Chapter Twenty-One

It was a tense group of vampires who were gathered around the dining room table when Willow followed Darla into the dining room the next morning. After her room had been vacated she had laid awake for a while, listening for the sound of the front door opening and closing that would signal William and Dru's departure, half-afraid that Angelus would come back. Eventually sleep overtook her.

In the salon, Darla and Angelus had listened to Drusilla's disjointed ramblings about birds and priests. Darla had been more than willing to tune Drusilla out. A passion for religion was something Angelus shared with his lunatic childe, and she could feel William's impatience and annoyance with the subject, tempered by a hint of concern. Wallowing in bloodshed and violence was fine with him. He didn't get an extra charge out of it being directed at the church the way Angelus did.

Cook returned with Matilde and William left with him, to go to the place near Josefhof where he had followed someone from the wharf on William's instructions. Angelus and Dru left with Lucius to visit the tavern by the wharf and look into the curiosity that was the girl Lucius had killed who was still living.

That left Darla with Matilde for company. After she had fulfilled her usefulness by drawing a bath, taking down Darla's hair, and helping her undress, Darla considered waking up Willow for company, and discarded the idea as soon as it had come to her.

In the course of their conversation with the Zlata Ulicka vampires they had formed a pact based on two principals. Mutual tolerance and self-defense. The Stare Mesto vampires were too large and well organized a group for either of them to take on alone, and once they were dealt with, the Zlata Ulicka vampires agreed that they would consider their presence in the city now and in the future, to be at their will. How long that would last remained to be seen. They would return in the morning, before sunrise, to stay the day to plan the attack that had been tentatively set for two days hence.

Eventually, Darla too went to sleep, aware that Angelus and William would probably not enjoy any sleep before their guests arrived in the morning and that by sleeping she was giving up a chance to find out what was going on with Drusilla's vision and Lucius' encounter with some unclassified creature.

Darla found Willow in the kitchen, snapping the dog's leash on. Her face and arms were still pink from her overexposure to the sun yesterday. She had one of Drusilla's fringed shawls to cover up with today. The shawl was a deep, vibrant green that clashed with the pink dress she was wearing. Pink dress? Sunburned skin? Darla heaved an inward sigh at how she dressed herself with the benefit of a reflection. “Leave the dog. We have company,” she said, gesturing for Willow to join her.

Willow unclipped the leash, coiling it in her hands as she followed Darla. Mr. Buttons ran after her, his nails clicking on the stone floor of the kitchen. He chased the hem of Willow's skirt, catching it and trying to tug her back to the kitchen while she tried to nudge him away with her foot. “Stop that!” she hissed at him, trying to keep up with Darla, who had reached the stairs and was looking back at her impatiently.

Darla looked at Willow and then at the dog. Moving faster than either of them anticipated, Darla grabbed the dog by the collar and smacked him sharply across the nose with two fingers, making him drop the mouthful of Willow's hem that he was worrying. “No!” Darla said sternly.

The startled dog abruptly sat down, looking chastened. Willow found herself starting to smile at the startled and almost sheepish expression on his face.

She thought she heard Darla mutter something like, “How hard was that?” as she took the shawl off and laid it over the stair rail with the leash looped on top of it.

Mr. Buttons looked up at her, whining softly. “Shush,” she warned him. “Be glad she didn't eat you,” she whispered.

“I heard that,” Darla said over her shoulder, entering the dining room.

Willow followed her, nervously smoothing down her skirt. The drapes were drawn, but the chandelier was lit. Several of the leaves had been removed from the table since the dinner party and the extra chairs had been moved to places against the walls. Angelus was sitting at the head of the table flanked by two people Willow did not recognize. William was at the foot of the table. He extended his hand, and she took it as a hint and went to stand beside him. He took her hand, briefly kissing the back of her fingers, but not relinquishing his hold on her.

“This is our witch,” Angelus said.

Willow lifted her head. The words were out of her mouth before she considered the wisdom of saying them. “We have a King Charles spaniel, too.”

There was a pause as all eyes turned to her. “House broken,” William drawled.

Willow looked at him. “More or less,” she agreed.

He wasn't looking at her. His thumb stroked her palm and he brought her wrist to his mouth, kissing her wrist where her pulse thrummed before he let go of her hand. Dru had left his hair too long in front, and a long lock drooped over his eyebrow. She pushed it back, and still his gaze was trained on the opposite end of the table. His hand came to rest on her waist.

