The Return of Wicked Red by psimetis

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The characters Willow and Tara and everything Buffy the Vampire Slayer are all rights, copyrighted and trademarked, Joss Whedon, WB, Mutant Enemy, and anyone else who has a claim, but are not named. Contents of this site are a fan to fan appreciative effort and created solely for no profit or any manner of material gain, in this universe or any other existing universe.
Distribution: The Mystic Muse: /mysticmuse.net
Lair of the Wicked: /www.a-girlstudio.com/masterwillow
Feedback: If it pleases you, do :).
Spoilers: Post-Chosen.
Author's Notes: Altverse. Not Wishverse but a close resemblance.
Pairing: Willow/Tara

Summary: A mature vampire Willow returns to Sunnydale with her sire, Drusilla, and becomes reluctant Master of the town. She takes Tara as her pet and a complex relationship grows between them.

"Kitten, Kitten," came the lilting, soft voice, magnified by its eerie echo against the alley walls. Tara took a harsh breath of the cool night air as her slender hand trailed for support along the brick and mortar. Her ribs flared painfully from where a vampire had kicked her during that fateful battle three nights ago. To think she survived that night when she helped the Slayer destroy the Master, only to fall prey later to a common, vampire street attack.

Yet Tara knew, her witch senses told her, that no ordinary vampire was pursuing her tonight. The young blonde pushed onward, her breaths laboring painfully. She held her rebellious side and focused on the end of the alley and the lit street that beckoned. The pulse of a dark mystical presence pricked at her senses, becoming stronger. A slim, feminine silhouette appeared at the alley's end, and Tara halted.

Red hair gleamed under the streetlight. Its short length framed a pale, serene face whose gentle smirk belied the threat and violence shining like promise in the vampire's eyes.

"Kitten..." the black clad vampire breathed, and her long coat waft in the lamplight as she stepped forward.

Tara had never combated another witch. Having been raised a peaceful spellcaster, she had no need to learn offensive magic until her arrival in Sunnydale. The witch facing her was too powerful to oppose, she knew, but still she whispered an incantation – still she raised a hand to mystically gesture –

The red haired vampire raised her chin slightly, eyes widening as the young, soft woman in the pretty, long skirt and creamy sweater challenged her. The vampire's gentle smirk lengthened to a delighted smile –

And Tara felt her spell deflect upon a solid, mystic shield, rebounding straight back at her –

Tara could not help the pained cry as her own power slammed her into the brick behind her. Did – did she crack her ribs again? It hurt too much, and she could not prevent her body's slide down the wall. Her head fell back, and her wide blue eyes met those of her killer.

"Pretty Kitten, such claws," the vampire mused in her soft voice. Tara felt the cool tips of fingers lift her chin. The small mouth above her broadened its smirk.

Willow stood silently upon the catwalk of the Bronze and surveyed the violent spectacle below with a pleasantly critical eye, almost as if she were watching an intriguing play. The Slayer and her high school White Hats had finally launched an assault upon the Master, and though the sounds of weapons and screams lured the demon in her to the fray, the red haired vampire resisted the natural call. Interestingly, she felt no loyalty to her Order's patriarch, her own great, great grandfather, and for very personal reasons. As she stood by the rail, slim hands moved smoothly around her waist, and Willow felt the brush of her beautiful sire's face against her red hair.

"Bells knell for Darla's Daddy," Drusilla murmured in her ear, as she rested her chin upon her childe's slender shoulder. "Ding, Dong." Willow smirked at the mention of her great-grandmother, and watched the blur that was the lithe, blonde Slayer on the Bronze's stage, match blow for blow that of the Master's rage. When Willow was first Turned, at the age of seventeen, the newborn's virginal promise proved too tempting to the founder of Aurelius. Drusilla, despite being insane, was not stupid. The dark haired vampire prudently took her attractive little newborn away from Sunnydale, only to run into a bit of trouble with a well meaning, but misguided Chaos demon. A demon who threw the elder vampire and her childe into a dimensional rift, effectively losing the vampires in portals of time.

It took Willow nineteen years learning magicks in various realities to find the means of bringing her and her sire back to their proper reality. Nineteen years for them, when for Sunnydale, it had been only three months since their disappearance. The Master had treated the returned vampires and especially the now more experienced, magically powerful 'fledgling' with a hint of regal caution. Willow knew it would only be a matter of time when she would try killing the Master herself, before he tried ridding his clan of her. Thus, she was only too happy to watch the Slayer and her human pack do the dirty deed.

Willow frowned delicately as the Slayer faltered on the stage below her. The Master roared, taloned hands finding the small blonde's throat.

"Air thicken, hold fast!" Willow heard incanted below, and she saw a young woman – a witch – take a stand upon the floor, hand raised in strong conjure despite the bloody wound at her temple and the obvious pain radiating from her body's center. This 'White Hat' was new, Willow realized, surprised to see an older girl among the Slayer's high school entourage – one with such a curvy, feminine body, dressed in a soft sweater and long, flowing skirt. Willow smiled appreciatively.

Willow's magical sense saw the aura of power around the girl shine white-gold. She tasted earth, air, green and fire upon her tongue.

"Ah!" Willow exclaimed in delight and sudden arousal. She clutched Drusilla's hands about her waist in her excitement.

"Gold and honey, that one," Dru giggled, pleased that her exceptional childe had noticed this worthy interest – and such a pretty one, too. "Lion cubby. See her pretty claws?"

Willow slowly removed her hands from her sire's to lean upon the railing before her. She did not want to miss a moment of what was happening below.

The witch with the hair the color of a lioness was concentrating with all her power to keep the Master immobile within her spell. Unfortunately, the Slayer was also under the sway of the incantation. Willow watched the spell fragment as the centuries old, preternatural strength of the Master asserted itself.

The young woman released her spell before the Master's strength broke through her power. The Slayer lashed out with a vicious kick that loosened the grip at her throat, only to feel the same fists slam down into her shoulder blades. As the Slayer crumbled to her knees, Willow watched the witch gesture and levitate a smashed table leg. With a sweep of her hand, she sent it hurtling towards the Master's chest.

The patriarch of Aurileus swatted the wood aside easily. With preternatural speed, the ancient vampire was off the stage and by the witch's side, holding her aloft by the throat. Willow raised a hand –

The Master, in his rage, did not immediately rip at the girl's throat, but chose to fling her across the floor, over the stage and into the far wall. Her body hit a heavy curtain first, ripping it from its moorings before her back contacted the wall. The Master leapt, landed upon the stage, ready to advance upon the witch and finish her. The Slayer's fists suddenly met his advance instead.

Willow let her hand fall and relaxed back as her sire's hands kneaded her waist in agitation and excitement. Drusilla had a prophetic vision about this night, and did not want her Willow to interfere. It would not do for her childe to have any reputation which could mark her as a betrayer of her own Order and Master. Her fingers dug into her childe's flesh painfully.

Willow felt the sharp reminder of her sire's fingers almost as an afterthought as she critically assessed the situation below. Already, the Slayer's White Hats had all fallen, but not before ridding the room of the Master's most loyal minions. The Watcher lay boneless in a heap by the smashed table – the football player in some rubble, the wolf boy by the cage – and the Slayer was weakening once more upon the stage. The Master sent the Slayer hurtling to the stage floor once again, then lifted the stunned girl's body up, ready to smash her against his knee. Behind the gloating Master, Willow's eyes marked the struggled, slow rise of a golden haired figure.

"Yes!" Willow encouraged beneath her breath, leaning once more in eagerness for this latest event. "Yes, my girl, yes!"

With a triumphant howl, the Master brought the Slayer down, the crack of vertebrae almost disguising the sound of wood puncturing undead flesh. The patriarch of Aurelius stared down at his chest in wonderment.

The witch behind the now destroyed vampire fell from her knees to her face once again upon the stage floor, exhausted from her magiks and her injuries. Fires suddenly flared about the room. Perhaps incendiaries laid as part of the Slayer's plan of destruction, Willow speculated briefly.

"Get up, Kitten, get up," Willow encouraged in hushed tones. This witch – this lovely, soft witch with the light magic – had proven the strongest in the room, outlasting the male White Hats and both the Master and the Slayer. Willow wanted to see more of what the young woman was made of.

"Yes Kitten," the red haired vampire enthused, as she watched the blonde witch struggle to her hands and knees. With painful effort, the young woman pulled herself across the floor towards the Slayer. "Oh yes," Willow breathed.

Suddenly, a dark haired, battered vampire staggered into the now flaming, smoking room. The large male rushed to the stage in a burst of adrenaline at the sight of the fallen Slayer.

Willow merely raised a brow as her souled grandsire lifted a block of concrete above the bones of the Master, letting the weight fall and smash the skull to splintered bits. Angel then gingerly lifted the broken Slayer.

"I'll come back for the others!" he cried to the witch, and ran with his precious burden out of the room. Willow watched the Kitten hang her head a moment in exhaustion, or mental resolve, then heaved her body off the stage. The young woman managed to regain her feet and with determination, made her slow painful way towards the Watcher. Abruptly she stopped.

Willow had seen many beautiful things in her short life with Dru, but none as beautiful as the pure soul seated so perfectly in the deep blue of this witch's eyes. Such sadness and innocence; such pain and goodness; both meek and powerful.

"Want you," Willow whispered down to the young woman, her small hands gripping the railing like she wanted to grip that sensual, vulnerable face. "Have you," she vowed, staring with bright green eyes, knowing the witch could read her lips.

Then her grandsire rushed back into the room, grabbing the young witch up into his strong arms. Even as he carried her out, the blonde swiveled her head, her startled blue eyes never leaving Willow's face.

Willow's fingers gently caressed the white bandage square at Kitten's temple, then the puffy bruise that was her left eye. Kitten flinched and Willow felt warm breath exhaled sharply into her cool palm. Kitten's mouth was full lipped and so sensual. Willow knelt so that she could lean in better and taste the young woman's scent in the air. Ah, jasmine; earth, apples.

"Careless Kitten," Willow admonished the injured witch. "Restless in your lair, and now you're caught." She leaned back and held up a dangling, silver wrist cuff for the blonde to see. "You're mine now," Willow stated with quiet glee.

Kitten's blue eyes widened in fright at recognizing the magiks intertwined in the symbols scratched into the metal surface. She started to struggle against the wall.

"Sleep," Willow interrupted, passing a hand before the Kitten's eyes, and the spell instantly blessed the young woman into slumber. Willow lifted a limp, slender wrist and paused only a moment to admire the pulsing beat of blood beneath the white flesh. She wrapped the wrist in the silver cuff, squeezing the soft metal shut. She breathed a powerful incantation of temporary binding. Kitten's little claws needed to be sheathed for now.

Tara's eyes drifted open slowly, and she instantly realized something was wrong. She felt stifled – magically stifled. She breathed quietly, trying to make sense of the wood beamed ceiling that faced her eyes – of the unfamiliar, large bed beneath her body. Memory of what had happen to her before her sleep came to the fore of her awareness. Her heart thundered in her chest.

A terribly cool, gentle hand came to rest on her chest, right over the rapid beat. Tara could not help a deep breath of anxiety as she turned her head slowly to see the owner of that hand. The red haired vampire's amused green eyes were attentively watching her hand's rise and fall from Tara's deep breaths.

"Soft thing," the vampire exclaimed in that girlish voice of hers. Her hand rose quickly to pull the blonde's thin blouse roughly apart, breaking the buttons and expose the pale skin beneath. The vampire's cool palm met Tara's heart once again and the blonde witch gasped.

"Warm thing," the vampire murmured appreciatively, and then suddenly snarled, the baring of her fine teeth crinkling the vampire's slender features – her small nose, her eyes – in such a way that Tara would have thought it almost cute had the girl been human. Instead Tara gasped again, head back in fear, and her right hand involuntarily came up to grip the cool, smaller hand over her heart. Sensing the preternatural strength flowing through that limb, she trembled.

She had seen vampires rip into each other's bodies and into humans. She knew what this hand could do to her.

The vampire above her leaned into Tara slightly, the animalistic snarl now gone. Bright thoughts flitted rapidly through her intelligent, green eyes...eyes which also held the ice light of cold. A cold that could lead to cruelty.

Fearful realization dawned in the blonde witch's wide blue depths, and Willow grinned. It was so good that Kitten understood!

"When Mummy first let me have pets," Willow gently began to share, as she casually peeled Kitten's torn blouse from her shoulders. "They were always dying so soon or breaking so easily. It takes practice how to play with humans, you see." Tara heard her sleeves rip at the cuffs where the vampire did not bother to unbutton them. "How much pain they can withstand. What breaks in their mind. What makes them...die."

Willow paused to appreciate Kitten's full breasts, still confined within a white bra. With a snap the bra gave way and Willow buried her face in the lush, warm softness.

"Mmm," Willow purred. Tara gripped the sheets beneath her, her body responding involuntarily to the pleasurable sensation of the vampire's face and red hair caressing her breasts, her stomach. She felt cool lips kiss the skin between her breasts.

"My demon loved the torture," she heard the vampire speak softly into her chest. Tara tried to let out the breath she had been holding. Did the vampire really say 'loved' – past tense?

"But it wasn't enough," she continued, and her cool hands resumed stripping the Kitten, finding the zipper of her long skirt. "Mummy thinks I get too easily bored, that I need a pet that can challenge me. A strong playmate." The vampire pulled the skirt from Tara's yielding hips. A firm, small hand caressed up from the ankle, along the calf and to the thigh. The red haired witch easily mounted the bed and sat between the blonde's thighs.

Tara gasped as a slender finger brushed her clef through the cotton panties in one, long stroke.

