So this is the part where I apologize for letting real life get the better of me, and make all kinds of promises not to let it happen again. Unfortunately, I can't really promise that, however, I CAN promise that I will not abandon this story. It WILL be finished, though perhaps not as quickly as I'd like. I'm still working on it, though I can't promise how regular the updates will be. Sorry. Stupid real life. If only I got paid for this stuff... ;)

Also, I just wanted to add a big huge thank you to every single one of you who votes for this fic at the Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards. You all rock, and I'm immensely flattered.

Betaed by: Goblin_Dae, Science, and Subtilior

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all recognizable characters, locations, and dialogue belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the various writers. This is written purely for fun.

30.

They found the black truck parked outside of the cemetery's south entrance, a guard in nondescript dark clothes slumped at the wheel. Spike popped the rear door and wrenched it open. Reinforced steel bars caged the center of the truck, surrounding several sets of chains that were welded to opposite walls. A vampire dangled limply from one set, his game face strangely peaceful in sleep.

"Fuck," Spike muttered.

Two guards lay against each other on a bench, just outside the cage. Buffy knelt beside them to inspect their weapons.

"Look at this," she said, picking up one of the odd-looking guns. "What's this supposed to do?"

Spike barely glanced at the thing. He'd seen variations on it before, although at the time they hadn't been nearly so sleek and modern. It was a moment's work to lift the guard's key and unlock the cage door.

In some respects he and the Slayer were more alike than not: demonstration was always better than explanation. He lifted the second guard's weapon and pointed it at the sleeping vampire.

"What's it do?"

His finger found the trigger, and a stake exploded from the end of it to embed in the vamp's chest. A second later only a shower of dust remained to sift slowly to the floor. He brought the weapon down over his knee, bending it in several important places. "Modern vampire slaying, no super strength required," he said, disgusted with the whole mess.

"Why?" she asked, clearly befuddled.

Spike sighed. Didn't her Watcher tell her anything?

"Seen this before." Spike tested the strength of the bars. Welded firmly in place, of course—they'd be nearly impossible for even a vamp to bend. "Back in the forties, the Nazis got it into their heads to start taking the supernatural seriously. They started picking up demons on the sly. People couldn't even get it into their heads to try to stop them from slaughtering humans wholesale, so who was going to argue about them taking out demons and vamps? Only they weren't killing them. They were studying them."

"And you know this because ...?"

Spike glanced at her. "Cause I was nearly one of their bleeding lab rats," he said. "Got picked up in some filthy little club in Madrid one night, after they hit me with enough tranquilizer to knock me out for at least a day. Came to in a van not much different than this. Then they loaded me onto a submarine with a couple of vampires so old they made Stonehenge look all bright and shiny."

"But you escaped," she pointed out.

"Well, yeah. Haven't found a cage yet I couldn't get out of if I tried. Ate most of the crew, after, just to celebrate. Wankers deserved it," Spike grinned at the memory. Buffy, on the other hand had gone pinch-faced with disapproval. "What? They were Nazis, remember? Not exactly white-hats. What do you care?"

"They were people," she said, though she sounded uncertain.

"Yeah, people who killed over six-million Jews and like they were getting discount for going wholesale, without even a twinge of conscience over it all. And you're gonna quibble because I ate the berks that were planning to slice me up in order to turn their guys into super soldiers so they could kill even more?"

She looked away, clearly uneasy. Spike laughed bitterly. "Know the funny bit? Was this bloke on board. American. Part of the rescue mission. He swore up and down that the Yanks would never study vamps to make super soldiers." Spike slammed the gun against the bars hard enough to shatter the stock. "So bloody naïve."

"You think that's what this is? That they're trying to make super soldiers?"

"Why else do you think they'd do this? Clearly they know how to kill us, so why go to the trouble of not killing us?"

"All right," Buffy conceded. "Say that your theory isn't so much with the theoretical, where would they be taking these guys? The army base is way outside Sunnydale city limits and off the spell grid. Don't you think they'd have come looking for their team by now?"

