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Fated Series - Severance -- by Kismet

Rating: NC-17

Description: Spike moves to Los Angeles, intent on taking a claim and build a pack to assuage his loneliness. His New Child proves to be an excellent distraction, but Spike may just have to fight to keep her. Will Angel put his foot down or aid his child ? And will he lose her after all when she discovers who it is he truly loves?

Note: New character! But this won't rock the Buffy/Spike relationship. Much.

Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. All characters etc. are the property of their respective creators and no copyright infringement is intended. The author reserves rights over her work and storyline. Feel free to read and enjoy, though ! (Song lyrics by David Bowie for the movie soundtrack 'The Labyrinth')

Maya:

Some part of me knew that I should hurry, but I was sick of hiding. When you watch scenes like this in the movies you always wonder why the heroines are so stupid as to dawdle. They always end up dead, these heroines.

Maybe I'll die, maybe I won't, but then it seems appropriate, one way or the other. 'Trust in Fate', that's what my mother always said. Well, my mother's fate decreed that she should die when a car mowed her down barely two months after I left. And I...perhaps you could say I died too. Not the darkness of oblivion for me, though. Not that.

The things I'm stuffing into my bag seem absurdly normal. Passport, that's always important. I'm still an infant in the truest sense of the word, and the whole hassle of making false identification is ordinarily more than enough of a headache for me, but after this I can't even go back to the same guy who made these papers for me any more. No contact, that was the plan. I was supposed to sneak out the door and go into hiding, but that night had happened and I made a promise, and here I am taking poetry books calmly off the shelf and fussing with them so they don't get squashed in the bottom of the bag. Ironic, since I'm probably going to end up in the sewers tomorrow when the sun is high overhead.

I know nothing less than a leave-taking will do. The word confrontation is too hostile, but I've realised that I can't go out the back door like some thief in the night. Not with an equal anyway, and he is more than an equal.

I heard the trapdoor hinges creak. He's back.

For me, writing is catharsis. If I feel that I want something I can't have, or if I'm particularly inspired by something I read, something I dreamed or imagined, I simply write out a piece where I HAVE that thing that I want. In this way I live out my life in my writing.

Now, I'm neither underprivileged or some bored little rich kid. We're average, that's the whole problem. Nice little average single-mom family. In LA, that's the norm. Two-parent families, unless they've each got a trail of kids from previous marriages, are the weird ones. I lacked for nothing, materially, but this was not the life I would have chosen for myself had I been given the choice.

No, I wasn't suffering from teenage angst either. There was nothing very attractive about pain whether mental or physical in my book. Particularly physical. That makes it even more strange how it turned out in the end.

School is school is school. Of course I'm not going to tell you how old I am...what girl in her right mind would do that unless under extreme pressure ? Of course, in my case, it's the question of being too young....I'm getting ahead of myself here.

I wanted to live another life. One where I wasn't one of the herd. And no my dreams weren't of limousines and flashing cameras and my face on the cover of Vogue, I just wanted the impossible. I wanted to live a passionate life. I wanted the days of damsels and knights, sirens and dragons and oaths, curses and vows. I wanted to be Carrie Ann Moss in the Matrix and Morgan le Fay in Morte de Arthur. I wanted to wield power, to have a genuine and unique advantage over the people all around me. I was a snob in that sense of the word. Safe to say that books were my passion. Books and movies where I could forget my entire existence for a few hours and live in another person's skin.

University in itself was fine. Separation from my familiar stomping grounds and the few like-minded friends I had was not. Depression sank in bad. The thing you have to understand, though, is that I'm not one of those people who sink into themselves when they're depressed. I get aggressive, edgy, too full of volatile energy that has nowhere to go. I'm the mood-swing kind of person. And I was still living with my mom. She was a real-estate agent. Dorm rooms were not my thing, and there was the added expense. Home had all the conveniences, and one big drawback: MOM. There I was, the little tigress growing up, beginning to challenge the dominant older tigress. We fought with claws extended and always drew blood.

He calls me tigress, you know. He's the only one to do that. Well, at least he doesn't call me his little creme brulee like he did with that Valley-girl chick. It's amazing how many of the things I know about him I learnt from the television. Oh yes, didn't I tell you ? That's real-life stuff up there. The producers, the companies, they know about this. More institutions than you think, and a few select people, know. He was paid in the millions for the story of a life, and he's getting a percentage of the profits from the show as well. All he doesn't stand to get is a Golden Globe. Well, I guess that's the problem with the whole relationship. It's all passion. Too much, all the time. Obsession.

I loved my mother. It's the honest truth. I still love her. The way her hair used to frizz in the morning and she'd get so panicked because she was meeting important clients and didn't want a boink-me hairdo. The way her pancakes were always burnt on the same edge. The way she hugged me after Tigger my grey tabby got run over by a car. I remember the good things, now.

Anyway, there I was. Angry, frustrated and feeling trapped. On one hand I was a good student, aiming for better grades and a brilliant career and worrying about my body and my new zits. On the other hand I was this angry, stalking being locked up in a cage that I couldn't find a way out of. I was a loner, the one with a vicious streak, the one who read Don Juan and sat in the café mooning over a cup of coffee, daydreaming myself far far away from myself.

That's what brought him to me. The anger. At the time, he was bone-weary and world-weary. He'd left the saga for good, wanting to be left alone and sick of the turmoil. As he told me, being top-dog is fun, and the fight to get there is even more fun, but then you wonder, what are you doing it for ? Of course, even in a reflective mood, he still needs to have his 'fun' in small doses.

He caught me one night when I was walking back from campus. The moon was full and heavy in the sky and I had just finished one of those fantasy sagas that always get my emotional juices flooding. I was thinking about sorceresses and queens while avoiding grassy patches which numerous dogs had no doubt visited, stopping to fold up the hems of my frayed jeans over my scuffed sneakers.

"Hello, gorgeous." Wonderful, plummy British accent that just saved it from being corny. In my state of mind, it sounded like an invitation from the night. Some fallen angel dropped into my lap.

Some angel.

I turned.

And was hit by what felt like a subway train. It knocked all the breath out of me that I thought I had, and when I crashed through the bushes onto the grass, I lost the breath I didn't know I even had.

I smelled the rich scent of earth and crushed grass, damp on my cheek. And the moon was bright. I saw him. A man's silhouette and the feel of fingers digging into my shoulders, forcing me down.

I thought the worst and fought for all I was worth, but he straddled me with humiliating ease. I could smell the leather of his long duster and when I opened my mouth to scream one hand clapped over it so my lips felt the cool bands of several rings and the silk cuff of an expensive shirt. And there was that other smell. His smell.

Great, I thought, I'm going to get raped. When was my last period ?

I dug my nails into the backs of his hands but it was no good. He might have been made of marble for all the effect I had on him, and his fingers were really hurting me as I thrashed about. I tried to knee him in the groin, but he was too high up for me to reach.

He smiled and I saw a flash of white among the greys that made up the scene. "Naughty girl."

"Fuck you!" I tried to yell. It came out muffled, but he heard it.

"I'm glad you want to, pet, but I have quite another kind of intimacy in mind." And there was a shift of shapes and silhouettes, so radical that I stopped struggling and blinked in disbelief. A snarl like that of a ravening animal reverberated in my ears before I felt his teeth in my neck.

He broke the skin instantly.

There were no gongs, no visions, no overwhelming sense of euphoric pleasure as my favourite writer of such tales puts it. Just this sucking, this nursing as he nuzzled my neck, rubbing his cheek against my jaw. I could feel the life fluid seeping out of me and into him, as if I was an orange he was eating. It was more than an invasion of bodily privacy, it was an invasion of my being.

I never in my wildest dreams imagined that there was such potential for anger in me. I was furious. I was raging and I wanted to make him feel this powerlessness, this sense of being taken advantage of. And in my position, there was only on way to do this.

I bit him. I sank my blunt teeth into his neck three finger-breadths below his ear. I clamped my jaws down until I felt that skin give way and the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth and my nose was buried in his collar and the edge of his hair.

It certainly got his attention. He practically spat out his mouthful of my blood and bellowed. There is nothing quite like the roar of an enraged, fully mature bull-vampire, I can assure you. If I hadn't been so furious, I would have shrivelled up and died from shock. I didn't let go, even when he reared up, bringing me with him. He had to forcibly tear me off him and shove me away.

Of course, with his strength, that shove sent me flying out onto the sidewalk, but I got to my feet again and peered furiously into the dark beyond the bushes where he stood, stunned. I could just make him out as he raised his hand to his neck. I saw him touch the blood that was left. The wound had closed, unknown to me at the time, but there was plenty of blood. He looked at the smear on his hand, and his head angled up so he must have been looking at me.

"Wildcat," he bit out in a voice taut with rage. I wasn't supposed to be the one who bit ! "No, not wildcat, tiger. Tigress." Even as he spoke the rage was bleeding out of his voice to be replaced by mocking wryness. "You have claws and teeth, but they won't save you. I always did like my ladies lively." And he launched himself out of the bushes at me in a blur of leather and motion.

I would have died then and there, but when he hit me I was flung out onto the road, right into the path of an oncoming car.

What saved me then was the speed-bump a couple of yards ahead. The car was moving slowly, but I still crashed up onto the bonnet and rolled off to one side very theatrically indeed. The car was full of college students out for a night of partying. When you're in college, you don't just party on weekends.

