banner by PF

Summary: A violent, cocky Vampire smashes into the idyllic Hell Mouth with murder on his mind.  A new Slayer has been called, one to become his third.  But Sunnydale holds more than it originally seems, as Vampire and Slayer are caught together in a battle of power against the guardians of this world.  A balance must be retained.  Only in death, can release be found.

TimeLine:  AU - replies on nothing.  But set around where S2 would be, when Spike first meets Buffy in the Bronze.

Rating: A [Very Adult]

Author's Note: The fiction is going to be different from my other fictions, I hope in a good way.  It's hard to describe it, but I hope I've done an okay summary.  I may revamp it as the fiction evolves.  All that is up is the prologue, but more will be soon as I already have the whole thing mapped out from beginning to end - it's not overly long, just about 15 parts, but like I said it's different.  It doesn't reply on anything.  Literally.  It is a BtVS fiction, but the only characters you'll really find are Buffy and Spike.  It's set where season two would be, and the second chapter (not the prologue which is just setting the main premise up) is where that first ep. we see Spike would be - at the Bronze.  As you can see from my major rambling, I'm still working it out in my head, and so it's making it hard to explain without giving it all away!  But hopefully you'll enjoy it as it evolves!  Do let me know what you think, even though there's not much yet!

This fiction has won awards!  Thank you!

Prologue – Creation Divided

In the beginning there was one Earth and one pure being to govern that Earth. 

Slowly the earth grew plentiful.  Trees and vegetation sprung up around bountiful streams, rivers and lakes.  Insects crawled the dusty planes, and soon they were joined by animals who shared in the lush, green overgrowth.  In the seas algae grew and multiplied, and fish swam within the reefs.  In time they were united by reptiles who helped bridge a gap between the two divisions of water and earth.

And then came the humans.

There were five at first.  Four men and one woman. 

But unlike the other creatures, they could not live in harmony.  They were greedy and callous.  They wanted the earth for themselves.  And they would do anything to get it.

However, like all avaricious things, their downfall lay in their inability to share with even one another.

The one pure being took pity on the world it had created, and in its charity divided between the five the earth it had borne so dearly in a final attempt to keep the peace.  Each part was to be governed by each of the five, who with their bounty were offered immortality as a gift. 

But their favour was bequeathed with a price; one rule.  That they could not personally kill a being within the Earth that had been granted so freely upon them and that together they must retain the balance created on the Earth. 

It was their choice. 

The repercussions would be severe. 

They were warned.

But greed overrides sensibility.

And they accepted it gladly.

No mere mortal, demon or power would be able to view these separations, long formed before time as they knew it began.  Nor were they privy to the rule that bound their world together with such fragility.

But the separations, they were there, and they held strong…

Even as around them, creation crumbled.

Chapter One – Lost In The Telling

1773 - Winter

The first spoke out.  “This is a problem.” 

“It is starting.  I can feel it.”  Agreed the second.

“Something must be done.”  Concurred the third.

“And soon.”  Completed the fourth.

In a place overlooking the world, a place where no being that dwelled within it could see, five once-humans sat gazing down at the earth that belonged to them.  They sat in a circle, placed high on magnificent chairs of spun gold, silver and bronze which levitated in the air.  In between them, a swirling vortex showed to them the object of their attention.

“Under which separation does he lie?”  The first asked, looking out to his four companions, looking for a way to rid himself of the responsibility that had befallen them all.

A responsibility they had once accepted in such haste – the hubris of the young.

The four looked back at him, silent in contemplation.

Finally the fifth spoke for the first time, her voice soft and calm.  “He is in the centre.” 

“What are we to do?”  The third asked in fear, his youthful face suddenly giving away his age of many millennia’s.

“What can we do?!”  The fourth completed.

“Nothing.”  The fifth spoke again.

“Nothing?!”  The other four replied, shocked and in tandem.

“It is done.”  She continued, as if they had never spoken, and indicated the moving pictures below.  Her coterie turned and gasped, as below them a vampire was made.  His thin wire glasses fell to the ground as the vampiress who was to sire him bit deeper and harder, moaning in delight as his blood ran down her throat and coursed through her dead veins.

“This changes everything.”  The second accused, his hard eyes staring out to his associates.

“Perhaps.”  The fifth agreed, her voice serene.

“The balance is in jeopardy—” The first began, only to be interrupted by the fifth, his one-time lover.

“Yes, it is, but not yet by him.  Look.”  The vortex swirled below them, moving away from the heart of Britannia, to another part of its empire.  The Americas.

“They will destroy this Earth!”  The third cried out in dismay, as below them the American War of Independence began to turn in favour of the settlers.

“They can not win!”  Concurred the fourth.

“But what can be done?”  The second asked.

The fifth slowly sat back as the first responded, followed by the third, satisfied as the new debate continued over her head.  The matter of the Vampire, the one who would become William the Bloody, was lost for the time being.

For fair means or foul.

Chapter Two – Gently Watching…

1998 - Winter

It was a dark cold, cold night.  Not that that really mattered in California, especially not on a Hell Mouth.  The blokes were dressed in tacky thin shirts, and drenched in cheap cologne and the chicks were in push-up bras and dolled up to the eyeballs – all so desperate to get laid.  Not that it helped them any.

He was in some flashy night club.   Too much fake smoke, and too many untalented bands – but it was packed.  Hell, it was heaving.  Prime with wall-to-wall snacks and appetisers.  But he wasn’t going to ruin his dinner.  A snack wasn’t going to be good enough tonight, not when gourmet dining was right in front of him

His eyes circled the dance floor, before honing in on the girl he’d had followed here.  She was dancing.  Her youthful body, curling and writhing with another to the heavy beat. 

He focused in on her scent; it stood out easily from the others.  His kind could recognise her in the middle of the sea, on a huge pile of refuse with fairies casting spells around her head.

Her.

The One.

The Slayer.

He’d been in this town, Sunnydale – more like SunnyHell – for a few days.  Just enough time to steal a place to crash, acquire the odd obligatory minion and set up his plan to kill the resident Slayer.

She wouldn’t be his first. 

Or his second. 

She’d be his third. 

Not that he wouldn’t have tried for more over the years, but in between the bitch in China, the cunt in New York and this one here, he’d had family….business to deal with.  Which had, at the time, taken precedence.  Against everything, anything…

Not anymore.

Now the family was over.

Finished.

And he could continue to live his un-life once more. 

Free.

Free to gain the recognition and respect he deserved far out from under the wing of ‘Daddy Dearest’, before he moved on to the next ‘Chosen One’ that was called.  Hell, he could get a belt – punch in a hole for every one he downed.  And every one that bastard could never get.

He shifted his focus, bouncing lightly on the balls of his combat-boot encased feet as he scanned the room, looking for all the outs, the easy kills, the wanna-be saviours.  Thankfully he found plenty of the first two, and none of the third.

Well, none, except for the Slayer.

Hatred burned through his amber orbs as they followed the object of his contempt off the dance floor.  She was heading for the exit – after some yuppie vampire looking for a meal.  This was getting easier and easier.

Waving off the minion he’d brought with him to help entice the Slayer into a vulnerable position, and then naturally towards a violent end, he followed her out. 

The cold night’s air hit his face as he let the doors bang shut behind him, sending tingles across his long-dead pores.  With slow measured steps he followed the sound and the scent of a fight to the death.

Or at least, to the death of the vampire.

He situated himself at the mouth of the alley.  Intimidating, but comfortable in his position, he leant against a set of crates piled high, and watched the fight unravel before him with an assessing eye.

She could move; he’d give her that.  But already her weaknesses were making themselves known.  She dropped her left shoulder too much when she hit with her right fist and her balance wasn’t as great as it could have been.

This one would put up a fight.  Just like they always do.  But he would win.  Just like he always did.

He could feel it.

---

With a final thrust of her stake, the fledgling before her turned to dust with a satisfying scream of agony.  Wiping a tendril of hair out of her flushed face, she was half tempted to say ‘Another one bites the dust’ but she wasn’t quite that pathetic. 

Yet.

For a moment she though back to her date who would be – although knowing Jake she used the term lightly – worrying about her.  She must have been out here for at least ten minutes.  The vamp hadn’t been anything more of a run-of-the-mill vampire, but still something seemed off about the night.  Made her feel vulnerable and oddly afraid, and she was eager to get it over with.  It was taking it out of her tonight.

Sighing, she spun on her heels, and was about to take a step when a slow, derogatory applause stopped her.  Raising her head with a flick of her hair the Slayer assessed its source.

