelus felt like himself again and had thoroughly eradicated the past sexless century. Eventually, he’d get back filling in his self-righteous shoes, and wanting the Slayer’s head on a pike for having drenched his body in all that love that he found so disgusting.

Spike forced himself to think it was okay. Forced himself to remember that once Daddy was done with her, Dru would be all his.

Forced himself to understand that this was simply the way things were. He had no right to object.

He had no right at all.

Spike kicked at a charred plank of wood, glancing upward as his family surveyed the damage.

There was simply no way to ignore the tangible distance between them. Angelus, Darla, and Dru on one side of the burnt factory, and he on the other.

“What a waste,” his grandsire grumbled, kicking at the debris.

Spike huffed and looked away, his jaw ticking. Yeah. Bloody waste. Stupid ignorant sod. There were certain areas that the younger vampire knew his elder owned genuine bragging rights, but none of them landed near the feet of slayers, unless he wanted word to spread that the girl’s cherry had been popped by his soulful self. That, Spike figured, was something the bloke would keep under wraps. After all, he couldn’t say he’d taken little Buff by force. No, it had been purely consensual. And knowing what a spineless git Angelus’s less interesting half was,soulful and loving as he attempted to hold off tears.

Bleeding tragic, that was. Vampires tripping over themselves for the want of slayers.

“She ruined my tea-party, Daddy,” Dru moaned, placing a dramatic hand against her chest. “The bread spoils. No one will sit down for cake.”

“I gotta tell you, Angelus,” Darla said appraisingly, her brows perking. “When you pick ‘em, you pick ‘em.”

Spike smirked but said nothing.

Granted, in this gang, moving a hair never went without scrutiny.

“Something funny, boy?” his grandsire demanded.

“You, but there’s nothin’ new there, yeh?” He chuckled outright and shook his head, ignoring the malice that flashed across Angelus’s face. “What? I bleedin’ told you You don’ play soddin’ mind games with slayers. I don’ give a fuck how well you think you know this one. She’s a voracious spitfire, an’ you’ve been outta commission for too long. Have bloody forgotten how’ta play the game.”

“Somehow, I don’t think mocking your elders is in your best interest.”

His hands flew up. “You asked, mate.”

“You know, William, at times your arrogance knows no bounds.”

His eyes bulged. “My arrogance? My bloody arrogance? Right. You’re one talk, yeh? You snap the neck of her teacher, play a joke on the watcher, an’ think the girl’s gonna take this all with a smile an’ a nod? Or did you actually believe this would break her?” He shook his head. “But I see your point. After all, you have bedded the girl. That’s all you need to go on, right? Doesn’ matter that you haven’ been watchin’ her for months, learnin’ her tactical moves, learnin’ how she digests pain...memorizin’ her every bloody feature. As long as you know how her quim tastes, you have all you need to tear her apart.”

“And yet, despite your—and I say this loosely—accomplishments, you haven’t killed her. I hardly think utter failure makes you deserving of bragging rights.”

“Like it does you, then? I told you this would happen. You punch the girl, an’ she punches back. An’ you din’t kill her last night. She came in, a bloody emotional wreck, an’ you couldn’t handle it.” A taut smirk spread across Spike’s lips. “What’s wrong, Peaches? Have you gone soft?”

“You’re taunting me?” Angelus’s brows perked. “You’re taunting me?”

“Shhh. He’s very cross with you,” Dru whispered into Miss Edith’s hair, swaying slightly with the doll clutched close to her chest. “My Spike speaks out of turn. There will be no cake for naughty boys.”

“Imagine my surprise, luv,” he replied snidely, his eyes never leaving his grandsire’s face. “Jus’ sayin’, we’re homeless because your Daddy got a li’l over ambitious, an’ the girl rightfully pounded his sorry arse into the ground, then set our place on fire.” His eyes flickered to Darla, who was glaring at him with contempt, though for the first time since he beat his way through his coffin, there was a flicker of admiration buried deep beneath the surface. Surprising, but he wouldn’t question it. There wasn’t much to say in rebuttal of a convincing argument, especially when it was drenched in truth.

“It’s nice to see you gaining this sense of confidence,” Angelus said lowly, taking a step forward. “Really, good for you. And I like the way you overlook the fact that killing two slayers hasn’t made you any more of a vampire than you were before. Always trying to fit into the big kid’s shoes. Never really works out for you, does it?”

“An’ yet, here we are. You’re the one that bollixed this one over. You’re the one that got us thrown out on the street.” Spike released a long, mocking chuckle. “You once got on my case for likin’ the attention. Well, well, look at us now. Think there’s a difference between angry mobs an’ a pissed off slayer? What is it, Angelus? This one different ‘cause you’ve bedded the poor girl? You gonna make a bloody exception to your own rules for...what? Make her pay for bein’ dumb enough to fall for your ugly arse in the firs’ place?”

“He’s right,” Darla spat before Angelus could pounce, and Spike would’ve done anything for a camera at that moment; the look on the bastard’s face was beyond priceless. His precious blonde goddess had turned against him. “She came here looking to die for that sorry excuse of a watcher of hers, and you let her get away.”

Angelus’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Maybe you didn’t notice the big flames.”

“I noticed them, right before the Watcher beat the hell out of you.”

“Yeah, and where were you on that? Hmmm?”

“He’s human, Angelus, or don’t you remember? I was under the impression you could handle a middle-aged human who lacked not only super strength, but a history of actively pursuing demons.”

“You’re actually taking his side in this? This is really what’s happening now?”

Darla snickered. “You know I hate it as much as the next person. Spike might be a joke of our kind, but that doesn’t make his rare and wondrous point any less valid. The Slayer was right here and you fumbled it. What the hell is the matter with you?”

“Rules change when circumstances change. Buffy isn’t just any slayer.”

“Yeh. She’s the one you’ve shagged. Oh wait.” He tossed his elder a nasty smirk. “I think I jus’ figured out why li’l Buff isn’t jus’ any slayer.”

“Big talk for someone I could dust whenever I feel like it.”

“Yeh? What’s stoppin’ you?” Spike spread his arms, and for a moment—a flicker of time outside himself—he thought he’d arrived at the definitive answer to the longstanding question: how many licks could the wanker’s ego take before he completely imploded. Goading Angelus, while funny, was the surest way to find one’s heard torn off. Bollocks to the rest, the elder’s sense of self-importance had never been able to stand any such challenge. “‘m right here, mate, an’ it’s not like you need a bloody reason, right?” You’ve jus’ been waitin’ for it.”

A long whimper tore through Drusilla. She began scratching at her skin with her long, manicured nails, and pulling at her hair, her eyes wide and troubled. “Nuuuuhh. My Spike. So lost. Wandering through the dark. No one there. No one. All alone in the cold. Wants his sunshine, he does. Seeking the light.”

“Well,” Angelus drawled spitefully. “Isn’t that sweet?”

Spike, for his part, was thoroughly perplexed. “What the bugger are you yammerin’ about, Dru?”

“It itches.” She scratched at her arms with no satisfaction. “The light. So bright. It eats you up inside. My Spike yearns for the sun.”

“So let him have it,” Darla sneered, waving at him dismissively. He wasn’t surprised. Her short-lived support had accomplished exactly what she’d aimed at: the great wanker was guessing. Wondering. She’d planted a seed of doubt, and what’s more, she had questioned her boy’s abilities to live up to his promise. To kill the girl and have it over with. “The fight isn’t here. That Slayer is rewriting history as we speak. Much longer, and even Angelus’s reputation will be beyond salvage. Angel did enough harm. Now the demon himself, soul-free as can be, can’t lay a finger on a little girl?”

“I’d think you’d appreciate the art of the hunt,” Angelus retorted dryly. “Even now.”

“I appreciate dead slayers.”

“Don’ we all,” Spike muttered, plucking a cigarette between his lips.

“And nothing will be accomplished by nagging each other,” Darla spat, sending him a particularly nasty glare. “You made good points, William, but please, you need to learn how to respect your elders.”

Ah, here it came. One of his favorite lectures.

“Should’ve guessed any support of yours would have the life span of a fruitfly.”

“Yes,” Darla agreed with a nod. “You should have. The thing is, despite how miserably we fumbled last night, we do have a frazzled slayer on our hands. She is emotionally unstable. Her Watcher attempted what would have ultimately been a suicide mission. I say we continue on him. Badgering him until he cracks, and we, consequentially, crack him.”

“An’ you’re no longer bothered that the very same Watcher was here las’ night an’ beat the hell outta Angelus, who din’t even blemish his old-man skin?”

“No,” the blonde retorted sharply. “I’ve moved on. You should, too.”

Typical. Fucking typical.

The gorge between them remained. The invisible line. No matter what he did, no matter how much bloody sense he made, it would always be like this. Three against one. He was there to keep Dru satisfied, but only just. He wasn’t allowed anything else.

He never would be allowed anything else. After all, it had been like this for over a century. Even while Darla was off with the Master and Angelus was stuffed up the arse with soul, Drusilla took too much pleasure in reminding him that she was only his on loan.

Always like this. Always.

Only now it was worse. Now even the facade of authority had been ripped away from him.

Only now he had to face the world a little deader than he’d been before.

All because of her. The fucking Slayer.

“Fucking Slayer!”

Spike watched with only minimal satisfaction as the headstone cracked and smashed in chunks on the ground. James Lee Harvey. Bloody unfortunate name to begin with. No one would miss that one. Not that the cemeteries were frequented with folks chatting up their dead relatives, or doing much else but burying the dead or killing vamps and other oogly-booglies. People died and were forgotten with relative ease. No thoughts for the deceased were to cross the boundaries of hallowed ground. Not in this bloody town.

Even the oblivious citizenry knew Sunnydale was a bit off. No one cared much for midnight strolls through local graveyards. No one who cared to live, anyway.

It would end tonight, he told himself. The next time he saw the Slayer, he’d up her move to one of these lonely plots. He’d see her neck snapped, her blood drained, and her body spat upon. He’d rip her limb from bloody limb, then come back after the mourners were gone and dance naked on her grave.

Her fault. Her fuckin’ fault. The lot of it is.

There was simply no denying it. She was the reason Angelus was back. She was the reason Dru wouldn’t let him come near her. She was the reason his life was buggered, and he wasn’t going to bloody well take it anymore. Bleeding chit couldn’t keep her knickers up and now the sod was on an ego-trip to end all ego-trips.

This wasn’t about bagging his third slayer. Not anymore. This was about justice—reclaiming what was his through any means available to him. Dru and her sodding sunlight. Bouncing merrily away on Angelus’s cock, her body marred with gashes and claw marks. But the kicker, the real kicker, was the branded A on her pussy.

“See, my sweet?” she’d giggled, cupping herself as her hips swayed to music only she could hear. “This belongs to Daddy.”

Good. He didn’t want her tainted pussy, anyway. She stunk of Angelus.

He was through being the family’s bitch. It was over. It all ended tonight.

He’d kill the Slayer. Bathe in her rich blood, and ditch town. He’d do what Angelus never could. Not without demons hoisting him on their shoulders. Not without his women draped under each arm. Not without the legions of adoring fans that jumped at the chance to walk in his shadow.

Yeah, he’d do what Angelus never could.

He’d survive.

Alone.

Part II

She felt like a gutted pumpkin, watching as her insides rotted while trying to ignore the pangs of vacancy that rattled her hollow body. There was so much of her that felt frozen. She walked through the hallways at school, her conscious separated from the rest of her. The sound of teenage chatter drowned into an annoying hum. Girls were gossiping about boys they liked, guys were bragging about chicks they’d banged over the weekend. Thoughts of prom and graduation hung over the school like a blanket of ignorance. The world that lived among the dead.

Every time she passed Ms. Calendar’s classroom, cold would consume her whole.

I did that, she thought miserably. I allowed that to happen.

Logically, Buffy knew nothing was black and white. She knew that she hadn’t forced Angel to snap the woman’s neck, no more than she’d forced Jenny Calendar to be in the school building after hours. None of the circumstances surrounding her death could actually be placed at the Slayer’s feet. She knew that.

But Giles didn’t know that. He might say he did, even believe he did, but his eyes told a different story. A sadness so ingrained that it had nearly manifested into a separate entity that now wore his face and bore his name. Similarly, Willow acted as though she had lost her best friend. She took no joy in constructing lesson plans for the class she had taken over, nor did she seem to care how the material was presented as long as the students learned something.

And Xander...if anyone blamed her, completely blamed her, it was Xander.

It was all undeserved, Buffy knew. Ms. Calendar’s death couldn’t have been predicted, even if they knew on some unspoken level that Angel wouldn’t be content simply to murder fish and send her messages through those he sired. No, Angel wanted her to bleed. He needed to make sure she felt the physical punch of all the bruises his ego had sustained while harbored to a soul. She knew from Giles’s research that Angel reveled in the psychological mind games, perhaps more so than he did in the actual kill. She knew it. She had known it. And yet, she did nothing but rock herself back and forth and whisper to her own tormented soul that this couldn’t possibly be her life.

Imagining the kind, gentle man as a brutal killer, even if she knew they were separate entities entirely, left her thoroughly gutted. How foolish she had been. How utterly naive she’d been to think that a relationship with Angel could work, especially with the intensity of the passion between them.

The passion, however, had always niggled at her as tainted. She hadn’t known it to say so, of course. After all, Angel was the first major love in her life that wasn’t platonic. Angel was the first love in her life that had gone beyond the casual glances and the flirtatious smiles. Angel was the first love in her life that had expanded to that realm of adulthood. Therefore, the tainted passion she’d always sensed was ignored and translated instead as something normal for a girl exploring her first relationship. She remembered feeling it the night she gave him her virginity. Feeling the hurt in the bottom of her stomach that she had mistaken for nerves. The erratic pounding of her heart that she had attributed to the near-death experience she owned up to Drusilla, that blonde bitch, and Spike.

Buffy had spent nights tormenting herself about her decisions following her and Angel’s escape. Had they not been confronted with death, would she have consented to sex? Probably. Eventually. Her relationship with Angel had been physical from the get-go, and as enamored as she’d been with his anguished soul and puppy eyes, sex was simply the next step. She’d loved him; there was no greater gift that she could give the man she loved than herself.

Just as there was no way to know that this would happen. No way at all.

Only a part of her had known. A part of her had sensed something terrible would happen. She’d simply ignored it, not wanting to allow fear to ruin the only perfect love she’d ever know. And in allowing herself to forgo precaution, she’d gotten Jenny Calendar killed.

After those horrible things she’d said. Those terrible things she’d said.

Look, I know you feel bad about what happened and I just wanted to say...good. Keep it up.

If nothing else, she’d never forgive herself for that. For harboring a grudge against Ms. Calendar in those last, agonizing days. For placing Giles in the position to choose sides—to respect his loyalty to the Slayer, or find solace with his heart’s desire. Buffy’s blind prejudice against the teacher had kept Giles from having a few precious weeks left with the woman. Hell, perhaps her blind prejudice also shared a part in Ms. Calendar’s death. She’d never know.

Now in her place, all she had were words.

Words, words, words.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t kill him for you...for her...when I had the chance.

As though the world could still rotate on the pledge of sorry, no matter how heartfelt.

I wasn’t ready.

She wasn’t ready, and Angel knew that. He’d known that from the first night, when she’d pleaded with him to remember who he was. To seek out that small part of him still drenched in soul. God, she was so guileless. So duped. From the beginning, her girlish fantasies had steered common sense. Angel had no trouble remembering who he was. Who he really was.

Angel was the creature that hunted her now. The vampire that tortured her friends to get to her. Angel was the thing that had waited for liberation beneath the mask. The thing that had clawed its way through a soul, and sought freedom through a lover’s embrace of mocked sensuality.

That night would be forever marred in her eyes. There was nothing but pain now. Nothing but the shadow of the girl that had believed in miracles.

She went through life as though looking through someone else’s eyes. Only days had passed since Ms. Calendar was found in Giles’s bed, and it already felt as though she had aged years in wisdom if not emotional growth. Letting go of Angel was no longer a task—it was something she looked forward to. He’d ruined her life; he’d helped her ruin the lives of others.

But letting go of him, however emancipating, didn’t make the pain go away. It was all encompassing; the weight of her sins. The scope of her crimes—the things she’d done against those she loved for the sake of a man who didn’t deserve her. No tortured soul was worth this.

Should have seen it. God, I should have seen it.

But she hadn’t. And here she was.

There was nowhere to go. The factory was gone, but the vampires in it had survived. She didn’t need to see them to know it—proof surfaced around every corner she turned. The body count was still on the steady increase. Residual Angel-tinglies followed her everywhere she went. She was almost certain that he or his henchmen were keeping watch on her house at night. The window she used to keep slightly ajar in case Angel wanted to visit was now securely latched. Another security measure atop revoking his invitation to her home.

Angel had already been in her bedroom one too many times.

Nighttime now. Patrol. Searching for the hidden. Buffy expelled a deep breath and kicked at a rock, frowning as her eyes landed on a headstone that had evidently been dismantled overnight. The name James Lee Harvey scrawled across three large, sledges of stone.

Unfortunate name, she thought cynically. Not worth smashing the thing over, but okay.

She could understand the need for destruction, though. Things would be so much simpler if she found the same pleasure in beating on punching bags. She didn’t. She couldn’t even fool herself into mentally pasting Angel’s face on the heads of her opponents. She wanted his blood, and he knew it. So he stayed away and sent others after her. He was waiting her out. Hoping her hatred for him wavered for the want of the good ole days so she would be just as love struck and clueless the next time he wanted to murder one of her friends.

