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"Do you know what's wrong with you, little girl?"
She looked up at me, stared at me with more defiance, more will, more life than I had seen in her in three weeks. She didn't answer.
I grabbed her hair, exposing her neck. I was in control and I wanted her to know it. "Answer me."
Still she refused. Yet, I knew it was there, I could see the knowledge in her eyes.
Angered, I pulled her back then pushed her to the floor. In her pale dress, she slid across the waxed floor, too weak to stop herself. "Do you know what is wrong with you?" It came out a low threatening growl.
Wearily, she pushed herself up on her arms and looked at me. The fire was, surprisingly, back in her eyes. "I'm dying."
"How," I ground out. She'd been through more tests, seen more doctors, had more people killed to find out what was wrong with her only to learn it was nothing identifiable. Nothing the doctors or hospitals could find at least.
"I will it," she answered simply. Her arms began to tremble, whatever strength she'd gotten from adrenaline going fast.
Before she could hit the floor, I had her cradled in my arms. Unconscious, she lay there. I couldn't resist kissing her forehead.
It was the first time I'd done something like this, taken a human as my slave, the vampire version of a consort. Before her, I tended to prefer to rule and dominate my minions. They are less. . .fragile and I liked my fun untempered. But I couldn't resist her, the way I couldn't resist kissing her that night.
Her defiance, that's what drew me to her. Family, friends, acquaintances thought her brown and mousy. Admittedly she didn't dissuade them, wearing her hair in a haphazard bun, reading glasses often perched on her nose. But the first time I saw her, it was wandering around the streets of London, alone, in the middle of the night. A daughter of society dressed to perfection, nearly as modest as a nun, alone on the streets of London. I wanted her right then.
But she'd also pulled at my curiosity.
I started stalking her, following her around the city. She was a tactile person. I'd watch her, sitting alone in restaurants, hidden away in the back of pubs, something always in her hands. If there wasn't they were traveling along the walls, playing with the lace of her dress or anything she could put her hands on. Usually it was unconscious. She went no where without a book, either to read or write in. I never found out what she wrote, it never interested me.
She interested me.
A week after it began, I followed her back to her family townhouse. For some reason, although it was idiotically simple, I was loath to learn where she lived. I wanted to know the nature of my prey before I learned her lair.
They didn't appreciate her. Her father had long lost the battle to keep her reigned in, her mother giving up hope of ever marrying her off. The only two relations who seemed to care were an elderly aunt and doting older brother. I'm sure he was a bad role model. I suppose killing him was an improper way of thanking the young man.
She was so deliciously defiant. They didn't realize how pliant she made herself for their benefit. If she'd truly had her way she would have lived on her own, dressed in slacks and shirtwaists while visiting any and every literary salon that would take her in. I believe she wanted to cut off her hair -- the fashion being much longer than it is now -- something else I never learned.
As it was, she traded wearing a corset for traipsing around at midnight.
"I want you mind, body and soul," I said, catching her after another week of following her about London. The wounds I'd inflicted still oozed blood, but her body's natural defenses was quickly reacting "You will be my slave, my submissive, my consort for as long as I wish it." My hand was wound tight in her loose bun, stretching her neck so that she looked into my eyes.
Even in face of my demon, she stood up to me. "Why should I? Why not let you kill me," she hissed.
We were nose to nose when I said, "Because Adam," her brother, "and Aunt Ann-marie will pay with their lives if you don't." I laughed at her gasp. "You don't really have a choice," I said stroking the wound. She flinched in pain. "Just agree now, or I will kill them anyway while you watch. Then I shall take the better part of this week killing you." My face had slid back into its human visage.
I could see the fear in her eyes. The smell came off her in waves. I could also see the banked anger. "If I go with you tonight --"
"Forever."
The fire flared for a moment as she repeated, "-- forever, if you will leave my family alone. Swear it, on your honor."
Smirking, I swore. Instantly, I felt the resistance go out of her. Reluctantly, I released her, wary that she might try to run. She stood where she was, eyes still on mine. She had such deep brown eyes. If not for my enhanced sight I would have thought them black.
Immediately, I took her to the flat I was living at. The minions were gone, better for them, and I wasted no time dressing up my new "toy." That's when I discovered what I should have known, the girl knew she was pretty, that she was beautiful. She didn't want a husband and did everything in her power to dissuade suitors. It worked.
I'd fallen in love with dressing her in pretty things, doing her hair, learning which colors suited her best. I fell in love with her mind and sharp tongue. I loved her defiance and I worshipped her body as only a vampire can -- with blood and pain and without mercy.
