[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [Epilogue]

Awards for Echoes

New England, 1700

It was bloody dangerous coming here.

William sighed, casting a wary glance to the ominous storm clouds brewing above. He supposed it was fitting; the Powers had a way of expressing their sense of humor in ways which defined modern stereotypes. He reckoned he was in a cosmic time-out as far as the Powers were concerned; not that he cared a lick. Not that he ever had.

It was going to storm. If God or whatever lurked in the great beyond thought a little rain would scare him off, they were setting themselves up for disappointment. He wasn’t going home until he saw her. He wasn’t going anywhere until he knew she was all right. No amount of verbal confirmation would do it for him—not anymore. Now that he wasn’t trying to fool himself, now that he’d placed his heart on the proverbial chopping block, William was the embodiment of in for a penny, in for a pound.

Three nights ago, he’d sought Elizabeth Travers out with a mind aimed to kill.

Never had William thought he’d be so reluctant to harm anything. He’d been around for a while—not as old as some, but older than others. Old enough to be declared an ancient by most Watchers, even if his lifeline barely graced two centuries. He’d seen some remarkable things in his time: the first performance of a Shakespearean play, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the rise of Peter the Great—things he’d never imagined seeing when he was sired. The world had become a larger place overnight. He was a poet from England and now he stood on American soil.

The years had certainly been good to him.

Very good.

And very lonely.

William propped himself against a tree, his eyes glued to the window he knew to be Elizabeth’s. There was a light burning inside but he had yet to catch a glimpse of her. A silhouette would do; anything to verify she’d made it back safely. Not that she’d faced anything particularly dangerous tonight—no more so than usual. There just seemed to be so much more at stake.

So much more.

More now that he knew he loved her.

William had long guessed it was symptomatic of not knowing the one who’d made him. He’d clawed his way out of his grave and met the cool air of night, knowing what he was but not why he’d been turned. He didn’t even remember the face of his sire—only the fragrance of a woman’s perfume and a quick rush of pain before meeting darkness. He’d spent decades begrudging his maker for leaving him without guidance, without reason or explanation, but time had proven grudges a fruitless effort. Grudges wouldn’t right old wrongs. Grudges wouldn’t do anything but make eternity even longer.

The years had been good to him, overall. Good but empty.

Then he got word of a slayer in the Americas, and curiosity more than anything had prompted him to cross an ocean.

Now that he was here, he never wanted to return.

Elizabeth was magnificent.

William had heard many stories about many slayers, each more ludicrous than the last. For years he’d brushed them off as nothing more than a celestial bogeyman to keep the demon community in line. For years he’d laughed at the idea of a delicate female posing any threat to the life of any vampire, concluding that those who dusted at the Slayer’s hand were more in awe of her Calling than bested by her aim. For years he’d formed presumptions based on aged ideals of the frailty of the human condition.

For years he’d been wrong.

He was certain, however, no matter the strength of any slayer that he would not have fallen so hard for any woman who wasn’t Elizabeth. The girl defied convention. She was everything he’d ever wanted; everything he was afraid to want.

She was so glorious. So radiant. So strong and courageous.

So alone.

William had thought his existence lonely. He didn’t know loneliness until he met Elizabeth. She walked through darkness with nothing at her side. She relied strictly on her own cunning to ensure she made it through the night. She was often afraid but never revealed her weakness. She didn’t cry when she was owed her tears.

She was innocent. She was innocent in ways he didn’t think were possible anymore. She had a child’s laugh and a warrior’s will. She didn’t know how beautiful she was. She didn’t know how alluring she was. She didn’t see the way the men in town looked at her like she was the pinnacle of everything they could ever want. She didn’t notice anything which heightened the reality of her humanity. And while the reason wasn’t ambiguous, it made him darken with rage all the same.

Her wanker of a Watcher regarded her as less than human. To Kenneth Travers, Elizabeth wasn’t a girl at all. She was a weapon.

She was disposable.

There was nothing disposable about Elizabeth Travers. God, he’d known it the second he saw her. Fighting under the pale light of a full moon, her skin drenched in sweat, her body contorting to kick the vampire behind her as her hands thrust a stake through the heart of the vampire at her head. A third had lurked in the shadows, intent on surprising her, but he exploded into a thousand gold flecks of dust before he had the chance to lunge into her warpath. Elizabeth had fought them all with grace, not once betraying fear or alarm. Her senses were impeccable, her instincts flawless. She’d finished them off one-by-one, turned to face William even if she couldn’t see him for the trees and the darkness separating them, and waved.

She’d waved at him.

And he’d fallen. Hard.

Granted, it took a bloody long time to admit as much. William had fought loving her with everything he had. He might not be the world’s most conventional vampire, but he drew the line at going soft for humans. For slayers. While true, the Slayer had never sent cold shivers down his spine, he’d never envisioned himself going so far the other way as to fall over himself in love.

He’d occupied months fighting Elizabeth—fighting his growing feelings for her. Fighting his admiration with what he tried to call loathing. Even when he beat her within an inch of her life, she refused to beg for mercy. He’d gotten close to killing her so many times. He’d wanted it—no, he’d wanted to want it. He made himself lash out at her in the hopes of eradicating her presence from his dreams. In hopes of beating back the love in his heart into something twisted and dark—something he could truly call hate.

Three nights ago he’d had enough. Three nights ago he’d been determined to end it—either Elizabeth had to go or he did.

Instead he’d tasted her blood, and surrendered.

God, how could he help from loving her? He might not be human, but he was still a man. And Elizabeth was the closest to perfection he’d ever come. She was witty, funny, strong, and beautiful; she was her own woman without even trying to be. She wasn’t afraid to fight with him, knowing him as she did. Nor was she afraid of the dance.

She wasn’t afraid of anything.

And he was sick of trying to fool himself.

He was in love. He’d known it since the first night he saw her, but there was nothing like confessing it to himself.

William the Bloody was in love with the Slayer.

And anyone who tried to take her from him would find themselves on the wrong side of dead.

“What are you doing here?”

William blinked and turned, belatedly overwhelmed with the richness of her heavenly scent. He met her emerald eyes and was surprised when a shiver commanded his body. There was something so wondrously perfect about her—something which commanded adulation whenever in her presence.

Now that he wasn’t fighting his love for her, he’d spend the rest of her life and all of his worshipping the ground she walked on.

When William did love, he did it with all he was. There was no half-and-half. No in between.

Not that he had much experience with love; he just knew himself.

Something Elizabeth would know in due time.

“How’d you do that?” he asked, pouting.

She blinked innocently, then crossed her arms as though to hide her reaction to his proximity. His sweet, innocent slayer. There was no hiding from him—not now. Not now that he’d tasted every forbidden crevice of her soft, perfect body. Not now that he’d explored the paradise between her thighs. Not now when he knew how she whimpered when he stroked her, and how her tight pussy muscles squeezed him when she climaxed.

No, there was no hiding from him, if there ever had been.

“How did I do what?” she asked, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.

“Sneak up on me.”

“I didn’t sneak. I was just—”

“Overly quiet?” He’d been too lost in his thoughts to notice her approach, but he didn’t want to tell her that. Especially when caught lurking outside her cottage while drowning in longing for her. “You jus’ getting in?”

She nodded and licked her lips. He wished she’d let him do that for her. “Kenneth sent me to the Mill Lane House. Mr. Wells had a demon caught in his armoire.”

“Demon?” William took a step forward, determined to close the space between them but mindful not to move so fast he startled her. “What sort of demon?”

She hesitated a beat, and he knew why. The knowledge killed him but he knew why. They had parted the other night on uncertain terms—Elizabeth limping slightly as a result of their passion, but quite adamant on managing her way home unaided. There hadn’t been time to talk about what had happened, or how things had changed. Perhaps she didn’t think things had changed.

Perhaps she thought they were going to resume the relationship they’d grown into prior to their lovemaking. Perhaps she thought he wanted her dead, as he’d claimed only nights before.

Silly child. Didn’t she know he was crazy for her? Didn’t she know that had been the problem all along?

“Talk to me, Liz,” William murmured, seizing advantage of the distraction his voice provided and closing another space between them. “What sort of demon?”

“A boggart.” Her gorgeous eyes grew wide but she made no move to recover the step he’d claimed. “Will…”

“Bloody shapeshifters. Bet ole Wells din’t know—”

“No, he was petrified.”

“You should’ve waited, love. I’d’ve tagged along.”

Elizabeth inhaled sharply, suspicion clouding her eyes. “I don’t think that would have been a wise move,” she said, tossing a quick glance to the front door of the Travers cottage. “I need to go. Kenneth is expecting me.”

Before he could stop himself, he’d wrapped a hand around her wrist and tugged her forward, desperate for the feel of her against him. “Don’t,” he pleaded softly. “Stay out here with me.”

“I don’t—”

“Dangerous vampire here. Kenneth wouldn’t want you neglecting your duties, would he?”