The next time...

There would be no next time. She’d screwed up, yeah, but there would be no next time.

The next time, Angel would be dust. A memory. And yeah, she might shed a few tears and mourn the loss of the man he could never fully be, but she wouldn’t let it defeat her. She would not be broken.

There was nothing left to lose.

Strange how fast lives could change. Buffy sniffed and wiped at her eyes, irritated to find herself crying. Tears were for wimps. She couldn’t face Angel if she was a wimp. If she was remembering things the way they used to be, before he started jonesing for human blood and planning the general ruin of her life.

At the end of the day, there is no running from the truth, she thought, turning the corner to leave the graveyard. Nothing tonight. Another night of nothing. Three this week. Three in a row, but she’d keep going. The night she didn’t show would be the night that he did.

She didn’t want to go by Jenny Calendar’s grave. Buffy didn’t want the reminder of what she had done. Of her foul, bloody crime.

And the tears kept coming. She kept walking, and they kept coming. By the time she stopped, she was in the park. The park where she’d seen Angel talking to Dru forever ago. God, if she’d only known.

If I’d only paid attention.

She hadn’t seen anything beyond her jealousy that night. What foolish sentiment.

Yet the crack in her spirit seemed to get wider rather than smaller. She couldn’t quite convince herself of her own resolutions. Whatever she was fighting for had left a hole in her chest.

My fault. My fault. All of this is my fault.

And then she couldn’t handle it. Sniffling in tears that demanded freedom. Warring the screaming teenager inside her that didn’t deserve the hell she’d put herself through. The woman she’d watched Giles bury as he wiped at his eyes and attempted valiantly to look brave when he was devastated.

Her friends were broken pieces of the people they once were, and it was all her fault.

Buffy couldn’t hold it in anymore. She found her way to the swing set and sat, curling her hand around the chain as the ground beneath her swayed. The world was a collage of torn photographs. The Hellmouth had never been this for her, not even when the Master sampled her throat.

She ached. Not just a feeling—feelings she could handle.

Sobs broke through her, spilling into the embrace of night.

Never had she known pain like this.

There wasn’t enough alcohol on God’s green earth to drown out the harsh light of reality. And bugger it, he’d tried. Every shot he downed seemed to have the reverse effect. He couldn’t get drunk—getting drunk for vamps was a commitment of the body and mind. He had to immerse himself in liquor and convince his consciousness to let the world sleep for just a little while.

The world, however, refused to sleep. He found no clemency from the void eating away at his insides, and therefore left without putting too much of an effort into all out inebriation. There was nowhere to go, of course. Not the factory, not even the mansion that Angelus had discovered. A pretty little place with an open-ceiling in the garden, naturally leading to delicious daydreams of shoving the grand sod into an open stream of sunshine.

It never lasted, though. His thoughts, more and more frequently, came back to the Slayer. That bloody brutal bitch that had ruined everything.

The past few nights had garnered empty results. She wasn’t where she was supposed to be, that Slayer. He’d prowl the cemeteries a few hours after she’d gone on her nightly patrol, visit the Bronze with the hope of finding her chatting with her friends so that her humiliation would be complete upon death. He wanted to strip her of her power; he wanted to make a public mockery of everything she was and leave little room for doubt that the little girl was nothing that the legend depicted. That bloody awful fable in her honor that instilled fear in demons worldwide because some little mousy blonde had bested the Master.

Bloody Master. From what Spike had heard, the bloke hadn’t even tasted her properly. A quick bite, as though fangs were made with venom, and he left her to drown in a puddle beneath the ground. No sodding wonder the girl had survived, with or without the wonder lungs of her best male chum.

The Slayer deserved none of the credit for axing the Master. For leaving her alive, the old sod had it coming.

Didn’t stop Darla from whining, though. Not much did.

Christ, he deserved so much more than this. So much more than the half-existence he’d been living. If Dru wouldn’t love him, he’d find a woman who would. A bloody century was enough time spent playing slave to her mastership.

His mind flashed to her branded pussy, her fingers massaging her folds as she detailed how Angelus had made his mark. How deeply his she was.

Spike snarled at the night, his arm lashing out at a tether ball in the park. The park. The bloody park? How had he ended up here? Didn’t matter, he supposed. One wrong turn in Sunnydale could render a man lost entirely.

Then a scent hit his nostrils, and his demon roared to life.

Slayer.

It didn’t take long to spot her. She was seated at a swing set, her back to him, one hand curled around the chord that fastened the seat to the upper beam. From the way her head was bowed, he suspected she was either crying or praying, and since he didn’t know the girl to be overly pious, the first was the better guess.

The demon snapped. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. With a low, predatory growl, he stalked forward, eyes slanted and primed on his target. He watched as she stiffened with awareness, her tight little body drawing up as a long sigh slid past her lips. Resignation. Yeah, she’d want him to pity her. Wouldn’t bloody happen. He was a slayer-slayer, and she’d fucked with him one too many times to continue the dance.

I’d rather be fightin’ you anyway.

Mutual.

Stupid chit. If she’d only kept her knickers up...

“Go away, Spike,” she said tiredly, not turning around, not trying to mask the tears stifling her voice. “I’m in no mood.”

That was it. A roar that would make the devil cower tore through his throat, and he bounded forward in a hazed blur. His hands clamped around her shoulders, ripping her away from the swing with a bark of triumph. Yes, yes, this was what he’d needed. He needed the little bitch to bleed.

Buffy made a half-hearted attempt to get up that didn’t take. He fisted a handful of her hair and sent her face first into the bar of the swing set.

“In no bloody mood?” he snarled, backhanding her with a growl. “You fucking conceited bitch! You don’ care about whose lives you destroy, do you? Your Watcher? You friends? Your mum? Hell, even a vamp you could give less than two pisses about. They’re all the same. Li’l Miss Buff got her rocks off. Doesn’ matter how many people she has to go through to do it.”

Her eyes shone upon him with surprise and sadness. But there was no fight. There was no fight in her at all. Ordinarily, this would have bothered him. He liked his slayers with a little fight in them—he wanted them a full participant of the dance.

Buffy was different. Buffy had ruined him. Spike wasn’t going soft on her because of his own rules when it came to killing slayers. She’d broken the rules already.

She was the reason for everything.

“You bloody miserable...” He kicked at her harshly, his foot finding the soft underside of her stomach as she attempted to crawl to her feet. “‘S your fault. It’s all your fault.”

The Slayer gasped and collapsed once more, her head colliding into the legs of the swing set. He seized her by the back of the neck and slammed her face first into the steel bar again. And again. And again. Stubborn bint wouldn’t pass out, but then, he didn’t want her unconscious. He wanted her awake and with him for every delicious second of her long overdue demise.

“But you don’ care about that, do you?” he demanded, circling her with a furious sneer. He seized her by the shoulders once more and dragged her up the length of his body until she was at eye level. His insides rocked with the flood of emotion that clashed when their gazes met, but he shrugged it off just as easily, throwing her to the ground the next second with a triumphant huff. “You got what you were askin’ for. You got Angelus to stick his dick in you. Was it worth it, pet?” She was on all fours now, trying to climb to her feet again. Bloody chit didn’t learn. He twirled her around and backhanded her another time, the scent of her blood becoming a bit too much for his eager fangs.

Still, the demon wasn’t done. The demon wanted so much more.

“I hope it was worth it,” he snarled. “I’ve seen that wanker deflower too many young girlies. They scream an’ he laughs an’ makes it hurt a li’l more. Was it like that for you? Was it what you thought it’d be? Was it what you dreamed fuckin’ a vampire would be like? Did he make it hurt?”

“Spike,” the Slayer gasped, reaching again for the bar of the swing set. The way she said his name nearly lent him pause. It wasn’t a plea for mercy. It wasn’t even a spiteful growl. It was just his name. Just Spike.

It didn’t take. Whatever game she was playing at, it didn’t take.

The fact that she wanted to dally with him only made it worse. Spike roared and fell on top of her, straddling her waist and twisting her so that she was facing him. And then it all went loose. What little he’d held back burst through the last of the floodgates, and the monster snarled in victory. He drew an arm back, smacking her hard across the face, watching gleefully as her head rocked with impact. Her skin was spoiled with bruises, her flesh was split open and bleeding.

He felt a pang of something, but brushed it aside.

“‘S because of you,” he spat, between punches. “You ruined my life. You stupid, callous bitch! You’re the reason she’s gone. You’re the one who took her from me!”

He caught the whiff of her tears but didn’t stop. So what if she cried? He’d cried enough for the both of them for everything she’d done.

“You—”

Then her lips parted, and the world came tumbling down.

“I’m sorry.”

Spike’s fists halted in midair, his chest heaving for oxygen that he didn’t need. Strange how two words could unmake the fabric of the universe. She wasn’t pleading. He knew what pleading sounded like, and she wasn’t pleading. Nor was she saying something for the sake of calming him. There was resignation in her voice—as though she knew this was the end, and she needed to cleanse herself of her crimes.

There was nothing to her words but truth.

“What?” he rasped, incredulous.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, tears leaking down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.”

Then there was nothing else but the heavy weight of her sobs, and Spike was at a loss. His outrage deflated, the red that had clouded his gaze blinking out of existence. It was as though he’d been living in a dream for weeks, and now the fog was gone and he saw with perfect clarity. The girl crying in his arms was an innocent. A true innocent.

Somewhere in the midst of outrage, he’d forgotten that she’d lost just as much as he had.

Spike had absolutely no idea what to do with himself. The thrill of her blood had lost its appeal. He watched as she trembled beneath him, rocking with hard, raucous sobs that commanded her entire being to sustain life. There was something there—a chord that the man inside had tried to bury, and with such simplicity, she had dug it up and exploited it without being any the wiser.

Bugger it.

Before he knew what he was doing, he gathered her in his arms and settled on the soft earth, rocking her gently as she cried.

Whether or not she was truly with him, he didn’t know. She didn’t fight him. Didn’t even seem to register the change of scenery—the fine line between violence and comfort. It was for the better, in truth. He was too lost to consider the larger implications of what he was doing. That, innocent or not, she was still the Slayer and he was still a vampire. There should be no solace between enemies.

“Shhh, love,” he murmured softly, stroking her bloodied hair. “‘S all right. Jus’ let it out.”

From tormentor to pacifier. His life was such a bloody joke.

How long they remained like that, he didn’t know. It seemed that centuries passed before her tears stifled and she remembered who she was. What’s more, who she was with. He knew it for the way her calming breaths grew heavier. How her heart began pounding all over again, how the rush of her blood intensified in potency. She pulled back after a few minutes and met his eyes, her own raw and swollen from crying. Her face was so open, so vulnerable, and for a second, he forgot he didn’t need to breathe.

“I...ummm...” Buffy glanced down, just as puzzled as he was by the hands that held her. “Sorry,” she said awkwardly, pulling herself from his arms. If he wasn’t confused before, the pang of loss that stung his heart as she moved away from him hit the final nail in his proverbial coffin.

Had he truly comforted the Slayer? The thorn in his side? The bane of his existence?

God, he really had.

“I’m okay now,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I...thanks. You wanted to fight? I can fight.”

The lack of conviction in her voice notwithstanding, Spike found himself at an unbeatable loss. The drive for her blood had vanished. Temporary side-effect of having a soft, female body in his arms after so long; it had to be. There were no other explanations. But he didn’t want to kill her tonight. He didn’t want her blood on his hands after this—after this bizarre, but somehow precious thing they’d shared.

Not tonight. They could forget they were enemies tonight.

“Nah,” he retorted, waving a dismissive hand. “I got the full of it outta my system.”

Her defensive stance faltered. “Oh. Okay.”

The awkwardness between them was magnanimous.

“Bugger it.” Spike sighed and cast a hand through his blond locks, flashing her a sheepish glance. “You’re a bloody vamp beacon, Slayer. Lemme walk you home, then we’ll forget this happened, yeh?”

Her eyes didn’t trust him. Wise eyes, those. “You...I thought you came here to kill me.”

“Not t’night. We’ll call it off t’night.”

“And pick up tomorrow?”

God-willing.

“Yeh.” He nodded, half-believing it, wholly hoping he could after this. His life was already too confusing to add in an emotion less than hatred for the Slayer. “Lemme walk you home.”

“‘Cause I’m a vamp beacon?”

“Yeh.”

“And you care...?”

“Because if a vamp’s gonna soddin’ off you, it’s gonna be me, dammit.”

She drew in a deep breath and winced. “I...I can’t go home like this,” she said, gesturing to her bloodied, swollen face. “My mom...she doesn’t know about the slaying. And I don’t think that this is the way I want her to find out.”

Sod all.

He knew what he should have said. He should have shrugged, told her it was her loss, and went on about his business. Why he didn’t was anyone’s guess. There was just something about her standing there that struck him in a way he’d never been struck before. The girl who had ruined his life in a moment of ignorance, bleeding and bruised because that’s the way he’d wanted her. And now she was an outcast from her own home because of his violent hands.

I don’ care, he told himself.

Trouble was, though, he did. As long as he wasn’t killing her tonight, he could give in and care about what happened to her as well.

But just tonight.

“Right,” he said, stepping forward and gently closing a hand around her arm, startled when she didn’t pull away. The girl was seriously off her game tonight. Any decent slayer would have planted a stake in his heart for what he’d done. Not this girl, and it wasn’t because he’d stopped just a hair away from killing her. There was something else. Something he didn’t want to see; something that drew him in all the same. “Come on, then.”

“Come on where?”

“We’ll find a place.”

“What?”

“Your redheaded friend? Can you stay with her?”

“On a school night? Shyeah.”

Plus her parents likely had eyes and knew how to use a phone. He’d rendered the girl homeless.

The Watcher was also out of the question. Spike would be dust the minute the old man set his eyes on the girl. Granted, the bloke was human and therefore fallible, but he’d had a front row seat to the beating of Angelus. If prompted, the Slayer’s Watcher could be downright frightening.

Sod it. This was his mess; he’d clean it up.

“Yeh. Okay.” He tugged on her arm, and she neared him tentatively. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m gonna find you a place to clean up an’ rest.”

“Why?”

Bloody good question.

“‘Cause I am. Shut up.”

He barked it with more ferocity than he felt. The emotions tackling him were too confusing to deal with right now. He didn’t need to go a round of twenty questions with the girl whose blood stained his knuckles.

There were many things he didn’t need tonight. Too many.

And all of them revolved around the girl at his side. The girl that was trusting him without cause.

He had no idea what had happened. It terrified him. And the sooner the night was over, the better. This interlude from reality was too much.

He couldn’t wait for daybreak.

Spike was certain he’d never felt quite as foolish as he did pulling up to the Sunnydale Inn, the Slayer in his passenger seat. There was absolutely no accounting for where his thoughts were veering, and for the moment, he was trying to ignore the shrill of warning bells and the questions his demon was shouting at full volume. Something had rocked him hard tonight, and he wasn’t looking forward to any such self examination. With as buggered as his life was, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he’d finally gone off the deep end.

In many cases, full-blown insanity was the natural result of having lived so long. Though since he was a relatively young vampire for those that the Watchers considered ‘old,’ he’d hope that his actions tonight could eventually be attributed to a momentary loss of perspective. After all, what self-respecting demon gave a fuck if the Slayer’s mum found out about her nighttime activities? Furthermore, what self-respecting demon would have a living slayer in his car?

His life was so thoroughly fucked over.

Buffy jarred back to herself as the car came to a stop. She hadn’t been sleeping, rather staring ahead with a blank look to beat all blank looks on her face. A slayer like Buffy wouldn’t sleep in the presence of a vampire, anyway. Regardless of the apathy he’d seen on the playground, she knew she had too much to live for to welcome death without so much as a kick of protest.

“Where are we?” she asked, then stilled as she realized who she was with.

Spike smirked and rubbed his jaw. At least the girl wasn’t lulled into a false sense of security. Should his demon overpower the conscience he wasn’t supposed to have anytime soon, he wanted her randy and waiting for a brawl. “Motel,” he said.

“Why are we at a motel?”

“‘Cause I can’t take you home, an’ your friend’s parents would ask too many bloody questions.” He slid his car keys into his duster pocket and turned to her. “Wait here, yeh?”

“Okay.”

He released a deep breath and stepped out of the Desoto, casting the blonde a long look before turning toward the inn. It bothered him that she had struck such a deep nerve. The sight of her tears had done something to him. Something he couldn’t define, because he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt it before. He wanted anger. God, he wanted anger. He’d been so angry with her just a short time ago, and it was gone now. He couldn’t work up an appetite for her blood. There was something in Buffy he’d never seen. Something that made him think she was more like him than she’d want to admit; more than he wanted to consider.

She’d lost so much. Almost more than he had. Almost.

Granted, sympathizing with humans wasn’t a part of the job description. It shouldn’t matter a bloody damn how much she’d lost. Her throat was still ideally his chalice, and he was certain—nearly certain—that he would hold her life in his hands before their relationship was over. He would drain her, take her as his third, and get back to the rest of his plan.

Not tonight, however. Tonight they would be compatriots. Tomorrow they would be enemies.

