Cometh the Hour

COMETH THE HOUR

Part 1/5

Feedback: Pretty please. Send it to thelibrarian2003@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Wish as I might, most of these characters aren’t mine. If they were, I’d look after them better. The ones you’ve never heard of? They’re mine. No money will ever be made from this fic.
Distribution: The Angel Texts; Angel Elders. You want it? Really? Gosh. Just tell me where it’s going please.
Spoilers: BtVS season 4. Angel didn’t get his soul back in season 2. Oz didn’t get to be a werewolf in season 2. Do not get me started on who sired Spike – it’s exactly as it says in this story.
Rating: NC17 for sex, some of which is non-consensual, and some bad language. Some of the thinking is from Angelus’ point of view and it’s, well,oniconic.
Content: B/A(us) Alternate past reality leading to an alternate future, which is where we began, in ‘The Nature of the Beast’. Keep that in mind.
Summary: The follow-up to ‘Tyger, Tyger’. If you haven’t read that, it might be best if you do.


'The Nature of the Beast' story cycle won Best Buffy/Angel series at the Shades of Grey Awards, round 9


Author’s notes

1 Because this series is changing the events of the past, and because the inertia of narrative history is trying to tie knots and carry on, you can expect to see artefacts, and events, and perhaps meet people, in unexpected times and places. The timeline is fractured. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. Just make it your turn to write something for the rest of us to read.

2 Heath Robinson – if you aren’t familiar with this guy, look him up. He drew the most wonderfultraptraptions for performing the simplest jobs.

3 Simon Magus – a sorcerer named in the Bible. See Acts of the Apostles, chapter 8 verses 9-24.


This story is told from multiple points of view.


COMETH THE HOUR

The fourth story in 'The Nature of the Beast' story cycle.


My name’s Angelus, and I’m a demon. But then, you knew that. After so many years of being chained and caged and suffocated by that nauseating soul, I just can’t describe how good it is to be free. Like coming back from Hell would be for you. Or for the soul. The soul is *never* coming back here, let me tell you. They say ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’. I may not be a man, but I’ve definitely come. In more ways than one. Well, a lot more ways than one. Double entendre. Hard as it is (see, I’ve done it again), just leave the sex aside for a minute. I’m back. And I’m hungry. Hungry for everything. Blood, sex, and power. Those are the only things that matter. Everything else follows from those things.

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be me?

No?

Liar.

Never wondered about the thrill of the hunt? The pleasure of the kill? The feel of that hot, fear-spiced blood hitting the back of your throat? Mmmph…makes me hungry just to think about it. Never thought about what it’s truly like to be a vampire? All those extraordinary senses? All that physical power? Or what it’s like to be *with* a vampire? Fucked by a vampire? Drunk by a vampire? Of course you have. You wouldn’t be human if you hadn’t. Prey animals are always fascinated by their predator.

Me, now, I’ve nothing of humanity in me. And let me tell you a secret. Neither did the soul. He wanted everything I want. He enjoyed everything I enjoy. He just wasn’t man enough or vampire enough to go for it. Guilt kept getting in the way. Well, I’m a guilt-free zone now. And I’m going to have it all.

Blood, sex and power.

Blood? Keep the butcher’s brew that the soul used to make do on. Let me tell you, Sunnydale has the widest variety of blood you could ever want. Young and innocent (not a lot of that, so I leave that for special occasions), rich, poor, drugged, corrupt, happy, afraid, miserable, angry, drunk, and oh so many more - every variation you can possibly think of, here on the Hellmouth. And, perhaps best of all, rampantly hormonal teenagers. Lots of them. Did you know that every person’s blood tastes different, not only from every other person, but also from how they tasted yesterday, or will taste tomorrow? A skilled vampire, like me, can change the taste, while I’m drinking. It depends on what I’m doing to them as they die. On how long I keep them alive before they die. Pain and pleasure, it’s wondrous what those two emotions will do to the taste of blood.

Buffy may be the Slayer, but you don’t think she’s going to cramp my style, do you?

