Dropping the sponge to the floor, she leaned back against the wall and sobbed bitterly. Memories assailed her, and her stomach began to churn again. Only her strength of will kept down the dry heaves, and she panted, harsh, angry sounds erupting from her tightly drawn lips. Leaning forward under the spray, she rinsed off the soap and the tears, and slowly brought herself under control.

She'd survive this.

Her own stupidity would *not* be the death of her.

His mind boiling with anger, frustration, loss and remorse, Spike headed home. With every step, his body tried to turn to Buffy's, but he knew she'd been telling the truth. She'd kill him.

She was finally capable of killing him.

He'd seen that in her eyes, and the memory chilled him to the bone.

He cared more than he was willing to admit even to himself, and her turning on him...hurt.

Spike shook his head angrily as he turned down the alley that led to the warehouse. Why had he let it get to the point that she could hurt him? When had she become more than just a pleasant companion and bed partner?

...Long before they'd started 'dating'.

Growling helplessly, Spike slammed open the door to his lair and stalked inside. Several vampires were in the main room, and he quickly singled out two male fledglings taken from the last clan he'd conquered.

Ignoring their obvious wariness of him, he barked, "You two, time for training," and pointed to the room they'd set up as a gym, which included a sparring ring.

He needed to beat the shit out of someone.

Physically clean, but still feeling filthy, Buffy dragged herself into her bedroom and tugged her most unattractive nightgown over her head. It was flannel and covered her from neck to toes. A gift from her paternal grandmother several years before, she never wore it as it was just too hot and confining for southern California.

But, since she felt chilled to the core and wanted to feel as unattractive as possible, Buffy buttoned the neck closed and crawled into bed.

For the first time in months she was going to sleep feeling no desire, no arousal. Even on nights she'd been with him, she'd find herself pleasuring herself before falling asleep.

Or let him do it, on the few rare times that he'd shared her bed.

Buffy shuddered at the thought and buried her face in the pillow to muffle the desire to scream.

She was revolted. Her whole being was revolted. Not only of the up close and personal knowledge that Spike was a demonic killer, but that she'd eagerly screwed him, begging for more, finding more ecstasy than she thought possible in his arms.

And even as he'd held her down and fucked her without any feelings, she'd responded helplessly and fucked him back.

Buffy's fingers tightened in the pillow and she kicked her feet angrily. She didn't want to think about the events of earlier, to remember how betrayed she'd felt, how...hurt.

She didn't want to think at all.

Gasping for breath, she turned onto her side and winced at the twinge of pain between her thighs. As she blindly stared at the ceiling, she thought that was a good thing. Pain would remind her of the consequences of fucking a demon.

Pain would keep the desire at bay.

Snorting in frustration, Spike glared through demonic eyes at the cowering vampires he'd spent thirty minutes pounding into the mat. They were begging for forgiveness for things they hadn't done.

Rolling his eyes, he slipped between the ropes and dropped to the floor where he rocked on the balls of his feet. The 'training' had only increased his desire to rend something to shreds, but even these fledglings were too valuable to waste. He glanced at the clock across the room and saw that there were still several hours till dawn.

He'd just go out and find something big and demonic to beat into a green smear.

As Spike headed for the door, he suddenly stopped as the thought reiterated itself.

Demonic?

Why not just go kill a pack of idiot humans?

"What the fuck?" he muttered under his breath. What was wrong with him that his first thought was to kill something demonic, not human?

Humans were still food, but...even then he very rarely killed anymore. And he never just killed humans for fun.

Horror filled him and Spike shook his head in denial.

She was rubbing off on him. That damn bitch...!

Growling in fury, Spike stormed into the main room, determined to get her out of his system once and for all. He immediately spied Daria lingering by the door to his room, an apprehensive and concerned look on her face, and striding to her he grabbed her and jerked her into the room, slamming the door shut behind them.

Sleep was elusive. Buffy had been tossing and turning for over an hour, her mind still full of too many horrifying and humiliating images.

Finally, she slid from the bed and reached for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Maybe she needed to kill something.

Since she hadn't succeeded in killing Spike, maybe something else would do as a substitute. Something big and ugly that she could wail on and chop into little pieces then stomp those pieces into the ground.

Driven by frustrated anger, Buffy grabbed a stake and swung her leg over the windowsill.

Knowing that Buffy stopped patrolling by one in the morning, Angel spent most nights continuing the work of keeping Sunnydale safe. Too edgy to read, too disenchanted to paint, he took out his frustrations on the underbelly of the Hellmouth.

He hadn't seen Buffy since the day after he'd found her with Spike. It was probably for the best, but...he missed her.

Yet, he wasn't certain what seeing her might do. She brought out the demon in him too easily. Perfect happiness made it permanent, but the knowledge that she was willing sleeping with his evil childe made him angry and anger made his demon want to come out and play.

And rip something to shreds.

Many a demon and vampire had found death at his hands in the last three weeks, and he'd enjoyed killing them with a darkness his soul hadn't felt since knowing Buffy.