They took me to the hospital. Nothing serious. Shock and bad bruising, that's all. What my doctors couldn't explain was the neat ring of a bite mark on my neck, just where the little slope that joins the shoulder starts to make itself evident. And the two wounds where the canines had been were deep. Still, doctors being doctors, they asked my mother whether I had a steady boyfriend who might have possibly given me a hickey.

Needless to say, she wasn't too happy. Her little girl had suddenly woken up and got herself a sex life ? I understand now; I mean, I'd feel the same way if I saw her with a hickey. We had a big argument half an hour after I woke up.

With my minor injuries, I was discharged on that very day. On Monday I was walking the same route to campus again. There was fear, of course, but above everything else there was anger. The whole story of those early years is anger. Anger gives you strength. I wasn't about to let some stalker with plastic fangs stop me. That's what I thought he was. Even though I convinced myself that I was one of those who wanted to believe, my mind wouldn't accept it. I had grown up among women, and had never been hit or touched before in my life by a male save in the most trivial sense. Mom wanted to drive me. I knew with her schedule and mine it was impossible. So I took an umbrella with me wherever I went, the long black kind with the metal tip.

Even so, it was two weeks before I found myself walking back at night again. The problem with me is that I never learn.

He came up behind me so I never knew what was coming before he dealt me one good blow to the back of the head. I blacked out.

She was not light. Not very tall but sturdy and strong. That's what made him pick her out in the first place. The way she walked as if walls and cars would give way to her, that swift, smooth stride that marked an independent spirit. For another man getting her out of there noiselessly and unseen might have been a problem, but for him it was easy.

He'd bundled her into the car and driven off, just like that.

Now he threw open the door in his underground lair and tossed her onto the bed. The only problem with living below ground was the lack of electricity. He had no sentimental feelings about romantic oil lamps and the like. Bloody waste of time, he thought as he lit the candles and the lamps.

This was his room. It had been for almost a century, always waiting in the background while he was off adventuring, always there when he had to hide out or cool his heels for a while. He changed the decor now and again, but the huge four poster dated from his living days, and so was the desk and the two chests-of-drawers. The posters and the clothes flung about were modern, of course. Much better than the frills and top-hats he remembered.

Actually, he thought, pausing in the middle of the room, if he was to form a new coven and break into society again, he should shift base as soon as possible. Rule One: never let more than one person at a time know where the Lair was.

He shrugged out of his leather duster and sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots. This was going to be a night in, and he'd fed in anticipation of this. The girl gave a soft sound and moved as his weight shifted the feather mattress, and he looked at her.

He had known she would come back . It was against her nature to be forced off her course by anyone else. She'd come down that street to show her defiance as much as anything else.

"All well and good, love. I need someone with backbone to manage the rest of the idiots." He chuckled to himself dryly. At first he'd tried living alone, and soon learned that it was no fun at all. He hated having to run a coven, though, with all its little problems and its irritating lower members. This time he would have someone else do all that, someone who reported to him. He reached over to pull her hair away from her face.

She had long, waved black hair, but in all other respects she didn't resemble Dru at all. Or the other.....

He touched the name experimentally, waiting to see if it would burn him like a cross. It didn't.

Drucilla had been pale, lissom and fragilely pretty in her long thin layered dresses. The other delectably small, as golden as sunshine and as dangerous. He had loved the other, maybe he always would, but this had nothing to do with her......

This girl was distinctly curvy, not fashionably slim, with honey skin and a face that was certainly not 'pretty' . Striking, maybe. He was rather surprised to find, looking at her, that she could probably look cruel very easily if she wanted to, with thick brows and a lush mouth. She was dressed in jeans and a shirt, no attempt at dressing up at all, and he'd felt the natural muscle in her arm when he'd carried her. Tigress.

He leaned over her, smelling her. Girls were always good to smell, good to taste, no matter how idiotic they were when you talked to them. Harmony had been a prime example. Dru hadn't been, crazy or not. He was over Dru now, but what of the other ? That was the problem with the clever ones, they ran rings around you and played games with you then dumped you without warning. Or ripped your heart out and left you to bleed.

"But you won't do that, pet. I'll make sure of it." He clenched the thick mass of her hair in a fist at the nape of her neck. Revealed, the scar he had left on her neck leapt out at him and he smiled, tracing it with his finger. Marked, for life if he chose. He bent his head, lips nearly touching the wound that he could reopen.

Her eye flicked open, deep black, and fixed on him.

"Welcome back, love."

She shot up as if he'd really bitten her, but she didn't get far. He closed his hand around her throat, pressing her back against the red satin sheet. "There's no rush, love. Nowhere to go."

Maya stared up wildly at the man holding her down. She had not seen his blond-white hair that night, or his marked black brows and dark blue eyes, but she knew his voice. Rich, arrogant, self-satisfied. Her lip curled over her teeth. "You. Where am I ? What do you want, you sicko ?"

"Want. Now there's a good question." The man smiled down at her, smug, handsome. Bastard. He moved his face close to hers and actually licked her cheek ! "Do you know the answer ?"

"Man, I don't know who you are, but if you want sex you could always call a whore. A professional, you know ?"

He laughed into her ear, his weight centred on the arm that was pressing her down like an iron bar across her chest just under her breasts. "A whore wouldn't be half so fun, pet ! And they wouldn't have what matters." He nuzzled her neck again, just there where it still hurt a little.

"Fun for you," she gritted out, and felt his lips laugh against her.

"Oh, it can be fun for you too, love. No point my being selfish." He nipped her, and she stiffened like a board, but he didn't break skin. Nibbling a line down the side of her neck in a way that made her feel funny. That made her panic and arch her back, kicking out, trying to roll off the bed, to get him off her, anything.

He liked it that she fought, and with such ferocity! Wonderful! She smelled like honey and vanilla and musk and blood and all rich things, and he found that he was becoming quite aroused. It was a good sign. Laughing, he threw her back against the pillows and got on top of her, lying still and pinning her down with his weight as she struggled, spitting curses at him.

"My name is Spike, what's yours?" he said down to her furious face.

"Get off me! " she heaved again, to no avail. Spike tangled his hands in her hair and jerked her head back so her neck strained and for a moment he saw the veins rise under the skin.

"What is your name ?" he repeated, forcing her to look into his eyes as one hand stroked down her cheek, her neck, her side, pausing to caress her breast. She refused to answer, and with the beginnings of real enjoyment he tugged cruelly on her hair, causing a sharp intake of breath. "I'll ask again, pet, one last time. What is your name ?"

She hesitated, then unwillingly said, "Maya."

"Good. Now that introductions are over..." This time Maya saw everything as his face shifted, and she screamed more out of frustration than anything else as, with one motion, he tore open the front of her shirt and latched his teeth into her neck again.

The suckling began in earnest, but it didn't stop there. His hands moved over her, ripping the rest of her clothes away before undoing the buttons of the silk shirt he wore. Roving, taking and consuming everything as they struggled on the huge bed. No guy in her class had even dared kiss her, the Shrew, and now this all at once. He touched her lightly in just the right places, tightened his grip in others, urgent but not rushed, always savagely demanding that she give to him.

She'd actually dared scratch him, Spike realised through the warm sweet haze of blood. The wounds had closed, but he still felt the exciting tingle. It was almost like fighting with a tiger, this heady battle that already had him hard. And now he was feeling the change in her. She was not fighting him off anymore as much as gripping him to her. The tendons in her neck had tightened even as her blood gushed into his mouth. It was almost time..

Maya felt curiously light-headed and hot. His fingers had left burning traces of longing on her skin, and the room was getting blurry. The candle flames danced and did not dance. She felt him whisper words against her neck and she gasped as the hair rose on her body, then he was in her and joined to her and they were moving even as her eyelids closed and her breathing became shallow.

With a supreme effort Spike broke the Flow, gasping even as his other rhythm continued. He was hearing the breath rattle in her throat and with one hand he gashed the side of his neck.

Blood filled her mouth and to stop from choking she swallowed. It burned a racing hot path down into her belly as the next gush filled her, like single malt whisky or the brandy she had once sneaked from the display cupboard. And the more she drank the more she wanted it, the waves coming like the waves of the sea driven by the pumping of his heart. And she felt his teeth in her again as the rhythm picked up and grew faster and more natural and more urgent until it hit the ceiling and stopped, suspended for one glorious moment, and slowly dwindled again.

Spike rolled off her with a gasp, blood and heat teeming in his brain as the wound in his neck closed. Bloody hell, that had felt good ! Exorcism.

"This is what they call a Claim Fight," Spike said. "Quite a fitting occasion for your debut into vampire society."

Maya looked down over the railings over the heads of the mass of vampires gathered below, a good part of the undead population in LA. A mass of what the books would term 'kindred', most wearing their game-faces. Most, she saw, were young, some dressed in the latest teenage fashions, dreadlocks, mesh, glitter and all.

"Minions, cubs," Spike said with a sneer. "Being turned doesn't give a person a sense of style, really. The older ones are the ones you watch, pet. The Masters. Pick them out."

"I see them," Maya replied shortly. "Maybe eight of them." She could. They were now, to her eyes, like beacons, their strength evident at a glance and their manner warning the younger ones away from them, save for their own packs and their queens. All were male.

