In a tangle of arms and bodies, they staggered toward the bed, until the backs of Spike’s knees hit it, and he fell back onto the bed, pulling Buffy down on top of him as she did. His hands moved blindly over her body as his lips, tongue, teeth ravaged her mouth. Almost by instinct he moved to reverse their positions, to roll over on top of her.

But soft, firm hands pressed him back down onto the mattress, not allowing it, and a warning buzz from his chip kept him from resisting. Buffy pulled back from the kiss, shaking her head slightly in a teasing, reproving way, her eyes glittering and lips turning up into a smile with the thrill of her own power.

*Bloody hell!* he thought with a shock of realization. *The little chit can do whatever she bloody well wants and I can’t do a thing about it!* His eyes widened as they met hers, and saw the blatant desire there. *And she bloody loves it – the bloodthirsty little minx!* Then Buffy lowered her mouth to his neck, pressing hot, steaming kisses on his throat as her hand at his hip edged lower and inward to touch him through his jeans.

*And so do I,* he admitted to himself with a moan of pleasure as tiny, sharp teeth nipped gently at the crook of his neck.

As her touch became firmer, bolder, he groaned. “God, Slayer!” as he reached one hand down toward hers, or toward his zipper, he really couldn’t tell as they were so near to each other at the moment. Her free hand caught his and pinned it back down to the bed as her not-free hand intensified its efforts, but still did not release him from the tight-to-begin-with, ever-tightening material that now imprisoned him.

His voice came out in a raspy whisper, “Slayer, please, oh God, please!” urging her, begging her on to more. She would not allow him to help her, to touch her at all, and though the surrender of control to her was incredibly erotic, her torturously slow ministrations were driving him over the edge.

She hated that he always called her that – Slayer. Never her name. The word had fallen from his lips in many ways – mocking, menacing, dripping with anger or even hatred – never in raw need and arousal like this. Still, her title seemed so impersonal. She craved more – the intimacy of hearing him call her name in passion.

Between kisses and nips at his throat, moving slowly down to his shoulder, she whispered, “My name…is Buffy…” She paused as her hand tightened slightly on him and he moaned. “Say it,” she ordered in a desperate whisper.

Aroused even further by the demand in her voice, his need increasing with her every touch, every word, he gasped out, “Oh, God, *Buffy*! Buffy, please!”

And suddenly she was riding the edge herself, with the sound of his voice, hoarsely gasping out her name in pure desperate desire, a foreign, enticing intimacy. She clasped his hand in hers on the bed and drew it to her thigh, unspoken permission to touch, guiding it a few inches upward before releasing it to find its own way up her body as her hands fumbled desperately with his zipper.

With a shuddering sigh of mingled pleasure and relief, he brought his other hand up to the small of her back to press her body harder against his.

*Bloody hell. I love winning.*


Nearly an hour later, Buffy reluctantly raised her head from where it rested on Spike’s bare chest to look him in the eye, a question in hers. “So this is the end of all that ‘I want you, no I don’t, I want you, oops, no I don’t’ crap? No more torture?” she demanded, eyes narrowing in a glare at the thought of the way he had taken pleasure in tormenting her.

“Only if you ask me,” he assured her, his voice dropping to that low, sexy rumble as he raised a suggestive eyebrow at her.

“Oh, don’t even start!” she said quickly in mock-horror, pulling herself up and out of his arms, which tried to hold her down with him, to no avail. “I think three in…oh my God…*one hour*…is my personal limit!”

Smiling languidly up at her, watching as she pulled her clothes back on, Spike said softly, “We haven’t come *close* to finding your limit, love.”

Buffy froze, her shirt open and unbuttoned as she faced him, took a step toward the bed, moments from taking it off again and climbing back in with him.

“No,” she said firmly, stepping back again. “I’ve been gone long enough as it is. Cordova’s already gonna want an explanation for where I’ve been.”

“Will you tell her I was very, very bad, and you had to punish me?” His voice was a mixture of teasing and seduction.

“God, Spike, *stop*!” Buffy insisted. “If you don’t cut it out, I’m gonna end up right back in that bed, and I *need* to go!”

He smiled. “*What’s* my motivation for stopping exactly?” he asked.

She went to his side and took his head in her hands, drawing him in for another kiss. Then she looked deep into his eyes and said softly, “I really, *really* have to go.”