I remember the last group of teenagers I took down. I think it was a quarter of the High School football team. They were high, they were adrenaline-fuelled, and they fought me, hard. At the end they were terrified and in pain. They were delicious. No need to remember the reason I chose them. No need to tell Buffy…

Sex? I’ve got sex. Real, red-hot sex. Vamp hav have often been involved with humans before. Just occasionally, vampires have been involved with slayers, although that is very rare, and the names of the lucky bastards who did it are a mantra to vampire-kind. NEVER has a vampire been involved with a slayer like my Buffy, and NEVER has a slayer been so enslaved as she is. So far as I know, no vampire and slayer have ever been mated before – and believe me, I’d know. She’s one of a kind. So am I. No point in false modesty, is there? And, of course, there’s always Spike and Drusilla, when we get back. Separately or together, I don’t mind. It’ll be whatever I feel like at the time. But I’ll never share her, of course. Any vampire who touches her, who encroaches on my possession, my plaything, is dust. Any human male who touches her, who sullies my mate with his grubby, sweaty fingers, will pay for that insolence in pain every day for the rest of his life. And I’ll make sure it’s a very, very long life, chained to my wall. I’m a master of pain, believe me.

I’ve got money. Although that isn’t quite the same as power, it gives you a good start down the road. Not that I didn’t have money before, although *he* would never let us use it – and it might be hard to reactivate century-old investments. I’ll have to get some lawyers on to that. Anyone know a good law firm? But the money I’ve got now makes that investment look like chicken shit. 5,000 blue-white diamonds of the first water. Average them at 30,000 bucks apiece – some of these babies are *big*. That’s a cool 150 mill. Although I’ll need to spread out my selling if I don’t want to flood the market. No problem. And the estate here? At a conservative estimate the income is worth 10 mill a year, if I use the local proceeds to buy things that are highly portable and highly marketable back in our dimension. And cheap here in Hylek. More diamonds, maybe. Or other gems. Platinum is readily available here, too. And other things. Decisions, decisions.

Power? Well, I’m coming to that. I’m Master of Sunnydale. The Hellmouth is mine and mine alone. The rest of California won’t be far behind. It’s the seventh largest economy in the world, did you know? Oh, I don’t want to be Governor, or some other half-assed politician. I’ll just take over the underworld. That’s where the real power lies, no matter what you humans think. We rule you. Nng hng happens without our permission. Anything that we want – well, we get it. With money, the Slayer, the power of the Hellmouth, and my own particular talents, all the underworld powers of California will be mine in months. After that? I’m the Big Bad Wolf and I’ll just eat it all up. The Northern Hemisphere will be my territory, I think. That’s where all the real power is. The rest is hardly worth bothering about, but I’ll see how I feel.

It’s nice to lie here and plan, under the sun of a different dimension, with my pet Slayer ready to take care of my every need. She still loves the soul, she said so on the battlefield when she thought I was he, but she’ll come to love me more than she ever loved him. I’ll make damned sure of it. She’ll forget him. She’ll forget him quicker when I stop her calling me by his name. I’ve held my hand so far because she was so close to death. She’s better now – every one of my senses tells me that – so no need to hold back. She’ll learn. Me? Don’t be stupid. Demons don’t love. We *own*. She is mine. Nothing touches my property.

We’re very territorial, did you know? Not just for living space, but for everything on the space that we claim. Rather like the master of a pride of lions. We’ll fight to the death for our property. It’s all mine. Nobody touches anything I’ve claimed. Not without my permission. She’s top of the list. At the moment. I might tire of her, I might not. She’ll be whatever I want for as long as I desire.

It’s been a good day so far. We’ve made lo…fucked in bed, in the shower, on the floor, up against the wall, in the shower again. Then we came out to this jewel of a lake, sapphire-blue, set in green pur purple hills. We fucked in the lake and we fucked out here on the hillside. I think I fucked her into near unconsciousness, that last time. In fact, it was such a thorough fuck that I feel a bit somnolent myself. I’ve got a lot of time to make up, you understand. I’ve held back in the arena of sex, lately, as well. I want her warm and willing. I want her addicted to me in every conceivable way. Oh, I could just as easily have taken her any way I pleased, whenever I pleased – she can’t resist me, you know – but I want her willing. And it’s what *I* want that counts.