Lulach watched them, willing to be amused. He didn't understand the comment about the dog, but it seemed that Thomazine did, and that she thought it was at least interesting.

“Does it have a name?” Thomazine asked.

Darla frowned at her. “Willow.”

Willow looked at the vampire to Angelus' right. “She meant the dog,” William said. “The dog's name is Mr. Buttons. This,” he nodded to Willow,” is Willow.”

“Willow?” she repeated, looking at Lulach curiously.

“It's a kind of tree,” he confirmed. “With shallow roots and thin, whippy branches that bow.”

Feeling like the conversation was getting away from him, Angelus gestured to a chair near William. “Join us,” he ordered. “We have a lot of work to do.”



The Stare Mesto vampires' lair was an abandoned church on the edge of a cemetery, according to Thomazine. The informal war planning council was interrupted briefly at lunchtime by Lucius' arrival with a tray for Willow. William had left the table and was standing by the cold fireplace, smoking, using the hearth as an ashtray. She could tell by the contents of the tray that Cook had prepared the meal. There was a bowl of a thick, dark soup with what looked like red onions and bits of meat topped by a dollop of sour cream. It smelled like the soup Joyce made for the New Years dinner she had thrown for the last few years, and Willow thought the meat was probably sausage. The first time she had gone to the Summers New Year's dinner, Buffy had told them not to ask what was in the soup, but just eat it because it was better than it sounded and Joyce had gotten a startled look on her face and asked Willow if she kept kosher. Xander had started snickering as Willow tried to figure out if she was supposed to give the parentally correct answer or admit that she did not.

It was a bigger deal to her father than her mother. Willow had a hard time imagining that God really cared what she ate, which was kind of odd considering that she was a witch and she used spell components that were very specific to focus the power of deities representing aspects of the natural world. Maybe it was because the God of her childhood imaginings seemed to abstract, or maybe it was because the deities she appealed to seemed less remote.

She didn't keep kosher, though William occasionally remembered that she was Jewish and he rarely gave her anything to eat that he thought she wasn't supposed to eat. Sometimes she wondered if he thought being Jewish was like being a vampire and that the foods that she wasn't supposed to have were somehow harmful. If the wrath of God was going to fall on her head, you'd think the occasional ham sandwich paled beside the whole worshiping false Gods, and weird sex with the undead aspects of her unreal life.

The soup was served with a crusty white bread, a cup of baked custard topped with berries, and a pot of tea. It was the first thing she had had to eat today, and Willow found that she was hungry. She had woken up alone. Despite what he implied before he left, William had not come back. Assuming that he and Drusilla had been out late, and trying not to wonder why he had not come back, she had enjoyed an unusually long bath before dressing with the idea of taking Mr. Buttons out into the garden, since walking in the park seemed to be out for the time being.

She watched him surreptitiously as she ate. He seemed to be in an odd mood. She couldn't decide if it was because of the other vampires or if it was something else. There was a slightly grim look around his mouth. He caught her peeking at him and raised an eyebrow. She let her attention return to her soup, and then drift back to the conversation around the table.

Relying on whatever surprise they could achieve, they planned an all out assault on the lair. The problem was, as Willow saw it, that the approaches were too easily defended. They had to cross a graveyard, use a long, straight road that cut across the back of the cemetery, or scale a thirty foot wall that separated the back of the church yard from a prosperous neighborhood in Stare Mesto. That was one problem. The real problem was that the optimum time for attack was more or less out of the question. A daylight attack wasn't in the cards.

Angelus never took a charge in approach. He always had an exit strategy. The terrain suggested the kind of fight that could separate the fighters and when the numbers were not in their favor to begin with, that was a bad idea. The element of surprise only took you so far. She could only see negatives. What Thomazine and Lulach knew about the interior of the building covered the area that was formerly the sanctuary, the largest open space on the interior of the building. Churches weren't just sanctuaries. There would be other areas of the building, galleries, confessionals, offices, and given the age of the church and the religious wars that had taken place during the reformation, Willow strongly suspected the building was a rabbit warren of hidden spaces and crypts.

