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Title: The Master Willow
Series: The Return Of Wicked Red
Author: psimetis
E-mail: psimetis@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: if it pleases you, do :).
Summary: This Chapter: They’re All Together Ooky, The Aurelius Family (*snap
snap*)
Chapter Four
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.
“Thank you,” Tara had murmured sincerely.
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.
“Cock o doodle doo,” she delivered very prettily.
“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 hunting tonight, Precious?” she questioned, disappointed.
“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.
Tara swallowed, trying not to think on what the words might mean.
“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.”
* * *