Willow raised the digit to her mouth and ran a delicate tongue along it, contemplating Kitten's taste. Fear, grief, virginity, magiks. There was moisture, but not of arousal. Kitten was not enjoying herself.

Tara bit down on her lip to keep from crying out. She didn't understand why the vampire had been talking of 'strong playmates' when she certainly didn't feel anything but strong at the moment. Her magic was trapped within her, her injuries made even breathing painful, and now she lay naked and vulnerable and wantonly spread before this dangerously unpredictable creature. She blushed deeply with shame. She wanted to shut her legs – shut her eyes – against the vampire's bright, assessing stare, but willed herself not to. Whatever was to happen, she wanted to survive it.

Willow's gaze finally rose from the pleasure of viewing Kitten's tempting sex to meet the girl's vulnerable, brave eyes. Wetness shimmered there.

"You're very beautiful, Kitten," Willow observed quietly, reaching for Kitten's injured eye and prompting it to shut briefly. Moisture fell from it, and she caught the tear and tasted it. "Mm."

Willow gently harvested the tear from Kitten's other, shining eye. As she tasted that one also, the blonde witch blinked, disconcerted. Confusion mixed with the wary fear and shame in her gaze.

"Mummy let me have pets, because my demon liked to break things," Willow continued softly, taking pleasure in the taste of the tears, as if they were wine. "Mum was a girl like yourself once, all sweet and light and beauty. Then her Dark Daddy came along and broke her to pieces, put the fragments back together like an artist. My mum is a remarkable creation."

Tara could not tell if that last observation was in subtle, sarcastic judgment or in bemused admiration. The vampire stared intently into her eyes, and the young woman decided that it was a statement of acceptance.

"I don't play games like that," the vampire continued seriously in her hushed, girlish voice, the shining green of her gaze so bright and intelligent. "I've learned now, that there's no lasting satisfaction in broken things." She leaned in, her pretty mouth slowly seeking Tara's. "You won't fragment into pieces, will you Kitten?" she breathed against the blonde's full lips. She then kissed her, sweetly – Tara thought with startled surprise – and in that moment of strange connection, felt herself tentatively kiss back. The vampire softly pulled her cool lips away and leaned back, smiling a small, satisfied smile.

"We're going to be such wonderful playmates, Kitten," she breathed with deeply assured delight.

Tara lay as quietly as she could upon the large bed, but it was difficult, as her breathing was becoming more of a labored chore, thanks to her ribs. Swelling, she thought. She was feeling warmer as well – quite possibly fever. If she had not left her dorm room to pick up medicine, she might not have ended up captured, but she only kidded herself briefly with that thought. This vampire witch would have easily kidnapped her at some point, even had she been well and able to fight her.

She wished she had a blanket, a loose sheet, anything to cover her nakedness. The vampire had left the room after the kiss, tsking as a cool hand touched the pudgy, ugly bruisings that was her side. Tara was uncertain what the vampire's current absence meant. She had no idea what her being here meant. Despite the vampire's strange assurances, rape and torture by her new 'playmate' still seemed likely prospects.

Tara fingered the metal edge of the silver cuff that bound her left wrist. She did not want to look at it, she might start crying. It was too strange and frightening not being able to feel her own magic. She felt bottled, unable to sense the world properly. Only the caster who had placed the bind could remove it. Lack of clothes and injuries aside, the fact that her magic had been bound was probably the sole reason the young witch had not attempted to run out of the room and out of Sunnydale without a look back. The vampire was more likely to release the bind if Tara were – were here, and cooperative.

The blonde plucked at the bedcover beneath her in rising panic, wanting to pull it over her.

Drusilla was drawn out of her little dance down the hallway by the rapid pounding of an accelerated heartbeat. She ceased the twirl of her long dress.

"Pumpity pumpity pumpity," she chanted beneath her breath, and peeked into the room her childe's cubby was in. There was the pretty sweets, lying upon the bed all lovely and warm smelling, except for that blackish hurt radiating from her middle. Her childe was right now in the mansion's kitchen, mixing a healing poultice. Her Precious was so smart, learning all sorts of things to fix hurts and bruisies. She and her childe had been together nineteen years, and in that time her brilliant daughter had learned and accomplished so much. Hers was a mind that never ceased working, so intelligent was she. Precious rapidly outgrew the more simple interests of her ruthless demon. It took about a decade of blood and mayhem for her childe to settle down, but Dru knew from personal experience that it can take vampires decades to a century more to finally find the bloodshed and games unfulfilling.

Dru felt that a companion – much like this intriguing, honey haired witch – might finally complement her childe's strengths. The stars had spoken of this lion cubby. Dru watched a moment more as the stiffly prone blonde plucked futilely at the heavy coverlet beneath her. The elder vampire gracefully made her entrance.

Tara turned her head in surprise. Despite the binding, she sensed the – the psychic presence of this new vampire. She could not be certain but there it was, in the deep, large eyes that dreamed elsewhere, in the ethereal grace of the creature's here, yet 'not-here', bearing. This vampire was...gifted.

The slim, dark haired vampire stopped before the bed, startled. She stared into the soulful blues before her and recognized once again what she had seen at the Bronze. Special girl.

Tara watched with held breath as the vampire finally smiled serenely at her, then removed the black, lacy shawl from her slender shoulders. With an elegant flick of her wrists, the vampire laid the thin, light cloth across Tara's body.

"T-thank you..." Tara stammered softly. The vampire before her continued to smile as she held out a slender hand, the fingers jeweled with rings.

"I am Drusilla," she murmured low, her large eyes luminous. The vampire's voice was accented, Tara realized. She was British.

"I am Tara," the blonde responded softly, and tentatively took the hand. It was absurd, but she had such a strong inclination to pay respect to the vampire, as one would to an elder witch.

"Tara," Drusilla pronounced slowly, as if tasting the name. Realization dawned in her face and her serene smile grew darker and broader. "Rock to my Little Tree."

"Mummy!" the blonde heard breathlessly spoken from the door, and Drusilla turned, but did not release their hands. The red haired vampire entered the room, carrying a ceramic bowl. She immediately mounted the bed, and to Tara's discomposure, positioned herself once again between the blonde's legs.

"This is my Sire, Kitten," the red haired witch solemnly introduced, eyes wide. "My mum, Drusilla."

The red haired vampire's mouth widened into a delighted smile – made all the more attractive by the lack of darkness and cruelty. To Tara, she looked just like a human girl – innocently pleased by some sudden discovery. She wanted to smile in response, and the corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.

For Willow, she was smiling because this was the first time she had heard Kitten speak a full sentence, and her voice was so feminine and pretty. Kitten's mouth twitched then – a fleeting, half-grin – and if Willow's dead lungs breathed, she would have exhaled an exclamation of appreciation. Instead her lips parted further in its smile.

Drusilla watched the interaction between her childe and the cubby closely. Her Precious was enamored. Little cubby may prove a wonderful playmate.

"Do you dance?" Drusilla suddenly asked the honey girl whose hand she still held.

Tara was surprised but answered gamely. "Yes," she affirmed. Though the elder vampire looked as young as herself, the blonde witch was certain that she referred to more formal dancing. Even without her magic, Tara suspected that the vampire was impressively old.

Drusilla looked expectantly at her, almost beckoning with their clasped hands, and Tara blushed slightly. "B-but I could not, at this moment. Perhaps w-when I feel better?"

The elder vampire had looked disappointed, briefly, when Tara had declined, but immediately brightened at the prospect of a dance later.

"Yes, moonlight party, in th' garden. Lamps and hats and tea. Won't that be perfect, Precious?" Dru enthused, dark eyes glowing as she turned to her childe.

"Yes mum," Willow affirmed with an earnest nod. She took hold of the lace shawl covering Kitten's body and flipped it off. "When Kitten's better I shall bring her to dance with you."

If Tara could blush any deeper, she would. Exposed once more to the cool air of the room, the blonde was reminded once again, of her vulnerable position. Drusilla released her hand finally and hummed to herself, her lidded eyes already faraway. As the elder vampire swayed away from the bed, Tara felt cool hands prompt her to turn and lie partially upon her uninjured side. She looked down and watched the red haired vampire industriously push pillows into her body to support her. Taking the blonde's arm, the vampire placed it away from her body. She picked up the ceramic bowl.

Tara gasped as a hot, fragrant poultice was applied to her bruised side. The heat immediately penetrated and soothed the pain away, and Tara was aware, as the vampire worked to shape the poultice, that she was humming, matching the melody of her sire's. As the elder vampire swayed close to the bed in front of her, and the childe hummed under her breath behind her, Tara realized it was a healing spell they were weaving. More heat suffused her body, relaxing her muscles and making her sleepy. She closed her eyes.

"Precious," she heard Drusilla sing song disapprovingly somewhere above her. "You haven't told honey cubby your name, have you."

"No Mummy, I haven't," Tara heard laughed behind her. It was – it was a very attractive laugh. Full of a girl's joy.

"Would you like to know who I am, Kitten?" she felt whispered softly near her ear. Tara forced her sleepy eyes open, catching sight of a pretty mouth and its gentle, beautiful smirk. Red hair fell before the mouth as the vampire hovered over Tara's shoulder, and she was tempted, had she the strength, to touch the bright strands.

And Tara slipped into slumber then, with only the thought that it certainly was not unexpected, that a vampire like Willow would already know her name.

Willow raised the tall wine glass to her lips, savoring the taste of the fresh human blood. Yes, Giano's was very good at keeping its restaurant blood supply fresh, she mused. She and Dru had only been back to this reality for three weeks, but she had managed to lay down contacts as well as settle in quite snugly in Angel's former Sunnydale abode, the Crawford Street mansion. Willow had to smile again at her goodie two-shoed grandsire's outrage when she'd warded the property to no longer accept his presence. When she had been Turned, Dru and she had stayed here, and it was her brother Spike who had taught her to hunt. But right now Spike was parts unknown and Willow was quite adamant that her disgusting, souled grandsire stay away...for now.

"So things are really quiet lately, since the Bronze thing," the loose skinned demon sitting before her continued. "Word on the street thinks the Slayer's dead too, but some know she's over at General's ICU, mending a broken back." The demon shook his head sorrowfully at that fact.

Willow and the demon, Clem, were seated at the patio table on the ground floor terrace, overlooking the gardens. It was twenty minutes to dawn, and the red haired vampire could already see the faintest glow of sunrise peeking over Sunnydale's blue-dark, hushed horizon.

"Saw the Watcher at the Magic Box though," Clem continued on a cheery note. "He looked beat, but was walking around. Saw that White Hat, Larry – the football player? – patrolling one of the cemeteries last night."

"What about the remains of the Order?" Willow inquired casually, sipping her blood.

Clem shook his head. "Couple of minions and fledglings, scattered in the sewers and elsewhere. I know some hightailed it out of town. There's no vampire left in Sunnydale who's powerful, except maybe Angel, Drusilla, and um, you."

Willow smiled softly. She easily changed the subject. "Took care of everything that was on the list?"

"Yep!" the loose skinned demon nodded happily, glad for the change of subject. "Groceries you asked for are in the kitchen, and I picked up the Impala from the shop. It's in your garage. It's got the full tint works, new tires, and the boys tuned the engine." Clem fished in his pants pocket and took out a set of car keys. "There you go," he added, laying them on the patio table between them. "Got it washed and waxed, and I filled up the tank."

"Thank you, Clem," Willow said sincerely. "I've left another list in the kitchen. My orders from the Magic Box."

"Okie doke, I'll get on it this evening." Clem rose, knowing this was a dismissal. "Have a good sleep!" he bade cheerfully.

"Good night, Clem," Willow answered, and the demon disappeared around the side of the terrace. She relaxed slightly in her seat to face the rising dawn once again. In her experience, hiring capable demons to do minion work was so much easier than wasting energy on a gang of stupid, lower fledglings. She'd had to play a traditional Master vampire in at least one of the realities she and Dru ended up in – the full ensemble with lair, minions, and territory. It was so archaic and last century.

Willow's thoughts returned to the situation that was Sunnydale and the Hellmouth it sat upon. Things will remain quiet for a while, then something was sure to move into the void of power left by the Master's demise. Willow briefly envisioned herself filling that void, then dismissed it. As long as whatever came along did not threaten her or her own, she was content for now with her own concerns. Lovely concerns, Willow mused appreciatively, thinking of Kitten. She narrowed her eyes as she felt the burning prick of the sunrise. It quickly grew to a searing sensation, tendriled smoke beginning to rise from her exposed skin. Willow snarled and quickly leapt from the terrace chair for the dark, heavy curtains behind her.

Almost every dusk and dawn, she played games with the sun, working on her tolerance. Willow shut her eyes and held the curtains, focusing on soothing her skin's burns. When she finally looked down to study her hands, the surfaces were unmarred in their pale coolness. Willow knew what her limit was; there was no possibility ever, to gaining some immunity to the sun, yet still, she played the game. She flicked her long coat behind her as she strolled down the corridor for her Kitten's room. Yes, pain was the kind of game she liked to play.

Tara woke again, and this time it was to the bright sight of green eyes staring intently down at her – intently, almost upside down, from over her own shoulder.

Tara accidentally brushed her hand along the bare cool thigh that was lying against the back of her own legs. Oh – oh dear. Naked vampire. Naked Tara.

"How are you feeling?" the redhead asked Tara matter-of-factly, completely at ease as she stared down.

"Um," Tara managed. She was trying to assess the state of her – well, between her legs. She didn't feel like anything had happened. She hoped.

"I feel much better," Tara exhaled quickly. And she did. She was no longer in pain, surprisingly, just a little sore. The only thing making her feel less like herself was the continued 'bottled' feeling that was her magic being suppressed.

