Part 11. ANGEL
He was doing it again. He’d been doing it all day since she’d come back from her nap. He was touching her. And not just a brush of hand of slide of knee.
Accidental or otherwise. Spike, my undead, newly souled childe was fondling my seer with blatant arrogance and the demon inside me wouldn’t stop screaming.
Sitting behind the counter I watched him play childish magic tricks with Cordelia and Fred, while Willow sat looking bored. He would pull a quarter out of Cordelia’s, his fingers sliding along the shell of her ear before sliding down the angles of her jaw, making her squeal with delight.
My teeth ground together in controlled fury as he handed her the quarter with a smirk on his face.
Sire’s kill their childer all the time. It wouldn’t be unheard of.
“If he touches her hand one more time, I’m going to bust his ass with the sharp end of my stake!”
I looked sideways at Gunn and raised an eyebrow. “It’s a magic trick.”
Willow had walked over and stood at his side, leaning against the counter. “It’s a cheap ploy. I’m all witch remember, not that I’m being witchy now or anything. But there is a limit ya know? Right?” She sighed and let her eyes run over the two giggling people.
“What I don’t understand is why he’s bothering with the ploy. Cheap or otherwise. I mean he’s supposed to be in love with Buffy!” Then her eyes snapped to my face almost apologetically. “I’m sorry Angel.”
Damn them all to hell. Did they not see, it wasn’t the fact that Spike was all over Buffy that bothered me, it bothered me that he was making my seer smile wide enough to blind all of LA. No one else made her smile like that but me. No one!
“It’s okay Willow.” I fixed my eyes on the blonde vampire again as he produced the stupid penny from V of her blouse and I lost it.
“That’s it.” Jumping to my feet it took me two seconds to march across the hall, grab one insolent childe by the scruff of his neck and haul him away from her.
Cordelia blinked up at me in surprise. “Hey! He was going to give me back my penny!”
Snatching the copper coin from Spike’s hand I slapped it into her palm and glared down at her. And without dropping my grip on him, I dragged my struggling childe away from my seer and behind the counter where Gunn was still glaring.
“Oye! Let go!”
Shoving him away I glared at him. “You go for the blouse one more time Spike.”
His mouth spread into a grin as he fixed the collar of his coat. “Aww, come on peaches, I was only playing with her.”
“Aren’t you going home?” Rude or otherwise, I didn’t want my childe loitering around my confused seer. At least things were not settled. Between us. If there was an ‘us’.
“I just asked the chit if she wanted to go around town with me. We could take in all her usual hangouts and she could show me around, seeing as I’m going to be here a while. Maybe it would jog her memory.”
He shifted to move past me and I shoved him back in his place. I’ll never admit it, but that actually made sense and had I not been tippy-toeing around the issue like Cordy said I’d have realized the obvious.
“I’ll jog her memory; you jog yourself over to Willow and have that talk with her.” The smirk spread across his mouth was familiar; a blend of sadistic humor that was common in my childer.
And for the tenth time since I saw Spike in Cordy’s apartment I felt I was being led.
“I don’t know Poofy, I could use the trip. This is my bloody vacation after all. Getting a soul is hard work.”
I grabbed him by his collar and lifted him up to eyelevel. “If you got the soul for Buffy, what the fuck are you doing dangling yourself hopefully under Cordy’s nose?” And yes I was getting tired of side stepping issues.
But if the fangs and growl routine was supposed to faze Spike, for some reason, it didn’t and that intrigued me. “I’m just helping the chit. Which is more than wot you’ve been bloody doing.”
“Stay away from her Spike.”
“She seems to like me fine soulfreak. And for your information mate, she asked for my help. I didn’t offer it.”
“Let me help her, you keep your grubby paws off, understood?”
“Loud and clear mate.” His raised an eyebrow his blue eyes amused and that made me even more suspicious. Spike was up to something.
“Want to put me down any time peaches because I’m just feelin’ the love. And it’s been a while since I swung that way.”
It really was common.
Sire killing childer.
All I had to do was reach out and snap his fool neck. Only Cordelia would hate me and I couldn’t have that. Not when I’d finally just gotten her back. “Gunn?”
“Yo?”
My eyes never left the blue. “If he so much as goes near any of the women. Dust him.”
Spike’s eye widened. “Hey! Wot did I bloody do!”
“It’s so you bloody don’t Spike.” I reached out and grabbed the keys to my Plymouth. “Remember your soul, think of all the women you’ve split open before you look at anything female in this room.”
The instant spark of anger and regret assured me I’d gotten my point across. I didn’t spent a century atoning for my sins and not learn a few things about handling the soul or biting where it hurts the most.
After all I did date the slayer.
Shrugging into my duster I strode over to Cordelia. “Cordy?”
Looking from her conversation with Fred, she blinked up at me. “Hmmm?”
“Let’s go.”
A frown marred her perfect forehead. “Where?”
“I’m going to reacquaint LA with you.” I gave her a tiny wink for good measure and a smile to seal the deal before moving to the door. “Grab your coat. I’ll meet you by the car.”
I’m a vampire. It does me proud to leave her staring in wonder before she scrambled for her coat.
***
SPIKE
Who the bloody hell did he think he was!?!?!
Okay so the whole plan was to get his bloody knickers in a twist, but there had to be some pride in being the scoundrel that gets him his woman. It was the oldest trick in the book, but that didn’t mean the poofster had to bloody win!
This was my bloody game! He played by my rules! Mine you hear.
I watched Gunn take Fred aside and talk in undertones as Cordy walked around me to get her coat.
“Looks like your plan is working, he is taking the offensive.”
I caught her wrist and she looked at me taken aback. I couldn’t hold the leer as the plan formed in my head. Evil or otherwise. Go figure. I am a bleedin’ vampire you know.
“Not yet luv.” Before she could protest, I yanked her into my arms, my arms wrapping around her tightly, once, hands sliding down the slope of her spine, before my tongue found the long slide of her neck and marked her all the way up to the hook behind her ear.
“SPIKE!”
When hands shoved against my chest, I let her go and by the time Gunn looked up in alarm, I was well out of her personal space. If this didn’t get my poof of a sire’s gut in a knot, I’d bloody take the stake to Buffy as a present with my name on it.
“Eyow! You licked me!” Hazel eyes glared at me with confused apprehension as she tried to wipe the scent with the shoulder of her shirt. It only spread it further and I smirked.
“Just testing the treat luv. Don’t think too much of it. Now you better go. He’s outside.”
Her face twisted into a frown of bewilderment as she shook her head and shoved her arms into her coat. “You’re weird Sparky.” With an exaggerated shudder she grabbed her purse and stomped for the door shaking her head and muttering about perverts and blood suckers.
“Do you really have a death wish Spike?”
Leaning across the counter I grinned into Willow’s green eyes.
“Already dead luv. Might as well live it up. So? About that talk…”