"What the bloody hell is all that racket about?!" No one answered Spike. "You, you over there," he pulled the minion by his ear, "tell me what's going on and be quick about it."
"Angelus and Gemini, sir."
"Bloody hell," he muttered, tossing the minion aside. Storming across the now heavily draped corridor he thought of various, interesting and creative ways to torture his children.
As Spike reached for the door handle that would lead him to the common room it shuddered as if something large and heavy had been thrown against it. He shoved it open.
"I do not belong to you, Angelus," Christina said, her voice an ice flow but her eyes blazing hot and black.
"And who do you belong to," he asked cockily, "Spike?"
The vampire in question kicked Angelus' knees out from under him. "Bloody well believe she does." He could hear her soft snort of disagreement across the room. "Got something to say about it, Kitten?"
"Of course not, Sire," she answered, half bowing to him. Before storming past him and a still kneeling Angelus to the corridor and her rooms beyond.
Screams followed in her wake. Both vampires turned to see what she had done: each of the heavy velvet and muslin drapes had been pulled back as she passed as would normally occur at night. Minions caught unawares were scrambling into the narrow patches of shadow between arches and near the far wall. "Quite the little fire starter isn't she?" Spike ignored his childe's quip and ordered the drapes closed, "Now!
"And you--"
Angelus' smile said, Who me?
"I don't know what mind games you're trying to play with her," he fumed, circling his childe, "or what ever else you think you're doing by baiting her day in and out but you will do it some other time or place where I can't bloody well hear you!"
Angelus stood and bowed with a flourish. "As you wish, Sire," he ended with a sneer. "But you can't handle her," he said to Spike's back. The blond turned. "You think you know what to do with Chris? You think because you sired her, because you gave her Grace that she's your pet?" Angelus laughed. "Oh, my dear boy," he said silkily, "you are quite mistaken."
"I am not your dear boy, Angel," Spike gloated as the barb hit its mark, "and if you think you can own her then you're wrong. Don't make me remind you who is Sire and who is childe here or who Christina shares her blood with.
"That is what you want, isn't it? That's what you're after. You don't dare challenge me without her neck as your chalice. Without her support you have no hope of winning over the minions to your side, because you know as well as I do that you're too weak to take me on your own, or to threaten the lackeys to back you up. Don't think because you have Grace, mate, that you can have Gem."
Glowering Angelus turned and walked away. "No one can have her," he murmured.
It was good to be the Master.