‘Bout five foot eleven, peroxide blonde, lots of leather with an extra side dish of attitude.  A twelve on the hot-o-meter. 

But also, she quickly evaluated, majorly lacking in the pulse department.

“Who are you?”  She asked, no quiver of fear in voice, though a shiver shot imperceptibly down her back when he smiled back evilly.

“Your executioner.”  He replied, his face slowly morphing into its true visage as he stepped up to the ring.

---

The Slayer swallowed.  It was so far her only betrayal of being afraid.  He was impressed.  And that said something.

“Cute.”  She replied, her eyes cold, and he watched as her fists tightened around the still-held stake.

The Vampire smiled again, and then the fight was on.

A furious flurry of kicks, blocks, punches and interceptions took place, but soon, too soon, the Slayer began to tire.  Her left arm, it was dislocated, and her right leg had been smashed too many times.  More hits made it to her supple flesh then ever should have.  More kicks connected then ever before.  She was bloody, beat and broken.  And she could feel it.

The end.  It was coming.

The Vampire noticed it too.  The resignation he saw in her eyes.  He recognised it, had hungered for it – had seen it in the other slayers, and in countless victims before her.  He revelled in it.

A muted cry escaped her lips as his heavily booted foot met with her exposed shin, and she felt something snap.

He saw his opening and dove with the perception and precision of a well trained killer.  He circled around her in a flash, his foot coming up to completely break her leg as he twisted her into his arms in an odd parody of a lover’s embrace.  Immobilised, exhausted, beaten and broken, the Slayer could do nothing but cringe to the pain as her head was jerked back and cold fangs sank into her neck.

Her pride would not allow her to cry out.

The Vampire drained her quickly.  There was not much blood left; most was still seeping from the many open wounds on her exposed body.  With a satisfied growl, he dropped her to the ground as her heart finally slowed to a stop.  Wiping the few drops blood from his mouth he kicked her to the curb of the alley for the club manager to find in the morning and absently drew his stained thumb into his mouth, savouring the last few drops of his victorious meal.

With a violent snarl he collapsed back into the wall behind him and felt his shoulder snap back into place.  It would heal.  Hell, with the vivacious infusion of Slayer-blood in his veins it was practically a hundred percent already.  Pushing himself up, he reached inside his duster pocket for his cigarettes and lit one up.  The familiar habit of drawing the nicotine into his dead lungs filled his jazzed body with a much needed instillation of calm.

His eyes found the Slayer’s dead body as he smoked.  Her vibrant red hair was already beginning to dull as death took her.  Her wide, brown eyes stared sightlessly back at him.  He smirked in her direction and flicked the cigarette butt over to her lifeless corpse, watching the dying ember burn a hole through her tawdry, thin top.

Turning on his heel Spike moved out of the alley, easily blending momentarily with the Goth crowd that had just exited the Bronze, before slipping flawlessly into the shadows.

Chapter Three  - A Confrontation Brewing…

The Following Night…

A lone figure sat, legs splayed out in front of him, arms resting in a deceptively casual pose against the back of the open booth facing the rowdy bar before him.  An empty shot glass dangled from one hand, a half-smoked cigarette from the other.  Encased in black, with a sharp red shirt, Spike projected a dangerous air without even trying.

A half-empty bottle of Jack was staring out at him.

He stared right back.

So, he’d got his third.  Word had spread like wild fire.  The bite mark of a Master Vampire, especially one who had once been the Scourge of Europe, was hard to miss – and once the Slayer’s body  had been found, which she had, the demon grape-vine had been ablaze with the knowledge that not only had Spike bagged his third.  But that once again, Sunnydale was without a Slayer.  And now he was a hero, sitting in a two-bit bar, drinking pre-paid booze.

Like Spike gave a shit.

He hadn’t done it for them.  He’d done it for number one; himself.   For his glory, his honour….hell, his fun!  And it had been, for the five minutes that it had lasted.

He was disappointed in her.  She should have lasted longer, a quick fight to the death was hardly worthy of a Slayer.  No matter how flimsy an excuse of a fighter she had turned out to be.

He’d come to Sunnydale looking for a challenge, a glorious battle…and had ended up with an amateur boxing match. 

There was something off about this town – even with it once being Slayer-inhabited.  It was odd, oddly fearful in general.  The vampires, the demons here were more wary then most ever were, or dared to be.  And no one talked about it.  No one said a word about what was worrying this sleepy town. 

And that only made it odder.

But back to the point, he was the victor, and he guessed that was all that mattered.

It was strange, the frailty of life – both human and demon, he reflected as a few meters in front of him a chaos demon had its antlers torn off after his playmates had caught him cheating at kitten poker, of all things.

In a second all you knew could be torn away from you.  Smashed, crashed, destroyed.  You could just be tumbling into an alley, bawling your eyes out and then WHAM!  You’re an evil Vampire, livin’ it large, but having to live up to the family while you’re doing it.  Being fucked in the ass, beaten and clawed at until what little semblance of humanity you had remaining is gone - vanished. 

Destroyed. 

Not a pretty un-life.

Full of having to live up to other’s expectations; always having to prove yourself in front of fucking worthless eyes.  Hating everything, anything good or noble that remains within you – everything that makes him come back at you for more over and over. 

Despising everything good. 

Everything saintly. 

Everything pure.

It was a dog eat dog world out there, and if you didn’t go butcher a shit load of kittens the other dogs would get you instead.

Spike rolled his eyes and growled – the dog/vampire kitten/slayer analogy was getting too much for his fuzzy brain to keep up with.  He slammed the shot glass down, and from nowhere a voluptuous minion rushed to fill it back up for him.  With a saucy wink in her vague direction he downed the fiery liquid in one shot, indicating for another which she obediently provided.

Well, fuck it.  Now one big bad dog was all that was left.  And he was sitting right here, downing under-par whiskey in some shitty demon club off South Street.

The millionth shot of the night slid down his throat, hitting his still-full stomach with a hiss that promised vengeance.  Good thing he was a Vampire, else he would be regretting this indulgence come morning. 

The busty vamp was back, eager to obey any order he might give – and carry out any service he may require.  And from the signals she was giving off, she meant anything.  Her wide rouged lips were pouting at him, her sultry eyes offering him common delights that he hadn’t had, hell – hadn’t allowed himself – in a long, long time.  Not for lack of offers, mind.  But his coldness, his aloofness to the world, the bane to his kind, to the whole universe, had spread over to every single part of his life, until he felt like he’d been taken over by it. 

Here he was, William the Bloody, living a true Anne Rice existence – lonely, violent and vengeful of the life he’d once had.

Not that he didn’t like being a vampire.  Hell, he loved it.  It had granted him freedom, freedom from the constraints a lifestyle in the gentry demanded.  But not for long enough.  Not once Daddy had entered the picture.  And entered it he had.

Spike growled viciously.  He didn’t want to reflect on his sorry past – who gave a fuck what it was that brought him here?  Here he fucking was – William the Bloody.  Slayer of Slayers.

It was who he was.  Anyone who thought, or wanted, differently could bloody well sod off.

Right, so a quick fuck was out.  With another growl, this time one mildly regretful, he pushed Double ‘D’ out the way and stood up, ignoring her yelp of protest as he did so.  Grabbing what was left of the bottle, he was just about to leave when a new arrival caught his eye and, for reasons unknown to him at the time, he slowly sunk back into his seat to observe her, unnoticed.

She was short – tiny in comparison to the demons that frequented this bar, even in her mistress of pain heels.  ‘Bout five foot two, maybe three.  Her hair was long, obviously blown straight if the little wisps about her face were a sufficient give-away.  The blonde tresses seemed to shimmer even in the dirty light, falling softly around her body to rest half way down her back. 

Her face was conventionally pretty, but there was something about her…something different that seemed to draw him to her.  She was more than pretty, she was beautiful.  She was… 

Effulgent.

Spike growled at the reminder of the once-sappy William he had been, ready to storm out after killing the young vampiress that had so caught his attention, but something stopped him.

Petite though she was, she exuded power and confidence in her every move, her every glance.  He watched as she slid on to a bar stool, directly in his line of sight so that he was able to continue his avid observations without scrutiny from the other patrons.  Not that anyone would have dared say a thing.

Not tonight, anyway.

Her scent.  It was something else.  Something unearthly and utterly divine in its concoction. 

She was clearly a vampire, he mused as he watched her sip thoughtfully at her glass of blood.  Her food was human from the smell of it.  But there was no fear in the scent of the drink which meant it had been bagged, and willingly bagged at that.  Odd, for a raucous establishment such as the shit hole he was currently resting in. 

