A/N – Went to see Epic in the cinemas over the weekend. It reminded me of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids but waaay cooler. There are little warrior tribes hiding in the woods! With talking slugs! I'm telling you now, there is nothing COOLER than a talking slug. *grins* Happy reading!


Chapter 11 – Dance with Me

Thick fingers of non-corporeal fog unfurled lazily in the air, lending to its surroundings, a trace of dampness and a dramatic atmosphere of intrigue.

Tara paid the less than forthcoming weather no mind, too busy observing quietly, Pam's profile. Discretion aided every stroke of dark eyes down alabaster skin, the vampire not wanting to disturb her companion's deep ruminations.

The blonde was quiet tonight, sailing away in a sea of contemplation that brought forth a melancholic sadness, which stung and burned in the air like smoke.

Tara didn't begrudge the fact that something was amiss but neither did she push for an answer. Pam was entitled to her broodings and however much Tara wanted to chase away whatever demons that currently held the blonde's attention shackled, she knew when to prod and when to let things be.

So she didn't push.

But neither did she pull away.

The vampire kept silent vigil at Pam's side, a shadow that found substance. A small pocket of space separated their bodies but their hands were attingent, long fingers of snow twining almost absentmindedly against limber fingers of ebony.

Tara watched, simultaneously concerned and enthralled as Pam's eyes went half-mast, cheeks hollowing out ever so delicately as she took in a pull of the cold night air only to release it in a gentle plume of smoky-white. Sapphire hued eyes, so bright and vivid amidst the dark of night, cast a look heavenward, searching the fog shrouded sky for something that was plainly out of reach.

And when those eyes of steel-gray and winter-blue returned to contemplating the persistent slivers of silvery-gray fog in front of them, they came burdened with a palpable sorrow that sliced a silver blade through Tara's heart.

"Dance with me."

Pam jerked, startled by the unexpected audial intrusion. Having started their nightly walk in silence, with both parties letting it steep into the very air around them, the abrupt emergence of Tara's low alto was akin to a gunshot.

A blonde head turned, revealing slowly, loose wisps of lightly curled flaxen hair that framed an aristocratic face housing eyes currently the color of a tempestuous winter sea.

"I'm sorry?"

Tara allowed herself a moment of indulgence, allowed herself to be mesmerized by Pam's wintry beauty.

The blonde was all snow and darkness, an entrancing combination of light and dark. With the fog twining around her and a weak beam of moonlight spilling onto her lithe frame, Pam's pale skin was almost translunary, as if she glowed from the inside out. But surrounding her, encasing her, was a heavy sadness, one that left a dark stain around all that glow.

Still, despite that, despite the inner turmoil Tara could taste on her tongue like a bitter pill, Pam proved to be as divine and as captivating a sight as the vampire had ever seen.

"Dance with me."

Soft words. Gentle words. Tara's stalwart Southern drawl was subdued as it wrapped itself around those three words, allowing them to transpire from between her lips smooth and soothing as a lullaby.

Pam didn't answer as Tara brought them to a stop directly under the spotlight of a lamppost, bathing them in instantly in a warm wash of aurulent light.

Instead, she released the hold she had on Tara's hand and took a small step back, using the opportunity of their halted ambulation to simply observe the urbane and sophisticated representation that hugged her dark savior like a well fitted glove.

Tonight, Tara was perfectly attired in the clothes of an upper class gentleman. A white high collar dress shirt was worn under a double breasted black waistcoat with a black cotton cravat encircling her neck. Fall front black trousers whispered over polished black spat boots and a hunter green tailcoat with velvet trimmings completed the outfit.

The vampire's only other accessories were a wooden walking stick with a faux ivory knob handle and a silk black top hat.

Devastatingly handsome.

That was the only description that came to Pam's mind as she tracked a visual path down the length of that sinewy body and while handsome proved not to be a suitable adjective for a woman, the blonde could conjure up no other word.