"There are ten in the City of Angels, including me and a good friend who might not turn up tonight....now, I see I was wrong there." Spike's teeth flashed in a vicious smile.

Maya's wrist still ached, not badly but ached all the same. She was coming to know her sire now. He was most definitely an alpha male. Dominant.

They had argued over her clothes.

After that first night, she had had no choice but to follow him. She knew all too well the futility of leaving to strike up on her own, even if by some miracle he let her walk out. All ties were cut, in a manner more permanent than she had ever imagined in those days of dreaming of other lives. She wasn't too sure whether she was sad or happy. She was numb even though this was what she had wished for. But dreams and reality aren't quite the same.

She watched Spike lean over to track a tall, dark-haired male's progress into the crowd. Unlike the other Masters, he was alone, and the others seemed to shrink away from him, even, but in as much dislike as natural wariness.

Money didn't matter to Spike. Judging from his spending habits, he was rolling in it. He had already told her that he intended to rule a new pack, and for the moment, she was it. In vampire law, the sire and pack leader was to be obeyed, unless one was strong enough to kill the opposition. It happened.

He would have nothing less than control. He had bought her clothes, two wardrobes full of things she would have never dreamed of wearing. He decided where they went and when they went. He had wanted her to wear a gown tonight. Deep raspberry, beautiful, with a pearl and silver filigree necklace which looked like an antique. She had balked. If they were going in amongst other packs, wouldn't it be more sensible if she wore something that would allow her to fight ?

They had had their first argument. She had bitten her lip and bridled her temper before, but this was a question of their safety. And it had allowed her the precious opportunity to realise that Spike could be to her as he was to humans. All of them could be. There was no distinction save that of strength and cunning.

He had slapped her almost casually, expecting it to be the end of the conversation, and had been almost comically surprised when she slapped him back. It had escalated into a full-scale fight, which somehow ended with her wrists pinned underneath them on the carpets as they roughly made love. If you could call it that. She wasn't in love with Spike, and he didn't love her. Mutual animal attraction. You didn't have to love a guy for your stomach to turn over when you saw him.

She had won, this time. She was wearing a slim-sleeved pale blue sheath, off the shoulder with intricate lace detailing at the collar and hem, and leather pants and boots. The necklace gleamed coldly around her neck and her hair was a wild mane around her kohled eyes. Maya could tell Spike approved from the firm constant grip he kept on her elbow. But she would not forget that to cross him was dangerous.

"Come, love. We can't stand up here all night." His leather-clad arm curled lightly around her bare shoulders. "Let's mingle, as they say."

She was aware of eyes on them as they descended the stairs and not just because they were one of the few who refused to assume their game-faces. William the Bloody was a new arrival in LA, and even in this short time she knew that his reputation had preceded him once again. The gathering was large, however, and there were others to watch out for as well. Spike had explained it to her. This Claim Fight was over a particularly desirable young fledgling, a female, but these gatherings were also a way for the vampires to keep tabs on each other and to get information that might well save them from the few but powerful hunters who dared to hunt predators. She was beginning to go through the first tapes of the television series, and she already knew who the 'old friend' of Spike's must be. And she knew why he was here, to the surprise and fury of most quarters.

The crowd parted slightly for them, but only slightly. It was tight around the ring of open space in the gigantic gathering hall, but as a Master vampire, Spike cut his way through like a knife-blade heading unerringly in the direction of the tall male who was at the front line. They were stopped, though, by another party.

This Master was almost gaunt, a head taller than Spike himself, and a pair of red-stained yellow eyes looked out at them from the ridges of his game-face. His was a large coven by normal standards, comprising of ten cubs and two queens who flanked him, both in clingy, halter-neck black gowns and heavy, Gothic make-up. Maya's eyes scanned them quickly. This group reminded her of a gangster mob more than anything else, but the youngest of the cubs must have been made at least twenty years ago. Very different from the large mass of younglings under other pack leaders who weren't masters. The majority of every vampire population was always young, and most of them died young to be replaced by new young. Some were rogues and loners who had separated from their sires and dams amicably. Among these lower levels there were many female pack leaders and the young females refused to be queens, going with the modern times where they established themselves in pairs like the humans and professed 'immortal love'.

"Idiots," Spike had told her. "Frightening enough to think I was once one of them. You want an answer, love ? Watch the tapes. Public opinion is wrong, you CAN get an education from sitting in front of the telly all day."

However, the Masters in LA would not let females join their ranks, systematically killing off those who approached that level. It had chilled her and angered her at the same time.

"Feminist ideals don't weigh much here, pet," Spike had mocked her. "There's no law but that of tooth and claw."

"And you?" she demanded. "Have you had a hand in this?"

"I never saw myself as a pillar of the community, love. I've been a rogue most of the time, and idiot for half that, and a loner for the rest."

"Welcome, Spike," boomed the other Master. "Given up on being a loner ?"

Beside Maya, Spike smiled easily and handsomely, eliciting quick looks of appraisal from the queens. "Why, can't a bloke get into a party in LA nowadays if he wants to, Jared ?"

A tight smile came over Jared's game face. "Of course. If you have a claim on a territory, or if you're just passing through...whichever it is you're still welcome as one of Killer's invited guests." The emphasis could not be overlooked.

Reaching into his coat, Spike took out a heavy cream envelope. "I heard Killer only issued these to those he thought dangerous to him." All British charm. "It is an honour to be feared by Kalran, the Master of the City of Angels. He'll be happy to hear that I'll give him little trouble. I've never had trouble staking my claim on anything."

"Like this child ?" The yellow eyes looked Maya up and down with lazy approval. "A tropical flower, this one, not like the queen you used to be with, Drucilla, was it ?" Yellow eyes gauged her reaction.

"Drucilla and I have broken up, as I'm sure you've heard. And I'm also sure that you know she's dead," Spike said quietly. "We never used the words 'queen' and 'master'. It makes me feel....oh...too much like an insecure old man to have to go there just to keep my women with me." He winked at the taller of the two queens. "I'm sure if a lady is happy, she'll stay with the one who makes her happy without being forced." His tone was silky. "Are you having trouble in that department, mate ? What, you're only three hundred at most, aren't you ?"

Jared snarled, surging forward, but Spike stepped out to meet him with a growl of his own, his face never changing but the menace there in every line for all who cared to see. At this two of the cubs stepped forwards, hissing, hands outstretched for Spike's duster, but Maya was there before them. Without changing to her game face she bared her teeth and clubbed one across the face with the full force of her arm, ducking the swing of the other and punching him in the lower belly as she came up, the guttural sound of warning coming deep from somewhere within her as the dagger flashed into her hand, drawn from under the edge of her sheath.

The two cubs were at least a decade older than her. No one expected them to reel under her blows. Around them the crowd shifted away, murmuring uneasily as they watched a possible fight scene unfold.

Jared was the first to speak. "There is no killing allowed at a Claim Fight, except for in the ring." His voice was thick with anger. "Unless you think you're above that rule ?"

Silence.

And Spike threw back his head and laughed. "Did you think she was going to kill, Jared ?" The glance he threw the two cubs, who rapidly retreated, was malevolent. "She was baring her claws, that's all. If your pups want to fight, by all means. The tiger merely gave fair warning." He turned to Maya, and gave her a look of lazy command that immediately made her hackles rise.

She knew what it meant. And she also knew what it meant if she obeyed him. The crowd around them was watching, and whispering, and behind the little tableau she saw the dark-haired man turn to look as well.

She sheathed the dagger. Spike held out his arm and beckoned to her with a gesture, and she went to him.

"Your fledgling is just like you, Spike. Developing too fast for her own good. I wonder what would happen to her if you were to disintegrate one of these days," Jared said unpleasantly, but his eyes were narrowed warily. "Maybe that Slayer I heard you had dealings with might stake you some day. I'd be there for the Claim Fight then."

"A man can dream, Jared, a man can dream." And unruffled as ever, Spike moved off, with Maya in the crook of his arm.

"Don't expect that incident to repeat itself," she hissed to him under her breath. "I'm not going to come like a dog when you crook your finger !"

"Very good, tiger. Then others like Jared will see that I can't control you, and that will mean there's nothing to stop them from trying to take you from me. There's news about the new queen flying in this room right now, pet. Your reputation has just upped a notch." He was amused when her shoulders stiffened at this, and after a pause, she asked worriedly, "They can't do that, can they ? If I don't want to go ?"

So, she actually wanted to stay with him after all. But it was no big surprise, not if the other taker was Jared. "What you want is not in the picture until you're at least three years older, love. It's whether I can keep off wankers like Jared that matters." No trouble there. "But I see someone's already noticed us. Come, pet, it's hardly polite to keep my sire waiting." Her surprise amused him even more. She hadn't known Angel was his sire, yet. That television series might have been slightly cheesy, but the facts were there. Well, most of them. As for him having an implant that stopped him from killing and his joining the losers, of all things, that was crap, pure and simple. But the Slayer was just as cute. In fact, the resemblance was startling. He smirked. Angel wouldn't like that. Not at all.

And Angel was still Angel. "What have you done, Spike ?" From the horror on his face when he looked at Maya you'd think she was putrefying, Spike thought with a flash of irritation. "She's barely two months old."

