Thralls

Title: Thralls, chapter 2
Disclaimer: Angel and BTVS are not mine. No infringement is intended.
No profit is being made.


Angel stood looking out over the lobby of the Hyperion. Something was wrong. He could smell it. Well, maybe not wrong, but different. The air in LA was different tonight. Tantalizing. Promising. Threatening. Whatever it was, it tore through him, dimpling his skin. He strained towards the scent. He lifted his chin and inhaled. His teeth itched. He was a vampire, no matter how often he acted like he wasn't. He liked these scents. He liked them ~a lot~. They intrigued him, excited him, called out to him; his heart was beating hard in his chest, thundering in his ears, a rare thing, that. His eyes hooded involuntarily.

"What is that about? Or shouldn't I ask?" Cordelia asked from behind him, in her short skirt and silk tank, impeccably groomed, mouth shiny with gloss, her hair swept up in a silver clip, tiny diamonds twinkling in her ear lobes. Her eyes were locked on Angel, as he stood statue still. At the sound of her voice, he turned towards her. Aware that he didn't want the distraction of speaking to her now, there was something else demanding his attention. Something raw, and bloody and wonderfully disturbing.

"You don't look, right." She shied away from him, gesturing at his face, her heels clacking on the tiles. It took a moment for him to realize he was in game-face. Shit. Her hand dove into the pocket of her skirt, the one he knew held her cross. He turned away from her, not wanting to witness the holy item's appearance.

"Oh, there you are, princess..." Doyle walked into the entryway and stopped cold. His attention immediately diverted away from the beautiful young woman he worked and occasionally flirted with. He sniffed the air coming in the open front doors. His skin rippled, reddened, but he didn't quite change. No horns or spikes managed to sprout. He shivered. His voice was low, all of it's lilt gone. "Alright. Now what the hell is going on?"

Angel turned to look at him with the golden vamp eyes, and Doyle took a big step back. It wasn't that he hadn't seen those vampish eyes all the time, it was the look in them, the predatory part, that he had never witnessed shown in his direction. Nor the lips peeling back over fangs while his friend looked at *him*. It was a warning, and he was demon enough himself to recognize what was looking out at him from the depths of Angel's eyes. He didn't move forward again, he froze, until the vampire went back to the contemplation of the front entrance, leaving Doyle to shake in his shoes. Happy not to be the focus of the vampire's attention any longer.

Angel sniffed, scenting the breeze, stretching his throat long and pale, face pointing up at the ceiling. Doyle cautiously copied him. He smelled.... Oh, no. Not Angel. He wouldn't have. He couldn't have. Doyle refused to believe it. Someone else had done it, really, really fucked up. Oh, shit.

Doyle reached out and snagged Cordelia's arm, pulling hard, whispering, hoarse and urgent. "Get out of here, now, fast. Take Wes with you. And Fred. Hurry." He pushed her towards the stairs. But, being Cordelia, his princess, she of course refused to go. You didn't just push the princess around.

"Hey, wait a minute..." She snapped. Hands going to her hips in indignation. "You are going to have to do better than that. Something interesting is going on, and I want to know what it is." Her chin jutted out, her eyes narrowed at Doyle. Doyle felt his panic grow.

"I mean it, Cordelia. Get out. He doesn't need you to be here for this. He won't be happy if you are." Doyle, hissed at her urgently, he kept trying to crowd her up the stairs, or into the elevator. And Cordy, bless her stubborn human heart, kept somehow managing to squirm free.

"Oh, but he needs you?" She shook her head. "Not buying it. Uh-uh. Let's try that again. What is going on? Better spill, Doyle. I am not leaving until you do." She crossed her arms over her chest. God, he wanted to grab her and throw her up the stairs, or down to the office, get her anywhere but here, out of harm's way, out of eye sight, out of scent range, where she couldn't been seen or heard or touched. He didn't want her to witness what was going to happen. And he was sure Angel didn't want her to see it.

"Princess, you have to get out. There's no time to argue." Doyle's voice held a tone that Cordelia had never heard from the normally genial half-demon. She frowned at him, he frowned back, but he couldn't compete, not while he was concentrating more on the vampire and the front of the hotel than on Cordy, the queen of the disapproving glare.

"Nope. You best be explaining yourself." She snapped imperiously at him, standing firm, a manicured nail playing a tattoo on his chest.

"Oh, God. Please Cordy, princess. Please. Go, uhm, call Lorne." He was not above begging, but he should have remembered she didn't cave in to it. She drew herself up on her heels, and kept glaring at him. Until the crash against the partially open glass doors. That drew both of their gazes, focused their attention. Both of them jumped, Doyle higher than Cordy. She was brave, after all, too damn brave. He on the other hand...he'd learned just how much there was to fear.

Doyle spun around towards the front doors his eyes wide, expecting to see...less than he did. There were too many of them. There should be only one. But there were more. Three men, staggering, unsteady, supporting themselves barely by leaning one on the other, until they were inside the Hyperion. Then they fell sprawling, onto the entry way floor, curling into a lump of limbs and moaning. Doyle shook his head. Oh no.