Right now, I’m thinking that I want to fuck again. Hard and fast and now. Oh, I can be tender, when I want. When it serves my purpose. You’ve seen it, so you know I can. But it’s what I want, and when I want. Right? What’s that you say? That lamentable scene in the hospital? A momentary weakness, that’s all. We vampires do not like to be deprived of any of our possessions, and I certainly didn’t want to lose my prize slayer. And I was tired. I know I’ve been back for a year now, but it’s been action packed. Even a vampire can get tired. And for some of that time I was almost as deranged as Drusilla. Just look at the whole Acathla incident. Why, in the name of everything that’s unholy, would I want to get the world sucked into *his* particular Hell? A loser like that? It would have served the Rom right, though, for putting that curse on me, but it would have been the devil’s own job getting back out. I’d have done it, mind you, when I came to my senses. The devil? That’s me.

And Egypt. That took up a lot of my time. And energy. I have a score to settle with Aurelius, the head of my clan. I’ll do that when the time is right. He’ll see me take everything away from him, just before I dust him. The clan will be mine.

There are some others who’ll see what’s coming, too. Some demons here who know what I did to House Vermald, and who have made themselves scarce. I’ll find them. You know what I’m talking about. I can wait. In fact, waiting adds to the pleasure – my pleasure – as it adds to their fear. My suffering here may not have lasted long in terms of time, but they’ll pay it a h a hundred-fold. Starting with that corrupt Council. Word of a demon.

House Orbath? They were honourable and they kept their word, held to their bargain. We are allies, now. On the estate, here, I’m subject to them. I hold it at their pleasure. That’s right and proper, and how it was agreed. On my world, perhaps I’ll let them have territories at my pleasure. Something in Western Europe, perhaps? What goes around comes around. There aren’t many of them left, after the civil war, but they hold the throne. Haraeth is ruler of Hylek for the next seven years. In my opinion, it will be for a lot longer than that, provided he does a half-decent job. The war has almost wiped out the House structure and what the war didn’t kill, the Vermald assassins did a pretty thorough job of – we didn’t rescue that many from the dungeons. It will be at least a generation, perhaps more, before the structure is workable again. Who knows, maybe they will never go back to how it was before. That’s their decision, and only time will tell.

House Demeral? They are one of the good guys – my sort of good guy, that is. Perhaps I’ll give them some territory, too, to hold in my name. Britain? Japan? We’ll see how it goes. It’s good to have allies you can trust, who cleave to you because of shared history, loyalty and debt. Orbath, Demeral Aur Aurelian, we all owe each other for the last few weeks. That’ll be good enough to last a lifetime, is my guess. An immortal lifetime.

Whilst I’ve been musing, I’ve been playing. Guess what with? And whose? She’s awake now. See you later.

***************

My, my; things are galloping on apace. We’ve come back from our secluded mountain glen. I’m not going to tell you what you missed. That’s mine to know about, yours to imagine. I’ll just say it got a bit rough – and I do like it that way. Right in the middle of things, she called me Angel, and I lost it, rather. She’s felt my fists before, but not like this. This was punishment, not battle, and caught her by surprise. To ram the lesson home, so to speak, she got it where she didn’t expect it, and she didn’t get to come. Well, not for a bit. She’ll learn, and I’ll have fun teaching her. Pain is almost as important to a vampire as blood, you know. It’s the demon in us. Hah-hah. Of course, it wasn’t that much pain, as a first lesson. Just a touch. By my standards, anyway. And I kissed it all better afterwards. In a manner of speaking. Like I said, I want her willing in every way. Enough! I’m ing ing hard as a rock again, just thinking about it.

