A/N – This chapter is admittedly a little shorter than the others but it was done to keep the "flavor" of the chapter. Plus, it's a little intense and to tell you the truth I was exhausted after writing it. That said, I want to thank everyone who took the time to leave a review; you know I appreciate all your kind words and your continued support. Happy reading.

Chapter 7

"Goodbye, Tara."

The words felt akin to being kissed by a silver-tipped whip and Tara flinched violently as it flayed away layers of skin, sinew, muscle and bone. It exposed the vulnerable flesh of her unbeating heart, licked multiple grooves across the defenseless muscle until it was nothing more than a raw, chafed, bleeding lump.

Tara pressed a heavy hand to her chest, trying in vain to stave off the shrill notes of anguish and pain that sang the most awful anthem of sorrow. The melody was so bitter, the tone so mournful that it was all Tara could do not to crumble onto the floor in a fetal position. She tried to force feet that felt as though they were encased in lead to move but they refused, the soles of her boots rooted to the ground by some unknown force.

Pam observed her progeny's physical hesitation, noted the way Tara warred with herself. She saw the way the younger vampire's posture slant forward, wanting to move but her lower body betrayed her by remaining stubbornly still. She watched as Tara's shoulders stiffened, her spine a rigid line as her head ducked down, no doubt to allow eyes the color of pitch to glare at her motionless feet.

What the blonde didn't expect was for Tara to suddenly turn around and pounce on her. The force of her progeny's body colliding into her own could have fell buildings fashioned from steel. Fear was a very real, very corporeal entity as Tara slammed her up against the wall. It slithered through her, polluting her veins and shocking frayed nerves into high drive. Panic followed, bringing with it a miasma of claustrophobia, uncertainty, terror and paralysis.

However, when Tara fused her lips to Pam's, kissing her with a desperation and an intensity that was white-hot and blistering, the blonde pushed away every iota of fear, every grain of panic. She shut off the voices in her head that screamed at her that what they were doing was wrong. She let reason bleed out of sight, imprisoned logic into the dark corners of her mind and drove away every instinct that begged her to pull away.

Then she kissed Tara back.

It was not a kiss of love, of tenderness, of pleasure.

What it was, was an act birthed from the cradle of despair.

Pam let Tara press her into the wall, well aware that the cheap materials used to structure it were cracking and crumbling under her back. She gripped handfuls of sable hair that tickled either side of her face and yanked Tara's lips more forcefully against her own.

Tara followed Pam's movements, her front pressing so fully against her maker's that not a sliver of air could be granted access. She wrenched Pam's lips open with furious strokes of her tongue, dived into the wet cavern of the blonde's mouth and dominated every crease and crevice she found.

Pam bit down hard on Tara's lower lip, drawing blood and distending both their fangs. Their teeth clacked hard against each other, their sharp incisors tearing into plump, bruised flesh as they kissed with the ferocity of an enraged storm.

Tara felt as though she were being burned alive, as if hell's fire had crawled up from beneath its prison of earth and soil only to wrap its searing tendrils of fiery orange-red around her body. Her body was so feverish, so hot, burning at such an uncontrollable rate that the pain of it was devastatingly acute.

Tears sprang unbidden from her tightly shut eyes as she pressed impossibly closer into her maker's body, her mouth slipping and sliding over Pam's blood-stained lips. Short of trying to crawl into her maker's skin, Tara began roaming desperate hands over any inch of exposed flesh available to her. When her scorching skin touched cool alabaster smoothness, the respite was brief and fleeting, the coolness of Pam's body providing the merest of reprieves before hell's fire broke over it, igniting her ebony skin once more.

Pam was lost asunder in a world of pain. Pain so real, so sharp, so excruciating that she thought she might just die from its otherworldly sensation. Everywhere Tara touched her sent mouths of agony zipping through her body. They were like parasites, landing on sensitized nerves and sinking their pointed, merciless teeth into them. They injected poison into her veins, breathed toxic fumes of grief into her muscles until they atrophied.

But still she pulled Tara into her, pulled her so close and so tight that their fronts were flushed up against each other. Her eyes wept bold streaks of rich crimson as limbs of snow-white encircled Tara like alabaster vines, its hands snaking to the hem of Tara's shirt only to sneak beneath its opening. Fingers raked blunt nails up ebony skin before pads of individual digits traced the line of Tara's spine and squeezed at back and shoulder muscles that quivered and shook and shivered under her touch.

