"A cavern misty-dark that no one dares, the hooded light where terror roams. Ravening beast lusting for life, it swallows up youth, spitting out the bones."

"Beautiful." She whispers. "Just beautiful."

Amused, the man raises his head and quotes again. "'Tis not the age that makes a man, but man that makes an age his own. Consider not the world forlorn, for reaper grim shall have his throne."

"You made that up. It's not the same poem." She accuses.

"Perhaps. Will you kill me for it."

Her lips widen, but you could not have called that expression a smile. "You are forgiven."

"You could try." He suggests. "There are ropes, there are racks, and there on the walls hang swords and rapiers. Or you could try poison again, if you wished."

She makes a disappointed moue. "I'd really rather not."

"As you wish." He shrugs and continues reading as though this conversation has mattered little to him.

She stalks forward, hands on hip, and strikes an alluring pose before his desk. "Are those scrolls so VERY interesting?"

He reaches up without looking and runs a careless hand over the curve of her naked hip. She shivers under his caress, but his gaze remains fastened on the papyrus in front of him.

"You came and disturbed my hour of study and demanded that I read aloud to you. I obliged you, and instead of leaving me to my work, you demand more. Insatiable."

She notes the mockery and her lips thin. "You forget your place."

He does look up at that. "And you forget yours. Remember last night in the chamber?"

"One interlude with you as the master does not cement your place in the hierarchy forever."

"Doesn't it?" He asks mildly, amused, but the hand on her hip grasps deeply now, nails scoring flesh. She closes her eyes briefly, enjoying the pain.

"No." She speaks through gritted teeth, trying not to give in to the sensations coursing through her veins. Fire and rose blood... his eyes on hers pillaging her senses. He has been taught well.

Too well perhaps.

"Think again, lady." He pulls her to him and seats her on his lap, naked flesh against harsh linens. She adjusts her position and moans to feel texture against texture. He smiles at that, and lets her wiggle.

From a drawer he produces a stiletto. "Toledo steel."

"I see it."

"Sharp, and efficacious."

"My, my. Learning long words are we?"

"Longer than you think, lady."

He holds her firm between his thighs, imprisoning her tiny hands in one palm, drawing the blade up along the curve of her breast. Little pinpricks of sensation and she feels rather than sees the minute droplets of red that well up in its wake.

"Do you like that?" he asks.

"Tolerable." She hisses, and his curving mouth slants upwards to drug her with a silent kiss.

The point rests at her jugular even after their mouths withdraw, but his eyes are riveted to the trail he has made.

"Beautiful." He whispers and presses his lips to the cuts so slight they could barely be called wounds.

"Beautiful." She whispers as his teeth pull at the torn edges of flesh, opening them carefully to let out the rosebuds that long to form. He laughs in assent and sucks at the fluid, enjoying the way it burns inside his veins.

"More." She demands, and he complies. Her hands lie quiescent in his lap, so he uses both of his to clasp and to tease, to pick and pluck, while her nerve endings sing in a chorus of stars.

"More." He growls, kissing her darkly, and her hands reach down to untie the drawstrings and play in turn upon an instrument unrefined, and he is hers, hers and hers alone, no matter how he refuses to believe it.

Now he is teasing her nipples with his tongue alone, probably marking how the tremors are already beginning while his body remains if not still, then still in control of the fire she is sure is raging in him too.

Or not.

Shocking as cold water on a hot day, incongruous as ice chips down her bodice, the thought strikes her cold. Does he still want her, or is she but a step up the ladder for him?

He notes the cooling of her passion and patiently tries to stoke the fire.

She lets her body take over while her mind considers and grows blacker with the thoughts.

In the past few months he has been meeting with other Masters, other vampires and though she does not begrudge her playmate his toys, she should have considered that he might have been bartering more than his sex.

Power. She loves it and has taught him to love it too. She had thought that she would be able to anticipate his clumsy groping after it and thwart him before he actually snagged a prize.

Three years ago, she'd had a sudden panic attack. The older ones were prey to them, she'd heard. Only natural that she would fear her child becoming her usurper. Unfortunately he had been strangely immune to the poison in the bait he'd been offered. She wasn't one to brood over her losses, so she had shrugged and accepted the fact that this child of hers was here to stay a while longer.

He'd never referred to the incident except obliquely, and three weeks after the fact, had politely invited her into his bed again. She had accepted graciously, feeling perverse pride that her child had grown so strong.

Maybe too strong?

