Chapter 28 – Butterflies of Passion
Everything was shrouded in shadows.
Their bedroom was colder than Buffy had ever known it to be. However, it wasn’t
the temperature that made her shiver but the memory of her the heartless
treatment by her mates. She opened her eyes to a blinding darkness that brought
tears to her eyes. It was all around them. So, thick that one could almost see
it vibrating in the air. Something, maybe everything had changed between them.
She mourned for the way they had been before the whole fiasco had started. For
those days before they allowed Angelus loose. Since his awakening, they had
slowly been losing the innocence of their love.
Never before had she been
afraid of her mate’s demons. Angel had always taken care of her and not since
Spike had vowed to love her had she ever felt alone in his embrace. This
morning she knew she had been given the gift of both but yet somehow she felt
closer to them than ever before. Her rose colored glasses were lying twisted on
the floor somewhere and the truth was all she had. The truth of whom and what
they all were.
Awakening a little more Buffy
realized she was still nestled between them. Their arm’s held her in a
protective embrace or maybe it was possessive? She shuddered at the thought that
maybe they wouldn’t let her leave the bed. Praying they didn’t wake, she crept
out from under the blanket. Carefully she eased her way down the bed and
crawled out between their feet. They moved together as she left, never stirring,
and she breathed a sigh of relief. In slumber they were both so beautiful, so
innocent appearing in their human guise, that it made her question if maybe it
had been a dream.
Her first footstep made sure
she knew it wasn’t. The single movement brought pain through her stomach, lower
back and anus telling of just how uncaring they had been that they were hurting
her. Buffy knew that a human would have died from their actions of the night
before and she only hoped that the Slayer power that kept her alive would soon
begin to heal her. Every hobbled step was agony as she made her way upstairs to
her bathroom.
A long soak in a hot bath
was the only thing she wanted at the moment. The desire was even stronger than taking
something to chase away the dizziness that kept making the room spin. A sense
of relief flooded her once she had the water running as hot as she could stand.
Only a few moments more and her body would hopefully have a reprieve from the
nightmare that wouldn’t go away.
Buffy turned to the mirror
but was unable to face herself; too ashamed, too embarrassed, too unwilling to
face the changes within herself. She chronicled the marks upon her body though,
the bites on her neck and shoulders, the one on her thigh, the blood that had
flowed and dried along her chest, back and legs. Finally, she touched the
bruises that bore the imprint of their hands on her hips and her breast where
Spike had held her close for the last bite. Tears filled her eyes and she
blinked them away as she pinned her hair out of the way. Later when her body
had healed would she allow her heart to cry. Not
wanting to bear the truth anymore, she lit the candles that were placed around
the room then turned the light off. It was more comfortable in the dark, easier
to forget.
There were only a few feet
between her and the tub. Buffy closed her eyes to garner the strength to cross
it but had to turn around. She barely made it to the toilet as she began to
empty an already empty stomach. Hanging over the toilet she couldn’t hide from
reality anymore. It was there in the bile and blood that poured from inside her.
Spike and Angel had raped her.
And in the acknowledgement
came a rage she didn’t know she could possess.
~~~~~~~~
Spike knew the moment Buffy
woke. He felt her shudder when she realized she was still with them then her
unconscious wince when she gathered the nerve to leave their bed. A sickening combination
of sex, blood and fear hung heavy around the girl he had vowed to love forever.
Needing confirmation that it had really happened he gazed at her from beneath
his lashes and saw the injuries they had so callously lain upon her tiny form.
Guilt like he’d never felt
before rocked his heart when he watched her hobble from their room. Too ashamed
to admit what he had done he stayed huddled next to his Sire when she left. He
listened to each gasped breath that it took for her to reach the bathroom. His
eyes were clenched closed but he could picture Buffy turning the tub on, could
smell the lighting of the candles, then the sounds of her vomiting.
It was the last that drove
him from the bed. He would have to shoulder the responsibility of his actions
and try to make amends anyway he could. Spike made a detour to the kitchen to
pour a glass of juice for her and to grab some pain medication. He took the
steps two at a time, hurried down the hallway then hesitated at the doorway too
terrified of what she would do. Tears filled his eyes as he forced himself into
the room where Buffy was laying back in the tub. Her eyes were closed as he stepped
closer.
“Is that the way it was in
the old days?” Buffy asked, never opening her eyes. “You and Angelus having
your way with a girl that you fancied but I guess I’m luckier. I lived. Isn’t
that right, Spike?”
“I’m sorry, Buffy,” Spike
offered, spilling some pills into his hand. “I know…know there is no way I
could ever make it better. I brought you something for the pain and some
juice.”
“Put it over there,” Buffy
said, waving toward the vanity. “I want you here, where I can touch you.” She
indicated the floor next to the tub.
There was something
different about her but the emotions inside of Spike were too intense for him
to decipher exactly what they were. Needing absolution, anything to help ease
the regret inside of him, he sat where she indicated. The feeling of her hand resting
on his shoulder only intensified his guilt. How could she touch him so gently after
what he had done to her?
“Do you love me, Spike?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then how could you?” Buffy
asked. Her hand never stopped petting him. “How could you treat me like that?”
A sob broke free from deep
within his chest. “I…I’m sorry. I don’t know how I could have done it.” It was
a lie. He knew what had pushed him to do the one thing he swore he never would
do.
Fingers drifted through his
hair. “Yes, you do. Why do you lie to me now? We both know but confessing your
sins will make that awful ache go away. Tell me.”