Anyway, we came back to our house – the best way to describe it is as a moated manor house; that’ll give you the picture. There was a message from Haraeth. I should probably call him Orbath now, and I will, in public. That is as it should be. But he owes his throne to me, twice over. It’ll be Haraeth in private. Seems that he’s decided to have an advisory council, and not the one that ran the Great Games. He wants Buffy and me as members. Buffy backed off that – feels she’s more of a doer than an advisor. Good girl. Knows her limits. She’ll still sit on it though, at my insistence. She has to learn about power, if she is to rule as my Consort. That is what I intend for her, after all.

***********

Loving a demon is never going to be easy. Yes, I have to admit it, although I haven’t told him yet, except for that day on the battlefield, when I thought I would die. I don’t think he heard, though. At least, he’s never brought it up, and I’m sure he would have. It’s what he wants, I think. I love this demon. My demon. He isn’t Angel, and he’ll never be Angel. I wish he were. Every night, I pray that Angel can somehow be restored to me, and every morning, I wake up wishing that he were with me. But all I have is this demon wearing his flesh, and yes, I love him too. Somehow, in some way that I don’t yet understand – may never understand – it’s all him, Angel and Angelus. It doesn’t mean I don’t still want my Angel, but perhaps I can never have him again. I hang onto everything of him that I can. I remember every word, every expression, every touch, every taste of him; every feel of his skin against mine. Everything. And I treasure those memories. I’ll let none of it go, ever. But he’s not here. His alter ego is. He’s mine, and I’m his. He’s said nothing yet about our status as mates, but there is something very real between us. I know it. I feel it in my blood.

Does he love me? Can a demon love? What is love, anyway? He’ll cherish and protect me, I know that. He can be very tender, when he wants to be; very…Angel-like. Unlike Angel, he’ll try to dominate me in every conceivable way, and he’ll try to use my status as Slayer to his advantage. But he won’t deny what I am.

He gets off on pain. I’m going to have to learn how to deal with that, deflect it where I can. But I’m the Slayer – I’m not exactly normal myself. And he will never, ever let me go. Not unless he tires of me, then he’ll probably kill me. But until that day, I can use him, just as he will use me. I’m going to have to stop thinking of saving individual souls, and think of the greater good.

I can never kill this demon. Leaving aside the fact that he’s Angel, he’s very strong. I really don’t think I *can* kill him. So, for the sake of the world, this is better anyway. I can try to control him. It will take time, but I think I can do it. And I’m the only Slayer who has the slightest hope of doing so. I must remember that.

And I know that he isn’t as secure in himself as he would have us all believe. I told him today that I’ll be starting at college after the vacation. He wouldn’t even let me finish. He raged at me, and absolutely forbad me to go. But here’s something I’ve worked out, and can use in the future. He’s at his most brutal when he’s afraid. I felt it in him. Fear. He’s afraid of what will happen if I’m out of his territory. He knows Mom wants me to go to UCLA, and he can’t bear the thought of me being in LA. So I admitted to him that I had decided to go to college in Sunnydale. What else would I do? That is where the Hellmouth is. That is where I have to be. He took that as a victory and made up for his earlier rage, then. Just how he did that is something I don’t intend to share with you.

We had another problem, though, today. He beat me and…punished me in other ways. I still hurt from that. It was fear again. I called him Angel, and I’m sure he’s afraid that he’ll never have the same sort of love from me that Angel had. Silly boy. But this is a battle I can’t and won’t lose. If I give way on everything, I might as well be his slave and I won’t be that. I’ll call him Angelus in public. That’s right and proper. He has a standing to maintain, and so do I. We must support each other there. But something tells me that if I want to survive this relationship, I must be his equal, and to do that, he needs to accept some things. Calling him Angel is the first and the smallest of things that I can choose to fight him on. You can’t talk things like that through with a demon. You just have to fight them until they give in. I will win, so I guess I’m going to have to take my lumps – and give him some back when I can. Small steps. And it makes me feel that Angel is still around somewhere. I need that.