"Oh, come off that high horse, Angel ! Just because I decided to leave the fight with the Slayer standing and wander off quietly you think I've turned soft like you ? I've just given Maya a new life. You should be happy for us." Not everyone could spend life brooding away over past sins. You were what you were and you did what you had to do well. He couldn't understand why Angel couldn't cut his human ties, or conscience. It was not as if he was one of them any longer ! He hadn't been for 250 years.

"There she is," he heard the whisper behind him. Young male, his mind automatically registered. "William the Bloody's queen. Magnificent, isn't she ? Like, you know, one of those Amazons. A looker." Yeah, he wanted to reply. I was surprised too when I got her out of those clothes and combed her hair.

"You've been watching Xena again, haven't you ?" Female, slightly older.

Maya stared with great liquid eyes at Angel. She did not say a word, but Spike would have wagered his fangs that she was weighing and sizing him up in that mind of hers. She wasn't slow, not at all, and to tell the truth he had been surprised when she whacked Jared's cubs like that.

"Congratulations," Angel said to her. Then he turned back. "I don't suppose it would do any good to tell you that you ruined her life?"

Did he seriously think she was deaf, or a child in mind like Dru ? "I'd tell you to sod off, Angel. Did you come here to preach on repentance against the coming fires of hell to people who couldn't care less ? Killer didn't send you an invitation, that's bloody sure. You know, I'm surprised you came at all. Most of the crowd would be happy to tear you limb from limb. For some reason they think you're a betrayer of your own kind."

"Sarcasm doesn't suit you," Angel said wearily. Oh right, play the wounded hero ! "I came because I heard you were in town. I didn't expect you to be building a pack already. Are you sure you want to repeat old mistakes ?"

"I don't like being called 'a mistake'," Maya suddenly purred softly. "And as I recall, Spike himself was one of your mistakes, so what is this conversation about ?"

He stopped his grin just in time. He'd never known what he'd missed with Drucilla. Now he knew. It was rather nice to have someone defending him instead of the other way around. The sensation of mirth, which had been alien to him for some time, made him bold enough to stir the mire of his memories in order to find some mud that would stick to his sire.

"Yes, Angel, do tell us. I know you thought about turning the little Slayer at one time. Probably regretting it now, aren't you ? She would have made a fine queen. Have you heard from her ? And what about her bastard of a boyfriend, Riley or something or other ? Still, I suppose he's better than Parker, the guy who took a poke at her, remember ?" And Spike felt an immense satisfaction at seeing a muscle twitch in Angel's jaw. He didn't know, the poofter ! But a commotion had risen. The spectacle was about to begin.

"I'll just tell you one thing," Angel said at last. "I walk LA streets at night. Whomever I catch hunting or killing or doing anything remotely suspect, I dust. Understand ?"

"You've put the fear of God in my heart." And he grinned as Angel slipped away.

Killer's pack was already emerging around the raised dais. It would begin soon.

"It would help if you wouldn't grip my arm so hard, pet."

Maya stared straight ahead. "Why is he even here, with all that I hear about him ? Isn't he afraid ?"

"Of being torn limb from limb ? The thing about Angel, pet, is that he thinks he deserves to die for the wrongs he's done, except when he's saving innocents, of course."

"The real reason, Spike."

"The price is a kiss." That got her attention all right. She shot a swift glance at him, and he could swear she blushed a shade of warmer gold. It had been too long that he'd been keeping to himself; he had this overwhelming urge to carry her bodily out of there and back to the Lair where they'd have privacy. No, it wouldn't bloody do at all ! Any longer and he would have turned into Angel.

This was just lust, but it was fun.

Especially when she stood on tiptoe and planted a little, virgin's kiss on the side of his mouth.

"They don't dare, love. Angelus is 250 years old and twice as strong as he should be at his age. It's in his blood; he passed it to me and now you have it as well. Of course, the right attitude helps. Angel's killed a good few, human and vampire. The rogues and loners are afraid of him, and so are most of the covens. The Masters won't take him on unless he threatens them directly, so no one else can take their place while they're battling it out with a guilt-laden, lovelorn vigilante."

"And here they come," she whispered in her slightly husky, low tones. It made him want to bite her, to dig his fingers into her shoulders and force her down, to rake his nails over her skin and take her.

The roar of welcome went up as the host appeared in his black robes. Killer, as he'd dubbed himself, had never quite gotten the hang of modern fashion. He lifted his hand and the noise died down.

"Hear me. By Eresthus, Ethrigus and Erigola this meeting is consecrated. Consecrated for the purpose of...."

Spike mentally blocked out the noise. He'd heard the ceremonial speeches hundreds of time before.

Maya was hearing it for the first time, and when they brought out the struggling fledgling in chains, it hit her hard. The girl was lovely, and there was fire in her eyes. She fought them with all her might but they carried her bodily to the seat on the raised dais and chained her to a ring in the floor. To Maya, this was a symbol of all that the word 'queen' meant. She darted another glance at her sire and moved cautiously away. How could he let this happen ? Would he let it happen to her?

Spike felt her sidling away and tightened his hold, frowning, keeping her at his side. "She wanted to go her own way, love, and that can't happen because her dam hadn't released her before she died. Most fledglings go voluntarily to other masters of their choice if that happens. They know that they need to learn. In this case too many others would like this fledgling for any decision to be made outside of the Ring."

He was missing the point completely. Maya shook her head and tried to dislodge his proprietary hold. Almost instantly the grip tightened into an iron cuff of a hold with tremendous strength, nearly making her cry out. His blue eyes were thunderous when he glanced at her.

"The cards lie on the stones," Killer intoned. "Who will fight ?"

"You leave only if I bloody say you can leave !" Spike hissed under his breath.

The babble of sound rose in volume and the first contender stepped forward. A young, wolfish pack leader with black hair streaked dramatically with white. He approached the neat rows of card, drew one and threw it down challengingly. Appropriately, it showed Death.

"You don't fucking own me." Stealthily she dug her nails into his hand and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to do when his breath hissed between his teeth and he twisted her wrist so violently a whimper lodged in her throat.

Cheers and whistles rose as a huge, gleamingly black-skinned male walked out. One of the Masters. His card was the Maiden.

Easily he transferred her wrist to his other hand and the first caught painfully in her hair. "Wrong, pet, I do. I own you body and soul, and everyone around me tonight will agree."

The third was female, long-limbed and streamlined with a red braid falling down the back of her denim jacket. She was one of the older females in the room, her power only slightly less than a Master. Perhaps that was why she looked so wary and on her guard, as did the all-female members of her pack. She cast a long glance at the captive fledgling and the Master, and drew the Cups.

"Angel won't." A taunt she knew would rile him. It did. His mouth compressed into a thin line and the hand in her hair twisted, wrapping itself in coils of hair till it rested against her skull. He turned to her and pressed his lips to her neck, but it wasn't tender. Anger vibrated through him and into her.

He really didn't have a clue how his sire did it. Everywhere he went, all the women seemed to fall at his feet. And some of the men. He had been one of them once. One of his idiot phases. Her scent drifted deliciously into him again. "Fancy my ponce of a sire, do you ? Well, I'll see whether I can do something about that, though a mènage a trois isn't exactly my style." He knew he was getting excited even as the anger grew, and in this crowd others could probably smell it. He turned his head very slightly and saw Angel a little distance away, watching them instead of the emerging competitors. The smile that passed over his face was all spite for Angel as he delicately broke skin and withdrew, lapping at the drops with his tongue.

Jared threw off the clinging arms of his queens and strode into the ring, raising his arms for the acclaim which roared out for another Master. The pitch of excitement was high. Two Masters in the ring. It was going to be a good fight.

"Jealous ?" Maya's voice sounded like a croak to her own ears. His arms were clamped around her rib-cage too closely for comfort, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that she could smell him. That hot, rich scent that was like thick chocolate and warm honey, that reminded her forcibly of the bedroom. She was growing warm smelling it, and her bones were turning liquid. Goose-bumps rose where his tongue had licked.

"Are there any other contenders ? If so, step forwards now or forever hold your peace," Killer boomed. When no one else answered the crowd called clamorously for him to begin. The black-draped arms went up as he announced the names of the fighters. "First, the Card of Death, drawn by Alistair Arren. Second, the Card of the Maiden, Saleem of Detroit. Third, the Card of the Cups, taken by Elizabet dé Bouvais. And last, the Card of the Flame, drawn by Jared of Los Angeles."

His blue eyes held hers. "It's a very novel feeling, pet, and I find I don't like it one bit." Spike lowered his head and kissed her, his tongue invading her mouth without restraint, showing her that little close-mouthed brushes were not what he was after. And she melted in his arms, the thrumming of her nerves rapid as he drew her under his leather duster, their bodies fitting together.

Angel saw the vampires around him trying to make their eyes go separate ways at once, watching the ring as well as the peroxide blond predator kissing the black haired girl in his arms. Nostrils were flaring around them, and the rich heated scent even reached as far as he was standing now and then. An unexpected pang made his stomach constrict as, for a moment, the image blurred into a picture of him with Buffy in his arms. Buffy the Chosen One, the Slayer who was now in the arms of another man who was also a hunter of vampires. A more fitting mate for her than he was. It disturbed him that he felt such a savage jealousy of his strongest child then, because he had managed to find a woman to hold and to love after his demented Drucilla, while he, Angel, had nothing but a lifetime of debts to repay.