"I cleaned up the poultice," she heard the vampire say rather cheerfully. "And since your eye is much better, I don't think you need this either." And Tara yipped, in surprise and discomfort, as the vampire ripped off the white bandage that was taped to her temple. She felt a cool hand push her to her back, and the vampire straddled her, gazing down.

Willow just loved when Kitten blushed, it was very cute. Her eyes roved over the blonde's face, realizing this was probably the first time she had seen it with less damage. When Kitten didn't look like a kicked Kitten, she had such strong facial qualities. The nose, the cheekbones, the large, brave eyes, whose bravery was less evident when Kitten hid behind the shield of her shyness – as she did now. Willow pushed herself up.

"I will prepare a bath," she announced with anticipatory glee, and then promptly dismounted the bed.

Tara heard the sound of water running at full force, and she scooted herself up on the bed, automatically pulling the sheet with her. Thinking was something she didn't want to do, except that was what she was doing right now anyway. She was trying not to ask herself unhelpful questions like how she was going to get through this situation. The vampire reentered the room and the flustered blonde found that the sight of the red haired witch effectively did the vacating of her mind for her.

The vampire – Willow – was completely unabashed about her nudity. Like her namesake she was slender of body and almost boyishly so, with narrow hips and long limbs and beautiful, small breasts. Her white skin was smattered with freckles. The dashes of color that were Willow seemed to reduce before Tara's vision into red hair, green eyes, pink nipples, and....a little more red hair. Neatly trimmed.

Oh dear, thought Tara, perhaps in the primitive part of her brain that had refused to vacate with the intelligence. She's turning me on.

She had never seen such a beautiful girl before, when she'd caught sight of the vampire on the walkway of the Bronze. Willow's face, presence – that presence which was Her, in capital letters, had made such an indelible, impossibly inescapable impression upon her mind. Now Willow's nude form was making a similar impression on Tara's libido.

Willow reached for Tara's sheet and flipped it off with a flourish, sending it floating to the floor. She held out both hands to the blonde.

The oval marble tub was spacious, surrounded by the soft warm glow of candles, and Tara was not surprised when the vampire joined her in the pleasurably searing heat of the fragrant waters. There were mineral salts in the bath, and a sachet of relaxing herbs. Tara detected the soothing scent of orange. She sank further into the heat, realizing that the hot soak was relaxing her in the presence of her captor. If she had intended to stay wary, it easily dissipated along with the softening of her muscles. For a while, neither woman said nothing.

Willow sat up at her end of the tub then, and grabbed a sponge from the side. She squeezed liquid gel into it.

Tara did as directed, with an insistent Willow arm urging her to sit between the vampire's legs. Tara felt the sponge touch her back firmly and begin to roam, massaging as well as scrubbing her skin. She relaxed against the touch.

"Are you from Sunnydale?" she heard the vampire ask, as she worked the sponge along Tara's back.

"Came here for school, then?" Willow further queried. She was just making conversation until she could lead into the questions she really wanted to ask. She already knew from the i.d. Kitten had carried in her sweater pocket that she was here for school.

"Yes, UC Sunnydale," Tara answered, squirming slightly as Willow's sponge touched her sore side. "They – they have a great scholarship program."

Willow laughed behind her. "That's because their student population keeps getting eaten. They'll do anything now to lure students to fill their dorms."

Willow ran the sponge along the line of Kitten's spine. It made the young woman arch slightly. "Didn't you know there's a Hellmouth here?"

Willow stopped her ministrations and rested her chin a moment on Kitten's shoulder.

"You must've been pretty desperate then," she surprised Tara with, the soft observation sounding gentle beside her ear.

"Nothing wrong with that," Willow commented, moving back and playfully touching the edge of Kitten's ear with the sponge. She resumed her attentions, moving her caresses down below the water. "Poor family?"

Willow could see the line of Kitten's jaw work. Ooo, pain, the redhead observed. Emotional issue. Kitten was feeling cornered.

Tara cut off her own words with a slightly frustrated sigh. She usually never, if ever, talked about her family. It was too painful.

Willow ran the sponge up Kitten's other side, touching under the breast that peeped in soft profile.

The blonde witch turned to look over her shoulder, a blue eye finding her own green ones. "Left," she clarified firmly, no hint of stammer in her voice.

"Mm," Willow's eyes sparkled. She leaned in to briefly touch her nose to the side of the blonde's. She took hold of the young woman's shoulders and silently urged her to turn around.

Tara rose slightly in the water, complying with the request. Willow did not hide her wide-eyed and lecherously smug appreciation of Tara's glistening front, the vampire's eyes fixating on the wet breasts and their proud nipples in particular. Tara resisted the strong urge to raise her arms to cover her chest. If looks could eat you up, she mused in embarrassment, then Willow's had just made a meal of her ten times over.

"I was born in Sunnydale," the vampire suddenly piped up, as she raised the sponge to the focus of her green eyed appreciation.

"R-really?" Tara said, almost forgetting the firm touch of the sponge on her breasts in the wake of her curiosity. "How long ago?" Willow did not impress Tara as being as old as her sire.

"Oh, that should still be seventeen years ago," Willow strangely answered, taking great pleasure with getting Kitten's breasts clean. "It's a long story. I was Turned three months ago, but then mum and I got thrown into a dimensional portal by a not very smart Chaos demon and we ended up lost in other realities for nineteen years. So yes, I was human until age seventeen, but I've been a childe for almost twenty," she finished proudly.

"W-wow," Tara said softly, digesting the information. "We're the same age then. Your vampire age."

Willow smiled a happy smile. "I've practiced magic for just that long," she continued in a breathy voice. "How about you?"

Willow dropped her hand a moment. "You're a generational witch," she realized with a hushed voice, and Tara was taken aback by the mix of deep awe and appreciation that was evident in the vampire's wide eyes.

Willow clapped her hands then, sending water splashing, and Tara could not help her surprised bubble of laughter in response. The vampire's excitement was infectious. Willow took hold of one of Tara's hands.

"I learned the craft without guidance in the beginning, and it wasn't easy," Willow intoned seriously, though her large eyes remained bright. "And I've paid many prices for the Dark Art. But I want to learn other ways and I want to learn from you, Kitten."

Tara was not only impressed by Willow's words, she was touched. The vampire sounded so sincere, and Tara could not suspect any other motive for her interest in her light magic. She was humbled that a witch of Willow's power was asking to learn from her. This was something – a partner in magic was something she had always dreamed of. She tried not to think of how this version of her dream was skewed in a hellish sort of way.

"I...I would like that," she heard herself say, finding to her deep surprise that she felt at ease to say that, despite the protestations of her practical mind. Beneath the water, her hand touched the silver cuff.

"I guess this means you won't kill me right away," she uttered before her mind could tell her mouth to prudently shut up.

Willow looked incredulous, not at the statement, but because the blonde had the brass to say such a thing out loud. She grinned widely.

"I guess you're right," she breathily agreed, nose crinkling at how funny Kitten was, and picked up the sponge again.

Willow washed Tara's arms and legs with the same fascinated, firm attention she had paid to the blonde's breasts. The two women fell silent, and the only sound was of the lapping water and the soothing cascade that fell from the sponge. Eventually Willow's purposeful sponge glided to the area between Tara's legs. Tara swallowed, and felt the sponge explore her.

"My turn!" she declared to the startled blonde, who was still stuck in the sensation of sponge on her – then no sponge. She took a deep, shaky breath and composed herself as the vampire scooted her backside into position between Tara's thighs.

"How did you get to know the Slayer and her gang?" Willow asked, apparently in the mood for conversation again.

"Oh," Tara hesitated, thinking. She picked up the sponge, squeezed liquid soap into it, and then began to soap the slim, wet back before her. Her touch was slow and almost languid, as she quietly enjoyed the pleasurable sight of the vampire's freckles and the feel of smooth, strong muscles beneath the soft skin. Willow smiled to herself as the sponge glided along the back of her neck. Kitten will eventually answer her, sometime.

"Um, well first, I met Amy Madison, their w-witch?" Tara finally said, as she squeezed the sponge along Willow's shoulders. "She snuck into one of UC's Wicca meetings, and we happened to sense each other's magic. She was looking for a real witch, to partner in spells, and I was the only one p-practicing."

"Really? A Wicca group with only one real Wicca?" Willow commented over her shoulder. She huffed. "Sounds like a bunch of 'Wanna Blessed-Be's'."

Willow heard Kitten's laugh bubble merrily behind her. The blonde added her own shy humor before she could prevent herself. "If they saw a, um, real w-witch, they'd run the other way!" she laughed again.

Willow turned suddenly, maneuvering her legs to rest over Tara's as she repositioned herself to sit before the blonde. Her smirk was on full force.

"Then it's a good thing we're real witches," she stated firmly, leaning a little, and Tara's eyes widened at the sight of the redhead's pert, wet breasts.

Not that I haven't seen them already, Tara mused to herself, blushing. But they're so...um, so very yummy.

Willow enjoyed the arousal darkening Kitten's distracted eyes, then wiggled, impatient for the young woman to continue her soapy ministrations. Kitten roused herself and immediately raised the sponge to continue.

"So Amy introduced you to the Slayer?" Willow queried, letting her head fall back and expose her throat as Tara began to stroke her there. Willow remembered Amy from when her human self went to Sunnydale High. She wondered how strong a witch Amy was now.

"No, I met Buffy through Mr. Giles, who I met as a reference from Amy. I wanted to find out a little more about Amy b-before I agreed to do magic with her."

Willow watched Tara's gentle hand lift her own so that she could run the sponge along her slender arm.

She watched Kitten bite her lip, blue eyes lowered to her task. She seemed embarrassed that Willow had surmised her mistrust of Amy.

"She had alot of darkness in her aura," Tara admitted. "'And she seemed careless. S-she has alot of responsibility to learn, especially when dabbling in Black Arts."

"And such – Bad – " and here Willow arched, thoroughly enjoying the attention her breasts were now getting from the sponge in Kitten's hand. " – Black Arts they are," she ended with a sigh. Willow noticed Kitten biting her lip again, as her hand worked, but this time it seemed to suppress a smile.

"Don't you want to see my references, Kitten?" Willow queried, widening her eyes innocently. This time Kitten could not hide the smile.

"I'm already impressed by you without them," she heard the young woman admit, still softly smiling. Willow just smirked. The sponge worked it's slow way down to Willow's stomach and along her hips, but was very careful about not going lower. Willow gave a little thrust of her hips. Lower, lower!

"So were you a vigilante against the forces of evil before, or after you met the Slayer?" she thought to ask.

"W-what?" Tara stammered, as her hand dropped with the sponge into the water. She stared in perplexity into green eyes for a moment, then seemed to realized what the red haired witch was referring to.

"N-no, no no!" the blonde protested. "I don't do that sort of thing at all! I'm not some – cool monster fighter. I'm no good with the – " Tara paused a moment, then made some motions in the air with her fists.

"Oh, so that wasn't you who happened to be at the Bronze and whoops, 'accidentally' dusted the Master," Willow commented flippantly. Kitten seemed put out by the sarcastic comment, so the redhead jiggled a leg impatiently, wanting the blonde to continue washing her again. Kitten ran a hand along the demanding leg, as if to soothe it, and Willow grinned happily.

Tara sighed again. "I knew what it w-was going to be like, coming to Sunnydale," she explained. "So I learned some defensive magics. But I do it only to protect me, or maybe anybody who might need my help, r-running away from danger or something," she added, thinking of how she'd helped out other students with the nighttime hazards of walking around UC Sunnydale's campus. "But I don't go out of my way looking for creatures and killing them, even if they exist to hurt, and kill, and um, eat people." She continued to soothe the leg beside her, seeming to forget that it was her other hand that held the sponge, as she gazed seriously into Willow's eyes.

"The dark has its creatures. This is the nature of things," she continued softly.

"There are figures of authority," Willow finally replied, as she thought of humans like the Watchers Council. "Who would disagree with you on that."

"Well, they're the same people w-who would be happy to disagree about – " and there was Kitten's adorable, shy humor again, as her face quirked into a grin. She lifted her chin. "Something like me," the blonde retorted.

Willow laughed suddenly, loving what she was seeing – this feisty Kitten, feisty in her own gentle and self deprecating way. Willow smirked, stretched, and laid back slowly so that her head rested at her end of the tub. This allowed her leg the freedom to raise an arched foot and trail it playfully along Kitten's shoulder, down her soft, bountiful chest, and finally down between the blonde's legs. To Kitten's credit she managed to suppress her squeak, although not her bright blush, and took hold of Willow's presumptuous foot. The blonde raised the still wiggling foot out of the water with a tolerant, amused look, and began stroking it with the sponge. Her unique half-grin put a sensual lift to her mouth.

"So how did you find yourself joining the attack on the Bronze?" Willow murmured softly from her end of the tub.

"I'm not sure how it happened, but Amy accidentally turned herself into a rat," Tara explained, and this time when Willow laughed, it was a burst that actually submerged her for a moment. If Tara had not nervously laughed along with her, she would have been more alarmed at seeing the vampire go under. But for some reason she did remember that the undead had no need to breath.

Willow finally came up, elegantly squirting water from her mouth as she did so. "So – you ended up taking her place in the Slayer's plans?"

Tara nodded, running the sponge slowly up and down Willow's raised leg. "I understood what they were going to do," she continued quietly. "The Master's control of Sunnydale was imbalancing the town. Too much death and darkness was happening here." She lowered the finished limb and gently picked up Willow's other leg. "Balance had to be reinstated...it was the r-right thing to do."

Willow noticed the convulsive swallow that followed Kitten's last quiet statement though the blonde tried to hide it. No more than she could hide her expressive eyes which grew lidded and luminous with a private sorrow. Willow remembered when she was a human innocent, first time helping out the superhero Slayer and witnessing unimaginable death and evil. She had been a gentle creature as well, once upon a time, like Kitten.

