Just Got Longer

Disclaimer: See chapter one.

A/N: Sorry about the delay. The holidays have been keeping me busy. But I have a christmas present for everyone possibly.

A new chapter possibly coming out before christmas.

Also I'm going to try and have the final chapter for Wild at Heart up as well as an update on A Touch of Destiny and possibly a new fic.


So as always thank you to everyone who reviewed. They mean the world to me.

















Anita kept her arm firmly on Jason's as she watched Jean Claude turn to look at her from across the dance floor. It'd been over six months since she'd seen him last and he still managed to take her breath away. Clad in black vinyl with all that dark hair and pale skin he looked breathtaking even if it was a far cry from his 'pirate king' look as Buffy called it. Just like every time she was even in the same room with him she wanted to touch him, to do all the bad little things she'd railed against just a few years before and oddly enough she didn't care.

But at the moment she couldn't let herself become too distracted. She needed to get Nathaniel and Gregory and she'd sort out the rest later. Preferably after a good eight hours of sleep.

But when Jean Claude turned and met her gaze.

She knew plan A had just been blown out of the water.

Oh whoopie.







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One of the beautiful things about driving a sports car with a custom engine and government plates is that she could speed to her little twisted heart's content and NOT get pulled over.

Which was exactly what she was doing as she barreled down Interstate 70 at over a hundred miles an hour weaving in and out of traffic with reflexes that would make most race car drivers drool.

If she counted getting out of the airport parking and to the club it was a thirty five minute drive.

That is, if she were driving the speed limit.

But since she was doing almost twice that.

Well, she'd had more than one person say she drove like a bat out of hell and tonight she was probably living up to the phrase.







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Anita looked into Narcissus' eyes as he demanded her gun and was reminded that underneath the tastefully done makeup, the very June Cleaver black dress, spiderweb stocking and heels stood the Oba of all the were hyenas in the city. And she was in his territory.

“I'll give it up, but I'm not happy about it.” she said.

“That is not my concern.” replied Narcissus with a shrug as she handed her Browning over.

She met his gaze as she spoke. “I can make it your problem if Nathaniel and Gregory are hurt.”

He considered her for a heartbeat as Jean Claude gave a warning of “Ma petite.” behind her.

“You are not their alpha.” he said.

“You're right I'm not.” she agreed.

“If their Nimir-Ra is not strong enough to protect them then perhaps she should find another to take her place.” Narcissus replied. Anita didn't even think before she let out a laugh at the thought.

“You find what I said amusing?”

“Oh yeah.” she agreed. Just wait till he had to deal with Buffy. He might be a master of inflicting pain but Buffy was a master of pissing people off and killing them.

“Why?” he asked.

“Trust me, you ever meet Buffy and you'll know why.” she said.

“Be that as it may, your gun please.” he said, holing out his his hand. Reluctantly she pulled the gun out and handed it over to Narcissus who passed it over to Ajax to hold.

“t does not look like your outfit could hold a gun this big.” he commented as he passed her Browning over.

“It's a special skill.” she replied with a shrug.

It really was.

“Obviously. Now you may enter and enjoy the terrors and delights of my world.” he said and made a gesture before turning and leaving with his bodyguards in tow.

Beside her Jean Claude finally spoke. “Nathaniel and Gregory are well until we enter the the upper room. I suggest we do the mark now, before we enter.”

“Why?” she asked turning to him and steeling herself for the reaction her body always had to him.

“Come with me to our table and I will explain.” he told her as he began to lead her to their table.







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Due to the very annoying fact that it was a Friday night on the Illinois side of the river district Buffy was only able to find a parking spot about two blocks from the club. Which meant a fun walk in the unusually chilly late spring night in an area of town only stupid or dangerous women walked around alone.

Turning off the car she got out and pressed the button on her keys to pop the trunk. Still dressed in her brown leather pants and white dress shirt she knew she'd stick out like a sore thumb in a club like Narcissus in Chains.

And that wasn't even counting the fact that she knew she couldn't walk in there with a gun.

Unless she wanted to start a fight with the hyenas she was going to have to opt for bladed weapons.

Moving over to the trunk she grabbed her duffel bag and opened it, pulling out a black Henley to change into. Stripping off her dress shirt and leaving herself with only a thin tank top underneath she puled the black top over her head and moved on to weapons. Pulling both of her guns and their holster from the small of her pack she pushed the button the opened up to reveal one of the dozen hiding places for weapons in her car and put them inside.

One short sword strapped to her back, six blades hidden elsewhere and her leather motorcycle jacket later and she was off heading down the street with a determined stride.

Five minutes later she was coming up on the club, the line to get in long.

A line she wasn't planning on standing in.

