Her Sire

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Her Sire

Kallysten

Disclaimer : Of course they belong to someone else, I just play with them sometimes.
Distribution : Sure, just tell me where. When the story is finished, I will post it on my website at http://www.geocities.com/kallysten_fr/
Feedback : Anything but flames kallysten_fr@yahoo.com
Story notes : This is a sequel to my story His Childe. If you haven't read it, I strongly suggest you stop right here and go read it first, some things in here will make more sense if you do.

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…and Trust

It was his voice that she was aware of first. Spike was cooing into her ear, inviting her to open her eyes. She did just that, though more as a reflex than from her own will. She felt very strange, as if she was wrapped in cotton, all her senses dimmed. She couldn’t even feel him, though she could see his face. Why couldn’t she feel her Sire while he was sitting on the bed next to her? Why was he looking at her so maliciously? Why was she bound to the bed? She tugged at her restraints, but they didn’t move. She felt so weak, as if all her energy had been drained from her. Not only her energy, she realized. Her blood. There was blood on his lips, and she was sure it was hers. As if confirming her thoughts, he leaned over her and fastened his mouth to her neck. She could feel the pull as he drank from her, and for the first time ever she didn’t like it, wanted him to stop. She tried to wiggle away from his touch, but without success. Finally, he let go.

“You taste like him,” he said softly.

Buffy frowned, trying to understand who it was she supposedly tasted like. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. Spike was being so strange. So unlike himself. Why? What was happening? Her still cloudy mind remembered coming to the mansion, talking to Drusilla… Then nothing until waking in this bed. She thought she was still in the mansion. Why was Spike here? He was supposed to be on patrol with Manon. Had he joined Drusilla before she arrived? How had he known where she was? Why was he so different?

“Spike?” she managed to say despite her dry throat. “What’s going on? Untie me, please.”

He chuckled lightly as she pleaded for her release.

“Later, you will be free, and we will hunt together. But we will play a little before that. Don’t you want to play with me, Princess?”

The voice was his, so was the face, but the words? What did he mean, hunt together? Why was he calling her Princess? That was his pet name for Drusilla, not for her, never for her. And what game…

Excruciating pain snapped Buffy out of her thoughts and she screamed. When the burning subsided a little, her eyes focused again on her Sire as he dropped more liquid on her bare front. It felt like molten lava being poured on her, and despite her efforts she could not escape it. She couldn’t even manage to talk, could only watch him and beg with her eyes as he smirked at her.

“Are we having fun yet, Princess?” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll have even more fun later, you will see. We will bathe in blood and dance under the stars…”

The stars? Why did that word sound so significant suddenly?

Before Buffy could think about it any more, the pain started again. Drop by drop, sizzling on her skin, until her mind went almost blank, only filled with the image of these eyes above her, usually so loving when they looked at her, now so cold, so cruel…

The pain stopped again. It took her a few seconds to shake herself out of her torpor, and when she did she could see that he had moved. He was almost by the door now. And Drusilla was in his arms.

That image hurt even more than the torture had. She shut her eyes tight, freeing two tears as she did so. Something had happened to Spike, something had changed him. She had lost him.

When she opened her eyes again, he was untying the ropes that bound her to the bed. Drusilla had disappeared from the room. She didn’t know what he was planning now, but she couldn’t let it happen. The man she had loved was gone. It was a beast who was now murmuring sweet nothings to her.

Gathering what little force she had left, she pushed him as hard as she could and he fell to the floor. Before he could get back to his feet, she scrambled off the bed and pinned him down. There was a stake near her, she grabbed it, raised it above her head, and plunged it down thoughtlessly. At the instant her arm started moving, time slowed. Her eyes found his, and she was startled at seeing that all the hardness from before was gone. Instead, there was only love in the deep blue. Love and trust.

A question of trust.

Her arm faltered, then fell down limply at her side. She had just realized that she could feel his presence again, unlike before. He was still unmoving under her, despite the way she had threatened him. As if he had known she wouldn’t go through it. He trusted her.

Just remember everything.

His face was so serious. His eyes seemed to be looking straight into her soul. When had he last looked at her like this? Not very long ago…

“What am I to you?” she murmured, remembering at last.

