"So where do we start?"
Angel watched the pretty blonde sympathetically as she began to gulp another tumbler of pork blood. It had to be awful for her considering she had been a vegetarian before she was changed. Her creamy white throat worked furiously as Tara tilted her head back to slurp the dregs of the cup. When she finished, she gazed regretfully into the empty tumbler.
"Have some more." Angel reached into the refrigerator and emptied another jar of the thick red liquid into her glass.
"No, thank you." Even as she politely demurred Tara was already lifting the refilled tumbler to her lips and swallowing eagerly.
"It's okay, Tara," Angel softly reassured her. "At first, you're always hungry. That changes over time." He smiled thinly at her relieved expression over the glass.
She was not a woman the demonic Angelus would have chosen to share the darkness with. Tara MacClay exuded a powerful presence that would have warded most vampires away in an instant. No vampire wanted responsibility for a childe actively stronger than himself. Angelus would have delighted in murdering her, perhaps even tormenting her first, but turning her would have been too risky.
"So where do we start? Well, I'm not really sure, dearest. The last time I did this, my care/training of my new childer consisted of turning them and setting them to murder their own families!
Angel shook his head to clear away the desire to laugh at his present situation. Tara surprised him with a broad pretty smile.
"It's so strange, isn't it?" she giggled.
Somehow, that spark of mild humor set them both to nervous laughter.
It grew easier between them almost immediately. Tara amazed her sire with all her questions about her new existence and what it meant. In Angel's experience most fledglings were more exultant over their newly discovered superhuman strength and enhanced senses than they were curious about how best to use them discreetly and avoid injuring humans.
Under Wesley's concerned gaze, Angel trained Tara rigorously in open-handed fighting, and fencing with a short sword. The former Watcher noted that the lovely blonde fledgling was unusually powerful and strong with liquid reflexes to defend against Angel's skillful attacks. Her heart wasn't really in the fighting, yet more than once she managed to bewilder Angel with a clever feint, a feigned retreat or a skillful parry, then come on strong to disarm him without injuring him.
Tara's enthusiasm was contagious and Angel soon took to the task of training the woman who was to become a formidable opponent. The strength in Angel's blood seemed to have transferred to the beautiful sorceress and mingled with her own vibrant force. It had been a century or more since he had shared the dark magic and the potency of his vampirism was evident in the power of his new charge.
It was Wesley who first theorised that Tara's unusual strength and resilience stemmed from the potency of Angel's undiluted blood. After all, the vampire had sired his last childe, the demented Drusilla, in 1860. Tara had inherited the purest strain of a master vampire's blood, a relatively young master vampire, but still potent and strong. Nor was there any known guideline for how an ensouled vampire's whelp might be affected differently from a traditionally soul-less vampire childe. Wesley was forever following them, watching and scribbling notes into his leather-bound journal until the very sight of him made Tara nervous and Angel had to ask him to leave them alone.
Cordelia Chase left Angel and Tara severely alone. The simple fact that Tara MacClay was now Angel's childe was awful enough to the Seeress. But that the new childe was an oddity, some strange hybrid creature who remained immune to the power of religious icons and blessed water, frightened Cordy beyond measure. After lengthy debate with Angel and Wesley, it was agreed that that paradox must remain a secret for the sakes of both the vampires. Nor could Cordelia ever forget the sight of Angel siring Tara, no matter how hard she tried. The image remained etched in her memory of Angel's sturdy body covering the dying young woman as he bent his head to her throat and sank his sharp fangs into her flesh. There had been an unspeakable intimacy to the act. Cordelia had been fascinated and horrified at the same time and those feelings frightened her.
Tara seemed to have sustained only one unusually serious vampire weakness. She grew stuperously weary when the very hint of sunrise fingered the night's horizon. Angel gathered her lethargic form in his arms when she was too weak to move and carried her up to his own bed where he nestled her in soft wool blankets. That weakness in her, the inability to remain awake and aware enough to seek safety from the daylight, frightened Angel gravely. How strange, he mused, that he had brought her into this life so reluctantly only a short time ago and now he could not bear the thought of her leaving it.
"You're doing very well," he praised her, nearly a month after they'd begun their "lessons."
Tara gazed at Angel across the brief sweep of the elegantly dressed table in the intimate Green Evenings restaurant. Cordelia Chase had bitingly declared that they spent too much time "in vampire practice" and shooed them out for what seemed suspiciously like a dinner date at her favorite restaurant. Tara smiled softly at the irony of Angel's vivacious receptionist/Seeress sending two vampires out to dinner.