What if I do, somehow, manage to get Angel back? He’ll remember everything the demon did. Everything *we* did. Will he be able to live with it? Will he be able to forgive me? I really can’t think about that. Not unless that hour ever comes.

**************

Haraeth gave me the information about the new Hellmouth, just as soon as he had wrung it out of the court astrologers. Almost literally. He’s a good boy, that one.

And the sheer nerve of it! Remember I had a run-in with the Kahlavi cult when they wanted to take over my Hellmouth? And how we settled our differences after I made them see things my w The They are the bastards who are going to open a new one. I have two reasons to go after them now – opening a Hellmouth, and breaking their agreement with me. If I’m going to rule most of the known world – and I *am*, trust me on that – the underworld needs to know that I’m a demon of my word. Our treaty contained certain dire consequences for any party breaking their word. I like dire consequences when I’m visiting them on somebody else. We’ve got a few weeks yet – they’ll beherihering at the specified spot, just over the Canadian border, whereas now they’re scattered all over. I’ll wait until the gathering, and then do a bit of visiting. I don’t think I’ll take Buffy, just in case there’s any jiggery-pokery at our Hellmouth while I’m gone.

We have to leave Hylek for a whiow, ow, but I like it here. We’ll be back before long.

*************

My daughter and her … boyfriend … are back from wherever they’ve been to. I can’t like of cof course, but she seems happy. Happier than she has been in a very long time, anyway. Happier than since…Angel…went away. I cried at night while they were gone; cried for her, for me, for the lost Angel as well, strangely enough. I can’t do that now she’s back. Mothers have to remain strong. She’s told me about the Games. I can only feel relief that she didn’t tell me before. They say ignorance is bliss, and in my case, it was true. I know she hasn’t told me – will never tell me – all the truth about this or anything else, just the edited highlights, but I’ll never know blissful ignorance again, will I? One thing I now know is the truth about that pagan artwork all over her body – he has it too. When I first saw it, all those weeks ago, I thought she’d been tattooed, and almost went out of my mind. Then, when I realised it was just surface ink, she told me it was a practical joke that had gone wrong – it was supposed to wash off, but now it would have tar oar off. And it is. She tells me that’s because the Games have ended, and the need for these body paintings has gone, so they will go too. She’s wearing long sleeves to hide them, but I can see from the spiral on her cheek. And on his. They tell me that’s the spiral of eternity. Fitting, I suppose, although I wish it weren’t. And it is wearing off, so perhaps that’s a sign to me of hope for the future. I know I’m clutching at straws, but what else do I have to clutch at?

We’re getting things ready for her start at college the week after next. I wanted her to go to LA, where her previous friends and our family are, but she said no. She has to stay on the Hellmouth, she said. That’s her job. Maybe so. But I don’t think he would have let her leave anyway, and I’m afraid that was just as important to her. I’ll just have to keep thinking of ways to put some distance between them.

Tonight, she’s off to the Bronze with her friends, so I’m going off to the movies and dinner with one of mine. Girls’ night out.

***********

I have a little job for Willow the Witch. I’m already in her debt. Twice. There’s something I want her to do for me, so that will make it thrice. There’s magic in numbers, you know. You believe in magic, don’t you? You’ve seen Willow do it, dammit! Well, three is a particularly powerful number. It’s the number of creation. It represents the special moment, the carpe diem, the ‘goddamit *that* was the moment’ feeling. It stands for the magic itself, and for the spark of life. It’s also the number of completion, which is why so much of magic has to be said in threes. It’s the shortcut to infinity. As I said, powerful stuff. Not to worry, we’re just talking about the burden of debt here, but you need to be careful of threes.

Come to think of it, I already owe Willow for three. There were the two spells to get us back from Hylek and, so far as I know – and I *would* know – she’s kept her silence about…well, you know what about. As I said, you need to be careful of threes.

So I’m here, knocking at her bedroom doors which, so very handily, lead straight out onto the balcony. I don’t need an invitation, of course. I’ve been in here once – or at least the soul has. That’s good enough for me. I’m just being polite. I am, you know, sometimes.