Elizabeth’s gaze softened with longing, and the wave of relief which crashed over his chest was potent enough to flood the bloody village. “What are we doing, Will?” she asked softly, her tone dropping with gravity he’d never before heard color her voice. The idea that he’d put such conflict in her life tore him in two, but he wasn’t about to let her go without a fight. “I…the other night—”

“Was jus’ the bloody beginning, love.”

“The beginning of what?” She shook her head hard, her eyes suddenly shining with tears. “I’m so confused. What we…what we did the other night…it—”

“You don’t regret it, do you?” God, he wouldn’t be able to stand himself if she regretted what they’d done together. The beauty their bodies had created simply by joining. She couldn’t regret it. She couldn’t. She’d changed him—changed everything—and if she regretted it, he didn’t know what he’d do with himself. “Please, Liz—”

She shook her head again, but the tears spilling down her cheeks spoke volumes for what she couldn’t put into words. And he was at a loss. A vast, endless loss. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and will the world away. He wanted to toss her over his shoulder and make a bloody run for it. Sod the Watcher. Sod her duties. Sod it all; he was the one who truly loved her. She should be with him, not the wanker who sent her out to face ugly death every night.

She belonged to him.

“I do not regret what we did,” Elizabeth whispered. “But Will…I don’t…we can’t again. It’s too dangerous.”

“Making love with me is too dangerous?”

It was a bloody stupid question; of course it was dangerous. A slayer entrusting a vampire with her body. He was a fool to ask.

Her answer, however, threw him off his feet. “If Kenneth finds out…he’ll kill you.”

William froze and the world froze with him. For long, empty seconds he could do nothing but stare at her in astonishment. She was worried about him. Elizabeth was worried about him. About what would happen if her Watcher discovered what was happening right under his nose—if he found out that his slayer had thrown her hat in with the enemy. The idea that any human could ever best him was beyond ridiculous, let alone an aging sod who lacked the strength or the will to fight beyond sending a young girl out to face the night’s dangers alone. Elizabeth was worried for him—about him. She was worried.

He’d never had anyone worry about him before. Never.

God.

“He won’ kill me, darling,” William promised softly. “He doesn’—”

“No, William…you don’t know him. If he ever found out, he’d—”

“He won’ find out.”

“But if he did—”

“He won’t.”

She shook her head, her tears coming harder. “He’d kill you.”

“He would try.” William turned his attention to her gorgeous mouth, unable to keep his lips to himself a minute longer. He needed to taste her kiss. He needed to feel her body against his, rocking against him, squeezing his cock until he saw stars. He needed her hands on him and her mouth on his skin. He needed her, plain and simple. He needed her like he’d needed nothing. “He would try, but he—”

“You don’t know him, Will.”

“I don’ need to.”

“He—”

William kissed her again, his touch hungry and demanding this time, tongue shoving past her lips to explore the hidden secrets of her mouth. It seemed forever had passed since he’d last tasted her and he wasn’t going to deny himself a minute longer. Not when she was here. Not when she cared for him. Not when she cried tears over the thought of his death, ridiculous as the notion was.

Elizabeth cared for him. She truly did. Even if the words never breathed life in her sweet voice, he had proof enough in the liquid crystals trailing down her cheeks. She cared.

God, he was so completely hers.

“Please,” William whispered against her mouth. “Please…fight with me a bit.”

She batted her pretty eyes in confusion, her succulent tongue peeking out to taste him on her lips. “Fight?” she repeated, her hips moving against his erection in a manner he knew had to be subconscious. “You want to fight?”

He couldn’t help it; he grinned. She was so cute. So innocent.

And likewise, she was completely his.

“Oh yeah,” he purred, nipping at her lips. “All night long.”

“But Kenneth—”

“You’ll have bruises enough to prove to him you were tied up by a particularly nasty beast.” William grinned devilishly, squeezing her tighter to him and thrusting his hips forward. He loved the wanton widening of her eyes—the comprehension born there; the comprehension coinciding with the secrets she now possessed. She now knew what her body was capable of, just as she knew his. She knew what they were capable of together.

And that was just in the bedroom. She had no idea of the world waiting at her doorstep. The world he’d show her once he managed to sever her ties with the Watcher for good.

Once William made her realize all she needed, truly, was a man who loved her like he did.

“I want you,” he whispered. “I want you like I’ve never wanted anyone. I always have.”

Tears were forming behind her gorgeous eyes again, but this time, they were not out of fear. “Always?”

“Since the firs’ moment I saw you. I’ve been fightin’ it forever. Tryin’ to convince myself you hadn’t turned my bloody life upside down.” His head dipped, tongue eagerly laving the mark he’d given her with his fangs. The one he was itching to make permanent. He wanted her at his side for all time; not just in the limited span humans were given on this wretched planet. No, he wanted her cemented at his side. Free of her Calling. Free of everything which held her prisoner. He wanted to make her his. He wanted to make her his always.

“Have you wanted me like I’ve wanted you?” William asked softly, his mouth fluttering over her throat, dropping sweet kisses as he made his way back to her lips. “Wanted me like this?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t know what it meant to want anyone before you.” Her tone indicated an apology. As though her innocence was something of which to be ashamed.

The idea, however, that she’d never wanted anyone before him had him soaring. She didn’t know what a gift her desire was; how it felt to be the first man she’d ever touched, or would ever touch. She didn’t know how precious she was. What a rarity she was.

She didn’t know her own worth, and the knowledge nearly made him weep.

“Do you want me now?” he whispered. He knew the answer, of course; he just needed to hear it.

Elizabeth inhaled sharply and nodded, another wave of tears striking her gorgeous face. “Will…”

“Then have me, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

His lips found hers again and he rejoiced when she didn’t fight him. Instead, she whimpered against him and surrendered, her arms linking behind his neck, his own wrapped themselves around her waist. Her tongue pushed inside his mouth, eagerly stroking his as her body molded against him. The warmth of her surrender had him swimming in bliss.

There was nothing in the world like this. He’d settle for nothing less.

Elizabeth was the only one for him.

“It’s going to rain,” Elizabeth observed, her eyes wandering heavenward.

“Better get inside.”

“No.” She brushed a tender kiss across the corner of his mouth. “Will you dance with me?”

“In the rain?”

She nodded and he about collapsed to his knees in awe. She was unlike anyone he’d ever known. He’d never met a woman, human or vampire, who didn’t wilt at the idea of getting wet. Anyone. She was unique and courageous, witty and beautiful, and she was his.

Elizabeth was perfection. And she was his. Pure and simple.

“Sweetheart, I’ll dance with you wherever you like.”

She smiled softly, tossing a wary glance to the cottage behind them. “He’ll be expecting me.”

“Evil vampire,” William countered. “Right here. You can’t let me go, can you?”

A fond smile crossed her lips and she shook her head. “Never.”

Never was a promise he’d make her keep—for now, forever. She was his. She was completely his. She’d been alone for so long, but she wasn’t alone anymore. Neither was he.

They’d saved each other without knowing it.

It was just a matter of convincing her.

New England, 1701

A splatter of yellow, red, and orange stained her hands. Paint had long since crusted against her skin and she knew without a doubt that she’d be scrubbing herself raw for hours to eradicate the evidence of her artistic foray. She was supposed to be training. She was always supposed to be training. The light of day was a shield to protect her from the evils at night—the sunlit hours were, therefore, occupied by Kenneth and a variety of exercises she was expected to have accomplished by suppertime.

Once upon a time, her Watcher had accompanied her into the daylight. He would stand under the cool shade of an oak tree, barking orders and offering criticism to whatever flaw he noted in her form. Sometimes he would have her hunt down demon breeding grounds and take out whole clusters of otherwise nocturnal creatures when they could not fight back. Sometimes he would send her on missions to find some ancient artifact rumored to be buried or hidden in the woods and caves surrounding their village. Sometimes he was simply content to allow her to practice new moves on the scarecrows he was constantly piecing together. There was no pattern to Kenneth’s orders. He simply threw whatever he wished at her, and he expected nothing less than perfect completion by sundown.

Today, she was to be dismantling the hay-stuffed dummies with a series of new moves and low punches. Once she was finished, she was to piece the dummies together again and repeat as needed.

Elizabeth turned her hands over and stared at her open palms. Yes, it would take hours to scrub the paint away.

But it was worth it.

She glanced up again with a grin. William was going to love this.

Things had changed between them so rapidly it was hard for her, at times, to grasp that it was actually happening; she wasn’t dreaming and she hadn’t lost her mind. It was actually happening. Nights were something she anticipated now with the patience of a child at Christmastime. It was becoming increasingly difficult to smother her grin upon leaving the cottage at sundown, as it was keeping her feet from skipping every other step and her mouth from humming along with the song occupying her heart. Her patrols were fun. Adventurous. Passionate.

Because William was there. William was always there. He’d meet her smiling eyes with a twinkle in his own, grab her around the waist and maul her lips with his, demanding kisses as though it hadn’t been only a matter of hours since they last saw each other. Then he’d fall into stride next to her, and while he didn’t participate in the fight every night, he always kept vigilant watch at her back. He was always prepared to jump in if she needed him.

More often, though, William simply enjoyed watching her. She moved like poetry, he said. And he was a man who had an appreciation for poetry.

