Ravenous

The pain awoke him.

A searing, unending agony that rippled through his chest in wave after torturous wave; it hurt worse than bullets. Clutching like a vise around his unneeded lungs, it hurt worse than a steel, back-barbed hook he’d once been impaled upon. Seizing tightly on his silent heart, it hurt worse than holy water being poured over his unprotected skin.

Like no other pain he had ever experienced before, it rippled through him, gaining strength as each moment passed, clenching around his heart in an agony so acute he wondered if he would combust into ashes on the spot.

He tried to ignore it. Tried to concentrate, on the pleasure of his woman sleeping at his side; of her body basking his in warming heat, less than the feverish pitch passion had brought to her, but still a sweet furnace to lose himself in; of the scents in the air, redolent with the heady perfume of her, mixed with the intoxicating scent of her arousal and their passion.

A moment passed and the pain did not stop. Another moment passed and he did not die.

Angel grimaced and resisted the pain for a moment, thinking only of his sweetly slumbering Sleeping Beauty: his cream and golden maiden of the tangled mane and the passion-swollen lips. No, he managed a tender smile, despite the next wave of pain that rippled through him, a maiden no longer: cream and golden bride. Beloved-made-wife by virtue of the exchange of rings and the consummation of their love.

His wife.

He shouldn’t have done it. He should never have allowed things to progress between them as far as they had. He knew that. He shouldn’t have taken advantage of her, of her innocent passion, he shouldn’t have made love to her, but the opportunity to make her his had arrived, and he hadn’t been able to help himself. He hadn’t been able to resist her because he didn’t want to resist her.

By today’s standards, she was too young; too young for a normal man, much less a monster like himself, but despite it all, despite centuries of life and the changing world around him, there were still moments when he was still just a man of his times, a man of his culture. Buffy was seventeen; by the standards of his culture, his time, she was a woman. In his day she would already have been married, already would have had a child hanging on her skirts, with perhaps another one already nestled beneath her heart, swelling her belly. In his day he already would have made her his wife and the mother of his children.

It was the year 1998, times had changed. Girls were no longer required to be married before their 18^th year or be considered old maids. Now, what had once been too old was too young, but Buffy was the Slayer, a girl brought to early maturity by hardship, by danger and death. If she was old enough to die for the world, then she was damn well old enough to make her own choices in life…and she had chosen…him.

Agony ripped through him more powerfully and Angel gasped, clutching convulsively at the pain that arced through his chest.

Was it good for you too? Angelus taunted. Cause I think it was really good for me. Dark laughter echoed in his mind as the demon imprisoned within him began to break free of its bonds.

The ripping sensation pulled at him from somewhere inside and Angel realized dizzily that he had felt something like this intense pain once before; a hundred years before to be exact.

A hundred years ago, the Kalderash gypsies had cursed him and he had felt a pain very similar to the one he was feeling now as strand by strand, chain by chain, the demon within his body was bound and his soul was stuffed brutally into the body to share space with the fiendish killer. Now, he was experiencing that pain again, but this time instead of binding, it felt like ripping. It felt like he was ripping free of his moorings.

Well isn’t this just a nasty kick in the teeth? Angelus laughed. Here you are thinking that happily ever after is just around the corner and it turns out that the story is just beginning. You finally win fair…maiden and the evil dragon is just flying into the kingdom to steal her away and devour her. How…Grimm…

Within him, a deep rending pain shredded at him, popping the gossamer threads that bound his soul to his body and the demon within laughed gleefully as he began to rip free of the chains that had bound him for a hundred years.

The dark maniacal laughter echoed in his mind and horrified, Angel sat up and staggered from the tangled sheets of the bed to scramble frantically into his clothes.

Buffy, only partially covered by the deep crimson of his sheets, slept on, undisturbed by his sudden movement; the stress of the last few days, followed by their near-death experiences and then their unexpected amorous activities had finally served to exhaust the normally alert Slayer.

The dark-eyed vampire stumbled painfully to the door and ripped it open.

Run all you want soul-boy. How far do you think you’ll get?

Angel groaned and staggered through the door. Giles. Perhaps Giles would be able to help him. Oh God. Buffy.

Angelus laughed gleefully, ripping at the chains that bound the soul into the body that had once been solely his. Run weakling, he snarled. You’ll never make it in time, even if he could help you. I’m breaking free. Free! And you? You’re floating away to the aether. A forgotten dream. And as for the oh-so delectable Slayer? - The wife. Should I eat her, or just eat her?

