Summary: A slayer barters with a demon to rescue her lover, and finds herself unwittingly projected nearly three hundred years into the future with no memory of the life she left behind.
Strangely enough, Spike wasn’t laughing. He was a man who appreciated good humor, but there was nothing in that particular revelation which tickled his mirth. He wasn’t laughing and he wasn’t screaming. He was at a loss. Not to mention he was following Buffy Summers, the Slayer in question, down an otherwise empty hallway and across the threshold into an equally empty classroom. He didn’t know where she was going, only that she couldn’t hide from him. Not now—Christ, especially not now.
Mated to a slayer. Not just any slayer: this slayer.
This slayer who haunted his dreams.
His night angel.
Was that the reason? Was it truly possible he’d gone through his entire life with the memory of a woman he’d apparently loved so deeply, he’d united their lifelines for an eternity? Spike was no longer certain of the answer. Sometime in the night, after parting with Buffy and that delicious pussy of hers, he’d confessed himself more open to the gamble that this William she’d dreamt up might not be a pipe-dream after all. Or rather, more specifically, his role as her William might not be the stretch he’d thought it was. While he didn’t understand how, it was growing increasingly difficult to fight the wealth of affection blossoming within his chest for the girl. This stupid little twig of a thing who stalked after him in dreams and whispered love for him that she couldn’t possibly feel.
Only if it were true—if she was a slayer from the pages of history, mated to an incarnation of himself he didn’t remember—he knew one thing beyond any shred of uncertainty.
She was his. This girl belonged to him. Spike knew himself well enough to understand he would never have even dreamt of biting a bird he was sleeping with unless there was something beyond fleshly pleasures between them. Biting during sex was intimate on a level the simple union of bodies couldn’t accomplish—for vampires, anyway. And if a vampire’s emotions were running especially high, it could pave the way down a series of simple-however-binding rituals which decreed blood and words as necessity to make them permanent.
Claiming was one. No, claiming was the one. Claiming bound the demon eternally. He’d read about it. Thought once or twice about claiming Dru, but never seriously. And while he’d always told himself a claim between him and Dru wouldn’t work because his attachment was greater than hers, it had less to do with that than the hysteric screaming in his head and the rampant waves of nausea seizing his insides. The demon rebelled violently every time he gave thought to biting anyone for sexual gratification, and while it hadn’t stopped him, he definitely hadn’t made habit out of it.
Was all of this because he’d claimed a slayer? Because their blood was forever linked?
Because in the world of which Buffy spoke, he was entirely devoted to her?
And if that were the case, were the feelings he now had for the chit simply residual or were they real? Did he truly want Buffy or did his demon just recognize her?
Then again, if he had claimed her, it had to have been out of the strongest love. Love stronger than anything he’d ever felt before…well, in this life, anyway. If he’d truly loved Dru, he would have found a way around his hang-ups about biting and claiming her. He would have fought the disgust which diseased his bones at the very thought. He would have tried if she was the one he truly loved.
Spike knew himself.
Though apparently, not as well as Buffy did. Buffy truly knew him better than he knew himself.
A cliché come to life.
What an odd sensation.
“We were mated?” he demanded hoarsely, staring at her glorious backside. She stood facing the chalkboard of whatever classroom they’d entered, trembling hard and curiously surrounded with the thick scent of tears. “Funny enough, you seemed to leave that part out.”
She was quiet for a long minute. “You didn’t believe any of the rest of it,” she said softly. “I don’t…I didn’t think it was…”
“You din’t think it was important?”
“I didn’t think it changed anything.”
Spike stared at her incredulously. For a beautiful chit, she really was a bit thick. “How can you—”
“I’m sorry, okay?”
“Sorry doesn’ quite cover it, pet.” He took a step forward, breath ragged, his nerves dancing dangerously near the end of anything resembling control. “Claims change everything.”
There was a pregnant pause, then, at last, she turned to face him. And Christ, did she move like poetry. Warm. Vibrant. Alive. He felt her pulsing with energy, burning him up even with meters of space between them. Tears glistened in the emerald of her eyes, sending a sharp pang to his heart and making his demon howl with the need to comfort her. She truly did look like a girl who had lost everything. A girl who had leapt through centuries only to find the light at the end of her tunnel in someone else’s possession. It was amazing. God, it nearly drove him to his knees in awe.
This girl loved him. She truly loved him.