Frowning, Spike knelt beside one of the slumped guards. His fingers itched to break the human's neck—the thought of being turned into some pillock's science fair project made him want to slaughter the lot of them, but if Bleedin' Heart Buffy was even willing to champion the right-to-life of fucking Nazis, he knew she'd have a fit if he took out her own countrymen.

"You said that one back there went to university with you?" Spike asked, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. The guy in front of him was a bit fresh-faced, too. Young. College age. So was the guard beside him, the driver of the van, and most of the squad they'd left back in the graveyard. "He there everyday?"

"I think so," she said.

"Then they aren't from the army base. Too far out of town. They'd need somewhere closer. Besides, not sure this is standard military op."

"Didn't you just say that these guys were all army issue?"

Spike shook his head, thinking. It'd been a long time since he'd had any sort of experience with the military in any capacity, but he'd survived two world wars, a slew of minor ones, and that Soviet-America pissing match. And after the Submarine Incident, he'd done some research on his own to fill in some gaps in his knowledge. If you're gonna live forever, after all, it served to be smarter than the other guy—and better able to rip his fucking head off.

If he were a tattoo kinda guy, he'd get that inked somewhere special.

Like across all these wanker's foreheads.

"I don't know," he said, to answer her question. "Think the army isn't allowed to actually operate within US borders. This stinks of something … stinkier. CIA maybe. All this skulking, cloak-and-dagger bullshit ... Army either doesn't know these guys are here—or they've been ordered not to know."

"So where are they skulking from?"

He glanced up. She was standing over the second guard, arms crossed, little legs firmly planted. An hour ago he'd been planning to shag the Slayer back into her, but now it looked like he wouldn't have to—she was all business. His cock twitched in response, but he ignored it. Eager as he was to have another round or twelve with her, this was a mystery that needed solving.

"Check these blokes over," he said. "I'll look in the cab. See if there's an address somewhere, though I seriously doubt we'll find anything. Still, they had ID on them, so maybe they're just that dumb."

***

Her job was so much easier when it was just Buffy versus Vampires, she thought. Once you started mixing in humans, though, it got messy. Really messy. Really damn fast.

Humans worshipping demons. Humans that wanted to be vampires. Humans selling their souls, or working for the soulless ... What was she supposed to do with that? And now humans collecting demons for possibly evil purposes? This seemed unfairly beyond her jurisdiction. Still, there were baddies involved, and so she had to investigate.

What she really didn't get, though, was Spike's interest in this. He didn't seem to care about killing his own kind—neither did she, but then that was part of her job—but something about this situation seemed to really wig him out. The way he'd single-mindedly hunted down the transport van, not even stopping to try to get her out of her clothes for a quickie against the nearest crypt, was weird. Something had shaken him all those years ago on that submarine, and shaken him badly.

Half an hour's worth of combing the van from top to bottom hadn't given them any further clues as to the location their commando boys were using as a base, so they'd backtracked to the cemetery and searched the small group there.

Feeling more than a little self-conscious, Buffy slid her hands into Riley's pants pockets, groping for anything that might give her a clue as to where he'd come from and hoping not to encounter anything else down there. Fortunately (or unfortunately), she came up empty on both counts.

Spike finished his search of the other soldiers and joined her near the sleeping yellow demon. "What are we gonna do with him? And these guys?" she asked.

"You're askin' me?" Spike shot her an incredulous look.

She sighed. "No, I'm asking Bananarama here. Do you think he's dangerous?"

"Caujined demon," Spike said. "Haven't dealt with them much. They tend to keep to themselves."

"What do they eat?" Buffy asked, checking out the demon's big yellow tusks.

Spike shrugged. "Hell if I know."

She didn't have a weapon on her, and for the first time she wondered what she'd do with one if she did. On the one hand: demon. On the other, however ... what did G.I. Finn and his soldier boys want with it? Why had they chosen to keep it alive? Spike seemed to think they wanted to study it, but what made it worth studying? Giles would know, but Giles wasn't here. And there was something that seemed wrong about tying the creature up, rather than simply killing it.

Spike reached in his boot and pulled out his switchblade, letting it hover over the zip-ties. He glanced at her once, blue eyes wary, but when she didn't object, he sliced through the demon's bonds and tossed them away. There were bloody welts where the ties had been.