He sighed. “All right. So the plan goes down tonight, then?” Concern replaced the desire in his eyes.

“Yes. Here.” She tossed him something from her pocket, and he caught it in his hand. A cell phone.

“What’s this?” he asked, frowning.

“I’ll call you when the chips go down. That way you’ll know when to do it,” she explained.

He nodded as she headed for the door. “See you tonight then, love.”


The afternoon and evening crawled by, with nothing to do but wait for midnight. Spike could feel tension rising in him; every moment brought them closer to Diana’s release from the hell he had birthed her into.

He was no fool; he knew that the next morning there would be consequences for their actions tonight, and he would be the one to face the general’s wrath. But Buffy was right; she wouldn’t kill him; she needed him. And whatever else she might do – well, he would recover. It was worth any cost to get Diana out of this place.

Hours later, he was surprised when the door to his suite opened. With a wave of hatred and apprehension running through him, he saw that it was Lieutenant Finn. The look in Finn’s eyes sent a chill through him, but he covered it well.

“So back to search for nothing again, are we?” he taunted the soldier, because he was physically incapable of keeping his mouth shut around Riley Finn.

“Not quite, hostile,” Finn sneered, a cruel gleam in his eye. There was a blur of movement behind Finn, and glancing over his shoulder, Spike watched with dismay as another soldier dragged Diana into the room.

This could not possibly be good.

“I think it’s high time you learned just who’s in control around here,” Riley said coldly as the soldier dragged Diana past them into the bedroom.

“What is he doing?” Spike demanded, stalking after the soldier into the bedroom. Remarkably, Riley stepped out of the way to let him, then followed him into the bedroom.

The soldier was binding Diana’s wrists to the bedpost. Spike moved forward to stop him, but before he could move more than a step, Riley had struck him hard in the backs of his knees with something sharp and stinging, and he dropped to the floor. Turning to see what he had been hit with, he saw that it was a leather riding crop.

He tried to rise, but Riley’s heavy hand on his shoulder held him down. “Now come on, Hostile 17. You don’t want me to use this on your girl, instead, do ya?” he said in a soft, chillingly pleasant tone. Instantly Spike’s struggling ceased.

Turning to see what the soldier was doing, Riley said, “That won’t be necessary. Untie her.” He dismissed the soldier with a wave of his hand, turning a cruel smile on Diana as he said, “She’s gonna be a good girl…” Without warning he slammed the crop down across Spike’s face, knocking him down and leaving a vicious, bloody welt where the rough ragged leather cut his cheek. “…aren’tcha, Baby?”

Her eyes filled with tears as she whispered, shaking her head slightly, “Please! Please don’t! I’ll do anything!” Her sorrowful eyes fell on her sire’s battered, bleeding face as she whispered again, “Please.”

Spike was struggling to get back to his knees, dizzy from the force of the blow, and the intense fiery pain in his face. Riley shook his head reprovingly, but he was smiling in pure pleasure as he said, “Now, Diana, did I say you could talk?” And he brought the crop down again, across Spike’s shoulders this time, and then again across his face.

Diana looked away, tears spilling down her cheeks, but silent, as Riley dragged her dazed sire across the room to the corner, where a large heating pipe ran the length of the wall, continuing through both the floor and ceiling into the rooms above and below Spike’s room.

Testing its strength with his hand, Riley found it to be satisfactory and took out a pair of the specially made, super-strong handcuffs used by the Initiative. Once he had secured Spike’s wrists around the pipe, behind his back, he gripped his hair and yanked his head back, smiling as he said, “Now listen carefully, Hostile 17. These are the rules of the game.” Without warning he punched him brutally in the face, the pain compounded by the impact of Riley’s fist against the bleeding wounds from the crop. “*I* make all the rules!” Riley sneered.

“Diana is *mine*, and I will do whatever I want with her, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it! And I’m gonna prove it…and you’re gonna watch.” His voice was calm and cold. “You say a word about it, or I catch you looking away,” he held up the crop, “and *she’s* gonna get it. Are we clear?” His voice was chillingly calm, his smile cruel.

Spike’s eyes blazed with pure hatred as he glared at Riley. He knew what was required of him but could not bring himself to agree with the horrific “rules” of Finn’s twisted little “game”.

Riley shrugged and went to the bed, striking out at Diana, landing several sharp, stinging blows across her bare legs. She cried out in pain, but did not even dare to try and pull away.

