Blood of My Blood
Chapter 2

AN: I had so much fun writing this chapter and made a few people bust a gut when they read it...not to mention me having the giggles for like three days straight! So enjoy and don’t worry, there will be payback. *wink*

And of course, a big thanks to Ruth and Meg for taking the time to beta my work and Zoe for reading it over to keep me on track.



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Buffy didn’t make it far from the mansion. Her body hadn’t been able to heal much in the few hours she had slept that day—even with the help of the vampire licking. It made her flight for freedom very difficult and she stopped to lean against a tree with her eyes screwed closed in pain.

Where was she going to go? Home? Not really an option after the way she left, her mother’s parting words ringing in her memory. Giles wasn’t her biggest fan lately, either, with the whole “not-doing-her-duty-so-Jenny-died” thing. And, Xander? He’d weighed in pretty heavily on the side of the badness of “Buffy-not-staking-Angel” on top of the “Buffy-dating-Angel” issue. Willow was in the hospital and although Buffy did need medical attention, she never did like those places. It was just too iffy; they could somehow catch on that she wasn’t completely normal.

So, again, where was she going?

Nowhere.

A dark shape launched itself at her and brought her to the ground with a snarl. Spike was in Buffy’s face, growling animatedly as if she could understand, which she surprisingly did, a little. Obviously, he wasn’t very happy when he found her gone and was making sure to get across how he didn’t want her doing this again.

A part of her wanted to laugh as the image of a dog doing the same thing popped into her head. Now was clearly not the time to laugh at the angry vampire, though.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” she told him quietly, raising her good arm to brace her hand against his chest. “Please get off me; I’m still all with the injuries here.” Her eyes darted down for a moment then back to his. “Not to mention, a big ‘ew’ at the naked stuff touching me.”

He grunted something that didn’t sound entirely friendly then buried his face in her neck for a moment. A shiver traveled down her spine when she felt his rough tongue on her sensitive skin. She suddenly realized what he was about to do and guessed it was his way of punishing her for running away.

“Sp-,” she started, but gasped when his fangs sliced through her skin.

Her eyes drifted closed and her hands grasped his upper arms, fighting her body’s reaction to his bite. When she was bitten before it felt nothing like this. How could it feel so different this time?

“Mine,” Spike grunted hoarsely.

That snapped her back. He spoke. Her eyes searched his without the implications of his actions sinking in yet. There was something of him there again, but only very faint. It gave her hope that he would get better with some time, just as she would. And, apparently he was set on them healing together.

“Wait.” She blinked large eyes when it finally sunk in what he had just done to her. “Y-you c-c-claimed me! You c-can’t do that!”

“Mine,” he purred again and moved off her finally so that he could check her over.

Gentle hands roamed over her body, paying special attention to the spots where he knew she was injured. Then he bent to sniff more closely before he was satisfied that she was okay. It didn’t register with him that his tackling her could have hurt her pretty badly in her condition.

“Stop! Listen to me!” Her voice was rising in alarm as she sat up, swatting at him wildly.

The vampire cocked his head and seemed to think for a moment, deciding it was okay and reaching up to deliver a blow to her head that knocked her unconscious. His face showed regret that he had to resort to such an action, but she had started to panic and he saw no other way of stopping her before she hurt herself again.

Spike scooped the Slayer up and carried her back towards the mansion, kicking the door shut behind him when they reached the bedroom. After laying her down, the demon began to search for some sort of restraints. There had to be some about; he had seen his family use them on each other—among other things.

Restraining his mate just didn’t seem right unless it was something she wanted during their coupling. Still, he needed to do something to keep her from the habit she had for trying to get herself hurt. Something needed to be done so she healed and he could move on to the next part of his plan.

Claiming her, well that had been a bit premature, but his demon needed to assert itself over her after she ran away. Now there should be no doubt on her part as to his intentions with her. He was serious and she needed to believe that.

Spike crouched down on the end of the bed, dropping the chains he found on the floor nearby. He watched her quietly as she started to come around again, hoping she would be calmer this time and the restraints wouldn’t be needed. Any ensuing struggle for dominance would surely hurt her.

“Spike...what did you...?” Buffy groaned and sat up slowly, pressing a hand to her head. Noticing the chains, she narrowed her eyes at him and asked accusingly, “You planning on using those?”

His shoulders slumped and he edged closer, tilting his head as his yellow eyes met hers. The words came with some difficulty. “Don’t...want...”

She was confused by his reply and surveyed the chains again before shaking her head. Suddenly, she remembered the mark on her neck and her eyes flew back to him again, wide with distress. “You claimed me, Spike! This is so not of the good!”

At his warning look, she softened her tone, not wanting to give him reason to chain her up. “You don’t know what you did. We...” As usual, words failed her until the dream flashed into her mind. “I can’t be her, you know. I can’t be Dru for you...I won’t be a replacement for her.”

He growled softly at the mention of his Sire. “Not her.”

Buffy took that as a sort of agreement, hoping that was what he meant by it. “Look, I’m sure there’s something we can do about this. Maybe Giles-“

Before she could finish that thought, Spike was in her face again, snarling his displeasure at that line of discussion. His fingers bit into her shoulders as he held her immobile before him.

“Mine!” he cried out before biting into her savagely.