"What do you want to do, Slayer?" Spike asked, still crouched beside the hulking demon.

The right thing, she hoped. Only she didn't know what the right thing was.

***

It took longer than she'd have liked, but between the two of them they managed to transfer all the sleeping commando boys back to their van. The demon was dumped in a nearby crypt for safe-keeping. Buffy figured she'd look through one of Giles' demon encyclopedias to find out how much of a threat it was, and then decide what to do.

Spike slid the door to the crypt shut and leaned against it beside her.

"Got any brilliant ideas, Slayer?"

"I want to know where these guys are coming from and what they're doing," she said. "But I'm not sure where to start. The van, maybe?"

Spike stared out over the silent cemetery, considering. "Doubt we'd get much off it. If they're smart—and operations like this generally are—tags won't pull up anything but false trails."

"We've been over this town a bajillion times," she said. "You'd think we'd have noticed a secret commando base if it existed."

He shot her a derisive look. "It won't be where you can see it. It's probably underground. This town is riddled with caverns and caves and all sorts of tunnels beneath. Honestly, why Sunnydale hasn't collapsed into a giant sinkhole is beyond me. Might as well be built on sodding swiss cheese instead of a Hellmouth."

"So how do we find it?" she asked. "Are there maps of the caves?"

Spike seemed to freeze, then his head slowly swivelled in her direction. "As a matter of fact, there are," he said.

"And you know where they are, don't you?"

"Got a good idea, yeah." He tongued his teeth. "Provided she didn't toss them in the rubbish heap after I left."

"She?" Buffy felt the first twinge of a headache coming on. "Do I even want to know?"

Spike just grinned and shoved himself away from the wall. "C'mon, Slayer. Guess it's time we went and paid my ex a little visit."

***

Spike led her out past the old highway overpass, now just an abandoned causeway covered in graffiti. A nearby sign indicated that a new overpass would be built in the coming year. Buffy wondered how much of a delay the spell would cause. There were few streetlights out here, and if it hadn't been for the half moon lighting their path, she'd have been mostly blind.

Spike strode along, his hands in his pockets. Bare chested and without all that flapping black-leather, he looked both more and less dangerous. There was that air of the uncaring bad boy about him, but he seemed more vulnerable like this. Still, it was a mistake to not think him dangerous without half of his clothes. He was a bundle of tightly coiled muscle, and the sight of it all working beneath his skin left her feeling ...

Well, Lusty Buffy was definitely enjoying the view.

Still, there were times when they were ... well ... fucking when she thought she saw something … something … well, something that she didn't quite recognize as the Spike she knew and loathed. Whatever that something was that flickered behind his eyes, he kept it tightly caged most of the time, and whenever it peeked out at her it left her feeling simultaneously like she might melt under its gaze and like she ought to run screaming into the night. Maybe it was his demon side—though she felt like he unleashed that often enough; how else to explain some of the things that they did?

But maybe it was something else.

Whatever it was, it reminded her of how he looked now: dangerous and dangerously vulnerable, a complicated Spike-tangle of contradictions that kept tossing her unreadable glances.

For two weeks now she'd let him do things to her. Things she'd never even imagined before.

Once upon a time she'd believed sex was all about love. She'd clung to that belief. Now ...now she knew that the two were terribly different, that the heart didn't always involve itself in matters of the flesh. That her body could betray her, time and time again. Spike made her want with an intensity she'd never experienced before. Not his love—because he couldn't, even if she'd wanted him to—but the feel of his hands and his mouth and him moving inside her … it all combined into one addictive drug. When he was inside of her, she felt. She felt raw with sensation, aching with need.

Most importantly, however, she felt like she wasn't alone.

It was addictive, and dangerous. Wrong.

What had happened to her belief that she wasn't that girl? The kind of girl who slept with a guy just for the fun of it—though she'd hardly call what she and Spike did "fun"—that wasn't who she wanted to be. Yet, it was who she had become. God, her friends would hate her, if they ever knew. Giles would be so disappointed. When she thought of his face, were he to ever find out ... it made her want to cry.