The Sunnydale Inn was the host of some of the town’s shadier human dealings, something he knew simply by looking at it. He hadn’t visited many places that still utilized the “box office” method of renting rooms. There was a sliver of clear plastic between himself and the bloke manning the night shift, a typical armhole at the bottom to allow for monetary exchange. A taut smirk spread across his face as he plucked a cigarette between his lips.

Perfect.

“It’s ten bucks more for a smoking room,” the kid said, without bothering to greet him.

“Yeh?” Spike retorted.

“Do you need a single or a double?”

It would be the last thing he would ever get a chance to say. Spike plunged his fist through the armhole, seized a handful of the bloke’s shirt, and yanked him forward so that his head smacked against the plastic barrier.

The door that led into the small booth was slightly ajar, which saved him the trouble of making a big racket by busting in. The sight of the unconscious boy on the floor filled him with peace. A sense of appeasing his monster, assuring himself that the living slayer in his car didn’t affect the status of his demonhood. Fangs descended, he dove for the bloke’s fleshy throat and drank to his unbeating heart’s content.

It wasn’t a long drink. He knew he couldn’t risk taking too much time, lest the Slayer remember exactly where she was and who she was with, putting an abrupt end to this already bizarre evening. Spike wiped his mouth and sat up with a grunt, turning to examine the rooms available for the night. He made his selection, wrote something down in the kid’s records as to buy the Slayer a bit more time by eluding the town’s clueless authorities, then turned and made his way back to the car.

“We’re on the second floor,” Spike announced as he slid into the driver’s seat. Again, the Slayer had a faraway look on her face. A countenance of such vacancy, such emptiness that he felt a pang of something other than commonality simply by looking at her. As though he actually cared about the chit’s feelings, on top of not wanting her dead.

Spike shivered and shook that thought off.

Human blood really made a beeline for the brain. He almost forgot the semi-psychedelic affect it could have if one wasn’t careful.

“When we get there, you should pop into the bath an’ clean up,” he said, turning the ignition. The drive was predictably short, but he wanted to avoid her walking by the check-in booth and seeing the mess he’d made. “I’ll try to hunt down a firs’ aid kit an’ some grub.”

“Why?” she asked. The word was barely even spoken; almost as though she’d simply thought too loud, and his vampiric hearing had picked up on something illicit.

“What’s that, pet?”

“Why are you doing this?”

He sighed. Bloody good question. “I told you as much back there, yeh? No one kills you but me.”

“So why aren’t we fighting? You wanted to earlier.”

“An’ I don’ now. What? A bloke can’t change his mind?” He arched a brow, pulling into a parking space with a sigh. “You don’ seem too keen on fightin’ right now, either, if you don’ mind my sayin’. So either stop lookin’ a gift horse in the mouth, or I’ll off you now.”

Buffy licked her lips and glanced down. She didn’t say anything else.

God, the life in her was gone. Why did that bother him so much?

Perhaps the answer was simpler than all that. The Slayer had always been so full of life. So radiant. The embodiment of everything he was supposed to hate, yet admired against his better judgment. Seeing her like this—defeated—all because of his wankerish grandsire called to the primal beast within that demanded blood for stealing her sunshine. Blood against his own family; while not exactly a novel idea, it had never been for anyone’s sake outside his own. To want vengeance on the behalf of a girl he intended to kill within the next couple days was more than bizarre. It shook him to his core. It brought his other senses to life in ways he’d never imagined.

She was so terrifying. She threatened to change everything without even raising her voice.

Spike expelled a deep breath and killed the engine. “Come on. Inside we go.”

A single bed sat opposite a television, and the room was sparsely furnished with a few other offbeat selections that he figured were there simply to take up space, rather than necessity. It was a small and sleazy place, though no more than he had expected. Buffy stood in the doorway for a long minute, taking it all in.

It was impossible not to notice her rich, alluring scent when she was standing so close. She shone with warmth that complemented her beauty in ways he’d vainly attempted to ignore. Now, with nothing between them other than awkward silence, there was no way to put her out of his mind; to forget that she existed as more than the chit chosen by the almighty Powers to hunt his kind. Tonight, she wasn’t the Slayer. Tonight, she was a girl. A woman. And the man in him appreciated the woman far too much for his own good.

His cock twitched, and his senses were hit head-on with the fiercest wave of lust he’d ever experienced.

Oh holy fuck.

“There’s just one bed,” Buffy observed, her voice shaky.

“‘m not stayin’. Jus’ gonna get you set up.”

“Oh.”

He honestly couldn’t tell if that extra flavorful note in her voice carried relief or disappointment. And similarly, he honestly couldn’t tell which one he’d prefer.

“I should call my mom.”

“An’ tell her what?”

“That I’m staying at Willow’s?” She licked her lips. “Willow would cover for me. If she knew what happened, she’d cover for me.”

“As long as she doesn’ know I’m still here, right?”

“Well, you do tend to complicate things.”

Spike smiled wryly. “You do, too, luv. In more ways than you’ll ever know. Now, hop on into the bath an’ get yourself all cleaned up.”

“And you’re going to...?”

“Get you grub an’ see if I can’t find some disinfectant, or whatever you bloody pulsers use when you get into scrapes. I told you as much already.”

Buffy worried a lip between her teeth and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Okay. Ummm...I’ll just be...in there, then. Getting cleaned up.”

“After you call your mum?”

She nodded again, turning for the phone. “Right.”

The conversation was so surreal, he briefly contemplated the possibility that he’d stepped into someone else’s life. He watched as she lied to her mum; admired how calm she was, like the routine was old hat—which it likely was, in all probability. Then she stood and sighed, and disappeared into the lavatory, hidden behind a door and the sound of running water.

Immediately, his treacherous brain presented a gallery of Buffy in the nude. Buffy’s small, nubile body covered in nothing but soap suds. How her nipples must appear as simple, innocent blushes underwater. Then lower, to the thatch of curls between her legs. He knew from fighting her how much the dance played on her arousal. How wet she became simply by facing him off. That had never phased him; he was always as hard as rock when he battled her, too. It was a part of the trade.

Of course, the fact that no opponent, slayer or not, had managed to turn him on as much as little Buffy was a fact he’d been happy to ignore until tonight.

He knew how wet fighting him made her. He wondered if he could make her wet now. Now, when they weren’t enemies. For this one night suspended in time and reason. He wondered how she’d taste. For the heady, heavenly scent of her, he figured her taste to be a step away from a realm of the otherworldly experience he’d never get a chance to touch.

Spike sighed and cast a hand through his platinum locks. Fuck, he had to get out of here before he lost control and barged into the bathroom to steal a sample. The little Slayer was forbidden fruit of the richest kind. He couldn’t give into temptation. If anything, he’d brought her here to heal, not to give her more scars.

Best to turn and leave before he dwelled over that thought too long. Why in the world it should matter a bugger if he took advantage of a naked slayer, especially when he’d already done his bloody good deed of the day by not killing her in the first place. A sigh coursed through his body.

Tonight was definitely one for the record books.

“’ll be back soon,” he called, and popped out the door before he could hear her girlish voice answering him. Before his control snapped and he stormed into her sanctuary and found himself in a deeper hole than he was in already.

He was back in a half hour with a bag full of fast food and a first-aid kit. He announced his arrival through the closed door to avoid startling the girl, and entered before she could reply.

And immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Oh God.”

Buffy was standing across the room, wrapped only in a towel, a flush warming her swollen skin. Her wet hair was tussled, framing her bruised but beautiful face with a shade of innocence that he was certain she was unaware of. His cock hardened painfully, strained against the confines of his denim slacks. She was a picture of strength without even trying. He’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted her at that moment.

“Ummm.” She glanced down in embarrassment. “My clothes were all...bloody and dirty, and it kinda made no sense to get all squeaky clean and then—”

“Yeah,” Spike agreed, the word rolling out of his mouth with sensuality that he hadn’t intended. His eyes couldn’t help but rake up and down her scrumptious form. The demon within snarled with need. It’d been so long. Years since Drusilla was well enough, and now she didn’t allow anyone to touch her but her precious Daddy. And Spike, while temptation surfaced around every corner, had never allowed himself to indulge. Dru was his world, after all, and to him, fidelity was more important than satisfaction.

Rather it had been until recently. As far as he was concerned, he and Dru were finished.

“Spike, I’m not saying I don’t appreciate your bringing me here, but I’m feeling kinda—”

“Naked?”

“Uncomfortable. Is there anything—”

“Should be some cheaply bathrobes in the closet.” He mentally kicked himself the minute the words touched the air, then kicked himself for kicking himself. The night had been confusing enough as it was; add sex to the mix, and he was sure his world would thoroughly unwind.

Buffy nodded appreciatively and disappeared into the loo with a bathrobe in hand. When she emerged again, she was much more relaxed; granted, as much as she could be while dressed in a robe in her mortal enemy’s presence. “What’d you bring me?”she asked, flashing a weary smile.

Spike swallowed hard. Her more modest attire hadn’t done anything to quell his lust. “Burger. Fries. Shake.”

She nodded gratefully. “Sounds good.”

He’d done nothing to deserve that look. As though she owed him something for ceasing his attack on her. He didn’t like her like this. He wanted her snarky. He wanted that bitchy gleam in her eyes, the fight on her face, and that troublesome mouth at work. This wasn’t the Slayer he’d come to Sunnydale to kill. This was a different girl altogether.

He wanted the old Slayer back.

“Yeh,” he said, tossing the greasy bag onto the bed. “Eat up, then I’m gonna put some stuff on your bruises.”

“Why?”

He rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Slayer, you keep askin’ me that question, even though I can guarantee you, my answer’s not gonna change. What do you bloody want from me?”

“Sorry. I’m not exactly sure how to handle former-enemy vampires.”

“We’re still enemies. Jus’ not tonight.”

“Why is tonight so different?”

Bugger if I know.

“It jus’ is, all right?” He gestured to sack. “Eat up.”

Buffy held his eyes a minute longer, then glanced down and nodded, and he all but roared with outrage. He could barely believe it was the same girl. She looked the same, sounded the same, but the fight—the glorious want of the dance that he so admired—was gone. Surely she couldn’t be the same face, the same girl that had launched a thousand proverbial ships, and burnt the topless towers of Illium.

His eyes never left her face as she ate. So expressionless. So void of anything. He wanted to add color to her cheeks. He wanted the fire back in her eyes. He wanted anything but the drone in front of him.

Well, his body, at this point, would have been satisfied with anything remotely Buffy-shaped. Spike, on the other hand, wanted the Slayer that he loved to hate.

He wanted his Slayer back.

“You din’t fight me back,” he stated matter-of-factly, biting back a grin when she glanced up in shock, as though that part of their strange night was off limits. Bloody right. Like he was going to let her off that easily. “In the park, you din’t fight me back. I could’ve killed you.”

She swallowed. “But you didn’t.”

“Doesn’ matter that I din’t. I could’ve, an’ would’ve if you hadn’t blown me away. An’ you’d be a cooling corpse now if I hadn’t stopped.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Because you apologized.”

“Apologies don’t mean you take your enemies to motels, buy them food, and doctor the wounds that, oh yeah, you put there in the first place.”

Spike smirked. There she is.

“I asked firs’,” he replied.

“Huh? Are you five? What the hell does that matter?”

“Answer the question, Slayer. Your death wish get here early, or are you really that depressed that your boy’s stickin’ his dick in women other than you?”

It happened fast. One second she was sitting on the mattress, the next she was before him, her eyes flashing with ire that made his blood hot and his cock even harder than before. The bite of her punch, while painful, was worth the passion she’d exhibited in those precious seconds. She was more of herself then.

Her hot little hands on his body, while her touch was anything but sensual, only served to fuel his lust.

“You know what I forgot?” she spat. “You’re an ass, and I hate you.”

She raised her fists again, and he caught them with ease, pulling her flush against his body with a grin. “Ah, ah, ah, ah, that’s not nice, pet. Remember, I’m the bloke who decided to not kill you tonight.”

“I was stupid for ever coming here.”

“Probably, but wishful thinking’s not gonna change that. An’ you still don’ have anywhere to go.” God, she felt good pressed against him. “Now, sit down, finish eatin’, an’ we’ll play Doctor.”

Her eyes went wide. “We’ll what?”

Spike just looked at her for a moment, then grinned when the reference hit him. About a thousand nasty suggestions leapt into his throat, but for whatever reason, he didn’t fancy ruining the tentative peace between them any more than he had already. His objective was complete; he had the girl acting more like herself. And he wanted to keep her here for the night at least. Telling her that he could erase Angel’s precious face from her memory in ten minutes wouldn’t do much to uphold their Pax Romana.

“You got a dirty mind,” he said instead, grinning when she flushed. “I told you, I’m gonna put some stuff on your bruises. Should accelerate the healin’ process.”

“I’m the Slayer. Consider me accelerated.”

“Like antibiotics are gonna kill you?”

“How do I know you didn’t do something to them?”

“Like poison? Slayer, what in God’s name would be the point in takin’ you here, bookin’ a room, leavin’ you to shower, an’ buyin’ you food if all I wanted to do was kill you? Again, I’ve already declined that option t’night, despite the go ahead you gave me back there.”

Her eyes flashed indignantly. “I did not!”

“Yes, you did. By not fightin’ back, you might as well have begged me to end you.” He quirked his head. “Not that I don’ fancy freebies from time to time, but slayers’ gotta have some bloody fight in them.” A beat. “Especially you.”

The anger faded from her eyes slowly, understanding washing over in its place. As though it just occurred to her how close she’d come to death tonight. How she could have been, right now, lying dead next to the swing set. How fortunate she was to be anywhere, with anyone, talking about anything. “Why’s that?” she asked, her voice softer. “Why especially me?”

Spike smiled softly, the first genuine smile of the night, holding up the first aid kit and giving it a good shake. “Let’s doctor you up.”

“Why especially me?”

“Because you’re the best.” There were a thousand other reasons, but he didn’t want to get into listing off her positive attributes, especially when he was still bloody confused as to why he was in the room with her in the first place. He took a seat beside her, and popped the lid of the kit. “This might sting a li’l,” he said.

“This has to be the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You an’ me both.”

She quirked a brow. “Of the slayers you’ve killed in the past, you never beat the crap out of them, then patched them up?”

He chuckled. “Gotta say, it’s a firs’.”

Buffy met his eyes then, and smiled a bit. And he nearly fell off the bed.

Bugger.

The sooner he got out of here, the better.

The silence between them was brutal, making him all too aware of her alluring scent, even tainted with the hint of disinfectant. She breathed so softly, as though deliberately trying to keep quiet. As though God would hear them and storm downstairs to fix the anomaly that was occurring.

“Anywhere else hurt?” he asked, gently doctoring the nasty scar that marred her forehead.

“Umm, yeah, but I’ll take care of it.” She shifted uncomfortably and put some much needed distance between them. “I could’ve taken care of this, too.”

“Guess I feel responsible.”

“You are responsible.”

He sighed. “Yeh, that’s probably why I feel responsible.”

Buffy grinned wryly and sat back on the bed, crossing her legs and reaching for her half-consumed milkshake. The way she was positioned, her bathrobe parted and revealed the length of her legs, bruised as they were, and held him captive as his eyes traveled up her body, resting intently on the treasure concealed by terrycloth, nestled between her thighs.

She must have caught him staring; the next thing he knew, her heart was pounding wildly and she’d yanked a pillow out from behind her, placing it over her exposed skin and ruining his fun.

The movement snapped him back to reality. Right. Slayer. Didn’t matter how sodding good she smelled, he still hated every inch of her golden flesh.

Best to get the hell out before he let his cock make any more decisions for him. Spike cleared his throat and sprang to his feet. “Right,” he said. “Well, looks like you’re all set up. I’m off.”

“Where are you going?”

To kill something. Hopefully something young, cute, an’ blonde.

“Did what I said I would. You’re here. You’re fed. I’ll kill you another day.”

Buffy licked her lips. “Are you going back to...wherever Angel is?”

Spike’s jaw tightened. “It’s not Angel, ducks. The sooner you get that through your thick skull, the better off we’ll be. Angel is the bloke who whispered frilly nothings in your ear, kissed you goodnight, an’ went to set a record for the world’s longest brood. He’s not the wanker I have to put up with. Angel isn’t a part of Angelus...now, the other way around, I gotta say—”

A shadow crossed her face. “Hey!”

“What?”

“Angel’s not a part of Angelus, yeah, I’ll bite. But there’s no way that Angelus is a part of Angel. No way.”

He smirked. “Think that if you want, pet.”

“I don’t think it. I know it.”

“An’ I’m sure he’ll appreciate it if you ever get your boy back, especially considerin’ what a load of bollocks it is.” Spike shook his head. “Sweetheart, you really think you’ve seen Angelus? Hell you think you saw Angel? I might not’ve been a part of his life for the whole of the century, but I know what I saw when I got here, an’ I sure as hell know that I’ve got the up on what he was like before he got a soul stuffed up his overly righteous arse. Angel was nothin’ but Angelus, sans the personality.”

Buffy’s face hardened and she turned away from him. “You know nothing.”

“You’re in denial, pet.”

“I am not! Angel...what...he’s nothing like the monster that—”

“Slayer, if that were true, it’d stand to reason that the second he was cursed, he’d revert back to that whorin’ Liam that Darla’s always goin’ on about. Guess what? He din’t. He became a bloody hybrid.”

“He learned from what he’d done.”

