APOLOGY: See Part 6a. This is the second half of the chapter posted last week.

RATING: NC-17 (for this half).

DISCLAIMER: Even though Joss has said that BtVS was meant to be a show about which fanfic was written, he can't keep the WB or Fox from doing things like taking down AleXander's transcripts. So, I can only reiterate that I don't own any copyrights to the characters who are owned by Joss, the WB and Mutant enemy, and that no infringement is intended. I just own my own depraved thoughts about how the story should go…

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS: The usual suspects. See Part 1

WARNING: This two-part chapter has a couple of plot twists that might alarm some of you. Keep in mind that I am a fan of strong, kick-ass Buffy and that the title of this section is "Journey." We haven't arrived where I intend to go yet, but we can't get there if I don't go here first. Trust me.

RANT: See Part 6a. In fact, see almost any rant on any of my stories. Incontrovertible B/A Shipper, here.

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"So helpless, so sweet, so lost. Do you know how seductive that is to a vampire, my love?" Angelus said as he strode forward, then gently lowered her to the bed. Almost tenderly, he began to take off the clothes she had only just put on. "I love it when you fight me and I win. But vampires are dominant, darling. Your submissiveness, your weeping…," he kissed her softly. "That's almost too delicious for words." He pulled something out of his pocket, then stripped out of his own clothing quickly, rejoining her on the bed before she could work up the courage to fight him off.

"Let's do things properly, this time," he said, opening the pocket knife in his hand, and reaching for her bound wrists. He sliced through the bonds and pulled them away from her, discarding the scraps of silk and tossing the knife well out of her reach. The silk had chaffed her skin somewhat. He pressed cool, soothing kisses against the abraded flesh.

His body was over hers, dominant, pressing her into the mattress. And her hands were at long last unbound. But that didn't matter when she couldn't use them to fight her way free. She knew she was no match for him, physically. The whole point of that damnable ritual had been for a Slayer to be forced to use her wits, not her strength or fighting skills, to defeat her opponent. And her wits simply weren't up to the task at the moment.

His kisses moved slowly upward from her wrists, until they reached her throat. He lingered over the almost healed brand on her neck, and she wondered if he would bite her again. But he contented himself with kisses for the moment. And then his mouth found hers.

Gentleness. His mouth didn't crush hers, didn't try to dominate. Instead, it caressed and teased, inviting hers to return the taste. Somehow, her weakened state encouraged him to play the seducer instead of the tyrant. Somehow, the seducer was worse.

She could almost feel herself slipping away as her arms crept slowly, shyly up to twine around his neck. Her lips accepted his invitation, exchanging tender kisses with his. She wasn't herself, wasn't Buffy. She was some new, pliant creature, not a fighter at all. Something very weak…and so very needy.

Because it would be so very, very easy to fool herself into believing that the gentle lover seducing her now was her beloved Angel, and that he was, in every sense, making love to her. She knew the truth: this was merely another way for Angelus to dominate and control her. But the truth seemed so unimportant right now, when she was in so much torment, and she was being offered so much tenderness.

He could taste her tears in the kiss, even as her lips trembled and parted beneath his, and her arms reached to hold him close. She was learning. She was beginning to understand that she belonged to him, would always belong to him. He wasn't having to fight her into submission --not that he minded, when winning was so deliciously rewarded. But he liked having her willing, even if reluctantly so. Soon, he promised himself, he would do away with her reluctance. She would come to his bed not because he forced her to, but because she herself could not stay away.

But for the moment, a bit of force didn't bother him at all.

Part of him wanted to coax her thighs apart and plunge into her sweet depths until they were both too sated to move. But he had indulged himself with her only a few hours before. The edge was off his appetite for her, and he had leisure to take things slowly, to savor this moment of triumph against the Slayer who had brought down demons far more fearsome than even the strongest vampire could claim to be. So he continued the exchange of kisses while his hands began to gently stroke and caress, running over her delectable curves, exploring the satin softness of her warm skin. Whenever he got around to turning her, that would be one thing he would miss, her human, living warmth. But it would be a small price to pay for having her as his eternal mate. So he would savor her warmth while he had it.

Angelus kissed his way slowly and deliberately down her body, lingering again over the almost healed wounds. His thirst for her was rising, and he wasn't sure he either wanted or needed to control it this time. He couldn't drink as deeply as he had two nights before. But it would be so sweet to drink from her while she was so yielding…

He resisted the temptation for the moment and moved on. Her body had other delights for him beyond the elixir of her blood. His mouth found and captured one pert, pebbled nipple, and he laved it slowly with his tongue. Buffy gave a tiny gasp, arching helplessly into his mouth, her hands tangling in his hair and holding his head to her breast. Her responsiveness encouraged him to suckle harder. Her body began to undulate under his, rousing him deliciously, as he carefully heightened her own arousal. Long moments later, when he finally lifted his head, she cried out in disappointment... until he dipped his head again to capture the nipple of her other breast.

