Spike walked along the alley, his duster swirling around his feet. He was screaming inside with frustrated fury, his mood a match for the gathering storm. Angel had taken the ring. He wanted to kill someone, watch them die in agony so intense they forgot how to do anything but scream, wanted to swallow their terror in greedy gulps as their hands scrabbled for purchase on a life that was slipping away. He was half way home to Sunnydale and he was taking his own private hell with him.

There was a figure waiting at the end of the alley. Leather-clad and scared. Tasty combination.

Spike halted a few feet away and decided to play. “Got a light, mate?”

“What? No. I don’t smoke, sorry.”

That voice... English, cultured, triggering memories of the last time he’d heard Giles, defying Angel with his last breath. Now there was a man who wouldn’t scream, but this one? Spike thought of the sounds he could coax from that long throat and smiled.

“I don’t talk to vampires either,” the man added.

Spike dodged the stake clutched in a sweat-slick hand and laughed as he threw the man against a wall and held him in place. He ran an appraising hand down the twisting body and grinned as his fingers brushed against unexpected hardness. Coming to a decision, he put his hands on the man’s shoulders and pushed him to his knees.

“Got a choice now,” he whispered. “Use that mouth to please me, or use it to beg.”

He waited and sighed as the man knelt in stubborn silence. “Fine. Die.”

He’d broken the skin in a dozen places before the man said ‘please’ and by then he didn’t know if he was asking for mercy or death. So he gave him both.


Return to Home

Click here if you'd like to send feedback