Love In Vein: Book Three - Chapter 10

Buffy woke to the sound of growling and struggled to breathe. She felt as though something heavy was pressing against her chest and crushing her. Fluttering her eyes open, she looked down and saw Spike’s arm across her chest. She frowned and tried to prise his arm away from her but he just held her even tighter.

A shuffling noise made her realise that they weren’t alone.

Raising her head, she frowned at Giles and Lydia.

She stared at them for a few moments, her sleepy brain trying to make sense of what was happening.

“You’re upsetting him.” She stroked Spike’s arm, attempting to soothe him as he continued to growl and hold her protectively.

“And you’ve kept him unchained all night. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” Giles retorted and she just rolled her eyes.

Spike’s growl bordered on a roar and Buffy pressed a kiss to his arm, hoping to keep him from doing anything rash.

“Giles…I’ll chain him again, okay? Just leave us alone for a minute.”

“No.” Lydia said flatly and Buffy shot her a black look.

“This has nothing to do with you. I know what I’m doing here.” Buffy noticed that Lydia’s gaze shifted to rest on Spike’s arm and then his face. She arched her fine brows on seeing the look that flitted across the Watcher’s face. This time it was Buffy’s grip on Spike that increased. “I get it…you told Giles I was here. You little…next time you even think about coming down here to watch my mate sleeping, think about this…I hear you were here, I’ll kill you.”

“Buffy!” Giles stepped forward immediately, placing himself between Buffy and Lydia and unwittingly moving himself closer to Spike.

He roared, his grip on Buffy tightening.

Buffy turned her head to look at him. Bringing her hand up, she stroked his cheek slowly and pressed a kiss to his other one.

“Shh…it’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” She smiled as he looked at her, his demon receding.

Buffy was surprised when he snarled possessively and dipped his head, pressing a long kiss to her lips that left her whole body slack and tingling. She smiled lazily up at him as he pulled back, and dragged him back to her for another kiss.

Lydia turned her head away in disgust.

Giles didn’t know where to look.

Releasing her mate, she stared deep into his eyes and then remembered that they still weren’t alone.

She smiled awkwardly at Lydia and Giles. “I did tell you to give me a few minutes.”

“Perhaps it would be wise if we did. We’ll be upstairs in the lounge.” Giles ushered Lydia out of the door, giving Buffy a look that said she would be wise if she hurried her goodbye to Spike. He couldn’t ignore the allegation that Buffy had laid at Lydia’s feet. Before Buffy’s arrival it had become evident that Lydia was becoming overly interested in Spike and was beginning to spend an increasing amount of time with him. That had been part of the reason he’d called Buffy, to ensure that Lydia realised that she was in over her head and would soon find herself in trouble if she went anywhere near Spike.

It hadn’t worked. The night before Buffy’s arrival, Lydia had gone to the cell alone and had attempted to feed Spike. She’d strayed too close, believing that he wouldn’t hurt her. He’d knocked the blood pack out of her hand and gone straight for her arm, biting her deeply and only relinquishing it when she screamed at the top of her lungs.

She’d been stupid and he’d thought she’d realised that—only now it was clear that she hadn’t. She still harboured ideas, beliefs that she could be something to Spike.

If he didn’t put an end to it, Buffy would and the consequences would be disastrous for Lydia.

He believed Buffy when she said she would kill her.


Buffy pushed the doors to the lounge open hard enough that they slammed against the walls. She quickly scanned the room and its occupants. One person was missing.

“Where’s Lydia?”

“I’ve told her to get some rest for the night…she’s done quite enough don’t you think?” Giles answered her without even looking up from the book he was holding.

“Quite.” Buffy’s tone was bitter as she strode across the room to the table. She hesitated for a moment before adding, “Did you know?”

“No…yes…I had my suspicions that she was growing somewhat attached to Spike.” He looked up this time and caught the upset look on Buffy’s face.

“Is that part of the reason you brought me here?”

“Part, yes. But I genuinely believed it was time to tell you.”

Buffy felt a little more relaxed on hearing that Giles had been keeping an eye on Lydia from the start and that he’d taken steps to stop the Watcher from getting ideas about being with Spike. She had enough to worry about with all the angels, beasts and Spike being crazy, without having to worry about Lydia making a move on her mate too.

A dark look flitted across her face as she thought about what she’d do if Drusilla ever came back. Spike had told her a million times that nothing would happen, that he wouldn’t leave her, but there was a niggling fear at the back of her mind.

“What was it you saw tonight?” Giles asked as he watched her frowning at a spot on the carpet with a distant but black look on her face.

“Huh?” Buffy roused herself from her thoughts and frowned even harder when she realised what he’d asked. “Something beyond gross.”

He watched her as she moved over to the armchairs and sat down in the one she always chose. He took it as a hint that she wanted to get comfortable before relaying what she’d seen and followed her, placing himself in the chair opposite her.

“Want to tell me about it?”

She knew that it wasn’t really a question—it was a thinly veiled order. He hadn’t seen the things she had, hadn’t looked at the angel long enough.

“It…ate Cerberus’ heart, and it looked at me the whole time it was doing it. It felt like it was trying to eat my heart…like it wanted to show me what it was going to do to me but then it left. Why didn’t it kill us? I don’t think I can defeat an angel, Giles, especially not one with the strength it had. It punched a hole straight into Cerberus’ chest, it punched a hole through flesh and bone that our axes had barely made a dent in.”

“We’ll research, Willow and Tara will help while they’re still here. They will have to return to the Coven to finish their training.” He noticed that Buffy didn’t like the sound of that. “In a few short weeks they’ll have completed it and will be back with us.”

