Love In Vein: Book Three - Chapter 20

Spike held her hand tightly as they walked, the darkness enveloping them like a warm blanket and the distant lights of the city looking like stars on the horizon. He smiled as she gave his hand an affectionate squeeze and then looked over at her.

Her eyes were fixed on the distance and he could sense that she was miles away in her thoughts. She’d seemed quiet all evening with Giles and the two witches. He knew there was something playing on her mind and he wanted to know if it had something to do with what he’d seen in his sleep.

Buffy smiled briefly as she met his eyes and then let hers drift back to their surroundings. They were supposed to be patrolling, but all she wanted was a quiet night alone with Spike—something she knew she wouldn’t get if they stayed in the Council Headquarters.

Looking down at her left hand, she raised her brows as the pale moonlight glinted off the ring she was wearing.

Walking Spike slowly over to a tomb, she hopped up onto it and sat on the flat stone lid. She smiled as Spike followed suit, sitting beside her and his hand reclaiming hers.

Buffy looked down at them and then up into his eyes.

“I have something of yours.” She slipped the ring off her finger and held it up for him to see. “I was keeping it for you. I knew you’d come back for it.”

“I came back for you, love.” Spike brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek and then cupped it, enjoying the warmth as it stole into his palm.

Buffy gave him a shy smile and leaned into his touch, savouring the feeling of his cool hands against her skin again.

Taking hold of his hand, she brought it down and looked at it for a moment before slipping the ring onto it without hesitation. She didn’t care what Giles thought. She needed to know that he was safe and that he would be able to protect her when the time came.

Spike looked down at the green and gold ring on his finger and smiled. He felt as though Buffy had found the missing piece to his puzzle and now he could rest easy. With the ring, he was invulnerable. With the ring, he could save her.

And he would. He was going to save her from everything. The gem would see to it that she was safe.

“We need this, we need it to protect what we have.” Spike’s voice was nothing more than a whisper as he stared at the ring, watching the way the light played on it.

Buffy frowned for a second and then decided that he just meant that it would protect her from death and therefore keep what they have now.

Still smiling, Spike wrapped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close to him. He took a deep breath, inhaling her fragrance and feeling soothed by the familiar smell of her. He’d missed her more than words could express. He’d not stopped thinking about her from the moment he left her, and all throughout the trials. His memory of her had kept him going, had driven him to succeed in every challenge that the demon laid at his feet.

He couldn’t fail her.

He was her champion.

He smiled as she nuzzled up against him, her forehead resting gently against his neck. She needed this, needed a moment of quiet with him to help put everything in focus and give her the strength to continue. She was strong, but she drew so much strength from her friends and family without even knowing it. She needed the comfort and the love they gave her, the pep talks and the moments of just sitting in silence.

She needed him, and he needed her.

He’d missed her so insanely, even without the soul. Where she drew strength from him, he came to realise that he drew it from her too. She gave him purpose. She gave him love, devotion and loyalty such as he’d never known before. During his time apart from her, he’d felt her absence keenly. She seemed to bring light to his life and was such a large part of him that it felt like a void had opened inside of him.

Raising her hand up, he pressed a long kiss to it and closed his eyes.

Buffy smiled. She could sense the sweet emotions flowing through him and they brought out hers. Leaning her head back, she caught hold of his cheek and brought his head around to face her. She let her lips brush tenderly against his, kissing him slowly and gently as she tried to show him that everything he felt for her, she felt for him.

Spike rubbed noses with her and smiled as she drew back and looked at him, her green eyes twinkling with happiness. This was what she needed, some time with him to bring back her smile and show her that no matter what happened they would overcome it and be together.

They’d save the world.

Again.

It was what they did.


Buffy’s eyes roamed the darkness as they walked. She was thankful that it had been a quiet patrol so far. Getting to spend some time with Spike without the prying eyes of the Council on them was making her feel like she was back in Sunnydale. She missed seeing her mother, missed Xander, hell she even missed Anya. She missed the familiar streets that had now been replaced with ones that were so old that she felt severely out of place. Nothing in Sunnydale was older than a hundred years, and now she was surrounded by gravestones that dated back almost five hundred years.

They were older than Spike.

They were older than Angel.

She frowned as she realised that she hadn’t thought about her ex-lover in a long time. She’d been so concerned with Spike that she hadn’t even thought to tell him that she had left Sunnydale for England. Everything had happened so fast.

Sneaking a glance at Spike, she smiled inside as she saw he was singing to himself while keeping an eye out for trouble.

She would have to tell Angel where she was sooner rather than later. If he tried to contact her at her house, then her mother would tell her that she was in England and he’d probably call the Council up and use the same speech on her that she’d used on him when he hadn’t told her he was disappearing off to Pylea to rescue Cordelia.

Tilting her head back, she stared up at the moon and the stars and sighed. She would have to tell Angel, and then there would be the inevitable questions as to why Spike had gone insane and why she had come to England when she didn’t even like going to Los Angeles.

What could she tell him?

For a moment, she wondered if Angel could sense that he was no longer the only vampire in the world with a soul. Maybe he wouldn’t take it badly. He already knew as well as the rest of them that Spike was destined for a soul, but even then he hadn’t been happy about it. She could still see his face when he told her that Spike would go out and kill. He’d tried to push her into reacting, tried to panic her and make her go after him.

Why?

Did he believe that she would hunt down her mate and kill him if he’d done as his instincts told him? Spike had killed even after the soul, but she wasn’t about to stake him for it. She knew him well enough to see that he had changed himself so dramatically in order to be a better man for her and she knew that he would continue to strive to be a good man if she gave him the right amount of space. She was no longer watching him struggle to adapt to her world, she was trying to adapt to his. He had leapt ahead of her, making himself more than human and more than a vampire, and he done it all for her.