"And now, let the games begin !" And the roar that burst forth from the crowd shook the very rafters.

Spike tore his mouth from Maya's , his blood throbbing in his temples. He had been positive that night that he had chosen the right fledgling, and now it was reaffirmed again. She was just what he needed. Catharsis to exorcise the restlessness he had experienced after too long being without a companion. Hell, he was no Angel ! Bloody ridiculous, the way that one remained as celibate as a monk. However, Spike himself didn't want his sire to lose his soul again. As Angelus, he took up too much turf.

"It begins," he whispered in her ear, turning his head towards the ring as his body protested against the sudden stop of a pleasurable activity. Maya shuddered slightly against him as she turned to watch. The combatants were already circling each other warily. "All will die but one, and whatever way it turns out, that will be one Master less, and one good opportunity to stake a claim on newly vacated territory."

"Why not two? The Masters might not win."

He chuckled grimly. "Don't fool yourself, pet. Those youngsters don't know what they're about, getting in the ring with Saleem and Jared. That woman, particularly, will be the first to go. She's too mature as it is." His fingers stroked her scalp, tugging playfully on her hair. "I won't forget tonight's disobedience, pet."

Despite herself she swallowed.

Amidst the chants and cheers of the massed vampires for the ones they supported, Alistair attacked first. Quickly sizing up his opponents, he clearly decided the female should be gotten rid of. With fangs bared he launched himself at her.

Dé Bouvais evaded smoothly, leaning to one side so the young male tripped over her foot and landed square in the arms of Saleem, who had been coming from behind to finish them both off at one go. As the Master from Detroit staggered back under the unexpected weight Jared moved in, locking his hands around Saleem's neck as his only real competitor was distracted.

Angel looked up at the girl on the dais who was struggling in vain against the chains. In spite of himself he felt a trace of pity for her, killer that she was. She was one of the few who were like him and his children, the ratio of her strength to her age too high, though slightly below his own, Spike's, or Spike's new queen. She was also beautiful, with fine skin, a slight build and gold hair. The combination of the two would ensure that she would find it very difficult to get her new master to free her. It was always that way with those who were significantly more beautiful than the rest, whether male or female. Angelus had done it with Spike, trying to bind him as long as possible.

The little voice in his head laughed. Don't lie to yourself. You're sorry for her because she looks a little like Buffy, with all that blond hair. And who says Angelus is not in you this very minute ?

Saleem raised his leg and kicked Alistair in the stomach, sending him flying across the Ring. Driving both elbows backwards he crunched into Jared's ribs and the other Master howled in pain, losing his grip momentarily, more than enough time for Saleem to turn around to grapple with him.

Dé Bouvais and Alistair were likewise struggling, but it seemed that Arren was getting the upper hand as the sleek, red head of the female twisted desperately above the stranglehold he had on her throat, finally flopping onto his shoulder even as she flailed.

"See?" Spike said to Maya, amused. She shot him a glare and moved to get out of his embrace, but his arms tightened warningly and she stayed.

Jared managed to free a hand and claw the other Master across the face and they broke apart, blood streaming from the slashes in Saleem's forehead. It was a momentary stalemate as the he wiped the fluid out of his eyes, and Jared immediately made for the two younger fighters. It was clear what his battle plan was: get rid of the unnecessary distractions and concentrate in an empty ring on the other Master. With one twist he snapped Alistair Arren's neck.

The corpse dropped on its back on the floor, eyes wide open and head at a grotesque angle as the female toppled forward against Jared's chest. Reflexively, his arms caught her just as Saleem bellowed behind him, making him wheel around without noticing what the spectators had already seen. Arren had never even felt his neck broken because he had been already stone cold dead at the time, his life bled out of him through the hole in his neck which the female's head had hidden.

"Shit !" Spike and Angel said in unison.

"She's one of those killers who don't care whether its human or vampire blood when she makes a kill," Spike said in disgusted fascination. Maya let her lips curl in a smile of triumph as she watched Elizabet dé Bouvais playing out her swoon.

Jared dropped her as he blocked Saleem's punch and retaliated with a blow to the solar plexus. Hardly losing a breath Saleem wheeled and back-kicked Jared in the chest, toppling him to the sound of more cracking ribs and a spurt of blood from the mouth. Heedless of the still form of dé Bouvais between them, Saleem pounced on his adversary and ripped his throat out with the curved fingers of one hand, the red slipperiness of the oesophagus and the pink-white of the ridged trachea glistening in his fingers as blood sprayed in all directions.

The crowd shouted a warning, but Saleem took it to be a cheer for him. The kill was not done yet; Jared was still alive and would continue to be till he turned to dust, but Saleem was confident enough to raise his hands, accepting the acclaim.

When her hand punched through his back and out of his chest again, he was more surprised than anything else, and that stunned expression remained even when his body disintegrated into ash.

Screaming with blood-frenzy the crowd watched as dé Bouvais stood over the writhing body of Jared.

Angel winced when the female leaned over and picked up what had once been the contents of Jared's throat. There was a sea of blood on the stones of the Ring, but she ignored it. Fanning out the fingers of her blood-soaked right hand, she stabbed downwards into the downed Master's belly.

And then there was dust.

The sound of the gongs rang out, obliterating the cheers of the crowd as Killer stepped forward. "The victor: Elizabet dé Bouvais! To the winner go the spoils."

Deliberately the redhead mounted the steps till she was just one step below him. Killer's game-face smiled grotesquely at her even as hers reverted to its normal state. Calmly, she tossed the handful of gore at his feet, and brushed rudely past him as she took the key from his hands.

The Masters in the room were silent in the sea of noise. They recognised the challenge, and the contempt.

The fledgling was as still as a stone as, with arms bloodied up to the elbow, the champion unshackled her. She was obedient as she was led down the steps.

Angel closed his eyes, his blood chilled. For one moment he had recognised his old self in the woman. The self which enjoyed giving pain, enjoyed killing in the bloodiest way possible.

Spike was laughing. He knew that around him the other Masters would be furious at themselves for not noticing how strong this one was beforehand, not killing her before she became such a threat. He didn't really care. He liked the dame's style, that was for certain.

Angel opened his eyes again to see that dé Bouvais was moving in a direction that would take her straight to Spike. Almost unconsciously, he moved a step forward, bumping against those around him.

The crowd parted for her, and dé Bouvais gave a quick jerk of her head, directing her pack to the doors where she would join up with them. Smiling, Spike moved courteously back as well. "Well fought."

The grey eyes raked across him. "William the Bloody."

"The one and the same, love." He was pleased that she had heard of him, it was a good way to measure what the reactions of the others would be. "We'll get along fine, as long as you stay in your quarter and I stay in mine."

She did not answer, for her gaze had settled on Maya, where they stayed for a long and speculative glance. Spike's smile died then. He did not like that look. The bloody woman was ogling his fledgling right in front of him ! And Maya was looking back at her, and with a look of intrigued curiosity or something very damn like it too !

Deliberately reaching out, he traced the young fledgling's cleavage, following the scoop-neck of her gown. "Nice," he said clearly. "Very nice." The fledgling's eyes shot daggers at him, but with a glance that was part wary fear and part something else, dé Bouvais pulled her away so that the crowd swallowed them. Good choice, bitch, he thought. If you wanted to flex your new muscle, you picked the wrong man to flex it on. And as for Maya...true she hadn't gone for Jared, but her reaction to dé Bouvais had felt like betrayal. A small one, but it reminded him forcibly enough of her.

"We're going home," he said grimly to her. "Now."

She was lying in the bed, sore, aching and tired. Also sated. And she hated herself for it as much as she hated the man who was sleeping pressed up against her back, his chin resting just above her shoulder and one arm thrown possessively over her. His breath fanned out over her ear as they lay curled up beneath the sheets.

Spike had spoken the truth. He had not forgotten her 'little breach of manners'. And he had been really angry about Elizabet's look, or more correctly, that she had 'returned' it. It had been on the tip of her tongue to explain that she had merely been intrigued by the woman's strength and her evident, almost suicidal challenge to the Masters, but then she had felt the ridiculousness of the situation and her pride had rankled. She didn't owe him an explanation !

Pride was the source of her problems.

He had been in a black mood all the way back, which was evident from his driving. The minute they entered the front rooms of the Lair he had seized her and jerked her to him. Their teeth had collided and cut her lip before he kissed her furiously, savagely, shredding the back of her sheath and pressing her hips to him. It had been like being caught in the maw of a hurricane, and she had fought him as savagely as she could, at one point kicking him back so he slammed against the wall. She might as well have been using a fly-swatter on a panther.

With a snarl of rage he had tackled her, slamming them both against the bedroom door which flew open and landed them on the floor with a jarring thump that made her see stars. His open-handed slap jerked her head to one side and made the stars start dancing a jig as he jerked the tight leather pants off her legs, and before she could control herself she'd assumed her game face and clawed at him, her nails gouging five furrows in the skin of his chest. She swung again and had the satisfaction of seeing the blow force his face to one side.

The hot flame in his eyes when he turned back had terrified her for an instant, when she realised she had called up something she could not control. At the same time she thrilled to it, her muscles contracting in anticipation.

Picking her up as if she was a rag doll, he'd shaken her till her head snapped back and she felt like one.