Buffy was drowning in exquisite sensation. Even Angel, who had made love to her with profound gentleness, never had the opportunity to take his time with her the way Angelus was doing now. His lingering kisses, and slow worship of her body was making her so very needy for him. As his tongue swept lovingly over her breast again, she found herself whimpering, her head tossing from side to side.

"Please…" she heard herself whisper.

Angelus smiled to himself when he heard that. So much yearning, so much surrender in one husky whisper. He knew what she was pleading for…but he wasn't ready to grant it just yet. Instead, he gave her breasts a few moments more of delicate attention, then moved on to her femininely rounded belly, her womanly hips, and down her firm thighs. He began to lick her skin, as well as press kisses to it. Her flesh tasted almost as sweet as her blood. No wonder Slayers never lived long enough to be changed. They were such a damnably seductive meal, you could devour them whole, flesh and blood, probably bone as well.

Unless you knew that the only thing better than having one of them inside your belly was to plunge yourself deeply inside one of them.. Or, at least, so it was between himself and this Slayer. Angelus reveled in the taste of her on his tongue, and her plaintive, needy cries only heightened his enjoyment. He kissed and licked his way down her shapely legs, to her tiny, high arched little feet. And then he kissed his way upward once more, as she trembled and gasped and undulated…and as she began once more to plead…

When his mouth found her liquid, fragrant core, she arched into him with a sweet, breathless cry. He knew he didn't dare tease her for very long. She was close to climax, and he wanted to be inside her, wanted her gripping him hard, when he gave her the release she sought. He savored the taste of her for a few moments, his tongue lightly flicking her tiny pearl, and then probing intimately inside her. He kept the pressure light, enough to arouse, not to satisfy. Her hands were once more buried in his hair, futilely trying to force him to give her more than he was willing to give. But this time when he heard her cry out, there was such a wealth of agonized need in her voice, he was considering relenting. And then she cried out again.

"Angelus!"

His control shattered. He moved instantly to cover her, her thighs parting willingly to accommodate him. He grabbed her legs, bending them at the knees and pushing them back to her shoulders. She was more open and vulnerable to him in that position than she had ever been before, and he could tell that she was keenly aware of it. She looked at him, tears still falling from her beautiful eyes, and he could read both fear and desire in their depths.

In that moment, he thought that he had never seen anything as beautiful in his life as Buffy was to him then. He fought for control, needing this to be perfect. He leant forward, positioning himself carefully. When he found the entrance, everything in him screamed out for him to plunge inside, to gore her, to ride her hard and fast, knowing that she was so primed she would find pleasure no matter how brutal his use of her.

But he needed her utter surrender, and he knew force would not give him that. Angelus slowly, carefully eased himself inside the tight, slick passage. Her little, whimpering cries were the sweetest music to him. He knew this position allowed him to penetrate her more deeply than he had yet done; so deep he could drown in her, so deep he could lose the sense of where he ended and she began.

And as soon as he had himself fully seated, he got his reward: Buffy cried out her completion as she came around him, her body gripping his manhood as she reached her pleasure. Smiling, Angelus held perfectly still, watching her in rapture, enjoying the feel of her core clasping him tightly as her body spiraled out of control, the feel of her soft breasts pressed to his chest, the feel of her arms clinging to him. Oh, yes. He could drown in Buffy Summers.

She was drowning in him, and losing herself. Buffy didn't exist anymore, not the quick-witted, smart-mouthed Slayer. Not the girl who had taken down Acathla and the Judge, thwarted an Ascension, and fought Angelus himself to his knees. She had been replaced by a woman who desperately needed the chimerical tenderness being offered her, a woman so lost and aching that she would let a demon make love to her, that she would let herself make love to him.

Because this was lovemaking, however twisted and misbegotten the love.

Whatever Angelus told himself he felt for her, it was clearer and clearer to her that the love Angel himself felt for Buffy was driving the demon, as well. And she needed Angel's love for her more than she ever had. She was alone, desolate, in a prison she couldn't escape from even if she managed to stake Angelus and single-handedly fight off every member of the crew.

And in a prison of desire, a silken cage of yearning that held her captive more securely than iron bars could ever do.

