Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 7 - LAKE OF FIRE

People cry, people moan.
Look for a dry place to call their home.
Try to find some place to rest their bones.
While the Angels and the Devils try to make THEM their own.

(Nirvana, Album - MTV Unplugged with thanks to Zanthinegirl for the suggestion)




Chapter 7.11
Wednesday, July 17th, 2002


Buffy was vaguely aware that Spike wasn't heading in the direction of their room but, right then, she couldn't bring herself to care where he was taking her. It was only when she realised that he seemed to have made certain preparations that she began to pay more attention to her surroundings. Spike laid her gently onto a two foot high stack of thick exercise mats and placed the axe by her side before he made his way back up the basement stairs, closing the door at the top and locking it.

Candles burned in holders on every second step and every foot or so around the edge of the room, which was still almost bare except for the mats and the chains in the centre of the floor.

The vamp let his duster slide slowly down his arms to drape itself over the concrete floor as he prowled back to his woman. "You know what we have to do... don't you?" he asked in a rasping whisper, listening to the acceleration of Buffy's pulse as he crawled along the length of her prone body to look into her eyes.

For just a fraction of a second, the slayer's expression bespoke the same confusion and frustration that had marred the meeting upstairs. Then, she realised the full significance of the territorial gleam in the vamp's eyes. Although he was still holding himself in check, the tiny hairs on the back of Buffy's neck prickled their awareness of a nearby predator. Suddenly, Buffy knew that she didn't have to wait helplessly for Caleb's next move while her wedding day drew closer. She knew that there was one avenue of enquiry that had yet to be explored, one that was only open to her and her mate and one that had the potential to be a lot more exciting than reading any of Giles' dry old books. With that knowledge Buffy felt the power grow within her, as if her feelings of helplessness had stifled it like an oxygen starved fire that now roared into a beautiful and deadly inferno.

She reached up and gripped the neckline of Spike's T-shirt in both her hands, ripping it apart as if it were as easily torn as wet tissue paper. "I know what we have to do," she responded, her eyes bright with an inner light. She savoured the vampire's feral grin, their gazes locked on each other, as she slipped free of her shoes and curled her legs up between them. Instead of letting her knees drop to one side or wrapping her legs around Spike's waist, she pushed out against his solar plexus with a strength that launched him backward several feet.

She rose from the makeshift bed and shucked off the shirt that covered her strappy top before she picked up the axe.

Spike grinned his approval from where he was sprawled on the concrete floor, trying to regain the breath that he no longer needed. He pulled the shredded cloth from his torso. "Come on, kitten," he urged as he rose to his feet and beckoned her on. "You know I like a bit of rough and tumble."

Buffy sauntered cockily towards him, holding the axe loosely in one hand as she closed the gap, but her first quip was cut short as Spike drove a shoulder into her stomach and propelled her back onto the mats.

He reached up and tore aside the thin fabric that covered her torso.

Buffy's bared breasts heaved up and down, holding the vampire transfixed as she gasped for the air he had driven from her body. That lapse of concentration was all that the slayer needed and she rolled them both until she looked down on her mate, the wooden point of the axe's handle pressed against the pale skin over his heart. "You're going to reach down very slowly... You wouldn't want to do anything that just might make me slip, and you're going to take off those jeans you're wearing."

Spike raised his hands and moved them unhurriedly down to his belt buckle, sliding the leather end free of its belt loops and unfastening it with a rattle that was so familiar that it alone caused Buffy's stomach muscles to tighten and her heart to race. Quick as a striking rattlesnake, his arm swept the axe to the side, leaving a livid pink scratch across his chest, and sending the weapon flying from Buffy's grip.

Buffy immediately tumbled into a roll, snatching the weapon from the floor as she moved. She was surprised when she turned to face the vampire once again, to find that he was kicking off his boots.

Button by button he undid the flies of his jeans and pushed the heavy cotton down his legs, before stepping free of it. "All you had to do was ask, gorgeous. 'Sides, they were gettin' a mite restrictive."

Buffy found herself unable to resist staring at his swaying cock, fascinated by the way it brushed against the rippling muscles of his stomach as he swaggered naked towards her. The balance of power had shifted again and she was once more hunted instead of hunter... not that it really mattered since in this game they both came out as winners.

"Your turn, spitfire, unless you plan to go back to our room with your arse showin' later..." Spike raised an eyebrow as he slowly but inexorably closed the gap between them. He reached out and pulled the axe from Buffy's suddenly nerveless fingers and hurled it backhanded across the room so that the blade buried itself horizontally in the plaster and lath wall above the mats. The thin fabric of Buffy's low-riding trousers tore easily, as he shredded them and her panties with the same economy of movement, every sensual action speaking of raw animal power constrained, and Buffy eagerly kicked her way free of the remnants.

"You really do think you're God's gift, don't you?" she asked more from reflex than from any desire or power or rapidly receding concept of rational thought. Grabbing the vampire by his forearms and swinging him around she pushed him back against the wall. An instant later her naked body crashed into his, her mouth claiming his with mounting ferocity, before she in turn was picked up, and her back smashed against the wall.