But there was something more.  Something there – deep, hidden within her scent - that, try as he might, he couldn’t quite place.

Spike allowed his gaze to trial her tightly encased body.  Leather, black – hardly original for a vampire, but whom was he to throw stones?  She looked hot.  And she could carry it off.  But, still, there was something about it that didn’t look quite right; some odd air of innocence surrounded her that was throwing his radar off whack making her look almost like a kid playing dress-up.

He rolled his eyes: odd - that word again; yet another thing to add to the ‘Things Fucked Up In This Town’ list for the night.

Still, his gaze stayed with her, his attention focused solely upon her and when she rose to leave, he stood also.  Enthralled, he followed a safe distance behind, so as not to alert her to another presence – though young, the vampiress reeked of maturity and good breeding and would no doubt be able to know if someone was trailing her too close.

She walked well.  Her head held high, her arms comfortably by her side; she was the picture of relaxation.  She was undoubtedly secure in her own skin; well aware of her charms she was unafraid to use them to her advantage.

Spike was only mildly surprised when she turned into a cemetery.  Sure, most vampires lived in crypts and mausoleums, but there was something about her that made him think of lush silks, cashmere and luxuriant velvet.  He wanted to wrap her up, cradle her, take care of her.

He would shower her with the best that money could buy or fear could procure; cover her in jewels, dazzle her with opulence, keep her forever…

He wanted her, he realised with an odd sense of surprise at the knowledge.  As a lover, a companion…

A mate.

This was a feeling he hadn’t experienced for a long, long time.  Too long had he been alone, and finally he found someone.

She just didn’t know it yet.

It was late, and she still hadn’t stopped at any of the many empty ‘homes’ they’d passed.  Sunrise was not too close, but close enough that he knew that if he was to make it back to lair in time he would have to leave soon.

Leave her soon.

The logical part of him knew he should leave, but he couldn’t let her go.  Not yet – not until he had discovered whatever the hell it was that was drawing him to her so fervently.

At the sound of fight up ahead, he increased his steps, uncertainty warring within him even as he moved - anxious to protect his chosen while still wishing to remain hidden as yet.

Spike came close, pausing just back from the clearing she had stopped within.  She was fighting a vampire.  Nothing special – many vampires rowed.  Over food, mates, territory, for the sheer thrill – you name it.

That wasn’t what was bothering him. 

Sure it was normal, but the possessive demon within him balked at the sight of another putting his hands on property he deemed his.  He would have stepped in, but something almost mythical in its delight gave him pause.

She was beautiful.

Poetry in motion, the ever-present William whispered in the deep recesses of his mind.  But for once the demon was inclined to agree and did nothing to beat down the poet.

Her style was seemingly flawless – her movements fluid, and yet strong. 

The other vampire hadn’t stood a chance. 

Spike’s eyebrows shot to the sky when the mysterious vampiress produced a well-crafted stake from God-knows where, staking her opponent (though he was unsure the vampire was worthy of such a title) cleanly through the heart.

A fight to the death he had expected, but to come so prepared was… odd.

Just as quickly as they’d shot up, his eyebrows sunk into a frown at the single word that escaped the combusting vampire just before he fell to the ground in particles.

One word.

So odd.

So very, very…odd.

“Slayer.”

Chapter Four – Once More With Feeling

The Following Night…

Unable to resist, unable to release her image from his mind, Spike stormed from the manor house he’d called his own for the past five days in search of the vampiress he’d seen the night before. 

Her magnificent, yet unknown scent which had, the moon previous, unfurled against his senses had remained with him for the rest of the night and all through the achingly long day, and now he was determined to seek it out. 

To seek her out.

Never before had another being so completely plagued his conscious and unconscious being.  He couldn’t get her out of his mind, literally.  She had been his every thought, his every memory, his every consideration throughout the long, long hours of the Californian day.

Even at his most focused, even when planning to take on the bane to his existence – a Slayer – had he not retained this amazing focus.  His personality was, by nature, one of impulse, of scatty thoughts and the need to be bouncing up and doing something.  He’d eaten a psychiatrist once, but before he’d gotten around to the final bite the woman had managed to diagnose him with ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. 

Naturally agitated at having never heard the abbreviation before, Spike had finished her quickly – unappreciative of the uncomfortable advantage she suddenly managed to hold over him.  However, he had immediately ordered Dalton – the most book wormiest of Vampires under his then current command – find out everything on the disorder, and was amused to find it fit him as snugly as one of his tight black t-shirts.  Her intelligent observations given the situation made him almost sad that he hadn’t turned her.

Almost. 

Regret was never a good commodity for a Vampire to acquire – one lived for far too long upon which such matters could be infinitely dwelled over.

But moving back to the point, Spike reminded himself as he noticed how severely he had rambled off the point and he doubled back to get his coat.  It was another bitingly cold night, but that was not what had made him turn.  The coat made him look bad.  Unapproachable.  But sexy as hell.

It was about ten when he finally reached the cemetery he had seen her in last – where he’d witnessed that fight - and the other vampire’s last words, which Spike had conveniently forgotten until now, washed back over his memory cells.

It had been odd, he admitted, for a vampire – any vampire, male or female – to carry such a well fashioned stake so easily reachable and on tap.  Especially since it hadn’t seemed like the fight had been planned or even remotely premeditated.  The fight had contained no well thought out barbs or insults – no reference to a past misadventure – as most fights to the death, within reason, often did.

Also, the vampire’s parting words…

Spike growled quietly to himself, “It meant nothing.”

He genuflected that easily they could have been said simply in hatred towards the beauty that was killing him so professionally, and skilfully, and so, in his last moments, the fledgling had offered up the best traitorous barb that his puny brain could come up with.

Hell – it made the most sense.

With his delusions firmly in mind, Spike almost missed the vampiress walking but a hundred or so meters in front of him.  He stopped in his steps, almost stumbling over himself both in his desire to not get caught, and his embarrassment over the whereabouts of his disorganised brain.  He was here for a purpose, a mission to claim his mate for all eternity and for all to see.

Time apart from her presence had not dulled his desire for her, only heightened his determination that she should be his.  Forever.

Purpose firmly back in mind, he followed her, as before keeping as far back as he could so that she would be unable to sense him.  Again, she led him into a cemetery.  And then another. 

And another.

Odd.

Once again, he dismissed it as nothing, content instead to follow her delicious form wherever it took him.  He wanted to find out more, all, everything about her.

And her scent.  Oh, her scent.

It was something else, some indescribable – but he had tried to describe it….oh, how he tried.  But then again, how can perfection be explained, how can beauty – real beauty – be bottled?  It was impossible.

But how he wanted to.

Then suddenly, the scent that he had been so enthralled in, changed.  Well, not so much changed as disappeared.  And all of a sudden Spike found himself alone, no beautiful Goldilocks in sight or scent…and he was in the middle of a clearing.

Had his brain not been in a lust-addled mist he might have recognised it as the same clearing he had found his mysterious vampiress fighting in the night before.  But, overly anxious for her touch, the feel of her skin, to be encased in her glorious scent, Spike was lost to the obvious for the first time in over two hundred years.

Shaking his head in a valiant attempt to clear it, he allowed his extended senses to try and take stock of the situation.  Amber eyes surveyed the area as he turned in a complete circle, twice and slowly.

The air seemed to be blowing every which way, but he was unable to get a solid position on the beauteous scent he had been so locked on for the past hour or so.

Confused, but undaunted, he closed his eyes, extending his senses as he turned full circle once again.  He smiled.  She was there.  He couldn’t pin-point exactly where.

Damn, she was good. 

But, he knew she was there.

“Come out, come out where ever you are!”  Spike sang in a sing-song voice into the eerily quiet woodland, as he opened his once again azure eyes to view the world before him.

He never saw it coming.  Hell, he barely even felt it coming!

One second he was standing, an irritating smirk on his face as he prepared to circle around once again and deliver some witty line out to his beloved.  The next, he heard a delicious growl that immediately made him as hard as nails and then he was flat on his back and a gorgeous weight was pressing directly down into his crotch.

Of course there was also one very pissed of vampire with a stake pressed to his heart there as well, but hey – beggars, or fools in lust, couldn’t be choosers!

Buffy growled, her eyes flashing amber as she regarded her captured through narrowing orbs.

“Hello cutie!”  Spike grinned up at her through a mouthful of fangs, his sunlight eyes full of glittering passion.