“For God’s sakes, is this really how you’re dealin’ with it?” He pointed an angry finger at the door, as though somehow he knew Angelus was at the other end, even with the miles between them. “Convincin’ yourself that the pompous egomaniac that’s currently fucking the daylights outta Dru is jus’ a shadow of the bloke that popped your cherry? You’re off your nutter. You can’t tell me that he hasn’ been a condescendin’, self-righteous, stuffy know-it-all since the minute his baby face stepped into your life. I know the man. Furthermore, I’ve seen you two together. I’ve watched the way he was with you, an’ never once did he gimme the impression that he felt you were in charge of your precious star-crossed soap opera. Either you’re in denial, Slayer, or you really had no idea who he was in the firs’ place.”

Sod. All. The chit’s eyes were filled with tears. Spike huffed and looked away. He’d never understood the fascination with making the girlies cry; it was something Angelus reveled in—seeing the evidence of pain that no punch could inflict. Seeing the utter demise of the human condition, complete with broken hearts, damaged dreams, and devastated ambitions.

What the fuck did it matter, anyway? He was gone, and the next time he saw her, their makeshift truce would be at an end. He could kill her then after he’d distanced himself from his treacherous thoughts.

“Bugger this,” he growled. “It’s been a thoroughly fucked over night, Slayer. Next time, let’s hope you have some fight in you. I want you to die squirmin’.”

He almost made it to the door, he really did. He was just seconds away from being on the other side and out of this bizarre parallel universe. A beat more, and he would have escaped with his sanity. But no, the Slayer would have none of that. It was her life’s mission, declared or not, to fuck with his head. To confuse matters even more than they were currently. To make everything worse.

“Spike? Would you...just for a while...just stay? I don’t really feel like being alone.”

He froze, staring at the door as though it was his last attempt to be a man of any measure.

Tell her to bugger off. She’s passed ‘Go’ one too many times tonight.

His shoulders dropped and a long sigh hissed through his teeth. Trouble was, there was nowhere for him to go. Back to the mansion? He didn’t particularly fancy listening to Angelus and the girls have their merry fun all night. He could go back to the bars that had failed to inebriate him tonight, but with his luck, he’d end up so bloody intoxicated that he’d pass out in a meadow or some other sun-drenched locale.

The longer he stayed here, the less he’d have to worry with the implications of his actions. Tonight, at least. Tomorrow he was sure he’d be playing many mental rounds of Kick the Spike for letting the ball slip through his fingers.

And, who knew? Maybe the demon would overcome whatever roadblock that kept the Slayer’s blood in her body and not on his hands.

More time, for that cause, couldn’t possibly hurt.

“Yeh,” he said at last, shrugging his duster off his shoulders. “I’ll stay. For a while.”

“Just a while.”

“Right.”

She smiled weakly and scooted over.

She wants me to sit with her?

The night was no longer simply bizarre. Maybe he’d finally gone off the deep end and was as wacky as Dru. It’d serve him right for all the years he’d put into mollycoddling her.

I’m certifiable.

Spike sighed and plucked a cigarette between his lips.

If Angelus could only see me now.

She had no idea how he’d done it, but he actually had her laughing so hard her sides hurt. The story had started some thirty years in the past—some cooky thing that his wacky girlfriend had done in effort to sire...Liberace? Buffy had already forgotten the bulk of the story, but her body still wracked with giggles.

There were so many things wrong with what had happened between them tonight—things she didn’t want to think about now. The knowledge that she’d be dead—had Spike not miraculously decided to not kill her—had her thoroughly shaken. He’d saved her from herself, in many ways, though she knew better than to tell him so. The thought that he’d ceased beating the crap out of her was already weighing heavily on his mind; she knew that much simply by looking at him.

Something else within her awakening. Something monumental, if not dangerous. Take the vampire out of Spike, and he was incredibly likeable. It was beyond difficult to imagine the same guy that was currently handing her his cigarette was the same guy that had held a wood plank over her head on Parent/Teacher Night. The monster and the man were thoroughly divided in the motel room. She liked the man, and that scared her.

Buffy coughed up a lungful of smoke and handed the cigarette back, shaking her head in disgust. “How can you stand that?”

“My lungs don’t work, you silly chit.”

“It tastes like...ugh!”

Spike smirked and indulged in a long puff. “I jus’ like it,” he replied, shrugging. “An’ if you’re so anti-smoke, why in the bloody world did you want—”

“Because it’s one of the things that kids do that I’ve never done. You know, try out the stuff that’s bad for you just because you know you’re not supposed to.” Her mouth tasted like an ashtray. “Oh God, I need water.”

He nodded at the bathroom. “Should be plastic cups by the sink.”

There was a long pause as she climbed to her feet. God she could feel his eyes on her with every move she made. The notion shouldn’t have been so empowering, but it was. She couldn’t help the small thrill that raced down her spine anymore than she could help the beat that her heart decided to skip.

Nor could she help the way disappointment coursed through her system with what he said next.

“Slayer, I got about a half hour before the sun rises.”

Buffy nodded her understanding. He had to leave, because if the sun rose, he’d be stuck with her all day. And that would be bad. Very bad.

“Yeah, okay.” She forced a smile and downed her cup of water. “Okay.”

“You should prob’ly rest, too.”

She nodded. “Yeah. ‘Cause the next time we see each other...”

“Fight to the death,” he agreed, shrugging as though he wished it otherwise, but had a duty first and foremost to fate, even if his voice lacked conviction. “Right.”

There was something here, though. Something that needed to be acted on before she lost her nerve. Something that had to be done, simply because. Buffy nodded again and tossed the plastic cup into the trash, trekking across the room to see him to the door.

“Right,” he said again as he stepped across the threshold. “Take care. Don’ let any baddies kill you before I get to.”

She smiled weakly. “I won’t.” A beat. “Spike?”

“Yeah?”

Now. Before you lose your nerve.

Her hands, thankfully, were braver than her brain. She grabbed him by the lapels of his duster and dragged him back to her, her mouth finding his with ease. And God, was that a mistake. She was an addict with the first taste. A full-blown Spike junkie with the simplest hint of his sinful flavor. God, his lips were so soft against hers. So soft, and they trembled slightly at her touch. He reacted instinctively to her indiscretion as though he couldn’t stop himself, even allowing a hint of his tongue to mingle with
hers.

Mmmm.

Okay. So she’d discovered where she liked the taste of cigarettes.

Buffy pulled back with a gentle smile. “Thanks for tonight,” she said. “For, you know...just thanks.”

The look on his face as she closed the door would stay with her forever.

Part IV

It was well past noon when she woke, and despite the circumstances, she felt she had never had a more restful sleep. It took a few minutes to remember where she was, a few more to determine if the night’s events had actually occurred, or existed solely as a product of her subconscious. But no, she was in the room that Spike had secured for her. The ashtray on the night stand was compact with cigarette butts that she knew she wasn’t responsible for. Furthermore, despite the vampire’s attempts to doctor her wounds, her body felt worn in that ‘post-fight’ manner. It usually took a day or so to overcome a severe beating. Granted, it had been at least three years since she’d had the crap beat out of her. Not since the days of Merrick burning down school buildings had she found herself so thoroughly bruised.

The room looked strange in the morning light. Smaller, less dreamlike.

Spike had really been with her the night before. Spike had taken her away from her life. Spike. The vampire. Her enemy. The one that was supposed to kill her, and very nearly did. He’d stopped for reasons still beyond her. For reasons that had her thoroughly shaken. Moreover, the looks he’d shot her the night before had left very little to the imagination. He obviously hadn’t brought her to the motel to take advantage of her emotional vulnerability, but he’d wanted to the minute the door was closed.

He’d wanted her. God, Spike had wanted her.

Buffy honestly didn’t know what was creepier: the fact that Spike had wanted her, the fact that she had known he wanted her, or the fact that, despite all sensibility, a part of her had very much wanted him. Wanted him the way she knew he wanted her.

The Spike-lusting portion of her psyche had grown increasingly vocal through the night’s progression. And now, in the wake of morning, the prospect didn’t frighten her as she thought it might. After everything that had happened, she felt she had seen too much to allow a tiny attraction worry her any.

Tiny attraction. And either way, what had happened the night before had served as an eye opener.

Had any vampire but Spike found her, she’d be dead by now.

Any vampire but Spike...

Buffy sighed. There was a frightening thought. Spike was the self-titled harbinger of her execution, and he had stopped last night for reasons that weren’t entirely clear to her. The only thing she knew, the only thing she truly remembered, was breaking down and sobbing for the heartache in his voice. The heartache that seemed to represent the accumulation of everything her sleeping with Angel had done to those she knew—even those she considered her mortal enemies.

Willow had lost her fish. Her mother had lost her respect. Giles had lost Ms. Calendar. Ms. Calendar had lost her life.

And Spike had lost Drusilla because Drusilla loved Angel. Buffy knew that. She’d known that since the first night she saw the crazy vampire in the park. Her eyes had betrayed too much, even at a distance. Buffy had known that night that Dru loved Angel all for the way she looked at him, which was why she, at first, mistook the loony-toon lady for a human. Humans, she’d thought, were the only beings capable of love. Well, humans and dogs. Humans and dogs, and nothing else.

If discovering Dru was a vamp hadn’t changed her mind, seeing Spike last night had certainly done the trick. The agony in his eyes had been too real, the pain in his voice had torn at her insides, and even though his outrage took a tangible ‘kick-the-living-daylights-out-of-Buffy’ form, the heartache he’d emanated had touched a very real nerve. She suspected it would be a very long time before she could forget what had passed between them.

Buffy sighed and reached for the phone. Chances were, Giles was doing a fair amount of wigging at her absence, especially since she’d never checked in the night before after patrol. Her presence of mind had been elsewhere. As long as her mom knew where she was, the rest simply didn’t seem to matter.

Giles wouldn’t agree. He’d probably phoned the authorities within a half hour of her disappearance.

Of course, he’d likely run into a problem while trying to explain why a high school librarian was so worried that a student hadn’t contacted him at one in the morning.

She was likely the only student who had the school’s phone number memorized. The automated answering service picked up on the second ring, and she wasted no time in punching in the extension to the library. If she wasn’t quick enough, the office secretary would pick up—something she’d learned from experience, and it never ended well. Snyder had intervened on more than one occasion to yell at her for not being in school.

Thankfully, Giles was quick to the punch. She imagined him sitting at the checkout counter, casting anxious glances to the library doors when he wasn’t staring at the phone.
“Buffy?”

She blinked. “Whatever happened to ‘hello’?”

There was a long, relieved sigh. “Oh, thank God.”

“Tell me you haven’t been answering every call like that all morning.”

“Well, I wouldn’t need to resort to such tactics if you had reported in last night. Dear Lord, Buffy, do you have any idea how worried I was? I was a hair away from phoning your mother.”

“Good thing you didn’t, ‘cause then she’d wanna know why an old man wants to see me in the middle of the night.”

“You really feel comfortable being so flippant with me after the hell you put me through?”

She sighed. Giles could be overprotective, but he had lost a lot because of her. The adult within knew that it had been entirely insensitive to forget about him, especially with Angelus still on the loose. Especially with Ms. Calendar’s body still cooling.

“Sorry,” she said, her voice falling penitently. “Sorry. Just last night, it was all crazy and I honestly just didn’t...it didn’t occur to me to call.”

“What in God’s name happened?”

“Spike.”

She heard something large fall over. “Spike? What happened? Are you all right? Where are you? I can be there in—”

Buffy smiled softly into the receiver. “I’m okay, actually. He...well, he beat the hell out of me, but I’m okay. I was a little distracted last night and he caught me...thinking about things that I shouldn’t have been thinking about.”

There was silence at that.

“Look, I know—”

“Buffy, you are in no way responsible for what happened to Jenny. I don’t want you focusing on that while you’re patrolling. I don’t want you focusing on that at all. It’s not—”
“Yeah, you say that and I know you mean it, but I can’t control where my thoughts go. Last night was a bad night, and Spike found me. He would’ve killed me, too...he nearly did. But then he stopped because I had a nervous breakdown and I don’t think he knew how to handle it.”

“Just tell me where you are. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Sunnydale Inn.”

Another pause. “Why are you at the Sunnydale Inn?”

“Because this is where Spike brought me.”

“Spike took you to the Sunnydale Inn?”

Buffy nodded to the empty room. “Yes.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask...he was in the middle of...” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “Killing you...and he decided to take you to the Sunnydale Inn?”

“Well, no. I told him I couldn’t go home looking like a piano had fallen on me. And I couldn’t go to Willow, and he didn’t mention you and I’m sorry I didn’t think of it. The night just got really weird, really fast.” She sighed and cast a glance to the mirror. The scars on her face were fading faster than she was used to. Antibiotic. Perhaps the vampire had been right about that, after all. She’d relied far too long simply on the healing powers of water. “He took me to the motel and doctored me up, got me food, and stayed with me all night.”

The silence on the other end was deafening.

“Giles?”

“He what?”

“I don’t know. He...I think my nervous breakdown made him go into a nervous breakdown. It was all just...it was just really weird.” Buffy glanced down. “Look, I don’t know what last night was all about. I don’t know if it changes anything. Spike told me he still wants to kill me, but I think he would have last night if that was true. He said the next time he saw me...look, my head hurts from trying to make sense of this.”

“I’m leaving to pick you up.”

She arched a brow. “And this is a good idea why? Snyder’s gonna flip his lid if you pull a disappearing act without notifying anyone.”

“I don’t give a bloody damn. I’m not leaving you out there where a very dangerous vampire, who has made a career of killing slayers, can come and go as he pleases.”

“Umm, Giles? You know that round, shiny thing in the sky that heats the Earth? Yeah, last I checked, Spike’s still allergic to it.”

“Yes, and he’s clever enough to find a way around it. It’s not uncommon for vampires to travel during the day; they simply have to be cautious. Using underground pipelines, for instance?” She heard him rustling his jacket over his shoulders. “Be watching for me.”

“Okay...but you need to take me home.”

“Why?”

“I don’t have any clothes.” She winced, envisioning all the horrible things that must have immediately started through her Watcher’s head at that. “No. Stop. Don’t say anything. My clothes are bloody and dirty. I’m in a bathrobe, and people will think things if I show up with you on school grounds while practically nude.” Buffy made a face at that. “Really disturbing, gross things.”

Giles cleared his throat. “I heartily agree with you.”

“Okay. So take me home. I need to wash the motel grime off my skin before patrol.”

“You intend to patrol after what—”

Buffy rolled her eyes. How typical. “This would be a good time to remind you that, hello, no other options? It’s not like I can tag my alternate. Kendra’s far away slaying vampires in the magical land of South America. In the meantime? The Hellmouth’s kinda my turf. Spike got the best of me last night, but he won’t again. I won’t let him again.”
The words sounded empty, and the silent voice of reason that she too often tried to smother rang out in protest. Things had changed last night; things she couldn’t have predicted. She had absolutely no idea what to expect the next time she saw Spike. He was so unpredictable—a proverbial loose cannon that could turn with the tide either way, pending on how the wind was blowing.

She groaned at herself. Mixing metaphors much? That sentence was so convoluted that even her young and snappy mind couldn’t follow her logic.

Perhaps the most disturbing factor in everything was her genuine desire to see him again. Her desire that went beyond kicking the crap out of him and staking his undead heart. Beyond seeing him as an enemy. Something had happened between them that went beyond conventional definitions.

She wanted to tell herself it didn’t matter, and believe it. The image of him as her enemy was so ingrained that it felt like her body was switching to default; a resignation of what she should feel, but didn’t. Even though he had come to kill her the night before. Even though he’d sworn the next time they met, it would be to fight to the death.

Something had happened. The demon in her mind, the demon that had turned her life upside down from the minute he’d steamrolled into town, was gone now. The demon was a front for the man she’d gotten to know. The man that had tended to the wounds that the demon had inflicted. Such destruction birthed from his hands; destruction and the power to heal all in one.

She’d never been bothered by irony before.

Either way, she knew she was right about patrol. So did Giles. And while that did little to make anything easier, the notion that she might see the man that had cared for her—in his own, perverse way—filled her with warmth.

She liked the man that Spike’s demon protected. She liked him very much.

And that in itself was perhaps the most dangerous thing of all. Spike wasn’t a man; he never could be a man. And whatever had happened between them last night didn’t matter. She couldn’t allow thoughts of one vampire to dominate her focus, especially since it felt like a cheap substitute for another.

Rather, it felt like it should be a cheap substitute for another. If she was going to be lusting after a vampire that wasn’t Angel, it should be because she couldn’t have the one she loved. However, with as much as she and the blond vampire had talked the night before, her thoughts had not once wandered to Angel. Not unless Spike brought him up in a fleeting fit of rage.

When she’d asked him to stay, they’d both left their pasts at the door. Things had changed the second that she acknowledged that she wanted him with her. Her enemy. And from that point on, they were people outside themselves.

After a certain point, there had been no room for others. Not at the Sunnydale Inn.

Angel had not touched her at all.

Both Buffy and Giles felt it was a bad idea, but once Willow learned what had happened the night before, she could not be swayed. Furthermore, she persuaded Oz to see things her way, most likely with smoochies or by monopolizing Oz’s usual apathy to her benefit. She let Buffy know, in no uncertain terms, that if the Slayer refused to let them patrol with her, they would patrol by themselves, anyway.

The tactic, as expected, worked like a charm. If her friends were going to wander around a cemetery, they’d do it where she could see their every move.