She still couldn’t get over that.

He’d joked with her mother that the only reason he’d get a soul was for her, and he really had gone through with it.

Now all she wanted to do was be with him and help him cope with everything his soul was punishing him for.

She really didn’t need to have to deal with Angel too.

Maybe Spike would tell him. Maybe she could tell her mother, because if Angel phoned her house she’d be bound just accidentally let it slip out that Spike had a soul.

She always had preferred Spike to Angel.

Buffy looked over at Spike again where he was walking beside her and smiled. She had to admit that her preference leaned heavily towards her mate too.

He was something else when compared with his grandsire—the way he loved her, the way he wanted to protect her, the way he never stopped surprising her.

The soul was the biggest surprise of all.

“Spike?”

“Hmm?” He raised his brows as he looked down at her.

“Your…” Buffy felt more than a little awkward about asking him about his soul. Since she’d told him that she knew about it and what he’d done, they hadn’t mentioned it once. She forced the word out and hoped he’d be okay talking about it. “Soul.”

Spike managed to stop himself from tensing up on hearing that word and ignored the spark of pain in his chest.

“What about it?” He said as casually as he could manage. It wasn’t that he wasn’t okay with what he’d done, it was just that it was taking a long time to adjust to the knowledge that he was one step closer to following in his grandsire’s footsteps.

Only he seemed to be doing it in reverse.

First came Buffy.

Then came the soul.

What was next?

Buffy wasn’t convinced that he was as easy going about the subject of his soul as he appeared to be and decided to keep talk of it brief.

“I just wanted to know…” She stopped dead in her tracks and smiled when he did the same, as though that invisible string she’d theorised about really joined him to her and he couldn’t go any further without her moving too. “Why?”

“I thought you saw.” He started and then realised that she had seen how and why he got his soul back. This wasn’t about wanting to know the details of his adventure. This was about reassurance. Closing the gap between them, he let his fingers toy with hers as he looked into the wide green eyes that were watching him, waiting for the words that would make their owner feel good again. He let his voice drop until it was nothing more than a husky whisper, a tone that reflected just how shy he felt and how deep his emotions ran when it came to her. “Did it for you, baby.”

Buffy felt warmth spread through her and cursed the tears that tried to force their way out of her. She held them back and leaned into the palm of his hand as he cupped her cheek and gave her a little smile that spoke volumes to her about his feelings.

“Was it a hard decision?” She knew she was pushing her luck, but she wanted to hear more, wanted to know that he really had done it for her and her alone.

“Didn’t even need to think about it, it just felt like the right thing to do. It’s my destiny, just like you are.” Spike narrowed his eyes tenderly on hers and raised her head up so she was looking straight at him. “I’d go through trials a thousand times over and a million times harder if it meant coming home to you. You’re everything to me, Buffy.”

Buffy couldn’t stop the tears this time. They escaped the corners of her eyes and were streaming down her cheeks before she had a chance to stop them. She blinked them away and smiled up at him, her lips curving into a thankful smile.

Spike smiled and closed his eyes as she threw her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms tight around her waist and held her flush against him. He sighed as she nuzzled his neck and he could feel her hot tears on his skin as she cried.

Smoothing her hair, he whispered quiet words to her that he hoped would soothe her. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through without him. He could see in her face and her figure that she hadn’t been looking after herself properly, and he knew the visions that haunted her at night.

She felt so small and frail in his arms, so easily breakable. He wanted to keep holding her, wanted to protect her from everything the world was shortly going to throw at her but in the end he wouldn’t be able to protect her from what was coming.

He couldn’t stop it. He’d tried so many times and so many different ways to break the cycle but he just couldn’t do it.

“Spike?” Buffy sniffled as she drew back and bit her lip when she saw the damp patch she’d made on his neck and the collar of his jacket.

“Yeah, baby?”

“You’re my everything, too.” She smiled into his eyes as he wiped her tears away with the pad of his thumb.

“Should bloody well hope so.” He grinned at her, hoping to lighten the mood between them and wanting to see her smile properly again. He hated seeing her cry, hated knowing it was because of him.

She’d seen too many bad things, had faced too much death in her life and he wanted to put a stop to that.

Buffy gave him a wide smile as he set her down gently. She smoothed down her clothes and then took hold of his hand again, sighing as she saw the ring on it. All those months she’d cherished it as though it was a part of him. When she’d looked at it each time she felt lonely, it had given her hope where she’d had none and now it was back with its rightful owner.

Back where it belonged.

“I love you, you know.” Buffy said frankly as they started to walk through the cemetery again.

“Bloody good job.” He grinned at her.

She slapped his arm playfully and scowled, her lower lip jutting out in a pout.

Spike sucked his cheeks into a little smirk and set his sights on her lips. He caught hold of her waist and narrowed his eyes on his target, amused by the way Buffy was now trying to back away from him.

“Pouty…pouty…” He held her waist a little tighter and looked at her through hooded eyes. “Gonna get it.”

Buffy giggled as he pressed a demanding kiss to her lips, his teeth nipping at her slightly as he held her flush against him. She went limp in his arms as he kissed the breath out of her and then sighed up at the stars when he finally let go of her mouth.

“Love you too, baby.” He purred down at her and she grinned up at the stars.

Her brows knit as something moved across the heavens above her.

“Spike?” She let her eyes widen and Spike looked up in time to see the shadow passing overhead again. “I don’t think we’re alone.”

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