She was finishing her lunch when it occurred to her that the tray gave her a reason to leave the room. She didn't want to be there and she was convinced that William didn't want her to be there either.

Angelus asked if she had thought of anything that might be useful. “Not anything magical,” she admitted. It was a stone structure, but it was probably framed in wood. They could try burning the building and picking off anyone coming out, but that would attract a lot of attention and the standing around and waiting for anyone to come out could work against them if every possible exit wasn't known and covered. She was so rusty when it came to that kind of planning that it was depressing. She excused herself, picking up the tray with the idea of making good on her hasty retreat strategy.

William walked over to the end of the table. “This is bullshit,” he announced. “We have a witch who is witch enough to have detected a magical signature that protects your lair. One that she can't penetrate. You have that kind of power lying about, and you want us to put my girl out there without risking your own,” he said, voicing his distrust of the situation.

“They won't help,” Lulach said, sounding almost cheerful about it. “It's what you might call an uneasy co-existence.”

Thomazine shot him a quelling look. Darla sat back with a strangely pleased smile on her face. William had just put his finger on the very thing that was nagging at her about this, and he had done it in his usual rude and irritating way, which meant that she didn't have to.

“Then make them,” William was cold. “Make them fight. Bring the fight to them. Turn them. I don't really care. You attacked us, and you have the bloody gall to try to make your problem ours. My vote is for tossing you out on your arse.”

Thomazine's eyebrows rose. “Interesting. Does your vote actually count for anything?” she wondered.

“At this table? Substantially more than yours does, ducks, and where it comes to my witch, it's the only one that counts.”

Darla gave a brief nod to confirm that claim. “William makes a good point,” she agreed. “You've brought a problem to us that is mostly your problem, of your creation, and we aren't inclined to assume all of the risk.”

“Ducks?” Thomazine looked at Lulach again. “Aren't ducks water fowl?”

“It's a sarcastic form of endearment,” Willow put in as she rose, picking up her lunch tray. “Ducks. Cute, fluffy, quacking ducks,” she said, looking at William who was looking at her like she was vastly off the mark. “Or maybe not,” she allowed, wondering where the term came from. “I'm going to take the dog out to walk,” she tilted her head to one side, looking at William, making it a question.

He gave her a spare nod. “In the garden.”

Willow took her tray and walked to the door. Lulach rose to open it for her and she gave him a shyly wary smile of thanks as she moved past him into the hall with a sigh of relief at having escaped the dining room.

He shut the door behind him. “Charming young woman,” he commented to no one in particular. “I knew Thomazine's mother for over twenty years. Humans can be interesting companions if you bother to keep them alive,” he nodded politely to William. “Do you have another idea?”

“Who are the local vampire, demon, witch hunters?” William asked. “What's made you keep your numbers down? You were hunting us for a reason. What rule were we breaking? A city this size could support three times our numbers and go unnoticed.”

Thomazine and Lulach exchanged glances. She spoke. “The Order of St. Ubaldus operates out of Emmaus,” she said. “They are part of the balance of things. Our numbers are too small, and we are too well protected for them to do more than watch.”

William looked up at the ceiling, rocking back on his heels, thinking. “We have to manipulate them into attacking,” he concluded.

Angelus and Darla caught on at once. Drusilla's vision suggested that agents of the church were stalking them, and the presence of the Order of St. Ubaldus suggested an obvious culprit. Darla and Angelus had been playing similar games for decades.



Back in the barren garden, Willow watched Mr. Buttons as he snuffled his way over to the stable, barking at the occupants and scratching at the door. She had not been in the stable since the incident with the coachman. She had gone into the stable with the idea of saddling a horse and riding away on a day like this one, that started out not particularly good or bad, but busy with vampire business since there had been a house full of fledglings to claim everyone's attention.

The coachman had been methodically beating the small gray mare that was meant to be a riding horse for her, pausing only to snarl at her as she backed out into the sunlight and went to her knees, unable to vomit or cry or feel much except frustrated that she had been foiled again. She stayed there until it started to rain, and then made her way back into the house to tell Angelus what she had seen.

She could do that now. There were advantages to taking them so completely by surprise. Where to go? It didn't matter, except that experience taught her that it did matter. There were worse things than a cool hand running through her hair and the feeling that she was . . . loved.