There had to be something wrong with her—and no dream witch could tell her differently. Even if she did seem like the nicest witch ever.

"Here we are," Spike said, and nodded to indicate a rutted dirt trail that led off the main highway, just wide enough for a car. It led up into the woods and hadn't seen much use judging by the fact that it was nearly invisible beneath the tall grass.

Spike started off into the woods. Buffy followed until the trees swallowed them up, then paused in the near-pitch dark. She couldn't hear him ahead of her—his booted footsteps were vampire-silent, even in the thick underbrush. Tentatively she followed, slower now.

"Mind the tree roots, Slayer," he called back. As if his words had conjured one out of the darkness, her foot found a root and sent her sprawling into the leaves.

Buffy gritted her teeth. "If I could see the tree roots, I'd definitely give them a piece of my mind." She spit out a bit of leaf that had gotten in her mouth. Then Spike was there, helping her pick herself up. He dusted her off, and she blushed, embarrassed more that she was used to him handling her now than the fact that he was touching her.

"Sorry," he said. "Should have brought a torch. Forgot your eyes aren't built for the dark."

His cool palm slipped into hers, his fingers entwining with her own as easily as if they held hands all the time. She stiffened for a moment, then let him lead her on. Tingles shot through her hand and up her arm—once she'd thought them a sign of her revulsion for him, but now she knew differently. Now she knew it was just his effect on her body. Lusty Buffy was nearly purring at the physical contact, even though it was so much less than she was used to.

It wasn't far, but it was blacker than Spike's wardrobe the entire way, and several times he had to help her around trees or over roots. Each time her body responded to his touch, she hated herself a little more. She shouldn't want him to touch her, shouldn't permit it, definitely shouldn't like it when he did, but there was no help for it—he touched her and she was aware of it. Aware of him. It was as though tiny bits of iron were embedded in her skin and they were magnetized by his touch, swivelling to follow his every move.

By the time they reached the cave entrance, she felt like her whole body was dancing with electrical sparks, and she was three steps away from throwing him up against the nearest vertical (or horizontal) surface and climbing him like she would a tree.

She shook her head. For once they had an actual lead on something and she was busy fantasizing about her undead ... well, she wasn't sure what to call him. Definitely not "boyfriend" and "lover" was such a grown-up word. The kind of word fuddies like Giles used to describe the person they were having sex with.

Not that Giles had sex. Ever. Cause ... ew.

And she so was not going to think about last year and Giles and candy bars and her mother.

"Wait here," Spike said, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort. He disappeared into a shadow that was marginally darker than all the others around them. Buffy fanned her flaming cheeks and wrestled her inner Lusty Buffy into a headlock. Now was definitely not the time to play Pin the Slayer on the Spike.

She'd gotten herself back under control by the time he returned, bearing a flaming torch in one hand. "Come in, Slayer," he said, smirking a little.

She rolled her eyes. "How long have you been waiting for a chance to say that?"

"Decades," he said and led her back through the narrow stone passageway.

Buffy had seen plenty of vamp nests in her time. In her experience there was a certain flavor to the ones that nested underground or in caverns: lots of dead things, lots of spiderwebs and lots of moldy old bones. Candles were popular for some inexplicable reason, and vampires seemed to be under the impression that a pile of junk in the corners and a skull or two cheered things right up. Angel had been the only vamp she'd ever seen who'd maintained an actual apartment, and who cleaned on a regular basis.

Still, nothing she'd ever seen could have prepared her for Harmony's … residence.

The main room was mostly taken up by an enormous canopy bed done entirely in pink and red. Fluffy stuffed animals shared real estate with a collection of unicorn figurines. Pages from various fashion magazines littered the floor. There was electricity in here: a lamp and several caged lightbulbs, some twinkle lights that came on when Spike flicked a switch that had been screwed to the cave wall. He set the torch in a fire-blackened wall sconce near the door and began to rifle through the papers stacked on a beat up desk that was shoved into a corner.

Buffy wandered deeper into the room. Wherever Harmony was now, she hadn't been here when the spell kicked in. There was a good possibility that she was one of the many, many dust piles in town. Somehow that made Buffy sad. She'd never really liked Harmony, but she'd known her. And even though she'd attacked Willow, Harm had been a really, really lame vampire.

