Ask, my dear claofna, and you shall receive! Just a little something more to whet your appetite since Chapter 1 was so short and I hope to get more people on board with this story. The next installment will be up tomorrow morning. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries, Beauty and the Beast, the characters, or their likenesses.


"Will!" Damon called out to the chilly cavernous foyer of the Salvatore Manor as the heavy oak doors slammed shut behind him. "Will!"

A young man came rushing down the stairs momentarily, yanking the collar of his shirt back into place and muttering about sleeping hours versus waking hours, and the inherent difference between the two.

"Were you sleeping?" Damon seethed as he took in the young man's disheveled appearance. This place was getting too lax. How many hearts did a man need to rip out to be obeyed? A few more, apparently.

"It is 3 in the morning, so yeah, I was sleeping," Will answered sarcastically. His eyes fell to the small figure that was cradled in Damon's arms, a young woman. It wasn't completely unusual for Damon to bring home his conquests, especially in his newbie days, but the female visitors had become more and more seldom over the years; and this wasn't just any young woman, but one who bore a striking resemblance to the ruthless siren who had cursed them to a life in the shadows. "Is she—?"

"She's human," Damon answered shortly, peering down at his prize. His dead heart did the same funny flip it had back in the woods when he first saw her. I've got to lay off the pre-hunt libations he mentally noted, not liking the new feeling.

"Fucking hell, Damon!" Will shrieked and threw his hands into the air. He began to pace wildly in front of his master, pulling on his unruly strands of hair in a frenzy. "What have you done?!"

"Watch your fucking mouth and don't forget who is in charge around here," Damon growled and instinctively pulled the girl closer to his chest. He didn't like being challenged and he was prepared to fight for what was rightfully his. Neither Will nor anyone else would force him to take the girl back to where he found her.

"You brought home a Petrova doppelganger! A human doppelganger no less!" Will cried. "You brought her into a coven of vampires with a burning hatred for the original Petrova?"

"What's your point?" Damon sneered, already knowing where his young companion was going with this. He knew he was putting the girl's life in jeopardy by bringing her home with him. The other vampires in his house wouldn't hesitate to rip her to shreds in some sick displacement of their hatred for Katerina Petrova.

"She can't be any older than 18, and you've doomed her!"

"Something could have happened to her out there!" Damon tried to justify, hoping that the full magnitude of his desperation wasn't seeping into his voice. From the moment he cradled her in his arms he knew that she was safer out there than anywhere with him but he couldn't leave her. He couldn't be without her. He had to have her.

"So you trade a 'could have' for a death sentence?"

"She belongs to me, that alone should be enough to keep her safe," he snapped with his blue eyes ablaze with fury. In spite of himself, he ran his finger gently down the girl's cheek and cocked his head to the side with a look of enchantment.

"She's a human girl, Damon, she doesn't belong to anyone," Will's voice softened at seeing his master so clearly out of sorts. Damon wasn't the sort of man to get attached. He found a scraggly orange kitten in a back alley of Paris in '64 and brought him home to nurse him back to health, swearing to everyone that it was only temporary; when Toulouse succumbed to cancer at the ripe old feline age of nineteen Damon disappeared for seven months without so much as a goodbye. That was the first, and only, time Will had ever seen Damon get close enough to anything to get hurt. "She probably has a family who is out looking for her."

"She's mine now, Will, that's the end of it," Damon mumbled as he pushed past Will towards the plush sofa in the parlor.

"Your idiot decisions are fine when it's just your life in danger, but you are endangering the whole coven by bringing her here! We could be exposed!" Will hissed, not wanting to wake the rest of the house before the situation was dealt with. "You know the town's history, the people there remember and they wouldn't waste a moment before knocking down the front gates if they knew you were stealing into the night to whisk their daughters back to you lair."

"This coven is mine and this girl is mine. I am risking nothing."

"You and your goddamn obsession," Will conceded throwing his hands in the air in defeat. "It's getting the better of you, Damon."

Damon opened his mouth to respond, but the girl shifted in his arms, drawing both his and Will's attention. Her forehead creased with a worried expression and a soft, pained moan left her slightly parted lips.

"Get her something warm to eat, a cup of tea, and blankets," Damon commanded. "Now!" Will shook his head and retreated to the kitchen muttering to himself.

Damon gently laid the girl down on the sofa in front of the fireplace. Feeling compelled to touch her again, he brushed a stray tendril of hair from her forehead. His fingertips burned from the warmth coming from her skin and he could hear her blood sing as it filed through her capillaries coloring her pale complexion a sunny olive color. His fingers lingered on the smooth skin of her cheek and he stared at her with a wonder that hadn't stirred his heart in years.