Buffy was not amused and her legs tightened around his waist and her fingers flexed warningly over the stake she held precariously against his heart.  “Who are you, and why the hell are you following me?!”  She demanded.

Spike rolled his hips up, allowing the vampiress to feel his impressive erection as he replied: “Why do you think I’m following you?”

He laughed; a free and jubilant sound that he had not heard in a long, long time, as her face contorted into a teenage mask of disgust and she sat up off him, obviously ruffled.

“Eww, gross!”  She groaned, shifting further up his chest and as far away as possible from the impatient hardness that had been pressing up into her.

Noticing her apparent distraction, Spike took the moment as the perfect opportunity to turn the tables, so to speak, and he flipped her neatly on to her back.  The stake flew from her loosened grasp in the surprise of the movement to land a few harmless feet away, bouncing lightly on the soft, dry grass.

Unlike Buffy, Spike had no compunction to lying wedged between her gorgeous thighs, and took the opportunity as it presented itself to him to ensure that almost every part of his body came into contact with her writhing one.  He groaned, a deep and pleasurable sound drawn from the depths of his chest, as she rubbed, unknowingly, in the most seductive way against him.

“Fuck!”  He whispered almost reverently, leaning down low to trail her unprotected throat with his nose, inhaling her glorious scent into his long dead lungs.

Buffy shivered, the movement virtually imperceptible, against the onslaught of foreign emotions that his touch made roar through her body.  It had been so long….so very, very long since anyone had touched her in such a fashion.

Since anyone had really touched her…

But no – he was a vampire.  And she, she was still the Slayer at heart, no matter that it no longer beat.  She had her duty.

Her duty.

It was all she now had left.

With a frustrated growl, she flipped him off and over her head, not even waiting until he hit the ground behind her before she shot to her feet.  A new stake found its way to her palm, the old one ignored in light of the need to survive against this obviously Master Vampire.  Flipping her hair back from her face as it come loose in the tussle, she adopted a fighting stance and waited for him to get up.

Spike smiled sappily up at her, his body content from the infusion of her scent, and happy to just lie here for a while and savour the moment.

Irritated by both his annoying smile and his audacity at just lying there when there was a Slayer waiting to kill him, Buffy moved forward, kicking him in the side with one leather encased foot.

Oh, yeah, she was also kinda pissed at herself for reacting the way she had while lying under a dangerous demon.

“Get up!”  She ordered, her voice as hard as nails even though internally she shook from the way he was looking at her.

Spike continued to stare, enthralled that even though her eyes flashed amber her face stayed in its smooth, beautiful human countenance.  He couldn’t wait to see her vamp.  She’d be just as beautiful, he knew it.

“Can’t you get up?!”  She half-screeched at him, entirely uncomfortable with the situation.  She just wished he would stop his damn staring!!!

“I have no problem with getting it up, pet!”  He rejoined with a naughty grin.

The vampire was making sexual innuendoes with her!  At her!  Buffy couldn’t believe it and started to splutter out an answer, indignation making her unable to form words.

Yeah.  Indignation.  That was what it was.

Not lust.  Never lust.

Fortunately, he saved her from further embarrassment by speaking again…

“Sorry, love – you’re gorgeous - can’t I stare my fill?”  Spike winked at her, and even upside down it sent tingles over her skin.

…though not for long!

“No!  Up!”  Buffy blushed, or would have if she’d been able to, shocked at the teasing and over-familiar note in her voice.

Trying to block out the abomination of her responses in the past few minutes, she moved forward, intent on starting this fight even if he wasn’t going to!

In her blind madness, she had practically forgotten that this was a Master Vampire she was dancing with, and when she reached out her leg to kick him once more instead of it connecting like it had before, he grabbed it, hauling her down on to the ground with him so that she was straddling his lap.

Buffy gasped at the change of position, but when all he did was smirk up at her she finally remembered that she was the Slayer, and he had just put her in a very dominant position.  Striking out with her fist, she’d forgotten that her hand still contained her stake and watched as the tip sliced a cut into his chiselled cheek.

Spike growled in shock, her sudden movement hadn’t been unexpected, he just forgotten for a moment that she thought she was gonna kill him – and with her in such an erotic position above him, all he could think was how much he wanted to sink his aching cock and fangs inside her supple body and plough her into the soft ground below.  And he hadn’t thought of much else.

Growling again, this time in displeasure, Spike was about to throw her from his lap when he noticed her looking – no, staring – at the blood he could feel slowly slipping down the side of his face.  The cut was healing, and fast since he was still full of Slayer-blood.  But still it was bleeding, if only very slightly.

He realised, it was now she who was enthralled. 

Her eyes were wide and glazed, her luscious lips slightly parted.  It was hunger, in her gaze.

---

Buffy didn’t know what to think, it had all happened so fast – too fast.  She knew she should move, knew she should get up and run as far away as possible from these alien feelings she was suddenly experiencing.  But something was holding her here.

Oh.  She shivered.

Oh, the scent of his blood.  It was divine.  There was something there, something familiar, but she knew that she had never met this vampire before tonight – not counting the night before when he had starting tailing her.

God – she wanted him!  This was so wrong…but still, she couldn’t move.  Couldn’t draw herself away…

….couldn’t bare to.

---

Slowly, unable to resist binding her to him in some way, any way, Spike carefully reached up, drawing his thumb over the cut on his cheek as he collected his own blood from his skin.

Cautiously, oh so very gradually, he brought his hand up to her lips.  He noticed she was panting in anticipation of an act she couldn’t bring herself to stop – and Spike found that so was he.

Harsh, short, sharp, unneeded breaths caused her black silk and lace enhanced chest to rise and fall harder and faster.  Her nipples puckered, and it took all Spike was to stop himself from leaning forward and drawing one of those tight nubs into his mouth.

Spike groaned low in his throat when his skin finally met her parted lips, and when she opened them wider to accept his blood to her tongue he growled.

For a moment, a minute, a millennia, time seemed to stand still, and all there was, was them.  Spike, and this beautiful stranger, who had, as of yet, been unable to grant him the simple pleasure of the knowledge of her name.

Just them.

But all too soon reality crashed down over the perfection sitting a top of him, and he watched as the shutters fell down around her and she thrust his hand far away from her lips.

Her own hand rose to her mouth, as if in belated defence against the invasion that had just been perpetrated. 

---

With a cry of unholy agony at her own actions, Buffy sprang from his lap, still panting heavily as she tried to removed the scent and taste of him from her mind, all the while staring down at him in abject horror. 

But she could not. 

The scent of his skin, the taste of his flesh… they were still on her lips.  The taste of his blood, it was still in her mouth, and she could feel it coursing majestically through her undead veins.

Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes, but she continued to stare down at him coldly.  Frustration at her reaction, frustration at how right it had felt to be in his arms…

Frustration at how she knew she had to resist – how she knew she had to kill this beautiful, deadly creature lying below her. 

Deadly being the operative word, she harshly reminded herself as images of a bloody past flashed to the forefront of her memory.

“Stay away from me.  You come near me again, I’m going to end this.  This isn’t over.”  She threatened, her voice thankfully strong even as she cursed herself for such a nonsensical threat, before sprinting in a Vampire/Slayer blurringly fast movement as far away from him as possible, kicking up grass as she went.

Spike still lay there, one hand in his lap, the other bent behind him, keeping his back at a forty-five degree angle from the ground.

Stunned.

What was that about?!  Sure, he had expected a little chase, but the girl seemed seriously spooked by her reactions to him.  She was resistant, reluctant…which he had expected, but there was more.  She was horrified.

Horrified by her own actions, rather than being – what? 

How had he expected her to react, what had he expected her to do? 

Spike sat up and shook his head in order to try to centre his thoughts – she was new, he rationalised.  It was obvious she was just a baby vampire, probably only been turned a few months: still a little shaky on her new legs, like a new-born colt.  And there were no other vampires around her – she was obviously alone in this world.

Alone…

Just like him.

Possibly unused to contact, unused to vampiric affection – despite being the obvious cutie that she was.  It was obvious that she desired him – in that, he was certain.  If she hadn’t, no matter how much he wanted her, he would have walked away; forcing oneself, on anybody, wasn’t Spike’s style.  She was probably just a little fearful of this desire – why, Spike had no idea, but he was determined to find out.  To save her from whatever demons that were plaguing her – be they internal or external.

He’d give her a little time – well, as much as he was willing to anyway – but he couldn’t wait to fight her again, couldn’t wait to feel her body against his; couldn’t wait to claim her as his forever.  She was a glorious equal – finally one worthy of him.