Sometimes I allowed her to wander around the city during the day, always with someone watching her. I always knew where she was. I always knew what she did.
Once, she begged me to let her have a little money so she could buy some "pretty things," as she called them. Instead I bought the glass figurines, little ornamental things, anything glittery and shiny that I thought she might like. I was feeling generous. She took them to her room at the flat and proceeded to systematically throw them against the wall, the ceiling, onto the floor, whirling like a dervish. She nearly broke the one floor length mirror in the house. When I was told, I beat her till she couldn't move for three days and needed help to reach her door for another two.
I didn't beat her for breaking the things. They hardly mattered. I beat her for her response when I asked her why she'd done it. "Were they expensive," she said, an innocent look on her face belied by the intensity of her eyes, "because I said I didn't need anything expensive." I beat her for her insolence.
It was almost as fun as screwing her.
I remember standing in the door, looking at her bruised back. It was ugly. I loved it. "I own you, don't forget that," I said. "Your mine," my voice purring, "mind, body and soul."
"Not soul," she muttered. Her head was turned away from me.
"What was that?" Few people have excited my anger so easily as she did.
"My soul, my will, my emotions, my mind," she said, her voice hard even for me to hear. I can't imagine what it cost her. "You force my will, but you don't own it, you incite my emotions --" she gasped in pain, "but they're my own and my mind. . .I just proved who owns my mind," she ground out. If I didn't love her. . .no, if she hadn't already been close to death I would have beat her again. By the time she was well enough the anger was gone.
She was never so willful again afterwards, but I could always see the fire burning in her. No matter the games I played -- physical or mental -- or the ways I seduced her I knew she hated me. Yet, I held the better hand. The life of her brother and Aunt Ann-marie were in mine.
One night I noticed the difference. Her skin had an almost unnatural glow, but that wasn't what caught my attention. If not for the corset, I'm sure she would have slumped in her seat at my knee. As it was, her eyes were at her feet. "Look at me," I ordered.
She looked up. Something was wrong, but I couldn't place it. Annoyed, I shoved a book in her hands. "Read," I ordered.
After a week her eyes were too large and her cheeks hollow. We spent a month of nights visiting hospitals, having doctors make personal calls. I killed enough of them to find out they were either wrong or simply knew nothing. Medical sciences weren't all that they are today, after all. Through it all, whenever I looked at her, nothing looked back.
I was almost scared.
I loved her when she was defiant -- just not when she was defiant with me. It was why I'd chosen her. It made all the pain and tenderness worthwhile to know the morning after making her scream in pleasure I'd still wake to see unfathomable anger and hatred. I don't know what she used to feed her fire. Even my most indomitable childe always succumbed to my will. I used humans like her again but they never lasted as long. Their will never lasted as long. Sometimes I could feel her fury radiating off her like heat from an old fashioned stove.
Her back was straight after the fifth doctor in three night, instead of hunched over. She was barely eating enough to survive, anything more came back up. But that night her fire was burning again. It was low, but I knew I could feel it. I loved her for it. I realized she knew that I'd finally figured out what was going on.
She awoke, the next day in my bed. It was strange seeing her there again, after so long. She'd become amazingly thin. I was sitting next to her, stroking her hair. "Why?"
"Why not?" Her voice, high already, was reed thin. "You broke your word, why should I uphold mine?"
I'd forgotten about her little family. Bored one night, I'd taken them all. Somehow she'd found out. Somehow it took me more than a month to put it together. I lifted her by the shoulders and shook her. "You will stop this little girl --"
She trembled terribly. "Or what?" The fire blazed in her eyes. "There's no one left to threaten me with. Will you find someone else to make me care about?" She drew in a wheezing breath. "I don't think you can." God, how I loved her then. I wanted her so much and was surprised when something stopped me from taking her, from making her last moments even shorter. Instead, I gently replaced her in the bed. I threw quilts from her aunt's room over her. If she noticed she didn't say. "I wanted to take you with me," she whispered. "I wanted to kill you then kill myself for the things you've done to me and made me do, but I shan't have that chance. It will have to go to another. May she find the strength."
The little speech totally exhausted her reserves. Once again, she was unconscious, this time merely a deep slumber, in my arms.
Before she died, I drained the last of her sluggish blood. That done, I broke every bone in her body from the tips of her fingers to her ankles. She had such beautiful ankles. One of the minions dumped the body somewhere. I didn't know or care where. I didn't think of her again for more than half a century when I regained my soul.