Bypassing all the 'people' waiting to get n she went straight up to the doorman, a guy that looked like pretty much any doorman should. Big.

Well bigger than her.

He gave her a look like she was bordering on stupid or arrogant just coming up to him but she ignored it. She didn't have time to get into pissing contests with minions.

“I'm here to see Narcissus.”

“Narcissus is otherwise occupied.”

“Fine, let me rephrase that.” she said and pulled out her badge and held it up for him to see. “I'm here to see Narcissus.”

His brown eyes went back and forth between her face and the badge a total of three times before a faint glazed look took his eyes and cleared.

“Go on in.” he said and more or less dismissed her. Putting the badge back she headed into the club only to stop short as a rush of power rolled over her so hard she was sure everyone for at least a block could feel it.

It tasted like vampire and shifter and death.

And there was only one grouping in St. Louis that felt like that.

So Anita had already made it.

And from the feel of it the most screwed up love triangle in the whole city had just had one hell of a power surge.

It rolled along her skin and deep inside herself she felt her own ties flare slightly in response. She could feel Asher inside waiting, the cool smoothness of him balancing the constant awareness of the slayer inside her and the warm purely feline power she'd come to associate with the beasts of her pard.

Staying still as it began to ebb she let go of the breath she hadn't even realized she was holding and started to walk again. Just inside the second set of doors she was greeted with a sight that wasn't nearly as unusual as it had been a few years before. There stood a man with closely cut hair that she knew had to be curly when longer dressed in a very tasteful Leave it to Beaver style dress. His makeup was well done and subtle, giving him a pretty look even though there was no mistaking he was male.

And he was standing with two bodyguards.

Well hello Narcissus.

“You must be Miss. Summers.” he said, his gaze taking stock of her just as much as she'd taken stock of him. He wore the look of someone who knew both himself and his powers like a comfortable shawl, a good thing for a leader in her opinion. And possibly a bad thing when they were an enemy.

“That's the rumor.” she replied with a bit of a shrug. The power surge from what she saw in the distance was a heap of Jean Claude, Anita and Richard still danced along her skin making parts of her feel war warmer than she liked. Not even really thinking about it she eased open the marks to Asher and felt some of the warmth leave her, the coolness that she associated with vampires replacing it and making her feel more at ease as Narcissus spoke.

“I was under the assumption that you were unavailable this evening Miss. Summers.”

She gave him a considering look for a moment and the thought that her arriving had somehow upset his plans occurred to her.

Tough shit was her only thought.

“Unavailable and detained are very different things. Where are my people?”

Something flicked in his gaze and he replied. “Very true. They are upstairs. I have placed my people to ensure no further harm comes to them until Miss. Blake enters.”

She was right. She had upset something. What that she'd probably figure out sooner or later.

“Then let me go round up the Anita puddle, my boys and we'll be out of your hair.” she said. Her bed was waiting on her and after the not fun day of politics and bullshit she'd already had she was in no mood for any more.

“I would have your gun first.”

She met his gaze and felt her lips twitch. “Do you see or smell a gun?” she asked.

He paused for a moment and leaned ever so slightly closer and she knew he was smelling her. He moved back as he replied. “I don't.”

“That's because I don't have one.”

“You believe you can rescue your leopards with no weapons.” he asked and she wondered when exactly she'd gotten so good at reading people, their motives and manipulating that she almost didn't have to think about it any more to see what was really going on.

Maybe it was a sign that she was getting old and that she'd been doing this kind of shit too long.

“Or it was simply necessary for survival.” she basically heard Asher supply inside her head.

“You know I thought I was the pragmatic one of the two of us.” she shot back and she heard him chuckle and then recede.

God he was a smart ass sometimes.

“No.” she replied to Narcissus. “I know I can. Now can we get this over with? I had other plans for tonight.”

He gave her another considering look for a moment before nodding. “Very well. We will collect the others and truly begin.”

She waited for him to start across the dance floor to where some of Richard's wolves and Jean Claude's vampires had created a circle around the three heaps on the floor. As she passed Narcissus Asher came to meet her and she caught a flash of amusement in his gaze as she rolled her eyes at the sight the others on the floor made.

It seemed the others knew who she was because they parted to allow her inside the circle as she crouched down and looked over the three of them on the floor looking like they'd had a power rush, amazing sex and a bunch of drugs all in one big dose.

“Nita? Can you hear me?” she asked the black haired woman on the floor “Blink if you can.” she said as Anita opened her eyes and brown eyes focused on her own.

“Don't call me that.” the animator mumbled and Buffy smirked as she stood back up and felt Asher's hand come to rest on her shoulder.

“Well at least I know you'll live. Come on, get up. Cause right now I'm seeing a whole lot more of your knickers that I ever wanted to. Though I'm sure Jason isn't minding the show.” she replied with a smirk.

