1Chapter 5
Angel sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room, furthest from the bed were Buffy's now still body lie. Light from the full moon cascaded through the window over her newly pale skin, dusting it with a fine sheen of blue. Her hair was fanned out over the blood red satin sheets haloing her in a sea of pale spun gold.
Her lashes made dark crescents on her gently sloped cheeks and her lips were set in a slight smile giving Buffy an air of angelic innocents. Angel continued to stare willing her chest to rise or her heat to beat, just once, to wake him up from this nightmare.
One minuet, then another passed and still nothing. Angel dropped his head in his hands fighting back the urge to cry and howl in loss and rage. A breathless moan coming from the bed brought him out of his sulk.
Buffy was floating in a whirling gray mist drifting above her body slowly, drifting down. The first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes were the vein-like cracks running across the ceiling. She blinked rapidly to clear the fog in the edges of her vision.
A slow burning started in the pit of her stomach, but quickly turned to a consuming, fiery vortex scalding her from the inside out. She moaned and curled into a ball trying aimlessly to stop the pain. Buffy felt a hand lightly stroking her back. She looked up into a pair of familiar chocolate, now swirled with caramel, eyes.
"Angel?" Buffy asked, voice colored with uncertainty and fear. A single blood tear fell down his alabaster cheek. Buffy reached up to capture the drop only to be wracked with waves of red hot pain streaking through her veins. Her stomach lurched violently, sending her spiraling out of bed to her knees.
Angel knew this was coming, the final step of transition, and tried to brace himself for it, but with every pitiful wounded animal sound that tore from Buffy twisted like a jagged knife shard deeper and deeper into his already bleeding heart. He sat beside her and pulled her convulsing body into his lap and wrapped his arms around her in a protective vice.
Buffy had never been afflicted with pain of this magnitude before. It wrecked her whole body and felt as if someone was taking a blow torch to her insides. She gripped at Angel's chest trying to focus on something else, anything else, but the pain. Beads of sweat broke out over her as her body struggled to fight the inevitable.
Another wave hit her so hard she heaved and gasped, her body trying to rid itself of any foreign entities. "Angel. I-it hurts. Make it stop, p-please make it stop." Buffy begged between heaves. Tears trekked down his cheeks unchecked as Angel held tighter, remaining silent, running his hand down her back feeling guilty and helpless.
Angel didn't know how long he sat there rocking her. The tremors become less and less frequent until they were just minor, sporadic quakes. Buffy moaned and rubbed her cheek against Angel's black silk shirt rooting up toward the open buttons and nuzzled his neck.
Angel closed his eyes as he leaned back against the wall giving her more freedom to continue as she wished. Buffy's hands made quick work of the rest of the onyx colored buttons. Leaving his chest vulnerable to her hungry lips.
She trailed them up his chest making the taut muscles jump. Buffy left open mouth kisses from his shoulder to a hot spot behind his ear, causing sparks of white heat to dance across his skin, making him groan at the exquisite pain.
The sparks turned to a fire storm as her tung trailed his jugular to the place where his neck met shoulder and he felt her face change. Buffy lightly nipped at the sensitive skin with her fangs then placed a kiss there before biting down. Angel hissed and holding the back of her head in an unbreakable vice as rapture overtook him in a violent wave.
Pure white energy hit Buffy from all sides, coursing through her veins. Cinnamon and power with a tang of copper honey swirled over her tung. She moved to straddle Angel's lap and tunneled one of her hands through his soft, lightly gelled espresso hair, pulling him closer.
The smell of rain and forest clung to him evading her senses. A steady beat and the sound of shoes rhythmically hitting asphalt drew Buffy's attention from Angel's neck. Her head snapped up in alarm and growled as the sound drew nearer.
Before Angel could make a grab for Buffy she was out of his lap and down the hall, heading out the mansion door. Angel staggered to his feet and followed after her. Buffy stealthily moved through the shadows of the woods in back of the mansion stalking the sound of the retreating footfalls.
As the sound stopped Buffy drew cautiously nearer, coming upon a woman stretching her leg with one hand against a tree. Buffy's hungry rose with a vengeance causing her body to tense as she prepared to pounce.