The months had been good to them, if not a little stressful. Elizabeth didn’t know why, but she had assumed that it would become easier for them to keep their secret the longer they were together. She’d thought the eggshells on which she treaded would become pliant with age, rather than harden.

She expected her fear of discovery would ease in time. She expected she would eventually stop looking over her shoulder. She expected the rush of terror which commanded her insides every night upon sneaking into her bedroom would eventually fade. She expected so many things.

And even though Kenneth remained none the wiser, she was terrified.

It was one of the reasons she insisted that William remain in the makeshift cellar they had built during daylight hours. Even if Kenneth did find the cottage William had secured for them, he wouldn’t find her lover slumbering, and therefore wouldn’t have the opportunity to catch him off guard.

Wouldn’t have the opportunity to dust William in the daylight.

While William was touched at her concern, he was similarly certain she had nothing to worry about. He did as she begged him, of course, and had a second bed stored in the subterranean room. After their nightly patrols, they would race each other to their small home, warring with each other to see who could get naked the fastest. Limbs entangled, tongues battling tongues as they pawed at each other with need beyond anything any poet ever put in words. They would crash onto their bed and make love for hours, holding each other in the sweet aftermath while talking about everything and nothing at all—about things which held no consequence, but somehow made her happy all the same. In the early hours of morning they would take solace in each other’s bodies again, argue whether or not William would walk her home, and end their night with hungry, desperate kisses a safe distance away from the Travers’ residence and promises that soon they wouldn’t be forced to part. Soon they would be able to awaken in each other’s arms. Soon they wouldn’t be made to say goodbye every morning.

Elizabeth just had to make the move to leave Kenneth. She had to tell him it was over—that while she appreciated his guidance and his role as the father she never knew, she was ready to live her life.

She knew, of course, that Kenneth wouldn’t see things quite her way. Chances were he wouldn’t even acknowledge her beyond a quick chuckle and a nod to the day’s itinerary. William, however, remained resolutely unconcerned.

If Kenneth didn’t acknowledge her independence, he said, it was solely his problem. Once she declared herself free of him, she was no longer bound to his orders or subject to his anger. Once she declared herself free, she and William would leave the village and go somewhere where her Watcher would never find them.

It sounded lovely, as far as dreams went.

She just hoped she had the courage to make the dream a reality.

“Have you been here all day?”

Elizabeth jumped and turned, slightly mortified her special William senses hadn’t buzzed.

Or rather they had; she had reckoned they were responding to her thoughts of William rather than William himself.

“Will,” she breathed, a blush tingeing her cheeks. She hadn’t wanted him to see her smeared with paint, but there was nowhere to hide so she didn’t try. She was on her knees on the bedroom floor, hands saturated in a blend of orange and yellow, the wall for the most part complete, if not perfect. “I…ummm…is it sunset?”

“A few minutes ago,” he replied. “Din’t answer my question, pet. Have you really been here all day?”

She shrugged guiltily. “About an hour after you walked me home, Kenneth had me out again. I’m allegedly destroying scarecrows.”

“Because after fighting the spawn of hell all night, a lot of straw-ridden dummies are gonna provide you with good defense techniques.” William rolled his eyes, which landed, not so subtly, on her artwork. “This your alternative?”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose and wiggled, feeling at once very self-conscious. “I’m sorry it’s not good. I just thought…”

William turned back to her, his gaze tender, the lines of his face softened with awe. “Buffy…”

A thrill raced down her spine. She so adored that name. Not that she’d ever admit it, of course, but she adored it just the same. She loved the freedom of being Buffy with him. Buffy the girl. The lover. The woman.

Buffy, who was with William. Who was only Buffy when with William. He never expected her to be anything more, and never thought of her as anything less.

“Do you like it?” she asked gently, rising to her feet.

“Did you…God, you did this for me?”

“It’s still wet; don’t touch it.” Elizabeth glanced down with a small, secretive smile. “You…I just thought…if we ever got the chance, we might watch the sunrise in here.” She indicated the small window which sat across from the entrance to the bedroom. “It should strike the wall every morning. I’m not sure if—”

She would like to think she would have said something profound had William not moaned her name and stormed forward, capturing her paint-smeared cheeks between his hands and brushing his lips over hers. And as always, the taste of his kiss had the walls melting and the world swirling away until there was nothing left but the two of them. Nothing but the sensation of William’s mouth moving against hers, his thumbs stroking her cheeks with loving tenderness. The smooth whisper of his tongue stroking her tongue. The firm feel of his body against her body. The hardness of his erection as their hips moved together. There was nothing but this.

Nothing but William.

“You painted me the sunrise,” William murmured, pressing a kiss across the corner of her mouth.

“You deserve it,” she murmured back.

“Oh Buffy…”

“Do you like it?”

“You made it for me.”

Elizabeth grinned and curled her arms under his shoulders, walking them backward not-so-subtly until her legs hit the edge of their bed. “Pretend for a second that I did not.”

“But you did.”

“I used the word pretend for a reason, Will.”

He smirked against her mouth, his hands dropping to her waist so he could drag her dress-shirt over her head. “Someone’s feisty t’night.”

“I’m always feisty.”

“An’ that’s why I love you.” William grinned, tossing her top to the ground so his palms were free to cradle her breasts. “Have I told you I love you?”

Warmth flooded her insides as heat flamed her cheeks. The words never grew old. He whispered them a thousand times a night. He’d kiss her hello and then tell her he loved her. He’d shout his love for her in the middle of a particularly nasty fight with the local demons. He’d make a mantra of the declaration as he unwrapped her from her clothing. His lips would whisper love as they kissed her skin. And the second his cock was locked inside her, his body sang all else which couldn’t be entrusted with words.

William loved her.

There was actually someone in her life who loved her. Someone who didn’t see her as a duty or a burden. Someone who loved her for who she was and not what she was. Every time he whispered those magical words, she was propelled into a world where there was nothing lurking in the shadows. Where there was nothing but William waiting for her in the night. Where the home she returned to was one she loved rather than dreaded.

“Not yet tonight,” she replied cheekily.

William’s eyes twinkled, his mouth skimming southward to taste her throat. “Shame on me.”

“Yes, shame.” She hissed and thrust her hips against his as he guided her onto her back, his body falling easily between her thighs. “You’re a bad man.”

He grinned, skimming his blunt teeth along her jugular. “The baddest.”

“Ohhh…touch me.”

“I am touching you, sweetheart.” His thumbs caressed her nipples before his left hand dipped between them to unfasten her trousers. “God, I love you.”

“I love you.”

William glanced up and smiled into her eyes. “I love hearing that.” He watched her face expectantly as his fingers grazed through her curls, uncovering her clitoris and favoring the small pearl with a delicate caress. “Have you given any more thought to what I asked?”

Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat and her breath caught in her throat. Thought? She’d been able to think of little else since the question crossed his lips; since he explained what it would mean to him—to them. It was one of the reasons she’d been desperate to occupy her mind with something meaningful. With something beyond the tedium wrought in everyday life.

She wanted to say yes more than anything.

The part of her which was afraid of taking the final step, however, could not be moved. If she consented to what he’d asked, they would essentially be transformed into fugitives. They would have to run from Kenneth. From the Watcher’s Council. From the world. There would never be any rest.

But they would be together. And even though her mind was in conflict, her heart was decided.

She wanted this. Any life with William was better than the half-life she was living now.

She wanted to be alive always and not only in the hours shared with him.

“I’m afraid,” she murmured.

“Bollocks,” William replied fondly. “You’re afraid of nothing.”

“I’m afraid of what Kenneth could do to you if he finds—”

He rolled his eyes, his index and middle fingers sliding between her vaginal lips, his thumb settling over her clitoris. “Not this again,” he muttered, though his tone was good-natured. While she knew he didn’t like her constantly tormenting herself over his safety, she also knew there was a part of him which very much loved having someone worry over him.

“Will, you need to listen—”

“’m not afraid of the old git.”

Elizabeth inhaled sharply, jerking her hips forward to drive his fingers further into her body. “I’m afraid for you,” she replied breathily. “You don’t know what he’s capable of…”

“Vampire, kitten. Remember?”

“He’s killed vampires.”

“Buffy, please.” William’s head ducked, his tongue flicking over one of her nipples. “We’ll go away. Far away. We’ll go anywhere that’s not here. I’ll take such good care of you…”

A watery smile crossed her face. “You already do.”

“We won’ have to say goodbye every morning.” William paused, his lips unable to refrain from brushing over her breast, his fingers adapting a cool rhythm driving in and out of her aching body. “If it’s the…the other…the part where you’re mine forever—”

“It’s not.”

If anything, it was the promise of eternity in William’s arms that acted as the strongest counter to her head’s logical argument. An eternity with the man she loved was worth anything; eventually, eternity would turn in her favor. Kenneth wouldn’t live forever. Not like she would. Another slayer would be called and free her of her mission. Kenneth would be angry, of course, but powerless to do anything about it. And eventually he would die, and she would be entirely liberated of his control.