“Buffy,”* Angel moaned, staggering out into the rain, knocking over a trash can.

Oh don’t go anywhere, the demon growled. You had your turn with the wife. Now it’s mine.

“Buffy,”* Angel sobbed, lurching forward, trying to put as much distance between himself – between the murdering monster taking over his flesh - and the woman he loved as possible.

Oh my. What a great distance you’ve given me to traverse. Five minutes and a staircase. However will I get back to…Buffy.

Angel collapsed weakly to the wet pavement, the ripping in his body driving the unneeded breath from his lungs. “Buffy,”* he groaned. He had to warn her.

Don’t worry, loser. I’ll take care of the little woman. And then maybe she and I will take care of her little friends and Sunnydale.

Weakly, Angel dropped, the last of his strength ebbing. “Oh no,”* he breathed, slipping from the body.

Angelus breathed in deeply, smelling the sweet tang of the night, of the rain, smelling the acrid stench of burning tobacco and the floral perfume of the whore that walked up behind him. He smirked, already looking forward to the hot gush of her blood.

“Hey,”* the whore greeted, crouching over him. “You okay? You want me to call 911?”*

The tall demon stood. “No,”* he sighed in wonder, already luxuriating in the feel of his own body at long last following his orders instead of that invading soul’s. His body again. His existence again. He was no longer the Slayer’s lapdog. He was again the Scourge of Europe. “The pain is gone”*

“You sure?”* she asked doubtfully.

“Yeah,”* he replied, allowing his demonic face to slip over his handsome countenance. “The pain is gone,”* he informed her, amazed at the blissful feeling of power and freedom he felt at the soul’s absence.

“Are you sure?”*

“Yeah.”* He turned to face her, growling in anticipation and she gasped at the sight of him, her fear instant and oh so sweet. He snatched her brutally and for the first time in a hundred years of deprivation, sank his fangs into the throat of a warm victim that he had chosen, a victim he had every intention of draining to death.

Hot blood gushed down his throat, the taste of human blood nearly forgotten in the decades upon decades of deprivation. He swallowed her in great, greedy gulps, growling as he did so, the pleasure of freedom, of feeding, intense. All too quickly, it was over, and he dropped her to the alley ground, an empty and useless piece of garbage.

He turned to the side and blew out the hot acrid cigarette smoke that had leaked into his mouth and dead lungs when he’d nicked her wind pipe in the excitement of a hot feed. He released the smoke, enjoying the vicarious pleasure of a cigarette after sex, a cigarette after a feed and smirked in triumph. “I feel just fine,”* he rumbled.

Better than fine actually. He felt better than ever, or worse than ever, depending upon one’s view point of it all. In fact, he felt so good, that perhaps a celebration was in order.

The demon with the angelic face turned around to face the door his whiney soul had only moments ago dragged him through. The door that led to – ironically enough – his salvation. Slayer. Buffy.

He grinned and allowed the aggressive countenance of his demonic face to slip away, leaving behind his handsome visage. The little woman.

Sweet Sleeping Beauty who wanted to die when he kissed her. He laughed. Well, she’d do a lot more than die.

Now was the time. Now. There would never be a better time to do what he wanted to do. To her. Or to that simpering soul that was out of his reach to punish.

Angelus stretched luxuriously, a sleek predator long chained and finally freed to move as he pleased. He shook his head, shaking the rain from his hair and then strode back to the apartment, a cheerful bounce in his step.

He pushed open the apartment door and closed it behind him, snapping the lock absently, though the pitiful device couldn’t possibly keep out his supernatural enemies.

The little woman was exactly where he’d left her but moments before: tangled in his sheets. Although now she was awake and sitting up, with the covers pressed modestly over her breasts. His dark gaze remained fixed upon the lush young beauty in his bed, and after a moment she blushed beneath his intense regard.

The heady scent of sex, arousal and vanilla filled the air, tinged ever-so-slightly with fear.

“Angel,” she breathed. “Where’d you go? I was worried.”

“I thought I heard a noise outside,” he lied smoothly, approaching the bed. He slid his jacket off of his shoulders and tossed it negligently over a chair. “I went out to investigate. It was nothing to worry about.”

“Oh,” she breathed, watching him stalk toward her. Her breath caught at the carnal purpose in his eyes and her body tightened in anticipation of that graceful and powerful body moving over hers again. Liquid desire pulled at her.

