Cordelia relived two lives while she slept.

She dreamed of the sun at her back. The tall grass of the Savannah, the hint of prey and the thrill of the hunt. The safety of pack.

She dreamed of the spirit she became one with. It's joy at her strength. How she and her brothers had become so much more. But they had to be, they were sacred warriors now, tasked with the protection of their kinsmen against the creatures that hunted them.

She dreams about strategy meetings, spears stained with rancid demon blood. She dreamed of fighting at her brothers sides, of hunting prey worthy enough to woo her wife.

Every new battle made them better. Stronger, faster, even smarted, sometimes. Added more knowledge to the lore. New ways to kill the things that threaten their kind. War wounds than faded at the dawn.

The sun healed them now, they can hold its light inside of themselves, release a flare of it in front of the creatures that wore the faces of lost kin. Burn them to ash.

When Cordelia woke, she was so much more than herself. She was more than the man her new Spirit was once with. She is more than the Spirit could have ever hoped for. More than the sum of her parts.

She was a bearer of light. It dwelled in her soul, shone through her skin to illuminate the world.

She smiled, wild, feral, and beautiful. The world won't know what hit it.

xXx

Xander felt too wired to sleep. It's not exactly a new situation. Ever since Buffy came to town and he found out all about the real night life in his town, he'd been hit with a weird energy sometimes. It made it near impossible to sleep. It left him restless, it made him want to take a stake and go from door to door with a cross, stake every single vampire he founds.

But he's not quite that stupid. So he sticks to tossing and turning instead. He had loads to think about anyway.

Xander knows he should say something. It's not a question in the least. There is something very, very wrong with Cordelia. Something the Hellmouth has done to her. Something they should figure out and fix before her new-found lust for him ended up with Xander losing something important, like his virginity.

Not that he doesn't want to lose his virginity. He's a teenage boy. His virginity is pretty much up for grabs to the first girl that shows any interest. But he sure as hell doesn't want to lose it to a girl under the influence of something freaky. That brings up all sorts of consensual issues and other things that make him squick.

So a few hours after Cordelia cornered him to snuggle and question him, of all things, when he can't take it anymore, he heads straight to the library. It was probably a little too early, but having Cordelia molest him in the dawn wasn't exactly conductive to sleeping. So the quicker they figured this out, the quicker Xander could get some shut-eye. He'd catch up on his sleep in class. They have to figure out how to deal with this first.

Technically, he doesn't have to wait for Giles very long. But the minutes feel like hours and by the time G-man showed up Xander was ready to tear his hair out. Giles took one look at his disheveled appearance and pulled off his glasses.

"What on earth are you doing here so early, Xander?" He asked, and began to polish his lenses.

Xander opened his mouth, ready to launch into a tirade about Cordelia, hellmouthy evil, and how they have to figure this out yesterday. Make it stop as quickly as possible and restore the world to it's previous sanity. What he doesn't count on is the way the words stick in his throat.

"Um." He manages."Help?"

"I would be delighted to help you Xander. If only you would tell me what you require my assistance with?" Giles said, exasperation clear.

Xander couldn't even blame him. He didn't get why he'd been reduced to one word answers. Maybe it was the vain hope that he could still pretend none of it happens so long as no one else knew about it. Then a throat cleared behind them and Xander's foolish hope died a quick painful death.

xXx

She's not surprised to find her mate with the Librarian. She'd smelled him on the grounds the second she'd arrived. It adds a spring to her step. Sleeping in the sun had restored her completely. Her kind didn't need rest the way other humans did. Cordelia wasn't terribly certain she still counted as a human, but she was pretty sure she didn't really care.

She wondered if Xander would. Once she turned him.

The business with her mate was tricky. And now that she'd rested enough to think straight, it was starting to get annoying. She gets that they had years of feuding between them, but none of it mattered in the face of how perfectly they compliment each other. Xander was hers, whether he wanted to be or not. And there was no sure-fire way of breaking it to him without breaking his dweeby little brain along the way.

It would be easier if she could just turn him so he could see for himself.

But she couldn't. At least, not without getting his permission first. That way lay broken trust and an inability to function properly as mates. And they need to work. Cordelia needed her mate to be her mate completely, her partner in every way that mattered.