“Could you explain it to me again?” Willow asked the second they crossed the invisible barrier that separated the rest of Sunnydale from Restfield Cemetery. “Spike attacked you and then stopped?”

“Will, I’ve explained this in every way possible. I even drew you a diagram. If you want, I can tell you in French once I, you know, learn French.” Buffy shook her head, tightening a grip on her stake. She didn’t want to acknowledge how hard her heart was pounding; she knew if she did, she’d be forced to look at the cause behind her anxiousness, and that led to a very bad place. Not only had her friends asked her to describe the previous night’s events backwards, forwards, and sideways, but night had similarly arrived much too quickly.

Much, much too quickly. She found herself in the middle of an undeterminable arena. Willow was chatting way too much to count on sneaking up on any baddies tonight, and Buffy’s nerves were much too frayed to depend on should the worst actually happen.

Everything seemed on the fritz.

“I’m sorry,” Willow said, though she didn’t sound it. “I just don’t understand. I mean, when you say ‘Spike,’ you mean the same bleached bad guy whose sole purpose was to have you all kinds of dead when he came to town? You know, three months ago?”

“Unless you know any other vampires named Spike who are both British and bleached.”

“All I’m saying is—”

A dam broke within. She couldn’t help herself. If Spike was out here, the last thing she wanted him to know was that their meeting last night had affected her at all. Beyond, well, the bruises and the doctoring and the buying of food and the kissage that had really come from nowhere. No, she didn’t want him to know that she’d even pictured his face since waking; and she certainly didn’t want him keen on the fact that her heart hadn’t quite made the agreed shift back to mortal enemies.

That wasn’t all. The only thing worse than Spike knowing that she’d thought about him was the chance that Drusilla, Darla, or Angelus himself would overhear the redhead’s loud yammering. If they found out what had happened the last night, she knew that Spike’s life, as well as his reputation, would be a thing of the past. The only thing worse than not killing a slayer, in Angelus’s book, was not killing her—Buffy. If they found out that Spike had let her walk, there was no telling what they’d do to him.

Not that she cared...only, of course she cared.

She really couldn’t help herself, then, with this endless line of questions. She stopped cold and whirled to face her friend, her voice pinging the highest accessible note of cynicism. “Hey, Will. I’ve got an idea: let’s talk about this a whole lot more.”

Her friend’s face fell, hurt leaking into her eyes. “Buffy...I didn’t mean to—”

Guilt pricked at her almost immediately, but the Slayer brushed it off. She hadn’t had time with this to begin with, and now that she’d been pushed to such an extent, there was no reconciling her animosity. “No, really. In a graveyard in which I’m attempting to do my job—you know, the one that entails being quiet so I can sneak up on bad guys and stab them with my pointy stick, why don’t we keep on about my brush with death last night? Over and over and over again, if possible. And hey If Oz is up to it, we can stage a reenactment over here by my favorite mausoleum. You wanna start selling the tickets, or should I?”

“I don’t act,” the wolf replied with a shrug.

Willow frowned and smacked her boyfriend’s shoulder. “You’re not helping!”

“What? Buffy has a point. Stealth is pretty much her one non-action-packed job description, and what we’re doing is, well, not.”

She pouted. “Still, boyfriend. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I see, but the realist in me tells me to side with the girl who can bench ten times my body weight.” He smiled and kissed her cheek. “And my realist rarely gets distracted by Willow kissage.”

“You’re not the easiest person to love at times.”

“I get that a lot.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and turned away before they could mistake her disgust at their cutesy lovey-doveyness for something much uglier. That had been her such a short while ago. She’d been the one making her friends sick by lip-locking with her creature-feature of a honey. And while she wanted nothing but the best for Willow and Oz, she couldn’t help the pang of resentment that came with the actualization of her calling. If anyone’s non-human boyfriend was going to turn into a raving lunatic, of course it’d be hers. She was the Slayer, after all, and it was her cross to bear.

Of course, Oz had the added benefit of getting to play an active member of the human race unless the moon was looking a bit too round. And even then, the days were still his. Angel could never stop being a vampire. Day, night, Sunday, or Christmas—everything was dog-eared in the vampire-section. There was no halftime position in his particular race. Not even a soul could keep the monster at bay.

So what stopped Spike last night?

She frowned at herself and stamped that thought away. As if your life’s not confusing enough. Let’s add another vampire to the mix, shall we?

The familiar twinge in her stomach came too late. It would never cease to amaze her how quick and silent vampires could be. It was, perhaps, the one thing that hack writers like Anne Rice had nailed on the head. At first, Buffy had thought it was simply an Angel thing, as he was the only vamp she knew that actively attempted to walk on air when he moved. Those suspicions were trashed the second she’d first seen Drusilla in the thick of a fight. The raven-haired vampire always moved as though she never touched the ground. As though all the objects around her were merely in the way of her dance.

It didn’t surprise Buffy to see them, though she couldn’t keep her heart from jumping into her throat.

“Lookee here, grandmum,” Drusilla cooed. “They’re in time for the King’s tea party.”

Buffy felt Oz and Willow still to a halt behind her.

Darla cocked her head to the side and studied them, all the while looking rather pleased with herself. That face had long become one of the more annoying burdens about town. A year as being the Hellmouth’s residential slayer, and neither she or Angel had been able to stake the old bitch.

“Honestly,”the elder vampire barked, “what kind of slayer endangers the life of her friends to save her own skin?” She shook her head, tsking like a disappointed mother. “Makes you wonder what the world’s coming to nowadays.”

Buffy’s face hardened and she tightened her grip on her stake. “Oz,” she said calmly. “Grab Willow and run.”

“No way,” the redhead objected.

“Then stay quiet.”

“Oh, give it a rest,” Darla spat. “We’re not here to fight you.”

“Well, that’s a horse of a different color, isn’t it?”

The blonde vampire frowned. “Can’t two women walk through a cemetery without being accosted by some high school cheerleader and her friends?”

“She dreams of him. Ohhh, little girls reaching for pearls that mommy said not to touch.” Drusilla mewled and placed her hands across her heart, swaying to music that only she could hear. “She closes her eyes and he is what she sees.”

“Aww.” Darla’s smile turned nasty. “Isn’t that sweet?”

Buffy glared at her, her stake-arm not wavering. “If you’re not here to fight, then what the hell are you here for?”

“Ambiance?”

The insane vampire started giggling at that, and found she couldn’t stop.

Darla’s eyes shimmered with malicious humor; the same sort of pleasure a deranged child might experience in pulling the wings off butterflies. “Angelus wants to know how you are.”

“Isn’t that thoughtful of him? You think if I send him your dust, his question’ll be answered?”

The blonde paused, her eyes narrowing. “What an immeasurable ego you have.”

“You’re one to talk.” Buffy flexed her fingers along the wood in her hand, her mind racing, her body ready to leap at any sudden movement. Her heart pounded so hard, she was afraid force could break her body. “So, what? You’re taking orders from Angel now? I thought you made him. Doesn’t that give you...what? Seniority or something?”

“A good woman knows when to stand by her man and when not to.”

“The moon laughs at us,” Drusilla cried, throwing her head back. “Ohhh. Ohhh. It itches. It crawls all over but cannot find the milk. Grandmum!”

Darla rolled her eyes and turned. “Dru, sweetie, if you don’t shut up, the moon’s gonna be laughing at you for an entirely different reason.”

The other vampire met Buffy’s eyes, her face falling into a pout. “She’s cross with me.”

“Yeah,” the Slayer agreed. “You can imagine how bad I feel about that.”

“Ohhh, look who’s bitchy when she’s not getting any.” Darla flashed a nasty smile. “Thanks for that, by the way. Other than the obvious, it’s provided a running joke that I know will stick with the family for at least three generations. Although, I must say...Angelus seems to prefer my reenactment performance to the real thing.”

Willow all but growled at that. “You vindictive little—”

“Be quiet!” Buffy snapped, trying hard to ignore the pang that struck her heart. She suddenly found herself thrown back a number of weeks. Standing in Angel’s apartment as her lover approached with that scornful, mocking look on his face, his lips pulled into a taut sneer as he pinched her cheek and told her what a pro she’d been. How he could have held up her heart and ripped it up before her eyes, and she wouldn’t have known the difference.

There was a definitive void in the place where Angel had once occupied her heart, but it was calloused over now. Hardened. He couldn’t hurt her anymore.

If anything, her night with Spike had solidified that. Angel couldn’t hurt her anymore. Not if she didn’t let him.

“Daddy likes it rough.” Drusilla giggled nastily. “He makes me quiver.”

“Shhh,” Darla admonished, a false scold falling across her face. “We mustn’t brag, Dru. That would be unseemly. After all, poor Buffy’s never gonna know. Well, unless he forces her. I guess we shouldn’t rule that out.” Her brows flickered teasingly. “He does so love it when his women squirm.”

The starry look in Drusilla’s eyes at the prospect of being ploughed by Angel left a bitter taste in her mouth. Darla was a given; she knew that Angel and Darla had been together in the years before the soul. Drusilla, though...Drusilla was another story. She’d seen the open lust in the crazy vamp’s face when Angel met her for the rendezvous in the park. She’d seen the glee that came with standing by her soulless sire’s side. However, for everything, it had taken being beat within an inch of her life for Buffy to understand just how many lives her ex-boyfriend’s turning had ruined.

Honestly, until the night before, she’d forced herself to live in a world of denial. But Spike had told her about Dru and Angel. Hell, that was why her skin was marred with healing bruises in the first place.

“So, is this it?” Buffy demanded, fingers tapping against her stake. Her arm was beginning to hurt, but she wasn’t about to waver. “You came out here to, what? Bully me? What kind of vampire are you?”

“Daddy has dibs,” Drusilla cackled. “Mummy came to make sure the dolly does what we want.”

The Slayer’s eyes darkened. “I’m not going to play for you.”

“And according to our sources, we should thank our lucky stars.”

“Uh huh. And where does Spike fit into all this?”

Buffy heard Willow gasp from behind, as though saying his name was suddenly taboo.

Darla cocked a brow. “Spike? You’re joking, right?” When she received no reply, she turned to the silent duo behind the Slayer, prodding them with a look. “Tell me she’s joking.”

“What? Isn’t he a part of the team?”

“My prince dances all alone,” Drusilla said, looking downward, almost forlorn. “He likes the light, you see. And Daddy wants us in the dark. We’re not to wander. We’re not to be disobedient dollies.” The despondent countenance vanished without warning, and the malicious grin that Buffy was beginning to loathe sprouted once more across her lips. “Daddy rewards us so nicely when we’re good.”

The Slayer swallowed hard. She was sticking her hand into a boiling frying pan, but she couldn’t help herself. Whatever had happened the night before with Spike had her loyalties split down the center. Despite her reservations and fears for warming to another vampire, this one entirely sans soul, something had happened that made them allies, if only in spirit. She knew from the way she ached how Spike felt about those he loved. How his emotions affected every inch of himself. How Drusilla’s infidelity hurt.

Dru obviously didn’t give a damn.

“I thought that you and Spike were together,” she ventured slowly, hating the sound of her voice against the mocking night. The stake in her hand was warm and clammy. Whatever was going on here needed to stop. Darla could change her mind at any moment. There was a reason beyond what was stated—a reason she had yet to attack, and Buffy had the sinking suspicion that it had nothing to do with Angelus.

“My Spike,” Dru replied nostalgically, however emotionally detached she sounded from the one she considered. “His touch is not like Angelus. His touch doesn’t make Miss Edith burn.”

“Buffy!” Willow hissed. “We need to—”

She honestly didn’t know what came over her. One second, she was standing there like a rational person, talking to two of her greatest enemies in a graveyard; the next, she was a blur of movement, tackling Drusilla to the ground with what could only be described as jealous fury pumping her veins. A betrayal of someone she cared about. A betrayal of Spike: the man that she’d touched despite his attempts to hide beneath the demon. This was, after all, the woman who was supposed to love him forever. The woman whose affection could seemingly be bought and paid for at the price of a soul. Souls were supposed to be nothing of consequence to vampires, but Angel’s had made all the difference.

Angel’s stupid soul tore people’s lives apart.

The stake had rolled away somewhere in the midst of her outrage. She’d lost sight on her objective. The only thing that made sense to her was to see Drusilla bleed for turning away from someone that loved her. Someone that would have done anything for her, as so recently Buffy would have done anything for the one that she now hated with every molecule in her body.

It lasted only seconds. Darla snarled and seized her by the shoulders.

“You fucking arrogant little bitch!”

Willow screamed her name. Buffy was too forgone to even recognize its sound against the night air.

Then in a blink, Darla was gone. Gone and replaced with eyes of the fiercest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

“Spike!” she gasped just before his fist collided with her cheekbone.

It all happened in a flurry of confused seconds. She remembered hitting the ground. Remembered the pang of betrayal that again stabbed at her stomach, only now for her own sake rather than his. The look in his eyes was anything but sympathetic, though at the same time, he looked so conflicted that her breath caught in astonishment. It only lasted a beat; the next thing she knew, a large branch crashed down on the peroxided vampire’s back, and he fell with a surprised grunt.

Willow dropped her makeshift weapon the minute Spike collapsed and grabbed Buffy by the wrist. “Come on!” she urged. “Come on!”

There was no arguing with that logic. She wasn’t about to go against three aged vampires unprepared, especially while her friends were with her. No more lives were going to be lost at her expense. She wouldn’t allow it.

So for the first time since she was called, Buffy abided her first instinct.

She ran like hell. Oz and Willow, predictably, were hot on her heels.

There were times when she could not be more thankful for Oz’s van. After seeing Willow home safely, he dropped her off at Revello Drive and waited until he saw her cross the threshold before pulling out of the drive.

Buffy only lingered inside for appearance’s sake. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew that Spike would be by tonight. Call it an inkling, Slayer intuition, or wishful thinking. For as abruptly as things had begun and ended in the graveyard, she knew that he would come after her, either demanding a proper end to their fight or answers as to why she’d thrashed the living hell out of Drusilla.

As though she, the Vampire Slayer, owed a vampire an explanation.

But Spike wasn’t just another vampire. Not to her. Not anymore.

Her cheek hurt where he’d punched her. God, it hurt worse than the accumulation of all the other wounds he’d given her within the last twenty-four hours.

Serves you right for trusting him, logic scolded.

There was no trust, though. There couldn’t be any trust.

Buffy didn’t have to wait long. She sat on her front porch, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes tracing the cracks in the pavement.

“Slayer.”

She’d felt him the second he was close. That didn’t make it any easier.

“I did what I do, Spike,” she replied, looking up slowly. His eyes were wide with anger and incredulity; two sentiments she was feeling in spades at the moment. “You made it perfectly clear this morning that the next time we met, anything goes.”

“Yeh, I did,” he ground out.

“That’s right.” She held his seething gaze a beat longer, then sighed her resignation and glanced back to the pavement. “Look...she was...I know it’s crazy, but she was saying things...about you. Not that I owe you anything for, you know, not killing me, but there’s an explanation if you need it. She was saying things about you and it just...the way she talked...something snapped.”

Silence settled between them. It took a few minutes to gather the courage to glance up again.

And God, when she did, she was bathed in his awe.

“What?” he rasped.

“Something snapped.”

“Somethin’ snapped?”

“Yeah, something snapped. It doesn’t make sense to me. Nothing does, as of late, but there it is.” She glared, daring him to poke fun at her. To tell her she was some British word for crazy, laugh at her expense, and saunter off. He didn’t. He just kept looking at her.

Just kept staring.

“You kissed me this mornin’,” Spike said, rattling her with his straightforward approach to the one thing she’d refused to let herself mull over all day. The kiss that should have never been. “Why did you do that?”

Buffy found herself gazing at the pavement again, her body twitching with discomfort. “I don’t know.”

“You know you have me thoroughly buggered over, right? I can’t bloody well think straight because of you.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that.”

“Yeh, well, what did you bloody well mean for?”

“Hell if I know Look, are you here to fight, or what? My mom’s going to be home from the gallery soon, and I really don’t want her to see this.” She gestured between them. “I just got her to get off my back about Angel, and I’m really not looking to have a sequel to The Talk. So let’s fight. Let’s get this over with already. You’ll dust or I’ll die, and that’ll be that. No more worrying about Dru fights or kissage that really shouldn’t happen or freaky mortal enemies who beat the crap out of you just to patch you up again.”

Spike’s eyes flared. “Fine!”

“Fine!”

The next thing she knew, her back was pressed against the front door and his lips were mauling hers. Hot, hungry kisses. Real kisses. Kisses unlike the one she’d teased him with that morning. Kisses that started fires only to lead them to explosion. His tongue plundered her mouth, stroking hers with sensuality she hadn’t known to touch. He ignited things within her that were downright terrifying. She heard herself mewling against him, felt his own moans rumble against her chest.

God, her kisses with Angel had never been like this. Never.

She remembered thinking that morning that one taste would make her a junkie. Understatement of the century. He was a creature damned by nature, and she didn’t care. She’d let the flames of Hell lick her insides if it meant she got more of this. More of Spike. More of his mouth whispering words against hers, of his tongue exploring her, his hands mapping out her body in ways that should have shamed her for her brazen disregard of the one that had so recently broken her heart.

Buffy didn’t care. Screw the rest. That moment, the lines dividing black and white, good and evil, right and wrong vanished altogether. She was young and recently burnt, but she wanted back in the frying pan. She wanted the imprint of Angel washed away completely.