Angelus slid a knee onto the bed and crouched over his unsuspecting prey, inhaling deeply, the better to savor the desire that flavored her scent.

Buffy blushed and her fingers tightened nervously on the sheets. Oh god. What happened now? Did they talk? Go back to sleep? Maybe they could, well if they could, maybe –

The angelically featured demon bent over his newly deflowered lover and brushed his lips over the corner of her passion-swollen mouth. “Shy love? With me?”

She turned more fully to the soft caress of his lips, her newly awakened body, now knowing the delight he could give her, already wanting more.

He caught her fidgeting hands and pulled them around his shoulders, making her drop the protective covering of the sheet in the process.

Buffy moaned softly and fell beneath the carnal spell of his sweet mouth without a second thought. He tasted a little salty, but mostly he tasted just of himself and she purred, losing herself quickly into the sweetness of kissing him.

His cool hands cupped her breasts, thumbs teasing her sensitive nipples.

She moaned and eagerly pulled him down atop of her, reveling in the feel of his weight, the taste of his lips, and the sleek feel of his muscles beneath the silky feel of his skin.

“Angel,” she sighed, tangling her fingers in his spiky hair before trailing her fingers over the breadth of his shoulders. So good. So powerful.

Angelus laughed softly in smug male triumph. Oh yeah. This was going to be oh so perfect: the perfect revenge on her for making him feel human; the perfect revenge on that soul for making him her lapdog; and the perfect revenge on those fucking Powers That Be, for making him a Slayer’s protector.

“I love you,” she breathed, arching beneath his skilled hands.

The dark-eyed demon smiled down at the lush beauty pulling him eagerly to her, savoring this unique victory over light and then fell upon her ravenously. With no care for her recently discarded innocence, he unleashed his full hunger on her, and after a hundred years of deprivation, he was starving; the Slayer would be his finest meal, opening her body and baring her throat out of love. No part of her body would remain unexplored, un-tasted or un-invaded; she would be his in every respect.

His recently donned clothes were quickly abandoned over the side of the bed, her dubious protection behind the red velvet comforter was quickly stripped away, and her newly awakened body was quickly and ruthlessly brought to a fever-pitch of desire. With hands and lips, teeth and body he roused her until she was nearly mindless with hunger.

It wasn’t enough. He roused her higher.

He wanted her blind with pleasure, nearly mindless with the ecstasy he gave her, too lost to be aware of what precisely he did, aware only that it felt good. And through pleasure she would allow him anything. Every hunger she might hesitate at, she would allow because she would do anything he asked so long as he did not stop what he was doing to her fevered flesh.

Hours passed and she screamed and clawed at him, arching to his every caress, acceding to his every demand. She was stretched beneath him, a delicate virginal sacrifice to his hunger and he was ravenous.

With lips and fingers, he drove her to orgasm after orgasm, never allowing her respite or rest, just forcing more of the pleasure upon her over-loading system, when he finally slid into her hot core the final time, she was blind to all else but him.

Angelus drove between her sleek thighs in steady powerful thrusts. She whimpered and thrashed beneath him, vaguely aware that he was pushing her towards some barrier within herself, some threshold of ultimate surrender.

Her warrior’s instinct howled in denial; her feminine instincts arched her tighter and harder to her powerful lover.

“Angel,” she panted, digging her nails deep into his back, clawing bloody furrows into the flexing griffin. “More. More.”

Angelus grinned at his voracious little darling’s demands and continued his relentless claim on her. He pulled her arms from around him, sucking upon each finger before he laced them together with his and pinned her hands to either side of her head.

She allowed it, tightening her fingers in his clasp and her thighs at his waist. “Angel,” she prayed, kissing him hungrily, her claddaugh wedding band clinking against his in their twined hands.

Pleasure exploded along her nerve endings, stealing her breath, her sight and even her sense of sound. There was nothing in her world save him. Nothing but the feel of his powerful body driving into hers. Nothing but the sound of his deep voice praising her beauty, and her responsiveness. There was only him and the pleasure he bestowed lavishly.

Buffy tightened her grip around his fingers, whimpering as she was pushed past that barrier and was claimed ecstatically, blissfully as forever his.

Now he realized. She was too weak to stop him and too far gone in bliss to realize what he was about. And as he already had done dozens of times in the course of claiming the innocent Slayer as his, he bit her, but this time, he did not use his human teeth, this time his shape fangs sank deep into her jugular.

