A/N: This chapter is un-beta'd, so any faults and flaws are mine :) Apologies for the delay in posting, I've been a little busy!

Cara Mia - Chapter 6

Spike groaned quietly. He was chained to his bed in the crypt, restrained and helpless as the Slayer teased him, using nails, fingers, lips, teeth and tongue to blur the line between pain and pleasure, tormenting him and driving him to a state of exquisite, agonizing ecstasy. Her hands trailed heat along his muscled thighs, sweeping over his hip and across his stomach, wringing panting cries from his lips. He gritted his teeth even as his hard length pulsed with frustrated lust, his shoulders and arms tensing against the bonds wrapped tightly around his wrists. Buffy's tongue discovered the dip where his thighs met his torso and lingered there, the wet heat so close to his groin burning through his already frayed control. Her hair brushed against his neglected cock and he shuddered, straining harder against the chains holding him in place, and they creaked in warning. Buffy looked up, her eyes glinting mischievously.

"Now, are you going to behave, or am I going to have to stop? Remember the rules, Spike," she admonished, licking her lips slowly for effect.

"Dammit, Buffy!" He snarled, battling his demonic urges to wrench free and take the Slayer hard and fast.

"Oh, come on, Big Bad. You're tougher than this," she challenged him, pressing kisses closer and closer to the swollen flesh between his legs to the sound of his increased hisses and growls.

At the first touch of her teeth gently nipping the delicate sac holding his balls, he felt the last of his willpower flee, and he transformed, using the sudden surge of power to break the links of steel with a fierce roar. Driven by a lust and hunger too long denied, Spike lunged for the Slayer, stumbling when his feet landed on a stone floor so cold even his cool skin felt the chill.

His amber eyes snapped open, the dream dispelled by incongruity. Spike took in his surroundings and rolled his eyes: another bloody dungeon. His wrists were still banded with iron manacles, a few stray links dangling uselessly, and he was naked bar his jeans. That wasn't much of a mercy in itself - the drug induced dream had left him with a hard on he could use to break bricks, and the material chafed. Now wasn't the time to deal with his discomfort, however - he needed to focus and find a way out of this place, and then he had to go see a man about a girl.

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Dawn pressed the button on her mobile to end the call when she was directed to Spike's voicemail for the twentieth time.

"It's not even ringing," she sighed at Andrew, who was sitting nervously on the edge of his chair, chewing his fingernails.

"Maybe, maybe he's found Buffy and they're...ummm...working things out?" He suggested helpfully, a weak smile on his face. Dawn snorted derisively.

"Yeah, and maybe all vampires have decided to go vegan. Andrew, how on earth did you and the other two dweebs make an invisibility ray? You're even more cerebrally challenged than my sister!" Dawn paced around the apartment, Andrew's eyes tracking her every move.

"There's no way that Spike would have left without at least telling me. Something's up," she declared with finality. Andrew's brow wrinkled with anxiety.

"He could just be...y'know...drowning his sorrows like rejected lovers do," he tentatively reasoned, flinching when Dawn rounded on him angrily.

"Don't say that! Buffy didn't reject him. If you'd told her Spike was back, we wouldn't be in this mess, and she wouldn't have tried to kill him. Yeah, don't think I'm gonna be in a hurry to forget whose fault this is, you...you...Jar-Jar Binks!"

Andrew's face turned red and he jumped to his feet.

"Stop calling me names! I was being honorable, like a samurai...I was keeping my word to my fellow warrior!"

"Oh, please. Andrew, you have never been a warrior. You're like, the comedy lame dude that everyone just feels sorry for. You couldn't fight your way out of the bathroom. Now shut up and help me figure out where Spike is. If we can get him and Buffy together tonight and you explain everything, then maybe she'll stop with this "kill the evil doppelganger" crap," Dawn absently twisted one long lock of hair in her fingers as she thought, oblivious to the miserable expression on her companion's face.

"Spike didn't say where he was staying, but is there any way we can find out from, say, Wolfram and Hart?" She continued, thinking aloud.

"I'm not sure what they're like here in Rome, but I guess we can ask. Maybe if we drop the Immortal's name into the conversation they'll consider it a favour," Andrew mused, stroking his chin in an exaggerated gesture, yelping as he was dragged towards the door and handed a glitter-covered helmet.

"Let's go make some new friends, then," the brunette teenager set her jaw, trailing her one-man geek squad as they left the apartment.

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Spike had passed frustration and settled into boredom. The only way out of his cell was the door, and it had resisted all his attempts to tear through it or rip it from its hinges, which left him with the proverbial Hobson's choice: waiting for his captors to turn up and then introducing them to his unique form of anger therapy. It felt like he'd been biding his time for hours, although there was no way of telling, apart from the nagging itch of nicotine withdrawal.