Biting and clawing, they had managed to get onto the bed before he mounted her. If she had been human he might have hurt her very badly. All the same she had given as good as she got, cross-hatching his back with trails that oozed blood onto the red sheets before closing up again, biting his tongue so the blood flowed between them like hot, musky wine.

And after, when they both lay panting in the wild tangle of the sheets, she had been the one to rise on her elbow and trail the tips of her nails down his chest, past his belly and lower still, teeth nipping a gentle trail behind them, teasing and tormenting till he groaned behind clenched teeth and rolled her over onto her back so it could begin again, this time heated and slow with the added pleasure of the exchange of blood, the smell mingling and rising with the scent of arousal.

Lying now in the bed, Maya indulged in a hefty dose of self-hate.

It was a slow night out. It had been for more than a month, and he was getting edgy. Calm before a storm, wasn't that the saying ?

Angel shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked down the deserted street. It was getting colder, and he found himself thinking almost longingly of the fire back at his home, or even the warmth of the heater in the office where Cordelia was probably doing late night filing. He smiled at that thought. When hell froze over, maybe. Not that it ever got unbearably cold in LA, but he preferred warmth as all vampires did.

Speaking of vampires, he thought uneasily about Spike. Or more precisely the things he had heard about Spike's reasons for coming to LA. Reasons that featured Buffy quite prominently.

Cordelia had heard about it first. Then Oz had come down, passing through as he said, on his way away from Willow. There was some story behind it, maybe even the theory given by the tv series, but Angel had not pressed the matter, guessing that Oz did not want to talk about it. And maybe the breakup with Willow was the reason Oz had told him more than he would have, ordinarily.

Buffy and Spike. Impossible.

His hands clenched just to think of it.

The television series had given hints, but then they had also stripped Spike of the ability to kill, of all things ! And killed off Doyle, who was at the moment sitting very happily in his favourite pub, no doubt.

And yet...the things Oz had said, or didn't say...

The scream cut through his reverie.

Sure enough, there in the back of an alley a menacing figure had a woman by the throat.

"Snack time's over, buddy."

The vampire whirled around, his game face snarling, and Angel smacked him in the nose. They just never learned, did they?

The blade ejected out of his sleeve, gleaming in the faint light of the one streetlamp at the head of the alley as he moved towards the vampire, closing in for the kill.

A shadow dropped out from the night, boot catching him between the shoulders and throwing him to the ground.

The other vampire looked up and scrambled to run, but too late. The dagger went right through him, and he crumbled away into a pile of dust.

Angel sprang up, shifting to his game face with a furious snarl.

The three identical daggers fitted their points neatly under his chin.

"You don't know what you're dealing with," he growled.

"Au contraire. We came looking for you," said a woman's voice, and they stepped into the light. All women. Alarm bells rang in his mind just before she spoke again. "Elizabet wants to speak to you."

The interior of the club was dimly lit for atmosphere, and the tang of alcohol and the bitter-sweet fragrance of cigarettes enveloped them as they entered. A smoky-voiced singer, sweaty after the energetic part of her band's routine, was now crooning something husky and whispery. The way a woman will whisper to a lover after making love. The clientele here was older than most of the clubs he had been in, but understandably because he had gone to them for Buffy as a high-schooler.

The red-head was sitting at a table near the stage. This time she wasn't in denim and leather.

Her hair was long and fell over one side of her face, glowing with glints of gold and red in the light. Her black lace dress was empire-line and simple, understated and flowing. She was smoking a cigarette.

"You've strayed far from your grounds," she blew out a plume of smoke, then tapped the ash off her cigarette and left it balanced in the tray. "This is our territory."

"Well, seeing as it is, all the more reason for me to be here to make sure you ladies don't snack once too often." Angel flexed his fingers. "That said and done, would you tell your cub to take her knife point away from my back ?"

Elizabet laughed, and unlike her cool, French-accented voice, it was low and as smoky as the singer's. She must have already been a mature woman when she was made, and she was it now. "We guard our humans too, Monsieur Angel. It wouldn't do to have poachers lowering the numbers of our stock, would it ? Sit down." She gestured to a chair.

Angel drew it out and sat warily, feeling the fledgling's eyes on him. She was sitting more in shadow, to the left of the pack leader.

"What do you want?"

One auburn eyebrow rose. "The direct approach ? They said you were moody, difficult."

"Depends on whom you've been paying for information."

"You're one of the strongest Masters in Los Angeles now," Elizabet leaned forward. "And yet you haven't staked a claim or formed a coven. You hunt your own kind down and you feed off animals and bottles from the butchers. And the others don't dare to hunt you down and kill you."

"I see where this is leading." Behind her, the singer had started a new song, about a lover's betrayal. "You see me as a neutral party, a strong one, and you want my guarantee that I won't join them to hunt you down. Or better yet, you want me as an ally." Angel rested his hands on the table lightly. "You shouldn't have issued that challenge."

Elizabet stared at him for a long moment as she raised the cigarette to her lips, the ember glowing redly as she drew on it. Then she said, "Lilian, what do you think of him ?"

The fledgling had a sweet, high young voice. "Handsome, but not interested in us or the women around him. Strong but wounded. Staring down a straight path but confused."

Elizabet laughed again, her smoky laugh. "You see why I wanted her ? Julietta behind you only saw that you were pleasing to the eye, and Julietta is not one whose strength others laugh at. I have a strong pack, Monsieur Angel, six women. I will need their support in the days to come. Some of us women do not see ourselves as queens, and death, of course, is something no one wants. Not even those who try to convince themselves that they do."

Angel shifted uncomfortably, immediately wary of their gazes. "I'm not taking sides. I'd happily stake all of you and myself if only I had the courage to do the latter, and it doesn't matter to me whether the dead are male or female."

"I did not ask you here to take sides, Angel." She gave the name a slight inflection, an emphasis on the first syllable. "My reasons are far simpler. I have heard that you are the sire of the one called William the Bloody, the one the others fear."

This he had not expected. "Yes ?" he said guardedly.

Her red lips smiled around the cigarette. "The relationship is...rocky ?"

"He's as vicious a killer as any and then some, and I hunt killers. But if you think he's going to come after you, I don't think you should hold that worry. Spike has other things to do. He has always been a bit of a rogue. Too restless to stay in one place and play the politics. If he wants to get to the top, he'll get there no matter how much blood he has to wade through, hence the name, but he won't seek to kill you just because you're a woman. Now if you'll excuse me." Thoroughly sick of the subject and the interview, Angel made to rise.

"I want his queen."

Angel paused mid-rise. "On second thought..."

"I had to know. All sires hold love for their children. I mean to take his queen, and I needed to know if you'll back him if a feud ensues." Elizabet smiled charmingly and spread her hands, a placating gesture. "She is strong, that one. Very much so. And I think she might not be adverse to leaving him."

You must be joking, Angel thought, remembering the scene he had witnessed at the Fight. Spike might not love the girl, but there was definitely very strong attraction from both quarters, and there was no telling how the girl might feel. Spike always had a way with women.

With Buffy? the little voice asked, and mentally he punched it in the mouth.

"And to take her," he said slowly, "You're going to have to get Spike's permission, or kill him."

"Of course she would have to be willing, if not she'd be the subject of a Claim Fight herself." Elizabet stubbed out her cigarette and gave him a long look.

Angel rose swiftly, and at the sudden movement Julietta came towards him, knife hidden and ready, but with a move like a striking snake he caught her hand and pressed till he felt the bones shift ever so slightly. Her head jerked back and she bit her lip to stifle a cry. The mortals around them never noticed a thing.

"One word, Madame," he said clearly. "I warn you, Spike is above your league. Do not seek to compare him with Saleem or Jared. There is a reason why the other masters fear him. Think on my advice."

Dropping Julietta's hand, he strode out.

Elizabet lit another cigarette, her eyes glittering. "Oh yes, I definitely won't make the mistake of lumping him with the others."

Julietta said, " Word is that he's taken over Jared's claim. Threw out the fragments of his pack, but he didn't kill them."

"Well then, we'll know where to find him."

Lilian laughed.

She felt as if they were living in a dream, locked behind the shiny walls of a soap bubble.

It had been almost a year since she had been turned. Spike had moved in on Jared's claim, which included a wide swathe of the city and property, including the mansion which was their base now. No one had challenged him. Even so, they had both worked the boundaries of their domain, killing off the younger ones, the rogues and loners encroaching on their space. Like a pair of foxes, she thought, scent-marking their hunting grounds.

He had decided against forming a pack.

"You and me, pet. It's enough for now."

Too much. She felt like she was drowning in it.

It was as if he was afraid that she might run for it, or become indifferent to him or something. As if he could see some calamity on the horizon just waiting to break and separate them forever. And yet it was not love, not even the bond between sire and child that was causing it. Spike was lonely. And there was something else, something that fuelled this obsession to possess.

They went everywhere together, did everything together. Even when she was on the Internet he would sit beside her, reading or smoking, listening to his CDs. The first few months she had tried to sneak out during the day without him. He always caught her, and then there would be another explosive argument culminating in a fevered session in the bedroom. Or in the shower, or just right there on the carpet in the hallway.