He slowly sunk back down in to the ground, satisfied. 

And still partially aroused from the infinitely erotic sensations of having his future Mate wrap her sublime lips around his body, even it was only his finger, and draw his blood into her body.

With slow, purposeful actions, Spike lifted his free arm, drawing his own thumb into his mouth, savouring the taste of her on his tongue.

He was in her now.

This wasn’t over.

It would never be over.

Spike thought back to her parting words.  This isn’t over.

She’d meant them as a threat – for whatever reasons, Spike wasn’t sure.  But he could only take them as a promise, and one that he was sure he was going to fulfil.

Chapter Five – A Kiss Bestowed

A few days later…

The old leather duster flared out behind him as, with purposeful steps, he moved silently through the pathetically sleepy town of Sunnydale.  He had sought her again…and again, unable to wait despite his promise to himself. 

Each day, over and over the dreams would come to him.  Hot, erotic dreams of pleasures he had not yet known, but wanted to so very, very much.

He was out once more.  Night after night since their last meeting he had scoured the cemeteries, the demon hangouts, the vampire hot spots.  All to no avail.

But he wouldn’t give up.

He couldn’t give up!

He knew that he would now be inside her.  That by her drinking his blood, she would be unable to forget him – unable to remove him from her mind, her thoughts.  The opposite, he had found, was also true, so very, very true.  She was inside him, inside his blood – and the knowledge was screaming at him to find her. 

To claim her.

To keep her.

Spike inhaled deeply, hoping that the night’s air held something of her scent, and was shocked to realise that it held more than ‘something’.  She’d been there, and not too long a go.

His faith renewed, he picked up the pace, following her ever strengthening scent, once again, into a cemetery. 

She was there.  Fighting yet another vampire amongst the many headstones.

Spike was not a patient man by nature.

And although he may have waited before, this time not even the hypnotic enchantment of her motions could deny him the essential pleasure of feeling her skin against his.  He longed to have her near him, to feel her unneeded breath against his skin, to watch her eyes flash in anger, or lust, towards him.

He ached to be buried hard within her depths, to hear her cry out his name as he brought her over the edge again and again.  But at the same time he yearned to draw her in to battle, to engage her in a glorious altercation so they could move the way he knew they could.

Tearing off an errant tree branch, he entered the fray neatly staking the young, cocky vampire she was fighting with. 

If she was surprised, she didn’t show it, and with a toss of her hair and a flash of her eyes she knocked the make-shift stake out of his grasp. 

“Rather be fighting you anyway.”  She growled at him, moving to deliver a superb side kick to his left temple, eager to rid herself of the unwarranted, and unwanted emotions that had been coursing through her whole being for the past few nights, and the long, long days.

“Mutual.”  Spike smirked, and caught her foot just before it could connect and, spinning her around, sent her flying into a near-by mausoleum.

The man within him winced, eager to see if she was alright when her head hit the stone with a sickening crunch.  But the demon within him revelled in the mate he had chosen when she rose easily to reveal that it was the wall that had come off worse from the altercation.

With a magnificent leap that would have rivalled Nureyev at his very best, she flew into the fight with an all-in-the-air triple kick combination that had him stumbling backwards over a tombstone, gasping for unneeded breath.

“You sure about that?”  Buffy faux offered, a cheeky half-smile on her lips.

Spike rose, in true Dracula style, back to his feet and offered her a feral grin.  Her obvious vigour and technique were arousing both the man and the demon trapped with in him and he longed to be inside her – in any way possible. 

“Hell, yeah!”  He growled back, his eyes glittering in the moon light.

And the fight was on.

With a well placed left hook, Spike’s fist smashed into Buffy’s face.  The Slayer simply turned her head with the blow – Slayer/Vampire strength and healing were a major asset to the whole Slaying gig, she had found.

Spike’s second hit joined his third before finally it was blocked, and his own face was knocked back with perfectly executed round house kick.  Her left arm ploughed into his nose while her knee met with his solar plexus, and she giggled as he fell backwards, spluttering expletives.

Damn, but this was fun!

Then she smelt it. 

Blood.

His blood.

And she froze.

Spike, noticing her distraction, dove for her, tackling her prone body to the ground.  With a swift roll he had her trapped beneath him.  Speedy legs immobilised the kicking ones beneath him and strong fists closed around her wrists, holding them securely above her head.

Spike groaned as he took in the seductive pose she probably had no idea she was in.  Hips cradled against his own, arms spread above their bodies – the action lifting her youthfully full breasts closer to his lips.  Pouting nipples jutting out in provocation, and the feel of her hot breath against him was divine.

Wait a minute – hot breath?

She shifted beneath him, a growl escaping her lips as she spoke, distracting him from his thoughts.  For the time being at least. 

“Let.  Me.  UP!”

Spike grinned.  “Nope!”  And rolled his hips down into hers, eliciting an obviously unintentional gasp from her lips.

Her eyes flashed amber, and she tugged fruitlessly at the hands that bound her own.  “Who the hell do you think you are?”  She demanded hotly.

“Ahhh, finally some introductions!  Name’s Spike, my love.  And who might you be?”    

“What?  You haven’t heard?!”  Buffy replied caustically, trying to ignore the tingles that spread through her at his use of the endearment. 

“’Fraid not, pet.  Gonna give ol’ Spike a name?”  He cajoled teasingly, and then circled his hips into her once more.

Her own name left her lips as a moan rather than the defiant growl of her title that she’d intended on.  “Buffy.”

“Buffy…”  Spike grinned savouring the taste of her name on his lips, then, unable to stop himself he leant down brushing a tease of a kiss over her mouth.

When Spike pulled away, he was about to speak, say something romantic, something crude, something arousing…but it all stuck in his throat when her obviously traitorous body curled up into his, even though it was evident she consciously knew she should want anything but.  Realisation hit him like a tonne of bricks. 

She wanted him. 

But more than that.  She was almost desperate for his touch, even though she so obviously didn’t want to be – quite possibly desperate for any touch.  She was alone.  This was odd for a vampire, especially one of her beauty and blatant magnificence. 

She was alone.

Just like him.  It only made him crave her more.

Was this why she fought nightly with creatures of her kind?  For need of the intimacy that even the most basic of fights incurred?

He didn’t like it.  The thought, the notion, that whatever was between them wasn’t special, wasn’t unique brought him more pain and anguish than he cared to acknowledge.  Again, he brushed his lips against her, this time against the side of her mouth, relishing in the way she allowed them to part slightly for him. 

No, he hadn’t seen her react this way to any other’s touch.  During neither of the fights he had witnessed had he smelt the delicious scent that was rising so strongly from her body at this very moment.  The sweet, glorious scent of her arousal.

No – it was special, was different, this thing that they had.

---

Buffy didn’t know what was happening to her.  She was lying, spread out beneath an obviously dangerous Master Vampire.  The title, his place in demon society was something she could feel deep within the stirrings of her demon.  And a small part of her almost wanted to defer to it – but a much stronger part resisted the impulse.  It wasn’t in her – wasn’t who she was – to cower down.  Not to anything.

She never cowered.

Never.

Not even in her final moments as a human had she cowered to her murderer, the one who became her jailor and first glorious vampiric kill.

But this, this here, what was happening right now!  This was in no way deference to his position, my God; it was more of an all out submission!  But it wasn’t his status she was submitting to, but something much worse.  Something much more deadly.

It was him.

She was submitting to him.  This vampire. 

This being. 

This…

Spike.

---

Spike watched as the conflicting emotions rippled across her features, and when she opened her sassy mouth, probably to do exactly that – sass at him – he took the opportunity, and covered it with his own.

Her lips were soft, but unwilling under his.  He growled his displeasure at her, never once releasing his hold on her body or her mouth.

Beneath him, Buffy’s body rose momentarily and growled back in defiance, before all of a sudden resting compliantly under his almost as if she had no control over it.  Her mouth opened further, and their lips slid wetly over one another in a slow, tender kiss.

The kiss was wary, but passionate at the same time.

Spike was dying.

The taste, the scent, the touch of her….it was amazing, and all in all overriding his senses.

The movement of her mouth under his own as she slowly helped deepen the kiss was erotic to say the least, but there was an interesting blend of naivety in the kiss.  She was shy – almost like she had never done this before.

And he would have thought that she were an innocent had not her lips currently been arousing him to peaks he’d never before reached.

