"I have this recurring fantasy, Cordelia..."
His voice drifts away behind her, and she twists on her toes, trying to see through her tears what he's planning to do next.
The manacles around her wrists cut deeply and she hears him inhale sharply. The sound sends a bolt of terror through her and she looks up to watch the blood trickle down her arms.
"Do you want to know my fantasy?" he whispers in her ear, sending her jerking forward as far the chains will allow. The icy cold of his breath makes her shiver even more, as goose bumps pop up all over her nude body.
She shakes her head wildly, but he continues anyway.
"I'm fucking you." His voice is silky and deadly at the same time. "Pounding into you. And you're moaning and clinging to me, fucking me back. And above us, he watches, silent and tormented." Pulling back, he walks around in front of her, and Cordelia blinks the tears from her eyes.
"Just as I watched the two of you, Cordelia," he hisses and lashes out, cracking his fist across her face.
She feels her nose break and blood fills her mouth as she sobs in pain.
"Oops, there go your supermodel good looks."
"Please...Angel..." she whimpers as darkness fills her vision.
Watching her slump in the chains, Angel tuts, then leans down and laps at the blood covering her face.
*****
"No luck?" Gunn asked the teenager as he stomped across the lobby floor, a look of furious determination on his face.
Connor didn't bother to answer, simply took a pen and crossed out another section of the city on the map tacked to the wall. As he stared at the map, his hand clenched around the pen until it snapped.
"Wes' setting up a locator spell," Gunn added. "Hopefully that will do the trick."
"Magic won't find her," Connor muttered, rubbing his tired eyes.
In the forty-eight hours since his father stole Cordelia from his bed and left him nursing a concussion, all they'd done was run into brick walls and dead ends.
It was like they'd vanished off the face of the Earth.
"You need to try to rest, Connor," Fred encouraged softly.
The young man shook his head. "Can't. Every minute he has her, is another minute he can hurt her."
"Angel loves Cordy," Gunn protested for the dozenth time.
"It wasn't love in his eyes when he found us," Connor snapped, then turned back to the map before the others could see the tears in his eyes. "I still don't know why he didn't kill me."
"Because he's your father, and fathers don't do that. Now, drink this. You need the caffeine if you're not going to sleep." Fred pressed a mug of coffee on him, and Connor accepted it as he decided where to search next.
*****
On her return to both consciousness and pain, Cordelia finds herself free of the chains and laying in a heap on the stone floor. Shivering, she pushes herself up onto her hands, trying not to groan at the pain in her face.
"I've been wondering for some time now what kind of punishment you can take in your demon form."
Slowly she swivels her head in the direction of the amused voice, and spies Angel sitting on a sofa sipping a cocktail with an incongruous pink, paper umbrella in it.
"I've missed whipping the skin from tender backs," Angel continues musing, casually crossing one leg over the other. "The last time I did that it was Spike, and he couldn't stand. I much prefer watching my victim dance in the chains than just lay there and take it."
"Chicken shit," Cordelia mutters, wrapping her arms around herself, anger, for the moment, tamping down the fear.
Angel smiles, a chilling, beautiful smile, and she swallows convulsively.
"Aren't you even going to ask why I'm doing this?"
"It's obvious," she spits out, "Angelus."
Chuckling, he salutes her with the glass. "I didn't need a moment of bliss after all, just a moment of such shock and horror and loss that the soul ran away and hid. After that, it was easy to bury him." Setting down the glass, he rises to his feet. "He just couldn't take the sight of you fucking his son, especially so soon after turning him down."
In a preternaturally fast move he's at her side, jerking her to her feet, and she stares into his glittering eyes as renewed terror shakes her. "I, on the other hand, quite enjoyed your performance." A hand cruelly squeezes one of her breasts and she whimpers in pain. "Especially when you took his cock between these beauties and he came all over your face."
Wrapping his free hand in her hair, he drags her mouth to his for a forceful, hungry kiss. When Angel finally lets her up for air, Cordelia sags against him, gasping desperately.
Then he propels her towards the couch. "Time to see if I can make you scream."
*****
The crystal wobbled back and forth over the map, now spread across the floor, then began to spin wildly, finally flying from Wesley's hand. He cursed under his breath and shook his head.
"Something's blocking the spell."
"Try it again," Connor urged as he paced.
"I've tried it three times, Connor. It's not going to work." Wesley rose painfully from his crouch and headed for the phone. "I'll try my sources again. Surely someone will have seen Angel."
Fred and Gunn exchanged worried looks, and Fred finally voiced the concern they'd kept silent for two days.
"What if he's not Angel anymore?"
Wesley's jaw clenched, but he finally answered her, his voice quiet and dull. "Then we're all dead."
*****
"Oh, don't be depressed," Angel teases, as he strokes Cordelia's shaking back with one clawed hand, leaving small scratches on her golden skin. "It will get better."
She's curled into a tight ball in one corner of the couch as he lounges next to her, naked, his feet up on the coffee table. Her eyes are open, but unseeing, as she relives over and over again the events of the last several hours.
He made no attempt to give her any pleasure, only took her in every way possible, in several uncomfortable positions, until she did as he asked.
She screamed until her voice went hoarse. And she cried until the tears dried up.
And she shattered into a million pieces when he told her what was going to happen next.
Angel jostles her shoulder and chuckles as she flinches away from him, whimpering like a wounded animal. "Come on, baby. It's going to be fun. First the gang here, then we head to Sunnydale and look up old friends."
"Kill me," she mumbles, her voice empty of emotion.
The chuckle turns into a snicker. "Oh, I plan to. You have to die first."
"And Connor?" she manages to ask.
"Well, he *is* the son of two vampires, so it's only fitting he become one. He'll spend a decade or two on his hands and knees taking it up the ass from my minions, but he'll eventually pay for touching you."
Wrapping his arm around Cordelia's throat, Angel pulls her limp body onto his lap and buries his face in her hair. "Um, you still smell like orange blossoms. Soon you'll smell like blood and death." Nuzzling her hair aside, her licks a spot on her neck, and she whimpers helplessly. "It's been too many years since I made a childe."
With a sharp movement, he bites, sinking his fangs into her carotid artery. Cordelia squeals in pain and thrashes on his lap, but he holds her tightly, draining her blood, until she falls still and silent.
Lifting his head and licking his bloody lips," Angel crows, "Just like riding a bike."
End