She loved making love with him. That went without saying. She liked the smooth hard feel of his body, his weight on hers, his bite and his viciousness that came out in flashes alongside the hours of touching and stroking. She liked to touch that scar of his and she liked the way he held her in his arms when they slept. But too much of a good thing....and a lot of the sex seemed based on violence. Maya knew with vampires it might be different, but really, things were getting kind of strange. First when she realised that she had nothing to wear one night. All her clothes were in shreds, thanks to him. He had laughed himself sick over that.

And even though he hated the opera and the 'artsy' café-culture and anything to do with the Fantasy genre, he had insisted on accompanying her to shows and performances and to mingle with the crowds at the cafes after an arthouse movie. He had even started reading some of her Fantasy collection, for Pete's sake ! He was stifling her. Even when she killed, a moment when she always wanted to be alone, he would come with her and stand in the shadows, watching. As if she needed help to wipe her mouth afterwards or something. He said it was because he did not want her to run into Angel one night.

She had no qualms about killing, and she couldn't understand the dynamics of his relationship with Angel. The tv series had been very informative, but it just scraped a few chunks off the tip of the iceberg. The way she saw it, from the moment of turning they had no longer anything to do with mortals. They had become separate, as a tiger and a deer are separate. And as the tiger needs to feed on the deer and the human needs to eat the flesh of the cow, she and those of her ilk needed to drink the blood of the human. There was nothing wrong in that. They had just climbed one rung up on the food chain. Nature's way of trying to control the human epidemic.

Spike heard her out with a smile and nods at all the right places, then nipped her and pushed her back onto the bed.

She had suggested that they give each other some space, and he had really exploded then. A real fury where he had accused her of wanting to leave him, and unlike the other arguments, this one had seen his absence from the bed they shared for two weeks. Then she had had her space, but it had been spoiled by the general bad feeling in the air and in the end she had gone to ask him back.

He had taken her into his arms with something like genuine relief.

She might have said that he had low self-esteem, but in all other things Spike was as cocky, arrogant and generally as insufferable as the rest of the male population. And anyone who saw him on the street at a glance would have called her plumb crazy for thinking he was insecure. Not the vampire version of Sid Vicious, oh no. How could anyone who could bleach their hair peroxide blond and carry it off so beautifully be insecure ?

She shivered and pulled her long coat around herself. It was identical to Spike's duster, and she clicked her tongue in irritation. The man was as clingy as an octopus out of water !

And there would be hell to pay when he woke up and discovered her gone. He would too, if Elizabet didn't hurry. She had sneaked out after one of their more frenzied bouts of love-making. One bite, more deep than the rest, at the top of her breast still hurt. There was bruising as the bleeding underneath the smooth skin that had formed over the surface had not stopped yet. And she knew if she looked the faint claw marks on her chest and back would still be there. It would be at least fifteen minutes more before they healed over completely.

She had bumped into Elizabet in the ladies room of an arthouse cinema, of all places. They had been screening a French movie about how food and desire and the urge to kill were all tangled together. Too true, as she now knew. Spike had been very interested, and hardly murmured when she said she needed to splash her face with water. The twisted heroine had been about to serve her lover a chunk of her own flesh cooked in thirteen herbs and an assortment of spices, simmered for nine hours on a slow burner in a flavourful broth and laced with white wine and garnished with oysters.

She had been bent over the sink when she felt the light touch on her shoulder and whirled around.

"Easy, cherie." The magnificent woman had smiled at her, her large grey eyes crinkling slightly at the edges and the light shining off her sleek chignon. "Do you remember me ?"

Of course she had. It had been so long since she had talked to another woman that Elizabet had seemed like a miracle to her. Standing there in the bathroom, just for existing and being so radiant and so easy to talk to.

Elizabet was wonderfully wise about the whys and hows. She had great fashion sense, yet that was not all her life revolved round. She talked passionately and well on a whole gamut of subjects from philosophy to relationships. She was a good listener. When Maya asked her hesitantly whether the other masters were giving her trouble she brushed the matter aside, saying it was too dreary for a téte-a-téte, always turning the conversation back to Maya herself. Best of all, when Maya had hesitantly opened up and told her about her problems with Spike, she had been understanding.

"Certainement. Men are like that sometimes. It's best to put your foot down and tell him what's wrong."

Except that she was too chicken to do that. She talked to Elizabet on the phone, mostly, or on in chatrooms online when Spike was sleeping. They timed outings to coincide and Maya would find some excuse to leave the table or the room to powder her nose or some equally stupid reason and sneak off to see Elizabet for a few moments. It struck her as faintly ridiculous and she said so laughingly to her.

"I feel like I'm having an illicit affair !"

"Then sneak out and come to my club and meet me for one night. After all, if you're having an affair, you might as well 'go the whole hog'."

So that was why she was standing here on a street corner, waiting for Elizabet to show up and take her there.

And Elizabet was late. Very late.

So when there was a rush of movement in the shadows and a footfall she turned gladly. "There you are ! I've been waiting for an hour and my immortal legs are stiff ! I tell you, if Spike wakes up and...."

The figure stepped out of the shadows and she saw its outline clearly for the first time. It was much taller and bulkier than Elizabet. It also wasn't human.

Instantly she backed away a step, muscles tensing. She had, of course, Spike's scent on her still, and more importantly, the smell of his blood mingled with hers from their drinking which should have been a warning to this stranger. She knew she was strong for her young age, but there were still too many out there who could beat the crap out of her if they wanted to, and she knew that this wasn't their territory. She assumed her game face in the darkness, snarling a little to show him she did not want to be disturbed. With her game face on, she saw him clearly.

It was Angel.

For a moment panic fluttered in her stomach. Was he going to finish her ? But she hadn't been hunting...

"Planning on meeting someone, Maya ?" He sounded like any other pleasant young man, but she remembered what he did now on his rounds. And she'd watched the tapes that told her what Angelus had been, even if Spike didn't like to talk about it.

"You know my name." She sounded shaky to herself.

He shrugged. "Spike's still the talk of the town, and from what I hear you're not far behind. The most sought-after queen in LA."

"I'm warning you, I know you're his sire and everything, but flattery will get you nowhere if you intend to stake me."

"If I'd wanted to kill you I could have done it a long time ago."

"Very likely," she said with full sarcasm. "Spike was with me everywhere I went."

"Which makes me wonder why you left him asleep at home and came out here by yourself."

She tightened the belt of her coat in irritation. Why was she explaining herself to Spike's estranged sire ? "I'm waiting for a woman friend, if you must know."

"Why the emphasis on woman ? You must know as vampires, the gender of the body doesn't quite count." Angel came nearer to her.

Despite herself she blushed. She knew that Angelus and Spike had had a physical relationship. The blush deepened when she realised he could probably smell Spike on her. Why hadn't she showered first ? With all her concerns, his next words were shock.

"If you love Elizabet dé Bouvais, all well and fine," he said roughly, "But don't let Spike get hurt."

Her jaw stopped an inch from the pavement. She felt like one of those cartoon characters who had to pick up their chins with one hand to manually shut their mouths. "What ?!"

"I know you're meeting Elizabet," Angel continued. "I followed one of her cubs here, but lost her a while back. I was just about to head back when I saw you."

"Look, I know Spike's last meal was high on drugs, but I only took a little from him twice-strained and I can't be high and how do you know about this anyway have you been following me and Elizabet have you been spying why do you care I don't know what's in it for you..."

"Maya," he said more gently. "You're babbling."

Her jaws closed with a snap. Angel took the last step between them and put his hands on her shoulders. "You mean you didn't know?"

"Know what?" she cried in frustration. "What is this that you're saying to me?"

"Elizabet dé Bouvais met with me one night almost a year ago. She wanted to ask me whether I was on friendly terms with Spike, because she wanted to know if I would support him if he came after her." Angel hesitated.

"Why would Spike come after her ?! He doesn't give a shit whether she's female and powerful or not..."

"Maya, listen to me." Angel gave her a little shake. "That's what I thought at first. The reason is, Elizabet may be angling to kill Spike."

"Why would she want to kill SPIKE ???????"

"Because she wants you, and you are Spike's child and his queen, and unless he gives his permission for you to go free which I think he won't, she'll have to seduce you and kill him."

Her game face vanished and she looked up at him with her human face, mouth an 'O' of surprise.

With a smile despite himself Angel reached down and pushed her chin up.

It was no laughing matter to Maya. All Elizabet's comforting words, her smiles and her light touch were suddenly put in another, horrible light. And it suddenly came crashing home to her.

She grabbed Angel by the arms of his coat, nearly knocking him off balance. "You say you saw one of Elizabet's cubs coming here, not she herself?"

"Yes..."Angel began, but she had already whirled around and began running back the way she came. With a curse he pounded off after her.

"Would you mind telling me what this is about ?"

"Don't you see?" she cried back in terror and worry. "Elizabet's not here where she told me to come. She's gone after Spike!"

Angel swore very pithily, and doubled his preternatural pace.

The street stood silent and empty again, save for the occasional car.

The watcher shifted slightly in the shadows, and for one instant, a slender hand holding a dagger flashed into the light before the figure wheeled around and silently began to scale the walls, full of the news it had to report.

Maya crashed through the front doorway, breaking the heavy panel into splinters that went skidding across the marble floor. "SPIKE!"