"How did you and Princess Peach hook up, anyway?" Buffy asked, scanning the titles on a nearby bookshelf: The Last Unicorn, The Black Unicorn, Jewel the Unicorn, Acorna the Unicorn Girl, The Land of Unicorns ... Clearly, Harmony had a theme going. Several CD cases at the end of the shelf caught her eye, and she arched an eyebrow to see the Sex Pistols sharing shelf space with Celine Dion.

"Don't remember," Spike said, tossing a pile of clothes off a bureau. "Where the hell did she put them?"

Buffy blinked. "You don't remember how you hooked up with her?"

"I was pissed out of my gourd at the time," he said. "Only thing I clearly remember was that she was dancing around in this little halter-top thingy and that 'Stupid' song was playing on the radio."

"Should have taken it as a sign. Stupid pretty much sums up Harmony," Buffy said. She drew a gorgeous kukuri out from beneath a pile of teddy bears. "Though she's got nice taste in weapons."

"That's mine," Spike said. "Wondered where it'd gone off to." He started yanking drawers out of the dresser and dumping the contents on the floor.

"Why would she put maps in her underwear drawer?" Buffy asked.

"She wouldn't," Spike said, reaching into the stack of clothes and retrieving a ratty black t-shirt covered in safety pins that was wrapped around a box. "Knew I'd left these here somewhere," he said, fishing the box out of the shirt. Cigarettes—she should have known.

"You're disgusting."

Spike just ignored her and pulled the t-shirt on, then stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it. One deep, long drag later he opened his eyes and fixed her with a soft smile that went straight to her panties.

"Know what, Slayer? I don't really give a bloody damn what you think of me right now."

Maybe, she thought, that was a good thing. His hair was mussed and curly, his jeans hung low on his hips and the sleeveless Frankenstein of a shirt he was wearing showcased his arms in such a way that all he needed was some eyeliner and touch up on his black nail polish to look like a complete punk—and somehow the effect made her want him even more. What was it with her and bad boys, she wondered. There was something seriously wrong with her.

"Just find the stupid maps," she muttered and turned away before Lusty Buffy could convince her to jump him. Instead she wandered across the room to study the bottles of lotion on Harmony's bedside table. What the hell does Harmony need with age reduction cream? Something clattered off the stand, and she knelt to pick it up. As she groped for it, her fingers encountered something soft and fluffy. She pulled out Mr. Fuzzy for a closer look and then nearly dropped it—Harmony owned a set of fuzzy pink handcuffs.

Who would ...?

An image of Spike, naked and pale in the lamp light, wrapping the cuffs around Harmony's wrists suddenly made Buffy's mouth go dry—not surprising, since most of the moisture in her body was headed south. Spike had probably put these on Harmony, had used them while ... She turned the cuffs over in her hands, testing their strength ... Spike had done this with Harmony.

For some reason that made Buffy's temper start to boil.

"Here we are, Slayer," Spike said, coming up beside her. Quickly, and feeling a little guilty, she tucked the cuffs into her back pocket. Spike spread the map out on the edge of the bed near the lamp and bent over it, tracing pathways with a fingertip. "Here's the center of town. Most of this beneath is sewage system ..." He indicated a labyrinthine network of tunnels that spiderwebbed out from beneath Town Hall to taper off near Sunnydale's desert fringes. "These are high traffic, usually. Someone would have noticed if something were going on here."

"Where are we?" Buffy tilted her head to the side, trying to make sense of the map's squiggles and lines. Spike splayed a hand over one corner to hold it in place, and she found herself staring at his chipped nail polish and bitten cuticles. Spike must have painted them himself; the edges were uneven. Still, when she glanced at the nightstand, her gaze immediately lit on Harmony's collection of nail polish: a wide variety of pinks and reds and plums ... and one bottle of Coffin Nail Black.

"... Slayer?"

"What?" How long had he been calling her name?

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, frowning.

"Such a good question," she muttered. He raised an eyebrow. Stupid vamp hearing. "Sorry, I missed that last part. Recap?"