"Why are you telling me this, Angel," Christina asked. They lay on the couch in the living room, Angel resting between his wife's thighs, head on her slightly rounded belly.
He caught the hand caressing his hair and kissed it. "I need you to know who I was."
"But I know who you were," she protested.
He shook his head. "It's more than that. She was like my wife," Angel twisted so he could look up at her, "and I enjoyed destroying her. When she was better after that beating, instead of repaying her with another I took it out on her mind. She couldn't have told you what was real or imagined for weeks on end."
Angel could feel her repressed shudders. Looking at her with knowing eyes, he said, "I never knew what kind of husband I'd be --"
"You're a great husband," she said, kissing the hand that held her own.
Staring at the opposite wall again, he continued. "I never knew what kind of husband I'd be. The one time I had a 'wife' I reveled in her pain.
"We would go out to the salons. Despite the history books, women were not always welcome by the male literati. A lot of them wanted something pretty to 'inspire' them. She would have none of it. She was my phoenix, burning anyone who dared question her ability, reborn every time I broke her."
"I still don't understand, love."
"You remind me of her," he said quietly. "You look like her."
Christina laughed for the first time since he began. "Darling," she said, scratching his scalp, "I doubt if we resembled each other. Even with a tan, I'm sure I'd have her beat by a few shades." Angel laughed with her. "If this is a way of complimenting me, it's failing miserably."
Smiling, Angel said, "It's something about your eyes. You have the same eyes, the same fire."
"If I remember correctly, love, when I saw your demon I nearly shattered glass." Her husband laughed at the memory.
"You were just shocked. If I remember correctly, you then socked me in the jaw." Nuzzling her belly, he sighed. "But that's not the point. I don't want to see the fire in your eyes go out."
Without pause, Christina quoted, "Back beat, the word is on the street that the fire in your eye is out."
"Hmm?"
"Nothing. You were saying, lover."
All Angel wanted to do was sleep. He'd spent the better part of the night working up the courage to tell his wife this story from his past. The rest of the night was spent in the telling. Christina's deft fingers, playing with his hair, massaging his scalp, were pulling him towards sleep. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to find the words to convey his feelings, his fears.
"I don't want your passion to die."
Christina drew her legs up from around him. A few tangled limbs later, she sat astride her husband. His face in her hands she said, "Tell me what you're afraid of Angel. I don't understand and you're scaring me."
He rubbed his cheeks into her palms. Gingerly, he placed his own palms on her stomach. "I'm afraid of hurting the baby."
Grinning, Christina smoothed her hands over his face. "Lover, you won't hurt the baby."
"But I loved her and I hurt her. I loved Buffy and I hurt her."
"And both times your demon was in control. You were Angelus. Imza, not only do you have your soul, you're human and you are, were, never so cruel with your soul." Smiling she said, "You're beautiful."
A curtain fell over Angel's eyes. "I closed the door."
"What? What door?"
"When Darla was reborn, she and Druscilla attacked the Wolfram & Hart lawyers at a Christmas party. I could have saved them. I could have tried and I closed the door to the wine cellar. I walked away, listening to their screams."
Christina was speechless. "But Wesley, and. . .and Cordelia, and Gunn, they didn't stop you?"
"I fired them. And yes, I was fully souled. I just didn't care anymore." Before she could speak, Angel went on, "There's darkness inside me, imza, and I'm afraid it might come back again."
When she could trust herself to speak again, she waited, trying to find the words to reassure her husband -- and herself. "There's darkness in everyone," her voice was low. "Even the heavenly bodies," she was loath to say angels, "fell. Every Slayer has darkness in her, including me. It is part of our strength. And this child," her forehead was pressed against his, "this child will have some darkness in her, too. Who better to teach her its dangers, to control it." Her even, low voice lapped at him, wrapped Angel in warmth and assurance, "Who better to make sure it does not control her than a man who has lived with it and battled it for more than a century."
Angel smiled at his wife. "You're my redemption Chris."
"No," she said with a shake of her head, "not me, not a Slayer. Your child and her love will be your redemption."
Christina watched her husband sleep. Though she didn't look it, she was nearly seven months pregnant and sleep had become a hard friend to catch lately. Something from her love's story turned in her mind. '. . .I'd still wake to see unfathomable anger and hatred. I don't know what she used to feed her fire.'
Christina knew. She leaned over and kissed his forehead, smoothing his brow, before getting up and out of their bed. "She didn't hate you, lover. She hated herself.
"Lights off."