Disclaimer: I don't know you, you don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Summery: How do you choose between the man you love…and the man you never stopped loving?
Spoiler: nada
Rating: R for violence, bloodshed, and possibly disturbing imagery
Characters: Spike and Angel and a mess of original characters
Distribution: Want? Have? Ask. And of course on my website.
Feedback: What? What'd you say? You had an opinion?! Sure I'd like to hear it.
Dedication: oh gee, to Susi who said she liked the parent-story when I was convinced no one was reading, and dia who asked for a sequel to a sequel. I went and complained….and here it is. Oh, and to all the ppl on all the lists I polled. It was a long time ago now, but here we are.
Author's Note: Please note that this was written a *long* time ago. At the time I would have sworn three ways from Tuesday that this was unfinished. Thanks to the creation of Fictionised.Net I was inspired to look through my work and came across this. Anywho, in hindsight I think it's done…but [I would like to believe] my writing has improved since this and…well…if you like it, God bless you. Heck, God bless if you *read* the fool thing.
A/N2: you'll be a lot happier if you read the series that preceeds this, "Acts of Devotion"...
Cassiopeia
~vashti
Prologue
"Lady." He saw that she was deep in her own thoughts despite the revelry of Mardi Gras around them. "Christina."
Her head turned with a snap. "Derek," she smiled.
"You seem--" How did he tell his maker, his mistress, his Sire and sometimes lover that she seemed out of phase with the rest of them? Spike and his new toy were getting along famously, Angelus played with their daughter, Grace. Katie, Derek's mate, trailed behind. "It's just that--"
"Got one," Grace said, offering the mortal's neck to Spike, her grand-sire, first. They all, except for the toy, took a drink before discarding it into the throbbing, writhing crowd.
Christina wiped her red lips and smiled. "I think Katie's lonely." Turning back to protest he found her at Spike's elbow ignoring his pet human. It would have to wait for another time.
Cassiopeia: (n., proper) 1. the wife of King Cepheus who gives birth to Andromeda and is later changed into a constellation
2. (n.) a northern constellation between Andromeda and Cepheus
If she had thought about it on her long walk through the moonlit open-arched corridor she would have reveled in her choice of houses and architects. Yes, it was opulant for most of their kind but they weren't most, were they? Clutching the ice white satin sheet to her naked chest she walked past arch after arch after arch, legs peaking through to the hip with each step as wispy and often ripped mosquito netting drapes brushed her exposed skin. And if a particularly strong breezed forced it over her face and hair like a macabre version of her wedding day, the end of the California king size sheet her train, she didn't smile.
"You wanted me?"
Spike smirked at his childe. "Come straight from Angelus' bed, then, have you?"
"What other git would have satin sheets," she said in that calm dead way that made many of the minions call her the Gemini. A face so young and innocent should not have a voice so heartless and dead. They loved her.
"Don't much like it myself but--" it fell in a wide shimmering pool around her cinnamon feet. "Never mind." At his beckoning she came to stand between his open, jean-clad legs. "I'm so glad you set us at different ends of the house," he said silkily, huskily.
She shrugged. "Sire and childe never got along much even when the childe was the sire. Besides, I didn't want either of you disturbing my sleep."
"Is that all?" Spike asked, nuzzling her smooth stomach.
Pushing her hands deep into his hair she pulled him back to look up at her. "You know me better than that Sire. You know me."
"Yes, Kitten," he said, pulling her down, "I alone know you," into a tempestous kiss.