Annoying Anita was fun sometimes.

“You're a pain in my ass.” the other woman mumbled as she sat up and made an attempt to adjust her skirt.

“At least I'm consistent.” she shrugged leaning back a little into Asher while she waited for her backup to get up so they could get the show on the road.

She needed to get Nathaniel and Gregory home so she could give them both an earful and get some sleep.







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Buffy looked over to where Anita sat on Narcissus' bed with Jean Claude and Richard and ground her teeth. She wasn't in the mood for this and not even Asher's hand on her shoulder was helping any more.

She didn't give a shit that Narcissus expected gifts from all of the major groups to remain neutral. She didn't give a shit about the political period. She wanted her people out.

But standing off to the side with Asher she'd kept her mouth closed while the other four went back and forth for long enough.

“I will have my pound of flesh.” said Narcissus and Buffy decided that she'd finally had enough.

“You try and take it and I'll be collecting seven from just you.” she said and as he turned to look at her she felt all the other eyes in the room suddenly on her. She knew that Richard understood exactly what she meant as did Asher and probably Jean Claude and Anita as well on some level but then they knew her.

Narcissus didn't.

She noticed that the bodyguards, Ajax and Ulysses, both tensed a bit as if waiting for her to do something.

“Seven?” Narcissus asked.

“The average weight of a head.” she told him and Ajax made to move at her. To put himself between her and Narcissus, barely moving she let one of her knives go flying in his direction, the silver blade embedding itself in the wall less than an inch from the hyena's head.

His eyes narrowed and she raised an eyebrow in challenge to the bodyguard before dismissing him and meeting Narcissus' dark gaze as he reevaluated her.

“Mon coeur.” asher said from his place next to her using the tone he only seemed to get when he was a little bit amused but mostly trying to keep her from starting a fight. The tone he used when she and Jean Claude were butting heads.

“Buffy.” Jean Claude warned.

“No, I'm done with this manipulating bullshit. So I'll give you something.” she said. She'd reached her limit of shit for the last twenty four hours.

“And that would be?” asked Narcissus.

“Your life.”

Narcissus raised an eyebrow. “That would be most unwise.”

She looked him in the eye and let everything else fall away. All the civilized trappings and emotion that most never went without. She went to that hollow place where the predator lived and dared him with her eyes to pushed her. “Do you think there's anything I won't do to you if my people are hurt?”

“You are not that stupid Miss Summers.”

Her tone was even, flat, emotionless. A dead thing as she replied. “I'm not stupid, human, or willing to play your games. I am however prepared to destroy you if I have to.”

“You can't do anything if your dead.” he countered. But threats on her life had stopped being a thing she worried about when she was sixteen.

“No, I can't. But you know better than to kill me. You don't want the fall out of the death of a Federal Marshal on your head. And if you kill or allow any of mine to die while in your territory. Well, you don't want to even think about what I'll do.” she told him in that same tone. She didn't like politics and she didn't play the games but she did know people and cutting through bullshit was one of her specialties.

Narcissus seemed to weigh her for a few moments, and at the edge of her senses she could feel Anita and Asher's tension as they waited to see what would happen. Jean Claude looked considering with just the faintest hint of pleased deeply hidden beneath the surface.

A first considering that usually they were at each other's throats.

“So we are at an impasse.” Narcissus finally said.

“We're really not.” she countered before going on. It was time for this dance to end. “If you want something from Jean Claude, that's your problem. And it really is a problem. Because you won't just be taking on him if you try and force it. You'll be taking on the pack and most likely Rafael and his people as well. You want power but even with the numbers you have now you can't win against everyone else united.”

“And you?”

She let a cold smile cross her lips, a predator's smile. “I doubt they'd need me but if they did and asked, well. You're a really small fish compared to some of the things I've gone up against.”

There was complete silence for almost a full minute before Narcissus gave the slightest of nods and knowing that she was done with him and had better things to do she turned to the only female she trusted outside of her sisters to watch her back.

“Anita.”

“Yeah?” asked the black haired woman with a little bit of a smile.

“You coming with me?” she inquired as she made for the door and stopped to pull the knife out of the door frame.

“Yeah I am.” Anita said and she could hear the other woman standing up to follow her.

What did ya know? She could deal with a potential blowup without making someone bleed.






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Happy Holidays to all. I hope you spend them happy, healthy and with those you love.


Also a question.

I've got a massive love for the new show Leverage that has Christian Kane in it. (Lindsey from Angel) I'm thinking about doing a series of drabbles between the two and was wondering if there was any intrest. I've already written about four of them and was just wondering if anyone wants to read them.


Please review. That's all I'd like for Christmas from everyone.