He had never known love like this—not from someone who wasn’t himself. For too long he’d felt isolated, imprisoned by his own emotions. For too long, he’d been completely alone even when in the company of others. For too long, he’d felt nothing of the love he tried to give.
And now he was practically swimming in it. Swimming in love beyond love.
Swimming in love that transcended time and reason.
God.
“I can’t take it back, Spike,” Buffy whispered, her voice making a particularly forced emphasis on his name. And for one blindly insane moment, he wished he hadn’t made such a bloody fuss about not calling him Will. While he knew the distinction was important, the lack of hope she had now was crippling.
She didn’t think he could love her if he didn’t remember her.
“I can’t take it back,” she repeated, wiping at her eyes. “And even if I could, I wouldn’t. And you wouldn’t want me to. Not…well, if you remembered…God, if you knew…”
“I believe you.”
Spike froze and Buffy froze with him. He hadn’t realized it was the truth until the words breathed air. But it was. It was out there and he wouldn’t take it back. He believed her. There was no fighting the odds anymore. No more trying to decode his confused feelings or wonder why she’d revealed herself as his night angel ever since he’d barreled into town.
If he’d loved her enough to claim her in some former life, he knew he’d love her again. And for the right reasons. His memories didn’t matter. Not that he didn’t fancy the idea of knowing how glorious they’d been together, or the wealth of living he’d done before running into her the first time. It gnawed at him, but he didn’t mind so much. Apparently the only thing he’d found worth living for was currently standing before him.
And looking as though his admission would inspire a new shower of tears.
“You do?” she whispered. Then her eyes narrowed with skepticism and she shook her head, stepping back. “No…no you don’t.”
“Buffy—”
“Last night—”
“Was a bloody revelation. Not so much as the one I’m havin’ now, but high up there as far as revelations go.”
“Spike, you don’t have to—”
“I don’t remember anythin’, love. I’m sorry but I don’t.” He inhaled sharply and braved another step forward. “I wish there was somethin’ more tangible that I could give you. All I know is…my life is about as wonky as it’s ever been, an’ that’s sayin’ something. I look at you an’ I see the answer. I see the answer for everything, an’ I don’t even know the soddin’ question.” A pause. “You’ve been with me for so long…”
Buffy drew in a quick breath. “What?”
“Since I can remember, really. Always at night…li’l images fightin’ to get to me. A woman…well, she’s you. I know that now. The images got stronger as I got older. Then Dru sired me an’ I thought she was it…but the dreams kept comin’, an’ I knew Dru wasn’t her.” Spike smiled gently. “My night angel was too pure. Light where there’s only darkness, y’know? Warmth where there was cold. Gentle when it was harsh. An’ love. I felt that, too. All from my night angel.”
She swallowed. Hard. “N-night angel?”
Spike’s lips drew upward in a tender smile. “’S what I called you. To myself, at leas’. My night angel.”
A trembling breath rolled through her gorgeous mouth. She looked again as though tears might consume her. “Oh Will…”
She caught her mistake immediately and flashed him an apologetic look, but all he could do was smile. Strangely enough, it didn’t seem to bother him so much today.
“I don’ remember rot.”
“I don’t think you ever will,” she replied. “I…”
“Never say never, pet.”
“It was a mistake, my remembering. The…the demon I bartered with admitted as much.” She hesitated. “He said so.”
Spike arched a brow. “When?”
“Last night. You…he was there. Right before you showed up in the cemetery…” Buffy released a trembling sigh, her eyes turning downward. “He showed up. Talked to me. Pretty much confirmed—”
“The wanker was there?” he demanded anxiously. “The demon you—”
“Yeah.”
“Why din’t you tell me?”
She inhaled. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. O-or you’d just think it was symptomatic of the ‘Buffy’s lost her mind’ theory.”
“I don’t think you’ve lost—”
“Yeah, but you thought I’d fallen on something heavy,” she interrupted.
Spike released a tempered breath and raised a hand. “Sweetheart, you know me…right?”
Buffy licked her lips and said nothing. Her eyes told him she feared becoming the pun of a trick question. The answer wasn’t a stumper; she knew him. She could likely tell him painfully accurate truths he’d attempted to bury. Things no one else—not even Dru—would know about him.
“Yeah,” he continued. “’S what I thought. So you know, then, if I’m runnin’ hard in the other direction, it’s usually—”
“To avoid something you know is true.”