Rich hot Slayer blood filled his mouth and he swallowed it greedily down, dizzied by the exquisite taste of the blood that was so heavily leavened by pleasure and love; pleasure and climax shuddered through him. No taste would ever surpass her, no meal would ever approach the sheer erotic beauty of draining this diminutive predator of her life.

Buffy screamed, arching tightly against him, the orgasm consuming her extending beyond her womb, to her every muscle, her every atom, until her whole body was consumed in a blinding orgasmic joy that stole away her strength and sight.

Her heart pounded, generously pushing her blood into his mouth and he listened carefully for the weakening of that rhythm, waiting for the right moment and then it was there.

The angelically featured demon pulled away from her throat and bit the insides of his lips and his tongue before claiming her swollen mouth in a deep kiss. His blood passed between their lips, sliding down her throat in a steady stream.

Buffy’s moaned softly in distress at the taste of blood, but the magical alchemy of change had already begun and she could not turn away from that offering no matter how much she wanted to. And then, she didn’t want to. She sucked upon his tongue, his lips, wanting more of the powerful infusion, whimpering when the wounds began to close and the moaning in delight when he reopened the wounds to continue feeding her.

Several moments passed and she nursed from his lips, until at last satisfied that she had taken enough to change her, Angelus allowed the wounds to close.

She whimpered at the loss but then forgot it as the haven of his mouth and the sweetness of his kiss remained.

There was only….Angel.

The afterglow of bliss was more powerful than it had ever been in over two-hundred and fifty years, but Angelus remained above her, braced upon his elbows, waiting to see the knowledge light in her green eyes.

Buffy blinked blurrily, slowly returning to herself. Grey blackness pulled at her, a velvety darkness waiting to consumer her down to darkest night. She looked up into the dark eyes of the demon she belatedly realized had somehow taken the place of her lover. Realized far too late to save herself, much less Sunnydale. She smiled slightly, curving her blood-stained lips in grim humor. “That…was…real-ly…sneaky,” she whispered on her dying breath.

Angelus smiled triumphantly down at his newest childe and gently brushed her eyes closed. “Sleep. Tomorrow, when you rise, everything will be different.”

The dead Slayer did not respond as the demon, who had succeeded in remaking her, settled beside her to bundle them beneath his crimson comforter to await the night.

~

“If Buffy and Angel did not escape from the Factory,” Giles told Willow and Xander’s retreating backs, “there will not be anything to rescue. Not even ash. All you will succeed in doing is getting yourselves killed.”

The pair halted before turning back to face the Watcher’s bleak countenance.

“What do you mean?” Xander demanded. “I know there’d be nothing left of Dead-Boy – “

“And nothing left of Buffy either,” Giles snapped. “The touch of the Judge would incinerate anything human. If he’d touched…touched Buffy, there would be nothing of her left.”

“So what do we do?” Willow asked plaintively.

“What all Watchers have done since the beginning of time,” Xander sneered. “We wait. And see if a new Slayer’s been called.”

Jenny frowned at the sullen boy before she shifted closer to Giles. “Why don’t we try and do something a bit more constructive.”

“Indeed,” Giles agreed stiffly. “Let’s try and find a way to destroy the Judge before Buffy and Angel get back. That way, if the Judge is fully assembled, we’re at least prepared to proceed forward on a worst case scenario.”

“Worst case scenario, Buffy’s already dead,” Xander snapped morosely, sinking into a wooden library chair.

Jenny’s fingers itched with the need to smack the teen.

Giles stiffened even further, and stared down at the ground, wondering whether or not his Slayer had indeed already died. “Then we’ll have to summon Kendra to deal with the Judge as soon as possible and hope that it’s not already too late. It would be good if we had some options to give her.”

~

She awoke with a shocked gasp, drawing in her first unneeded breath as the hunger clenched painfully inside of her, an aching emptiness that demanded that she fill it.

So empty. And so cold. The warmth of her mortal life had long sense faded away.

“Rise and shine lover,” a familiar, and still beloved, voice purred into her ear. “It’s time to take the world by storm.”

Buffy opened her eyes and blinked at the vividness of the new world. Clarity, colors, everything was so much more than it had been and she realized that she had been blind. All her human life she had been blind and only now, after death did she realize it.