She would be liberated of him entirely.

“Yeah?” he asked hopefully, the hand at her breast deserting her sensitive skin to free his cock.

“I want that with you, Will…”

“Then take it.” He grinned and nipped at her ear. “We’ll watch the sunrise tomorrow.”

“I need to go home—”

“You are home, love. This is the only home that matters.”

Elizabeth tossed her head back and gasped as her vampire’s lips found her throat again, his tongue laving the bite mark he’d given her their first night. Arousal tugged at her gut and she felt herself drench his fingers with desire. Then his hand abandoned her center and the head of his erection nudged her sensitive folds, pressing into her body with slow intensity which had her insides swirling into an unconquerable storm.

The only home that mattered.

The home she had with William. This small place where they lived for a few short hours a day. Where they were together.

“Come on, sweetheart,” William gasped, thrusting himself all the way home. “Watch the sunrise with me. The one you painted…”

She was drowning in his eyes.

“Buffy…my Buffy…”

“Oh…”

“Please. Please…”

And then there was no question. None at all. The clouds parted and the stars pierced through the darkness, allowing an instant of perfect clarity. Of unbreakable understanding. Any price was worth paying if this was what she came home to at the end of the day. If she could have this—have William—for always. If she could live her life rather than watch others live around her.

She had love now. She had a reason for living beyond the monotony of her duty. The perilous certainty of her eventual death. The meaninglessness of her existence to herself, no matter how much meaning she gave others.

“Yes,” she gasped, arching her hips off the mattress in desperation. “Yes, Will.”

Awe overpowered him. “Buffy…?”

“Make me yours.”

She heard his gasp and saw his fangs, and then her body was plunged into ecstasy beyond grasp. He thrust into her with raw animality, need surpassing tenderness. The air around them exploded into the illicit smacks of their bodies rocking together, the wet suctioning sound that hissed through the air every time he tried to pull himself away from her pussy. He drank hard and deep, commanding every part of her that she had to give.

“Mine,” William growled against her bloodied flesh. “You’re mine.”

“Oh yes.”

“Oh God. God…” He pulled back and smashed his mouth to hers, too much in need to shake his demon away. His fangs nicked her lips but she didn’t care. She was drunk on his taste, lost in the sensations he sent racketing through her body; pain and pleasure often went hand-in-hand with him, and even if it rendered her hellbound, there was nothing about being with William that she would trade or change. Not for anything. “Buffy? Please…”

She needed no direction. Elizabeth snapped to herself and lodged her teeth in his throat, clamping down until her tongue was bathed in the undeniable taste of blood. His blood. Her lover’s blood.

And after this…after tonight…

Mate.

“Mine,” she whispered, licking delicately at the mark she’d made. “William…”

“God, yes. Yours. Always yours.”

Her vision blurred, pleasure seizing her every cell. “I love you.”

“I love you. God, how I love you.”

“Yours.”

William nodded hard and kissed her again, his hips still rocking desperately against hers. “Always. My Slayer. Mine.”

It was done, then. It was complete.

She was one with him. She was whole.

And from this, there was no going back.

Sunnydale, California, 1997

After a year and a half under Giles’s care, Buffy considered herself rather schooled in the many expressions of an overly-analytical Watcher. She could almost time how long he would be able to refrain from dropping his spectacles into a waiting handkerchief. The furrow of his brow always marked confusion over a teenager and-slash-or American colloquialism. The narrowing of his eyes was his way of telling her wordlessly that, yes, he did in fact think she’d lost her mind. And, of course, the at-times-comical blanking of his face meant an absolute loss of words.

Never had she expected to fall witness to the entire library of Giles’s expressions in one sitting. In one glance.

Buffy inhaled sharply and quickly averted her eyes. This was uncomfortable enough without her staring him down.

Even if the silence between them was deafening.

Finally he broke with a pointed clearing of his throat. “Do you…do you want to…say that again, perhaps?”

She shuffled uncomfortably. “Which part?”

“The ur…” The corners of his mouth tugged upwards, desperation straining his eyes. “The part that sounded…absurd?”

“I’m not crazy.”

Giles nodded hard and took a step back. “Of course you’re not crazy. I just thought you…perhaps…I thought you…”

“You think—”

“I think you might be confused.”

“I’m not confused.” Buffy shuffled again and heaved a long sigh. “Really, I’m not. And I know how it sounds.”

“I don’t think you can, respectively.”

“No, I do.” A pause. “And maybe if I wasn’t absolutely certain that this is what happened…Giles, my memories are crystal clear. I might as well have been there yesterday.”

“Yes, well…” The Watcher exhaled, turning a quick corner around the library check-out counter to retrieve one of his many aged texts. “According to Xander, he remembers everything about his…persona’s past as well. Including the layout of the nearby military base, as well as how to put assorted weaponry together. I even took the liberty of looking up that Sergeant Nichols fellow he mentioned…the man exists, and he holds the rank—”

Buffy held up a hand, her temper growing short. If she didn’t watch out, she was going to lose what little patience she had left.

She didn’t know why no one was taking her at her word. While true, her story did have its gaping holes and its healthy dose of say-what-now?, she was reasonably certain it wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened—especially in the world they lived in. A world crawling with night-time uglies, undead fiends, and creatures otherwise inclined to make the sort of deal she made with Paimon.

Creatures inclined to feed upon the devastation of others.

Buffy remembered so many things; she remembered how she felt making the deal. How she’d trembled while sealing her fate, while her blood poured over Paimon’s quill and the clouds above her head crashed together in a frenzy of foreboding. She hadn’t minded the price then—she hadn’t cared. At the time, it was merely the cost of doing business. Signing over a part of herself which she had come to view as a burden rather than a blessing. Signing over the part of herself which had sealed William’s fate.

The part of herself that, at the moment, still belonged to her.

Paimon hadn’t shown his head once. Not once. In the three years she’d been slaying vampires, fighting demons, and averting apocalypses, she hadn’t once crossed paths with the Hell King or his legion.

The knowledge was rather unnerving. Had Paimon intended for her to remember him and their deal before he came to collect? Was he planning to collect in person—so to speak—or would she just wake up one morning with an essential piece of herself missing? And if he hadn’t intended for her to remember anything, how was it that she did?

A fluke.

A human spell gone wrong.

God, she didn’t know. And not knowing was going to drive her mad.

Then there was Spike. Spike—her William—reborn. Spike, who was likely confused and furious and a thousand other things she didn’t wish to consider. She’d sold herself to come and find him—to give him life again so that they might be together, and he was in the world, void of her memory and hating every inch of her. No matter how drawn to her he was. William wasn’t William here. He’d had a very different upbringing. He was a part of the Aurelian line—Angel’s line. He was Angel’s grand-whatever here.

When she’d known him, he hadn’t had anyone but her. He’d been alone most of his unlife. He’d tumbled into her village and everything had changed for both of them. She’d been so lonely—so miserable. So isolated from others that she truly forgot, at times, that she was more than just a living weapon. She was more than a girl with a Calling.

She was a woman. She was valuable for who she was rather than simply what she was.

She was someone to be loved.

At least William had loved her. He’d given her so much and asked for so little. He’d wanted forever with her, and she’d happily acquiesced. Only she hadn’t been brave enough to take the final step.

The part which could have saved his life.

She hadn’t run. Kenneth had found them in the end.

Had she run…had she had the courage to toss all else aside for him…she wouldn’t be here. Buffy didn’t know why she hadn’t acted; the life she’d had with Kenneth had been meaningless, but a part of her had clung to it. Perhaps that was due to the understanding that no matter how horrid it was, it had still been all she knew. All she’d ever known before William barreled into her life.

And even when he asked her to trust him, she’d been reluctant to sever the last essential tie.

She’d failed him in that sense.

And if she hadn’t failed him, she wouldn’t be here now.

No. She’d be with William. They would be together. There never would have been a bargain with a demon, a death, a rebirth, and this damnable separation. Instead, Paimon had strategically placed them at opposite ends of the universe. He’d made sure William grew up as he had, of course, and while Buffy knew without question that Spike was completely the man she loved, she also knew that consequences had changed the circumstances.

William wasn’t alone here.

He was with a woman. His sire.

And he was in love with her.

William was in love with another woman. There weren’t words enough to express the pain rocking her insides. The ache in her heart. The sickness in her belly. William was hers. He was all hers. His eyes. His hands. His arms. His lickable stomach. His chest. His smile. His mouth. God, his mouth. Everything belonged to her.

And yet he was with someone else.

Buffy felt like vomiting.

Everything else about William might well be the same. William’s nickname, beyond Spike, was William the Bloody. There was no note of how he’d acquired this nickname in any of the texts she’d picked up, but Buffy had managed to finagle a confession from Angel; Spike earned the nickname because of poetry.

Just as her William had. He would tell her such unbelievable stories about his human years she never knew whether or not to believe him. The subject of his poetry, however, had always been a sore one, thus a topic they danced around without ever seriously broaching it but once or twice. There was very little about his writing that he was proud of.