Her fingernails cut into her palms. God, she hated him for that. I love you. He didn't even know her. He loved what he thought he knew and it wasn't real. The real her wasn't here at all, was she? The real her was in college, or working at a job, possibly in love with someone and living a life that made normal by the unreal life she was stuck to like flypaper.

He didn't come back last night, no matter what he implied to the contrary last night, and he was in an odd mood this morning. What did that mean? William's moods weren't to be taken lightly. Reading his moods was as much a part of her continued existence as feeding herself, but she knew that her awareness was also tied to an uneasy sensation of loss. She refused to acknowledge it.




At dusk, their guests departed. Last night William had gone with Cook to investigate the store front mission that Cook had trailed the old guy fishing off the wharf to, while Angelus had pissed about with Lucius' mysteriously alive victim, who had disappeared by the time they returned to the tavern. It wasn't hard to sort out Angelus' priorities on that. His interest in all things exotic and magical was almost compulsive.

The odd greeting ritual at the mission made William suspicious from the start, and now he was certain that there was a connection. Feeling energized by the prospect for creative mayhem, he was whistling as he sought out his girls, finding them in Willow's room. She was lying on her chaise reading, while Drusilla worked on the throw she was making for the chaise, sewing buttons on it seemingly at random. There was a pot of tea on the table and a plate of cheese and crackers with a branch of grapes that had probably been Willow's idea. The dog, curled at Dru's feet, dashed over to him. William fed him a grape, curious to see what he would do with it. After mouthing it with a perplexed expression, he spat it out and pushed it around on the floor with his nose until it developed enough momentum to roll a few feet. Barking excitedly, he smashed it with his paw and then shook off the mushed grape with an air of disgust.

William plucked another grape and shot it across the floor with a flick of his thumb.

Willow picked up the furry dog toy that Dru had made and shook it to get the dog's attention after he smashed a third grape missile. He raced across the room and snatched it out of her hand, growling in a doggy show of dominance over the toy. She set aside the book and got up to pick up the squashed grape mess on the floor. William caught her around the waist, drawing her back against him. He nuzzled the bite mark on her throat. She stilled, tensing a little. “What's wrong, pet?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said in a tone that could have been read as ‘everything'. He was tempted to let it go, or at least ignore it while he savored the downy texture of her earlobe. Instead he sampled her scent, seeking hidden cues to her current slightly disgruntled attitude. It was a possible miscalculation. She had been out in the sun again, and sun warmed Willow made him forget her unsaid ‘everything'. His hand dropped below her waist, fingers kneading her lower abdomen. She had light, infrequent and painful menses usually proceeded by mood swinging tension.

If that was bothering her, her abdomen would be tender enough to wring a reaction from her other than the patient way she was putting up with his handling of her. He kissed the back of her neck and started unbuttoning her dress. She had a dark mole on her back under her shoulder blade and he kissed that as the dress parted enough for him to slide his hands inside of it to lightly stroke her ribcage with a knowing laugh as she shivered.

Drusilla set aside her sewing to pick up the dog and carry him over to her room. William peeled one capped sleeve down to lay slack against her elbow as Willow brought her arms up to keep the dress from falling away from her chest.

They had argued about using Willow. Angelus had some idea about her casting a glamour to aid his deception campaign. William knew that she wouldn't help them harm humans again without resorting to extreme persuasion. That line had been drawn in the sand after they had their fight in the kitchen. There were things she could be made to do, things she had been made to do, but that was no long one of them. Aside from that, he didn't want her anywhere near any agency of the church that had witch hunting on its agenda. She was too likely to view them as potential allies and blunder into a trap that she couldn't get out of. Burn his witch? His hands tightened briefly on her sunburned arms.

He'd see them in hell. He buried his face in her neck, finding the reassuring thrum of her pulse under his lips, impatiently tugging on her dress to make her let go of it. He wanted it all off. The dress, the chemise she was wearing, the knickers, the stupid wool stockings that he was pretty sure he had suggested burning.

She took a stumbling step forward, stepping on the hem of her dress and pitching forward. Drusilla, gliding back into the room, caught her under her arms and carried her down to the floor, laughing at Willow's startled expression before her hands delved into her hair, pulling out hairpins and a bit of ribbon wound through her curls. The hairpins and fingers pulling on her hair made her make a sound of pained protest. Dru's fingers tightened in her hair, her dark eyes drinking in the blanch of pain and the overextended line of Willow's throat as William undressed, watching them. Willow had managed to get her knees under her and Drusilla held her hair back with one hand, pulling the dress off of her with the other, carelessly scratching her sunburned chest.

