Christmas and things are not going too well in Sunnydale. Someone is stealing children.

Buffy calls a conference and Spike and Anya reveal a startling truth

Anya’s ex boss sends Buffy and Spike to another dimension but not before she stuns her friends with an announcement about her feelings for the vampire.

The search for the evil Santa Claus begins and Spike is about to face the consequences of Buffy’s announcement.

Santa Claus is forcing the Scoobies to face up to their darkest thoughts

All magic has consequences....

Christmas and New year have passed. Eric has returned to the Children’s Home, but left a lasting impression on Buffy and Spike. And their relationship is now having consequences at home, too.

Something very weird has happened to Spike and Buffy realises, at last, that her old friends no longer have a hold over her.

Spike has changed and now Buffy's world is about to collapse around her,.

Happy together in their new, loving relationship, Spike and Buffy have returned to Sunnydale from the strange world of Santa Claus where Xander and Anya have stayed to atone for the deaths he caused by summoning Sweet, the Dancing Demon.  But Spike has been infected by Eric, the small orphan boy they met recently. Now at moon rise, Spike turns into a panther demon, desperate to hunt, kill and eat raw flesh.

Eric, the orphan boy who accompanied Spike and Buffy to the Sant Claus world has infected Spike with a demon strain, the Sylvamalkyn or Panther Demon.  Spike has left Buffy and Dawn and gone back to his crypt because he knows he is dangerous when the moon rises.  Buffy thinks Willow is searching for a remedy but her old friend feels Buffy is much better off without Spike in her life.

Spike has been infected by a panther demon and although he and Buffy have declared their love, he has insisted that he leave her because he is scared of putting her and Dawn in danger.  Willow, wracked with jealousy that everyone's life is good except for hers, has told Buffy that there is no cure.  However Dawn has now learnt from orphaned Eric - whose father was one of Sweet's victims - that there is any easy cure.

Since being infected by panther demon, Spike has left Buffy and their new loving relationship, in case he hurts her or Dawn.  Willow has told them that there is no cure, but Dawn has discovered that there is.  

Tara has told Spike and Buffy that ethically she won't take the Sylvamalkyn demon out of the vampire and put it in someone else.

Spike and Buffy have declared their feelings for each other: Xander and Anya have been left in the weird Santa Claus world, much to Willow's annoyance. But Spike  has been infected with the blood of a Sylvamalkyn panther demon by Eric, the little orphan boy they have got to know well. Buffy discovers that  Willow is deliberately keeping quiet about a cure, but Tara tries to help.  Unfortunately, the infection has to be passed on to someone else and Tara refuses to do that.  Back at Spike's crypt, Buffy and Spike are attacked by Sylvamalkyns.

In which Buffy and Spike have to make a big decision

Willow begins to suspect a plot.

In which Tara's spell fails and Dawn begins to discover the truth

The spell to transfer the Sylvamalkyn demon from Spike to Eric has gone wrong and only Anya knows why.

In which everyone's questions are answered.