Except for the time he ran it by Thomas Kyd, who thought it was charming. Shakespeare had given it a cursory glance as well, and while his criticism ranked more on the side of praise, William had been quick to downplay the encounter as though it had meant nothing at all.

“Now that I think about it, it’s possible the git was trying to bugger me,” he whispered into her hair, followed by a quick explanation on what the word ‘bugger’ truly meant.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and giggled into his chest. “Oh, Will…”

“The man was a bit of a poofter, love. Sorry to burst your adorable li’l bubble.”

“He wrote the greatest romance of our time!”

“Yeah. An’ two blokes had to act it out.” William winked and licked his lips, then proceeded to lick hers. “Not sayin’ his poetry wasn’…poetry…but I wouldn’t shag him over it.”

There was every possibility he had lied off his ass about meeting both playwrights, but she hadn’t cared then and she didn’t now. It was a part of William—his poetry and his affinity for telling tall tales. Whether it was drinking with Sir Thomas Moore or stealing jewels from King Philip II, he would spin yarns, then crack with a shit-eating grin when he saw she was hanging on his every word. Mock-fights would inevitably ensue, typically with her beating him over the head with a feather pillow until he confiscated it and mauled her to the bed with hungry, playful kisses.

Buffy sniffed hard, her eyes filling with tears.

How was it possible she’d lived nearly seventeen years of a life she’d bartered for without knowing it until two nights ago?

How was it she hadn’t remembered the man that had saved her from herself?

They were mated—they had been mated. He’d claimed her and she’d claimed him back. It was supposed to be the strongest of the ancient bonds. More powerful than any spell or incantation. Stronger than any demon in this or any other world. A union forged with blood and held together with love. It was a dangerous thing, binding oneself with a vampire. Vampires themselves rarely enacted the practice because vampires were, by definition, mutinous creatures. So few of them cared for the frailties of human emotion. There was lust, of course, but rarely love.

Not love like what she and William had shared.

He’d wanted eternity with her. She’d given it to him. They were linked by blood.

And yet she hadn’t remembered him. She’d sacrificed so much for him, but she hadn’t remembered him. Not even after seeing his face.

William had become Spike. And Spike was in love with someone else.

He wasn’t lonely in this world.

Neither was she.

It didn’t make her love him any less. Time couldn’t change what they’d shared or what they were to each other. Nothing could; not even demons with the ability to shift reality and make them both forget everything that had ever been important to them.

No, Buffy loved him. He was the only man she’d ever truly loved.

And he didn’t know her at all.

It occurred to her that she’d been very quiet for a very long time. With a hard sniff, Buffy looked up and met her Watcher’s worried, compassion-filled eyes. And not for the first time, she felt herself swelling with daughterly love and gratitude.

If only Giles had been alive three centuries prior. If only he’d been her Watcher then.

“I know it’s crazy,” she said slowly. “I really do. But it’s real, Giles. It’s very, very real. All of it. And even if…Angel said there was nothing about me and Will in the history books…fine. But you don’t know this demon I…the demon I summoned wasn’t a garden-variety guy. He was powerful. Is powerful. One of the most powerful demon-lords in the…history of those kinda guys.”

“What was he called?” Giles asked, flipping through his book. “The demon?”

Buffy bit her lip and wiggled guiltily. It felt good—this teenage reaction stuff. Made her feel a bit more normal; the sort of normal she’d grown accustomed to over the past couple years. “You’re gonna wig,” she said, her voice meek.

“Buffy…”

“He’s major bad news.”

“And if…” Giles sighed his exasperation. “If I believe you…that you made a deal with this…demon, we need to know all we can about him and his powers so we have a way to…to stand up to him whenever he comes to collect…whatever it is that you bargained.”

She swallowed hard and rubbed her suddenly-chilled arms with her hands, desperate for some friction. “I don’t think it’ll work,” she replied. “What I…I signed a tablet. A stone tablet. With blood. I don’t think this is the sort’ve bargain you can just ring up an attorney and try to find a loophole.”

“I still think it best to know what we’re dealing with…if it comes down to it.”

Buffy inhaled sharply. “I don’t wanna.”

“What?”

“I don’t wanna tell you. You’ll get all…” She shifted again, feeling all at once very itchy. “It’s something…” It was something he would definitely pull a massive wig over, and given the fact that she’d made the deal when she was in mourning and in a different century, she didn’t feel up to getting an earful from a man who hadn’t been born at the time the deal was made. “I plead the fifth?”

A long sigh peeled through his lips. “Buffy—”

She needed a distraction and fast. “Who was the Slayer?”

There was a long pause, followed by an equally long blink. “I beg your pardon?”

“The Slayer…in the…in the time when I was the Slayer?” Her brow furrowed—her mind playing a rapid game of catch-up. “Who do the history books list as being the Slayer? If not me…Paimon had to—”

Giles’s perked up, his face draining of color. He ceased page-flipping and glanced up. “Paimon?”

Rats.

“Ummm…”

“The…the Hell King…that Paimon?”

Buffy smiled uneasily. “Unless you know of another one…?” Her stomach dropped when her Watcher met her eyes, and cold invaded her skin. “He has the…the kind of power to make the universe his playground…right?”

Giles swallowed audibly and nodded, every inch of his expression wholly frozen. “He does.”

“He had to do some major mojo, then, to make it so there wasn’t a slayer during the time when I was the Slayer…and to…make sure Will was born to his mother…and me to mine.” Buffy’s eyes dropped again, a long shudder commanding her tired body. “He never wanted me to remember, Giles. He did what he said he’d do. He put me in this world and he put Will here, too…but we were never supposed to cross paths. Never.”

The numbed look on her Watcher’s face slowly thawed into something more encouraging. “But you did,” he said swiftly. “Paimon’s plan was thwarted by Spike’s coming here.”

Buffy glanced up slowly, her heart thundering with hope. “You…Giles, you’re talking like you…like you believe me.” She paused. “Do you believe me?”

“I…” He flushed. “You know Paimon. You know the name. That much makes me…it lends you credibility. We’ll leave it at that.”

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t contain her relieved smile if she tried. “Gee, thanks.”

“You have to admit, Buffy, books and demon names are not your specialty.”

A long, dry laugh rumbled through her throat. If she wasn’t careful she might laugh until she cried. The wealth of what she could tell Giles now would have his jaw permanently stranded on the floor. The things Kenneth had made her remember. Recite. Memorize in seven different languages. Oh Lord…she could teach Giles a thing or two now. She could become the Watcher.

Thankfully, the conversation rolled onward before she could reveal as much. She didn’t want to give her surrogate father a complex. Not now.

Not now when he was the only one around who didn’t completely believe she was out of her mind.

“Something went amiss,” Giles mused. “In Paimon’s scheming…there was something he wasn’t banking on. Something which threw Spike into your path again.”

Buffy nodded slowly, the wheels in her head at last beginning to turn. “Yeah. You’re right. If Paimon never intended for me and Will to get back together…to find each other…then—”

“But you said he doesn’t remember you. Spike doesn’t, I mean.”

“No, he doesn’t, but there was something. When we were in the…when we were together, there was something.” Buffy worried a lip between her teeth, her brain desperately pulling on fact and theory, trying to make sense out of a senseless world. She wanted something concrete—something she could grasp and hold. Something to give her some form of hope. “Giles, he could’ve killed me. I was completely defenseless. I thought…I thought he knew exactly who I was. I thought he was just lost and confused…like me. I mistook the…the confusion and stuff for, well, confusion of a different kind. There was a part of him that recognized me. Not a big part, but part enough. And he got all protective of me when the gang showed up. He stood in front of me so I could…” Her cheeks reddened and she cleared her throat. Giles didn’t ask her to elaborate, and she was glad because she wasn’t about to get chatty about how Spike nearly ran all the way to home plate with her in just a few minutes. “There was something about me that he knew.”

“Something else Paimon hadn’t considered,” Giles mused thoughtfully. “Any semblance of recollection.”

The implication in his words made the world stop spinning. Buffy held her breath, hope seizing her tattered heart. “Do you think…” Her eyes fell shut. She tried to rein in control, but it was so hard. So hard when everything was riding on a simple answer. “Do you think…if Paimon didn’t consider this…if he didn’t plan on Will—I mean Spike…if he didn’t plan on him remembering me, but a part of him does at least on some level…do you think it’s possible—”

“That Spike might one day remember you completely?”

Tears prickled at her eyes and she nodded, choking in a sob which desperately wanted freedom. “Giles…he was…” She inhaled sharply. “I loved him so much. I still do. And knowing he’s out there…with someone who’s not me…not remembering me or what we had…it’s…”

“There’s a chance,” he said quickly. “Buffy…all things are possible.”

“Did I tell you he gave me that name? He’s the one who first called me Buffy.”

Giles blinked but didn’t ask. It was probably wise. “All things are possible.” He glanced down, his eyes focusing on the page his fingers had landed on. “As it is…I believe your remembering might have opened a gate.”

She sniffed miserably and wiped at her eyes. “A what?”

“Unlocked doors of history. As long as no one knew what had happened, it was as though it hadn’t. Understand?”