More than that. She wanted Spike.

How screwed up was that?

No more so than her mouth suckling hungrily at his tongue, or the thrill that ran down her spine when he moaned into her.

It felt that years passed before they pulled apart, gasping together, his brow resting against hers. It was oddly the most erotic moment of her young life. Knowing that she, an inexperienced and recently scorned ex-virgin, could make him pant like that. Could make him forget that he didn’t need to breathe. Could make him nuts for her, the enemy, just as she feared she was nuts for him.

“Spike,” she murmured against his lips. Softly. Sweetly.

And evidently, gentility was the only thing that could break the spell around them. It was over. Whatever had happened was over with such a small word. Such a heartfelt plea to sensations that she knew were forbidden, but couldn’t help but sample. She felt his body freeze beneath her fingers. The passion evaporated from his eyes. He knew her, then. Remembered who he was—and more importantly, who she was.

Who they were to each other.

The azure of his eyes melted into yellow. His roar of confused fury pierced the silence around them. Then he shoved her back against the door, angry and violent, and was gone the next second. Gone. No billowing exit. No snappy insult. He was there one second, and gone the next.

Buffy stared after him, shaken and disoriented.

He was gone.

But more than that, he’d left her without saying a word.

Part V

The night was spent tormented with thoughts of her.

Spike had absolutely no idea how his life had become so thoroughly buggered in such a short amount of time. Two days ago, and things had been...well, not fine, but bloody well better than they were presently. He hadn’t tasted the Slayer’s lips then. Hadn’t felt her skin beneath his hands. Hadn’t drowned in her warmth by simply standing so close to her. Hadn’t lost himself to the world of her coy glances, her eyes that were torn between longing and confusion. Hadn’t swum in the rich scent of her arousal. She was so sweet. And he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

It wasn’t supposed to like this. His body wasn’t supposed to flood with warmth when he thought of her. He wasn’t supposed to want to touch her like a lover, take her with anything other than violence. His mouth wasn’t supposed to crave anything but her blood.

He stayed in most of the night, cursing himself for being a coward, but completely unprepared to face the Slayer, especially after what had happened the night before. After a while, though, the strain of restlessness got to him. Hours after sunset, he was desperate for a good, clean kill; one that would hopefully help to clear his head and give him perspective on what was truly important in life.

Why he found his feet carrying him toward Revello Drive, he didn’t know. Nothing in his mind made sense anymore. Nothing. Every time he attempted to focus on his plan, on his vow to himself to kill the Slayer and get the fuck out of Dodge, he found himself shivering at the thought of her dead. The image of the Slayer’s lifeless body haunted him for reasons that made absolutely no sense. Yes, her skin was annoyingly soft. Yes, her lips tasted like milk and honey. Yes, he wanted to bathe in her arousal. He wanted to taste her as she came, and it had nothing to do with her blood.

Furthermore, it had nothing to do with her calling. Absolutely nothing. Her calling hadn’t given her those eyes, those lips, or that body. Her calling hadn’t forced her to look at him the way she’d looked at him last night. Her calling had ensured that their paths cross, but it was the girl beneath the warrior that had touched his long ignored humanity.

She lived in his every thought. In the needless breaths he stole. He was so lost in thoughts of her that the loud sounds of Angelus fucking the Aurelius women, particularly Dru’s cries of pleasure, hadn’t fazed him.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural.

Spike eyed the tree that sat conveniently outside the Slayer’s window and glanced up. She had long since retired for the night, he was sure. It was incredibly late and he was a fool for trying, but this madness couldn’t continue. He needed her out of his life. He needed her six bloody feet under where her eyes wouldn’t captivate him. Once she was dead, he’d be able to forget that she’d ever existed in the first place. That sassy little girl had him hard as a fucking rock just by thinking about her, and it couldn’t continue.

It had to end. Tonight.

He released a deep sigh and stomped out his half-smoked cigarette beside the tree trunk.

Let’s get this over with.

Not exactly the motivational speech he’d given himself in the past when plotting a slayer’s death, but it was the best he could muster. He shoved his displacement aside, whispering the empty promise to himself that everything would be all right if he could only close his hands around her throat while simultaneously ignoring the temptation to pepper her sweet skin with kisses.

Spike growled inwardly. Knock it off.

He would get nowhere if he kept that up. Nor would he profit from observing how sweet she looked, cuddled up in bed, a stuffed pig clutched close to her breast. He inhaled deeply, trying to ignore how hard he was trembling. The burning sensation that ate at his insides, screaming in protest that he leave the girl be.

She’d fucked up his life too much to bloody well to leave her be.

He growled again and tapped harshly on her window before his inner William presented a convincing argument on why the chit should live to see another day. He watched eagerly as she stirred, rolling over, her eyes fluttering open. She glanced to the clock and groaned, flopping onto her back with a deep sigh. She hadn’t even tossed the window a look.

Another growl rumbled through his throat. He rapped on the window again. Louder.

Buffy sat up again with a start, her eyes finding his immediately. He tried not to melt at the way she clutched her heart, at the innocence she radiated while hiding her deadly potential under a facade of a helpless damsel. God, he wanted her so much.

He groaned. Kill the girl. It’ll end this.

Still, his mouth couldn’t help but water at the way she moved to the window, unlatching the lock and pushing the pane open. She looked even sexier than she had two nights ago, wrapped in a bathrobe that did little to hide her goodies. The camisole she wore revealed more than it hid, tenting at her breasts where her nipples saluted him, imploring his mouth for a taste.

“Spike.” She breathed his name as though he were a patron saint, and his body hardened even further. “What are you doing here?”

He swallowed hard. “Come outside.”

“No.”

“Come outside, Slayer.”

She tilted her head and searched his eyes. “Why?”

“I’m here to kill you.”

The words rushed out before he could stop them, and something within him sank at their liberation. Now it was out there—it was said. A verbal contract against the cosmos. He had a duty to uphold now. A promise he’d made to himself, and signed with his tongue. Yet, Buffy didn’t disappoint. She maintained herself, determination wrought across her face. There was no shriveling back in fear or bursting into tears that the man that had all but fucked her against her front door little more than a day ago had decided it was time to end her life. Her eyes betrayed nothing but whimsical acceptance.

After a long minute, she drew in a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”

Spike balked as she moved away from the window.

Okay?

He watched, amazed, as she wiggled into a pair of sweats that had been casually strewn across the floor, his cock straining painfully against the zipper of his jeans. The girl was a bloody enigma; there was no denying that. She dressed methodically, her body calm, her heartbeat tempered. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail before turning to what had to be her weapons chest. There she paused, considered, and ultimately decided against a stake. Against anything. Even the cross chain that she wore obsessively around that lovely neck of hers was nowhere to be seen. Spike nearly gasped when she finally turned back to him. The look buried in her gaze was all woman; the little girl was gone.

“You should move back,” she said. “I need to climb down.”

He nodded numbly, hungry eyes soaking her in.

A small smile kissed her lips. “Spike?”

“Yeh?”

“Move back.”

“Yeh.” He paused and snapped back to himself, giving his head a hard shake. “Right. Movin’ now.”

She was the manifestation of poetry and grace. Logically, he knew that experience had taught her feet where to find the good footholes, instructed her hands which branch held the most strength, making her dance to the ground entrancing to his privileged eyes. He knew that she was molded by the habits she’d developed since becoming the residential slayer—that, like himself, she was divided into two halves that made up who she was. The Slayer, an instrument of immeasurable strength for the want of good. And Buffy. The girl. The woman who carried the Slayer’s burden while attempting to balance duty and life.

In that moment, she reminded him so much of himself that he was nearly tempted to weep. The man that he had tried to kill, the one that Dru found so disgusting because it bore the face of humanity that no demon could destroy. The man that carried his demon’s burden, divided wholly between what he was and who he was, and the separate needs that built him into Spike. Into the compromise of a vampire with a human past and a human with a demon inside. He was so used to beating the human down that, when struck with pangs of humanity, he found himself at a complete and utter loss.

Buffy touched the human. That bloody well terrified him, because the human was the last thing he wanted to be. That form of himself was supposed to be wholly and rightfully dead. Dru hadn’t killed him as thoroughly as she should have. Too much of his old self had survived. He’d been able to suppress it now for nearly a hundred and twenty years, but this girl—this Slayer—managed to call out the frightened man inside. Managed to make him feel things that he should never, ever feel for a girl with a pulse. And certainly, never a girl with a pulse who had a calling to answer.

She dusted off her sweats after hopping down, then glanced up expectantly. “Okay.”

Spike nodded again, cursing his treacherous mind that protested at the thought of putting a light like Buffy under the ground. The hands that didn’t want to kill her flexed strenuously as a hard, relentless sigh pressed through his lips. He gestured to the back yard and blinked at her blasé attitude. The hopelessness he’d encountered two nights before was nowhere to be seen, but she wasn’t in a frame of mind to fight. Either she was entirely over-confident, or she didn’t believe his intention to kill her.

She’s in for a surprise.

If only he could convince himself.

“Right,” he said, his voice strained. “Let’s do this.”

Buffy nodded resignedly and raised her fists.

Little bint really thinks I’m gonna back down?

His determination accompanied need. If he couldn’t do this now, he was truly a man lost. And yet, even knowing the full of what was riding on his actions, he could do nothing for long, empty seconds but stare at her. The girl with the sloppy ponytail who had called his bluff, slithered into sweat pants, and had her dukes raised in near apathetic acceptance of what they had to do. What he had to prove to himself.

Suddenly, he felt like the biggest dolt in the world.

She’s just one girl, he growled, his bumpies shifting forward. Not even the face of his demon seemed to rattle her. Why is this so bleeding hard?

He already knew the answer, though. There was no sense pretending he didn’t.

Buffy wasn’t just any girl. She was something radiant. Something unique. Something he had never touched before. And simply knowing that was dangerous. Her existence threatened him on every conceivable level, even as he stood in the quiet night with a slayer to kill.

“Wait,” Buffy said shortly, relaxing her stance. “We can’t do this here.”

Spike quirked a brow and growled with more force than he felt. “Why not?’

She gestured to the house. “My mom’s trying to sleep.”

The snarl faded from his face, and he straightened with a nod of understanding. “Oh, right.”

“We could go to the park,” she suggested with a shrug. “Or one of the cemeteries.”

“Angelus an’ his merry lot might happen on us there,” he pointed out. The tone of the conversation was too bizarre to question. They might as well have been quarreling over restaurant selection. “Anywhere else?”

“School?” Buffy suggested with another shrug. “A good a place as any.”

“You understand that when we get there, I’m gonna be killin’ you, right?”

She nodded. “So you told me.”

“You know that killin’ you works out pretty rotten in your favor, right?”

“Look, Spike, I’m not getting any deader by standing here and arguing about how dead you’re gonna make me. So if you intend to kill me, let’s go and get it over with. I’m not about to kill myself, you know.”

The tone she employed amused him. Spike glanced down sharply to hide his grin and nodded as they turned together in the direction of the school. It was quickly turning into the strangest night he’d ever lived through. And yet, despite her flippancy, he found that he was enjoying himself. He didn’t want to enjoy himself; the sensation was very much against his will, but there nonetheless. Too present to ignore.

“I meant to ask you last night,” Buffy said softly, sliding her hands into the pockets of her sweats. “Something about what happened just didn’t sit right with me.”

Spike swallowed hard. He didn’t know why, but he was suddenly terrified that she was going to go into some righteous spiel about how it was wrong between vampires and slayers. Granted, he didn’t know why in the name of everything holy and unholy he should give a fuck. The girl was literally on a death march. And what’s more, it was wrong between vampires and slayers. It was so bloody wrong that killing her had become now a matter of self-preservation rather than a need to bag his third slayer.

But God, if she thought that what had happened against her door was wrong, she might as well pull his heart out so he could watch it crumple to dust before he followed suit.

“Yeh?” His voice was strained.

Wanker.

“Dru and Darla,” she started, and he released the unneeded breath he’d been holding. “They were just...there. I mean, she—Darla said they were there because of Angel—”

Spike cleared his throat like a displeased instructor and cast her a sharp glance. She flushed and conceded the point.

“Sorry. She said they were there because of Angelus, but...I’m sort’ve used to Darla’s M.O. now. She’s never been the ‘diabolical plan’ sort unless it works out in her favor. With me...not trying to kill me or even trying to fight me just...it was strange.”

“It’s the way Angelus wanted it, pet.”

“He wants me alive?”

“No. He wants you guessin’. Always guessin’. He wants you afraid to look around the corner an’ think twice about venturin’ down dark alleys by your lonesome. He’s usin’ the girls to play games with you. Lull you both into a false sense of security, an’ terrify your knickers off at the same time.”

He growled inwardly. Was it really necessary to mention the girl’s knickers?

“And Darla’s letting this happen?”

“Well, she’s not happy about it, if that’s what you’re askin’.” Before last night’s shaga-threesome, the walls of the mansion had quaked with the fury of the elders’ argument. “When Angelus firs’ came back, she was trippin’ over herself with happiness at havin’ him with her again. But...he’s different. With as much of an annoyin’ git as he was in the days of yore, he’s even more so now. I think he’s over-compensatin’ for bein’ chin-deep in soul for a century. Feels he needs to be even bigger an’ badder than he was the firs’ time around.”

Buffy shivered. He didn’t blame her. “How so?” she asked softly.

“Well, he talks more nowadays about Armageddon. After he, you know, offs you.”

He heard the second her heart began pounding harder. “Oh,” she said, her voice a note higher. “Well, I guess he’ll have to live with disappointment, right?”

“Huh?”

“‘Cause you’re gonna kill me.”

“Oh.” Wanker. “Right.”

“Angel—”

“Ahem.”

Buffy held up a hand and nodded. “Okay. Angelus ...he didn’t want to end the world before?”

“Well, he used to mention it from time to time, but it wasn’ somethin’ he actively pursued, no.” Spike frowned. “He’s bluffin’, luv.” Why on earth he felt the need to comfort the girl, especially since she wasn’t going to be around to care about the world’s fate, was entirely beyond him. And yet, he couldn’t help himself. The need to soothe her was larger than he was. It had been with him two nights before when she collapsed in his arms, sobbing a thousand apologies for things that weren’t really her fault. “Angelus talks a good talk, but he likes the world’s luxuries too bloody much to give it up. An’ for what, really? The world ends an’ it ends for him, too. Unless he’s stupid enough to think he can brave Hell, this bloody rock isn’t goin’ anywhere.”

The Slayer nodded numbly, but didn’t reply. No other words were exchanged until they reached the school grounds.

His eyes soaked her up as she turned to face him, raising her fists once more. Reluctance tugged at every nerve in his being, the false pretense that whispered even emptier glee at the prospect of her death failing him completely.

You’ll feel better once she’s dead.

He didn’t think so. The minute he actually lashed forward, aiming a punch for her jaw, his gut lurched and a pang struck his heart. It was unnatural—almost as unnatural as Buffy’s response. She deflected the move indifferently, but made no attempt to hit back. Instead, she stepped back and raised her brows.

The tune of the dance was set, then. It continued like that for about ten minutes. Spike would attack; Buffy would block and step back. He found himself amused at first, but that quickly melted into irritation at her unwillingness to participate. Seemed she didn’t care that she was the cause of his crisis of faith in everything he was and had been. That simply being with her was unraveling him from the core.

The stupid girl wouldn’t play by the rules. Did she really think he was going to pity her if she refused to return the battle full force?

“What the bleedin’ hell is wrong with you?” he snarled. “Fight me!”

“You never said I had to fight,” Buffy protested, holding her hands up. “That was not a part of the deal, Spike.”

“It was bloody implied!”

“Not to me, it wasn’t.”

“Are you achin’ for death, is that it? Din’t get a good enough taste the other night, an’ you’re hopin’ to get your rocks off by bein’ beat within an inch of your life over an’ over again?”

“That’s masochism. It has nothing to do with death wishes.”

“Like I—”

“Look, Spike, I’m willing to do this as long as you are. I’ll come out here and pretend to fight. I’ll even cooperate when you wake me to kill me, and then don’t. You could’ve done it any time. Back home, while we walked here...the second I climbed outside, I was fair game.”

“An’ yet you’re here.”

She shrugged. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

“Not for bloody long!”

“Yeah, okay.” Buffy spread her arms in welcome. “Then do it. Come on, Spike. Kill me.”

He started to leap in; he really did. Some unnatural force of nature kept him grounded.

Then the Slayer lowered her eyes to the ground, and blew what little was left of his world away with five soft, simple words. “I don’t want you dead.”

He swore that time stood still. Spike practically fell over, his eyes wide and imploring, searching hers and finding nothing but truth. Actualization. God, she really meant it. She didn’t want him dead. She, the Slayer, didn’t want him, the Vampire, dead.

He’d known. Of course he’d known. Her body language all but screamed it. However, giving the words form and voice changed everything. It made a theory a fact, and the knowledge had him thoroughly shaken.

“What?” he rasped.

“I don’t want you dead.” She glanced down. “I don’t even want you hurt.”

“Why the hell not?!”

“Because I like you, doofus.”

The world stopped rotating. God, he was thoroughly unmade. There was nothing left of him but the look in her eyes. The way she saw him now. A monster turned into a man again because of a girl.

