Chapter two

The man's head hung on his shoulders. Strong chains bound him to the wall. He could feel eyes on him, how many creatures were watching him?

How many creatures were waiting for his death, ready to feed on his body like buzzards? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He just hoped that pain was eventually going to stop.

"Bruce?" a soft female voice called.

The man sighed and opened his eyes; he tried to raise his head to look at the creature that had been calling him.

"Are you tired?" the creature said getting close to him.

She was beautiful...the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even when her face changed, shifted in the visage of the demon that kept her body alive, she was still beautiful.

The woman...Electra...that's how she had introduced herself what it looked like a lifetime ago got close to him, swaying her hips.

She pressed her cool body against his and traced with her tongue a fresh scar on his chest, lapping the blood away.

Had she whipped him? He couldn't remember...he had discovered there was a limit to the pain a body could take before slowly going into oblivion. He had reached it.

Her tongue was licking blood and sweat away from his chest. He tilted his head up and tried to get away from her, the iron of the chains rubbed against his already bruised wrists. He let out a hiss and couldn't help shivering when she let out a delighted chuckle.

She tilted her head up. Yellow met blue. There was humanity in those eyes. He could see it; she was different from the others...the others that had tasted his blood.

"Please..." he rasped.

She circled his waist with both her arms and whispered against his face, "Please what?"

"Make it stop..." he almost sobbed.

She kissed his lips and he could taste on them his own blood

"Do you want me to stop the pain?" she asked pulling back from him. She had morphed back in her human visage.

He slowly nodded, not caring about the tears that trailed down his cheeks, taking away some of the blood on them.

She stretched her hands toward him, idly brushing the skin of his bare abdomen with her fingertips.

"Please..." he repeated.

"Ssh...." She shushed him; she brushed his lips with hers before kissing him, hard.

He felt something ice cold against his chest. He closed his eyes, but wide opened them when a sharp excruciating pain in his chest dazzled him. Blood filled his mouth.

While his body went limp that woman held him in a strong grip against her thin body. She avidly drank that blood while her hand sunk in his open chest extracting with a swift movement his heart.

She stepped back. Blood smeared her pale face, rivulets of blood trailed down the hand that was still holding the heart.

She turned and looked around. Vampires were looking at her, dozens of them. She shrugged licking away some blood from her lips with the tip of her tongue and said smiling, "Well, what can I say? I liked him!"

She smiled at the other vampires and pointed at one of them with her eyes. The vampire got close to her. He was holding a silver box in his hands. He opened it and waited as Electra carefully placed the heart in the box.

She took the box from his hands and without even looking at him said, "Ditch the body where I instructed you..."

She got past the other vampires, not even waiting for his answer. She knew they were going to obey her, all of them.

She half hoped, though, that some of them questioned her methods. It had been ages since the last time she had played with a vampire...that if she didn't count, the Eletti she was going to pay a visit to.

"Let's put this show on the road, William...." she whispered, a smile creeping on her lips.

*~~*~~*~~*~~*

"So, how are things in watcher's heaven?" Willow asked Buffy

It was a warm afternoon. They were in the campus cafeteria. Both Buffy and Willow had realized they hadn't spent much time together lately, apart from research and studies, and they had both agreed to spend some time together for serious best friend's talk.

The Slayer grinned at her best friend and said, "They're of the good...more than good, they're perfect!"

"I see..." Willow replied smiling.

She was so happy for Buffy and Giles. She didn't know two people who deserved more to be loved and happy than her two friends. She had known the truth about Buffy's feelings long before her best friend even acknowledged them.

After all one couldn't spend half of her life in love with her best friend without learning to notice even the little details other people usually overlooked.

"And how about you? How are things going with the bleached wonder?" Buffy asked smiling.

Willow sighed and said, "We had a few very interesting nights, lately"

"Too much information, Will...I'm glad I'm spending my nights at Rupert's" she joked before sipping her latte.

"Mind out of the gutter, young lady..." Willow said smiling.

There was and edge in her voice, though, that didn't go unnoticed on Buffy, who asked, "What happened?"

"He's having nightmares, a few nights ago he dreamed he had killed me...since then well, he's been acting strange" she said shaking her head.

She was used by now to Spike's vivid dreams. She hadn't ever suspected vampires dreamt so much. She was beginning to really worry about them; they were getting more frequent, and uglier, although Spike wouldn't have ever admitted that, she was sure he was frightened by them.

"Let's see he dreamed he killed you and he wigged out? Gee, I wonder why..." Buffy's remark, distracted from her thoughts. Willow arched an eyebrow at her and Buffy rested her elbows on the table softly saying, "Will, Spike loves you so much that it's not even funny...when we were in the galleries ...I saw, I felt how much he loves you. He would never hurt you..."

"I know, but I feel like he didn't tell me anything and there's something else, when he woke up from that nightmare... he asked me to kill him, should something bad happen...he claims he doesn't want to pull an Angelus with me..."

Buffy blinked at her friend's words, images of Angel coming up in her mind. She closed her eyes. Although he had learned to trust Spike and was now friend with him, she couldn't shake away her fear for her best friend. She knew first hand how such a relationship could be painful. She swallowed and opening her eyes said, "He still doesn't pull punches, does he?"

Willow shook her head and tiredly rubbed her eyes with her hands, before saying, "Watching him die while I was under that spell, almost killed me, Buffy. I don't know whether I could make it in real life"

Buffy stretched a hand on the table and lightly squeezed her best friend's and softly said, "That won't ever happen. He had a few nightmares and he freaked out..."

"Way to go with the understatements, Buff...." Willow said.

How could she explain to her, how slowly but unceasingly those nightmares were consuming Spike? More than once for the last days she had surprised him watching her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. More than once, she'd woken up finding her bed...*their* bed empty, only to find Spike smoking outside, his face paler than usual.

He looked like he was afraid of himself...of what he could do to her...yet she hadn't been afraid for herself, she trusted him with her life, she knew he wouldn't ever hurt her. It had been the haunted look in his eyes that had frightened her.

Something was going on and she didn't have a clue about what to do to help him.

"Will?" Buffy said shaking Willow from her thoughts. "Look,” she continued,  “having nightmares in our line of job is one of the sucking side effects...and as Eric told me, under all that bleach there's a good heart..."

Willow grinned at her best friend and said, "You know, Buff? If it wasn't that you're *so* taken I would be almost jealous...you bonded waaaay to much in the galleries...."

Buffy grinned back at her, while with her mind's eyes she saw herself being hesitantly comforted by Spike after she had almost killed that woman.

"One day, I'll tell you all the gory details of our bonding trip in the galleries..." she checked her watch and said, "But not today, Rupert is waiting for us home in less than a hour...by the way, we could talk to him about Spike's nightmares"

Willow nodded, feeling the weight on her shoulder less heavy. She smiled at her friend, relieved.

They were at the cafeteria's door when arching her eyebrows at her asked, "Buffy, do you realize you've just called Giles' apartment home?"

"I know, I know...I've got it bad for my watcher...." She said, happily sighing.

"What else is new?" she teased.

Buffy stuck her tongue at her and together they left the cafeteria. They didn't notice, the car with painted windows and the woman inside it looking at them, with a predator smile on her face.