With Angel on her heels she dashed up the winding stairs, taking the steps three at a time, cursing herself for being fool and an idiot and a malcontent. She skidded on the Persian rug at the top of the stairs and would have gone flying over the railing if Angel hadn't caught hold of her.

"Spike!" She tore down the hallway, cursing the location of the master bedroom in the heart of the third floor. Right, right and right again..

The bedroom door was open and her heart sank into her shoes as she shoved it open.

The bed was empty.

She spun on her heel so abruptly Angel, who was coming to a stop, crashed into her and had to catch at her to keep them both from falling.

"He's gone!" Tears of fury and fear were leaking down her face, making her even more furious. "She's taken him." She shook her head violently. "He can't be dead, I'd have felt it, I need to find him. Yes, find him. Need to get weapons, downstairs....." She tried to break out of Angel's hold.

"Take it easy!" He tried to restrain her. "There still may be others in the house. You can't just go dashing around... oooooff!" Her elbow dug into his side as she struggled. "Holding on to you is like fighting with a tiger !" With an oath he reached down and picked her up, looking quickly for a room he could lock her in while he examined the 'crime scene'. There was a door a little way down the hallway and he managed to get her there and by some miracle open the door, but not before she laid open one side of his face.

"You little vixen, I ought to..."

"What the devil is going on here??"

Their heads snapped around.

Spike was standing in the doorway to the connecting bathroom, shirtless and clad in leather pants. A towel hung over his neck and damp drops of water still glistened on his chest. His face was already thunderous, but he stopped dead in his tracks as he took in the scene before him.

Angel standing in a doorway in his private home. Angel standing in the doorway to Maya's personal bedroom with her in his arms. And blood trickling down his face.

His expression became downright murderous.

"Look," Angel said. "I can explain..."

"Explain it to the sodding Devil when you meet him in five minutes," Spike roared as he shifted to game face. Before either of them could do anything though, Maya sprang out of Angel's arms with a shriek and threw herself at Spike, bowling him over onto the floor with her on top of him. Kissing every patch of his face that she could. In front of Angel.

Then she sat up, and slapped him. "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"

He almost spluttered. "What the bloody hell are you talking about? You were the one who walked out on me to go and meet my ponce of a sire on the sly..."

"I wasn't meeting Angel on the sly!"

"That what in Hell's name is the wanker doing here with you all snuggled up to him, and blood running down his face?!"

Having tolerated being called a ponce, Angel was not going to take 'wanker' lying down. "I extricated Maya out of a rather sticky situation while doing the rounds. A duty which YOU should have been doing."

Spike felt like banging his head on the floor in frustration. "SHE ran off."

"I know, I'm sorry and I won't do it again," Maya said contritely. Contritely! He was about to say more when she leaned over and kissed him. Long and hard. On the mouth. Silence for a space of at least ten beats.

Angel coughed uncomfortably. "I guess I'll be going."

Reluctantly Spike broke the kiss. "Just answer me this, why did you bother in the first place?" he called after his hastily retreating sire.

Angel stopped in the hall. "What?"

"Just to bloody satisfy my curiosity, mate, why did you bother to bring Maya back ? I thought you being your usual broody self you'd just stake her and be done with it. And now you're just walking out of here without even trying for a fight. Maybe the loneliness is doing things to your head."

Angel turned back after a moment. His eyes met Maya's in a swift glance, and he saw nothing that would tell him how to go on.

"You know, I have no idea." And he left. What he didn't say was:

I don't know why I don't like the thought of you dead except by my own hand, perhaps because since I was the one to begin it, it seems fitting that I should be the one to end it. But I do know why I brought Maya back. If you have Maya, you won't have Buffy. And I will know that I'm the only vampire that she's ever weakened enough to love.

Spike had no inkling of what was going through his sire's head. He had rolled over so Maya lay under him, her hair spread out like a fan of black silk. "You know, pet, I was furious when I woke up and found you gone. I was going out to find you and teach you a lesson you wouldn't forget so easily."

Instead of snarling at him she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, the feeling of it transferring into his scalp on a direct route to his groin. "I know. Oh, believe me, I know how you feel now. " She was on the brink of tears.

Immediately a pang of worry struck him. "What is it, love?"

"Nothing," she smiled waterily. "Just you. Just being here with you."

He smiled and kissed her, his tongue delving into her mouth, into that richness of scent and warmth. "Did you give Angel that scratch, love?"

"Ye-es," she frowned at him.

"Then you'll understand if I feel slightly put out, pet. I thought I was the only man you enjoyed clawing," he said silkily as he spread her duster open and began to unlace the bodice of the blouse she was wearing. The material parted to reveal the faint tracks of nail marks and a red-purple blotch on the upper curve of her breast. "Angel did this, did he ?" He clicked his tongue. "Remind me to have it out with him the next time to salvage my honour."

She giggled and whispered in his ear. "We broke down the front door too."

"Ah, then I'll have to live up to that feat, will I?" He kissed her again and caught her tongue between his teeth, and that was the last bit of conversation they had for some time.

Maya:

It didn't end like a happy fairy story there. Oh, we had that night and several others. But I had to think.

Elizabet wouldn't wait in the shadows forever. The longer I stayed here the more danger I was putting Spike in. Of course he's strong, but I wonder if he could stand up against Elizabet's entire pack, especially if caught by surprise. And there are other ways to bring down a master vampire without engaging in direct combat, and I know Elizabet is a master of the subtle. And if I told Spike about Elizabet he would be furious and go after her, and that I don't want either. Whatever her ulterior motives were, she was a friend when I needed her to be.

Did I say that what I shared with Spike wasn't love ? Well, I told a lie. He didn't love me, not in the sense of the word though he was fond of me, proprietorial and definitely sexually attracted. I love him. I just realised the fact. And that makes me more afraid of staying than I am of his reaction when I tell him I'm leaving. I think I know who he loves, and I may be naive but I'm not as stupid as to cast myself into the hell of unrequited love.

The only solution left to me is to disappear. I hear him coming upstairs.

"Hello, love. Since you didn't want to come out I brought back supper. He's on the landing." I feel him come into the room behind me and I sense the rise of his arms to enfold me. Then they stop, and my body shrieks silently in disappointment.

"What are you doing, Maya?" Careful, controlled.

Like the coward I am I keep my stand for a few moments longer before turning to face him. The pain threatens to tear bodily out of me as I look at him, the face I love despite all his shortcomings. His cruelty doesn't matter. He is never intentionally cruel to me.

"I promised you that I wouldn't go off without telling you again, Spike. I'm keeping my promise, and I hope you will give me your permission."

For a moment he looks stunned, as if he can't believe his ears. "What?"

"I'm leaving, Spike. I have to."

He takes a step around me, his fingers beginning to twitch in that way I know so well, when he's agitated or nervous or bored. He needs to do something, touch something. He begins to tear the newspaper on the table next to my suitcase. Tear carefully in half, then halve the halves. Repeat again till the pieces get so small you can't get a proper hold.

"You're leaving me?" His movements are methodical, rapid.

"I need your blessing, Spike. Not without."

Then suddenly I'm pinned up against the wall, my head ringing from rebounding off the hard surface, and his fingers are digging into my neck, cutting off air. Vampires don't really need to breathe, but most of us do because the motions are what we know. They are comforting. I actually began to choke because memory tells me to.

He's standing one arm's length from me, the length of the arm that's pinning me like a butterfly to a door. And looking at me with a sense of betrayal in his eyes. I was right to do this, even if it means I die. He would have consumed me wholly had I stayed longer.

"Do you think vampires give blessings?" He hisses. "This is my blessing, Maya!" In the excess of his fury, always so quick and vehement, his fingers begin to tighten. I won't suffocate to death, but he may crush my neck to bloody pulp if I don't stop him.

"You gave me no choice. I know about her, Spike."

The squeezing stops as realisation returns to his face. "How could you know? Who told you?"

I fight the impulse to close my eyes and groan out my heart. It is true then. He still loves Drucilla. "It's evident to see for anyone who watches the tapes. It's there, Spike, and you actually made me watch them. It was a warning you were giving me, I know that now."

A hunted look is coming into his eyes, and I continue. "I can't stay knowing you love her. And how do you think she would feel if she hears that you're living with me? Go back to her, Spike. Try again. Maybe this time it will work." Somehow I manage a laugh. "All those people out there believe in the power of true love, after all. They wouldn't believe if there wasn't just the slightest bit of truth to it, would they?"

His fingers fall away from my neck, but what I am seeing in his eyes is guilt. Guilt because I have hit on the truth. It is so unfair it makes me choke, how can I compete with a dead woman?

Blinded by my own weak tears I pick up the two bags. "Maybe one day we'll meet again, when everything has sorted itself out and we can be two old, decrepit vampires with dentures sitting together in wheelchairs ." I pause in front of him, and he knows what I'm waiting for.

The joke brings a small smile flitting over his face, and gently he takes my head in his hands, bending to rest his brow against mine. "Go with dark grace, my tigress. I free you."

I have to get out now if I'm not to start creating puddles here. "I'll come back," I say with a cheerfulness I do not feel. Then I start the long hard journey away.

Spike stood in the middle of the room for a moment, then slowly sank down onto the edge of the bed, burying his face in his hands.

"Bloody idiot!" he said to himself. "You bloody stupid fool! Is it that obvious? Does everyone know? How could she have found out about Buffy?!"

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