Prologue - Shouting Through the Roar
As the slayer, she was used to bad dreams – demons and phantasms that visited her at night, threatening her and her loved ones – daring to send her carefully ordered world crashing into chaos.
These dreams, she could accept. Nightmares were nothing more than a reflection of the dangers she faced on a daily basis.
What she hated, what disturbed her sleep and left her unsettled, were the pretty dreams – dreams in which everything was as it should be – where her mother hadn't died, where demons were nothing more than fairy tale monsters, and vampires didn't exist outside of Bram Stoker's novel and late night B movies.
The problem with these dreams was not so much in the dreaming as in the waking. For upon waking she once again was forced to deal with – nothing, for everything, anything that mattered was gone – and yet she was there, and she had to go on.
"Another bad dream, luv?" Spike broke her self-indulgent reverie.
"I told you not to call me that." She bristled and turned away from him.
"You can't punish me forever, y'know." He put on a false display of bravado, pacing the cold, stone floor of his crypt. "Sooner or later you're gonna hafta start trusting me again. After all . . ." He ran a finger down her collarbone and then threatened to tug away the blanket she had tucked protectively around her shoulders. "I'm all you've got left."
"Go to Hell!" She jumped from her seat like a loaded spring. Fists and feet fueled by nothing more than her passionate anger, and lacking any of her carefully honed finesse, flailed against him like a late summer hailstorm.
"Easy, luv." He grabbed her arms, but she still struggled against him kicking and threatening to bite him. "We're on the same side, remember."
She wrenched her arms free, but didn't try to fight him anymore. "We were never on the same side, Spike. You're only working with me because you don't have any choice. Stop trying to pretend it's something else."
He rolled his eyes, having heard this refrain more times than he could count. "If that's what helps you get to sleep at night, Slayer," he called after her as she walked away, and into the sunlight. "Just remember who it is that's keeping your bed cold."
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