"Know you are," the vamp hissed against her ear in reply. Only the pressure of Spike's body pinning her against the wall kept Buffy from slipping down. Then, cool hands slipped between her thighs and guided her legs around his waist and conflict evaporated into co-operation as they drove toward their mutual goal.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she raised herself up until she felt the tip of his dick brushing against the damp folds of her sex. She slammed home, her eyes widening in momentary pain and short-lived satisfaction at the sudden penetration before she began to raise and lower herself in a deliberate rhythm.

Spike gripped his lower lip between his teeth and, focusing on that minor pain instead of physical pleasure of their joining or the primal feelings of desire, joy and power that coursed through their shared bond, he managed to stagger his way from the basement's side wall, to the end wall and finally to the mats in the corner before he let them tumble over. Buffy's body landed under his, the momentum of their fall driving them together with a force that sent tremors through both their bodies. The vampire guided Buffy's hands to where the axe was embedded in the wall above her head before he let the tide of their emotions carry him away.

Her fingers slipped naturally around the wood, one hand grasping the grip behind the gleaming axe head, the other wrapping around the stake-like handle, her knuckles whitening as she pressed back against the axe to stop Spike's pounding thrusts from driving her further and further up the mats. She revelled in the ferocity of their mating, the channeled violence calling to the primitive inside her in a way their more gentle lovemaking never could and she began to feel the first tremors in her muscles even before Spike's head dropped to nuzzle at her claim mark.

"Change... Spike," she gasped with the little air that she seemed to have left to her. She felt the pressure build in the pit of her stomach as clearly as she felt his shifting bones pressing against her neck.

The vampire lifted his head for long enough to claim a scorching kiss, sharp teeth leaving cuts in each of their tongues though Buffy was too lost to the pleasure to notice such a minor pain.

Instead she whimpered at the loss when he dropped his head to her neck once more.

His teeth pierced deep into her flesh, and as he drew the first mouthful of blood from her veins she plunged over the edge.

She screamed out his name as his seed spilled inside her and while the echoes of her cry still reverberated off the walls, she fastened her mouth over the area where Spike's neck and shoulder met and bit down until the copper taste of her mate's blood filled her mouth, mingling with the taste of her own.

"Mine," Spike growled by her ear, his hips moving more slowly against hers now, grinding firmly against her at the end of every stroke and setting off aftershocks that made Buffy's whole body quiver.

"Yours... always," Buffy replied as he began to lick closed the wound on her neck. "Mine?" she asked, nipping playfully at one of the vamp's earlobes as he finally stilled.

"'Til the end of the world, princess."

Buffy lowered her arms, dropping them over Spike's head and letting them rest against his back as the visions began to overtake them both. It was much later, when the flashes of the future had long since faded into an exhausted sleep, which in turn had given way to a hazy languor, that she realised that she still held the axe.

---

 

Penelope's eyes went to Giles as she felt the floor move beneath her feet. "Is that an earthquake?" she asked with a slight tremor in her voice as she mentally measured the distance between herself and the nearest doorway.

Giles barely glanced up from the book on the desk in front of him. "I'd like to think so," he replied.

"Couldn't it have some paranormal significance? Wasn't there an earthquake when The Master was released?" Penny asked.

Wes smiled at Giles' obvious reluctance. "I suspect we'd find the disturbance too localised to qualify as an earthquake. Let's just say that, when it comes to Spike and Buffy, talk about the earth moving isn't always hyperbole."

"Oh!" Wes's mother flushed a delicate shade of pink.

"But if we're lucky then, yes, it will have some paranormal significance."

Wes grinned when Penny's eyes widened even further as she realised exactly what was taking place beneath their feet. "Does Quentin know that they're mated?"

"Funnily enough, we've never got around to asking him. We were a little disappointed when he sent an assassin as his engagement present so we didn't mention it to him," her son remarked.

The library doors pushed open just at that moment, framing Quentin Travers as he rubbed at a large bump on his head. "Was that an earthquake?" the council head asked.

Penny raised her eyes heavenward as if in exasperation. "It is Southern California, Quentin. What did you expect?"

 

---

 



Buffy unclenched stiff fingers and let the axe slide to the floor beside the mats. When her gaze returned to her fiancé she found his eyes still sleepy but open and watching her in turn.

He wrapped his arms around her and rolled them both so that his weight no longer pinned her though neither of them made any move to separate their joined bodies. "Love you," he whispered at her ear, though the words were superfluous in their shared afterglow.

"Love you, too, smarty-pants," Buffy half-sighed. "But I don't know why you couldn't think of this days ago," she added, giving him a gentle prod in the chest.

"Wasn't sure how you'd take to gettin' hitched with fresh fang marks on your neck. Thought I'd let the council of wankers have a try."

"I suppose I should get dressed and go tell Giles, and then we can try to find that place."

"Where's the hurry, love? In case you didn't notice it was dark in that vision, an' I reckon if it wasn't meant to be somethin' for us both to do, they'd have found the answer in one or other of their books by now. Just like you an' the jailbird were meant to find the thing, you an' me are meant to find out what you do with it."

"But, Spike," Buffy pleaded as she widened her eyes disingenuously. "There must be hours before it'll get dark. Whatever will we do?"