His shirt was open when Dru rose on her knees, beckoning to him. With Willow between them, she unbuttoned his trousers, freeing his erection, her cool hand stroking him as she guided the head of his cock to Willow's lips. She jerked her head back, looking up at him with an expression that held expectations that shouldn't have been there. He cupped her cheek.

“Where do you think you are going?” he asked in a voice made more threatening for it's softness.

For a moment, before her eyelashes swept down to veil her expression, before she took him into her warm mouth, he saw something die a little in her eyes and tried to pretend that he was imagining it, concentrating on the skillful way she sucked him, taking him deeper as Drusilla's hands roved over her body, pushing her legs apart.

He blamed her. Keeping her stupid fucking secrets. That business last night about the wards around the house focusing dark magic, was it truth, guessing, or just a pack of plausible bullshit? Her journal hadn't gone untouched, but the last few entries were so banal that they were suspicious, nothing more than a rehash of events. There was fodder for more. Nothing about what Dru had done to her the other night. Nothing about their talk under the Charles, and even more curious nothing about the attack on the house except one observation. “When she said Bohemian Reii, I thought, great, vampires with a club, and a name, and a secret handshake. It sounded like something Spike would have said.”

No effort whatsoever to move or find a new hiding place for her journal. He knew that she knew he read her journal. He didn't expect to open it and find some version of ‘I love him, I love him not', she simply wasn't that transparent, but she picked at the edges of every fucking thing, and the fact that she wasn't picking at the edges of anything that had happened between them was setting off alarm bells. He had enough on his plate not to have to be distracted with whatever crazy scheme was rolling around in her brain.

The nightmares she had had after they took her out of that hospital in London painted a picture of the tender mercies she had been exposed to. She consistently made the mistake of seeking kindness and mercy from people, and she refused to beyond her trifling moral qualms about what he was to what he was to her. She had a beautiful home, and there weren't any luxuries that he would stint on where she was concerned.

A pained whimper vibrated against the head of his cock and he looked down to see Dru pinching her nipples hard enough to leave bruises. “Dru,” he shook his head, feeling the last twenty-four hours without sleep catching up in a rush. “Don't hurt her.”

Combing his fingers through Willow's hair, he pulled back until she understood that she could stop, and he sank to his knees. Lingering anger at her for lying to him kept any semblance of an apology stuck in his throat. Drusilla's arm circled her waist, her hand slipping between Willow's thighs as he pushed her back into the cradle of Dru's body, cupping her breasts and gently laving her bruised nipples, nursing his own feeling of ill-use.

He picked Willow up and carried her to the bed, dropping her there unceremoniously and then went back to find his coat, seeking out his cigarettes as Dru undressed. He lifted the lid on the matchbox on the mantel and lit his cigarette. The sun had gone down enough to push back the drapes and open a window. He made himself comfortable on the chaise, smoking and flicking ash out the window as Drusilla crawled across the bed, pushing Willow's thighs apart and settling between them.

The wounded look in Willow's eyes made him grit his teeth. What the fuck was she upset about? To the best of his knowledge the first real lover she ever had was her pimping friend, and long before he ever got anything from her but the satisfaction of fucking something warm, Dru was the one who got her hot, made her whimper, made her arch her back and beg for more. Bitch. Lying, treacherous, scheming bitch.

If Angelus suspected for a second that she was dangerous to any of them, her life wasn't worth a brass farthing.

He squinted through a cloud of smoke as Drusilla loomed over her, using her thigh to rub against Willow's cunt as she wound her fingers through her hair and nibbled at her lips until Willow was kissing her back. So coy, he thought with a derisive smirk. Those pretty shows of reluctance, of modesty, of shyness, suckered them every time. He watched as her shoulders flexed as Drusilla copied his gentle approach to her breasts. As sore as her bruised nipples were, every cool, wet touch of Dru's tongue would send icy little jolts of sensation through her.