Willow withdrew the leg Kitten was paying tender attention to, and rose up from the water onto her knees. She positioned herself once again between Kitten's thighs, and rested her arms gently on the blonde's shoulders.

"First fight?" Willow whispered gently, watching the sweet teardrops fall. Kitten swallowed.

"I w-was," Tara whispered hoarsely, so low, the words barely hung between them. "Was s-so s-s-scared."

Willow embraced the young woman then, folding her close and feeling the one sob Kitten would allow, convulse against her own throat. She stroked the warm, wet back, and soothed.

"I thought you did very, very well, Kitten," Willow softly assured, remembering that near orgasmic rush she'd felt, watching Kitten kill the Master so effortlessly – so beautifully. And for her first ever blood fight, oh yes! Kitten was not a killer, but oh, when she had to...

"Despite thinking that you're such a 'fraidy cat," Willow teasingly added, and she felt Kitten's sad hiccup of laughter.

It was pretty strange, Tara allowed herself to think, as she quietly ate the meal Willow prepared for her. It was pretty strange that she had taken comfort from a vampire for her – she did not know what to call it – post traumatic stress? Vampires mete out such trauma easily, from what she understood. Willow had told her as much. The demon within vampires thrived on such human suffering. She was here against her will, with her magic bound up, after all. Tara would not kid herself with assuming that the vampire had truly and unselfishly offered comfort earlier, but she did trust her own intuition, which seemed to believe that Willow cared...perhaps a little. Perhaps in a, 'the pet is crying, let's shush it 'til it stops' sort of way. Tara was feeling very much like a pet right now, with Willow watching her eat, such possessive indulgence in her mysteriously satisfied gaze.

Or was that a smug gaze? Tara thought, as she snuck a look through her lashes at the vampire's pretty mouth, the way the lips always seemed to be curled in a slight smirk. Despite the camaraderie and ease they had shared in the bath, Tara felt that she was back to being the wary mouse, and Willow, the smug, sleek, fangy cat, ready to playfully pounce.

Willow had made her dinner – after they had mutually dried each other from the bath. She had dressed Tara in a short silk, white dress robe, then had her wait in the bedroom. When the vampire returned, she had a tray with freshly made sunny side up eggs, butter, toast, a large portion of hash browns, a tall glass of milk, and a wine glass of blood.

"I find I never go very wrong with cooking eggs," Willow had commented, setting the tray down with a smile. A vampire who actually bothered to cook – for her human playmate, Tara had mused then. She had assumed that vampires were the kind of creatures who thought themselves far above those sort of things – the cooking of food – since they did not eat it anyway. Willow was definitely quite different.

Now as Willow sipped her blood and watched her, Tara fought her own hunger's demands and ate as deliberately as possible. She'd always minded her manners at the table, and she wasn't about to pig out now.

There was no clock in this room; the heavy curtains were drawn tight against windows that were probably sealed shut. The meal she had been given was suitable for breakfast, but the blonde sensed that it was likely nighttime. Tara stole another glance at her captor and the vampire's subtle smirk grew. While the young woman was only dressed in the robe, Willow was already fully dressed in a red cami with a sheer, full sleeved top and tight, black leather pants. The inequality in their state of dress was too obvious. The young woman blushed, lowering her eyes. Yes, she was most definitely in the 'pet' position now.

Their awkward silence was interrupted by Willow's sire sailing gracefully into the room, her long, velvet dress swirling about her ankles. She stopped dramatically.

"Good evening, Mummy!" Willow greeted. Her dark haired sire smiled, then pursed her lips into a pout upon seeing the red haired vampire's glass.

"No Mum. I'm fasting," Willow stated with a smile, but as she said the words, she tilted her head ever so slightly to gaze sideways at Kitten.

"My sweet," Dru murmured, kissing her childe on the forehead. "I will eat a pretty for you." She turned with regal grace and bestowed a nod in Tara's direction. "You have my dance card," she informed pleasantly, and then tripped from the room.

"Do you see what Mum is?" Tara heard Willow ask, as she watched the elder vampire disappear through the door. Tara played with the silver cuff on her wrist nervously.

"She has the Gift," The blonde answered with quiet certainty, though her eyes still darted shyly from having to reveal the personal assumption.

"Yes, she has the Sight," Willow affirmed, and with solemnity, drained her glass. "And she can see into your head, if you are not careful. You may not understand any of what she tells you, but her words are important."

Willow traced a slender finger along the rim of her empty, stained glass. "When I bothered to listen to her in the past, her prophesies saved our unlives often enough," she mused softly.

"How," Tara began, but then bit her lip. Although Willow had told her some of what made Drusilla the way she was, it really was not her place to know more details.

Willow's head lolled back against the chair she sat in. "Granddad drove her mad before he Turned her," she said simply. "It was a vicious courtship. The Sight just makes the insanity more deliciously ironic. Mum is a work of art that could make any sadist proud – if you're into that sort of thing."

"Is your Granddad, um, around?" Tara asked hesitantly. She realized she had no idea who Willow was, nor about her extended vampire family. Seeing as she had no choice but be the red haired vampire's 'playmate' for now, things could certainly become even more frightening if she had to deal with her grandsire as well.

"Why yes, you know him. he goes by the name of Angel now," Willow replied. She raised her head from the chair when she felt a change in Kitten. Kitten was looking very, very pale. Sick even.

"Was your meal all right?" Willow sat up and asked. She should have made Kitten an omelet, the vampire chastised herself. Half cooked eggs was just courting a chance to ingest ecoli, or –

"Yes! I-I'm fine, dinner was very good," Kitten was assuring her, but still had that delicate frown of dismay on her face. "I just don't understand, Angel – "

"Kitten," Willow interrupted, standing up. "Into bed." She helped her Kitten from her chair and then set to work unknotting the robe. She slipped it quickly off the blonde's body and then guided her to the bed. "I'll clean up here, and then I'll join you and explain all about the Aurelius Family, okay?"

And with that, Willow smiled that assured smirk of hers, picked up the tray, and left the room.

Willow liked Kitten's breathing. Especially when it's soft and regular in sleep – like it was now. She especially liked the sound of Kitten's strong, beating heart, which soothed her, calmed her demon. Willow had a theory that the demons in vampires were so restless because they had no inner beat. They sought it out in the living and drank it out of them. Vampires were essentially empty, soundless, motionless creatures, corpses forcefully animating their existence with mayhem and blood.

In her very weak moments, Willow had sometimes wished she were a simple-minded vampire so that she could be content with just that; kill and drink, hunt and play games. But Willow liked the peace the beat could instill; it meant she could think, riddle out spells, work on problems without the demon distracting her with the desire for more murderous, mindless pastimes. Even her glorious Sire, a creature who epitomized the very primal essence of dark and death, could fall sway to the hypnotic succor of the heartbeat – when she was not trying to suck it dry, anyway.

Willow had snuck a heartbeat simulator into Dru's bed once, and noticed how its presence reduced her sire's nightmares significantly. The elder vampire, upon accidentally biting the device in her sleep, only said that the sound made her dream of yummy things.

Willow reached for her Palm Pilot, lying conveniently on the night stand. Now that they were back in their own reality, she was going to get her mum another simulator. She made her note and then looked down once more at her sire, wrapped around her Kitten.

Dru had wandered back into their room an hour or so after midnight, with Kitten fighting sleep as she listened to more of Willow's storytelling. With eyes large and attentive, her sire had curled up against the warm human in the bed and listened as well, only whispering supposedly nonsensical words at certain points of her childe's narrative.

Willow had spoken of the Master, and how he sired her great grandmum, Darla. She explained about the siring of Angelus, then of Dru, and her own brother Spike. She spoke of how the four master vampires became the Scourge of Europe, and reigned as an unholy terror for over a century. Then she told the story of Angelus' curse by gypsies that gave him a soul, and thus created the incarnation that was now Angel. At that point, Kitten could barely pose her questions, and eventually her eyes fluttered close. Dru fell asleep immediately after.

With her sire finally slumbering, Willow took that moment to weave a protection spell around Kitten. Just in case mum accidentally tried to eat her in her sleep.

She watched them an hour longer, then extricated herself from the bed. She missed its rare warmth almost immediately – Kitten had such strong body heat. However, she was head of this little household, and a master vampire's work is never done. She straightened out her top and pants, picked up the tray of Kitten's second meal – what was once a large baked potato and light salad – and made her quick way down to the first level of the mansion. She found Clem in the kitchen.

"Hey there!" the loose skinned demon greeted cheerfully, his long ears flopping. At the open kitchen door was a delivery truck, noisily backing up the service driveway. "Boys got your stuff. Everything you ordered." He turned to watch with Willow as three large demons disembarked the truck, as well as a slim, green demon, who carried a black hard case. "That's the techie," Clem helpfully pointed out.

The other three demons began unloading their cargo. Soon, a stack of slick white product boxes lay under the entrance security light, each box carrying the graphic logo of an apple.

"Boys," Willow said sweetly, as the first demon entered with an armload. "This way."

Tara didn't know why, but every time she woke she assumed she was in her dorm room, in her own full sized bed, having dreamt the surreal and often frightening circumstance of the past two nights. Then she'd see the tousled red hair and feel the slender arms wrapped around her and reality would jump out of a door in her head and yell, surprise! Tara really hated it when it did that.

The bathroom called to Tara, and she pulled herself as gently as she could from the twin embrace of Drusilla behind her, and a very naked Willow before her. The vampires slept as if dead, which they were of course. They did not breath or move and were unnaturally cool to the touch. Tara swallowed at the thought: beautiful corpses. Willow even smirked in her sleep.

After hurriedly finishing her lavatory duties, Tara ran a shower, and as she stepped into the water the question came unbidden to her mind: what will happen now? She hoped her captor would let her go to school. She did not know if Willow intended to unbind her magic only when she saw fit, and then bound it up again. She wasn't sure what playtime would mean with the red haired witch – actually, that was not true, she knew exactly what playtime with the vampire would mean. After all the stories about Darla and Angelus and the Scourge...Tara stopped trying to soap the sponge and put her hands to her face. As the water cascaded down her body, she began to tremble.

When the shower glass door suddenly slid open Tara let out a shriek, the bottle of soap gel in her hand squirting its contents into the air. Willow stepped in, right into Tara's arms, and then pulled her head down to her lips. She kissed the blonde witch soundly.

"Hello, Kitten!" she greeted brightly, her voice breathy as she pulled her mouth away. "I am taking you out tonight, so let's hurry and get clean." She paused a moment, stared at Tara and did not remove her embrace. She then leaned in and kissed the blonde three more times.

By the time they had finished the shower and had dried themselves and their hair, Tara could barely think. Willow would kiss her at the oddest moments and not once but several times. Like now, when she was just about to reenter the bedroom. Willow broke the kiss with a smack.

"You'll find your clothes in the closet," the vampire cheerfully informed, then turned and blissfully strolled nude out of the bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, she was fully dressed and blushing. The chest of drawers in the room gave up no answers either. Tara completely lacked underwear and it was just – well nice girls just did not do that while wearing a skirt, even though Tara was in the habit of wearing very long skirts. The new blouse was not sheer thankfully, but she could easily see the shape of her nipples through the thin fabric, and even with her sweater on Tara did not feel any more assured of her modesty. She twisted her fingers nervously, hearing Drusilla suddenly sing out somewhere in the house and Willow burst into laughter. She went to the doorway and peeked out.

For the first time, she was looking at what lay beyond the bedroom door, and the hallway was impressively long. It was Mediterranean style, with white plaster walls, dark wooden beams and flickering electric sconces. This was a big house. She peered in the other direction and spied Willow's slender, silk and leather clad frame exit an atrium further down the hall. The vampire turned to her and smiled. She stood a moment, her avid green eyes watching the blonde, then gave her thigh a little pat, as one would to summon a pet dog.

Tara left her doorway and hurried down the hall. An aura of mystical energy surprised her as she passed the atrium and it made her pause. She turned and saw that the atrium was quite short and led to opaque, black glass double doors, sitting incongruously and strangely out of place in its carved wooden door frame. Tara could see herself reflected in the polished, black surface of the glass.

She turned to Willow, not realizing how big her blue eyes were. The vampire's eyes sparkled as she turned away, and Tara followed her obediently to the end of the hall and down the main staircase.

Drusilla was already below in the spacious, sunken living room area, tenderly placing a well dressed porcelain doll in a black baby carriage.

"Miss Edith and I shall go for a stroll," the elder vampire announced quietly, adjusting her wide brimmed, flowered hat. "While smelly things still lie in their white beds, we pretty things shall play. Soon another will come, and spoil our fun."

"Hm," Willow hummed briefly, mentally filing away her sire's strange words. She leaned in to kiss her mum. "Come home soon."

As Drusilla pushed her baby pram out the double verandah doors that led to the gardens, Willow exited with her Kitten by the house's front entrance. There, her lovely black, vintage Impala waited, the top rolled down and the cream colored seats beckoning. Willow could not help grinning excitedly as she heard Kitten's hushed exhale of 'oh!' behind her. She opened the passenger side with a flourish.

The night streets of Sunnydale did feel a tad safer, Willow mused as she drove leisurely down its main streets, watching some brave humans try to establish a night life and forget about the real night life – or unlife – which lurked in the dark. There certainly was less fear and terror in the air with the Master's Order now broken and scattered. Willow had been in several hell on earth realities in her dimension hopping with Dru, and they were stupid realities where Willow was concerned. When demons outnumbered their food, it didn't matter if they ruled the earth. Apocalypse meant demon kind just ended up fighting over what was left. Balance, like her Kitten had mentioned – and how Wicca was that? – was better. A world with a few of her kind and alot of their kind made for plenty of Happy Meals on legs, as her brother Spike would say. And a world like this is where a girl like her Kitten can be safe. Well, relatively safe. From others, if not from herself. Hee.