They were at the front-line of a very dangerous war. Cordelia couldn't afford to have the one person she should be able to count on the most second guessing her, or his place at her side. She needed Xander to be her other half, to pick up the slack and care for the pack in the ways she couldn't. The ways only an omega could.

It was quite the chore that she needed to show him that he was an omega first. That he belonged at her side, with the pack. Convincing him to ditch his loser friends was going to be near impossible, Cordelia knew. Xander's loyalty was diamond hard, whether it was deserved or not. Her only real choice was to show him that she needed him more than they did, that he'd be doing more good at her side.

Appeal to him the best way she knew how. Xander always wants to help.

The first step is honesty. She's was going to need him to trust her. Honesty was the best way to go about that. Full disclosure. Cordelia entered the Library ready to put all her cards on the table.

She cleared her throat, drawing both men's attention.

"So I heard you're the guy I'm supposed to talk about our monster problem?"

xXx

"So you're a Primal now? No longer possessed by the hyena?" Giles asks, just to be sure.

The girl before him nods, and there's something regal in the gesture. There is something incredibly different about Cordelia. Something dangerous, according to the girl herself. Looking into the golden brown of her eyes, Giles believes her. And he'd thought she'd been a terror as a cheerleader...

"Wait, wait!" Xander bursts out, startling him. The teenager had been avidly holding onto Cordelia's every word. Very out of character of him. Xander had been been acting strangely since Giles had walked in, agitated and unable to speak at length. Of course he wasn't sure what to worry over more, the fact that someone as verbose as Xander had been having trouble speaking, or that he'd arrived to school even earlier than Giles had."If you're all grrr now, why did you...You know! This morning, why would you do that?"

Giles looks between the teenagers in alarm. He's not sure what's going on, but if it has to do with Cordelia's new-found state, he's fairly certain it's going to give him a headache.

Cordelia leaned back, a self-satisfied expression on her face. "Oh that. See back when I had a full pack the only thing that was missing to my mentality at the time was a mate. But then I smelled you."

The Library goes dead silent for a moment, both male's attempting furiously to process the words. Cordelia stared at them, expectant.

Giles dropped his glasses and didn't really notice, mind going into overdrive. He'd been right, he noted distantly, as his temples began to throb.

Xander paled quite impressively, and squeaked in alarm."Mate?"

Cordelia smirked, dialing up her self-satisfaction a few notches, "Yes. You're mine. Congrats loser, you scored the very best this dump has to offer."

"But you hate me!" Xander groaned, tugging miserably at his hair."And I hate you. We were happy hating each other. Can't we go back to that? Please lets just go back to that. That made sense."

Cordelia shook her head, amused."Why would I want to do that? You're an Omega. Your kind lives for the pack. You'll thank me when I turn you."

"Turn me!" Xander exclaimed, backing away from the table."No turning! No way! The Xand-man is a no turning zone. I don't want to change species!"

"Calm down, dweeb boy." The cheerleader said, rolling her eyes. "Not yet. I won't turn you until you want me to. But start thinking about it. I'm still mostly human, anyway. Just a few extras."

"Like Buffy?" Xander asked hopefully.

"What about Buffy?" Cordelia demanded. The other girl had 'extras' as well?

"Buffy is not the subject of discussion." Giles cut in, instinctively protective of his Slayer and her secrets."You are, Cordelia. I thought you were no longer a hyena. Why would you want a mate if that was truly the case?"

The girl crossed her arms, defiant."I don't want one. I have one. Xander is mine. He was the second I figured out what he was. And when I fixed myself the primal was a little different. We both were, by the time we blended. Getting possessed changed us."

"What do you mean my kind?" Xander demanded suddenly, cutting in."I'm all human. I'm not an Omega, whatever that is."

"I know you are." Cordelia said."Omega is your nature, like Alpha is mine. It's not a creature or anything doofus. I can smell it on you. It makes us perfect for each other."

"Wait. So you wanna jump me now because I smell good." Xander said, incredulous."You get turned into a primal thingy and all of a sudden you think I'm perfect?"