He took another drag on his cigarette. Angelus was determined to find some way to make use of Willow's newly discovered abilities. If she couldn't be used to further their deception, than he wanted her on hand as they executed the divide and slaughter elements of the plan. Picking off the Stare Mesto vampires. It made sense. It was going to be hard to convince the Stare Mesto vampires that humans were hunting them unless there was a real human to hunt them. Angelus' plan was to let it get around that the Order of St. Ubaldus had a Slayer. They would be on hand to back her up, to keep her from getting into too much trouble, but it still meant having her out there, staking vampires.

And, hello, they were vampires. What was to stop her from staking one of them?

They were whispering to each other now. Dru's husky intonations mixed with the silky sound of Willow's voice, her breathless laugh when Dru did something that tickled. He could feel the heat of the cigarette growing perilously close to where he had it between his fingers. There was a tea cup and saucer on the small table by the chaise. He put the cigarette out and lay back, closing his eyes. He didn't need a lot of sleep, but he knew that he was tired.

He had not pointed out the downside to encouraging her to kill vampires. He had simply pointed out the high probability that she would be hurt. Or killed. The other night she had demonstrated surprising creativity. In his head he could still hear that slight catch in her throat as she recounted the sequence of events. It started with a plan. A bad plan, and it all went wrong. She went to power that she didn't know she had, and claimed she had little control over—there's nothing to focus it, it goes right through me—and from there she had blundered her way into the slenderest of advantages. What he told Dru held true. If it had been them in the yard, they would have killed her. If the vampires who had attacked the house had meant to kill her, they would have killed her.

Angelus' answer to that was to tell him that it would not be like Lisbon. If she was hurt, badly, there would be no waiting to see if she lived. They were no longer in the business of keeping Willow alive. The Zlata Ulicka vampires hadn't come here to kill her with the idea of revoking the invite protection she provided the house as a human occupant. They came to take her and it went without saying that they intended to turn her.

He rubbed his temples feeling a headache coming on. Fuck, fuck, fuck. A muscle twitched in his cheek as he heard the way her breathing had shallowed out, coming faster, soft pleasured sounds trapped in her throat. Wet sounds, lips and tongue tasting. He could do it. Get it over with, get Angelus off his back. Wipe that pitying look of disdain off of Darla's face. Make a childe that the two of them would burn with envy over. He didn't like being manipulated, feeling pushed beyond the timetable that had already been established. There were things that he wanted to do while she was still like this. He wasn't that impressed with their way of doing things, and he knew her, knew her better than anyone else.

An agonized cry of pain snapped his eyes open even as the scent of fresh blood registered. Dru had bitten into Willow's thigh and his temper, barely held in check, exploded. “God damn it, Dru. What part of ‘don't hurt her' do you not comprehend?” he roared, coming up off the chaise like he had been shot.

Startled, Dru lifted her head, blood dripping from her lower lip, a spray of dark red blood spattering her skin from shoulder to chin. She had knicked the artery. He ripped his shirt off and wadded it up, pressing down hard on the open wound to slow the bleeding.

Dru sat up on her heels, licking her lower lip, looking abashed. “I got carried away,” she confessed. “Voices shouting in my head, so loud,” she murmured, looking at him pointedly.

He frowned at her, and at himself for being so thickheaded. Dru was acutely sensitive to mood, and he was in a mood for violence. He looked down at Willow whose eyes were closed, her face twisted in a grimace of pain. “Pet? Willow!” he snapped at her. “Stay with me, love. I need you to hold this." He placed her hand over the makeshift bandage and went to the door.

Angelus was strolling down the hall, and he made a point of sniffing ostentatiously. “Problem?” he drawled.

William brushed past him to the back stairs, taking them two at a time. In the kitchen he chipped off a large chunk of ice and wrapped it in a clean-ish towel before flying back up the stairs.

Angelus was in the room, leaning against the bedpost with Dru curled up next to him when William returned. “That's a lot of blood going to waste,” Angelus observed.

His wadded up shirt looked saturated. Willow was still holding the shirt, but she wasn't pressing down hard enough. Blood was soaking into the counterpane under her.

In Lisbon he had carried her half a mile while her blood soaked his shirt and trousers down past his knee. The bullet had torn through her side, but it still had to be cleaned. There were fragments of wood and cloth that were embedded in the wound. Dru was useless, moaning as Willow screamed and screamed until she passed out. Angelus and Darla refused to help. They were indignant about it.