Willow glanced at Kitten, whose face was softly smiling as she rested her head upon her hand, her arm casually propped against the car door. Her honey gold hair lifted and danced about her face whenever the car picked up speed, or when the night wind caught the soft waves. Willow reluctantly interrupted Kitten-watching to pay due attention to the slowing traffic before them. She heard the young woman giggle suddenly.

"We're cruising," the blonde said before Willow could ask, and the young woman giggled again.

"Why so we are," Willow exclaimed, realizing that her car was not bottlenecked in downtown Sunnydale but was caught in a line of cars intent on drawing attention to themselves. Now and then they would roll slowly forward, hoots from people or the sound of a car horn intermittently disturbing the air. Willow had never participated in such a strange street ritual before. At least her Impala was getting alot of admired attention from the people who stood on the sidewalks or sat at the outdoor restaurant tables. Or was it they were checking out her Kitten. Hm.

Tara watched Willow and smiled. The vampire's delicate fingers tapped at her steering wheel as she set her long, slender body back, trying to relax while the car inched forward. Despite it being night, Willow had picked up her shaded eyewear from the dash the moment they were seated in the car and was now wearing them while scanning their surroundings. The smoked lens barely concealed her large, attentive eyes. Tara knew she was having really superficial thoughts but Willow just looked so – Cool. All red hair, pale skin, pretty silk and leather...

"Tell me," Willow requested softly, a light smile playing on her own lips in response.

"It's not what you have, it's what you are," Kitten said clearly, the stammering shyness gone as a womanly knowing deepened her blue eyes. Willow felt herself actually take a breath as she took in that blue. She raised a slim hand and caressed the back of it gently along Kitten's face.

A car's horn rudely blared behind them, startling the women out of their connection. Willow spun about and snarled, giving the occupants of the other car a frightened jump of their own.

Willow turned slowly back to the steering wheel, eyes yellow tinged and teeth still bared, and counted silently. Kitten's rapid heartbeat aided her concentration. Finally, the demon within calmed down. She hadn't broken into her demon visage, but it had been close. She glanced at Kitten, who was biting her lip apprehensively.

"A-are you all right?" the blonde asked gently, and Willow realized that the young woman had taken her violent reaction in cautious stride.

"Um," Kitten hesitated, as one of her hands indicated the street before them. "It's all clear now."

Willow regarded the suddenly traffic-less street, which was now littered with jaywalking pedestrians.

"Oh good," was all Willow could think to say. She was still having a strong visual of four young people with their throats torn out, bathing the interior of their stupid car with their blood. She shifted the car in gear and drove it forward.

The restaurant was Italian and really lovely. Tara had been in Sunnydale over a year now, and had noticed this place. It was beyond her very limited budget though. The maitre d' had welcomed Willow with familiarity, and then led them past the rest of the diners to the staircase of the second floor. When they were seated in a booth and Tara had a chance to look discretely around, she realized why they were on the second level. She absentmindedly played with the silver cuff on her wrist.

"Yes," Willow said, even as she scooted around the curved booth and took hold of Tara with a strong arm, pulling her to sit beside her rather than across. "This is where the demon half like to sit down and eat."

All about the dark, sedate dining area sat human looking and not so human looking diners. The ones who appeared mortal betrayed their true nature with the one wine glass that sat before them, filled with a dark rich liquid. A waiter provided Tara with a normal menu, much to her secret relief, and a glass of the house's finest for Willow. The vampire refused the bottle.

"I am fasting," she murmured sweetly to Tara as the waiter left with the bottle. She twisted her body to face the young woman's slightly, and with exaggerated innocence, dropped her arm upon the seat back behind the blonde's shoulders. Tara suppressed a grin at the vampire's playfulness. The redhead studied her for a while, then nipped at the blonde's earlobe. Tara shyly looked about the room they faced. Though they were in plain view of most of the patrons, none appeared to be paying the two women any attention. Willow gave her another nip.

Tara's starter, the fried calamari, conveniently arrived, and the young woman picked up her fork. She was hesitant to begin eating however; it just didn't seem polite, here in public, with Willow not exactly eating either.

"Mm..." The vampire hummed, making a show of considering the question. She frowned with a thoughtful thrust to her small, lower lip. "I am fasting, but I can eat one." She picked up a ringlet and dipped it into her glass, coating the food morsel with blood like it were dipping sauce. She popped it into her mouth.

Willow reminded her mouth to chew, and actually experienced a nice, mild flavor besides the blood. Unlike her brother Spike she had a weak sense of taste for food and an even weaker desire for it, unless it were chocolate. At least she has that food preference in common with her sire. Whereas Willow could easily eat if she had to, Dru could not eat anything unless it were blood or chocolate.

Kitten smiled, pleased, and started on her dish. Willow watched as the blonde's white neck exposed itself whenever she leaned in for a bite. She gave that pretty neck a lick. Kitten nearly dropped her fork, but recovered her composure admirably, and continued eating. Willow gave her another lick. Kitten tasted of woman, Wiccy goodness, and earthy sunlight.

Tara's breath was slightly shaky as she dutifully ate the rest of the calamari. The little licks were affectionate but so sweetly arousing, and despite herself, Tara's body was responding to the attention. She remembered with dismay that she wasn't wearing any underwear. But it wasn't just the arousal that was unnerving her, Tara realized. She watched Willow dip a finger in her blood filled glass, put the digit in her mouth, and suck it. Then the vampire coated her finger again. She painted a dark red line along the pulse of Tara's throat. As the redhead licked the blood off, Tara trembled, but her tremble was of a different kind of reaction.

"Kitten," the blonde heard breathed in her ear, the quiet, girlish tone actually sounding concerned. "If this upsets you I will stop."

"Would you?" Tara heard herself suddenly ask. "Would you s-stop? If s-something upset me?"

When she looked at the vampire, the green eyes were shielded; enigmatic. Again, there was that cold glitter in them that Tara had not seen since the night of her abduction.

"We'll need to talk Kitten, but after you've eaten," the vampire gently assured, as Tara's main dish made its timely appearance. "I want you to enjoy your meal." Willow glanced at the plate that was laid down and then smiled at the blonde. "Your protein has arrived. A nice big fishie for my Kitty."

Tara could not help a slight quirk of her mouth at the cute rhyme, but it didn't entirely remove the wariness in her blue eyes. She turned her attention to her plate, and Willow drank from her blood filled glass. The vampire planted a sweet, attentive kiss at the blonde's throat, then followed it with a long lick. Tara barely suppressed her shiver, but said nothing. She knew Willow was cleaning off the bloody mark left from her stained lips.

Sometime while Tara was paying attention to her dinner, Willow's small hands went to the buttons of her sweater, undoing the top few, and then pushing it off her shoulders. The vampire worked it down low enough to expose Tara's breasts. The blonde, who was still holding her fork and chewing while the vampire was partially undressing her, could do nothing but blush. She was doing nothing but blush lately, Tara thought self consciously, as some of the restaurant patrons casually looked their way. Tara was very glad that Willow stopped at the sweater and didn't attempt to undo her blouse buttons.

Willow stared dreamily at Kitten's boobies, all braless and big and soft and luscious against the straining fabric of her blouse. She felt her dead lungs actually give a sigh. She scooted even closer to Kitten, put an arm around her shoulders, and then reached over and fondled the nearest tit.

"Yes. Um, yes," Kitten breathed, and she tried to reach for her water glass. Willow relented, removing her hand, and allowed Kitten to retrieve her glass. While the blonde drank, Willow let her free hand fall to the young woman's thigh.

"Thank you, that was very good," Kitten spoke sincerely, when she finally put down the glass. She lifted the cloth napkin from her lap to wipe her wet lips. Willow stopped the motion and placed her mouth over Kitten's instead. The kiss was sensually attentive. Willow licked at the soft top lip before parting.

"Ask your questions, Kitten," she offered quietly, watching her hand gently stroke the blonde's stomach. Their faces were very close; all Kitten had to do was whisper.

"Does it hurt alot, to get bitten?" came the soft query. Willow felt a jolt of arousal, hearing Kitten ask that. It meant she accepted what was about to happen, but at the same time, certainly did not want it. That part dampened Willow's arousal somewhat. Kitten has to want it.

"Yes," Willow affirmed, deciding to be fully honest. "When we let the demon out we're all big with the fangy. I'd rather have littler fangs, be all cute and sophisticated but no, I'm a monster." She demonstrated a measure with her thumb and forefinger. "Mine are about that big. And I sink them in all the way. And it does hurt. I've been bitten, so I know, but hello, demon here, I get off on the pain of course."

Willow paused a moment, and noticed that though Kitten did not look at her, her warm hand was clasped over her smaller, cooler one lying upon her midriff. Kitten seemed to be unaware that she was taking comfort from the contact as she listened.

"It can be done sweetly," Willow continued softly. "Terribly painful, but gentle. Or it can be done under thrall, which is something I never learned. I like when the one I bite knows what is happening; that is our relationship, victim and I."

She cocked her head slightly, and Kitten finally gave her the blue melancholy of her eyes. Something more was going on in there.

"I'll want your consent, Kitten," Willow whispered, meeting the blue with her own wide green eyes. "I'll want your surrender."

Tara nodded, not trusting her throat, even if she had wanted to say anything. She looked away, and felt Willow's arm around her shoulder move to slip around her waist, joining their hands. Tara just – she had to know more. She knew what these nights had been leading to, but there was still something she had to know. The very thought of it made her miserable and afraid.

"My mama died, w-when I was seventeen," she began, and she felt Willow's arms tighten around her waist. "O-of, cancer. Dad was always – he had a heavy hand, but my brother Donny, he, um, he hit hard."

"I promised mama I w-w-wouldn't let that happen to me anymore," she got out painfully. Her other hand came up to cover the ones that rested on her stomach, the long fingers touching the silver cuff.

"But you have the power," she added in a voice almost too soft to hear. "A-a-a..." The word 'and' died in her throat. Tara swallowed.

Willow did not say anything. Kitten had her pegged, but good – well, when she was a fledgling, she was definitely like that – for years – and wickedly, viciously, unrepentantly so, but now things were different. Kitten didn't say she 'can' force her, she said that Willow 'will' – like accepted truth. Suddenly she recalled her first night with Kitten and the moment when she'd allowed the young woman to see that threat in her eyes. No wonder she was sad.

"Not you I won't," Willow said, pulling Kitten against her. And it was the truth, strange and new as it was for her; a deep and irrefutable truth now held fast within. "I just won't. I said I wanted your consent, and that can't happen if I just take what I want. There will be no forcing." She kissed Kitten's shoulder. "Just pleasure. Just pleasure for my sweet Kitten," she soothed. "And I'll not harm you out of anger or for no reason, I don't kick Kittens. Well, not anymore anyway. But I am kinky though," she chirped, and it made the blonde actually smile a moment, sad though her shy, blue eyes still were. "Kinky like a fox. We'll play and find out what you can....tolerate." She'd nearly made an oopsie and said, 'what you can withstand'.

"Still with me Kitten?" she finally asked gently, ducking her head to stare into the young woman's lidded, luminous blues. They were not quite so melancholy anymore, but they were thinking. Kitten smiled briefly and merely nodded.

"Good girl," Willow smiled softly. "Would you like dessert? I hear they make an excellent gelato."

Kitten was smart, Willow thought to herself as she retrieved her Impala from the valet and helped Kitten in. She saw the truth and didn't deceive herself where Willow was concerned. The vampire could have helped the young woman lie to herself – given her false assurances, seduced her with more Willow-y charm. But Willow suspected that all Kitten had to do was gaze into her eyes and know the truth. Perceptive Kitty. It was a good thing that Willow found head games a waste of time. Honesty led more directly to play.

While they were having the gelato, Kitten had asked what it would mean to be Willow's pet, and she didn't seem all that surprised by the answer.

"You'll be my possession, Kitten," Willow had explained. "Here for my pleasure, my will, my caprice. And in return, I do my utmost to take care of you. But even then, rules can change within the game, and sometimes..." She had fed Kitten a spoonful of the italian ice treat before continuing. "You may take care of me."

Willow had to admit she might have looked smug when she had breathily stated, "I think we are going to be very good to each other."

She had deliberately not raised her eyes to look at Kitten when she added the next words.

"And if ever I fail to take care of you, Kitten, you can stake me good, like you did the Master."

She had meant it; she hadn't looked up because she just didn't like to ever, even in jest, admit to possibly failing at anything.

There was a palpable tension between them now; the wind stole the scent, but if she could just lean over from the steering wheel and sneak a lick upon Kitten's skin she would discover what was exactly behind this tension. Kitten's sadness and wariness at dinner had retreated, it seemed, and an anxious anticipation had moved in to take their place. Willow caught the assessing gaze of the blonde's lidded eyes, dark as a blueish night, before the young woman looked hurriedly away. The sight made Willow feel a bit anxious-ish herself...which was a very uncommon feeling.

The vampire decided that now was not the time to analyze the uncommon appearance of this uncommon feeling as the entrance to UC Sunnydale's campus finally came into view. She found a spot to park the car and shut off the engine. She turned to her companion.

Even in the dark gloom of night, with just the lustrous shine of a large and full moon providing light, Willow found Kitten no less lovely. And even if the vampire were blind, she would still find the blonde witch as beautiful – that earthy, sensual essence that smelled of tears, magic, and innocence. She only had to taste that scent in the air, know it, then find her. 'It's not what you have, it's what you are,' Kitten had said tonight.