The words were simple but they astounded him. The world was often divided into two realms: knowledge and understanding. Knowledge was simply a collection of admitted facts without comprehension of what said facts meant when grouped together. Spike found himself shoved across the threshold dividing the realms in a blink.
She did understand him. Christ, she did.
“My God,” Spike murmured. “My…Buffy…”
Her cheeks flushed prettily. He wanted to soak up her warmth; wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close enough so that their memories became one. In an instant, he was consumed with a crushing sense of loss. How had he not seen this before? How had he remained so bloody blind these past few days when the answer was plain as plain could be?
This woman was his. She had crossed time to find him. She had essentially breathed life into his scattered ashes. She’d defied convention, defied immortality, defied the security of her very soul to find him. Out of love.
And he didn’t remember one blessed thing.
He didn’t remember it, but it was there. He saw it in her eyes. He saw everything in her eyes. It was all there. Every stolen moment, every sinful caress, every kiss of her lips and hug of her body. Between laughter and tears, heated arguments and even more heated reconciliations. An entire life lived—a history beyond his days. There was a time when he had walked the planet as a vampire without Dru’s leash secured around his neck. Without Angelus hovering over his shoulder. Without every bloody complex the past century had beat into his hide. There was a time before all that—a time when he was his own keeper.
A time when he’d tracked down this slayer and somehow ended up head over heels for her.
No. That was unfair. There was no somehow about this. He could see how. For God’s sake, a blind man could see how.
He wanted those memories unlocked. He wanted that part of himself reclaimed. That sort of passion—that sort of selflessness—that sort of love was something he’d craved since infancy. To know he’d had it all along was both wonderful and infuriating.
How could the Powers keep him from such an essential part of himself? Something so monumental? So important? So unprecedented?
How could the Powers keep him from his mate?
How could the Powers keep him from Buffy?
“You run from whatever you don’t want to face,” Buffy said again, a small smile tickling her mouth. “Or…no, that’s not right. You don’t run from it—you just have the opposite reaction. When you…when we first…you always said you loved me, and that’s why you tried to kill me. The night we first…you’d come to kill me.”
Spike nodded and took another step forward, a trembling breath rocking off his lips. “You told me last night, pet.”
“We ended up…ummm…making love against a tree.”
He loved the way she phrased it. Making love. It was something he never heard. Something he rarely said, himself. It made her look even purer than she was. More innocent than she was. Her language was tame but there was no mistaking the passion in her voice. The passion inspired by a simple memory.
God, they must have set the world on fire.
“Wish I could remember it,” Spike murmured. “Can jus’ imagine how amazin’ you were.”
Buffy swallowed hard and he was suddenly slammed with a potent wave of her desire, and the richness of her heavenly aroma nearly sent him to his knees. “I wish you could remember, too,” she replied hoarsely. “But…I don’t think…neither one of us was meant to remember, Spike.”
“You did.”
“It was a fluke.”
“There could be another fluke.” He was so close to her now. The hard pebbles of her nipples rubbed tantalizingly against his chest, even with layers of clothing between them. “We can fluke it up real nice, kitten.”
“I don’t know how,” Buffy said, ignoring his innuendo.
“We’ll find out how.” Spike’s eyes fluttered shut, his lips brushing hers as he spoke. He wanted so badly to kiss her. Wanted to lose himself in the endless warmth of her arms—wanted to crush her against his chest and revel in the feel of her heart beating soundly against his chest. He wanted to occupy the time between now and the return of his coveted memories by creating new ones.
She was his.
“Buffy…”
“I’m so sorry, Will…”
“Don’ apologize.”
He brushed his lips against hers again, this time with deliberate intent. And then he couldn’t help himself. He was lost and he didn’t give a lick if he was ever found again. With a long moan, he surrendered. And God help him, she was pure radiance—a ray of wholesome light spearing through the storm clouds of his existence. She was hot and wet—a tropical paradise which blinked away the cold desert of his past.
The taste of her was electrifying. And she was the one moaning against him.
“Mmmnnahh,” Buffy gasped, cupping his cheeks and anchoring him into her kiss. “I’ve missed you.”
The starved desperation in her voice made him ache. “Buffy…”
“I know,” she replied between kisses, her hips moving in a manner against his which had to be subconscious. “I know. You don’t…but I do.”