Tara returned her mouth to Pam's after a brief but thorough exploration of the smooth column of her neck. Blood dripped from multiple puncture wounds made by Tara's indecisive fangs down the side of the blonde's neck, her body still too weak to close the injuries immediately.

Tara ignored the mess she made of Pam's neck, choosing instead to smash her lips against the blonde's, her fangs cutting twin lines of red up the blonde's chin in the progress. The kiss sent the pair spiraling down an avenue of pain, leaving them so dizzy and so laden with sorrow that Pam's knees buckled and Tara had to steady herself by gripping at Pam's shoulders.

They didn't speak as they ravaged each other with lips, teeth, tongue and fangs. Words were useless at this point, every syllable, phrase and sentence exhausted from its arsenal. Silence was a heavy cloak in the air, interrupted sporadically by harsh pants, sharp intakes of breaths and pain-filled gasps.

Tara's lips were a jerky paintbrush, drawing lines of melancholy across Pam's injured lips. They brushed broad strokes of pain across the blonde's jaw, dotted splotches of regret across a smooth cheek then whispered a splash of apology over a furrowed brow until the features on her maker's face was a picture of torment.

Pam felt every painful caress of Tara's blood-painted lips on her skin and she returned them with fervor, needing to return every heightened emotion, every ounce of agony. Everywhere her lips touched ebony skin, it burned her, Tara's flesh an expanse of smoldering coals that seared her mouth, blackened her tongue and polluted her throat with the fumes grief and shame.

Tara pulled Pam away from the wall, and her lips still attached to Pam's walked them blindly towards the bed. Together they fell, Pam on top of Tara who immediately clung to her maker's newly horizontal body with all four limbs, her arms cinched tightly around the blonde's neck, her legs wrapped like tentacles across the backs of Pam's thighs.

Pam clutched at Tara like a limpet to a rock, her azure blue eyes aglow with grief and smoldering with pain. She cupped either side of her progeny's face, her actions neither gentle nor considerate. One finger sliced an accidental line of red across Tara's cheek and immediately dots of crimson decorated the scratch before it healed and disappeared. The blonde was unapologetic however as she forcibly yanked Tara's head down to hers, claiming her bruised, bloody and torn lips with her own abused ones.

Fangs clashed with each other, tearing open the corners of mouths, nicking the tips of tongues and ravaging the already weeping flesh of injured lips. Blood flowed like water into both vampires' mouths, drenching their taste buds with the thick iron-y tang and sliding down their throats like smooth whisky.

Hands roamed abundantly, over clothing, under clothing, across exposed skin and into thick mops of sable and golden hair. Nails pulled jagged lines across shoulders, collarbones and biceps whilst hips undulated and legs tangled.

On that bed, they moved together, their bodies in perfect sync with each other, despite the fifty-year absence. Mouths, hands, fingers and tongues danced to an age-old rhythm neither vampire had trouble following. Blood flowed freely, cascading in ruby streaks down faces of ebony and snow as nails scored deep grooves down arms, backs and thighs. Fangs sank into willing flesh, its pointed edges dipping into skins of ivory and chocolate like a knife into soft butter. Blood trickled from these wounds, soaking the sheets beneath maker and progeny, staining lips, anointing necks and bathing any patch of unblemished skin with crimson hues.

When the entwined vampires could no longer withhold the physical release demanded of them from their aching bodies, they crested in unison, their sharp cries laden with pain and sorrow. They fell into a vat of aching anguish, their hearts bruised beyond recognition, their souls caught on the fires of suffering. Noisy, needless breaths of air escaped from battered lips, the sounds tinged with guilt, regret and shame.

Bodies of ivory and ebony quaked like leaves in the wind, their bones rattled from distress, their muscles quivering with physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.

And whilst their bodies did eventually calm, the raging storm in their hearts and souls did not.

Tara curled into Pam who curled into her and they cried fitfully, staining their already blood-crusted bodies with fresh paints of deep, rich red. Sobs born from abject misery manifested in their throats and presented itself to their ears in soul-shattering cries that leeched even more blood from their eyes.

"I'm sorry," Tara sobbed, her entire frame shaking. She clutched harder at Pam, her nails digging half moons into Pam's shoulder blades and calling forth speckles of rubies from the broken skin. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" The words fast became a mantra, Tara's voice growing hoarser and hoarser until she was barely coherent, the ring of hysteria the only tone that was decipherable.

Pam said nothing, her voice box an empty cavern devoid of the ability to form words. She just grabbed at Tara's shaking arms, buried her tear-streaked face into a blood-splattered ebony hued neck and wept.

TBC