Sunset. Any moment, I knew, she would be with me. I hadn’t seen her in weeks, except for last night, when we arranged this meeting. And then it was only for a few brief minutes. I missed her so badly. Being away from her for so long was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
“ Buffy?”
I wheeled around toward the window. She was there, decked out in leather, standing statuesquely amid the satin curtains. The night seemed to make her glow, and I remember feeling uneasy in her presence. That was something new; I sensed there was something wrong.
“ What is it?” I asked, knowing that, through our strange bond, she would understand what I was talking about.
“ Buffy...” she whispered.
There was sorrow in that utterance and I stepped forward and put my arms around her. She was cold, so completely cold, and she made no effort to keep me near. I knew that she expected me to draw back when I felt the chill, but I didn’t. I held her tighter, and, after awhile, she slid her arms up around my neck. It was a familiar position for us, and briefly, I was calmed.
Then she pressed her lips softly against my neck. It wasn’t just her lips I felt though, and all at once I understood.
“ You’re a vampire,” I stated.
“ Yes.”
“ I wasn’t here to watch your back... and they... they...”
“ No! Don’t blame yourself, please...”
Her plea fought its way out between her hushed sobs. Internally, I cursed myself for leaving her. I condemned myself for ever putting myself in debt to the ones who had requested my aid and made me leave. Then my mind focused back on her. She was beautiful to me still, beautiful and fragile, though the latter was something she let only me know about. She was still my angel, even underneath her shroud. I brought my fingers to her chin, tilted her head up, and kissed her gently, as I used to.
“ I love you.”
I breathed the words into our kiss, and I felt her choke slightly on them, as if she didn’t believe that such a thing were still possible. Indeed, she probably didn’t as she considered herself a monster. But she wasn’t like the others of her kind.
“ I love you too,” she wept.
We kissed and kissed and kissed, finally toppling onto my bed as our kisses began to express the desire that had built within us during our time apart. I rolled on top of her, straddling her waist and cupping her face in my hands as I delivered to her one last, soul-scorching lip caress. Then I moved on to other things.
She moaned as I touched her, and those moans were soothing, and I became aware that life was both once again the way it was meant to be and at the same time drastically altered. I also was aware of the gnawing within my mate, the hunger. There was no thought required to the decision, I simply knew that it was to happen. And so I tilted my head, baring my throat before her.
“ I... I can’t...”
“ You’ll starve,” I replied simply.
“ But... I can’t do it... not from you...”
“ Then others will die when you feed; your hunger will be greater by then if you don’t.”
She paused. I increased the intensity of my ministrations, hoping to increase her need and passion. It worked before long, and I felt to the smooth glide of silky, razor canines slipped unhindered into my vein. All at once I was in Elysium, and sensations of floating and clarity passed through my mind. All other feelings during that time later became beyond description, leaving me with something just on the tip of my tongue, but I could never quite figure out the words. And just as I felt her climax tear softly through her, my own pulled me back to Earth.
We lay there for what seemed like days, the entire night we later discovered, in each other’s arms, trying to regain full consciousness. Eventually, she glanced at the clock.
“ Sunrise soon. I have to go.”
“ Promise you’ll come back tomorrow?”
“ I promise,” she said, smiling. “ I love you Buffy.”
Those words, spoken in her deeply sincere voice, filled me with a sense of peace and confidence. Confidence that true love always endures.
“ I love you too Faith.”
And, silently, she was gone.