The anxiety grew along with the usual feeling of anticipation that Willow was familiar with, as the blonde witch silently led her through the gravel paths of UC Sunnydale. The scent of nervous excitement was upon the two of them. Willow never, if ever, felt nervous. Her center was as solid as the dead flesh it was. It did not flutter. It did not get the rumblies of the tummy. Get excited, yes, but not this irrational hodgy podgy of uncertainty mixed with a bit of dread and spiced with a bit of 'I may be sick'. Willow wanted to scowl and let demonic irritation rule over these weakling, queasy sensations, but then intellectual-like tolerance won out. In a novel way, it was kind of fun sharing in Kitten's own flutters and rumblies.

She watched as Kitten's hand shook slightly while putting her keys in her dorm building's entrance.

There were so many heartbeats in this building. To her senses, it was pungent with hope, vitality, and the memory of far too many soles. Heh, Willow made a punny funny. The building's worn vigor was stamped into its walls by the youthful energy it held and the transience that was its purpose. Kitten was also in transience. She was between girl to woman, practitioner to adept, fighter to warrior. In this place of expectancy, Kitten did not know it, but she will also transcend. Willow could see that promise – taste it, watch its traces linger around her blonde witch. It really turned Willow on.

Tara noticed her hand shaking again as she placed the worn door key into its lock. While leading the vampire through the paths from the car, she had questioned her sanity. But then Maclay women, though homespun practical, were not known to follow predictable ways. They had been halfway to the dorm when Tara began a silent conversation with her mother. Mama always knew what to ask.

Will she hurt you?....Came the memory of that warm voice the young woman held so dear.

I want her Mama. I do. I wanted her since I saw her up on that catwalk that terrible night. I don't know why, I just do. And it's not only because of her beauty. She's...so many things.

She could feel her mama smile. There are worse things you can love, honey bear.

This then, was it. A kind of acceptance had entered her being when she heard her mother's final response, but even then, habits honed from practiced self-preservation came into play. Already she was across the safety of the threshold and assessing how she was within a few steps reach of her phone. The person she could call would be the Watcher. The thoughts came and went within the two seconds it took for her to step inside and turn to face the vampire. She held the door open.

Vampires can not enter a mortal's home without an invitation. Tara was now, truly, as safe as houses.

Willow stood casually in the lit hallway, hands resting in her front pockets, looking all the world like a sweet date waiting patiently for a kiss goodnight. Her eyes were not their usual big-eyed intensity, but softly lidded, which made the smirk she usually wore, even more sensual. Tara took this rare moment where she was in control and in safety to drink in the presence of the vampire. Willow shifted then – not her body, which often fell into a statue-like stillness whenever the vampire came to rest. The perceived shift was just the movement of her left wrist – a single twitch – and Tara realized, to her surprise and secret conceit, that it was a nervous gesture.

Willow grinned back, and they stood that way awhile, silently assessing; by all appearances just being goofy. Their eyes, however, gazed deeper. Then Tara's smile lessened and she stepped back. For the first time since they had met, Tara would finally say the vampire's name.

"I invite you in, Willow," she said quietly, and watched the vampire cross the boundary of her door.

Once inside, Willow took in the appearance of the room, then prowled about, her curiosity almost systematically ordered in its perusal. She asked no questions, and Tara offered no answers. The witch was content to watch the vampire investigate and give the occasional soft smirk as she explored. Finally the vampire came to a resting standstill near the middle of the room, letting the hand that was still playfully tracing the hung christmas light patterns in the air, fall with natural grace to her side. She closed her eyes. Tara knew Willow was reading the energies of her room.

As the vampire stood, half turned from her, Tara was assaulted by a sudden surge of possessiveness. Her room, her bed, her...vampire. They were in her territory now, and just the sight of the vampire merely standing there, eyes closed, so slim like her namesake and so deceptively...vulnerable looking, raised primal emotions within Tara. She took a breath and allowed them the window of her eyes.

Willow felt the change in Kitten, like a gentle candle suddenly grown extra flamey. She slowly opened her eyes, keeping them lidded, and chanced a sly, sideways glance at Kitten. The candle was flamin' all right. Lust lived there, housed in deep, midnight blue.

Silence reigned in the room but for the steady, subtle tick of a clock, and the thunder of a strong heartbeat. A thrilling shudder shook Tara, at witnessing the vampire's subservient gesture. the blonde felt a woman's darkened confidence take hold. For a long while, she merely caressed Willow's slim stillness with her eyes.

It was a thought that her more insecure self would have quickly squelched, but tonight it was right and the young witch reveled in this gift, this powerful, beautiful vampire's acquiescence.

If a vampire could have butterflies, then Willow was proving that assumption. Her dead stomach positively fluttered as she heard Kitten's deliberate step towards her. She felt the blonde's body heat radiate upon her back and then the soft breath that played in her hair. Firm, warm hands finally pressed against her arms, caressing her. They moved in long, possessive strokes. They slipped to her body, ran like silky oil up and down her sides, her hips, her upper thighs. Their touch was appreciative, gentle, strong, and knowing. Kitten's softness was pressed up against her and her mouth and face was in her hair.

Willow made a small, needy sound in her throat. Oh, she hadn't meant to do that. Arms circled her waist and ran palms and fingers along her silk covered stomach, her ribs. Roamed to her breasts. This time Willow allowed the moan to escape her lips. She arched. She reached up and tangled fingers in Kitten's hair. The blonde witch squeezed.

"Ah – " Willow gasped. She opened her eyes, lifted her head and stared into the dresser mirror before her. That was – so good, oh Kitten –

She needed to see those blue eyes. Her fingers pulled upon the blonde head insistently.

Tara raised her head and stared into a mirror that contained nothing but her, her hands cupping air. Her breath hitched and she pulled the invisible vampire's body almost roughly to her. She felt Willow's hands in her hair. She felt her slender, muscled back pressed firm against her breasts. Her ass rubbed against her. Her own hands held soft, yielding flesh, and yet the mirror reflected nothing but herself, as if she groped a ghost.

Tara stared with blue intensity into the mirror and watched her fingers clutch again.

"Ah! Kitten!" Willow cried, arching into hands and thumbs that fondled the nipples of her breasts. Kitten's nose and mouth moved to caress her jaw line, her ear, and nudge a path to her throat. Willow felt one of the blonde's arms fall to firmly encircle her waist, pulling her even tighter. Kitten's other hand took possession of her hair. Willow swallowed. Her own fingers fell away to grip the arm securing her. She was so excited she trembled.

So many times she had done this to her kills, and now Kitten was doing it – to her –

The hand in Willow's hair pulled her head back, exposing her throat to the air. Kitten's lips and teeth ran along the column of her cool neck, seeking. Finally she felt hot breath beat a rhythm at her throat.

Willow shrieked – to her surprise. The bite was a lightning strike of arousal from her toes to her clit to her very hairline. She shoved her throat up against the grip of Kitten's blunt teeth and forced it to break flesh.

The moment Tara tasted blood on her tongue she released her bite in shock. She hadn't meant to –

And then the vampire was spinning in her arms, reaching down, grabbing her beneath the buttocks and then lifting her in the air. Tara gave a scream herself at being sent almost hurtling up. Desperate hands went to Willow's slim shoulders and held on.

And she felt herself being flung back onto her bed in an ungraceful bounce of flailing limbs.

Willow was upon her in an instant, straddling, ripping her defenseless sweater off. Her new blouse soon followed the violent fate of the sweater, and Tara realized that the vampire was not angry, but lustfully inflamed. And could her little – yet powerful – hands be any more grabby? Tara let out a guttural moan when one of those hands took possession of a now bared breast. Tara bucked.

Woo hoo Buckaroo! Willow's gleeful mind exclaimed. Kitten bucked again and Willow made a mental note to update her Palm's 'toys to get Kitten' list. The vampire's hands flew quickly to the front of her own silk blouse. Kitten reared up, forcing Willow to slide abruptly back to sit in the blonde's lap.

The young woman's hands grabbed the lapels of Willow's blouse, and then stilled. As they stared into each other's eyes, Tara breathed deeply, but Willow made no sound, no move. The young witch slowly, determinedly, pulled the silk apart, each resisting button popping off like popcorn. She pushed the thin silk back and bared the vampire's pale, freckled shoulders. Her mouth went to the redhead's exposed breasts and Willow threw her head back and moaned.

The movement of hands and mouths over flesh, lips, and skin now became a more purposeful, sensual dance. Willow would push a little, impatient, and Kitten would slow the pace down. Willow loved feeling the power of the blonde's gentle strength – the yield and then the sudden surge of challenging response. She tasted of adrenaline, heat, and salt. Willow could swear she suckled honey from Kitten's sweet smelling breast. Fingers slide home between the vampire's legs just as her own hand sought the witch's hot, hidden center and buried two fingers within. She eagerly plundered Kitten's sex for her secrets. She felt long fingers search insistently in the tight, wet channel of her own.

They struggled for a rhythm, and finally found one, hips and hands moving in union as Willow tuned in and matched the breaths and sounds and blood beat of the woman beneath her. As their dance heightened, Willow realized that she and Kitten could come – simultaneous – together –

The vampire suddenly clutched at the witch's free hand – the one with the wrist cuffed in binding silver. Palm to palm, their fingers immediately intertwined, and Willow dragged their clenched hands over the bed's edge. Tara's eyes grew wide.

They moved harder against each other, Willow grunting and Tara's throat giving up desperate sounds. A simultaneous tightening overtook them –

The silver cuff snapped off Tara's wrist, hitting the floor as her freed magic detonated along with her orgasm. Willow was spasming in the throes of her own ecstasy when the magic hit her, rising from Tara's body like a blast of – pure sun – it pierced every pore of her dead skin and seared through her every dead cell. She was a photo negative – an x-ray – flashed by a pulse of white gold –

The moon shone bright through the curtains. Willow was dimly aware of its serene light and how it bathed their entwined selves upon the small bed. Kitten's heartbeat was beneath her fingers, and a gentle hand stroked her hair. Every inch of her dead self, inside and out, felt...toasty. Fried, but in a really good way. Willow wanted to say, 'Wow, that was really...' but nothing came from her mouth except maybe a valiant, "wuh...". She wanted to quip, 'I think I died – again'. But the funny whimpered like a wee, weak thing in her unobliging throat.

She felt Kitten's deep chuckle rumble beneath her ear, and the hand continued to stroke her hair.

This beautiful moment. She wanted – oh, but she was a vampire through and through, wasn't she? They had just connected on a white light level; rendered thoroughly sated and left floating in that rare peace a demon like herself was far too damned to deserve. And there was no doubt as to her damned self. Despite this beautiful moment, she wanted to make another equally beautiful bond with Kitten, but of the darker, bloodier kind.

The creature that had stood on the catwalk of the Bronze and had mouthed words of promise to a blue-eyed pure heart was still in this bed, although quite humbled by a multi-orgasmic baptism in white magic. She can blame that creature for the tiny licks she now bestowed upon Kitten's soft, pulsing throat.

Tara felt a hesitant tongue lap a steady rhythm against her neck and her hand stilled in the vampire's hair. At first she was amused, then she realized that the licks were communicating something...a need, a...

Tara frowned slightly. Did Willow want another go? Because she rather felt that she wouldn't be able to duplicate that magic blast. Not tonight, anyway. And she'd thought that she had nearly killed Willow when the vampire could not stop convulsing. As Tara mused, the licking progressed to the soft attachment of lips to the spot receiving attention, and then a very gentle sucking.

Tara's hand resumed petting the vampire's hair – if anything, to let the soothing gesture placate that nibbling mouth while she thought. She knew this was going to happen. She even accepted it happening, but it still didn't make the act no less...scary, for its significance. No longer just some blood act of violence and hunger, it will be a ritual; a pact. It would be her final acquiescence of what Willow was; the predator superior to her.

Tara sighed deep within her. And it will be an act considered a betrayal of her own kind – if the 'sleeping with the enemy' part hadn't already.

Funny, who we choose to treat us right, Tara, she heard her mother's voice softly laugh, from a bittersweet, long ago time.

She placed her other hand in the vampire's hair, and gently turned the sweet face to look at her. She saw something in the large, expressive eyes she had never seen before, nor ever expected to see.

Amazed, Tara could only stare and take in all the subtle aspects of that emotional gaze. She did not think a vampire could be so...capable. It moved her heart.

"No more fasting?" she whispered. And she softened the small jest with a sly quirk of her mouth.

If Willow still had a heart that thumped, it would be doing that now – perhaps a mile a minute – because she was feeling a most rare feeling for her; a certain kind of fear. Fear of what? she had thought, when lapping her silent pleas at Kitten's throat. She had reason to fear all sorts of things in her vampire life, but never something like this. This was fear of rejection.

Want things; take things. She never asked. And when Kitten took gentle hold of her face and turned it to meet her gaze, Willow had no idea how vulnerable her fear had made her face. All she thought as she tried to read the blue eyes before her was her one question: Let me, Kitten? Let me?

And then Kitten joked, so subtly, Willow almost didn't understand, and when she did, the fear all fled and was replaced by elation, because yay! She'll get to bite Kitten, and mark her, and drink of her, and show all others that the witch was hers and only hers and she'll kill anyone who tried to threaten that. Then wonderment set in, because Kitten was so beautiful, so of the good, and Willow so of the bad yet still the young woman agreed. Still, she acquiesced.

Willow moved to hover above her, and Tara's hand caressed the emotions that flitted in the vampire's visage, each one teaching her more. When the emotions concluded their parade at one Tara was familiar with – Willowish smugness – Tara couldn't help a rueful smile. She could not find in the vampire's expressive face what she was expected to see. For this moment, no coldness, no cruelty lived there.

Willow's smug smirk faded, and a serious regard took its place. Tara held her breath.