Azure blue eyes glided in an almost lazy fashion down the length of Tara's front, its owner tracing, memorizing every nook and feminine curve.

And when they returned back up to Tara's face, those eyes of a vivid cerulean blue collided with a pair of twinkling ink-filled orbs that in the dark, shone like black jewels set aflame.

A soft smile flirted with full crimson lips, momentarily chasing away the sadness in the blue of her eyes as Pam realized that Tara was fully aware of her blonde's scrutiny of her attire.

"You look very refined this evening," she complimented Tara, her voice sincere if a tad huskier with still currently unnamed emotions.

Tara leaned her walking stick against the side of the lamppost.

Then, she held out a hand. "Dance with me," she implored for a third time, a small smile playing about her lips when Pam arched an eyebrow at her.

"What, here? Now?" Pam asked, a touch of incredulousness tinting her voice. Blue eyes were amused though, contradicting the disbelieving inflection.

"Yes," Tara nodded. "Here. Now." The vampire's eyes darkened slightly as she took in the alluring sight that was her blonde companion. "Dance with me, Pamela."

"There's no music," Pam murmured, her protest utterly half-hearted as she stepped forward and slipped her hand into Tara's cool one.

"We'll make some," Tara whispered as she drew Pam to her until their bodies were lightly touching. She guided one of Pam's hands to her shoulder, her own snaking around the blonde's trim waist.

Then, she clasped their remaining hands together, their skins of ebony and snow creating a contrast that was as lovely and as enigmatic as the two women on the street.

Safely entwined in each other's embrace, Tara began guiding them around that distorted spotlight courtesy of the lamppost shining above them.

"I can see it in your eyes, you've had a long day," Tara sang softly as she leaned in slightly her lips one whisper shy of grazing a soft, pale ear. "So let's lock the door and put some music on." She ghosted a barely there kiss to the line of Pam's jaw, tightened her grip slightly when Pam visibly shivered. "Now, come and put your hand in mine."

"Dance with me," Tara crooned, her voice a low alto, simultaneously lulling Pam into an aroused and drowsy state.

The blonde sighed, contentment rendering her body pliant as Tara's voice soothed away the tension cramping her muscles. She rested her head against Tara's strong shoulder, sighing softly again when the vampire turned her head and full lips grazed Pam's temple, lingering long enough for her cool breath to ruffle the loose strands of wavy flaxen hair.

"Don't say a word, just dance with me," Tara continued, her voice like honey, thick and sweet. She twirled them languidly around that spot of lamppost light, alternating between humming a few bars and crooning softly in Pam's ear.

"Let the world outside disappear. For what we got here is all we need." Tara dropped another kiss, this time to a plane of soft smooth cheek.

"Dance with me."

Tara guided Pam through the slow dance, her movements unhurried, gentle and unapologetically tender. Around them, the fog seemed to create a cylindrical wall as it curled around the pair, offering them the illusion of privacy.

"Darling, here we are, together all alone," Tara whispered, her voice barely reaching Pam's ears before the night air snatched them away. She whispered a kiss to the top of Pam's head, inhaled her sweet scent then danced them directly under the golden-yellow glow of the lamppost.

"We finally found a moment, we can call our own."

Tara deposited one last kiss, this time to Pam's forehead. She let her lips linger, let the scent of honeysuckle, lavender and vanilla fused into her skin.

"So dance with me. Just dance with me."

Humming the last few bars, Tara slowed their steps until they were simply swaying on the spot. The arm Tara had curled around Pam's waist unwound to reach up to guide the blonde' head off her shoulders. Cupping a warm cheek, Tara leaned in and brushed a soft, careful kiss to crimson painted lips, conveying with that one act, how much she cherished the woman she currently held in her arms.

"Talk to me," Tara whispered against full lips. "Tell me what hurts you so."