Perhaps she had been mistaken to let last night play out as it had. To let the whipping boy throw off his chains and bind her to him instead.

She doesn't dare wonder if she would have been able to stop him if she'd tried. She is too afraid that she already knew the answer.

"Stop." She says, testing the waters and smiling when he does.

"Lady?" He asks, mildly curious, but with a slight sheen to his face. Good. Perhaps she still exerts some measure of control.

Another chilling thought. In the past she has granted her lover the illusion of control, just to assuage his pride and spice the game.

Has he indeed learnt too well?

A wave of renewed self-confidence hits as his pelvis unconsciously pushes against her. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, my child...

She smiles down at him. "Proud one. Strong one. My beautiful angel."

"Not as angelic as you would seem to think, lady." He grinds his hips suggestively, leaving her in no doubt of what he means.

She closes her eyes and lets the rhythm consume her.

"Would you like to enter me? I'm not sure I'm ready yet." She asks, eyes half-hooded, watching him through cat-like slits, enjoying the way his lips press together at her words. Still young, still sweet, still an apprentice at these games.

For an answer, she feels something cold and round poking around her nether regions. She gasps and he gentles, touching and smoothing wetness over curves with the phallic hilt of the blade he used to coax another life fluid from her breast.

Well, maybe not that innocent...

"Perhaps you might - reconsider your refusal?" he asks politely. She pushes against the object in his hand and shakes her head teasingly.

"Perhaps... you might... reconsider your argument?" She says, moving tantalisingly, knowing that his hand is no longer dry, feeling his body taut beneath hers.

"Never offer a woman a choice." He mutters, giving in. The makeshift dildo enters her and she closes her eyes, arching against him.

"Umm..."

"You enjoy that?"

She decides to be kinder. "I'd enjoy you more."

No sooner said than done, one shaft replaced for another and the two of them ride together fluidly, with the ease of long practice. Yet even at the height of her pleasure, she opens her eyes and finds him watching her as well, not with the gaze of a lover enjoying his partner's climax, but with the look of a hunter eyeing his prey warily.

They are about as well matched as a couple of praying mantis that've sworn eternal fidelity.

The thought makes her laugh and he came as she shook with the force of her amusement.

He stays inside her for a while, head buried between her breasts. She feels the linen soak through with her perspiration and his, and makes a mental note to unclothe him next time. She has a desire to see the blood flush his alabaster chest, a colour change signalling arousal and extremely erotic to a connoisseur. She has had many men, but none other have this particularly coloured skin that turns the shade of rosy dawn.

She has a penchant for near suicide, and spends the last few hours of most nights on her window ledge, alone or in company, watching for the first light that signalled danger. She has rid herself of several unwanted lovers that way, bringing them to climax and throwing them out to the tender mercy of the sun, the fire of their ignition bringing her sweet dreams all day long.

Except him. He tends to be underground by four in the morning, closeted with his books and scrolls, leaving her to her amusements, with not even the faintest tinge of jealousy when she chooses another companion.

Wise child.

She feels him withdraw and gently displace her as he stands.

"Stay. Make love with me and watch the sun come up," she says.

"You know I won't. Why not take Justin instead?"

She tries to repress a frisson of disappointment. Trust is not a vampire emotion yet all she had wanted was to have him while early dawn painted their bodies red.

She rises and goes to stand behind him. He doesn't turn to face her, not even when she presses her naked body full length against his back, rubbing up and down against him.

His shirt slides up and she feels his skin against hers. Kneeling, she lifts the cloth with a practised hand and places her mouth on the flesh above the junction of waist and hip.

Slow and gentle, her tongue pokes out to trace the skin, to taste salt and hints of musk. She feels him widen his stance and brace himself to meet her assault.

Surprising him, she stops and lays her cheek against his back, simply kneeling and feeling the contact between them.

After a while, he speaks. "I don't like people doing things behind my back."

His tone is teasing, but his words are hard.

So. Three years of silence build up to this.

"It was a test. Nothing more. Even eagles want to see their children fly."

"Poison in a whore. Were you jealous?"

She opens her mouth to laugh sarcastically, but finds she can't.

He might take her silence as a confession. That will never do.

"We are not - built - for fidelity, Angel."

"Nor for loyalty either."

She is silent.

"There are masters who do not kill their offspring."

"And there are those that test them for worthiness."

"I passed." It is a statement, not a question. She nods, rubbing her cheek up and down his flesh.