“It felt good, Buffy,” Spike
cried. “Oh, God, it felt good to hurt someone…it’s been so long since I’ve been
free. It was like a drug I had to have and nothing mattered but…making
you…forcing you to do what I wanted.” He pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms
around his knees, as inhuman weeping echoed around him.
“And Angel only encouraged
it, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he…he, I can’t blame
him…he didn’t stop me but it’s what I wanted. The fear and the blood, it was so
sweet.”
“Shush, my love. It’s all
over,” Buffy said, her fingernail scraping along his ear. “I still love you. I
always will. You know it too. Nothing can separate the three of us now.” Water
dripped over him as she leaned from the tub to whisper in his ear. “But we
can’t let Angelus rule us like we have. We need to take control and bend him to
us. Isn’t that right?”
“He’s my Sire,” Spike said,
trying to look back at her but she pulled back into the shadows again. “I
can’t…it’s not possible.”
“Anything is possible now,”
Buffy whispered. “If you want to make it up to me then you will do as I ask. You
do want me to be happy, don’t you?”
The brief hope of keeping
her love and gaining her forgiveness seemed to be fading. He had to choose
between the demon who had caused him so much pain in the past and the girl who
had given him so much love. The girl who was still willing to love him after
what he’d done. He had to make it up to her, the burning guilt inside of him
demanded it, and with a heavy heart he nodded. He gave her his loyalty and felt
a minute bit of relief from the agony.
“That’s my good boy,” Buffy
said, returning to caressing his shoulder as he turned back around. “Soon it
will all come to pass, Luv, very soon.”
~~~~~~~~
The moment that Angel awoke,
he knew that something had changed. He lay there trying to figure out what it
was. His mates were gone from the bed beside him but his heart reached out into
the darkness to find them. They weren’t hard to locate. The soft murmurings of
their voices, and their very essences told him they were in Buffy’s bathroom. A
smile graced his lips at the thought of them bathing together then it faded
just as quickly when he remembered the night before.
His eyes flew open as he sat
up in bed and accepted the truth of what he felt. No longer was he torn between
him and Angelus. It was an almost peaceful feeling inside his heart and head at
being the only one. But, yet, at the same time he felt a connection with his
mates that had never been there before.
Angel climbed from the bed,
driven by the need to know if they felt it too. The stairs were taken two at a
time as he rushed to them. Without hesitation he strode into the bathroom and
stopped in surprise when he saw Spike sitting on the floor. He’d assumed they
were bonding and recovering from their activities in a tub filled with scented
bubbles. It was something they had often enjoyed together in the past. Neither
of them looked up at him when he halted only a few steps into the room.
“Are you two all right?”
Angel asked.
Buffy’s was slowly stroking
Spike’s arm while he rocked back and forth. Angel’s confusion only grew when he
heard his Childe sniffle. He knew they had hurt Buffy the night before. He
accepted it but if either of them would be in need of comforting he assumed it
would be her and not Spike.
“You ask if we are all
right? That’s kind of funny,” Buffy said, never looking up, never moving except
for the motion of her hand along Spike’s flesh. “Did you think that this
morning we’d go back to being your happy mates?”
“Buffy, I know it got out of
hand last night,” Angel said, finally accepting how bad it had been for her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Or are you just
sorry that it didn’t work?”
“What didn’t work?” Angel
asked, stepping back into the shadows. He didn’t understand how she could know.
There was no way she could have found out. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
“You’ve always been such a
coward, Angel,” Buffy said, twirling Spike’s locks in her fingers. “You had to
let Angelus do your dirty work. It wasn’t very nice to turn him on the two that
had vowed to love you forever.”
“Angelus is gone,” Angel
said, hoping that the surprise would give him leniency.
“I know that too but that
doesn’t change what you let him do,” Buffy said then laughed briefly. “Did you
think it would work? Did his plan to help
you really make you think that he would?”
“What did he do?” Spike
asked, speaking for the first time. He turned his tear ravaged face to his
Sire. “What did you do?”
Angel blinked at what he
thought he saw but when he stepped closer Spike hid his face again.
“Tell him, Angel; let Spike know of your plan.”
“I…I let Angelus free last
night,” Angel started but he couldn’t speak the words of his betrayal. He hid
his face in his hands as his body trembled under the pain he’d caused because
he’d been afraid.
Buffy leaned over the tub
again. “Angel thought he would gain your loyalty forever if he let you go first
and that I would be so destroyed by the rape
that I would always be his broken doll. He would keep us by his side forever
but he didn’t know that he would only drive us closer together.” She lay back
in the tub with her eyes closed again. “Spike has given me his loyalty. Not
you.”
“I am his Sire. He can’t do
it. It’s established in the power of the blood.”
Everything was falling
through his hands. Angelus had been so charismatic, luring him to his side by
whispering of what he could be. His greatest fear of being left by his mates
had been played so convincingly until he promised Angelus whatever he wanted as
long as Buffy and Spike would stay with him.
“Everything changed,” Buffy
whispered. “You feel it like I do. Accept what has come to be and we’ll let you
stay with us. Fight me, fight us and you’ll find out what torture truly is.”
A chill ran through him at
Buffy’s words and the continued sounds of Spike’s crying. It wasn’t just
changes brought on by the violence of the night before. Something had happened
in that moment of claiming. Needing to know if his suspicions were correct
Angel reached for the light switch. The room was illuminated in the harsh glare
of the overhead lamp. His mates turned startled eyes to him and he saw the
truth in their depths.
The soul that burned in a
pair of tortured blue eyes.
And the glowing amber that
told of the demon that now lived inside the Slayer.
To be continued…