She opens the dood std stands there, rather flustered. You may have noticed that Willow flusters easily, although she always comes through in a pinch.

“Um...Angelus...er…hi. Erm.”

“May I come in?”

“Erm.”

Enough of being polite.

“I don’t need an invitation, Willow. Remember?”

I push past her. Oz is there. I notice that his hand is bandaged – perhaps that’s why he’s here on a Friday night, instead of playing in his band somewhere. I haven’t interrupted anything, not that I would have minded, of course. Vampires aren’t shout out sex. I think I’ve said that before somewhere. But I have no reason to hold them up if they want to push things along. I might want to sample her some time, but that can wait. I won’t enforce droit de seigneur. Not on these two. They’ve helped me, and I can’t say that for a lot of humans or demons. So I come straight to the point.

“Willow. I’m already in your debt for three favours. I need another. I want you to use your hacker skills. Find me the best possible firm of lawyers to retrieve my investmentMy *My *past* investments. I’ll deal with future ones, but I need to be able to access those I made…before.”

There’s something in that room that’s bothering me, but I can’t immediately place what it is. A scent. It’ll come to me.

Willow may be diffident, but nobody ever accused her of being stupid.

“Oh…oh, my! You had investments before the Rom..?”

She reddens, thinking she’s said something to upset me. On another day it might.

“Yes. By my reckoning, they’re going to be worth collecting. I need a lawyer who can deal with a hundred-year gap. Can you find me one that has a big success record at shady deals in this kind of area?”

The scent is distracting me, now. I know it, I just can’t place it. She gives me the best answer I’m likely to get from diffident Willow.

“I’ll try.”

Good enough. I smile my thanks to both of them and leave. I think I’ll go for a prowl, ane whe what the night has to offer. It’s almost full moon. That brings back memories… Town centre, I think. It’s Friday night. I’ll look for some one who’s had some fun.

***********

I am so angry. My girlfriend was only half an hour late for the movie when she rang to say she wouldn’t be coming. Domestic crisis. Thank God for mobile phones, I suppose. I’d taken a cab down here, and there isn’t one to be had for love or money now. It’s still quite early so I decided to take a shortcut through a couple of alleys to see if I have better luck a couple of streets over. That’s been a mistake, I see now. The alleys are deserted except for me and this…thing. It looks like Angelus when he turned himself into a vampire to prove to me that they exist. Uglier, though. Even more brutish. So perhaps this is one of his…get? Is that the right word? Well, I doubt it will matter soon. He’s bared his fangs, and he’s coming for me. I can hear the scream ripping out of my throat. Please, let someone hear.

Oh, my. Someone did hear. Him. I’ve never seen anything like it. Angelus drops from the roof of a three-storey building, as if he were stepping off the pavement. Like a cat. He takes the thing from behind and sinks his fangs into its neck, drinking from it until it stops struggling, then he picks it up and snaps its spine across his raised knee, as if it were no more than a dead branch. Then he finds a sharp piece of wood lying near a dumpster and he stabs it in the heart. It simply explodes into dust. Is this what Buffy does, I wonder? My tiny, delicate daughter? Well, presumably not the drinking part. But the rest? The killing? Of course she does. This is when I really begin to believe. Now he’s coming towards me. Is he going to finish what that…thing…started?

No. He’s offering me his arm, but I seem to have lost the power of movement.

“Joyce,” he says, in a mildly chiding tone. “What are you doing in a place like this? I would have expected the Slayer’s mother to know better.”

He lifts my hand, and tucks it firmly into the crook of his arm. He draws me out towards the lights of the beaten track. Somehow, he finds one of those elusive taxis as if it had been waiting just for him. I expect him to leave me then, go about whatever business I interrupted – I’m terrified to think what that might be – but no; he gets into the taxi with me, and gives the driver my address. When we get out, he pays for the taxi, although I try to. He looks mildly annoyed as I do, so I put my money away. I really don’t want to make him angry. Then he walks me to my door.