A noise accompanied the change, Tara silently thought as Willow's forehead broke into brutish ridges. Perhaps it was the sound of bone breaking, or perhaps of teeth lengthening into large, threatening incisors. The green and whites that were Willow's human eyes disappeared and were replaced with demonic slits surrounded by pure yellow. It was a face to naturally fear, and although Tara felt trepidation and some adrenaline at having such a face so close above hers, she was not frightened. This demon Willow was the same as the one who hovered above her just moments before. She could see no cruelty in those yellow eyes. If Willow had been angry before her change, then Tara would have reason to be very afraid.

"Say something," the young woman whispered suddenly, as her fingers gently ran over the strange ridges.

"Something," Willow said, and Tara nearly laughed, because the voice was still the same girlish sound, but with a slight lisp. Those darn fangs.

"No, actually, it – Kitten I can't talk if you touch those," Willow suddenly chastised, as the blonde's inquisitive fingers went into her mouth to explore the length of one long incisor. "And they're very pointy and sharp, so better you don't." And she removed Kitten's hand.

"You have alot of control," Tara said in quiet appraisal. "You're not all 'grr arg', even when you have your 'arg' face on."

"If I were a fledgling, you'd be drained dry by now," Willow said grumpily, even as she gently kissed the hand. "I am still this demon, with this face or without it," she murmured into the palm.

It had to be a careful kiss; the vampire's fangs were as dangerously sharp as she had warned, and Willow did not want to nick Kitten and taste her blood prematurely. Were she feeling less the demon, she would have allowed herself to marvel at the extent of Kitten's acceptance of her life sucking, evil self in her bed, but now was not the time. She had a throat to bite.

Willow moved her mouth away from Kitten's tempting lips and nuzzled further down, searching for that sweet spot. Kitten swallowed nervously, but bared her throat to her. It made Willow want to growl, deep and possessive; the gesture aroused her so. Instead, she smothered the response. She wanted her witch relaxed.

"It will hurt, Kitten, but remember to relax," she whispered. "Relax, and let me take you." She allowed the sweet beat of the blonde's steady pulse to lure her. Then she sank her teeth in.

Tara felt twin knives cut into her, and then continued cutting, deep into muscle tissue, an intrusive, searing pain. A firm hand clamped over her mouth as she reacted with a cry in agony and fear, and she kept crying out, hot tears springing to her eyes. It hurt – it hurt so bad –

Then she felt Willow suck, the vampire's slender body shuddering with the motion. Feeling her blood being drawn forcefully out of her body frightened her, causing the sounds in Tara's throat to become more panicked. The body above her stilled and the hand left her mouth to caress her, soothe her –

So she tried. She was still crying, making sobbing sounds. But she embraced the vampire back. She tried.

And Willow, feeling Kitten calm a little, feeling the young woman's trust assert itself despite her fear, sucked again upon the delicious, heady succor of the witch's veins. Blood of magic, sorrow, soil, mama, saltsongspellstearsfistsflourcottonhooveslovesky

Kitten's body trembled in her grip. Willow sucked a third time, gulping her last, delirious mouthful. She pulled her fangs out.

The wounds were deep and wept twin streams of blood, which Willow attentively, vigorously laved. Kitten wept too, still shaken by the experience. If her fangs' penetration had been shallow, then the experience of being fed upon would have been more erotic for Kitten, just like in the movies. But then the claiming mark she wanted to make would not have been successful. It was times like this, Willow wished she had smaller fangs. The girls always cried. And the boys too, but she never cared much about their feelings. They're boys, by golly, they're not supposed to get girlie.

"Stay awake, Kitten," she whispered, when she finally removed the pressure of her tongue from the wound. "Don't close your eyes. I don't want you to go into shock." Her hands continued to comfort the young woman. She wiped the tears away from her face. "It's okay to cry. I know it hurts."

Kitten sobbed again, but her tears were already lessening. She was a strong Kitty. Willow held her close and laid her cheek next to Kitten's.

Spellcaster's blood. So powerful...so rich and unbelievably tasty....it carried a vampire further than ordinary mortal blood. Willow could last days on it. And when it was innocence and light magic like the flavor of this....

"If I were a carpenter," Willow suddenly sang softly, completely off key, but she never, ever could sing even remotely well, to her memory. "And you were a ladyyyy..."

"W-would you marry me anyway," the blonde witch sang softly back, her voice so pretty to Willow's ears. "And be my baby?"

Willow grinned. "If a tinker were my trade," she sang gamely, getting up to watch Kitten's face. "Would you still find me?"

"Carryin' the pots I made," the blonde witch smiled back, easily carrying the melody. "Followin' behind me?"

Willow laughed then, and Kitten responded, though she hiccuped from her crying jag. The vampire was glad that Kitten was feeling better. She snuggled up to her warm human once more.

"Johnny Cash," Tara replied. She felt all woozy and weak from the bloodsucking as well as her own upset and crying. She hadn't the strength to ask how Willow knew that song, but she pretty much suspected. The vampire must have experienced it while ingesting her blood.

"Mm," Willow hummed, snuggling deeper into her Kitten. "You and your mama sing purty."

When Willow awoke, thirty minutes before dawn, the sensations were still flowing in her awareness like Kitten's blood in her veins. The taste of homemade foods she'd never eaten. The scents of animals and soil and green land. Gentle hands that worked steadily and hard. The scent of sunrises and sunsets. Hands that hit. And a deeply felt lost she had never experienced.

Willow kissed Kitten gently, and whispered a small spell of peace so she wouldn't awake. The redhead quickly left the bed.

If Willow had a shit-eatin' grin on her face, it was darn tootin' well deserved, yessir. She was high on the potency of Kitten's blood and the after effects of their lovemaking. If she had time to strut, she would.

She abandoned her ruined silk shirt and quickly rummaged in Kitten's closet for a replacement. She then rummaged some more, critically going through the young woman's dresses until she found a suitable one. She hung it outside the closet. She then ran out to her car with preternatural speed, activated the automated hood cover, retrieved some items from the trunk, and then ran back. Kitten was still snug asleep in her bed. Willow laid the items out on the blonde witch's desk, where she would see them upon awakening, and then wrote her a note. She closed the door behind her as silently as she could.

The rising sun was already smoking her skin as Willow quickly secured the hood of the car and rolled up the tinted windows. Despite the burns on her flesh, she attempted a jaunty whistle as she pulled out of UC Sunnydale's campus parking lot. She couldn't whistle any better than she could sing, so she switched to some merry humming. At least she could get the song right, this way.

If I were a carpenter, she hummed gaily, her mental voice perfectly singing along. And you were a ladyyyy – would you marry me anyway, would you have my babyyy.

Back in her dorm room, Tara dreamt of a warm, sweet smelling kitchen, and her happy, smiling mama, singing her favorite song...

When Willow hurried from the garage to the mansion, Clem was already exiting the kitchen.

Clem nodded enthusiastically. He wasn't sure how to respond to a line like that from his boss. He kind of guessed that was what happened anyway. The button down shirt she had on was a size or so too big for her and her hair was really messed up.

"Um, boys got the garden all wired for you. You just flick this switch here." The demon indicated an outdoor switch.

Willow was quickly traversing her first floor living room area when the front door chimed.

"Oh hells bells," she commented, realizing that her first morning appointment was early. A very sleepy Dru peered from the upper level.

"No Mum, go back to bed. This human works for me," Willow admonished, and watched as a disappointed Dru sleepily disappeared from above. The redhead magically gestured to the front door and it opened to reveal the owner of the heartbeat Dru had responded to. Sunlight streamed around the sturdy figure of Tito Sanchez.

As Tito did so, he surreptitiously gave the very attractive house owner a once over and noted her apparent good mood. Make that a very, very good mood. Hell, she had 'I've been thoroughly fucked' hair and that long sleeve she was wearing was barely buttoned and was too big for her skinny body. Small guy she had been with too, judging by the size of the shirt, and what a girlie color. What kind of guy wears peach? Tito put aside speculations of Miss Rosenberg's possible male lover of wussy taste and followed the young woman upstairs into the library room.

Tito gave the library a once over too, but this time with an eye for workmanship. He and his company had been given the job of remodeling some of the mansion's rooms to Miss Rosenberg's unique specifications, and he was privately proud of the work done on this one.

"No thanks, Ma'am, I'm good," he answered politely, taking out the rolled blueprints he had tucked under an arm. Yep, that was a shit eatin' grin on Miss Rosenberg's face all right. Royally laid.

"Show me what you got then, Tito," his client joked gaily, and the supervisor laid out the blueprint schematics of the Bronze upon the library table.

Tara settled herself into the cool shade of a tree and sighed gratefully. UC Sunnydale's Quad, in the midday, bustled with students, and Tara was glad for a respite until her next class. She carefully unpacked an apple and Willow's rolled silk blouse, and set about threading a needle. She moved her shoulder slowly as she sewed. The wound on her neck pained her whenever she moved her arm too vigorously. Well that, and god, did she ache from last night's, um, strenuous activity. It was interesting, not having to hold back with a preternaturally strong vampire.

Willow was already gone by the time Tara woke up, but she had left a note and some things for her: a metallic blue cell phone, a black cooler lunch pack that contained orange juice, fruit, and cookies, a box of small gauze bandages, and a bottle of pain relievers.

Good morning, Kitten, the note with the vampire's precise, small handwriting had read. I wanted to wake up with you, but I have things to take care of first thing today. Come to the mansion by 7pm, and wear what I've laid aside for you. I know it is a school night, but I promise to get you home at a reasonable hour. Eat something with protein and iron today, I don't want you to be fainty. ~W

Underneath the note, Tara had found a twenty dollar bill. She was disconcerted by the presence of the money, until she realized that a paper clipped to the bill contained the mansion's address. It was cab fare.

Tara had been touched by the vampire's thoughtfulness. Willow's attentiveness to her was positive, thankfully, rather than what could be expected of a vampire – which more or less could be something of the creepy 'here's a person's body part as a gift' variety. Tara could get used to this kind of attention. She smiled softly to herself while she secured the last of Willow's buttons to the now fully mended silk blouse. The cell phone musically played in the young woman's book bag, and with a giddy feeling, Tara expectantly answered.

"Thank you for the things you left today," Tara thought to say, before she should forget. "But you left too much for cab fare – "

"Spend it how you wish," the vampire interrupted her. "I don't want to see a penny returned to me." There was a firm note to Willow's voice that Tara knew she shouldn't question, but still she worried her lip.

"Thank you Willow," she finally decided to say. They could talk later about gifts of money. She didn't want to be a charity case.

"I wanted to hear your voice before I went to bed, Kitten," Willow then murmured. Tara realized that the vampire's voice alone was just as adorable as seeing the face it belonged to.

"When I've had blood like yours, I get all jumpy. It's better than mocha goodness."

"Very sleepy," came a voice like a small girl's. Tara realized that the vampire was probably in bed already.

"It's all right," the vampire sighed again, sounding very small voiced and sleepy. "I don't need to be snuggled."

Tara smiled. "Vixen," she murmured under her breath, but she was certain the vampire heard her. She noticed some students running for class. "I-I have to go now. But I'll see you tonight Willow," she added quietly. "I'm glad you called....sweet dreams."

Putting the phone away, Tara gathered her things together, her manner thoughtful. This relationship with Willow was practically like having a girlfriend, but in reality, was not. There were so many things that had to be worked out. Actually, there were things the blonde witch will have to learn, because it was the vampire who would be establishing their relationship. And then it hit her, and Tara sat down upon the grass again at the realization. Willow will have to know something about her as well, if she hadn't already. If the vampire could learn songs through her blood, perhaps she'd learned her secret too; the secret of the Maclay women.

Tara's good mood grew sick and died under the weight of her remembered burden. She managed to make her numb way to class and give it half her focus, but still the burden tormented her. Since she was a baby, mama and grandmom taught her the magicks, but along with the magic was taught the knowledge by her father that her gifts came from the demon that resided in the Maclay women, passed from generation to generation. Tara never saw the demon that was inside her mother, but her father said it was there, and that Tara would become one herself when she turned twenty. The young woman was nineteen, now.

Tara had come to Sunnydale for freedom, but also to find out what she was to become. Meeting Mr. Giles was a godsend, and he was understanding about her secret. She felt he would be more helpful than her friend Anya, a sales manager at the Magic Box who turned out to be a former vengeance demon herself. Anya did not take Tara's situation seriously, however, somehow concluding that it wasn't as important a problem as the blonde witch felt it was. Now that Mr. Giles and Buffy had dealt with the Master, Tara could seek the Watcher's help again. And Willow will have to know.

Her stomach dropped once more at the thought, as she ran on automatic from one class to another. Willow wanted a human girl to play with, not some mystery demon, which would be Tara's fate in a few months time. Any practical mind would find this possible ticket out of a dangerous relationship – and by some people's judgment, a demeaning relationship – a relief, but unfortunately Tara's heart felt inexplicable lost instead.

After her last class was done, Tara used some of the money Willow had left her to take a cab to the hospital, which was a trip long over due. She hadn't seen Buffy since that terrible night, nor spoken to any of her White Hat friends since then. Remembering the last injury the Slayer had endured, Tara hoped the young woman was all right.

Before entering Buffy's hospital room, the witch adjusted the translucent red scarf at her neck. It matched the soft, clinging dress Willow had chosen for her to wear. She intended to head straight to the vampire's home after her visit here. She pushed away memories of hospital visits from another sad time, and put on her best pleasant demeanor. She stepped into the open doorway of the room.

Buffy lay in her white bed looking less like the vibrant, golden girl she was and more like one broken and overruled by machines and intrusive tubes. She was awake though, in her prison of a bed. Tara allowed herself to see Buffy's aura, briefly, and the incredible gold that was the Slayer's life force was now such a pale and fragmented yellow.