"I'm not saying I don't think you're a dweeb anymore. I'm saying you're my dweeb now. We're perfect together. Alpha and Omega." Cordelia clarified, "If you'd let me turn you, I could just show you, you know."

Giles has to bite back a groan, headache steadily becoming a migraine once the realization dawned."You can turn people like you?"

"I'm really strong." Cordelia said frankly."It's why the primal chose me. I could turn Xander more easily than anyone else though. Since he's my mate."

"Please stop saying that word." Xander begged, collapsing on a chair."My head hurts."

"I can fix that." Cordelia declared, reaching over and placing her palm on Xander's head.

Giles watched, fascinated and rather envious, as her palm glowed. Xander moaned softly, melting under her hand at the ministration.

"That feels amazing." Xander muttered, sounding dazed.

"It'd feel even better if you were like me." Cordelia promised. "My light and yours are made for each other."

"You can heal people?" Giles asked, hopeful. It would be a very useful power on the hell-mouth. One he could certainly use at the moment.

Cordelia shrugs."Just people that are mine. I wouldn't be able to do this right now if Xander wasn't my mate."

"Ah yes, about that." Giles began awkwardly. "You are aware such terms aren't socially acceptable? You must keep your status as a Primal a secret. And calling a young man your mate would draw unnecessary attention to your new found state."

"I'm not stupid." The cheer leader complained. "All I have are losers in my pack right now, anyway. You think I'm going to stand for that? No way. I have a plan."

The bell rings and Giles has no time to interrogate the girl about her so called plan. The ominous shiver down his spine at the words spoke for itself.

xXx

Jonathan and Kyle stick close together once she tells them not to interact with her at school. Cordelia finds herself oddly jealous. But she can't jeopardize her status as alpha female of the school. The tittle has plenty of uses all on its own. And she needs all the power and status she can scrounge up.

Cheer-leading is a necessary evil.

The routines are easier than they have ever been, but the squad is time-consuming. Once she factored in the weird looks she was getting and Harmony's annoying comments about 'her new friends', her annoyance was reaching critical levels.

At least they got to work in the sun. It was the only reason Cordelia had managed to keep from snapping at Harmony. She was busy scoping out the other cheerleaders anyway. She hadn't been kidding when she told Giles she had a plan. But it was missing a few crucial details.

Like what popular people Cordelia would bring in to the pack. She looked at her fair weather friends. Influence was important to her, and she would need people on her side if she ever wanted to drag the rest of her pack out of loserdom. Harmony was clearly out of the running just from her ability to be annoying. She did not want to spend the rest of her life taking care of the airhead.

Aura was a big possibility. But she wasn't sure what way she would lead. Aura was pretty and popular, she was good at cutting girls down when the mood took her, but she had never shown any leadership skills or any desire for more social power. Aura was one of the few, rare people who seemed genuinely happy where she was. She stuck by social rules religiously and had never had a falling out Cordelia was aware of.

She wasn't sure about the other girls in the squad either. The older ones didn't appeal to her as they would graduate relatively soon and Cordelia did not want any of her pack where she couldn't supervise it.

The younger ones were out for similar reasons. She didn't want any of them stuck in Sunnydale high when she wasn't. She sighed as the older girls dismissed them. Taking the long way to avoid sweaty football players that seemed to think they were at their most attractive straight out of practice.

They were dead wrong. And Cordelia had detested the smell long before she gained her enhanced senses. She breathed a sigh of relief once she was out of the danger zone. Perking up when she detected an interesting scent. She knew that smell. Cordelia took a deep breath, scenting the air and following the sweet, spicy scent.

It smelled like magic. She followed it back out of the school, under some bleachers.

"Amy?"

The other girl jumped, clearly startled, but there was no denying it. The scent was coming from her. The way she snapped the book she was studying closed and hid it behind her was pretty sketchy as well.

Cordelia cocked her head to the side."What are you doing studying magic?"

"You know about magic?" Amy squeaked.

Cordelia smiled, "I am magic. Would you like to be?"

Slowly, hesitantly, Amy nodded.

Cordelia wondered why only losers presented interesting abilities. At this rate her pack would drag her down to loserdom with them.