“Stupid?” she continued with a nod. “Yes. I know it’s stupid, but that doesn’t change anything. I do like you, so I’m not going to fight you just because you’re going through a thing. And no, this isn’t a ‘you’re a vampire and I just lost my vampire boyfriend’ lapse of judgment. I know it’s dumb. Trust me, I’ve already gone through how stupid I am for...well, everything related to you, recently. But there it is. I like you. And I don’t want you hurt, dead, or anything in between.”

Spike glared at her. Colors were bleeding together, he was so bloody furious. She liked him? She liked him? Where the hell did she get off liking him? Didn’t the silly chit know who he was? What he was capable of? What his murderous hands had done? How many towns he’d painted red? And she, the sodding Slayer, liked him?

“Well, stop it!” he screamed, at a loss for logic.

Buffy quirked a brow and bit back a laugh. “Stop liking you?”

“Yes! Stop it!”

“It’s not like flipping a switch, Spike.”

“You stupid girl. I brought you out here to kill you. Doesn’ that sound off warning bells?”

“No. You’re not going to kill me.” Her eyes narrowed. “I already told you that. If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Only, no I wouldn’t, ‘cause I would have never left the house. Honestly, don’t you think I’d be dead already if I just popped outside whenever a vampire asked it of me?”

Spike drew in a deep breath, his chest tight, his throat clogged with a foray of angry words that demanded freedom. But God, he was too furious to speak.

“You don’t want me dead.”

He was going to rip her head off.

“You like me too much.”

“I do not!”

“Yes, you do.”

The calm, self-assurance in her tone was absolutely infuriating. “You’re off your nutter, you know?”

“Yeah, but you still like me.”

“Stop saying that!”

And then he couldn’t help himself. Any front he’d put up, any pretense he’d tried to pass, was already utterly shot to hell. Tonight had never been about killing her. God, he’d known it. He’d known it the second he stepped out of the mansion. The instant his renegade feet carried him to Revello Drive. He wanted to want her dead. Bugger all, wouldn’t that make everything right again. But no. He didn’t. He couldn’t. Not with what they’d shared. The remarkable little they’d shared that had somehow become his everything.

The acceptance she’d given him after an hour that completely washed away everything he’d ever thought to have with Dru. With anyone.

There was no sense fighting it. He was a man lost. The Slayer was under his skin, in his system, and he needed her like he’d needed no one.

This time when he approached, she didn’t move back. Didn’t prepare to block another half-assed attack. There was something else now; understanding burned her eyes. His arms closed around her waist, his body rejoicing. This. This was where she belonged. Where he belonged. Buffy in his arms, her hands hooking behind his neck, her face tilting upward in anticipation of his kiss. And God, her lips tasted like home.

The world had been made for kisses like hers. Soft, sweet kisses. She was full of innocence; of vulnerability. Of everything he loved to exploit, but now yearned to protect. Her soft body molded against his as their mouths danced together. He whimpered into her and the world around him came completely undone. The way she clutched at him, as though she needed him as desperately as he needed her, had his heart thoroughly captured. There was no want of escape. No going back from this.

When he finally broke his lips from hers, he shuddered at the passionate gasp that tore through her body. At the way she quivered beneath his kisses as his wandering mouth nipped at her throat, suckling at her sweet flesh hungrily. If she was at all concerned at having a vampire at her neck, she didn’t betray a thing.

“Slayer,” he gasped, eager fingers tugging at her sweats. “Oh God.”

“Uhhh...”

Somewhere, he knew that he was moving too fast for her. He knew it. The girl was still recovering from her last tryst—the scars that Angelus left on her invisible, but near impossible to heal. Logic, however, had no want of voice. He needed to feel her flesh beneath his fingers. He needed to taste the parts of her that were forbidden; the parts that had only been sampled once before, but in no way that could begin to do justice for a girl of her pure resplendence.

“Tell me to stop now,” he growled, pulling just far enough away so that he could see her eyes. The lost haze of lust that did little more than fuel his own desire. Her scent was driving him crazy, and if she didn’t shove him away now, control would be a thing of the past. “Tell me to stop.”

“No.”

“Buffy, you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“Neither do you.”

Spike growled at that and walked her backward until her back was pressed against the wall of the school. “You don’ know what you’re askin’ for,” he snarled, slipping his hand under the waistband of her sweats. “You want the monster, baby?” He bunched her panties to the side, his knees nearly buckling at the soft flesh waiting his touch. “Want me to show you everythin’ that Angel din’t? I’m up for it, but it’s not gonna be bloody soft an’poetic. I don’ have a bleedin’ soul to hold me back, an’ if you think you can tame me jus’ by battin’ those doe eyes of yours, you’re off your bird.”

Buffy didn’t balk. The determination in her eyes inspired an unwarranted surge of pride. He grinned nastily and kissed her again, his fingers dancing over the slick flesh between her thighs. God, she was so wet. The air was perfumed with her arousal, and he was parched with want of her.

It was in her eyes, then. Ferocity abandoned him. He no longer wanted to scare her into submission. No, she was worth so much more than that. She was something precious, and he’d be a fool to squander any chance he had at having her with some needless attempt at self-preservation. She wasn’t attempting to make him into anything. When she looked at him, the stars in her eyes were directed at no one else.

In all his years, he’d never had that. Not once.

He’d be a fool to ruin this with a quickie against a school building. Despite how much she wanted him now, he wanted her to want him tomorrow, too. And the next day. And the day after that. He wanted her to want him and no one else. Taking advantage of her now was one of the surest ways to ruin something priceless. The last thing he wanted was to walk away knowing he’d touched pure sunshine for the first and last time.

He slid a finger into her warm heat, and he was a man absolutely unwound. Spike worried a lip between his teeth, his eyes flashing when she gasped and bucked against him. God, she gripped him like a glove, drenching his skin with the slightest touch. Her hands were at his arms, gripping him so hard he thought his limbs would snap, but he wouldn’t move away for anything.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” he blurted, then cursed himself for his abruptness. He might as well have slapped her across the face for how stricken she looked. “I mean...not tonight. I’m not going to fuck you tonight.”

A light entered her eyes that had not been there a minute ago. If there was a way for a person to look both relieved and disappointed in one stroke, she embodied it entirely. “Oh.” She paused. “Why?”

“‘Cause I’m not.”

“Is it something I’ve done?”

“God, no.” He flashed her a rakish grin, stretching her pussy lips wide and sliding a second finger into her tight sheath. “Christ, I jus’ don’ want you to stop lookin’ at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you are right now.” He nipped at her breasts through her camisole. “Like I’m the only man in the world.”

Buffy gasped and arched against him, nodding wordlessly as his fingers manipulated her body.

Another whiff of her arousal hit him tenfold, and the last vestiges of control crumbled away completely. With a primitive growl, he dropped to his knees and jerked her sweats to the ground, working the left side free of her leg entirely. The surprised gasp that touched the air both enthralled him and made him quiver with the realization of the power he had over her. The Slayer was trembling at his touch. Christ, she was wholly at his mercy.

Buffy met his eyes and he shuddered. No, that wasn’t right.

He was wholly at hers.

Spike drew in a deep breath and hooked his thumbs under the sides of her panties, then slowly stripped them down her legs. Something within him started at the sight of her, bare and glistening in the cool night air. Her neatly trimmed curls did little to hide the prize beneath, her pussy sopping with need. He’d barely touched her, and his fingers were drenched.

Perhaps he’d lived too jaded for too long. Even when he had been actively fucking Drusilla, arousing her was as much an effort as anything. She wanted it hard and rough, and though he’d cave into her each time without fault, she was much too disassociated to give him what he needed. She didn’t want him; he didn’t know if she ever had. And as a result of that, she made him work for the prize of losing himself in her rigid body.

Two days ago, he’d been ready to snap this young girl’s neck for inadvertently instigating the loss of his black goddess. Now he was eye level with her pussy, and he couldn’t wish himself anywhere else.

“Has anyone tasted you here?” he asked, rubbing his finger along her slit.

Buffy expelled a deep breath and trembled beneath his touch. “No,” she whimpered, shaking her head. “No.”

“No one?”

“No one.”

Spike grinned, a thrill racing down his spine. He pinched her clit and licked his lips, his other hand turning to the clasp of his jeans. “No secret rendezvous with li’l boys in school? You never snuck off to play in the janitor’s closet?”

“Never...ohhh, God, what are you doing?”

“Not even Angel? He din’t service you before—”

“No!”

He loved the way she barked her rejection at the notion. If anything, he wanted to keep that revulsion in her voice whenever the great sod was mentioned. “You have such a sweet, juicy li’l quim,” he murmured, leaning into her, flicking his tongue over her clit as his cock sprang into his waiting hand. Buffy yelped in surprised and thrust her hips forward. Spike chuckled, his tongue exploring her drenched folds, his fingers parting her lips. “Mmm, somebody’s eager.”

“Oh my God.”

His grin broadened. “See what you’ve been missing, baby?”

“What are you...oh!” A long, impassioned mewl tore at the air. “Oh my God, what are you doing to me?”

This was going to be fast. Much too fast. He burned with the simple flavor of her; his hand working his cock rapidly, determined to reach his peak with her. She was so young, so blessedly inexperienced. A wreck that he was determined to fix. He would show her what it should have been like the first time. What Angel would have done to her had he had the stones. Stupid wanker didn’t even work the girl up proper—likely didn’t do much more than touch her south of the border to make sure he didn’t break her when he ripped her virginity away.

The thought of anyone else touching her infuriated him.

Mine! the demon raged. She’s mine! Angelus can’t have her.

Spike growled and saw red, plunging his tongue inside her tight, wet hole without warning. He was certain that Buffy’s cry of surprise would ring with him for the rest of his days. He captured her clit between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing her softly as he explored her pussy with his mouth. He stroked his shaft in time with her whimpers, murmuring sweetly into her wet skin a thousand wordless praises that he couldn’t let her wise up to. She already had too much power over him. Telling her how incredible she tasted would forfeit all control. She mustn’t know what she did to him. Never.

Women who held that sort of knowledge always—always—used it against him. He didn’t care how sodding pure they were. Dru, Cecily, and even though there was absolutely no love lost between them, Darla to an extent.

His tongue was bathed in her juices. He wanted to swallow her whole.

Buffy seemed lost to another world. She panted; she moaned; she writhed, and he found himself chipping away with every syllable, coherent or not, that crossed her lips. He felt her fingers thread through his hair, holding him to her. Whether or not the effort was conscious, he didn’t know. He bit back a grin and abandoned her opening with a parting lick, his fingers slipping inside her once more as he turned his attention to her swollen clit. That pretty little pearl of flesh that saluted him in desperate want of attention.

“Oh my...oh my...” Her grip on him tightened. He sucked on her clit hard, his tongue making a dance of it. His teeth nipped at her as an afterthought, but for the pleasured gasp that escaped her lips, it seemed baby liked her men with fangs.

Well, if it’s fangs she wants...

“Spike! I’m on...my...I’m on fire!”

She sounded so genuinely confused, so concerned, and he was torn between laughter and tears.

“I...ohhhh, my God!”

That was it. He lost all semblance of control. He curled his middle and index fingers within her as his mouth abandoned her, his thumb settling over her clit, massaging her furiously as his fangs exploded through his gums.

“Oh!”

His eyes caught the light in hers; there was fear there. Fear and a thrill of forbidden excitement. She was too lost to object, too close to likely form a coherent thought. Thus, when his fangs sliced into the milky inside of her thigh, there was nothing left for her to do but explode in his arms.

And God, he fell right with her. Her blood filling his mouth, her juices coating his fingers—it was perhaps the closest he’d ever been to another person. Human, vamp, demon; none had ever touched him like this. He came hard in his hand, swallowing mouthfuls of her rich blood as his fingers continued to thrust inside her, wanting more. Wanting to prolong this moment for another hour. Day. Decade. He didn’t care. He just didn’t want to come back to himself. Not after this. Not after the magic they’d shared.

Spike felt the minute that the pleasure from his bite turned to pain, and immediately retracted his fangs, lapping at the wound tenderly before turning his mouth back to her pussy. He followed his nose, drinking everything she’d given him with eagerness he was helpless to betray. He felt her shudder and gasp beneath him, felt her flinch as his tongue traced her more sensitive flesh. He felt her body responding, warming up to come for him again.

He glanced up and met her awestruck gaze, and berated himself for trembling when she cupped his cheek.

“Spike.” It wasn’t much; just his name, but whispered from her lips, he was thoroughly resigned.

Oh God.

She owned far too much of him.

He released a deep sigh and forced his disobedient mouth to part with her sweet flesh. Another taste, and he would be truly lost. He wasn’t ready for that. God, he wasn’t ready for so much.

“Spike?”

He glanced up again. Her eyes were so wide, so reverential. As though he had just taken her to the stars, and not the other way around. She wanted him to say something hopelessly romantic, he was certain. Tell her how she wasn’t like other girls, as though she actually needed the reassurance. Whisper that he’d never felt anything like that before. How special she was, and how he would proudly wear the badge of ‘Slayer’s Boyfriend’ now that she had him addicted to her pussy.

No. He wouldn’t allow it. He might want her more than he’d wanted anyone, he might not be able to kill her like he’d promised, but the girl was not going to house-train him. The line was drawn here.

Buffy was remarkable. He needed to get out of her life before he discovered just how remarkable she was.

Spike inhaled sharply and slid her panties back up her legs, followed by her sweats. He tucked himself safely back into his jeans, sighing in relief when their respective barriers were once again blocking the path to temptation.

He felt her hurt without needing to see it.

“Spike?”

“I’m gonna take you home,” he murmured.

“What’s wrong?”

Everything.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“I...did I do something wrong?”

The uncertainty in her voice killed him. No, of course not. It had absolutely nothing to do with her. He was the one that had buggered himself backwards when he wasn’t looking. He was the stupid sod that didn’t know how to read the warning signs to disaster.

He smiled. “No, baby. It’s late, an’ I’m gonna take you home.”

Buffy nodded numbly, and if possible, he felt like an even bigger wanker than before.

It wouldn’t change his mind, though. Nothing could.

The starry look in her eyes didn’t change anything, either, but it certainly didn’t help. Not even the kiss she gave him before he sent her back to her room. That heated, needy kiss that whispered relief and promise. He drank his fill of her mouth, knowing it had to be the last time. Absolutely the last time. They’d both get hurt the other way, and with as much as he wanted to protect his own heart, he found himself flinching at the thought of breaking hers.

He might be addicted to her, but he’d forget after awhile. Forget how sweet she tasted. How much promise he’d found in her arms.

The words sounded empty even to him, but he had to try. Buffy Summers was everything he couldn’t have. No amount of want could change that.

Thus when she whispered her goodbye to him, he knew it had to be final.

Even if he couldn’t muster the words to tell her, he knew it had to be final. What’s more, she did, too. Somewhere, she had to know how wrong they were to even hope for something more.

Despite how right it felt.

Part VI

Granted, Spike wasn’t exactly the best decision-maker in the world. His determination to stay away from Buffy lasted about ten hours. Ten hours starting from the moment he collapsed in his chambers at the mansion to the time he awoke from a sequence of dreams all featuring her forbidden body.

No amount of conviction could erase her from his system. He’d been foolish to think otherwise.

He was so thoroughly hers. Why it had taken him so long to realize it was anyone’s guess, but the promise of her warmth was worth all the want of monstrosity. All the hope for being more of who he was, rather than what he was meant to be. The calm, unbiased expression in her eyes was his utter undoing. No one had ever looked at him like that. Like he mattered. Like he was anything but a consolation prize.

She had every right to hate him. Not only for what he’d done to her that night in the park—and every night thereafter—but especially for the callous manner of her teacher’s death, even if the woman’s blood had never touched his hands. The particulars didn’t matter; Angelus had given her every reason to loathe vampires without prejudice.

Spike honestly had no idea what it was that had won the girl over. How his not-killing her had transformed into something so precious; something filled to the brim with grace on top of the lust that surged his veins. The sweet taste of her had thoroughly unwound him. He wanted her so blessedly much, and no amount of logic could hope to touch him.

It was so wrong, but bugger if he cared. Ten hours away from her had him thoroughly broken. His body ached for her, his mouth burned with her taste, and his stubborn mind refused him solace from the memories of her head thrown back; of the sweet little mewls that had touched the air.

God, she’d sung for him.

He was so painstakingly lost; it didn’t bother him now, in the morning light, that the vampire he’d tried to be was gone. The vampire he’d tried to be had never existed in the first place, and while it went against every instinct in his body, the far greater crime would be turning away from the first warm embrace that he’d ever known.

He felt it with every inch of his being. The world had finally handed him what he’d spent an eternity craving. He wasn’t going to be foolish. No amount of wrong could hope to dwarf the right. And if it was right to live as he’d always lived—the puppet to Drusilla’s mind games, her fucktoy whenever she wasn’t getting satisfaction—then he never wanted to be right again.

However, despite the sway of determination, the concept of losing himself in the Slayer absolutely terrified him. Despite however right it felt, there was always a small, however logical voice that screamed this could never end well. Perhaps they could heal each other, but he knew that once he gave himself to her, he would never want to let her go.

He wasn’t foolish. Even with the way Buffy had looked at him the night before, he knew he wasn’t the long-term guy. Not for her. He was the one to heal her wounds; not the sort of gent she’d want to bring home to Mum. No amount of want could change that.