Slowly, carefully so as not to frighten or discourage her tentative lust, Spike allowed his tongue to slip within her lips, drawing her own out to play with his as his senses were once again bombarded with wired signals.  He explored her mouth, easily finding the hidden sheaths for her fangs.  Circling the tip of his tongue around them, he drew them out without forcing her to vamp out.

With a sharp movement, he sliced his tongue on her fangs, allowing his blood to pool into her mouth.

Buffy growled then groaned deep and throatily as the glorious liquid hit her taste buds.  Her lips tried to draw his mouth firmer down on to hers as she sucked avidly at the cut he’d made. 

Still moaning and drawing blood from him, but eager to share this experience with him, Buffy mirrored his earlier actions enabling her own blood to be added to the tantalising mix.

Spike didn’t just growl, he roared as her blood hit his system, letting go of her wrists to wrap his hands around her face in a further attempt to draw her into him.

He barely recognised the senses that were screaming that there was an extra reason this vampire’s blood was so special – that it was still Slayer blood, distorted as it was by her vamped status, that he was tasting.

But he was beyond that.

All he could taste, all he could smell, all he could hear was his blood screaming ‘Buffy’.  His demon came forward fully, demanding that Spike stop pissing around and claim the perfect being beneath him.

Spike rose up off her body slightly, drawing her trembling lips into a final tumultuous kiss, before opening his mouth to utter the words that would bind them together for all eternity.  “Mi-”

“NO!”  Buffy shrieked, finally regaining her senses at that very last crucial moment.  In a blindly protective fury, she threw him from her with her now-freed arms.  This was too much, this was too fast. 

This was wrong.

Shakily she stood, drawing a still wobbly hand over her tender lips, wiping away his blood, and hers.  Wiping away the evidence.

Wiping away the past.

Spike growled, snarled in fact, at his desired mate being torn away from him.  Even if it was by the mate in question herself.

“You.  Are.  Mi-”

Again she interrupted.  “No!  I am not!”  She backed up further, her eyes furious and flashing.  “My God, you think you have some clue – some idea of what I am.  You don’t!”  She stated furiously, a childish foot-stamp accompanied her words.

“You know nothing!”  She continued to rant.  “You are nothing.”

“Buffy…”  His rough voice was a warning, she knew this.  But she couldn’t stop.  Whatever it was she was feeling, it had to stop.  She couldn’t…she couldn’t….

“You’re just a vampire.”

“Hate to let you in on this, pet, but so are you!”

“No.  No!  See?  I’m not just a vampire.  I’m a Slayer.  The Slayer.”

“Slayer?”

It was a cruel fate, she later mused, that the one being she had felt anything for her whole life would emote such disgust at the truth of what she really was.

“Yeah, the Slayer.  Didn’t you notice the whole body temperature thing?”  She asked scathingly, not waiting on an answer, unable to stop she spat the following words out.  “The Slayer – the outcast, the freak, the loner.  Turned by The Master, the one who turned on The Master.  I’m here, walking this earth – god only knows what kind of a soul I have left, if any.  I’m alone – my friends, my watcher, my family.  Dead.  Which I should be.”  She laughed self-derisively before completing her sentence bitterly.  “Which I am.”

Spike stood stock still, unable to move, unable to speak.

Suddenly, it was like Buffy realised she’d said too much – exposed too much.  Her hand flew to her mouth in shock.  God, what was happening to her?  The night, this night, it was turning her all over again – everything was going wrong.  Mad.  She was going mad.

With an almost sorrowful growl she spun on her heals and fled for the second time in their short acquaintance.

Spike still stood static, unable to move.  Unable to speak.

Chapter Six – Hell’s Wrath Knows No Mercy

A Few Days Later…

The music pounded around the Bronze, blasting in the ears of the mortals, and screaming in those of the vampires that moved to its pulsating beat.  The air was hot and heavy, the night full within its throw and the crescent moon high in the dark, frozen sky.

As people passed her they unabashedly stared, the men appraisingly, the women jealous – all hot and sweaty in the packed nightclub, making themselves only more aware of the beauty that swayed seductively; the very embodiment of cool.

She had to come here. 

Had to remember what she was fighting for. 

Had to feel normal, just for a little while.

He was everything she should despise, everything she should be repelled from…

…but everything she desired.

For the first time in… forever…she desired.

But, she was the Slayer.  Vampire or no, she had a commitment.  Lonely, hard, short – that was the life of a Slayer – all she had now to keep her going was the hope that she could change that last one from ‘short’ to ‘not so short’.

Even if it killed her inside.

So here she was, trying desperately to lose herself in the music.

Trying to let the throbbing pulse of the song strike away whatever urges she may have given in to the night before.

Pleading that the hammering sound take her away from this lonely place she dwelled so solitarily within.

Praying that its powerful beat devour her, consume her…take her.

Begging it to let her forget.

Forget what she was.

What she had become.

Forget her fears…

Her pains…

Her utter loneliness.

Forget how close she was to falling…

Just… forget.

Please…just forget…forget…

---

He watched her. 

He knew others watched her too…but they didn’t see, they couldn’t truly see her.

His eyes followed every moment she made.  His senses covered her entirety.  His demon revolted at the close proximity that others came to her, but he forced it down deep with in himself.

He despised everything she once stood for – hell, what she still deigned to stand for, even after she should have embraced the vampiric world and all the many treasures it has to offer.

Spike had learnt…had been taught… to be always disgusted by the purity in those Chosen humans, the nobleness that Slayers adhered to at all costs – the very thought sickened him deep within his non-existent soul. 

He had killed hundreds, thousands, had bagged three Slayers – had intended to leave this deadbeat town to bag his fourth wherever she may be called.  It was his chosen decision.  It was his chance at catharsis. 

It was who he was.  Who he had sworn to be.

But she, she was changing things.

His finding out what she was, who she is, had not quashed these tumultuous feelings storming within him.  His body was still hungry for her touch, his being still cried out that it was connected with hers in some mystical, magical way.

It was more than their familial connection, he knew this.  Never had he felt the pull to Drusilla this strongly – and she was his Sire, and the bond between a Sire and Childe was unbreakable...

Images flashed, unbidden, in his mind, of bloodshed, sex, screams, broken bones and tethers… and finally dust.  Nothing but dust.

…supposedly, he completed wryly in his internal diatribe as the memories momentarily flooded his mind, then receded once more as if they had never been.

He shouldn’t want her, he knew this.  She was everything he had sworn to hate, to kill, to destroy.  It had been his promise to himself – to look out forever for number one…for himself.  But, he wasn’t meant to be alone…

Not forever alone…

Without even realising it his feet had begun carrying him to the dance floor where still she gyrated sensually to the music’s hypnotic beat.  His body easily slid into the crowd, slinking between the involved couples, his destination set well within his sights he only saw one person.  One being.  One goal.

Her.

He couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop himself…he could deny it all; his beliefs, his world…but not her.

Never her.

His body was starved for her touch, he realised when his arms closed around her, demobilising her, as his undead heart seemed to swell with emotion.

She gasped, her head turned, and for a moment she paused, and he saw desire float in her emerald orbs before they closed off from him completely, flashing with an almost forced fury when she recognised the identity of her capture as that which she could not have.

“Spike.”  She hissed, fruitlessly attempting to remove herself from his grip.  He wasn’t ever going to let her go.  “Let go of me!  Now!”

---

His arms were harsh around her, and Buffy was grateful she no longer had a circulation to be cut off else she would be in some serious danger right now.

If she wasn’t anyway.

She opened her mouth to deliver another scathing comment but was forestalled by the commanding growl that rumbled into her ear, and shocked to find herself deferring to it.   Something deep within her recognised that this was a Master vampire, an old, prestigious vampire… but none of that would have stopped her.  Her demon recognised his – not as a Master, not as family; though she knew in some way he was – but as a Mate. 

Buffy wasn’t sure what this term truly meant.  It had been a chapter in the grand book of Vampyrs that Giles had never really tried to teach her.  However, she and Willow had once snuck the book out of the main library and deep into the stacks, giggling and commenting on the lewd drawings that were contained within its bindings and the proper words that spilled from its pages as the stuffy watchers of the past tried to explain this ancient ceremony between one vampire and another.

The mating…

The ceremony that was one of the most revered, one of the most powerful.

The most binding.

---

She had stopped struggling.  Not that it had done her any good in the first place, but she must have realised that he wasn’t about to let her go.

Or even better, she had decided that she wanted to stay.

He couldn’t allow himself to believe it was the latter – not yet.  Not while things were so up in the air; it was too soon.

