The Price of Love

Disclaimer: I own nothing except any OCs.

What if Spike hadn't been the first member of his line to kill a slayer? What if Angelus had killed one more than a century before, in the strangest circumstances imaginable? (One shot)

Vivid red hair gleaming in the moonlight-"Like blood!" thought the newly sired vampire Liam, sighing softly in the darkness.

He had dug himself out of his grave only a few hours before and had spent the hours since his rebirth feasting on the blood of anyone who came too close and listening with rapture to his sire Darla's tales of vampire lore. To think, only a couple of days ago he was merely a pathetic human! "How things change…" he thought wistfully refocusing his attention on the beautiful red head in front of him.

He had no idea what the young beauty before him was doing in a cemetery at this time of night, or should he say morning? It made no sense for a young woman to be here alone, un-chaperoned in a graveyard, where anything could happen to her. "Where anyone could get to her!" he thought with relish, unconsciously slipping into game face in anticipation of the kill.

She was beautiful, petite, slender and curvaceous, "Just the way I like them!" though Liam with relish, and dressed all in black, in mourning for someone, perhaps, and her red hair, falling in ringlets over her shoulders was in stark contrast to her pale skin, skin almost as pale as his, as though she spent most of her time in darkness rather than sunlight, though this seemed a rather unlikely hypothesis…Strangely he felt connected to her, as though he knew her, or perhaps Liam had…

Even more strangely, she hadn't sensed his presence yet, and that bothered him, though he had no idea why. Darla had explained how he was now so much stronger than humans, he could sneak up on them with ease, but something felt off… Liam felt like she should have known he was there, but was too wrapped up in her own grief to notice or even care, "Well all the better for me!" he thought grinning evilly in the darkness and letting his newly acquired demon come to the fore of his consciousness, "If she doesn't sense me behind her she won't put up much of a defence when I attack!"

This thought should have been the signal for his attack, but to his mortification he couldn't do it… He had been drawn back to this cemetery for reasons he couldn't grasp, and this girl was behind it, he was sure… Darla had wanted him to come hunting with her, and he himself had wanted vengeance on his pig of a father, but yet here he was, hiding in the darkness watching a girl sob over a grave. A grave with a single white rose perched on top of hastily refilled earth – "My grave!" he thought with a jerk, allowing his buried human personality to come to the fore and slipping out of game face with the sudden realisation.

The girl in the darkness was crying over his grave! The sobs wracking her body with tremors, her delicate frame hunched in a ball, knees to her chest, head in her hands, sobbing as though her world had come to an end.

"And it has." Thought Liam with sudden understanding. He knew this girl, knew her better than he knew himself… Images flashed before his eyes of his life, his human life, so quickly forgotten, buried by the demon which now resided in his body but cherished by whatever left inside of him that was still human. He saw her in his mind's eye, talking, laughing, dancing, walking, he saw secret rendez-vous with her in the fields, reading, walking, stolen kisses, promises…

"Cora…" he whispered the name on the wind, longing tainting his voice even more so than his strong Irish lilt, and then froze. She had stopped her sobbing, looking around her as though for a ghost, but how had she heard! Liam knew that he had spoken in no more than a whisper, no human ear could have possibly heard him, but she reacted as though she had…

Sighing with relief, Liam watched as she lowered her head back into her hands and continued to sob… His heart wrenched inside his chest, he longed to rush over to her and kiss away her tears as he had done so many times before, but he stopped himself.

He was acting like Liam! But he wasn't Liam, not anymore, he knew that, he didn't have a true name yet, but that would come in time, Darla assured him, he would be given one when they returned to The Master (He wasn't sure why but this particular thought did not appeal to him in the slightest, he was through with taking anyone's orders and he did not want anyone to be his master anymore!). "The point is that I'm not Liam anymore so I should stop acting like him!" he thought, brutally crushing his stirring humanity down as far as he could and once again began preparing himself to strike.

But he stopped himself before he did. There was something off about her, he just knew it… There was a power that radiated from her, he could sense it, his human eyes may not have seen it before, but his vampiric senses told him that it was there… A power beyond what was human, yet not really demonic… He sighed in irritation, he had little experience in these matters, and though Darla had explained to him that he would now be able to sense those with power, he had no idea just what this girl was, she looked human… From what he remembered of growing up with her she was human, he stamped out that thought there and then, he would not let Liam retake control! But even as he thought it he felt his mental barriers slipping as his mind was plunged into memory… Liam's memory…