“Uhhh…”

“But now that you remember…the history cannot be concealed. The missing history occurred.” He looked up again, an odd twist of astonishment and pride sweeping his eyes. “Elizabeth Travers. Born 1682, died 1701. Slayer to one Kenneth Travers.”

Everything stopped. Her blood ran cold.

“What?”

“It’s here. A page that wasn’t here before.” Giles held up the thick, aged manuscript and turned it around for her viewing. “No picture. Just a name.”

She saw it immediately. There was no way she could not.

It was her name.

And beside it—beside her name—was William’s.

Listed as her killer.

New England, 1701

It was impossible to keep his eyes off her. William knew; he’d tried. He’d made several futile attempts to drag his eyes away from the goddess currently massaging his foot, but found himself irrevocably drawn to the curves of her gorgeous mouth. The light in her eyes and the way she seemed to glow every time she glanced upward and those precious emeralds met his gaze.

He couldn’t drag his eyes away. There were times he feared she’d disappear if he so much as blinked.

Elizabeth’s creamy skin reddened with the provocative hint of awareness and she ducked her head. Her hands moved over his foot with such attentive affection he had to wonder, truly, if he’d been staked and somehow managed to sneak through the pearly gates. “You’re staring.”

“Am I?” he replied.

“You know I don’t like it when you stare.”

“You should try to be a li’l less beautiful, then.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and he couldn’t help from grinning. “You needn’t say such things,” she said, lightly tickling the soft underside of his foot. William grinned and wiggled—not that it did any good. Elizabeth was the only person, living or dead, who knew how ticklish he was. He didn’t mind that she knew. It was amazing—the wealth of things he didn’t mind she knew. Things he believed made him vulnerable or weak. Things he wished had died with his human self. Things not befitting for a demon.

Especially a demon with his reputation.

William truly had to wonder when he’d stopped caring so much. Or if he’d truly ever cared. There had been a point in life where certain things had seemed so important—things he reflected upon now as a fool’s gamble or an all-out waste of time. He remembered well how he’d felt upon first arriving in their village. How he’d come to the Americas to kill the Slayer, and how a part of him had known the first second he saw her that he was incredibly lost.

No matter how he’d tried to hide the revelation from himself.

Not much of his pre-Elizabeth life seemed to matter a damn to him anymore. He still hunted and fed, though he tried to leave his walking-meals alive; while Elizabeth had never asked him to be anything other than what he was, he knew the idea of him killing would eventually drive a wedge between them. He loved her too much to hurt her if there was an alternative.

There were other things, of course. Things like his reputation, which he’d at once thought his most valuable asset. William found he didn’t give a lick one way or another anymore. What did it matter what other vampires thought of him? He’d had that reputation for damn near two centuries. Two long, lonely centuries.

A reputation was worth rot against the awesome power of love. He’d give it up. He’d give up anything and everything.

Elizabeth was precious. Invaluable. She was worth any price, and no price would ever be enough. Any fool could see it.

He just happened to be the fool she’d chosen.

And somehow, this creature of light loved him. She loved him. She’d let his fangs mark her throat and had whispered she was his. She’d let him claim her.

This woman belonged to him for an eternity.

It hadn’t been an easy transition, and there was still a ways to go. Elizabeth hadn’t yet mustered the courage to break the news to her wanker of a watcher, and while William tried to remain sympathetic, his patience grew shorter as the days went by. He wasn’t irritated with his beloved at all—more the strain of control exacted on her by the git who had raised her.

Elizabeth was terrified of breaking away completely. Kenneth Travers was all she knew. She’d been brought up to believe herself less than human. A weapon forged in flesh and blood, born with only one purpose. She was the Slayer. Nothing more. Nothing less. She wasn’t made to or for love. She was made to die.

It was a callous existence, but it was the only one she’d ever known. And hate it though she did, there was a part of her persistently holding on to it. William understood—truly he did. Her life had been based in this understanding of herself. To grasp something else entirely, to abandon the person she’d been before, was a monstrously huge step. She wanted to do it—he felt how desperately she wanted to be free of Kenneth. But it was still hard for her. God, it was so hard.

And there was bugger all William could do about it other than caress her scalp lovingly and try to keep his manly-giggles restrained to amused chuckles when her fingers manipulated his most ticklish nerves.

In the meantime, he had this. And this was so much more than he’d ever hoped to touch. Lying in a bed they shared. The sunrise she’d painted for him was on proud display on the wall. Elizabeth—his little Buffy—gloriously naked and rubbing his tired muscles. She liked doing little things for him. She liked giving him pleasure in any way she could.

“Why?” he asked belatedly, trying unsuccessfully to bite back a moan when her fingers gently skimmed the arch of his foot. His cock had taken notice of her gentle touches a long while ago—something he knew she’d noticed, as he was rather naked himself. He didn’t know whether or not she’d evaded touching him there out of coyness or because her massage was intended to satisfy a need that wasn’t sexual. Not that it did any good. His Buffy could sneeze and he’d want her.

He always wanted her.

“Why what?” she repeated, playfully pinching his big toe.

“Why shouldn’t I say such things?” William perked a brow and shot her his best seductive look. “You’re gorgeous.”

“You have me. Flattery is unnecessary.”

“An’ the truth? I’d expect you’d still want the truth from me, yeah?”

Elizabeth made another face at him, her hand skimming up the inside of his left leg, her big gorgeous eyes at last landing on his aching cock. “Sometimes I think you say things just to get me to…”

William grinned and thrust his hips forward in a manner that was in no way subtle. “We both know I don’t have to say a bloody thing to get you to—”

“Will!”

“You jus’ take it when you’re hungry.”

He loved provoking her; loved watching her moonlit skin turn red. Loved knowing that the part of her innocence he adored remained untainted. He could be as verbally vulgar as he pleased and he knew she would never become jaded. There was a part of his little Buffy which would perpetually remain the fluttering virgin, and he absolutely adored it.

“You’re a bad man,” Elizabeth declared.

“The baddest.” William offered a wink, wrapping his fingers around his erection and favoring his aching shaft with a long stroke. “Wanna kiss me an’ make it better?”

She slapped his chest and giggled. “You arse.”

“Well, if you’d rather kiss that—”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Will…”

He grinned devilishly and sat up, cupping her cheeks and seizing her lips in a hungry kiss. The world could end several times and he wouldn’t care—the taste of her was too rich to forfeit, and he wasn’t a man who denied himself. “Mmm,” he purred against her mouth. “You taste so sweet.”

She grinned against him, her palm skimming the underside of his erection before her fingers dipped to tease his testicles. “I know what you’re after,” she mused teasingly.

“Well, God gave you this mouth for a reason, woman.”

Elizabeth’s eyes brightened with mirth. “I thought the reason was kissing you,” she replied.

“One of many reasons.”

“And talking? Or are you the sort who prefers his woman silent and submissive?”

William arched a sardonic brow. “Buffy, sweetling, if that was what I wanted, why in the world would I be here?”

She giggled happily. “I love you.”

His heart lifted and his demon rejoiced. “I love you more. Now suck me.”

She flashed him a look of pure defiance, a smirk stretching those utterly kissable lips of hers. However, rather than shoot him another barb, she dipped her head obediently and licked his erection from root to tip.

“Oh God…”

“Is that enough?” she asked cheekily, her mouth already descending again.

“I said suck me. Not lick.”

“So no licking, then?”

He knew nothing good could come from elaboration or clarification; didn’t stop him from trying. Unfortunately, the most he was able to come up with was an ineloquent, “Bloody hell, Buffy…”

Elizabeth grinned, her sinful lips welcoming his swollen, velvety head into her wet mouth, her tongue immediately crashing against him to explore his sensitive slit. She knew what she was doing—Christ, did she know what she was doing. He’d set out to teach her just how to drive him wild, and she was the best student a man could wish for.

“Deeper,” William pleaded, thrusting his hips off the bed. “Take me in deeper.”

She rolled her eyes and did the opposite. And the second his wet cock smacked the cool, unforgiving air that wasn’t his Buffy’s mouth, he could have dusted in frustration. “You’re rather bossy tonight,” she observed.

“An’ you’re a bloody tease.”

“So says the man who…” She broke off and flushed deeply, and despite the heated rage of his need, William couldn’t help but crack a grin. Heaven help the day she ever try to verbally describe a sexual act. Thankfully, he knew exactly what she was trying to talk about.

The way he’d bury his face between her divine thighs and lick her juicy quim until she was trembling hard and bucking off the mattress—so close to fruition…

Then he’d pull away, lick his lips, and leave her aching for him until he decided to take pity on her and give her what she so desperately needed.

He maintained this wasn’t the ideal way to get back at him. No, William much preferred teasing from the other end. When he was the torturer and not the torturee. Still, a part of him couldn’t help but beam with pride.

She certainly had learned from watching him.

“Oh stop,” Elizabeth grumbled, albeit good-naturedly. Her warm hand encircled his erection, pumping him tenderly in the absence of her mouth.

William blinked, the picture of innocence. “Stop what?”