And most beautiful of all, was the golden-eyed demon that was bent over her. Wonderingly, she stretched out her hand and traced his ridged features with her fingertips, amazed at the predatory beauty of his face. Aggressive, arrogant. So beautiful. He had been beautiful to her before, but now with her new eyes he was so much more, more than it was possible to express.

“Angel,” she breathed. Strange new world that she had opened her eyes to, and yet some things remained the same; her love for him remained and now it had become as eternal as he.

Hunger gripped her insides and she whimpered in distress.

“Hungry,” she moaned.

Angelus smirked, pleased with the deep growl of ferocious demand that filled her voice and then gathered his newest and most unexpected childe into his arms. “Then we’ll eat,” he comforted her. “Get dressed, and we’ll find you something delicious.”

She crawled from the bed, rubbing against him as she did so, inhaling the comforting spicy earthiness of his scent.

He nipped her lips, allowing her to fill her senses with him, and then sternly reiterated his command. “Dress.”

The blond Slayer-turned-vampiress pouted, but decided that her hunger was indeed more pressing than her desire for him. She needed…needed something, and she needed it now. She slid quickly into the clothes she had last worn when she had been alive, eager to be out, eager to alieve the ache in her gut.

Angelus laughed softly, triumphantly and pulled the Slayer out of the dimly lit apartment and out into the night.

Buffy gasped at the bright beauty of the night, immediately entranced. So much beauty that she had never seen, never known about. There was so much to see. The night was blindingly bright with life.

She followed him along the streets, the sights and smells all clamoring for her attention.

Angelus watched her carefully, gauging her reactions. To his knowledge, no other Slayer had ever been turned and he wondered whether or not she would be able to kill or if the geas of her nature would prevent her from feeding.

He need not have worried.

Food when they found it, was one of Cordelia’s vacuous crowd, a vacuous, bubble-headed blond whose terror had nicely introduced his fledgling to the pleasures to be had in terror and pain.

Previous dislike adding cruelty to her feeding, Buffy ripped into Harmony with careless brutality, tearing her throat wide open. She gulped the sweet terror tainted blood greedily, digging his fingers deep into the struggling blond to hold her still. And when the blood stopped flowing, and the pounding heartbeat slowed to a stop, Buffy threw the corpse away from her in a fit of pique. It had ended too soon and she still wanted more.

Angelus laughed, pleased with her viciousness and drew her into his arms to lick the excess blood from her lips and cheeks. His lovely, vicious darling. He had never thought to take a mate, but she was showing great promise to be nearly as vicious as he.

“Now,” he murmured, after cleaning the blood from her lips. “Let’s go join Spike and Dru at the Factory. Your little Scoobies are going to be so surprised.”

Linking her fingers happily with his, Buffy skipped along at his side, happier than she could ever remember being. What could be more perfect than having Angel and all the delightful blood she could drink for eternity? She hesitated, a frown puckering her brow.

“Angel?”

“What is it baby?”

“The Judge is going to destroy all of humanity right?”

Angelus threw back his head and laughed at the thought of the smell of all that burning flesh. “Oh yeah, baby. And it’s going to be a great show.”

“But Angel…If all the humans are dead…what are we going to eat?”

The dark-eyed demon froze, the innocent question sparking off a thousand thoughts.

Buffy watched him, watched the fine trembling of his body, watched his fingers curl into large fists as he growled and snarled.

“Damnit!” the newly freed demon roared. He grabbed hold of his fledgling and walked determinedly in the opposite direction of where they had been heading.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“To get you a change of clothing and then we’re going go to the library. I’m going to pretend to be spineless and good. You’re going to pretend to be alive and still the Slayer and we’re going to destroy the Judge.”

“The Slayer!” she cried out in revulsion. “I don’t want to be Miss Save the World anymore.”

He rounded on her and grabbed her shoulders, hauling her up on her toes. “You’ll do what I tell you. After the Judge is defeated, we will kill every single one of your precious little gang, and never speak of this incident again.”

She pouted. “Can’t we kill just one of them before?”

Angelus scowled, not wanting to give into that pout, but her lower lip protruded charmingly and her golden eyes peered up at him through her lashes. “Maybe one. We’ll see. I cannot believe this. Free for the first time in a hundred years and I’ve got to save the damned world just so I can have something to eat. Fucking Powers That Be.”

The ex-Slayer tucked herself against his side and stroked his back in commiseration. “It’s okay,” she comforted him. “We’ll kill lots of people later.”

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