He saw balls, stolen glimpses, forbidden dances, disapproval of family, meeting under cover of darkness, shared dreams of … escape! A life far from the confines of Galway and its limited society, talk of travel, seeing the world, university, marriage… but in these memories they were so young… He could have been no more than nineteen in the latest memories, and her sixteen… Then they changed, shattered dreams, his father telling him that he couldn't go to university even though he had won a place, telling him he was worthless… her pulling away, almost as though she were hiding something, though they shared everything…his life spiralling out of control, whores, drink, every betrayal a knife in the gut to the woman he loved but she didn't give up on him… her telling him not to give up… a plan, elopement! But she didn't want to go, she had responsibilities, he had to convince her, and he did…but Darla! He had failed, lost himself in ale…again, and this time there could be no return from his betrayal…

Snapping himself out of Liam's memories he shook his head, in exasperation, and pain, God he loved her! Even now, when there was virtually nothing left of the man he once was, he felt it, with every fibre of his being, he felt it, consuming him, burning him, tormenting him with thoughts of what he had lost… what could never be his and bringing his humanity to the fore even as he struggled against it.

"What should I do now?" he thought in panic, he couldn't kill her, he knew that now, but… could he face eternity without her? He couldn't even bare the thought, a life without her was no life at all… The thought scared him with its brutal honesty, he needed her to survive…

It was at this point that she stirred, she had stopped sobbing, and was instead caressing the headstone, he could now see her face, it being no longer buried in her hands and it killed him to see tears in her haunted green eyes. She was so beautiful, but he didn't think that he would ever forget the look of utter devastation on her face, a look that he had put there, he felt so guilty, he had failed her again… "But" he thought with sudden realisation, "I didn't put that haunted look in her eye, that's been there for years, but why?" he honestly had no clue, but the demon part of him recognised it somehow, as something... to be wary of? He didn't know what it meant but it seemed important.

Suddenly she began to speak, so quietly that if it weren't for his newly sharpened senses he wouldn't have heard, "Liam," she began tremulously, "I don't know if you can hear me" she sobbed, "But if you can, I need you to know that I'm sorry." She finished, her voice cracking with exertion, her soft Irish lilt more prominent since she was struggling with such overwhelming emotions.

Liam was shocked, he had absolutely no idea why she was apologising to him, he had failed her, not the other way around, this was his fault, just like it always was, not hers. "I failed you!" she admitted brokenly, fury at her own failing tainting her voice, to Liam's immense shock. "I should have saved you!" she screamed angrily, tears streaming down her face in grief, "Why couldn't I save you?" she asked, in a small tired voice filled with pleading, with longing, gazing up at the stars as if they could answer all her questions. "I'm supposed to save people!" she screamed in frustration, pulling at her long curls and dropping her head back into her hands as she began to sob more violently.

Liam didn't know what to think, what she was saying didn't make sense, what was she talking about? How on earth could she have saved him, she was just a girl, barely eighteen yet, what could she possibly have done to protect him from Darla, or perhaps she just meant that she should have stopped him from drinking, though for some reason he was sure that was not what she meant.

Whatever she was talking about it broke his heart to see her so lost. When they were growing up she had always been the one who made the best of situations, she knew she could never do what she really wanted, couldn't go to school or be with him, but she always had a plan, she was so strong she never ever gave up, it killed him to see her so confused. She was the strong one! She always comforted him! When his father's hash words were too much, she would make him believe in his own worth again, and when her own father's scheming to marry her off to rich landowners got too much, he in turn would comfort her, they were each others rocks, the one sure thing in a world determined to keep them down, and now he had gone and left her!

She started talking again, more calmly this time, though the underlying pain and anguish in her voice was still easy to distinguish, "What will I do without you my angel?" she questioned, running her hand softly along the headstone, "Without my white knight, my Liam to protect me?" she sighed, resting her head against the cool stone, "How could you leave me!" she sobbed in a heartbroken voice, "I need you." She breathed, so quietly that even Liam's keen vampiric hearing almost missed it.

Liam himself couldn't take listening to her anymore, she was in so much pain, and he had caused it! The demon part of him told him that he didn't care, but it did not have full control of him yet and he could not help but feel guilty, what humanity still existed inside him was screaming at him to comfort her, and he could no longer ignore it, the pull was far too strong, he owed her…

Stepping out of the shadow of the tree that he had been hiding under, Liam approached her carefully, but his caution was unnecessary, she didn't seem to care, it was almost as though she knew what was lurking in the shadows, and wanted it to get her, like she no longer cared whether she lived or died… He didn't know where those thoughts had come from, but on some level Liam knew them to be the truth of the situation, and the thought scared him…

Dropping to the ground beside her Liam wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to his chest, where she continued to sob all over his shirt, they stayed this way for quite some time, until she broke the silence engulfing them and she asked tentatively, "Are you really my angel, or are you a dream, one which I will wake from to find you still gone?"