“Is Buffy in?”

“No…she’s gone to the Bronze with her friends.”

“I’ll look her up there, then. And Joyce, none of my women puts themselves in danger like that. Please don’t go near dark alleys. Just in case, you’ll have an escort from now on. One of my minions will follow you any night when you go out. Oh, and you shouldn’t expect Buffy back until late on Sunday.”

And with that, he’s gone without waiting for an answer, as if he had never been here. I have to be thankful for his arrival. But just what did he mean by ‘his women’? Providing me with a permanent escort? And kidnapping my daughter? Insufferable! I hope Buffy knees him in the groin. No, he’ll only hurt her if she does. And yet, she doesn’t seem afraid of him, the way the rest of us are. Perhaps it’s like having one of those big fierce dogs that are fine if you master them, show them you are leader of the pack? No, I’m pretty sure it isn’t like that. Whatever, she seems able to manage him. Thank God.

************

I have a surprise for my girl. Well, two of them. I’m sure she’ll like them, especially when she finds out that one of them is me. When I get to the Bronze, I see that she’s dancing with Xander and Cordel Wil Willow and Oz aren’t here. Bet I can guess where they are. My investments have waited a long time; they’ll wait a little while longer for a bit of teenage lust. I’ll need to grab a bite at some time during the evening, but the vamp I’ve drunk has taken the edge off my hunger, at least. I just need something fresh to top it off. Later will do.

I know she feels me coming, but she doesn’t show it until I slink up behind her, my arms wrapped around her waist and my body moulded against her back. Just the sight of her has made me hard, and I rub against her. She purrs in pleasure. She’s halfway to being a vampire already.

We spend an hour just dancing and hanging out. I’m amused at Xander. He’s filled with anger and outrage. He’d be such a tasty treat but, sadly, I’d better pass on that. Buffy really wouldn’t appreciate it. Cordelia has a more measured approach. Maybe she’ll drum some sense into him. But she’s not drumming much else. I can tell that he’s still a virgin. That only increases my amusement. And that makes him angrier.

When I’ve had enough, we say goodnight. I’m taking her back to the mansion. We haven’t spent time there together since our stolen weekend. I’m going to steal another one, now. Forget the snack. This is more…pressing. I’ll send Spike out for something in a bag. He’ll take the piss, but a taste of my fist will shut him up. Vampires drink bagged blood more commonly than we let on. I just prefer not to.

When we get back to the mansion, Spike and Dru have come back from hunting. He grumbles at being sent out again, but does so. Wonders will never cease. And I don’t forget my words to Joyce. Spike will also make sure the minions set up a rota for escort duty. The one I staked? He wasn’t one of mine. He belonged to another clan that I’ve tolerated here. I’ll take care of that when I’ve finished this weekend, and not before.

When we get up to my rooms, I tell her what happened to her mother tonight. She looks pale and shocked, and wants to leave, but I hold her. Firmly. I tell her what arrangements I’ve made for her mother’s protection and she slaps me! Me! She then starts to give me a tongue lashing, starting with my character and antecedents, and dwelling at length on the insufferable nature of my highhandedness. She’s beautiful in a temper. I let her rage for a while, watching her prowl back and forth across the room like the lioness I keep comparing her to, savouring the aroma of her anger and her arousal, and then I shut her up by pushing her onto the bed and giving her a different sort of tongue lashing of my own. All I get from her then are mewls of need. I don’t let her come, though. Not yet.

I’m a damned good lover. The best, really. And my girl is one hell of a fuck. The fuck of a lifetime, actually, even one as long as mine. Together, well, what can I say? Eat your heart out. When I go to Canada to sort out this traitorous bunch of Kahlavi, I’ll likely be away a little while. Before I go, I’m going to fill her life with pleasure. She’s beautiful, but never so beautiful as when she has that look of breathless rapture as she enters orgasm. Then, I never want to stop looking at her, and I never want to stop bringing that look to her face.