Buffy needed the reminder of Angel's love, needed to hold it to her heart for whatever strength and comfort it would be to her in this, her most deadly battle, as she fought against Angelus' invasion not of her body, but of her heart…

He slid inside her so deeply she thought she would never again be able to separate herself from him, as if the joining of their bodies were mere symbol for the union of their spirits. That was always the way it had been for herself and Angel, the blending of their flesh an expression of the blending of their souls. Angelus had no soul, but his spirit was placing it's own claim on her, his mastery of her body an expression of his need to master her spirit. And right now, with his gentleness, with his worship of her, with his every action keyed to bringing her a rapture unlike any he had given her before, she was perilously close to yielding that mastery, to letting him win, to giving him whatever he desired just so that she would never again have to leave the strong circle of his arms.

Oh, Summers, you are pathetic, she thought bitterly. But just then he finished entering her, sheathing himself more fully inside her than he had been able to accomplish even at his most brutal, and she reached a height she had not quite realized was before her.

She clung to him as the rapture swamped her, grateful that he remained unmoving, sure she would die if the pleasure were any more intense. She cried out her release, vaguely aware that he was watching her, vaguely aware that his smile as he did so was not the nasty smirk she was used to, but as gentle as all his actions had been with her so far. She didn't try to puzzle out why things were different, just accepted that they were, and surrendered to the waves of ecstasy consuming her.

He loved the way she looked, the way she moved, the way she sounded when she found completion in his arms. He loved her helplessness and her beauty and her yielding. Infinitely sweet, the surrender of this Slayer to a demon. There would be legends about his triumph over her: he understood that the power of what they were was the stuff of myths; demon and angel forever intertwined.

He savored each sigh, each cry, each quiver as she trembled under him, her climax cresting, lingering, ending.

He allowed her a few moments grace, dropping slow, soft kisses on her closed eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her temple.

Until her breathing calmed, and her eyes opened, and he read in them the knowledge of her defeat and her limitless sorrow…and utterly delighted, he moved to defeat her again.

He pulled back and thrust forward. She lifted herself to meet him, her eyes not flinching away from his. He smiled, pleased, bending his head to take her lips again, even as her arms moved once more to tighten their embrace.

They moved together perfectly, two halves of a whole, completing each other. He couldn't believe that however good things had been between them before, this was even better. If the demon didn't enjoy her pain so much, he could get addicted to showing her nothing but gentleness…

She let go of her guilt, of her despair. It was all pointless right now. She needed him. That was that. She accepted it and let herself go, gasping in amazement as the fire in her flesh he had so recently put out was instantly rekindled.

They burned together, driving toward a completion that would consume them both. And as they did so, the battle in which they had been engaged dropped away as it, too, became meaningless in the face of their joining. For both of them, there was nothing beyond the moment. What was happening between them was more powerful, more important than mastery and submission, victory and defeat, betrayal and regret, right and wrong. Her sacred duty to kill him was as irrelevant as his need to subvert her to the dark. Where they were, where they were going, was of no significance beside the significance of their mating.

She matched him perfectly, giving him a depth and purity of pleasure that he had never suspected existed, and that he would never be able to find with any other woman, no matter how many centuries lay before him. And he was all she ever wanted, could ever want, in the world.

The approached the peak together, as tongues melded and bodies entwined. Her arms tightened around him, even as he moved to bring her more fully into his embrace, as if even as deep as he was inside her, he needed yet more of her.

His thrusts began to pick up speed, and he drank down her cries as her hips lifted to him. He drove into her willing flesh, and she yielded around him welcomingly. For all his force, there was still the seductive tenderness that she ached for.

At that moment, had the sun invaded the cabin and burned him to ash he would not have moved to save himself if it meant parting from her.

Needing her to be with him, he broke their kiss, and let his lips move down to her throat. His lips opened over the wound, his tongue flicked across it.

"Yes," she whispered. He went instantly into gameface and sank his fangs home.

Orgasm hit him as soon as her blood hit is tongue. And the spill of his cold seed into her depths, the draw of liquid fire along her veins as he drank from her was enough to bring her with him into matchless rapture.

They strained ever closer together, demon and angel, dark and light, destroyer and protector. And in the perfection of their union, good and evil struck a balance, a harmony, a still, quiet moment of peace. Ecstasy held them enthralled for long, glorious moments as the stars seemed to shatter around them and the sun and moon to fall from the sky.

Clinging together, they endured the end of the world…and triumphed over it.

Angelus retracted his fangs, some deep rooted instinct, independent of the conscious thought of which he was no longer capable, knowing that he must not take more than he already had. Buffy sighed softly, regretfully, even as her eyelids fluttered closed. Their bodies rode out the storm, and came to rest as they had done all else…together.

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Well, you don't think I'm going to stop it there, do you? To be continued…

PART 6a              FEMFIC            PART 7          FEEDBACK