He loved her with all his heart, but he knew they couldn't be together. He wanted to be her friend, but he wasn't certain that was possible any longer. It hurt to see her. It nearly killed him to know she was falling in love with Spike, even if she'd never admit it.

He'd gotten very good at avoiding her, going to the Library to give information to Giles when he knew she wouldn't be there, going on patrol only after she'd gone home.

But, was he all that useful?

Angel was beginning to think that staying in Sunnydale might be the wrong way for him to atone.

Rounding a corner in the park, he nearly tripped over a corpse. Frowning at himself for letting his thoughts overwhelm his instincts, Angel dropped to one knee and examined the body.

There were two sets of bites. One definitely was made by a male and was a neat kill, the wounds simply two holes on the side of the neck. The other was a messy bite, and the holes were smaller, probably made by a female.

He'd seen this before, done this before. Sharing a kill with a fledgling was the perfect way to train them to feed. The basics were instinctive, but fledglings still often managed to bite in the wrong place and miss the artery, or cause so much pain that the victim's screams brought other humans. If a master wanted his fledglings to survive, he saw that they were trained.

Lowering his fingers, Angel probed gently at the neater wound, then lifted one blood flecked finger to his lips. The taste was immediate and pure and family.

Spike.

Angel felt his dead heart sink heavily in his breast. It was inevitable that Spike would continue to hunt and feed and kill humans. He was a vampire, and a master vampire at that, with a growing clan of vampires out there hunting, feeding and killing.

But, Angel hadn't wanted to think about the consequences, because he knew just what that knowledge would do to Buffy. She had said that she knew what she getting herself into.

But...she couldn't. She wasn't innocent, not by a long shot, but her natural compassion and love for humanity would not be able to tolerate Spike killing. Not when she really thought about it.

Not...if she knew.

The wind had shifted, bringing with it a heady scent of lust and vanilla and slayer blood. Jumping to his feet in a panic, Angel ran towards the scents' origin, stopping at a nearby tree. Dropping to the dirt, he ran his hands over the smashed grass, his golden eyes catching a few drops of her blood, her feminine fluids, Spike's semen.

Within the last few hours they'd had sex in this spot, but...was it before or after Spike had killed?

And why had Buffy bled?

Angel wanted to scream at the thought of her willingly feeding Spike, but the thought that his childe had bit her against her will or even by accident was just as horrifying.

The fact that there were signs of only minimal blood loss weren't reassuring. Spike had always been a neat eater. There was also no sign of her body, but that would lead Angel to places he did not think he could go without his mind shutting down in complete rejection.

Blood play during sex wasn't unheard of between vampires and their human lovers. He could...handle that.

He prayed that was all it had been.

But, he had a really bad feeling something much worse had happened here.

Spike tightened his fingers in Daria's hair and growled in frustration. Pumping his hips slightly, he watched her kneeling at his feet, sucking avidly at his very limp dick.

Fifteen minutes and nothing.

This just did *not* happen to a Master Vampire.

Ovaling her lips around the bulbous head, Daria hesitantly glanced up at her sire. Seeing the anger and frustration on his face, she wrapped slender fingers around the base of his cock and pumped it into here mouth faster, her tongue licking up and down the sides and teasing the slit.

Another five minutes passed, and another, and finally Spike grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back from him.

"Shit."

Furious at the world, Spike flung himself onto his bed, arm pressed against his eyes.

"Sire?" Daria whispered.

He opened his mouth to bark at her to get the hell out, but then closed it. She didn't deserve his anger.

No, a bottle blonde with snapping green eyes and a bitchy tongue deserved it all.

Sitting up on the edge of the bed, Spike sighed heavily and shook his head. "You didn't do anything wrong, Daria. You can leave."

"I can try again. I want to."

He looked up and almost smiled in pride at her eager desire to please him, but a glance down at his flaccid cock made him want to curse. His very naked and very lovely childe was standing before him wanting to give him pleasure, and all he could think about was the look of loss and fear in Buffy's eyes as he'd fucked her.

And then how they'd changed to be filled with her disgust and hatred of him.

"No, just go. I'm sorry."

After Daria left, Spike sat there for several minutes, letting his anger grow, finally rising to pull on his clothes and leave the lair.

Maybe he'd slaughter some humans after all.

Angel smelled her unique scent before he saw her, and he sighed in relief. Buffy appeared from behind some tall bushes, a stake in one hand, an angry look on her face.

Spying Angel, the look changed to one of sorrow, and she stuck the stake in her back pocket as she walked towards him. He met her half way down the path, a few feet from the cooling corpse.

Meeting her turbulent eyes, Angel gently stretched out one hand to touch her shoulder. "What happened here, Buffy?"

Her eyes darkened even more and slowly tears began to fill them. With a bitter sob, she sank against Angel's firm chest, her hands clenching into his shirt. Angel's arms automatically encircled her, holding her close, as he tried to comfort her.

"I should have known you'd run back to him."

The fury and hatred in that familiar voice shocked Angel, and he half turned to stare at his childe.

Spike sneered back, demon in the fore, and charged his sire and lover.

 

The End

 

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