Cordelia gasped. "Alexander Harris?" She squeaked. "What are you doing here?" She made a move to go to the dark haired, young man groaning on the floor. Doyle cut her off, throwing his arm around her waist. One arm, he didn't dare use two, in case Angel turned on them. It was then that Angel began to move. Away from Doyle and Cordelia. Doyle fought to keep Cordelia behind himself, against the wall and out of the vampire's way.

Angel took a step. Then another. Then he was over them, looking down at the writhing mass, his stance aggressive, challenging, as his gaze roamed the area inside the Hyperion and out. He was not the usual vampire they worked with, day to day, or night to night. The way he stood, it was primal, uncivilized, primitive, as if he was not Angel, but rather, Angelus, the hunter. A very riled up Angelus. A ready to do battle Angelus. He let out a low continuous growl from deep in his broad chest. And his fangs...longer, harder, sharper, gleaming white.

"He's...growling?" Cordelia whispered from behind Doyle, her voice at last frightened, her fingers wound tight in the back of his crumpled shirt. He would have preferred she had been frightened earlier and had run. But no, he wasn't that lucky.

He whispered back. "Quiet, princess, don't want his attention just now, take my word for it. Get down, on the floor..." She drew in a breath, and he cut her off. "Please. Now, no more argument. I'll get you another skirt." She let him help her to the tiles. He went slowly, down, until they were flat, couldn't get any lower.

More important than figuring out how he was going to afford anything in her price range, was getting the two of them out of Angel's line of sight. Or looking completely harmless if he did see them. That meant on the floor, not making eye contact, offering no competition for whichever of the three was the One.

Doyle hoped Angel wouldn't kill the other two, not right away, not here, in front of him, in front of Cordy. If he would just leave them, take the one he wanted, and leave the others, Doyle could get them out of the Hotel and to safety. But, he didn't have much hope, this was a situation of instinct, Angel was being driven to act by eons of vampire evolution, survival, and physiology. That tended to take a lot of choice from the matter.

Angel bent down, sniffing over the curled, moaning bodies. None of the three tried to flee. Hands lifted, all of them, weakly, trying to touch him, trying to grab onto him and hold him. He let it happen. Let them cling to him, as he went down on his knees. Still sniffing. Angel moved through them, until he came to the center of the grouping, touching them, brushing against them. Then the vampire reached out. Doyle held his breath.

Angel didn't strike out, he petted, touched, turned and examined each of the three men. He cupped their faces, bent down and licked the hands held up to him, nipped at them, until blood flecked his generous lips. They struggled up on hands and knees, swarming closer leaning into the vampire, not one of them, but all three of them. Doyle gaped. That could only mean....Oh, shit.

Angel grabbed two of them and lifted them, one under each arm. He could have easily carried all three if they were easier to balance. But he settled for two, the lighter haired ones, hefting them, their hands scrabbling at his duster, clutching. The vampire moved off towards the stairs that led to his rooms. His face was still morphed, and his fangs extended, his growl growing in timbre and depth, glowing eyes bestial, feral.

He carried them a few feet, then set them down, went back, picked up the first man, the dark haired one, who wrapped himself around the vampire, carried him to where the other two were, and past them further up the staircase. Then he repeated it all over again, gradually making his way up the steps with the three men. Growling all the way, while a stunned Cordelia and a pale Doyle watched the process. Once he was out of sight, Cordy sprang up to her feet, swung around to face the half-demon. She was anything but pleased with him, Doyle knew. And now that they'd lived, it was time to pay.

"OK, now you don't have any excuse. What the hell just happened?" She spat out, hands on hips. Doyle cringed. He held up his hands, palms out, ready to soothe her if he could.

"Thralls." The British accent interrupted from behind, and the man speaking was almost able to hide the quaver in his voice. "Someone has managed to create a thrice of thralls that carry Angel's bloodmark."

"Well that is just great. What does it mean?' Cordelia snapped.

"It means those men are bound to Angel, his human slaves, until they, or he dies." Wesley informed her, face thoughtful and concerned, sweat dotting his brow. "It means we are in for a few changes around here if they stay." Doyle had rarely heard such a blatant understatement.

"But...that was Xander!" Cordelia protested. Then her brows shot up towards her hairline. "If they stay? What if they don't?"

"Xander?" Wes prompted, his brow furrowed, then his confusion cleared. "Xander from Sunnydale? From your high school?" Wesley turned and looked up the staircase where Angel had carried his human loot. They were all out of sight now. "So, someone we know. Well, that is certainly not ideal."

"Wesley!" The young woman snapped. "What do you mean *if* they stay? And why does that sound so bad when you say it?"

"He may kill them. He certainly didn't make them. He doesn't...I mean...he hasn't shown any of the signs...." Helplessly Wes turned to Doyle. The two men looked at each other. "Do you think?"

The Irishman shook his head. "No, I agree. I don't think he made them. It is not something Angel would do."

"Well, then the question we have to answer, is who made them, and why. And how they got his blood. If they didn't carry *Angel's* bloodmark they would be dead already."


And that was certainly true.

ne'ichan
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