“It's not that bad, baby,” he said. Her lips were pale.

“Dru?” Angelus lifted her chin. “Get another towel, Princess,” he said.

Dru scrambled to the bathroom to obey. “You need to elevate her feet,” Angelus added, “and—“

“I know,” William said impatiently. “I know.”

Dru brought a thick bath towel and Angelus ripped it in half and started folding it to make a pad, handing it to William. He switched bandages as Angelus tore strips of toweling to use to tie the bandage and ice pack in place. Darla walked in. “Who opened a tap?” she quipped, taking in the domestic drama. Just another day in the vampire home with a human pet. As soon as William got the bandage tied off, he covered her up by pulling the coverlet and blanket over her from either side of her body.

His hand grasped her jaw. He shook her when her eyes stayed closed. “Open your eyes, Willow,” he insisted.

She opened one eye, peering at him suspiciously. “I'd rather bleed to death,” she started to say.

He answered that with a sharp crack of laughter, his fingers sliding down to test her pulse. It was a little rapid, but strong. “You aren't dying, pet.”

He realized that she believed him when he saw her grimace. Her tongue stole out to wet her lips. He laid one finger across them, and only then noticed how much of her blood was on his hands. Bloody fingerprints marked her face and throat.

Angelus' hand landed on Dru's bare ass with a crack, making her squeal in girlish delight. “Someone has been very naughty,” he told her. “Should I let William punish you, Princess?”

She looked intrigued by the idea. “Oooh, my William?” she breathed, and then nodded. “Yes, please,” she agreed.

Angelus stared at her for a moment a cold smile forming. “Then it isn't much of a punishment is it?”

Confused, Dru's eyebrows pulled together and she lowered her head, her shoulders bowing in a kind of cringe that made William want to put his fist through Angelus' face. “The show is over,” he said, deliberately rude. “If you don't mind, shut the door on your way out.”

Angelus ignored him, moving from the end of the bed to sit beside Willow. She had enough presence of mind to be frightened. Unexpectedly, Angelus took her free hand, chafing it. “There,” he said. “Nothing to fret yourself about. You'll be fine. It's just the shock,” he tucked her hand in close to her heart. “You'll be yourself in a day or two.”

He looked at William. “Won't she?” he challenged.

It took him a second to process it. Stupid bastard thought he had fixed it so that Willow couldn't be used in his master plan. He let him know what he thought of that by rolling his eyes. “She'll be fine,” he said.

Darla linked arms with Drusilla, “Come along, Dru,” she encouraged, pulling her into the hallway. Angelus tucked the blankets Willow was loosely wrapped in around her closer before he too left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Left in utter silence, William closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck. “You so much as whisper that you want to die and the next words out of your mouth are going to be, ‘I'm hungry' and it won't be for a hearty English breakfast unless I can drag that prat you were sitting next to for dinner over.”

He laid down beside her, stroking her head. “Just shut up a while, all right? I'm so fucking tired. I just want to go to sleep.”

He worked his hand in, under the blankets, between her breasts. Her hand curled near her heart brushed the back of his hand. He stared at her face in profile, watching her lick her lips again, and a moment later, again. Closing his eyes for a moment, he sighed. She was so literal minded. He was such an idiot. “You need something to drink, don't you?”

She nodded.

“Yeah,” he made himself sit up. She needed fluids and something to warm her up. He got up. “I'll take care of you, baby,” he said, looking down at her.

Dry eyed, she returned his gaze. “Close your eyes. Rest. I'll be a moment,” he pointed out.

He found Lucius on the third floor in his Spartan room. “I need you,” he said, nothing more, turning on his heel to walk back to Cook's door, hitting in once with the flat of his hand. “Kitchen. Food for my girl. Now,” he barked, and heard a chair squeak across the floor.

Lucius was right behind him. “I want her bed changed, fresh linens, and a fire laid in with the crap that she likes,” he shot Lucius a look that warned him not to pretend that he didn't know exactly what he meant. “Four hours after she's fed, I want another tray ready for her, and again four hours later,” he specified, leaving the stair on the second floor to return to Willow's room, “And bring up a pitcher of well water before you do anything else.”

From the depths of Angelus' room he could hear the rattle of chains and Dru. She sounded coherent, but it was early.