And yet it had turned out to be a good idea. Angel found himself with an unusual appetite for a rare beef fillet. He rarely indulged in human fare though he'd never lost his taste for it. Another form of self-flagellation, Mr Broodmuch? he could almost hear Cordelia chastise him. For the first time Angel thought that maybe there was some truth to that. For the first time in many years he could face the humans around him without feeling oppressively guilty obligation. For once he could boast he had offered humanity something beautiful and good.
They ate together in companionable silence for a while.
"You're doing very well," he repeated. "I think you'll soon be ready. To go home," he added lamely, wondering why he couldn't sound more happy about that.
Tara's huge blue eyes flicked up to Angel's deep-set gaze. His eyes were the colour of rich hot cocoa; warm sweetness blending into darkness.
Home. What did that really mean anymore? Could she really be every bit as welcome and loved in Buffy's house as she had in the past? Buffy was a Slayer: it was impossible to pretend she didn't have prejudices and reservations about what Tara had become.
And Willow...Tara almost dreaded the prospect of seeing her again. They spoke frequently on the telephone several times. Sweet, friendly casual conversations, girlfriend discussions that never included the most recent developments of their love affair. An awkward tension clung to their words, an anxious realisation that lines had been crossed between them that never should have been touched. Willow loved her, Tara knew, but the depth and direction of such love was frighteningly unwholesome. She had lost her girlfriend and gained a worshiper; one powerful enough to revive the dead, but a worshiper just the same. Not a lover.
Tara did not consider returning to her father's home in Virginia. He had made it all too plain she was not welcome there when Tara had refused to drop out of school and come home two years ago. An impish smile touched her lips. He father had always claimed the females in their family were cursed with demonic tendencies. If only he knew he was finally right!
Tara picked at her dinner salad and lowered her curled eyelashes to help veil her feelings. Angel had already been through enough--Tara knew he hadn't really wanted to sire her. She would not reproach him with the fact that she would be so lonely without him. It was understandable he would want her to leave eventually; her presence was a reminder to him of what he truly was.
Angel watched the beautiful blonde go through the motions of patting her rosy pouting lips with the embroidered green napkin on her lap and sip from her water goblet. She was breathtakingly lovely in the candlelight intimacy of their precious corner table. They had both fed generously before they went out and Tara's skin bore a healthy flush. Her fine cornsilk hair was gathered in a loose untidy chignon behind her head. Pure noveau chic, the messy twist with a few loose tendrils hanging in soft waves around her face. Silver heart-shaped stud earrings with pearl teardrops adorned her delicate ears. She wore a slim cashmere turtleneck the colour of fresh celery and a darker green paisley rayon skirt, a graceful A-line swirling over her hips to the middle of her lithe thighs. She looked elegant and ladylike and sensuous. Hers was a voluptuous beauty, quite different from his past lovers.
She is NOT my lover. Angel admonished himself sternly. And she doesn't want to be. She loves Willow.
Of course, all vampires could claim sexual rights to their own fledgling childer and most of them did, even if they didn't actually desire the childe. It was a way to express dominance and remind the child not to step out of line.
Angel could not imagine claiming Tara in such a way. Deep within him, Angelus, his purely evil demonic half, grumbled and howled in outrage. Angel smiled ruefully. He�d never been a saint when it came to women, even while he was still a mortal man. A dark corner of his mind longed to press against Tara and truly experience all of her. He had held her body, snuggled in his bed while she slept deeply. He was aware of every nuance of the woman�s beauty: she was all curved graceful lines and firm musculature. Silky hair and eyelashes. Satin-soft eyelids and exquisite cheekbones meant to be washed with kisses and soft little bites. She was just the right size to fit perfectly against him.
�Why are you smiling?� Tara looked at him thoughtfully, an answering smile on the blooming rose of her mouth. A hurtful little thought skipped through her mind: he must be so glad I�ll be leaving soon. He can go back to being by himself again. A more surprising pain quickly followed: I'll miss him. Terribly.
�You�re very beautiful.� He said the words somewhere between a low voice and a whisper. Angel wanted to slap himself for the pure honest stupidity of saying such a thing to her. But she didn�t recoil from him. Her eyes brightened, a sea of rich blue understanding, and her smile never faltered. His chest constricted, smarting a little. She was so loving! So filled with compassion!
And she was his childe. But she was not for him.
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Chapter Nine: "Roses and Rain"
"The Price" Contents