So, I bring her gently back down, then make her climb that peak again. And again. And again. Until she’s clawing at me in her need, and her pleasure is just about to turn to pain. Then I finally relent and let her reach the summit. My reward is that look on her face. Not that I can see it from where I am, of course. Never mind, I’ll see it many times during this weekend, and in the long hereafter. We’re only into openers, now. I haven’t even undressed her yet, I just shredded her panties in my impatience. They were only two scraps of lace and two pieces of ribbon anyway – they couldn’t possibly be called panties. Just the way I like them.

When I’ve finished feasting on her – only for the moment, you understand – I clean her up and draw her gently to her feet. She’s having a small problem with her legs, which are none too steady. Good. I hold her close, so that she doesn’t fall, and so that she can feel what’s coming to her before too much longer. I think she likes what she feels.

When she’s steady again, it’s time for my second surprise. I take her to a wardrobe next to my own. It’s for her. There’s hardly anything in there yet. I want her to choose her own wardrobe. I’ll advise her, of course. As my Consort, there are certain…expectations. She’ll have the pleasure of choosing, though. I’ve started her off with one thing. A black dress. It’s simple, and it’s long. It’s décolleté, with a deeply plunging neckline to show her off to advantage, and it’s cut on the bias, so that whilst it drapes in elegant folds, it also clings to every line and curve of her, and moves with her like a second skin. And it’s in silk, that most wondrous fabric. Not that dreadful thin stuff that passes for silk nowadays, and not the heavy bombazine beloved of Victorian dowagers. A nice, medium weight silk that reflects the light and accentuates the whole of her. Every demon in Hell can slaver over her, lust after her, envy me. She is mine, and none will dare to touch her, except me.

When she gets the dress on, it’s breathtaking. Or rather, she’s even more breathtaking in it. If I had to breathe, I’d be having trouble now.

There’s something to go with it. I’ve had it made for her. A high, ornate choker of garnets and jet, with lacy loops of tiny jet and garnet beads forming a tracery at the base of the neck. Hanging from the centre is my blue-white diamond, in a pendent setting of white gold and surrounded by small black diamonds. I fasten it around her slender throat. Even I’m having trouble with the breathing now. I want to rip everything off her, but she clearly likes it, so I don’t.

“That’s the first part of your wardrobe here. I want you by my side for important occasions. I want the community to know that you are my Consort. We’ll go to a modiste, you can choose some dresses and all the other bits and pieces, and we’ll take it from there.”

My voice doesn’t sound as if it belongs to me. It’s roughened and husky with lust. I’m sure my eyes have turned to amber and I don’t know how I’m keeping my claws off the front of the dress. I want to ravish her in its rags, she wearing nothing but that trumpery bit of jewellery. But she likes the dress.

She reaches out her little hand and presses it just where it will do most harm to my self-control. My chest tightens another notch.

That dress is going to come off her in the next fifteen seconds, one way or another. I unzip it with hands that are almost steady, and she steps out of it. I leave the choker, though. It’s like drops of blood at her throat. For a vampire, that is one hell of a turn-on, I can tell you. She’s got nothing else on but her skin. I can wait no longer, and I scoop her up and toss her onto the bed. It’s my clothes that get ripped off instead. Dammit, I liked that shirt.

It’s afterwards, long afterwards, just as the sun is starting to rise, and we are drifting off to sleep – for a while – that I notice something. I’m curled around her back and I trace my fingers over the blue wolves entwined around her arms, the spiral of eternity on her cheek, and the prowling leopard on her back. She has more wolves around her legs, just as I do, and dragons on her stomach, but just at this moment I can’t see those. The wolves, the spiral and the leopard are all visibly fading. One thing isn’t, though. The copy of Angel’s tattoo. Of MY tattoo. That is as fresh and crisp as the day Ezrafel drew it. He said that the drawings would fade, unless we wished to keep them. Has she wished to keep that, and why? Is it for me? Or for her lost love? If it’s for him, I might just have to kill her. I doubt it would end there.

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On to chapter 2
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