“Stop!” Spike cried. “You sick, demented wanker! Leave her alone!” He was desperate to get to her, to help her, but the cuffs and the pipe held firm.

Not even looking at his victim, smiling triumphantly into Spike’s eyes, Riley punctuated his next words with two more brutal blows to Diana’s bleeding legs. “Shut. Up.”

Spike obeyed, shaking with fury and fear for his childe.

“Good. I think you finally understand the way this works,” Riley said, then turned to face Diana. “And you, Baby, you’re gonna do as I say too, be a good girl, no fighting, no trying to get away – or *he’s* gonna get it. Everybody clear?”

Diana nodded fearfully; Spike helplessly did the same.

“By the time this night is over,” Riley vowed, “you’re both gonna know beyond all doubt that I *own* you!”

Spike glanced up at the clock on the wall with desperate eyes.

It was only nine o’clock.


By ten o’clock, if there had been any doubt, they both knew that Riley Finn was a sadistic, sick, power-hungry monster. The things he had forced Diana to do, to allow to be done to her, turned Spike’s stomach. Once or twice he couldn’t bear it and looked away, but the sound of the crop snapping down on Diana’s naked body and her terrified screams of pain drew his eyes instantly back.

When the soldier had spent himself, at least for the moment, he decided to pass the time by taking the crop to Spike. The vampire master managed not to utter a sound as the burly soldier brought the weapon down on his already-battered body again and again. He did not want to give Diana any more to worry about, or Finn the satisfaction of hearing the screams that he gave place to only in his mind.

Due to his steady diet of experimental drugs, Finn had a powerful arm, and did not hold back, venting all of his rage and hatred toward the cocky vampire and his absolute refusal to ever acknowledge Finn with any sort of respect.

Even now, he refused to do what he knew the lieutenant wanted. He wanted to hear him scream, beg, curse, anything that would in some small way acknowledge Finn’s power over him – but Spike did not make a sound. Even when he became so weak from pain and loss of blood that he slumped to his knees on the floor, he kept his silence.

Spike was disgusted by the knowledge that working him over with the riding crop seemed to prepare Finn to return to Diana. And though he felt like he would pass out any second, he was once again forced to watch as Finn cruelly violated her again.

It went on in that fashion for so long, the vicious soldier alternating between his two victims, using each to prove his point to the other. And the point he was making to each was the same: Spike was powerless to protect Diana against him.

As the horrific night wore on, Spike was relieved to see that Diana remained relatively uninjured, at least physically. Finn did not seem to want to scar up his favorite toy. Therefore the most violent of his actions that night seemed to be reserved for Spike.

After the last vicious beating, Finn returned to Diana, who suddenly dropped to her knees before her master, her eyes dry – no tears left by this point – but still beseeching him desperately. Spike felt an almost physical pain to see how battered and exhausted she was – how utterly broken.

“Please,” she whispered. “Master – please…” Her voice failed her; she could say no more.

Finn smiled viciously as he stalked over to Spike and dealt him another cruel blow in the face. Then, confident that his point was made and she would cooperate, he returned to Diana, grabbed her and slammed her down onto the bed.

Spike glanced up at the clock again…11:57.

He watched carefully as Diana, her spirit unable to bear any more, no matter what threat Finn used, instinctively struggled against him, though weakly. He watched as her expression changed slightly, a strange wonder in her eyes. He knew what it meant; she was surprised that her struggles against her tormentor had caused her no pain.

In the next moment, he heard the faint sound of a cell phone ringing in the next room – the “Mission: Impossible” theme, he noted with faint amusement. *The Slayer thinks she’s so clever!*

Finn got up from the bed, turning toward the sound, listening. “What is that?” he wondered aloud.

“It’s time,” the vampire rasped from where he knelt in the corner, his head down.

“What?” Riley snapped, whirling to stride quickly toward him, crop raised menacingly. “Time for what?”

The vampire did not respond, did not move, his head still bowed.

“Time for what?” Riley repeated, his voice threatening as he advanced.

The vampire slowly raised his head, and the lieutenant was chilled by the malicious smile on his face. His attention riveted by the cold light in the ice-blue eyes, the soldier did not notice as the vampire’s childe rose silently from the bed of her defilement, with murderous vengeance in her eyes.

In a low, hypnotic voice, the vampire met the soldier’s eyes and answered his question.

“Time to die.”