Pam shivered as the vampire's cool breath caressed her mouth, Tara scent slipping like a thief in the night between the seams of her lips only to claim possession over her senses. She leaned forward, lips pining for another kiss and was rewarded when Tara applied gentle pressure, lingering a few seconds longer before once again pulling back.

The vampire brushed wisps of corn silk hair off Pam's forehead then ran the back of her knuckles down a pale cheek. "Share with me your burdens, Pamela," Tara beseeched, her voice soft. "There is no need for you to bear it in solitude. Not anymore."

When Tara palmed her cheek, Pam leaned in, seeking comfort, seeking a soothing touch. A barely audible sigh whispered past her lips when Tara stroked at the soft, warm skin she found beneath her fingers.

"Today marks the day of my arrival to San Francisco," Pam revealed, her voice plangorous, her blue-gray eyes stormy with equal measures of pain and sorrow. "Five years ago."

Tara nodded, needing no further explanation.

"Close your eyes," was what she said instead.

When Pam's blonde brow began a slow hike up to her hairline, Tara shook her head in amused exasperation.

"Put a leash on those willful yearnings, Princess," she chided softly, dark pink lips pulling into a besotted smile when Pam completed the dramatic arch of her eyebrow anyway.

"Close your eyes," Tara repeated sweetly, quietly, as she caressed Pam's cheek, her fingers expertly melting Pam's partially defiant expression into one of sweet contentment between one caress and the next.

"Close your eyes and think of me."

A sweet smile chased itself across Pam's lips as the blonde gave in and did as requested.

Using the hand she kept purchase on Pam's cheek, Tara began a tactile memorization of Pam's face. She started with the angular planes of a smooth cheek, her thumb running up over the delicate jut of a beautifully sculpted cheekbone. Limber fingers followed, aching gentleness in every move as they walked over a fluttering eyelid to trace the arch of a blonde eyebrow. One lone finger then ran down the aristocratic slope of a snow-kissed nose before falling off to the side, a midnight-dipped thumb stretching over to caress another delicately molded cheekbone.

The vampire ended her tactile journey by thumbing a full bottom lip, memorizing and committing to memory, the feminine curvature of that soft, sweet, succulent flesh.

"How you burn me," Tara confessed, her voice hoarse with emotion as she returned to simply cupping Pam's cheek.

When pale lids lifted, it revealed eyes so iridescent a blue that Tara trembled, her energy humming into the air like the distant sound of fluttering wings.

She pressed forward, drawn in by the magnificent blue of Pam's eyes and brushed her lips fleetingly against pouting crimson ones.

Electricity crackled in the air at the intimate contact, stinging their skin and leaving both sets of full lips tingling in a manner that was somewhat disconcerting but nonetheless pleasant.

"Your beauty is an eternal flame," Tara whispered, her inflection bordering the edge of pain as she spoke against Pam's mouth, dark eyes never leaving glaucous shades of fluid blue. "Ever bright, ever burning. And I find myself yearning for you, wanting you, craving you, even as your beauty reduces my soul to ashes and my heart to dust."

"You speak as though my presence afflicts you," Pam said, her voice husky, her eyes suspiciously shiny with moisture. It caught the light from the lamppost, causing these unshed tears to glitter like stars.

"But what sweet a pain it is," Tara returned, her voice taking on a faraway quality, as though she were in the clutches of a fading dream. She let the feeling linger, let it loosen her limbs.

Then, she smiled, pulling back slightly so that she could fully see Pam's face. "Have I successfully chased away the stickier tendrils that make up the cobweb of your sorrows?"

Pam leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss to a smooth, dark cheek. "For now, yes," she whispered against cool flesh. "Thank you."

When Pam sought to press another kiss to midnight-painted skin, Tara turned her head so that the blonde's lips met hers instead. She smiled into the kiss when she felt Pam quiver and pressed down on the soft, sweet flesh, relishing the gentle puffs of warm air against her mouth and the way Pam's scent washed over her senses like the most soothing of waves.