"I said that we're here." He tapped at a spot toward the southeast corner. "There's a mess of old tunnels and caverns that start here and go under the sewer system, or round it, in places. Some demon nests down there, but for the most part vamps avoid them—nothing to feed on. Just rock and bones and dust."

"So, maybe a good place to stash a military research lab?"

Spike frowned. "Doubt it'd be their first choice. You get down there, you can feel it, you know? The Hellmouth? Draws demons, but it'd make anything with a soul go a bit barmy, I'd think, being too close to it, all the time."

"Would definitely explain why high school was hell," she said. "Still, where else would they hide it?"

"Don't know." Spike shrugged, then leaned down to study the map further. The move put him closer to her than he had been, and she could smell tobacco and the soap he used. Which wasn't her soap anymore. Not after she'd gotten mad at him for using it and picked him up a few bars of generic store soap instead. Somehow, on him, it smelled masculine. Inviting. Tempting. There was a bruise on his shoulder, just peeking out from beneath the fabric of his tatty old shirt—she remembered grabbing him just there, the night before.

Had Harmony left marks on him like that?

Why the hell did she even care what Spike and Harmony had done?

"That's strange, for an area that's got more holes than a soddin' sponge ... Slayer?" Spike finally looked up and met her eyes. He frowned. "What the bloody hell is wrong with you tonight?"

"Nothing," she said and bent to study the map herself.

"Uh huh." Spike sounded skeptical. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shift, lightning quick, and then the pink, fuzzy handcuffs were dangling in front of her face. "Borrowing sex toys from my ex, Slayer? Kinky. If you'd wanted me to chain you up, all you had to do was ask."

Horrified, Buffy backed away from the bed. "What? No. I—Those were just, on the floor and ..."

"What? You slipped, and they landed in your pocket?" He twirled the cuffs from one finger. "Gotta say, never tried that excuse before. Course, when I pinch things, I don't get caught."

"I wasn't … That is, I wouldn't …" Crap. She'd totally been caught. Spike leered, tongue touching his teeth and his blue eyes extra dark in the lamplight. "Map!" She pointed, desperately, willing her body not to respond to the siren's call of his.

"Don't think these would hold you, though," he said, testing the strength of the metal links. "Might need to get out the actual chains."

"You are not chaining me up! That's—"

"Hot." He prowled closer, until Buffy felt the edge of a piece of furniture prodding the small of her back. The items on top of it rattled, distracting her momentarily, and then Spike was there, his lean body pressing against hers, his arms caging her against the wobbly dresser. "Vertical or horizontal?" he murmured the question against her ear, then started tonguing the sensitive skin of her throat.

"What?" she gasped.

"Want me to chain you against a wall, or to the bed, sweetheart? Both have their perks …" His hand roughly cupped her breast, fingers pinching and rolling her nipple. She moaned, her gaze drifting toward the bed.

Bed.

There was something wrong with the bed.

Spike's other hand drifted up her thigh, his fingers curling under it. In one swift move, he lifted her, propping her butt on the edge of the dresser. When Buffy reached back to adjust her grip, she had to shove things out of the way. Things fell off and shattered on the floor. Spike's mouth found hers as he stepped between her thighs.

Good, so good.

Kissing Spike was like nothing she'd ever done. It wasn't like the slow, drugging kisses Angel had always given her, or the wet, open-mouthed kisses Parker had favored. Spike kissed as if it were the end of the world, and he was getting in his last good day. His mouth was alive against hers, demanding, passionate, consuming.

Beneath his mouth, she burned.

He dipped his head to trail kisses over her throat. His fingers had already begun working at the hem of her shirt. Far away, she heard more things falling and breaking. Beneath her clutching fingers, his hair was impossibly soft and curly. Her other hand clutched his shirt.

"Ow!" Something jabbed her hand. An open safety pin.

Spike suddenly wrenched himself back, his hand catching her wrist and flipping her palm up for inspection. A dark line of blood welled up from the meaty mound beneath her thumb. Fascinated, she watched as his eyes darkened, flickering gold and blue as he struggled to maintain his human facade. He shook his head even as he drew her hand toward his mouth.

