As Paige slid herself beneath the raven-haired woman’s arm, Willow instinctively embraced the girl with a motion similar to a one-armed hug. The only real difference being that willow was still staring down the Master of the City and holding Paige to her side rather than her front. This new position would offer Paige a better look at the woman who she had just claimed to be staying with and it wasn’t what a human would usually consider a pretty sight. In her ‘excitement’, Willow had cast aside just a shred of her youthful glamor. She was still, by most standards, beautiful in form but her full lips had been snarled aside and her fangs were bearing in open view. Her eyes, a gentle chocolate brown when they had been peering at the girls in the mirror, were now a pitch black in their entirety. Willow looked ready and willing to tear this man apart, regardless of the fact that he had been nothing but courteous to her and the young human.
Gabriel’s hand fell slowly back to his side after Paige rejected his offer to accompany her inside. For a moment, there was a look of shock upon the handsome vampire’s features but that was quickly replaced with an almost pleased smile. “You are a strange girl for your age,” his voice rang out in that gentle and warm tone; Willow’s polar opposite in every way. “Though it is increasingly rare for me to exert my will upon the living, rejection is not something that I am at all accustomed to. I’ve come to expect most human girls your age to melt into giggling fits in my presence but you… Not only have you got the presence of mind to decline me but you’ve got a courtesy most uncommon among-.”
“Your silver tongue isn’t charming anyone here you savage snake,” Willow interrupted as she all but spat her words at the gentleman vampire. “The girl said that she is staying with me so why don’t you just slink back under your damned rock where we can all forget that you ever plagued our presence?” Between Willow’s earlier outburst of bloodlust and her current state of aggression with a seemingly upstanding member of the vampire community, it is a wonder that Paige did not run for cover. Of course, that would mean that she would be leaving Rachel alone with this woman.
“Yes, I suppose that I should take my leave,” the man spoke in a defeated tone as he turned his attention back to Willow. “It was not my intent to invoke your fury though I do not know why I believed, even for a moment, that you would wish my company. Your young friends are welcome inside if they happen to change their minds. I hope that the three of you enjoy the rest of your evening.”