And yet, staying away from her simply wasn’t in his system. He was allowed to hope, wasn’t he? Allowed to fantasize of things that would never be, even if it made the ultimate rejection unbearable in the end. Allowed to hope that, if he gave himself to her, she wouldn’t turn away from him after she snapped to her senses.

God, the thought already made him ache. He was a bloody fool.

That knowledge wouldn’t change anything. He might be a fool, but he belonged to Buffy. And touching warmth, even for a little while, would be better than an eternity without it.

His life was so thoroughly buggered.

Spike released a deep breath and sat up. The room was large and empty, of course; he hadn’t had a bed-mate for weeks. Even during Dru’s illness, he’d taken some satisfaction in being the one she slept beside. The one she awoke to, even if those hours of rest were the only ones filled with any sense of peace.

It didn’t matter now. If nothing else, Buffy had helped him let go of the past.

There was a sudden rasping on his chamber door. He shouldn’t have been surprised; usually when he was ready to let go of her, his little raven had a way of sensing that she’d endangered her hold on him. Likely through lack of attention or simple, deliberate neglect. She’d come in, coo about how she was his princess, stroke his cock, and leave knowing that he was still in the palm of her hand. That she’d given him enough to keep him on her reserve list, just in case Daddy wasn’t up to fucking her that night.

Foolish concern, really. Angelus was still on his ‘I-was-a-poor-souled-boy-for-a-century’ kick. He needed to degrade both his women in every imaginable fashion before he felt like himself—before he found ultimate satisfaction.

Dru undoubtedly sensed that she was losing him. She needed to remind him why he was enamored with her in the first place.

Spike smirked as she strolled into the room. Too bloody late.

“My prince sits all alone in the corner. Doesn’t he want to join the other kiddies at the table?”

“Not particularly.”

She pouted. “You’re cross with me.”

“I wouldn’t sound so desolate, pet. Why don’t you run off an’ play with the others?”

Dru shook her head, placing a finger across her lips. “Shhh. Daddy sleeps. Mustn’t wake him. It’ll anger the baker, and grandmum will be terribly upset.”

“You can imagine at this point how much I care.”

She flashed him one of the looks that normally guaranteed that he’d crawl on his hands and knees if only to appease her; it did little more than flood his veins with irritation. “I’ve lost you,” she moaned mournfully. “Haven’t I, my darling?”

You never should’ve had me to begin with.

“Would it bother you if you had?”

“You are my prince, my darling. What can mummy do to make it better?” Dru poked out her lip and sauntered toward him, her eyes flashing as he sat up on the bed. “What can she do...” she murmured, running her hand brazenly over his crotch. “To please you?”

Spike shifted and rolled his eyes. The surge of irritation that seized his veins was liberating, though somewhat disconcerting at the same time. He’d never reacted to Dru’s affectionate touches with anything but eagerness. Had never felt anything but gratitude that she was even looking at him, much less touching him with tenderness, false as it was.

Incredibly false. He’d never noticed the lack of feeling behind her eyes—or if he had, he’d forced himself not to acknowledge it. She looked at him with intent, with a small smile that betrayed knowledge concerning her power over him. She was there to use him, to wear down his wall and ascertain her dominance. Her authority over the family, and she was willing to use anything to get what she wanted.

Nearly against his will, Spike found his thoughts drifting to Buffy. To the warmth that glowed softly behind her eyes. To the shy way she looked at him, the warm, heartfelt smiles she flashed him. The genuine way she reacted to his touch. How she moaned and whimpered for him without any want of manipulation.

A hundred years with Dru, and there had never been a hint of affection behind her eyes. Never had she looked at him the way Buffy had just last night. Dru, who should have been his everything—who had been for too long—couldn’t love him well enough to rival a seventeen year-old slayer. Who truly couldn’t love him at all. She was far too involved with Angelus, and even the souled Angel, to care much about anyone else.

Hell, from the second they arrived on the Hellmouth, she’d turned into something else. She’d started complying with him, had become more affectionate, and it was all for the want of Angel. The souled bugger that was somehow more worthy of her love than the only vampire that had never abandoned her. And from the second that her Daddy came home, she hadn’t given Spike a second glance.

The look Buffy had given him the night before was eons ahead of that from the one that was supposed to love him.

Suddenly, a shot of revulsion shuddered through him at the thought of Dru’s hands on his body—something that empowered nearly as much as it horrified him. Her hold on him was gone. God, it was really gone. He was bereft and relieved, terrified and excited. Dru no longer had any
power over him—but someone else did.

Someone else that would ruin him completely.

Spike shuddered again and captured her wrists, prying her hands off his body with a slight shake. “Toddle off,” he said. “There’s nothin’ in here that you want.”

Dru’s pout became more prominent. “My prince speaks lies to appease the dove. The dove doesn’t want you, darling. It’s the angel she craves.”

A bolt of fury spread through his insides, and he leapt up with a snarl. “What?” he growled. “What do you know?”

“Little Slayer. You think she’s yours.”

“No matter of thinking about it, pet.”

The facade of seduction vanished as a grimace set across her face. “Ooohhh,” she moaned, rubbing at her tainted flesh as she clamored to her feet. “You’re all covered in her. She itches at you. Squirms inside to yank the shadow out. You’ve left me. You’ve left us all.”

“You say that as though I was ever here to any of you in the firs’ place.”

“She’s not the answer, my darling. She will bring you nothing but pain.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. Dru spoke as though she was saying something particularly innovative. Furthermore, she was deliberately trying to pass off her words as prophecy rather than the ramblings of a lunatic whose guilty pleasure had finally grown up. Had finally looked out the window and realized that true sunlight didn’t burn him at all. He knew her well enough to determine when she was moaning about a vision or moaning about something else. There were no stars in her eyes. Nothing she’d said could be accounted toward anything but her jealous greed to keep her family together.

Bugger the rest.

“I’m no stranger to pain,” he snapped, tearing to his feet. “Been with you long enough, right?”

“It angers Acathla,” she warned.

“An’ Miss Edith, too, I’d wager. It angers everyone in your pretty li’l head. You know what? I don’t give a fuck.” Spike pivoted sharply and seized his duster. “Go back to your family, Dru. You’ll find no love from me.”

She moaned piteously and crashed to her knees. “Lost!” she cried. “You’re lost to the light. It’ll burn you. Eat away at your insides until there’s nothing left.”

“Yeh. Must smart, knowin’ that someone else took your job.”

“Don’t leave us!”

He cast her a final look and shook his head. “There’s nothin’ left for me here. I’m not even sure there was anythin’ to begin with.” He paused, his jaw clenching at the look of false contrition coloring her eyes. “Oh, give it up, Dru. I’m through playing these mind games with you. I’ve bloody well had it, all right? I’ve found an out. I’ve found a way to bloody breathe again, an’ if you ever cared for me at all, you’d stand back an’ let me go.”

Dru quivered and moaned, clutching at her stomach. “She’ll ruin you!”

“There’s nothin’ left to ruin.”

The first steps he took into the underground tunnels sent shivers of liberation down his spine. He had no idea where he was going—if he could hope for any direction whatsoever. It wasn’t like he could go from Dru’s bed to Buffy’s without incident. He’d be fortunate if he hadn’t already blown it with the Slayer. They might not have a future, but they had a series of moments he wanted to fill. Something to carry with him after she’d moved on.

A sigh rattled his body. He didn’t want to think about the inevitable end of their relationship when they’d only just touched the beginning.

For now, he had the promise of her warmth.

That alone was more than the world had given him in over a century.

He remembered watching her that first night. Watching her seductive curves as she danced with her friends, relishing in that fun, carefree smile on her face and hardening beyond belief just as the sight of her. He’d known then, before ever seeing her in battle, before even knowing her name, that she would be his greatest conquest.

Now he’d tasted her. His tongue knew the secrets of her young body, his fingers had played her to orgasm, and he found himself wanting her so much it hurt. It hurt that there was distance between them—that he didn’t know if she’d greet him with a smile or a slap. If the yearning he’d seen in her eyes the night before would have melted into revulsion.

She moved like nobody’s business. Spike released a deep breath and shook his head. It was dangerous enough coming here. Her friends were with her, and while the tension between them was undeniable, they appeared to be having a genuinely good time.

He didn’t like the way the boy looked at her. Possessive, lustful. As though Angelus’s turning, while bloody tragic as far as the lot of them were concerned, was truly a progressive step toward taking what he wanted. The boyfriend, after all, was out of the way, and the crimes he’d committed fairly well guaranteed that he’d never lock lips with the Slayer again. The whelp, while on the arm of that bitchy brunette, didn’t even bother in disguising the looks he shot Buffy’s way as purely and unashamedly domineering.

Buffy, for her part, either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

The way her body moved drove him out of his mind. Spike finished off his drink and set it on the railing of the balcony, then turned slowly and made his way down the staircase. He blended easily with the assortment of students and pacifist demons that made this place their haven. The Bronze played host to one overenthusiastic and never-changing crowd that only gained in age and number. The perfect place to pick up a late snack, obviously, for the kids never seemed to wise up to the fact that they were being continuously hunted.

Only tonight, he was hungry for a different flavor.

Her friends needed to disappear. Now.

In all likelihood, only a few minutes passed. He watched her with a sea of people between them. Watched her face, and found himself smiling at the carefree grin that tickled her lips. He hadn’t seen her look like that in months. Not since the torrid love affair with Angel, and certainly not since the world ripped away her rose-colored glasses. He wanted to believe that he had something to do with it, but he wasn’t about to turn to false hope.

No. There was no room for wishful thinking where she was concerned.

He couldn’t help the sliver of excitement that raced down his spine when the redhead yawned and told the Slayer that she was bowing out for the night. The boy, with his bitchy girlfriend, followed soon after. From the look on the fiery brunette’s face, the whelp’s attraction to Buffy hadn’t been obvious to Spike alone.

It pleased him when Buffy didn’t follow their example. She bid them farewell, then turned back to the music, having absolutely no trouble in finding a dance partner.

The second the others were out of the way, the growl he’d bit back rumbled through his throat. He wasted no time plowing through the crowd of clammy teens. The heartbeats around him egged at his hunger; the demon screamed at him for a sample. And yet, the second he was within inches of Buffy Summers, the environment melted into nothing but noise.

Her back was to him, and she was dancing with some slobbering, unworthy bloke who did nothing at all to conceal the lust in his eyes. The growl itching Spike’s throat grew more prominent, such to the point that the git tore his gaze off the Slayer and balked when he clashed with the possessive vampire behind her.

Spike smirked and wrapped an arm around Buffy’s waist, pulling her against his chest. She didn’t jump with surprise or twist and demand release; rather, he felt her relax, as though
she’d simply been waiting for him to come over and stake his territory.

Evidently, the bloke’s hormones won over sensibility, and the flash of fear faded quickly into anger. “Hey!” he snapped, stepping forward heatedly. “No cutting in!”

The growl grew louder. Buffy ran her hand along the arm that had her around the middle, her fingers linking through his with such fluidity and acceptance that Spike was certain his insides trembled in awe. “Not this time, Kevin,” she said softly, though without apology. “My date’s here now, and you really don’t wanna piss him off.”

The kid’s eyes bulged. “This guy? He’s your date?”

“You heard the lady,” Spike snarled, tightening his arm around her waist. “Bugger off.”

The horny teen, dejected, turned away and disappeared among the masses. Any sympathy he could have mustered on the kid’s behalf, faked or not, vanished just as quickly; Buffy twisted in his arms the second her former dance partner was out of view and seized him in a convulsive kiss. Spike froze a beat in astonishment, then growled against her lips and plundered her mouth with his tongue, grasping desperately at her shoulders as he drank her in. God, she tasted so warm. She was pure ambrosia, and he was hopelessly addicted to her. The warmth she radiated nearly swallowed him whole.

“What took you so long?” she demanded between kisses.

The neediness in her voice nearly drove him to his knees in reverence. Her soft heat was pressed against him all the right places. The affection that burned her eyes, that stroked his lips, that radiated through her touch was his ultimate undoing. He wanted to answer her desperately, but his lips couldn’t be persuaded to part from hers.

“Spike...”

He moaned into her, his mouth breaking at last to sample her honey skin. Across her cheek, her chin, down her throat. He couldn’t stop kissing her.

I’m hers.

Three days, and he was completely hers.

Bugger.

“I thought...” she whimpered, clutching him tighter. “I thought, when you left last night, that something was wrong.”

He nibbled at her throat. “No,” he murmured. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You just left.”

“Had to. It was a certain slayer’s beddy-by time.”

She pulled away at that, depriving his mouth of her sweet skin. “Spike...I don’t do this part well,” she said. “I don’t. The last guy I was with...well, we both know how that ended up. So...I guess, with what happened last night...”

A long sigh coursed through him, and he wrapped a hand around her wrist. “Come here,” he said, dragging her away from the dancing floor. This wasn’t a conversation to be had while a load of sweaty teens gyrated around them. He wasn’t even entirely clear on his line of thought. All he knew was that he had walked out on Dru, and while buzzed from the reclaiming his self-worth, the high would only lead him to an inevitable fall—perhaps not at what he’d done, rather for what it meant.

Alone. He’d said he wanted it, and he did, but that didn’t mean he was ready.

He shoved her through the nearest door, landing them in the utility closet.

A wry smirk tugged on his lips. Of all the luck.

“I can’t do this if you’re going to hurt me,” Buffy said the minute he whirled back to her. “Seriously, Spike, I can’t take it.”

He blinked. Slowly.

“I know I’m jumping the gun,” she amended quickly. “I mean, there is no this, and even if there were, it’d be totally wrong. Totally and completely wrong...especially since...well, you don’t particularly want to be the Slayer’s boyfriend, a-and I’ve already done the vampire thing. That didn’t end well, needless to say. But see, I just...you put your mouth...” The flush that fired her sweet skin thoroughly enchanted him. “You put your mouth on me...down there ...and then with the kissage back there—”

Spike’s eyes widened in amusement and he held up a hand. “Watch it, pet. You’re the one that lunged into the kissin’. I jus’ reacted.”

Hurt blazed her eyes. “You reacted really convincingly.”

“That’s because I really believed in what I was doin’.”

“Well, I just need to...I need to get this out there.” She paused. “I can’t do this if...this is all there’s going to be, okay?”

“An’ this comes after you attacked me with your mouth?”

“Couldn’t help it.” Her blush brightened and she turned her gaze to the ground, kicking at it stubbornly. “I just...last night was amazing, then you just left.”

“I walked you home.”

“Then left.”

“An’ kissed you goodnight.”

“Technically, I kissed you goodnight.”

He grinned and shook his head. “You do that a lot, don’ you?”

“No, I don’t! And that’s the point! I can’t...this can’t be something light for me, Spike.”

“I never said it was.”

“But it’s wrong. You know it’s wrong, and I know it’s wrong.” Buffy released a deep sigh. “And you wanted to kill me just a little while ago.”

“Who says I still don’?”

Her eyes narrowed. “We’ve already been over this.”

“If memory serves, we never finished that conversation. Your tastier parts distracted me.” He raked his eyes down her body, his tongue playing against his teeth. “Look, Slayer, I don’ know what the hell is goin’ on. I won’ pretend to. But I walked out today, an’ the firs’ thing I wanted to do was find you. Doesn’ that mean somethin’?”

“Walked out?”

“Of the mansion. It’s over.” The words haunted him, struck a deep chord that he didn’t want to consider. A chord that affected him more for what it implied, rather than what it meant. There should have been more emotion latched onto releasing the woman that he’d lived for over the past century. Perhaps Buffy’s warmth swallowed up any lingering sorrow. Perhaps a thousand things. All he knew, at that moment, was that he was staring into the sun, and the sun, for the first time, had embraced him.

“Over?” she echoed.

“I left Dru.”

“You left Dru?”

Spike smiled softly and nodded. “Yeh.”

“For...why?”

“For me, luv. I left her for me.”

The crestfallen look in her eyes shouldn’t have rattled him; naturally, while he was thoroughly Buffy’s bitch, even if she didn’t know it, there were certain things that couldn’t be attributed to her girlish wiles. Her succulent innocence. She already owned way too much of him to allow her that part, as well.

It shouldn’t have rattled him, but it did.

And that leant him pause. Was it possible that Buffy had played a larger role in his leaving Dru than he’d granted? He’d decided to leave the Order before that first confusing night they’d shared, but his thoughts had been wholly with the Slayer as Dru tried to con him into sacrificing himself to the clan completely.

He didn’t know. He honestly didn’t know.

“I don’ know what we’re doing, luv,” he told her honestly. “I don’. But...I don’...you’re...”

The words you’re what I want were on his tongue, but he wouldn’t let them out. She couldn’t know that. Not yet. It was too much—too big a step. Larger than the kisses, than tasting her quim, than letting her live in the first place. It meant, for him, a complete sacrifice of who he was.

Buffy was what he wanted. God, how had that happened?

She couldn’t know. He knew she couldn’t know. The power she held over him right now was terrifying enough. Once she wised up to him, once she knew, there would be nothing left for him. Nothing that wasn’t owned or controlled. And with as sweet and innocent as Buffy was, he couldn’t allow himself to fall so hard again. To lose himself in someone who would never be satisfied with who he was.

Though, by the way her face softened, by the sound of his name on her lips, by the feel of her in his arms as she—the Slayer—took him into the warm sanctuary of her embrace, he had a feeling that it was too late.

Too late for him to walk away with anything left of himself.

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