She Comes to Me

No Mountain too High, No Valley too Low

Gently Angelus cleaned the wound on Buffy’s back. 

She hissed out a painful breath, “Ow, damn it, Angelus that hurts!” 

Refusing to admit that he had been terrified for her, Angelus transferred that paralyzing fear into anger. Carefully he pulled a piece of the (detested) practical cotton shirt she had been wearing out of the wound and tossed it in the general direction of the trash. 

“Well it wouldn’t hurt if you hadn’t gotten slashed in the first place,” he snapped, “You getting killed isn’t part of the deal, Buffy.” 

“It’s not like I did it on purpose,” Buffy grumbled as he leaned down to softly kiss the four two inch wide claw marks, unable to resist even this proof that she was still with him. “You’d think that after all this time fighting for my life on a nightly basis, I’d learn to duck.” 

Clenching shaking hands into fists, Angelus didn’t say anything. He was afraid that if he did his voice would break with the emotion that churned inside of him. He looked out at the grassy knoll, a picturesque setting for the house they currently inhabited. The Dacca demon had come to of nowhere, slashing its way through their ranks before they had time to register the fact that it was there. 

When the claw ripped through the air, tearing through Buffy’s back Angelus thought his world had ended.  The roar that escaped him effectively stopped all fighting for a precious second as he charged the demon, eyes glowing saffron, growl a constant sound, fear pouring through him at the sight of his mate falling in seeming slow motion, her back a bloody mess. 

Usually his strength was considerable, he had a reputation as being on of the strongest vampires alive and that was before he drank from Buffy. Now, fueled with anger and fear, he advanced on the demon, killing everything in his path, ally or not. The demon was at least six feet tall, weighing in at a good four hundred pounds, three foot arms each with deadly sharpened claws, and rumored strength to match even a slayer.

The demon never stood a chance. 

Angelus never felt the claw that glanced off his arm, too focused on killing the thing that not only dared touch his mate, but had the audacity to harm her as well. He roared again and several of his closest minions looked at him, wondering at his eyes, no longer a fierce golden but a deep blood red. 

With one twist he decapitated the demon, turning his back on it before it had a chance to fall to the ground, oozing blue blood. 

“Buffy?” Gently he held his fallen mate, smoothing the hair back from her face, careful not to touch the wounds on her back. She blinked up at him, eyes hazy but she nodded, anyway. It wouldn’t do to show weakness; even with a gaping wound such as she sported.

Helping her up, he held back the wince at her face, a mask of pain. But then she grimaced and slipped into her vampiric face, scowling at the closest vampire who still stared at her. He was one of her own but that didn’t stop her from killing him, just to make her point; hurt or not, she was one of the strongest vampires in the world and that was final. 

The fight, which wasn’t all that much of one until the untimely appearance of the Dacca Demon, ended quickly after that. When the vampire couple had walked confidently through the now burning streets of the very green and really tiny Tennessee town, the moonlight shining her weak half light on them, even the defeated knew that they were truly magnificent leaders. 

Buffy had fed then, two homeless men in quick succession, but the claw marks on her back only partially healed. Angelus had, again, placed Connor in charge of cleanup and surveillance, and taken her to a cabin. 

Dacca’s claws weren’t poisonous, but acted on a vampire’s flesh much like a human getting pawed by a particularly nasty wolf. They’d heal but it’d take longer than normal. And the fact that half Buffy’s shirt was in the wounds wasn’t helping matters. 

Angelus had never been so scared in his life. 

Buffy tried to roll over but any movement pulled on her back; it wasn’t painful but it was highly uncomfortable. Plus she wanted to be fully healed by the evening when they were to leave. Stifling the gasp that threatened to escape, she shifted until she could look at her mate without pulling too much on the healing skin. 

“Angelus? Baby, what’s wrong?” She asked but had a fairly good idea what the problem was. 

In all their time together neither had really been injured; this just brought back to them that despite their propaganda otherwise to the demon community, and despite them being stronger than anyone else in the world, a fact they proved time and again, they both could be killed. Immortality and invincibility weren’t mutually exclusive. 

He hadn’t turned, hadn’t done anything but stare out the floor to ceiling windows. But she could feel him, and even if she couldn’t, she knew. 

“I’m fine, Angelus, they’ll be healed in a few hours, you know this. I got injured all the time when I was the slayer, this isn’t different.” 

“It is, Buffy!” He exploded, whirling to face her. “You are not allowed to die, I refuse to allow it. Carelessness like that…you know better.” 

Buffy merely raised an eyebrow. While her own temper was rising, she knew what he meant. “Carelessness? Angelus, I seem to remember there being no reports of a Dacca Demon at all in the Northern Hemisphere; and, if you recall, I was busy with a rather large group of vamps who refused to see the light – so to speak – and simply join us.” 

The rage in his eyes had not dimmed but they were back to their normal golden vampiric state rather than the blood red of before. “No excuse,” he said, knowing that any argument he made was feeble at best. It wasn’t that she was unprepared, they all were, it was that…he almost lost her. 

And that brought the simultaneous sensations of fear and anger. 

“Damn it Buffy, why did you make me feel this way for you?” It was whispered but carried clearly across the room. 

“You never get a choice in love; it’s just the way things are.” 

“You know,” he said, the tone almost reminiscing as he walked back to where she lay on the large open bed, “It never used to be this way. Darla, Dru, any of my childer, I never cared about them. If they chose to travel with me they knew, they all did, that it was to each our own, every vampire for himself. Now…with you, damn it, I don’t know what to feel.” 

She held out a hand to him, beckoning him to their bed, “I know, love, I know.” She didn’t say anything for a while; just lay with her head pillowed on his chest, his hands cradling her as if she would break. Buffy almost laughed at that, he had inflicted much more damage on her body than the wounds she currently carried. 

“Love’s a funny thing,” she heard him say at length, moving from under her only to reposition himself over her back, lips tracing the scratches. 

He was gentle with her, not because of her wounds, not because they caused her pain or he felt badly for her. But because he had almost lost her. And that was the one thing in this world, or any really, that he would no tolerate. 

His tongue lapped at the scratches, a soothing gesture that gave her both pleasure and relief from the ache. His lips kissed down her spine, over her firm ass, tasting the flesh of her sensitive thighs and the backs of her knees. 

Across her shoulders to suck on her neck. His hands held her, lifted her just enough to pinch her nipples, causing Buffy to gasp for more. She moved then, ignoring the stinging from her back, knowing only that she needed her lover, needed his body for when they were joined nothing else mattered. 

Angelus knew and understood and complied. Sinking fangs into her shoulder, he tasted just a bit of her but Buffy exploded in her orgasm. She screamed his name and Angelus suddenly didn’t care if he hurt her. He was allowed to, he and only he was to be the sole source of whatever pain and pleasure she felt. 

He slammed into her then, ramming home in a single thrust. He sank deeper into her as Buffy arched against him, her back leaving bloody trails along his torso but neither noticed. Pain and pleasure, after all, were one in the same with them. 

“Faster, Angelus,” She whimpered, and he was more than happy to comply. 

Pounding into her, he set the pace and refused to relinquish control. Again and again his slammed into her but she met him every time. 

It didn’t last long, and Angelus felt his body tightening, reading for its climax. He sank his teeth into her then, drinking deeply, probably more deeply than he should have but he was still angry and wanted to punish her. And he would, later, but this was for now. 

“Buffy!” He growled as her body clamped around him and she shouted his name in return. He collapsed atop her, not caring that he crushed her into the mattress and Buffy didn’t seem to mind, either. 

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