Spike nipped at her lips, the growl of his demon suddenly making itself known. It was so unprecedented he nearly fell over. His demon never emerged when lips and tongues came into play. Never. And while the stirring was small enough to almost escape notice, the fact that it stirred at all had him dumbfounded. “I want to, pet,” he murmured heatedly. “Those are my memories, too.”
A strangled half-sob, half-gasp tore through her lips. “Spike…”
He couldn’t help but grin. An unprompted moan of his name during a moment of unbridled passion did a lot to a man’s ego—but this especially took the cake. She was whimpering for him. Perhaps it was a fluke; he wanted to believe the vampire she remembered and the vampire kissing her now were simply growing closer. Perhaps if they merged completely in her mind, his own would open and fill in the achingly hollow gaps.
“I love that,” he murmured, nudging her brow with his. At some point his fangs had descended and his bumpies had emerged. He didn’t know when. He hadn’t felt it occur—it just had. Perhaps this was nature’s way of directing his blood home. Buffy was his—his mate and his destiny. And while he wasn’t sure he loved her yet, there was no doubt that he eventually would.
If he loved her once, he would again. He just needed to get to know her. Beyond what he already knew—the little things which made and unmade people. He needed to know that as well.
“Love what?” she asked.
“You called me Spike.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks reddened even further, and his heart swelled with affection. “I’ll try to keep doing that.”
Spike grinned and claimed her lips again, his eager tongue pressing into her mouth to taste her sinful richness again. He loved the way her tongue stroked his. The way she whimpered and moved her lips against his mouth—the way she attempted to both swallow and crawl up inside him. She embodied passion. In every sweep of her delicate lips, he felt her desperation.
Desperation for him.
It was the most potent aphrodisiac he’d ever known.
“Buffy…”
The tip of his fangs pricked her tongue by accident; of that he was certain. What followed, however, was completely intentional. Spike growled and slammed her against the nearest wall, sucking her tongue desperately between lips and drawing her coppery essence into his throat with hunger unlike anything the world had experienced before. Her legs wound around his waist, the moist center of her sweat pants rubbing against his hard cock in ways that would make the devil blush. She was so hot. God, so hot. So alive. So fucking vibrant.
And his. Buffy was his. He had her blood, now. There was no going back. Not after this. Tasting her blood brought him completion. Tasting her blood had brought all of him home.
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a previously dead-bolted door crashed open. Her blood was the key. Blood always was.
Oh God.
There it was. Figments, fragments, fractions—swirling and colliding with a history he already knew. Contradicting scenes with a parallel version of events he’d already lived. It happened in no particular order. The face of Drusilla was shoved aside, his sire replaced with the whiff of a woman’s perfume and the painfully sweet sensation of death. He saw flames and heard screams of victims who had died well before this life had taken shape. He was at once sitting in an Elizabethan theatre, watching Hamlet slay Claudius as Fortinbras drew nearer to Denmark. He was in a pub, chatting with a toothy whore and lamenting the lack of warmth in the levity of his own existence. He was on a ship bound for the Americas, dreaming up ludicrous first-meeting scenarios and entertaining himself by gambling with another migrating vamp over which crewman would next drop with smallpox.
He was on land, moving through a thicket trees. He saw her. She dusted three vampires before his eyes and offered a wave in his direction. Nothing open. Nothing confrontational. Just to let him know he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought. That she had been performing for him.
She was shoved against a tree, her molten pussy clamped tight around his cock, her cries muffled in his shoulder as he explored the only paradise a creature such as himself would ever know. Her arms were around him. He fell back.
Fell back onto a bed. She was grinning, her fingers tickling his stomach, her infectious laughter coloring the air, her beautiful face brought to life in ways no poet could describe.
The underground. She was against him. Trembling and terrified, and he didn’t know how to help her.
She was tied to a stake.
Then pain. He watched her sob. He wanted to tell her so badly not to cry—he regretted nothing. It was his fault, really. He had pushed her to an end she hadn’t been ready to face. He’d pushed her. He shouldn’t have pushed her.
Then blackness.
A gut-consuming gasp tore at his throat. Spike seized her arms and shoved her back, his body crippled with the weight of realization. He hunched over and rested his palms against his knees, harsh, cruel pants rolling in waves off his shoulders.
He felt her tremble but didn’t look up. He couldn’t.
The pain of knowledge was too great. He knew everything. He knew everything.