"Time is passing us by, Princess," Tara murmured moments later, her voice drowsy with satisfaction. "It's time I get you home."

Pecking full crimson lips one last time, Tara turned and reached for her walking stick. She wrapped agile fingers around the knobby handle of faux ivory then held out an arm.

Pam curled supple fingers of snow around the crook of Tara's elbow, reached up to readjust the top hat sitting rather crookedly on the vampire's head then smiled.

"Take me home, Tara," the blonde whispered.

Tara smiled and proceeded to guide them down the fog-drenched street of spilled moonlight and distorted auric halos.

xxxxxxxx

Visibility was proving to be a scarce commodity by the time Tara dropped Pam off at her doorstep.

Fog from the sea flitted inland in maddening droves, meandering over San Francisco's prominent hills and obscuring houses until they were nothing more than misshapen, shadowy outlines against the puffs of silvery-gray whorls.

Tara batted at a bank of fog that dangled stubbornly in front of her, exasperation coloring the immortal features of her face as her flailing hand only served to stretch and merge that knot of fog with the neighboring ones.

"Odious weather," the vampire muttered, sounding less than pleased as she assisted Pam up the steps.

Pam chortled, rather amused at Tara's outward display of vexation. She reached out and lightly touched the pads of her finger to a dark cheek, immediately garnering the vampire's attention.

"Thank you for escorting me home."

Tara beamed at her, the gesture immediately melting away the annoyance the fog had previously painted across her face. She plucked the hand that was still nestled in the crook of her elbow and brought it up to her lips.

"Thank you," she returned, pressing a kiss to the back of Pam's hand. "For giving me such a privilege."

Still cradling her blonde companion's hand, Tara turned her attention to the pale pink door, dark eyes immediately wandering straight to the spot she had blooded.

Though the bloodstain had faded, seeping into the painted wood as Tara knew it eventually would, she could clearly still smell her scent against the sharper tang of paint. It seemed to vibrate through the air, carving itself a small pocket of territory in front of the door, as if it wanted to establish its rightful place on that small sliver of painted wood.

Unable to resist, the vampire pressed a hand to it, feeling acutely the barrier that prevented all uninvited vampires from entering, nudging petulantly against the pressure of her hand from behind the closed door.

It was an odd feeling, akin to putting one's hand through a viscous liquid, a liquid that hummed like a hive of bees and pushed back as though it were a live entity all on its own.

Tara let her hand fall away.

Turning, she returned dark eyes to cobalt ones, well aware that Pam had born witness to her actions.

Dusky eyes, speckled with the barest hints of cocoa dust, locked onto pure, flawless pools of vivid sapphire and for a long, quiet moment both women simply gazed at each other, hiding nothing but not revealing all.

Tara was the one to who eventually broke the powerful connection of their eyes, dark lids hooding slightly as she attempted to school the expression on her face into a more placid one.

"I had better go," she told Pam, her voice soft, fringed with the barest hints of reluctance. "I bid you a good night."

Bringing their still entwined hands up to her lips, Tara ghosted one more kiss to pale knuckles then released Pam's hand. She regarded the blonde, soaked in her wintry beauty then graced her with a fond, affectionate smile.

"Will you dream of me?" she asked the blonde, her tone quietly hopeful, her eyes only twinkling with slight cheekiness.

The corner of Pam's lips quirked at the request; it was as though she were fighting against a full-fledged smile, one that petulantly pulled at full crimson lips, desperate for compliance.

It took a few seconds but eventually, the smile won, pulling lush, succulent lips into a full, genuine upward curve as Pam's eyes twinkled somewhat bashfully at Tara.

"I have dreamed of nothing and no one else since I met you," she confessed in a hushed tone, cheeks heating slightly at the admission.

Tara grinned, leaned forward and dropped a kiss to a slightly heated cheek. "Then, I eagerly await our reunion in the landscape of your dreams," she husked into a nearby ear.