Arranging her more comfortably, but still just as securely in his arms, Spike leant down, pressing his lips to the shell of her ear before he began to speak, his low, sensual tones creating a web of seduction around them that not even the music in the club, nor the people jostling by them could penetrate.

“I know, who you are, cutie…”  He began, his cool breath tickling her skin.  “I know it should matter, that it should change how I feel, how you feel…”

He paused.

“It doesn’t.”

Another kiss, just below her ear – a reward for not revolting and running away from him so far.

“I know the loneliness you feel – the pain and the loss that weighs you down, that follows you, that you move around with every single day like a noose around your pretty neck.  I know, because I feel it too, baby.”  He whispered earnestly, the truthful words of a gentleman and a passionate demon long buried deep within his body. 

Unable to help himself at her proximity, he nuzzled his face against her neck and felt her sigh, then snuggle further in to his embrace; seeking his touch.

“We belong together, I can feel it in my gut.  You’re in my blood, love, I feel you coursing through my body, I feel you screaming within me; begging me to do your will.  From the first moment I saw you, my entire being demanded that I claim you, that I take you far from this squalid town, shower you in the beauty that you deserve.”

Buffy blinked fast as the tears welled up in her eyes, his words washing over her like the sea after a storm.

“If you tell me now – if you can tell me that we don’t belong together, that you don’t feel it too – I’ll leave.  I’m not going to force myself on you, pet.”

Spike shivered at the horrifying thought, tightening his arms around her body in an unconscious movement that betrayed his unwillingness to let her go, despite his words.

“You belong to me.  I know you do.  Just as I belong to you.”

Cool lips pressed themselves to the bite mark on Buffy’s neck, and a tremor of delight rang through her veins at both his certain words and delicious actions.

“Now.  You have a choice.”