Oh, god.

She'd bled before when they'd gotten too rough. Somehow he'd always managed to avoid it. After that first night, he'd even been careful when biting her with his human teeth. She'd noticed; some part of her brain that was still aware of her duty had tracked him, watching him like he was a feral wolf that was still only barely leashed. He would bite her someday, she knew.

And when he did …

Her hand was only an inch away from his mouth; his nostrils flared as he drank in her scent. So, so close. She watched as his lips parted, as his tongue ran along the inside of his lower lip. His eyes glanced up to meet hers, and she was surprised at the question in his gaze.

Then he clamped his mouth shut, teeth clicking, and lowered her palm. The lump of his Adam's apple moved twice, as if he were convulsively swallowing, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. "Should bandage that." He released her and moved away as if she'd burned him.

Why doesn't he bite me?

It bothered her, his self-control. He shouldn't have it, shouldn't be capable of it ... not when she wasn't capable of it at all. It didn't matter how many times she told herself to say no, to refuse him, to stop him when he pushed her for what she shouldn't want ... Sometimes she would manage, for a little while. Sometimes she could shut him down, if it was still daylight. If they were researching or in the middle of doing something. If she was still feeling the aftershocks of their last time.

But mostly, she couldn't stop herself from letting him seduce her, even though she knew she should before they got out of control.

Well, more out of control.

Only … she kinda didn't want to. It was bad and wrong, she knew, but when she was with Spike, when he was in her, she felt less alone. She could pretend, for a little while anyway, that he was human, that he loved her, that the world itself hadn't rejected her, that someone might sort of care for her. Of course, afterwards, after they'd had a round or two that was, in Spike's words, "vanilla"—then she hated herself for feeling that way, for pretending. Then she would hit him, and he'd hit her, and eventually they'd be rolling around on the ground, covered in dirt and sweat, while he did something that was … death by chocolate.

The really dark kind.

With cherry sauce on top.

The sound of something tearing distracted her, and then Spike was passing her a strip of medical gauze. How did he know where to find something like that in this place?

Then it hit her, what was wrong with the bed.

"Wait a second," she said, staring at the gauze in her hand, then at him. Spike stood near the foot of the bed, his fists clenching and unclenching reflexively, though the look on his face was still pure lust. "You wanted to chain me to the bed? As in, that bed? Harmony's bed?"

"Still do."

"But it's Harmony's bed."

"So? Not like she's in it. Though ..." He waggled his eyebrows at her. "Could be extra kinky that way."

Revolted, she slid down from her perch, her boots crunching in the shattered remnants of Harmony's unicorn collection.

"We are not having sex in Harmony's bed. That's disgusting, Spike. She's your girlfriend, and you'd do that in her bed?"

"First off," Spike said, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring, "she's not my girlfriend. Fairly sure that attempted staking I gave her put the kibosh on that particular relationship. Second, if she were my girlfriend, and not just some tarty bint I picked up to shag after Dru dumped me, maybe then I'd give a rat's arse. But she isn't, so I don't. Third. She's not here. Probably got dusted along with most of the other vamps in Sunnydale. See this? This is my sad face."

His sad face, needless to say, didn't look much different from his usual mocking and sarcastic face.

"You're a real pig, you know that?"

"Oink, oink, baby," he said, curling his tongue behind his front teeth. "My point is, Slayer. She's not here, and even if she were, I wouldn't want her. I want you. Preferably naked, on the bed, with your wrists chained to the wall while I bring you to a screaming orgasm … Although, wouldn't say no if you wanted to chain me up and ride me into oblivion."

The mental image that created left her a little bit breathless. Still, somehow, the fact that he was being a total asshole gave her the resolution she'd been missing. He couldn't understand. He would never understand because he didn't have a soul, he wasn't human. It would never occur to him that the things he wanted were wrong.

But Buffy knew.

And she knew that wanting him, letting him have her, pretending that he was something he wasn't—betrayed everything that she fought for. That if anyone ever knew what they'd done ... what she'd done …

"You're disgusting, William. Play time is officially over. We have work to do, so keep it in your trousers."