"Hey," Tara responded softly, stepping further into the room. She had brought flowers, and set them down on a table top that contained other cheery presents. She noticed the large, black coated figure who sat in a corner chair across from Buffy's bed. It was Angel.

Tara could barely manage a greeting to the dark haired man with the brooding eyes. Stories of Angelus were still fresh in her mind.

"Woo hoo, lookit you," Tara heard from the bed. "Monday night and already got a date?" Tara smiled at the prone, pale figure. The blonde witch was here to give Buffy support, not the other way around.

"Could be better," came the strained reply. Tara moved to the side of the bed and placed her hand over Buffy's. The Slayer's fingers tangled into hers. There was strength still there, but Tara had sense serious damage from viewing the young woman's aura. Large hazel eyes stared at her.

"That's true. It's only been a few days, Buffy. You can only get better." Tara squeezed the hand beneath hers, and the Slayer smiled slightly.

"Tara, could I speak with you a moment?" Angel suddenly requested, rising from his chair as he spoke. It was obvious by the large vampire's attitude that he intended for he and Tara to step out of the room. The blonde witch was surprised, as she and Angel hardly ever exchanged more than pleasantries when she became further involved with the White Hats. It was plainly obvious that the morose vampire was fixated on Buffy.

"Who bit you," was the first thing the dark haired vampire said, the moment they left the room. When Tara only stared up at him in further surprise, Angel elaborated. "I can sense the claiming mark, especially because it belongs to one of my blood. But it's not one I recognize, and if anyone from Aurelius is still here in Sunnydale, I want to know who it is."

"You're not in thrall," he continued. "And I bet if I saw the mark it would be clean, meaning you didn't struggle. I don't know what she's done to seduce you, but she is evil. Do you know what fledglings do to their toys? You'll be in bits and pieces before the night is out. Don't go back to her."

Tara took a breath. She knew Angel was concerned, but he had a bossy way of showing it.

Angel frowned. "Three weeks ago," he admitted reluctantly, not wanting the witch to change the subject.

"D-did you know she and Drusilla were actually gone nineteen years? Instead of the three months you believe?"

At Angel's confused stare, Tara quickly explained the nature of Willow and Dru's disappearance, and of their return – as quickly as her stammering would let her, that is.

"So she's not a fledgling," Angel finally concluded, and began putting two and two together of what he had sensed of the red haired vampire when he found himself warded out of his own home three weeks ago. She had looked entirely different from her newborn self – more confident, controlled, and...exhibiting chatty qualities not unlike her human self. Not only that, Angel had sensed great power, of a master's level, but he had been too angry at the time to give it much acknowledgment.

"If you are trying to tell me that she is different enough now to not torture and drain you if you go see her, I'm not buying it," he nearly growled at the young woman before him. "She can play with your mind as well as your body. And when she gets bored, that's when you'll die."

Angel watched Tara nibble nervously at her full bottom lip and sighed to himself. At last, he may be getting through to the girl. He could easily see why Willow would want to claim this witch. It wasn't just the face and body, it was the soul in her eyes. Angelus would have enjoyed hunting and courting this one.

"I think you should talk to her," he heard Tara say, and he stared agape at her. "And I think Drusilla w-would really like to see you. She hasn't in almost twenty years."

"Tara?" they both heard faintly called from Buffy's hospital room. Tara hid a relieved sigh at the timely rescue.

"I-I better go see Buffy," the young woman said to excuse herself, and re-entered the room.

"You said you'd be back," Buffy pouted, although lying prone and pale as she was, the pout looked less in jest and far more vulnerable.

"Sorry," Tara responded sincerely, taking the Slayer's hand again. "Do you need anything?"

"How – " Tara trailed off. The Slayer's familiarity with the red haired vampire totally threw her.

"Well, not vamp Willow. But the original Willow?" And Tara could see the grief, regret, and wistfulness mix in the tired hazel eyes. "Yeah. We were best friends."

At this revelation, Tara could only squeeze Buffy's hand. The Slayer's best friend, now a vampire. Poor girl.

"I bet," Buffy commented drily. "To get you to mack with the evil undead." Tara blushed.

"I gotta admit," Buffy continued, although tiredly. "If I weren't in this bed, I'd be up and giving you heck with Angel on this one. But I'm in no condition to protect you. Only a stake will make this problem go away. So I'll have to trust your judgment with this evil, Willow shaped person – or in this case, not person. And maybe it's my drugs talking, because vampire bad, Tara good. Buffy must stake." Buffy's eyelids fluttered, and Tara soothed her hand. "And...and since when was Will interested in girls?"

Tara blushed and decided not to attempt to answer that one. She was a lesbian herself; she certainly couldn't speak for the vampire.

"If she wants you...she'll have you. We can't protect you," the Slayer murmured. "Promise you'll be safe?"

Willow woke to her head and body being crushed and then finely strained to make Willow cocktail. That wasn't what was happening literally, but it sure felt like it. She whimpered pitifully as painful lights danced before her eyes when she cracked them open. She tried to move a finger and every undead cell there screamed.

"Hh hh hh," her throat whined plaintively. This felt just like that time she drank from a headily delicious elfin faced girl who actually had a bit of faerie blood in her. Willow babbled for hours about trees and lakes and dragon flies and then ended up with a major all over body and brain magical hangover. This time, however, Kitten's magic blast had given her one that was ten times worse.

"Tsk tsk tsk," the suffering redhead heard her sire tsk from her bedroom doorway. "Precious played with pixies again."

"Mummy it hurts!" Willow wailed from her bed. Dru approached, but there was a dark mirth in her large eyes.

"Cubby's honey's yummy, but it burns," Dru snickered, close to her childe's head. Precious was always playing with things that burned her. Naughty thing.

Dru sighed, and then laid her hands on her childe. A cascade of soothing coolness aligned the painful bits within Willow, and eventually, all her pain disappeared.

"Thank you Mummy!" Willow exclaimed in delight, and sat up. She took hold of her sire and kissed her deeply. The kiss evolved into dueling tongues. It had been a long time since Dru and her childe had come together in intimacy. The elder vampire pulled back finally, her dark eyes glittering.

"Party time," her childe acknowledged with a dark smile, and both vampires could feel the instinctual tingle that was dusk approaching.

Tara thought that it really was a nice mansion – at least what she could see of it from the cab as the last of the sunset illuminated the large home's red tiled roof and white walls. It was not an ostentatious home, but for its size, it was surprisingly cozy looking. Rancho style, Tara mused. Very Californian. As the cab descended the hill above the mansion, Tara could see some of the grounds surrounding it, and her heart leapt. She loved gardens. The cab pulled to the front of the house, and Tara disembarked.

It was now night, the last of the sun's red disappearing upon the horizon. Automatically, the mansion's outdoor lights lit as Tara approached the door. She could hear soft music play within. She sensed the slight sparkle of mystic energy in the air, and the door opened. Willow stood deep within her living room area, smiling.

"Come in, Kitten," she invited. The vampire looked positively sexy – in a decadent, romantic rock star kind of way. She wore low slung, tight black pants with black high heeled boots. The ruffles of a silky white poet's shirt peeked from the front of the black lapeled, purple velvet jacket she wore, and more white ruffles announced themselves through the black cuffs. The vampire's bright red locks were moussed this way and that, giving it a bed tousled look. Willow's large eyes were ringed with heavy black eyeliner. Oh, she was drop dead sexy. Tara wanted her hands all over her.

"Mrrreow," Willow purred, when Tara found herself at the vampire's side and already placing her hands on those slim, slim hips. Oh, how did she get across the room? Didn't matter, tonight she was a slutty, Willow groupie. And Willow couldn't even sing.

"Possessive Kitty," Willow growled in delight, feeling Kitten hold her. "Like the look?"

Willow froze. Kitten wasn't even blushing, her large blue eyes looking so lidded and lusty and expectant – wow, Willow was going to wear this outfit more often!

"It's um, more like this," the blonde winked at the vampire, and then put on her best sleepy Elvis eyes and pouty smirk.

"Thank you very much," she drawled perfectly, and as she swiveled her hips while holding Willow, the vampire nearly swooned. Ooooo, Kitten could hit that sexy low note!!

"I think we should switch clothes!" Willow squealed, fantasizing about butch Kitty.

"Yes, later," Willow breathed, reluctantly remembering what this evening was for. Her demeanor changed slightly, and Kitten let her hips go. "Right now, I'm having a moonlight party for Mummy in the garden. Let's join her." She offered her arm to Kitten, and the blonde obligingly slipped her own through the vampire's.

Out upon the terrace, gaudy paper lanterns were hung, swinging slightly with the nighttime breeze. Strewn lights in the trees twinkled like stars, and colored spotlights illuminated the splashing waters of the fountain with blue, green, and red. A string quartet sat with their music stands upon the grass and played while Drusilla, in a strappy, gauzy dress cut in a clinging, sheath style, swayed and sashayed her slender body before them. A draped table loaded with catered food stood by the side, and a few demons were already helping themselves to the – Tara noted thankfully – human style cuisine. The deviled eggs looked especially popular with the guests, the blonde witch noticed wistfully.

Willow introduced Tara to several of the demon guests, who, it turned out, did some work for the vampire. None of them appeared to be actual friends of hers, and were probably present to fill out the party for Dru. Tara found the demons quite pleasant though, especially Clem, the loose skinned demon, and his girlfriend, Bee.

"You should get yourself a plate, Kitten," Willow whispered to her at one point, and then left her at the table to attend to her Sire, who was having an animated, open armed conversation with the broad face of the full moon. When Tara looked up again from the buffet table, the red haired vampire was waltzing Dru about the grass, her velvet jacket swinging open as they spun. Tara loved the playful, happy picture they made.

Eventually, the two joined Tara at the small patio table she ate at, Willow gathering up a large cognac glass filled with blood that had been perched over a warming candle flame.

"Mummy," she addressed, offered the large glass to her sire, who sat next to her Kitten.

"Mm, Precious," Dru murmured as she took a deep reverent drink of the warmed blood. Willow pulled a chair closer to Tara, then laid an arm around the back of the blonde witch's chair. But even as her arm loosely embraced the young woman, her hand that belonged to that arm reached up to play with the dark, brunette ends of Dru's hair.

"Delicious, but not as good as Cubby's, Oi bet," her sire drawled as she put down the glass, and the elder vampire's accent made the comment all the more teasingly mischievous. Willow giggled.

"I'll not eat for a week. Kitten's sooo fulfilling," Willow teased back, undoing her blushing Kitten's scarf to expose her neck and the bite mark. The blonde witch wore no bandage over it. Willow gave it a sweet kiss.

"We'll be a family again, you and I," she heard Dru softly singsong to herself as she took another drink of her glass. "We'll be a family, of four, then five. We'll have a Mummy."

Willow stilled next to Kitten as she listened. Her blonde witch had ceased eating to listen as well. Dru looked at her childe then, truly looked at her, her large dark eyes vulnerable and soft. It was something she rarely did, because it revealed a little of the very little sanity she hid.

"Yes, Sire, you have been so very good to me," Willow answered with deep emotion. "We would not be here, were it not for you." The sensation of a lump in her throat betrayed how deeply Willow felt about this. Despite how capable and smart she thought of herself, she was as capable of great mistakes, and it was Drusilla who would save them from the kinds of consequences wrought by the younger vampire's actions. Her mad, seemingly lost sire was her touchstone.

"No," Drusilla simply answered, and the dark haired vampire laid her head gently in the crook of Kitten's neck. She stroked the blonde witch's arm resting upon the table. "But we'll have a new Mum."

Willow spoke no more, preferring to work out what had been said in mental 'babble mode', as her human self's childhood friend, Xander, would have called her string of thought processes. Dru took to studying Cubby's hand as she enjoyed the warmth of the witch's closeness. Hands slender like an artist's, but strong and capable. Capable of many things; not like hers, which only killed, or like hers again, and her fragile mother's, from another long, long ago time, when female hands were weak and lily white and helpless and stupid and not even worth God's mercy despite the rosaries she'd dutifully held.

No, such strong hands. Wielder of moon and earth. Beautifully female. Capable mummy.

"We belong not to Him, but to Her," Dru murmured in agreement with the stars that twinkled a very wise song to her.

"What, Mum?" Willow piped up, mentally kicking herself for not catching that due to being in mental babble mode.

"Daddy's here," she announced, closing her eyes briefly to the sensation of feeling her powerful Sire near. She was excited but also terribly afraid. Her real Daddy was not truly here. It was the Souled one, and he did not like her at all. She was not his Princess. Dru fretted and placed both her cool hands in Honey Girl's warm one. She felt the comfort of that capable hand squeezing her back. Pies, breads, pancakes, quilts, spells, saddles.

"Willow?" Tara inquired, looking up as the younger vampire stood up. Willow made a motion to the musicians, who had taken a break, and they hastily returned to their seats and took up their string instruments. A rousing, Maple Leaf Rag began. The sounds the cellist made were quite invigorating.

"Of course," was Tara's quick response, and she rose with Dru as the elder vampire responded to the music. Willow exited the terrace for the living room area. She allowed herself to snarl briefly, then calmed down. When she finally raised a hand to gesture at the door, her face wore its usual, easy going smirk.

"Hello Angel," Willow greeted pleasantly to the large, overcoated figure standing in the doorway.

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The Master Willow Series:
The Return of Wicked Red

by psimetis

Copyright © 2004

psimetis@hotmail.com

The Master Willow Series: The Return of Wicked Red

by psimetis

Copyright © 2004

psimetis@hotmail.com

The Master Willow Series:
The Return of Wicked Red