“That look on your face. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.”

“I have to think it, love. If you’d ever finish a thought…” He grinned. “Sometime I wanna hear you say it. Try an’ say it. Say anythin’, really, as long as it’s right nasty. It’d be bloody adorable.”

“You’re swine.”

“You love me.”

Elizabeth heaved a long-suffering sigh. “It’s my burden to bear, I suppose.”

“You love bearin’ it.” His grin stretched wider as his hands wove through her hair, fingers gently massaging her scalp. “Please, sweetheart. I need to feel you. Need…need your mouth.”

Her eyes danced and her head began to dip again. “Here?” she asked, brushing a hot, wet kiss against his belled head, followed by a sultry lick. “You need my mouth here?”

“Buffy!”

A sinful smile stretched her gorgeous lips as she slowly welcomed his cock into the pleasure-dome she called a mouth. William gasped so hard he could have sworn his heart leapt within his chest, his head flying back to the mattress, his hips thrusting upward in a needful frenzy. There was nothing about her that wasn’t perfect. The stroke of her tongue along the underside of his erection, the way her teeth gently skimmed the length of him the further he slid into her heavenly wetness, the light which sparked her eyes at his every whimper. She closed her lips around him and sucked hard, pulling on his flesh and tugging him so close to paradise he could have sworn the walls around them didn’t exist.

“Oh God, Buffy…”

“Mmm…”

And God. The way she whimpered and mewled around him. He was completely unmade.

“So hot. So bloody hot, you are.” He bit down on his lower lip, his grip on her hair tightening. “Love you so much.”

“Mpphffe yew,” she replied, winking.

Then the head of his cock brushed the soft, warm back of her throat, and she contracted her muscles around him, squeezing him so right. William howled and bucked, the hand at her head defying reason and dragging her upwards until he was free of her exquisite torture and sitting up again so he could kiss her perfect mouth.

“I wasn’t finished,” she complained when their lips parted.

It took a few embarrassing seconds to remember he didn’t need the breaths he was gulping. “I was gonna—”

“I know.”

“You don’ like—”

Elizabeth winked and kissed him again. “I suppose I’m…acquiring a taste,” she replied coyly, her hands gently shoving him backward until he was pressed against the mattress again. By some divine mercy, her tongue returned to his length, licking him like he was a treat designed to be savored. And as much as he loved the feel of her mouth on his cock, he much preferred it when her wet sheath surrounded him. When her breasts were pressed against his chest and her lips were his for the taking.

“Buffy…need…need to be inside.”

She glanced upward with a pointedly arched brow, but didn’t argue. Instead, she released him completely and began a slow prowl up his body, looking positively catlike, her lips stealing kisses of his body with every pace she made. She sampled his stomach, his abs, bit lovingly at one of his nipples—she drove him out of his sodding mind, and she did it with such tenderness he wanted to weep.

“God, you feel so perfect,” William murmured as the head of his cock rubbed against the fleshy wetness at her center. She was drenched with lust. Lust for him.

“I bet you say that to all the slayers,” she retorted, nipping his mouth.

“Buffy…” He gripped her hips, holding her above him. “Need…”

There was one thing to be said about slayers; they didn’t take to direction very well. At least this one didn’t, and he couldn’t be more grateful. She silenced him with a kiss and sank down, infusing his body in the warmest homecoming it had ever known, or would ever know.

“Oh Will,” she whimpered, her body beginning a slow dance against his without any need for direction. She’d transformed into a sex goddess overnight. A sex goddess who blushed through her innuendos and couldn’t verbalize anything overly seedy. “You feel…”

“So good,” he finished for her, his hands sliding up over her perfect skin until he had a breast cradled in each palm. “So…hot. I love—”

A shard flew through the sanctuary they’d constructed—a small, nearly indiscernible disruption, but a tangible one nonetheless. William froze immediately, grasping her hips again to cease their lovemaking. When she fired him a questioning look, he merely raised his index finger to his lips to indicate a need for silence.

And just like that, the mood was broken. Reality had settled in. With Elizabeth perched on his lap, her pussy wrapped around him, the fog of their fantasy melted into the real world again. A world where she was the Slayer, he was the vampire, and this thing between them was forbidden.

He hated the way her heart thundered. He felt it, just as he felt the aching rush of her pulse and the way the passion in her eyes faded into fear.

There was a chance he was wrong, but he doubted it.

“Will?” she asked sharply, her voice a harsh whisper.

He waited another beat. And another. And another.

Then it came again. Louder this time. More definite.

It was a quick decision, really. A call he made instinctively without bias. Without weighing the factors and giving into temptation. One he made entirely with his Buffy in mind, forfeiting everything his true nature demanded. Now was not the time to start another argument about confronting her Watcher. Now was not the time to make a rash decision. Now was the time to get up and get her downstairs. Down to the cellar where he spent his days. To the hiding place no one save his mate knew about.

“Will, what—”

William shot up, his arms clamping around her middle, his cock slipping out of her. Her legs impulsively wound around his waist, her arms locking around his neck, and then he was moving. Moving too quickly to be walking, but silently enough not to betray their presence. He refused to let her go—not even when he bent over to move the rug which concealed the trapdoor aside. Not even as he hurried them downstairs. It was only when his feet touched the ground that he felt it was safe enough to lower her to the floor.

If only so he might straighten the upstairs’ appearance as best he could.

Elizabeth was usually the one who situated the rug over the door. Elizabeth had never hidden with him down here. There had never been reason.

There wasn’t enough time to make things look perfect, if such was even possible. He heard voices and heavy footsteps outside and made the final duck downwards with only seconds to spare.

When he turned again and took her in—his beautiful, courageous Slayer—and saw the fear in her eyes, a part of him shattered.

This was killing her. Perhaps so slowly she hadn’t even noticed yet. Perhaps she was ignoring it for the sake of her denial. Perhaps a thousand things; he just knew it was killing her.

Not being with him. That wasn’t it.

It was the fear of the Watcher. A fear she probably didn’t recognize. A fear she likely brushed off as something overly insignificant.

William reached for her and she was in his arms the next second, her face buried in his shoulder, her trembling body pressed so tightly against his that her tremors became his own.

“Shhh…” he murmured into her hair, kissing her temple.

And then, from above, voices.

“Not in here,” one said gruffly. “Though the bed’s all in a tangle.”

“They were here recently,” came another voice. A colder one. One that had Elizabeth freezing against him.

That had to be Kenneth Travers.

“’Spect they got tipped off?”

“No,” Travers replied softly. “I think, once again, you and your men were too bloody loud.”

“We was quiet!”

“’Ey. Look ‘ere,” a new voice said, inspiring a parade of thunderous footsteps as men shuffled toward the attraction. “Pretty. Didn’t think ‘ouses came with murals.”

“They don’t, you simpering buffoon,” Travers snapped. “I told you, one of Elizabeth’s pastimes is painting, didn’t I?”

“Oh. Right.” A pause. “Whassit s’posed to be?”

William couldn’t help it; he rolled his eyes. Honestly…

“She painted the sunrise for her lover. How…sickening.” There was another pause. “Search the premises and the grounds. I doubt they got far.”

“And if we find the girl firs’?”

“Elizabeth is my concern, not yours. You’re to bring her to me.” Travers was quiet for another long, dramatic beat. Then, “The vampire…you may do whatever you want.”

William tightened his grip on Elizabeth to keep her from gasping. She didn’t. She didn’t do anything. She just held onto him.

Trembling.

Cold.

Crying.

But not making a sound.

Sunnydale, California, 1997

So that was the way history would have written it. Had she never made the deal with Paimon, had she not sold herself in the hope of finding her lover again, she would have been immortalized as Elizabeth Travers, victim to William the Bloody. History would have recorded the only man who had ever loved her as her killer. History would have branded him something he was not.

A fond, however heartbreakingly sad smile quirked her lips.

Though certainly not for lack of trying.

Giles had done his best to reassure her, saint that he was. He told her records of slayers and their deaths were often fuzzed over. None of the records of final battles had been proven absolutely legitimate. Most watchers became so close to their slayers that memory of their death was too painful to place into words. Often, the details became muddled and confused, sometimes split with the details of another. The lack of accountability in Elizabeth’s history was unfortunate but not uncommon. Nor was identifying the wrong source as her killer.

Encouraging thoughts, those. But she supposed she could understand, in some small way. Of all the details of slayers’ past that Giles shared with her, the pivotal last moments of her fallen sisters had never been among them. Even though she felt the study was worthy of attention if only to avoid the mistakes others had made.

The mistakes she had made.

Buffy inhaled sharply and shivered, her feet making a sharp left turn as she headed through the cemetery. She didn’t feel in the right mind for patrol, but she knew she would be better off out here than at home. Home offered nothing but silence, and silence paved an unwanted path through self-reflection and other dangerous musings. She didn’t want to offer her brain the chance to taunt her with knowledge.

She didn’t want to think about Spike and his mistress. The one whom Angel said he’d loved for over a century. She didn’t want to think about Spike—her William—touching another woman. Kissing another woman. Making love with another woman. Loving another woman. She couldn’t stomach it—her gut tied up in knots and her lungs became stingy with oxygen.