“Everything.”

The quiet voice was all she needed to understand. Not him. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t been him. She was everything to him, and he would never hurt her.

Losing control over herself, she started sobbing as she buried her face against his chest. Instantly, his arms were holding her tightly, and he was whispering comforting words she didn’t even try to understand.

* * * * *

As Spike made his way into the dark and silent house, a sudden shout startled him. Despite the pain distorting the voice, he would have recognized it anywhere. Buffy’s. He ran in the direction of the cry. The master bedroom. Of course, it had to be that room. As he pushed the door open, he froze at the scene in front of him. His Childe was bound to the bed, her blouse ripped open, moaning in pain. His Mate was sprinkling water on her exposed skin. By the sizzling and burning, holy water. One of Dru’s favorite toys, as he well knew.

The brunette, who was sitting on the bed beside Buffy, got to her feet as he entered the room, smiling at him, her lips stained with blood.

“She’ll be one of ours soon,” she said gleefully. “When her soul is broken, we can be sisters. And we can all go hunting together. Be a family again.”

She opened her arms as she approached him, pulling him into a tight embrace. Numbly, he let her do it, and allowed his own arms to close around her. His eyes were still on Buffy, and he felt like screaming at seeing her helpless and hurt. Yet no words were coming out of his tight throat. Trying to explain to Drusilla was useless. He shifted his gaze to her, and she was still smiling, content with herself. She didn’t even realize…

He didn’t have to think about it, and some part of him was happy about that. If he had hesitated, he would never have forgiven himself. Drusilla looked up at him when the stake pierced her back, utter incomprehension filling her face. He understood then, that in her damaged mind, she had done this for him. That didn’t stop his hand, but when her ashes fell down at his feet, his eyes were full of tears. Tears for the beautiful young girl whose mind had been shattered so long ago and who thought torture was a way to make people love you. Tears for his Slayer, harmed because he had been too blind to admit that Dru was a danger to her. Tears for himself, as one more person he had cared for walked out of his life.

As if in a dream, he watched himself go to the bed and free Buffy’s legs. Moving to the side, he untied one of her arms, and then the other, wincing as his gaze trailed over the blistered burns on her skin, the still bloody puncture marks on the side of her neck, the glazed look in her eyes. When she was free at last, he murmured sweet words to break her out of the thrall, reaching to stroke her cheek. He didn’t have time to touch her however, as she surprised him by grabbing his hand and pushing him off the bed. He fell backward, banging his head hard on the wooden floor, stunned for an instant. Before he could understand what had happened, Buffy was sitting across his stomach, and he could only watch as she thrust the stake he had used only instants before toward his chest. She stopped suddenly, and her gaze didn’t seem as cloudy as before. Her arm fell to her side, and still she was looking at him, as if searching for something.

“What am I to you?” she whispered.

He had heard the question before, and the answer was still the same.

“Everything.”

The reply seemed to break the last of the thrall, and she fell against him, crying. He hugged her for a long time, letting her sob for the physical pain as much as the mental agony he could only guess she had endured. Still trying to soothe her with words and tender caresses, he managed to sit down, leaning against the bed, cradling her on his lap. When her tears had dried finally, he guided her face gently to his neck and pressed it there. She accepted the offer, biting with less care than she usually showed and drinking greedily until he hissed that she was taking too much. She stopped then, giving a last lick at the closing marks. Soon, she was asleep in his arms.

He managed to get to his feet without waking her, and carried her out of the bedroom, away from that place of torture and death. He found a couch that wasn’t too dusty and sat down on it, still holding her close, still caressing her golden locks. In her sleep, she looked peaceful again, and he could almost forget what she had gone through. Almost. Hopefully, she had been deep enough under Drusilla’s influence not to remember too clearly what had happened. Maybe even not at all if she was lucky.

When he felt that the sun would soon be rising, he didn’t have the heart to wake her to take her back home. It wouldn’t be the first time they had spent a night and the following day away from Revello, and he knew Dawn wouldn’t worry about it. Shifting his body and his Slayer’s to a more comfortable position, he tried to join her in sleep. He wasn’t able to, however. When Buffy woke, almost twenty hours later, he was still holding her, still watching her.

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