Liam had no answer for her, what could be possibly say to explain what he now was? So he said nothing, and instead buried his face in the crook of her neck, bringing her as close to him as he physically could, and inhaling her sweet familiar scent, a scent which permeated his most wonderful dreams, that he linked with happiness. But now he could also scent her blood, so sweet, flowing just beyond his reach, warm and delicious, his for the taking, all he had to do was bite down hard enough to break the skin… He could hear the strength of her heartbeat, growing louder to his sensitive ears with every passing second, he was so hungry, and it would just be so easy to…

Without even consciously thinking about it he changed to game face, and prepared to bite down, but he hesitated, for a moment there she had stiffened, as if she knew what he was preparing to do, before suddenly relaxing, as though resigning herself to her fate … But that was impossible, how could she know? To Liam's amazement the demon inside of him was screaming danger telling him to run as far and as fast as he could from this girl who was more than what she seemed, but he refused to listen, and flinging caution to the wind he bit down, hard.

Her blood was incredible, like nothing else that he had ever tasted, in his, albeit, limited experience, it reeked of power, ancient power, it was like ambrosia, so strong and awe inspiring. What was she? No human could ever taste like this, that much he knew, and if she was so powerful why wasn't she fighting back? He had absolutely no idea what was going on, but even someone as inexperienced as he realised how important it was. But what was he to do? He still didn't want to kill her, he couldn't bare to live without her. The answer was so simple that he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before…

He would turn her! Make her his childe in the same way that Darla had made him her childe, he knew how to do it, and what could be better than eternity with the woman he loved? His decision made Liam begin draining her with renewed vigour, biting down so hard that he could feel her delicate body shudder in his arms, a moan of what could either have been pleasure or pain escaping her lips, which only encouraged him to bite harder still in order to illicit another response as delicious from her.

Once he had drained her to the point of death Liam slit his own wrist and prepared to feed her from it, she was so pale lying there, in the dirt, gasping for breath, her life nearly extinguished that he almost felt sorry for her, almost, he was, after all, giving her a better life, one in which she could see the world, as he knew she longed to, the pain would only be temporary, as he well knew.

Pressing his wrist to her lips he prepared to feed her, but to his shock, she resisted, struggling to push his wrist away, as if she knew what he was offering, and was refusing! But what were the chances of that, how could she possibly know, and if she did why was she refusing his offer?

Liam didn't know and didn't care, he had to get her to drink before it was too late, so opening her mouth he trickled some of the blood down her throat, forcing her to drink, knowing that a taste would be all it took for her to drink by choice, sort of, the taste of it being impossible to resist, and sure enough she did, latching on to the cut, and sucking for all she was worth, tenacious in her struggle to take as much as she could, he almost couldn't stop her! She was that strong, another thing that confirmed that there was something unnatural about her, but eventually he did manage to pull her off, and she fell hitting the muddy ground by the grave hard, her body completely still, being in the hibernation stage before the first awakening.

She would have looked like she was sleeping, if it weren't for the unhealthy too pale pallor of her cheeks and the puncture marks on her neck, she looked so young, so innocent with the white rose lying right next to her cheek … She would wake tomorrow night he knew, and look for him, her sire, the blood bond between them would ensure that, the same type of bond that he himself felt with Darla, yet he couldn't bare to leave her, she was his childe, his childe…

He had to tell Darla what he had done! He knew that she would approve, after all, Cora would make the perfect vampire, Darla would surely see that! Elated Liam stalked out into the night, intent on finding his sire, there were still a few hours till sun up, and Cora's blood had left him feeling strangely energised, he would hunt tonight and tomorrow night he would welcome his new childe into the world, this would be the dawning of a new era of the world, that much he was sure of!

But whilst Liam celebrated somewhere in the night a Watcher cried for the charge he had felt die, and said goodbye to Cora the Vampire Slayer, and waited in fear for the inevitable rise of the demon with her face, the demon who would come to be known as Pandora, the Slayer who became what she hunted, the girl who opened Pandora's Box. He only prayed that he could discover a way to temper this creature with his magic's before she rose from her grave, and brought the world into darkness.

Now guess what he's gonna do! (Think soul, and yes I know its been over done but hey, that's why this is fan fiction!) Anyway thanks for reading this twisted little story, this came from thinking, what if Buffy and Spike weren't the only groupies (Going for vampires/slayers), what if Angelus had done it first, without even realising! Anyway enough on the workings of my twisted little mind, now review! Please! I really would like to know your opinion, good or bad!

Please tell me if anyone out there is interested in a possible sequel with the character of Pandora, I'm curious to see if anyone would be interested! So please review and tell me!

Thanks! XXX