"And now you will leave me."

He acknowledges the truth of her statement with a curt nod. "It is what you want, isn't it?"

She wants to say yes. She wants to say no. In the end she says nothing.

How can you explain to a man that he could drown you in himself? To admit that she who has always been the mistress, could find herself longing to be mastered? By him? Her own fledgling? She never admits to weakness. She won't start now.

You make me afraid, Angel. And that which I fear, I must kill.

"Two stars on the same path must clash. Would you rather you were the one to explode?"

You are my equal and more. But this is the only time I shall say this. Take this as an apology, as an admission of guilt, but take this as all you will ever get from me.

He turns around and lifts her to her feet. Face to face they stand, gauging each other.

"It's been fun." He says softly.

"Yes." She agrees.

"I'll miss you."

"No."

He smiles, a little. "Then I'll miss having someone to watch my back. Even if you were only watching it for an opportunity to stab me."

She smiles back. "The only person you should ever trust to watch your back is yourself. That's the last lesson you'll learn from me."

"Constant vigilance." He sweeps her a mock salute. "I shall remember, lady."

"Good."

He turns as if to leave, then swoops down on her mouth instead. His kiss is ruthless and desperate, a farewell and a branding. She returns it with fervour, more than matching his passion, her own need devouring his. Her fingers find the muscle of his shoulder and bite down hard.

Panting, he leans into her mouth. "You'll mark me."

"Yes." Leaving his lips for the sculpted surface of his shoulder, she presses down hard with fingernails and teeth, mouth nipping at the flesh, deep enough to draw blood. He curses but holds on, letting her have her way.

"Darla..."

She kisses the wound hard and lets him go. He tries to sneak a look at it, but it is already closing.

"It will heal."

"I don't want it to." The admission surprises her as much as it does him. She has never intended to let him know the depths of her feeling, the coiled tangle of love and lust, hate and fear, envy and anger that make up the Gordian knot of their relationship. She hates it, she craves it, it is blood and breath and about as useful to her.

He stays motionless.

"Mark me."

"What?"

"Brand me. You - have the right."

As his parent, she does. But it is not a right she would have enjoyed enforcing. His permission -

Anger clenches her fists. She doesn't want his damned pity.

He looks at her directly. Letting her know that he always knew. And letting her see that the knife did cut both ways.

"I always did fancy a tattoo to impress the tavern maids with." He laughs. So, after a fashion, does she.

She works on him that night with ink and needle, putting all she knows of dark and light into it. He suppresses his cries until she is finished and then reveals that it was arousal and not pain that had him twitching beneath her.

"It's a gryphon." He remarks, surprised, when she holds a bronzed plate up to show him.

"Yes."

"For retribution? Or to symbolize my arrogance?"

"For vigilance. To watch your back."

He smiles and takes her into his arms.

She kisses him and nestles against his chest, one hand creeping behind to finger the rough and red marks that stand out in proud relief like warrior roses gleaming in the half-dark.

"It's less than an hour to dawn," he says unnecessarily.

She kisses him again and removes her arms from his shoulders. "Put them back," he orders, and with some hesitation she complies.

He lifts her up and carries her to the wide seat of the window ledge.

"Angelus?" She queries.

He turns to her with a gleam in his eye and spoke half-mockingly. "My name's not Icarus, so don't you try any tricks on me."

She feels something strange and warm finger its way into her heart. "And I am no Daedelus to give my son wings."

"I had to grow my own."

Those are the last words they speak before she gathers him close in her arms, and they rock together soundlessly, head on breast, flesh on flesh, consanguinous and alone.

They make love on her windowsill an hour before sunrise, letting the dawn rays paint their bodies red and gold.

The next night, he leaves. She tells herself that she will not cry.

And she doesn't

~ End

Post story notes: Gryphons are mythical beasties that were Apollo's guards, and watched his back when he drove the chariot of the sun. Yes, yes, Joss would have us believe that Angelus and Darla were together till he killed the gypsy chit. Together perhaps, but inseparable - I doubt it. This story chronicles Angelus' coming of age. Of course he gets a tattoo.

Apparently, in the old days mirrors used to have silvering at the back & silver is known to be proof against demons. Ergo, vamps cast no shadow. A bronzed plate on the other hand, would be fine to capture magical objects. Really, seriously, I kid you not. That is the only way a vampire could get to see his reflection. Go forth and read Polidori if you don't believe me.

Let me know if you'll liked it.