Re: loving without a soul. It's clear that some vampires (Dru and Spike) definitely believe that they can love. We also know that different vampires can have different degrees of "humanity", whatever that means. When Dru rebuilt the Judge in Buffy S2, he burned that one intellectual vamp to ashes for having too much "humanity" and said Spike and Dru had affection between them, but touching Angelus did nothing. So whatever "humanity" is, Angelus has none but vamps can have it; Spike and Dru do, even though they have no soul. So maybe "humanity" is required to love, but "soul" is required to love selflessly? IDK