He smiled as he reassured her, knowing that she needed her friends around her right now and that everything that was happening was starting to take its toll on her.

“Spike seems to be recovering.” He caught her eye and gave her another smile.

Buffy nodded slowly and sighed. “He’s getting there I think. Whatever is affecting him is still strong during the day, but the more time I spend with him the more he’s like his old self.”

“Did you feed him?”

She nodded again and felt the need to show him the marks in order to make him see that Spike hadn’t hurt her. She could tell that he was still being over cautious when it came to Spike, and that the incident earlier had made them go a few steps backwards in getting Spike released from his cell.

She felt as though it was happening all over again. Spike had won their trust, had proven himself, but now the slate had been wiped clean and he’d had to start again. She could see that Giles wanted to trust Spike, that he had been doing everything in his power to aid his recovery, but she knew that the longer Spike’s craziness continued, the less likely it was that he would regain everyone’s trust.

“He said my name…he recognised me. He didn’t hurt me at all, not even when we were sleeping and he only did that thing this morning because he thought you were threatening us.” She wanted to explain, wanted to show Giles that Spike was getting back to normal and that he could put some trust in him. She wanted him to see what she did, to feel what she could, and to know that her mate was doing his best to overcome what had happened to him.

“He was awake you know.” Giles said conversationally and saw a frown wrinkle her nose. “When we came down to see you both, Spike was awake.”

“He was?” She sat up a little straighter, curious as to what Giles had seen because from where she was sitting it looked like it had given him a lot to think about.

“He was. Lydia told me you were down there and Spike was unchained. I feared that something had happened to you, but when I saw you…saw him…” He smiled. “I knew he wouldn’t hurt you.”

Buffy swallowed noisily and pressed him to tell her. “Why?”

Giles looked a little uncomfortable about telling her the reason. “Spike had that look on his face, the one that lets the whole world see how he feels about you. He was holding you, watching you sleep. He looked so much like how he used to back in Sunnydale…fascinated with you.”

Buffy held onto the tired, tattered threads of her emotions, not wanting to cry in front of Giles. She had known that something was different when Spike had kissed her this morning in front of Giles. It had told her a million different things, one of which was that he was coming back to her, that he loved her.

She silently thanked Giles with a smile and then curled up, holding her knees as she thought about how everything hadn’t turned out like she’d planned.

She’d thought that by getting rid of the First, everything would be over and she would be able to go on with her life, with Spike by her side, but instead she’d been dealt a new hand, one that seemed to be even worse than her last.

In place of incorporeal evil, she now had to deal with evil angels and cope with the emotional turmoil that seeing Spike so insane was causing.

It was bad when he was gone, it seemed even worse now he was back but still so distant.

She just wanted him back.

Was that too much to ask?

If she had to deal with another apocalypse, could she at least have Spike by her side?

Please?

She didn’t even bother looking up when the doors opened, she just kept her senses locked on Spike’s emotions. She could feel the variations in them so clearly it was like she was seeing them. They were fluctuating erratically, going from calm to raging in a split second. This wasn’t unusual for Spike, but it was unusual considering that he was asleep.

There was something else too, something she could sense but couldn’t put her finger on. It felt different somehow, the connection between them was deeper than before and there was something lingering in the background, just too far away for her to get a lock on.

She looked up and broke the connection with Spike as she smiled at Willow and Tara.

“Morning.” They greeted her in unison and she raised her brows into a stunned look.

“It’s morning?” Her eyes darted to the window and sure enough, the sky was lightening.

“Sun rose about twenty minutes ago, we get up early, lessons are usually about to start and there’s no point in getting out of our sleep routine.”

“Giles said you had to go tonight.” Buffy said idly, not hiding the note of disappointment in her voice.

“It’s only for a while, we’ll be back before you know it and then we can spend more time with each other.” Willow offered her a reassuring smile.

“Spike will be back by then.” Buffy didn’t look up at her friend, she just kept staring out of the window. She didn’t care if they thought she was strange because of her comment. She could feel how close Spike was to coming back to her, could sense that she was so near to piecing together the puzzle that would give her the key to bringing him back. She just had to find the right words, just had to do something that she hadn’t thought of yet and he’d be back.

A little time to think, that’s what she needed. Some space and some time to be alone with her thoughts, somewhere that she could escape her muddled emotions and gain a little clarity.

Patrol.

She’d patrol tonight, alone, no matter how much Giles protested. She could always think better on patrol, and she could do with a little vampire dusting to make her feel better.

Bringing her focus back to her friends, she noticed that they had all moved over to the table and were looking through the books that Giles had found. She walked over to them and they all looked at her as though awaiting a command.

“Breakfast first…” She said without thinking and watched them all smile at her. “Angels later.”

“Angels?” Willow looked confused and Buffy surmised that Giles hadn’t told her about their encounter yet.

Looping her arm through her friends, she smiled. “It’s a long story…so we should probably discuss it over breakfast.”

Giles watched the three of them as they walked away, all smiles and giggles as they headed towards the dining room.

It was nice to see Buffy getting back to normal, and he knew that it wasn’t all about Spike. Having Willow and Tara around to talk to was making her feel more relaxed about being so far away from home.

He decided that after breakfast he’d talk to the Coven and ask them to complete all of Tara and Willow’s training by next weekend.

The quicker they were back with Buffy, the better she would be.

And he got the feeling that they needed her as much like her old self as was possible, because he’d never heard of angels walking the earth before.

At least not outside texts that spoke of the final apocalypse.

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