Predatory Instincts

[Xander’s PoV]

I can feel the difference in myself, since taking this silver thing. It was clear, simple, but I know that I must wear this for now, must remember this Glorificus woman and how she threatens my pack. I have the dress as well, a red sequined scrap of cloth that smells of her skin, of the strong scents that she prefers to wear, oranges and mango, and with that we will track her, when I find the others.

I have returned to the cemetary, where we were housed, but the others are not here. I can smell that there has been a fight, someone has bled here, and I begin to prowl around the area, looking for my pack. I find the blonde male, whose name I now remember as Tor, and he calls out to the others that he has found me, without the words that now fill my mind. I wave and smile, confused at my own reaction, more like that of prey than of pack, but suddenly there is a familiar scent behind me and I turn to meet her fist. All is red and growling, and I find myself up against a tree. There was a crack, and I am not sure if it was in me, or from the broken branches. My mate, my Buffy is there now, lifting me by the shirt and tearing the red dress out of my hand. I raise my arm and try to explain, but she smells another woman in my grasp and she begins to claw at my face and arms. I curl into a ball, and she kicks me in the ribs and wordlessly screams her anger. I don’t know what happens next, but I can see the others standing around silently, unwilling to face her fury, to come between her and her prey, this night or any other.

She will always be alpha.

I see her turn away from me, and she is tearing the red dress into scraps, growling at the scent of it, and the others back away, as she turns to them, recoiling as she hurls scraps of cloth at them. They stoop to take up the items and sniff them carefully, taking her unspoken orders, and they begin to fan out, to search for the woman who smells of this dress, to find the woman who has touched the alpha’s mate.

I try to rise, the sight of my pack leaving without me is more painful than whatever is broken within me. It hurts, and I whimper like a pup as one of my ribs moves freely. She turns to see me rising, and I freeze for a second, like prey hoping that the predator has not seen me, but I take a breath and continue to rise, using the tree to pull myself up on unsteady legs. Everything is red for a second, and when my vision clears, I am standing, and she is directly in front of me, staring at me like something she hasn’t decided to kill, or to leave for the crows. It has been months since I could remember the words, but now I remember the most important one.

“Buffy.”

She pauses, head tilted, a strange look as she tries to remember the last time she heard this word, tries to remember what it means to her…

It is the necklace I know now, it lets me remember this, maybe it will help her to remember. I bow my head and she sniffs at me again, warily. I slowly take the necklace my neck and offer it, head still bowed and she sniffs at it and then tosses her head. I quickly fasten it with shaking fingers around her neck and she smiles and kisses my head, nipping at my hair, as if this gift has earned her forgiveness. I slump against the tree and her hand continues to play in my hair as she looks down at me, eyes awhirl with the same feelings I was having.

[Buffy’s PoV]

I look down at him, all beaten and bloody, the way I made him. I was angry at him, for hurting me, for something, but the anger has gone away. I know him. He’s been with me for years, he’s my mate, but he’s also something else, someone I should know. The word comes from nowhere, a word I haven’t heard in years, “Xander?” He smiles, but his smile is no longer confusing to me, it is the smile of pack, accepting his place, by my side. I’m not sure why I remember that he is Xander, and I’m not sure if he still does. “Xander,” I say again, more certain now, and I pull him up and bring him with me. With us, where he belongs.

It takes hours, and during that time I have many strange feelings, memories of a home at Revello Drive, memories of classes and teachers at the abandoned high school. Memories of Giles and Willow, memories that I wish I could forget. The red dress woman must die, this much I know, she threatens us, she threatens what is mine, and after that, I will throw away this silver thing, and its painful memories. We track down many women, an a few men, who wear the same scents as the red-dress woman, but we finally find her. We move together, the soft yips and growls of the pack surround the building, and I find it comforting to know that everyone is in their places, even if I am no longer sure of my own.

The door opens and a tiny man-thing squints out, curious as to the sounds from outside, and he barely has time to squawk out some sort of warning before his throat is crushed and his limbs broken. Percy stops to sniff at the foul-smelling kill, and I growl a warning to leave it and move in.

Inside the large room, a woman stands with two more of the foul little men, wearing a red dress much like the one I destroyed, and she says a word that I recognize. ‘Slayer!’ she hisses, as she points at me, and the little men rush us. One doesn’t make it past Rhonda, who throats him with a single off-handed swipe, the second falls on Xander and bears him to the ground. They wrestle for a moment, but there is a gurgling cry, and Xander rises unsteadily, blood trailing down his jaw and staining his shirt. Even hurt, he is more than a match for these nasty things.

The red woman is strong, and while I hesitated, tasting this strange word, ‘Slayer,’ thinking to let the others test her strength, Tor and Rhonda have both fallen to the ground, and I can smell their blood running freely. This prey is much more dangerous than the night-walkers, the vampires, I move in and the mocking cries and laughter are replaced with low growls of exertion and pain as my pack moves in with me.

The red-dress woman is strong, and throws us like pups around the room, stopping only to crush Percy’s head beneath her foot. Only Xander and I still stand, Heidi is still twitching against the far wall, red lines streaking forth from the point where she impacted. The blood no longer sprays from the fist-sized hole in her chest, it only oozes slowly.

Glory grabs me by the neck faster than I can see, and holds me up in a single hand, choking me. I tug at her arm, but she is stronger than stone. I see Xander, crawling across the floor, grab her around the waist and pull her off-balance and we all tumble to the floor. The world explodes, and she has again thrown me into a wall, and while I shake my head and try to get to my feet, I see her turn and plunge her hand into Xanders skull. I growl and am rushing towards her, and she is smiling, as if strengthened. I see the green of his eyes go dark, and I feel him die, and all that is left is for me to rip her limb from limb.

At first I am fighting, but she is not, she is staggering about, her eyes glowing and her face changing and shuddering, twisting into that of an animal, a woman, a child. Her cries are not human, a mixture of animal cries, the sounds of pack, and those of a frustrated child. She shoves her hand into my ribs and I can feel things break and move.

I strike at her throat with one arm, while I hang from her for support, as I can no longer feel my legs, and as my nails reach her neck, I see her face shudder again, and I am looking up into different eyes, warm, brown, innocent, those of a young man who has no knowledge of why he is here.

I tear his throat out, like soft paper, and he falls to the ground, turning briefly back into the woman, uselessly clutching at her throat as her blood pours out. Her thrashing legs knock me to the ground, and the thing that cushions my fall was once Heidi. As I turn, I can see the woman splinter a floorboard and leaves a crack in the wall from the force of her dying. I just need to reach Xander, then I can rest…