Katerina had never been this warm, or this soft; years of living on the run had hardened her features into steely seductiveness. This girl, on the other hand, was unmarred by tragedy and fear. Will was probably right; she had a family in town— a family who loved and adored her. They would come looking for her and they would try to take her away from him. He grit his teeth against the unpleasant feeling in his chest that throbbed against his ribs at the very notion of losing her.

"Owww," the girl groaned and her pink lips curled into a little pout. Her thick eyelashes shuddered as her eyelids slowly opened. Damon stopped breathing for a moment, an hour, a decade— he wasn't sure but one look into the girl's honeyed brown doe eyes and he knew he would never be the same. Despite her resemblance to the original Petrova in every other way, her eyes could not have been more different. They were a few shades lighter than Katerina's and radiated a warm glow that her vampire look-alike couldn't have mustered, even as a human. Had Damon been human he may have missed how the little golden flecks in her irises caught the light of the fire, or how beneath the naïve innocence in her gaze there was a hint of longing; longing for adventure and passion and danger.

"What happened?" she mumbled and tried to sit up, but hissed in discomfort when she craned her neck forward.

"You're going to be sore for a few days," Damon said and gently pushed her back against the plush pillows of the sofa. "You were out in the woods and you fell, I found you at the bottom of the ravine by the old Church."

"Where are we?" she asked, looking around the room. Her voice didn't tremble with fear as so many humans' did when he brought them here, but instead it vibrated with curiosity and excitement.

"The Salvatore mansion, my home."

"It's much more well appointed than the urban legends lead you to believe," she smiled and giggled at her own joke, but devolved into a fit of coughing and sniffles. It had been years since Damon was around sickness and he hadn't the slightest idea how to manage a common cold.

"Easy," Damon cooed in the most comforting voice he could rally. He heard Will enter the parlor and the clink of teacup and tray of sandwiches on the coffee table behind him. He didn't need to turn around to confirm that the sharp gaze that pierced his back was one of disapproval and anger.

"He's not real friendly, huh?" the girl commented when Will left the room without so much as a glance in her direction.

"We don't get many visitors here," Damon shrugged. "I'm Damon."

"I'm Elena," she smiled with a giggle and stretched her small hand out in greeting.

Elena.

Light.

His light.

"Is there a last name to go with that, Elena?" he smiled charmingly and kissed the back of her knuckles.

"Gilbert," Elena answered, averting her eyes from his intense gaze and blushing.

"Any relation to John Gilbert," Damon asked carefully.

"Mhmm, he's my uncle. Do you know him?"

"I do, I know John very well." Jonathan Gilbert had a reputation among Damon's kind for being a ruthless and particularly cruel hunter in his younger days. Nowadays, he was the, ironically, the chief mediator between the Coven and the Council; the Mystic Falls authority charged with placating the things that go bump in the night and preserving the hamlet's idyllic little façade. Apparently, Middle America didn't enjoy having their bake sales and garden shows interrupted with ancient blood feuds.

"He's an ass," Elena frowned.

"Apparently you also know him very well," Damon chuckled. This girl had spunk and he liked it.

"I should be getting back home," Elena smiled and struggled to stand up. "My parents will wonder where I am and probably ground me for the foreseeable future."

"Oh, my sweet Elena," Damon sang with a chilling grin. "You aren't going anywhere."

"Umm, ok, sure," Elena laughed playfully as she made her way to the front door. "Mysterious guy in a big dark house outside of town preying on girls from town, yeah… I've read this bedtime story before. Thank you for finding me, Damon. But I really should be going."

"You belong to me now, Elena," Damon said a little more forcefully, grabbing her elbow as she crept past him

"You're joking, right? Because that's ridiculous," she shrieked and pulled her arm free from his grasp.

"I'm dead serious."

"My family will come looking for me, you know? And the police! Did you even think about that Smart Guy? Caroline Forbes is my best friend, Forbes… as in Liz Forbes—the Sheriff," Elena said, crossing her arms over her chest in the most self-assured manner she could muster.

"Perhaps," Damon shrugged, "and I'll be ready when they do."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about. Now pet, amuse me," Damon growled, caging Elena against the wall with his strong arms. As quickly as she could, Elena ducked beneath his arms and took off at a sprint down the corridor.

I love it when they run


A/N: Remember, I warned you it was going to be dark Damon ;) How about making my little starving heart happy and leaving your thoughts in that snazzy box below? Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

XOXO ~Anna