'Could have had that wank after all,' he smirked to himself. He was half tempted to see if he could conjure up the dream he'd been so enjoying before his rather rude awakening, but it wouldn't do for him to miss his chance of escape just for a brief moment of solitary pleasure. He'd just settled himself on the floor, back to the wall to which he'd been chained, his long legs stretched out in front of him, when he heard footsteps approaching. He toyed with the idea of hiding behind the door and simply jumping whatever it turned out to be, then remembered the little scene in the graveyard. If, as he suspected, the Immortal had arranged this little abduction scenario, Spike might be able to figure out his rival's little scheme if he played along for a while. Nothing would please the blond vampire more than being able to bugger up whatever power play the Immortal was trying to make, show the ponce that the line of Aurelius never let an insult go unanswered; of course, discovering and foiling some dastardly plot couldn't hurt his case with Buffy, either. Now that was a winning situation. The footsteps halted just outside the door, and Spike stood, hooking his hands through the ruined chains and trying to make it appear as though he was still shackled to the wall. He hung his head, his disheveled hair falling forward over his face in loose curls, and glared with narrowed eyes towards the entrance as a key rattled in the lock and bolts slid back.

Well, it was ugly, Spike had to give it that. Tall, too. Fortunately, Sedran demons not only had vocal cords, but they had enough intelligence to be more than grunts. Hopefully his luck was changing, and about bloody time. He waited, lowering his eyelids until his lashes brushed his cheeks and listening to his jailor's movements.

'Just a little closer, mate. Come to Spike,' he silently willed. His skin bristled with the urge to allow his demonic nature take over and he struggled to control himself, knowing he couldn't afford to waste this chance. God, what was taking so long? He risked a swift glimpse, and swallowed hard when he saw the Sedran arranging some very odd items on a bench - a jar, an assortment of what seemed to be long handled clamps, the all-too common colored candles and a blade with an evilly serrated edge. While pain wasn't something he was afraid of, unknown rituals were definitely on his list of things to avoid, and this had all the hallmarks of an event where he would be playing a starring role if he didn't get the hell out here.

'Torture again. Why me?' Fate obviously loved having a laugh at his expense, or maybe it was simply that every time he was close to Buffy, there was some karmic balance to pay. The universe's way of reminding him that the Slayer was so far above him, so out of his league, that he had to prove himself over and over again. Yet even though it seemed that every touch, every taste, every kiss was paid for with his blood, pain and tears, he wouldn't have it any other way.

"Love... it's blood screaming..."

"'Cause it's always got to be blood."

He realized he knew how Angel felt, had always felt, about the magical blonde woman who'd obsessed both vampires since they first clapped eyes on her. His grand sire had brooded, moped and finally walked away from her because no matter how much he tried to make amends for the sins of his past, he'd never feel worthy. Angel would never forgive himself enough to accept Buffy's love, even when she gave it to him freely. He took everything else though, the thought making Spike grimace in anger. Her confidence, her trust, her dignity, her blood and her virginity, and she'd never recovered. Spike doubted that Angel had even thought about the damage he'd done to the woman he professed to love eternally, but Spike had experienced the fallout firsthand. The icing on the cake was that it wasn't Angelus who'd been responsible, it was Angel. The souled, repentant vampire himself, not his evil twin. There would always be a part of Spike that regretted not killing Angel when he had the chance, now he was aware of the full scale of the elder vampire's emotional abuse of the strong but fragile girl.

Spike had to get of here in one piece. The only way to heal Buffy was to love her, and if there was one thing Spike knew how to do, it was exactly that.

To hell with Angel, to hell with the Immortal, and to hell with waiting. Bringing his demon to the fore, Spike threw himself onto the spined back of the Sedran demon, wrapping the trailing chain around its neck. Yanking it tight and pulling with every ounce of his supernatural strength, he braced himself and hung on while his opponent flailed around the room, slamming him against the wall with enough force that he felt a rib crack.

"Right! Now I am very, very pissed off!" He snarled, twisting his arms and throwing the Sedran to the floor, pouncing on top of the prone and choking body and snatching up the blade laid out so conveniently nearby. The demon struggled under the vampire, freezing abruptly when Spike plunged the knife low down into its side.

"Got your attention, have I? Now, there are a hundred things I'd rather be doing than this, so let's make it quick. Why did you and your mates nab me, and what's the Immortal playing at?" To make his point, he flicked his wrist, grinding the weapon into the wound he'd made. Ichor was already leaking onto the stone flagging like black syrup, and Spike hoped he hadn't hit something too vital. The injured Sedran grunted in agony, mumbling.

"I suggest you work on that pronunciation, mate," the vampire grinned, and the unfortunate demon began to talk as fast as he was able. Spike listened in horrified fascination and growing alarm with every sentence, his petty revenge vanishing as his panic expanded. When his captive came to the limit of his knowledge, Spike turned the dagger a final time.

" Where's my stuff?" he growled.

"Only your...coat, left. Room at..end of hall," the Sedran gasped, barely managing to get the words out before Spike withdrew the weapon and slammed it through the creature's right eye with such force that the point buried itself in the stones under the demon's head. In one fluid moment, the vampire was on the move, the twitching corpse and broken chains the only sign he had ever been there.