Pressing a light kiss to a pale earlobe, she murmured, "It does me good to know that I haunt your dreams with as much zeal as you haunt mine."

She grazed another kiss to the line of Pam's jaw then pulled back. Tipping her hat at Pam, she bowed deeply at the waist. "Goodnight, Pamela."

Pam watched as Tara descended the three steps, fluid grace in every amble.

Though by now, she was used to the sudden and sharp pang of loss that reverberated against her chest whenever they parted ways at the end of the night, Pam was quite unprepared for the trill of anxiety that sang a sudden deep and mournful note through her veins.

Perturbed and confused, she did what now came naturally to her.

She called out to Tara.

And Tara turned, one foot hovering over the last step in animated suspension for a scant second before it dropped back onto the second step. The vampire pivoted, dark eyes questioning and holding just a hint of worry as it wandered back up to eyes of winter-blue.

When that dark, intense stare settled on her face, Pam hesitated. Why, she wasn't quite sure but unbalanced by the odd emotions pinging through her, she steeled her nerves and asked, "Would you like..."

The blonde failed to finish her hasty and poorly crafted sentence when Tara suddenly and unexpected blurred forward, the vampire's sudden close proximity stealing the breath from her lungs and stirring the few loose tendrils of flaxen hair that framed her face.

Pam quivered slightly, her body imitating that of a plucked string when a lone finger of pure midnight pressed against the pillow-y softness of her crimson painted lips, the coolness of Tara's skin contrasting with the warmth of her own.

"Don't," Tara breathed out, her voice holding a note of caution.

Her eyes bore into Pam's, twin wells of darkness that seemed to spear right into the depths of Pam's soul.

The unrepentant strength of Tara's stare made Pam gulp and despite herself, she couldn't not react to the shiver of trepidation that scuttled down her spine.

"Don't," Tara repeated, her voice raspy, hoarse almost as Pam's intoxicating bouquet began a slow seductive caress around her senses, slowly but surely clouding her ability to think. "Don't say the words unless you truly mean it, Pamela."

The wind seemed to agree with Tara as it howled gently, stirring the fog around them until the silvery-gray fingers writhed about in the air like a nest of snakes caught in the throes of agony.

When Pam remained frozen and mute from the closeness of Tara's body, her lips tingling from the light pressure of that one lone midnight-hued finger, the vampire smiled.

It was that low, slow, burning smile that Pam only ever saw when they were alone.

The blonde kissed the finger resting against her lips, completely unable to resist. "How can you be sure I'm not ready?" she husked against that lone digit.

Tara dropped her hand, Pam's warm breath against her cool flesh addling her brain. "You hesitated, Princess," she informed her, her voice soft but not holding the inflection of a grudge. "You hesitated and it curled into the air like smoke."

When Pam opened her mouth to protest, Tara returned that one lone finger to crimson lips. "I take no offence to your wanting your privacy, Pamela. Your home is your sanctuary and so it should be." She traced the feminine line of Pam's lip; let the pad of her finger linger at the corner of the blonde's mouth. "Don't cast me as the one to storm the sanctity of your haven uninvited, Pamela. I couldn't bear it."

Dark pink lips replaced the finger pressing lightly against Pam's mouth then, both parties sighing at the sweetly intimate contact of full lips against full lips.

"You'll invite me in when and only when you are ready," Tara murmured against Pam's mouth before stealing another lingering kiss.

"Only when you're ready," she reiterated when she pulled back.

Pam nodded, a little lightheaded and more than a little breathless by her dark savior's kiss. She licked at her lips, tasting on it the residual flavors of musk, cloves and sandalwood.

"I'll say goodnight then," she announced softly.

Tara smiled. "Good night, Princess." She leaned in one last time and pressed her lips to Pam's warm, soft cheek.

"Dream of me."

TBC


A/N 2 – Chapter title and song used is Adam Brand's Dance With Me. The song is on YouTube if you want to take a listen.