Around them, the world went on.  The music played, the people danced as in the middle of the room, a vampire waited for a slayer’s response.

~~~

“This is a problem.”  The first spoke suddenly, gazing heavily down at the portal beneath them and the two beings that continued to gaze at each other.

“And one we should have taken care of two hundred years ago when we had the chance!”  The second chimed in, angrily.

The third tried for diplomacy.  “What could we have done?  We had bigger matters to contend with.” 

“America.”  The fourth agreed.  “They would have destroyed the balance – the world!”

“You fool, they won, don’t you remember?  They will destroy the world!”  The second snapped back.

The first growled at the idiocy of the turn of conversation, bringing them back on track as usual.  “They will not have the chance to, my friends.  The balance is in greater jeopardy at this very moment, than ever before.”

Before anyone else could speak the fifth finally spoke, her soft tones an attempt at soothing the congregation.  “Perhaps this is not so – the joining of the two forces may balance each other out.”

“No!”  Denied the second.  “That was deemed the case when the Slayer was turned.  The balance was balanced then – we all agreed.  This union can only destroy it.”

“How can this be so, brother?”  The fifth rejoined with a delicate frown on her clear features.  “This union could be exactly what the world needs – as she turns a little to embrace the dark, he would, in turn have to embrace the light to keep her.”

“NO!”  The third and the fourth spoke together, suddenly changing their stance on the situation – too easily swayed by the other’s anger and self-righteousness.  The third continued his denial of her words.  “He will never turn to the light – he is darkness, through and through.  He will sway her and she will be lost.”

The fourth completed the thought as he accused the fifth.  “The balance will be lost – this is your fault, sister.  It was you who turned away our attention before, when the matter could have been dealt with!”

“As you said,”  She replied calmly.  “What could we have done?  America was the larger threat at the time.”

“We could have dealt with both!”  The first barked at her.

“It is your fault!”  The second accused harshly.

Her voice boomed out – no longer calm or dulcet in her tones, she revealed the authority she had always possessed.  “It is no ones fault!  We each have a fifth of this earth to govern, and to protect.  And each of us had a choice.  It was our own stubbornness to work together – our own inability to accept that more than one quandary needed attendance.  We have only ourselves to blame for this path of ruin we now traverse.”

No one moved in the great above.  No one spoke as they each took in and accepted her words of truth.

“Nothing will save us now.”  She continued in the silence, her voice ominous. 

The fifth paused, and then a smile – one the others had not seen before – graced her lips and she spoke again.  “Except, perhaps The Vrekh’ir.”

Chapter Seven – A Promise Fulfilled

A low growl rumbled through her body, reverberating around his, as Buffy became frustrated by Spike’s calm, beautiful words as they sunk into her brain.  How dare he do this to her?  She was quite happy in her lonely, untouched world until he came along and started shaking things up!  He just stormed into her unlife and turned it on its head, and then had the gall to expect her to just fall in with his plans!

Like it came easy to her.  Like it wasn’t hard for her too.  She was the Slayer for God’s sake, vampire or no, warrior she was through and through.  And she couldn’t give that up…no matter how much she wanted to.

But oh, how she wanted to.  There was something, something she was unsure of but she could feel it pulling, swirling, tugging beneath her skin and rushing around her blood stream, calling her to him.  It was within her.

She wanted to let go, wanted to give in to the lust and protection his sultry voice promised.  She wanted him. 

Buffy whined, a low animalistic sound but Spike would not let her go.

“Choose, Buffy.”

As his demanding words reached her ears Buffy bucked, instinctively reacting to the commanding and authoritative tone of his voice – she lashed out.  Unable to control the feelings writhing within her, her being reacted as it normally did in uncontrollable situations.

She lashed out.

Her hand wrenched itself from his tight grip in an attempt to strike him, but he caught it deftly, bringing her wrist up behind her back as he moved round to face her.  She snarled in his arms, her legs trying to knee him in the groin.  She watched as his eyes flashed a deep amber-yellow and suddenly realised that may have not been a good thing to attempt with a Master Vampire whose erection was pressing into your abdomen.

Choose…

A shudder rang through her as he pressed further into her and desire shot deep within her belly.

Choose…

She couldn’t… she wanted… she had to… she…

Choose…

Buffy growled at him, her own anger at her indecision spurring her on as she jerked her head forward in an attempt to bite him, to try and force him to release her, however her lips seemed to have a mind of their own and what had started out as a vicious bite ended up as more of a vampiric lover’s tease.  Her fangs grazed his mouth, drawing a mere hint of blood before her lips followed, cleaning it sensually away.

Choose…

Her body seemed to have done that without her knowledge, and Buffy knew for certain that this was it, there was no going back.  She could feel it.   This was her destiny, here with this Vampire who had been calling to her from the moment he’d stormed into town.  Her body soared when he was around, and her very soul – the one she swore she had lost when she had been turned – had begun to tingle back into re-awareness.

Choose…

She no longer needed time.

Choose…

She had chosen.

---

Spike didn’t waste a moment at her obvious relent, his mouth captured hers, his lips commanding and forthright as he demanded kiss after insistent kiss from the blonde beauty that excited him so thoroughly.  Her near violent actions were only spurring him further – finally he had found his match, his equal…

His mate.

Buffy growled deep in her throat as his tongue invaded her mouth drawing hers forcefully into play.  Well, there was no need for force – she was already there.  Suddenly desperate for his touch, his taste, she wrenched her arms free only to slid her fingers into his hair and drag his lips down harder upon hers.

Their tongues slid wetly against each other, as their hands finally explored the forbidden territory that they had just been granted open access to.  Buffy’s hands trailed their way down Spike’s neck, only to crawl up in to his hair, tugging in an erotically innocent fashion on the softened ends.  Spike practically purred under her administrations, using the opportunity to slide one of his hands around to her front, where it moulded against her pert breast, while the other slunk south to cup her bottom bringing her wetness into contact with his throbbing hard on.

Buffy cried out in first felt pleasure as his hard cock jerked straight into her tingling clit, and she reflexively bit him again, this time on the edge of one sharp cheek, drawing blood.  However, this time she took her time in cleaning the wound she had inflicted on the Vampire that she was finally both recognising and acknowledging as hers.  Her tongue laved the cut even as his lips gasped and panted beneath her chin.  As his blood entered her awareness she felt like a million fireworks had just exploded within her.    

Mine…

Her face morphed in to its vampiric visage, but in the dark light no one but Spike really noticed.  Again she growled, and Spike growled back.  This time their growls weren’t angry or lustful.  They were possessive.

Possessive of each other.  Possessive of their bond.  Possessive of their binding that they were sure was to come.  It was imminent.  Even Buffy who had not, in her innocence and youth, the true realisation of the signals and reactions she was giving off, knew that tonight would be no mere slaking of lust. 

It would be bloody. 

It would be powerful.

It would binding.

“We’re leaving.  Now.”  He practically snarled at her, his voice contorting mid-sentence as he too changed to his true features as his lust began to overcome his senses.

Buffy keened softly, almost beyond vocal explanation as her demon became more and more aroused, and her body folded into his, giving him control for the moment as she allowed him to lead her wherever they were going.  Wherever that may be…

---

They had barely entered the old manor house when they began tearing off each others clothes, their vamped out status heightening their senses and strength as their lust was peaking to an almost frightening crescendo.  The leather screeched in protest as it was torn, yanked and ripped from the writhing bodies it had once encased.

Growls and groans filled the air as the heat rose between them, and Spike attempted to drag his chosen to the bedroom – he didn’t want to take her out in the living room, like some common whore, but he wanted her so badly, he was almost worried he was about to embarrass himself!  Suddenly, he was very aware of the ten or so minions that were loitered about the place and his demon reacted accordingly in response to their proximity to his chosen Mate.

“LEAVE!”  He roared, his power filled voice rumbling around the whole drafty manor, reaching ever corner and every hideaway.  It was the command of a Master Vampire, and it was not to be ignored. 

They didn’t run, they flew in their haste to leave the building and not personally incur their Master’s wrath. 

Spike never looked, neither physically or through his strengthened senses, to see if they’d gone.  He knew they would – there was no need to check.  He was Master of this house, this town, this Hell Mouth.  And everyone knew it – even the God’s themselves would not dare to refute it.

Territory commanded, he turned back to the young vampiress in his arms.  She was writhing against him, her inexperience obvious, but her allure double that of any other being he had ever laid eyes on. 

Her reaction to his touch, now that she had finally accepted it, was delicious – so open, so desperate, so eager.  He was willing to bet that she was untouched for despite her demon, her innocence shone through.  And from what little he had understood from her angry explanation of her turning, he doubted her sire had even touched her once she awoke a Vampire.

Spike groaned, lifting and wrapping her smooth bare legs up around his waist, slamming her up against the nearest wall.  His fingers trailed their way up to the junction between her thighs teasingly, until they came in to the damp, tiny lace thong that was a splash of black on her pale, yet oddly tanned skin. 

“Fuck baby, you’re so hot!”  Spike moaned in amazed delight between wet, biting kisses, as his fingers continued to circle, but never enter her sopping nether-lips.

“Slayer…perk?”  Buffy suggested shakily through unneeded gasps, she had never, ever, gone this far with anyone in her life or unlife and she found herself starved for attention.  Unable to stop, unable to control herself – her lust was overpowering her, and she felt like she was about to loose her head.

She didn’t care.

Spike growled at the reminder of what she was, his old prejudices surfacing for a moment.  But then he paused, reflected – yes, she was the Slayer.  But she was his Slayer, or she very soon would be.  And even if she was a Slayer, there was something more within her – something more than blood, something more than privilege, something that he had sought out his whole life, but never found until now – she was his equal.  So Slayer, or not.

He didn’t care.

“MINE!”  Spike growled, thrusting against her and listening in satisfaction to her accepting scream as just the final attention of his cock, combined with the feel of his mouth tugging on her rosy, peaked nipple pushed her far into the abyss of her first ever orgasm.

Buffy slumped helplessly replete in his arms, a sappy smile gracing her features.  With a tenderness he had not yet fully shown, Spike leaned forward and brushed his lips over her panting mouth, absorbing her pleasure, and her shock at said pleasure, into his body.  He gathered her higher, and more securely, in his arms, and then started the journey up the magnificent staircase to his bedroom. 

As he walked, he cuddled her closer and felt a low purr roll through her body as she snuggled into his neck, her hot breath sending shivers down his spine. 

“Spike…”  Buffy moaned, still reeling from the after effects of her orgasm.  Her whole body was buzzing, her relaxation complete.  If it wasn’t for the lust that she soon felt roar back to life she could have happily slept right then and there.

Spike groaned at her hot, kitten-like voice, his erection growing even harder at her tone, though he hadn’t believed that was possible.  He had to get inside her.  Quick.

Taking the steps two at a time, he quickly reached the master bedroom.  Kicking the door first open and then closing it behind him in the same manner, he covered the distance between them and the bed in mere seconds.  With careful hands he placed his Vampire on the bed, then stood back to take in the picture she made.

A low, excited growl rumbled round the room, and Buffy jumped a little when she realised it was her making that sound.  Her shocked eyes rose to meet Spike’s, relaxing when all she saw in them was desire, pure and lasting.  A small, half smile touched her lips and then widened into a full out smirk when her lover growled, his eyes flashing with lust. 

Her merriment was short lived when Spike shook off the few remaining scraps of leather and silk that had barely encased his body after the ravenous, thought slightly incomplete disrobing that had occurred downstairs.  The smile slipped off her face as her absorbed features took in the beauty of the demon in front of her.  Her lips parted to a gasp as her eyes continued to traverse the well sculpted planes of his body, her tongue dipping out to wet her dry lips as her gaze paused at the sight of his hungry cock jutting proudly from his body. 

Fear of the unknown flashed in her eyes, but it was short lived as the Vampire began to crawl over her, like a panther stalking his prey he slunk over the bottom of the four poster and up on top of her.  And she was very much his prey, Buffy realised, as his hands demandingly tore the rest of her clothes off and his possessive gaze swept over her.  He wanted her.  Had always wanted her, even from their very first meeting.  The knowledge gave her courage, and her anxiousness seemed to leave her along with her clothes.

Spike growled again as her young, naked body was finally revealed to him.  His amber eyes flashed gold with lust and he pounced, his mouth quickly finding hers and ravishing it into a submission that she willingly gave.  In his vamped out status his fangs tore into her soft flesh and her blood began to flow freely into both their mouths.  Buffy moaned, and not to be outdone sliced his perfect mouth on her teeth letting his blood drip and mesh with her own.

As their hands clawed at it each other their nails tore into their partners skin, sending rivulets of blood across their bodies, providing a lubricant of sorts to their frenzied thrusting.  Overcome with desire and unable to hold himself back, Spike finally tore his mouth from hers, lapping at the final trails of blood before descending on her body with equal passion.

His tongue covered every curve and every dip.  No inch was left uncovered, and no orifice left uninitiated.  His body was ruthless against hers and she was powerless to resist, and what’s more she didn’t want to – could never want to; couldn’t ever imagine not wanting to.

When finally his exploration seemed over, and his mouth returned to hers as she continued to reel from her ninth orgasm of the night, she flipped them roughly and began her own exploration.  It was all uncharted territory for her, and in more ways than one.  But his constant moans and groans, accompanied by the ever present seductive rumbling growl that rolled around the room and deep within her heart, spurred her on.

Her mouth laved every cut, her demon proud and unabashedly so in the knowledge that she was marking this master among vampires; that he was about to be hers the way she finally accepted she was already his.

Spike was writhing beneath her ministrations, barely able to believe that this perfect little innocent was causing all these feelings and desires within him.  More talented was she then any other he had met, and he knew he had to make her his.  The thought of anyone else sampling such beauty caused a snarl of displeasure to escape his lips, the sound causing his beloved to pause in her actions and the waft of fear to reach his senses.

Immediately he was contrite and quickly brought her up and beneath him, kissing her with a passion and a tenderness that it caused her human heart to break at the supplication of his will.

“Gonna make you mine, Slayer.”  Spike growled softly in her ear as his cock rubbed teasingly against her protective nest of curls that had yet to be fully breached.  “Never gonna let you go.”

A flash of power filled Buffy and suddenly the vampire and Slayer within her were once again one and quickly she spun him under her, keeping him nestled against her.

“Gonna make you mine, Vampire.”  She growled back at him, biting roughly at his ear and reopening the just closed wound there.  With a moan of unsuppressed pleasure her tongue darted out to collect the precious fluid and keep it in her body.

At the sudden pain, Spike’s demon roared back to life and all at once the Slayer was beneath him and he was slamming inside her body in the ultimate act of possession.

Their union was violent.  It was possessive.  It was bloody.

But these were no ordinary lovers. 

These were warriors. 

Born to fight. 

Born to kill. 

Born to claim.

Besides, more than that – their union was binding.

To Be Continued in: Chapter Eight - Of Possession, Of Blood, Of Pain

A/N:  I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated this story, and well anything!  I really hope you enjoyed the chapter - please let me know how it's going for you all, I'm definitely in need of a pick me up when it comes to writing as it's all taking so much longer than it used to!

Return to Bloodshedverse Home
 Use scroll bars to see reviews