After the first swallow of blood, he seemed soothed by her taste and his grip loosened as he relaxed. She was breathing heavily, a bit scared at his vehement reaction to her suggestion that she ask her watcher to help reverse Spike’s mating claim. Apparently, this hadn’t just been a mistake on his part as she first thought; he had meant what he had done.

“Spike,” she murmured softly as she brought her good hand up to his chest. She thought to herself, What am I going to do with you? She heaved a mental sigh.

He took another slow pull at her blood then ran his tongue over her neck leisurely. A moan tumbled from her lips before she could stop it and her eyelids lowered at the unexpectedly pleasant sensations that shot through her. This had to be because of his claim...even if she had liked the previous bite as well.

She heard Egypt was a wonderful place to live.

Spike sat up and after a moment she opened her eyes to meet his gaze, still hungry but not, she suspected, for blood. It alarmed her a bit that she didn’t find his demon guise as frightening as she did before.

“Okay, I understand; no getting my watcher to try to break this claim.” She sighed and ran her tongue over her lips. “But, I don’t know how you expected to get away with this. This is insane.” She looked up at the vampire, whose head was cocked like a confused puppy, and tried not to let her resolve melt away. “I guess it’s pretty futile to reason with you while you’re all like ‘You Buffy; Me Tarzan’.” She mimicked a deeper voice.

Somehow, his ridged brow seemed to furrow as he looked at her quizzically. “Tarzan?”

“Why do I suddenly feel like Jane of the Jungle?” she said with another sigh.

He leaned into her and purred, “My Buffy.”

“My point exactly,” she groaned out.

Buffy’s gaze finally landed on the discarded take-out bag on the floor near the bed. She sat up and leaned around Spike to pick it up, looking back at him with her brow raised before peering inside.

“Did you go get this for me? Is that where you went earlier?” She sat back on the bed again with the bag in her lap.

“Feed mate,” he intoned with a solemn nod.

“And just how did you get this since you don’t seem to have money on you unless you’re keeping it in a place I so don’t want to know about,” she said around a mouthful of fries. Then she choked on the wad of food as she realized what that meant. “Oh god, you went running around town naked?! You seriously pounced on some person and got your nakedness all over them then stole their food, didn’t you?”

Spike puffed out his chest proudly and gave her a ghost of his old smirk. “Got food.”

“Yeah, Rain Man, I got that part,” she shot back with some exasperation. Her fingers massaged her temples for a moment then she gave him a softened look. “Thank you for getting me food. Next time, though, let’s just call and have something delivered, okay? Then I might be able to get to the door before you shake your danglies at the poor delivery boy.”

He frowned at her slightly and she wasn’t sure if it was in disapproval or because he hadn’t followed. It didn’t matter much to her; she would just try not to oversleep while she was stuck here so that there wasn’t a repeat of his naked rampage on Sunnydale.

While she ate the burgers he had pilfered, all the while wishing he had the cognitive abilities to think of a soda, she felt Spike slide in close to her again. He seemed relaxed and content now that his mate was where she belonged and was feeding. His head rested in her lap and he was purring like a contented feline. She could have sworn he was almost...well, cute like this, she thought, letting her fingers trail through his wild curls once she was done eating. As she reclined back against the pillows it crossed her mind that she liked him like this. It was such a shame that she was a good guy, which meant she had to help him get back to normal if she could. She so preferred him this way.

Buffy sighed as she realized that that meant that she would have to stick around. Not that she had anywhere to go, as she had realized earlier when she ran away without an actual “somewhere” to run to.

“Spike?” she finally spoke up after cuddling with him for who knew how long. He didn’t look up and she frowned then rolled her eyes in amusement. “Uh, Tarzan?”

That did it. He lifted his head to look at her. Buffy knew that Spike was going to be livid when he returned to normal, probably remembering everything that happened while he was feral. He may be a cocky son-of-a-bitch, but she wasn’t too sure he would appreciate the hilarity of him running about town in his birthday suit. He also wouldn’t be amused at thinking his name was Tarzan. Oh well...

A look of pure evil delight flashed across her face before she got it under control.

“Tarzan...I wanted to, er, thank you for taking care of me,” she began thoughtfully. “I also wanted to tell you that I promise I won’t run away again—at least, not until I’m healed. Then, I’ll need to get back to my usual slaying, okay? I can’t just let the nasties overrun the Hellmouth. I promise to help you get better, too. And then we can figure out what to do about this claiming thing.”

Buffy bit her lip, feeling awkward about that last part. As amusing as it would be to see Spike’s reaction to the other things that had happened while he was under the control of his demon, she wasn’t so sure about his reaction to the claiming. He would be pissed. He might even try to kill her—well more than he had before and with better opportunity because of the claim. She wasn’t quite sure why there was a little pang at that realization, but she shoved it aside towards the ever expanding box marked “Vacation in Egypt”.

Something dark passed over Spike’s face and he leaned in close to her, holding her securely to him.

“My Buffy,” he said with some forcefulness. He turned from her only to grab the blanket from the end of the bed and pull it over them, settling in beside her with his arms around her, tightly possessive.

Oh, I am so in trouble, Buffy thought tiredly, glancing down at the vampire looking up at her with wide, expectant amber eyes. She finally figured what he was probably waiting for and tenderly pressed a kiss to his ridged forehead, whispering, “Goodnight, Tarzan.”


Tbc...