William hadn’t had anyone before her. His love for her had been a first. A first-time experience. There was no grand woman in his past who had filled in the decades of silence with pleasure. It was why he’d been so resistant to fall in love with Buffy in the first place. He hadn’t known what it was, and when he put a name to it, the knowledge that he loved the enemy had nearly torn him apart. He’d responded violently and in haste—not that it had done any good. What was supposed to have been their last fight had indeed been their last, but they had walked away united instead of broken apart. They had walked away more alive rather than dead.

Would William have loved her if he’d had a woman before her? One he’d loved as Spike loved Drusilla? Or would Buffy not be here at all? If William had loved before her, would her fate have been sealed those three hundred years ago, leaving time unaltered and a different slayer under Giles’s care?

God, she was so foolish. So miserably idiotic. She hadn’t asked for enough and she’d still managed to take too much. Perhaps this was the unspoken price Paimon had collected; the cost of living in a world with William came at the expense of knowing he didn’t love her here, and the looming certainty that he never would.

It was amazing what a little knowledge could do. How far it could go. Buffy heaved a sigh and turned her eyes heavenward, taking in the stars. She was no older now than she had been when she’d first lived, but she felt wiser. The unlocked gates of her mind provided knowledge she would never have appreciated in this life. There were things she looked upon now with shame. Arguments with her mother, the way she so often neglected her friends, the way she flippantly bent the rules around Giles. How she took her support system for granted. How she took everything in her life for granted.

Without her mother, her friends, and her Watcher, she would only be half alive. In some way, simply by existing, they had saved her from the fate she’d been cursed to live as Elizabeth Travers. She didn’t fear Giles in any sense of the word. If anything, Giles was the embodiment of a mentor; the father she wished she’d had. He was someone she could trust. Someone who wouldn’t look upon her unfavorably for decisions which were her own.

Someone who knew and understood that being the Slayer didn’t make one any less human. He didn’t expect her to fork over her life—he just wanted her to respect her duties.

Which she didn’t always do. She’d fled the first time he placed the dusty Vampyr book before her. Just two weeks ago, she’d lied about feeling ill in order to go to a frat party—a party which, oh yeah, had nearly come at the cost of her life. She constantly referred to her Calling as an occupation rather than the sacred duty it was. She often short-changed patrolling in the hopes of seeing Angel. She fought, sure, and had saved the world once or twice, but that didn’t make her the best she could be.

It made her fortunate.

It was so strange how a simple different set of circumstances could change her world view so drastically. As the Slayer of Kenneth Travers, her strength, her Calling, had been something she resented above all things. At the end she’d wanted nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. After all, it was her strength which had compromised her as the Slayer and labeled her as a devil-worshipper in the eyes of the villagers. It was her strength that had ultimately cost William his life. Her strength, her duty, her Calling.

Though similarly, her Calling had brought them together.

The world was compact with irony.

Likewise, Buffy couldn’t say her attitude this time around had been a beacon of sunshine. She was hardly a good example of an attentive student. And there were times when she resented her sacred responsibility so potently she could spit nails. However, a larger part of her was rooted in morality and the recognition of how important her obligation was to others. Giles had instilled in her such appreciation. Know it or not, he had.

So here she was. A slayer reborn. A girl. No, a woman. A woman now.

A woman with two histories.

A woman in love.

A woman who had gambled everything away for the man who had rescued her from herself.

The man who didn’t know her.

Chills spread down her arms, her butt finding the surface of a gravestone. She didn’t feel like walking anymore.

Foolish to think she’d be safer from her thoughts here than at home. She wasn’t safe anywhere. Not from herself.

“I believe the words you’re looking for are be careful what you wish for.”

Buffy froze and the world froze with her. Her blood stilled. Her heart stopped. The wind fell silent around her. All shadows hardened into stone. The voice harkened with terrifying familiarity. It was one she wagered she would know anywhere. Hearing it once had a way of leaving a permanent mark. Even if Halloween hadn’t opened her eyes to her true past, the voice of the Hell King would have thrown her from her self-constructed abyss and plucked her back into a form of reality no one could deny.

The first time she’d seen Paimon, he’d stood well over seven feet in height, his head adorned with a jeweled crown. That much had not changed. He was still unreasonably tall, still prancing around on proud display as the royalty he was. She didn’t remember much else of him aside from his pale and strikingly effeminate face, and the black robes his body had then been wrapped inside. There were no robes now; rather a tailored suit of fine Armani, complete with shoes that would have most gay men drooling all over themselves. He struck her as a very tall and very deadly David Bowie, and had she not been paralyzed with terror she might have laughed herself silly.

“I admit it a tad cliché,” Paimon continued conversationally, stepping fully out of darkness and under the pale moonlight, making him appear more than ethereal. Making him look, for a split second, like nothing more than a common ghost. He was truly formed from shadows—shadows composed his limbs, sculpted his face, and blended seamlessly into his skin. He was made of them, constructed of them. Born, perhaps, in the night and thus always lurking in silhouettes. The thought made her shudder.

“Cliché?” Buffy repeated. “You take everything from me and call it a cliché?”

Paimon shrugged easily. “I cannot take what you do not willfully bargain.”

“I never wanted this.”

“No? I beg to differ.” A lecherous smile stretched his inhuman lips, his long, gangly legs sweeping a grand step to her left. “You were quite determined when we first met. Do you remember? You gave all away without demanding the price. You were quite adamant about that. Before I could even speak, you forfeited yourself. As long as I did not possess your soul, you seemed more than content to provide the cost of what you asked.” He yielded thoughtfully. “And even so, I believe you would have gambled that as well. Your mortal soul. Your life. Anything and everything you could summon to get your precious William back.”

“Will doesn’t remember me,” Buffy barked, fear giving way to rage. “He doesn’t remember me at all.”

“Ah. Sweet Elizabeth. Lies do not become us.”

“It’s Buffy now.”

Paimon inclined his head politely. “Buffy,” he agreed. Then paused and added, “Did you like that bit? I thought you might appreciate his name for you becoming the title by which you were known in this life. Call it a gift.”

“Your generosity overwhelms me.”

“I aim to please.”

“He doesn’t remember me,” she snapped, unwanted tears stinging her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was give this unholy creature her tears. He had everything else. Blood, her bargain, William’s love—God kill her before she gave him her tears as well. “He doesn’t—”

“Ah, ah. You said it earlier, did you not? You said dear William recognized you.”

“Recognizing me and remembering me are hardly the same thing, and you damn well know it.”

Paimon didn’t attempt to argue the point. Rather, he offered another apathetic shrug. “You did not ask that he remember you.”

The simplicity and contradiction of this statement had her seething in a blink. Buffy jumped to her feet, seizing the stake she kept tucked between the waist of her trousers and the small of her back. It was a feeble weapon against such power, she knew, but it was all she had. And she was determined to prove she wasn’t afraid.

Even if all of her trembled in dread.

“Wrong answer,” she nearly growled. “Wanna try again?”

The Hell King offered another indifferent shrug, not even blinking at the appearance of a stake in her hands. “You did not ask that he remember you,” he replied. “Nor did you ask that you remember him. All you wanted was William back, and I gave it to you.”

“Will was in love with me.”

Paimon’s malicious eyes sparkled with merriment. “And are you saying it is impossible for William…oh no…I’m sorry, Spike, to love you? He simply doesn’t know you. I’m sure, given time…”

“He—”

The demon held up a hand. “Enough.”

“You lying—”

There was a break then; the creature laughed. He looked at her and roared with laughter, and the sound was as chilling as anything she’d ever heard. It consumed her, filling the air with the emptiness of sorrow and the sting of loss. It sent shivers of absolute hopelessness down her spine. He mocked her without shame; without a need for shame. He mocked her with openness that left her insides bleeding.

“Imagine that,” he sniggered, rubbing his jaw with pale, near-skeletal fingers. “A thing of Hell, lying to the Chosen warrior of all things virtuous and just. I simply can’t imagine what I was thinking. My apologies, dear Buffy. I assure you, it won’t happen again.”

“You son of a—”

“Sorry. Forgive me. That was a lie.” He shrugged, laughing still. “I can’t seem to help myself.”

“How would you feel about me ripping out your ribcage?”

“A little disconcerted, seeing as I don’t have one.” Paimon smirked, but the mirth in his eyes was fading rapidly, leaving the ground on which she stood freezing while it burned. The duality of sensation had her terrified, but she refused to blink. She refused to betray anything which could rightfully be construed as fear. He already knew she was terrified—there was no reason to validate what he already knew. “You were a foolish child, Buffy. Perhaps if you had listened to your dear Watcher, you would have learned the value of not making bargains with the Devil.”

“You’re not the Devil,” Buffy spat, the grip on her stake tightening.

Another unmoved shrug. “You say tomato,” he replied. “And truly, dear, I would love to spend my evening catching up, but I have business to tend to. You know: souls to capture, havoc to reap, the virtuous to cor