“Do it,” Spike rasped hoarsely, before he was unmanned and unable.

Angel nodded, a sympathetic gleam in his golden eyes, then bent to the full right ball remaining.  A minute later another scream split the night.

*   *   *

Angel stared down at his childe, who finally lay quiet.  Although Spike was still chained, his body bent and spread, his muscles were completely lax.  Anyone else who wasn’t a vampire would automatically assume the creature lying there was unconscious – or dead, given the lack of breath – but that wasn’t the case.  Angel knew that Spike was currently immersed in another state altogether, one brought on by the extreme pain of what he’d just endured.

Vampires were creatures who thrived on sensation.  If blood animated their undead flesh, then sensation sparked it.  The more extreme the sensation, the sharper, more intense, and longer lasting the effect upon them.  This, he’d discovered as a fledgling at the hands of his own sire, was perhaps the most intense thing that could occur to a male vampire beyond the final death itself.  More importantly, that level of pain acted as a catalyst, catapulting the demon into a realm of pleasure that was even more intense than the pain that had preceded it.

He leaned down to nuzzle and lick at the flaccid sac, lapping up the remaining trickles of blood and cum that dripped from the puncture marks, then taking the loose flesh in his mouth to suckle it firmly, pulling the last of its contents from it until it was completely empty.  Above him he heard a low, purring vibration.  He sat back up, on his haunches, to drink in the sight of his boy and to let that hum surround him.  The sound would be inaudible to anyone but a vampire, and in it he read a level of suspended pleasure that literally strummed through the small blonde’s body, down to its very cells.  He knew the place that his William traveled in now.  Remembered the otherworldly pleasure so viscerally he could almost feel it, even though it had been over two centuries since he himself had experienced it from Spike’s perspective.

Angel shivered with excitement at what was about to happen.  The blood bond was open between them now – it had been since the reclaiming ceremony at the conclave – but it was a pale imitation of what it could be, and tonight that would change.  The dark vampire stared down at his childe, his hands gently stoking along the backs of the smaller vampire’s raised thighs.  From there one hand petted the quiescent length of his cock.  So pretty.  His boy was so damn pretty.  A surge of desire got past the wall he’d maintained during the last forty minutes, ever since Spike had entered his room, and he clamped down on it, knowing he had to hold back for just a little bit longer.  A part of him wanted to sit like this with his childe for hours, reveling in the ecstasy he knew the blond was now feeling.

The ecstasy that came purely from Spike’s demon spirit.

He should feel guilty about that, but he couldn’t.  It was something none of their friends could truly understand.  How could he explain to them that no matter how much he wanted the redemption his soul made possible, it didn’t change what he was.  He was a demon, with all the dark urges and needs that belonged to the race of creatures of which he was a part.  The soul made it wish it were otherwise.  It even held out the hope that one day it would be otherwise.  But it didn’t take away the demon at his core.  That was what he was, and that was what Spike was.  And no matter how wrong Angel knew it was, right now he rejoiced at the freedom Spike was feeling in his pure demon state for the first time in far too long.

Angel was envious of his childe, but he wouldn’t be for long.  Soon their demon spirits would be united again, and then the bond would sing.

Enough.  The pain had provided the catalyst needed to free the demon and propel it to a state that was almost but not quite out-of-body, but it wouldn’t last forever.  That thought was enough to break Angel from his stillness.  The plug was tugged free and tossed aside, and before any of the seed pooled deep in his childe could escape, he’d pushed into the snug channel, blocking it up once more with his thick cock.  It took just a minute to reach forward and unbuckle the four cuffs, and then Spike’s legs lay outside his own, flat to the mattress.  His hands stayed splayed outward and above his head, exactly where they’d been when the cuffs were still attached.

When Angel finally stretched out upon the still form, he sighed with satisfaction, the body beneath him perfectly fitting the curves and planes of his own, just as it always had.  The older vampire wrapped his arms around the slimmer torso upon which he lay, and cupped the blonde’s head with one large palm.  He tilted it to the side and instantly found the claiming mark he’d placed there over a century ago.  With a wriggle of his hips, Angel settled more deeply upon and into the body beneath him, nuzzling the curve of Spike’s throat, before letting his fangs drop and carefully placing them upon the original bite.  His teeth unerringly found the old puncture wounds with a simplicity that defied understanding.  He hesitated for just an instant, relishing the moment, then sank in deep.  As he did, he dropped the barrier that he’d been maintaining with a will of iron for almost an hour.

The bond exploded between them.

“Sire!” Spike cried out hoarsely, his eyes shooting wide to glow with an eerie, amber light.

The hand on his head forced him down to his own exposed neck, to where the scar from William’s bite was still visible.  Spike cried out again, dropped his fangs, and bit down hard.

The pleasure Angel felt was almost too much to bear.  It was pure sensation, and so intoxicating he wanted it to last forever.  He drank from his childe as his childe drank from him, forming a continuous exchange of blood that felt amazingly like the functioning circulatory systems they’d both once had.  Pulses beat as the blood flowed, and with it their shared demon circled between them, indistinguishable and inseparable between the two undead bodies that housed it.  While they drank, Angel slowly pumped his hips, thrusting his steel-hard cock into his childe over and over again.  Spike rocked beneath him, moving in perfect counterpart to those thrusts.  Body, mind, spirit and blood, they were joined.

They remained that way for almost an hour, desperately clinging to each other, though neither was really consciously aware of any decision or action.  The blood left and entered simultaneously, and so in theory there was no limit as to how long they could stay this way.  Spike was past thought, but some small corner of Angel’s mind kept a wary vigilance.  His childe was particularly vulnerable in the state he was currently in, and he himself only less so.  Finally he knew that it was time.  Enough, he thought, and Spike heard it as well, through their burgeoning bond.  Incisors were retracted at the same time, and tongues took their place to lick the last remnants of blood trickling from punctures that were even now closing over.

“Bloody hell, what was that?!” Spike whispered hoarsely.

Angel chuckled, the sound muffled somewhat by the flesh at the curve of his childe’s shoulder, where his face was currently buried.

“The last time we did this you were less than ten years old – barely more than a fledge,” his sire finally replied.  “You’re almost one hundred and thirty years old now, Spike.  You’re a master.  Did you think it would be the same as it was then?

“Christ,” the blond muttered softly, as though to himself.  “Didn’t have a clue, did I?” he asked, the question clearly rhetorical.  “It was bloody brilliant then, but this…”

The words died away, and Angel smiled at how the smaller vampire appeared completely astonished by the impact of what had happened.  When he turned to press a kiss to the blonde’s lips, though, he found his childe fast asleep.  With a tired smile of understanding, he placed it upon the pale brow instead.  With the last of his energy he withdrew from the slender body, grabbed the discarded cavetti and slipped it in, then turned the slight figure in his arms until they lay on their sides, Spike spooned before him.  He reached around and cupped his palm protectively around the tender flesh of the blonde’s ruptured testes, nuzzled down until his nose was buried against the back of his childe’s neck, then let it all drift away as he joined his boy in the sleep of the dead.

Angel and Spike were completely still, no motion or sound evident – at least to most creatures.  Had another vampire been in the room, though, he would have heard the soft, low purrs rumbling from both the sire and his childe as their demons, so long contained and controlled, enjoyed this rare instance of otherworldly freedom.