Corazon.

The wood was alive, teeming with creatures, all so warm and full of rich blood. A large white wolf padded easily through the undergrowth, her dark eyes drinking the night. Though the small critters hiding in the niches of the trees were enticing and deliciously warm, they did not interest her. She had fed well that night, and was now taking a leisurely stroll through the woods. With her shields completely down, a slight smirk was on her wolfish face. She dared any creature to test her Power. It had been so long since she had used it, but she knew she had to maintain it in order to survive. She had to be the best, but no one could ever know, not unless they wanted instant death.

The wolf sighed, letting out a breath of air that seemed to end in a slight disappointed whine. Nothing particularly interesting was in the Old Wood tonight.

* * *

Damon was feeling especially empty today. His curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he gave into his urges, perching himself in a convenient location to peer through the window of his little brother’s room. They were truly nauseating, Stefan and Elena. What she saw in Stefan, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he was the better brother. He was faster, stronger, and more cunning.

‘And yet, he has the girl,’ He frowned to himself. Well, as best as a crow could.

He had tried getting her out of his mind. He scoured the area for anyone who could compare – anyone with deep blue eyes and golden hair. What he found was his own dark beauty, Sophia, who was young and beautiful and as stubborn as he. He remembered seeing her for the first time, her slim waist cinched with a Ralph’s Cafe apron.

He was never really interested in coffee, but the local university coffee shop was always a choice hunting ground. He had waited until she finished her shift, and followed her home to her apartment. When the sun went down, and she had retired to her bed, he came to her window, and, smiling as if hovering in mid-air was a common occurrence, he asked if he could be invited in. Of course, he let his Influence cut into his words, just a little jab to encourage her. But she stared back at him, with eyes that seemed as dark as his, completely clear and not at all misty with his Power.

“I won’t let you in,” She told him, unmoving, calmly and quietly from the other side of the window.

Damon almost fell from the sky. No girl had ever refused him... not since Elena had. She was strong willed, perhaps even more than Elena was. That she hadn’t even folded under his Influence astounded him, but not as much as it should. Though he was strong, he only very rarely concentrated all his energies into seducing his victims. He thought he had grown too comfortable in his powers and too trusting of the malleability of the local girls.

Frowning, he muttered quietly to the girl, ‘forget tonight,’ making sure he added an extra stab of power to assert his abilities, and disappeared, heading straight for the Old Wood to ponder. He had come to the conclusion, that night, that she could be The One He tried convincing himself that he was wrong about Elena, that the jealousy he felt for Stefan, her true love, was only sibling rivalry. But he was lying to himself, and he knew it. What he needed was a woman who could take his mind off his pathetic pining, and he knew exactly who that woman, well girl, would be – Sophia.

Where Elena was light, Sophia was dark. Her hair hung almost at her hips in black ringlets, and her skin was an almost milky white when washed out by the light of the moon, though he knew that the remnant of a tan slightly coloured it, maybe from a holiday in the sun long ago. Her eyes were wide, and doe like, and framed by a forest of thick lashes.

No matter how hard he looked into the blackness of her eyes, he could never find anything, anything at all that would reveal her secret. He knew she had one – it was written all across her face, but he couldn’t pry it from her, just as he couldn’t feed from her unwillingly. Sure, he talked about tasting her blood some day, but he wanted her to want him to. He wanted... he wanted her to feel what Elena felt when feeding Stefan; a joyous rapture over nourishing someone you loved. Usually the girls he fed from were mentally blank. He couldn’t stand their idle chatter, the buzz of their brains as he drank the blood from their slender necks, so they were usually put under until he was satisfied with his meal. But Sophia was different. She was cunning, wary of him, and somehow she knew exactly what he was. Yet, she always answered when he called at her window at obscene times of the night, and she always made sure she never invited him in. Instead, she’d meet him under the old oak in the courtyard. If she were strong now, as a young mortal girl, he couldn’t imagine the possibility of her vampire power with just a little coaxing from him.

Damon was always careful not to Influence her. He wanted her completely, to capture her with his own charm and not vampire wiles. Maybe, if he could ensnare her with the same tactics he was sure many mortal boys had used on her, she could prove herself to be worthy of being his companion for the rest of eternity. She would be all his, and not because he forced her to, but because she had sacrificed her mortality for her affection for him. No longer would he feel an emptiness where his wildest delusions would lead him to think only the beautiful, and unavailable, Elena could fill. He would have his Princess of Darkness, and together they would stalk the shadows, a perfect match.

Lost in thought, Damon hadn’t realised that the soft twilight had turned into complete darkness. He knew it had gotten late, and that she would be sound asleep by the time he tapped on her window, but he had to see her. Then, he thought with surprise at the soft aching in his teeth, he would feed. Not from another girl, he promised himself he would not feed from another girl, nor would he ever after he had fed from Sophia. But seeing Elena, tangled in the sheets with Stefan, sharing soft kisses and sweet nothings, deepened his frown.

‘On tonight’s menu, a choice of woodland critter,’ He laughed to himself bitterly as he swivelled into sight of Sophia’s apartment building. He couldn’t understand how St. Stefan could ever abstain from human blood for so long; animals were a much more inferior choice.

He knocked on the window, his knuckles clicking against the glass until he saw Sophia’s figure through the sheer white curtains, then her reluctant face as she pulled those curtains aside and recognised him through eyes that were still hazy with sleep. The curtain shut again, but he could sense her shuffling about inside, and knew that she was slowly making her way down the stairwell of the apartment block, only to come out into the courtyard in a nightgown, whose decorative neckline seemed to make the ache in his mouth throb persistently.

‘If only I could take you now,’ He said to himself wistfully, and all the while he exchanged cryptic banter with her. He liked being mysterious and unpredictable, and knew it annoyed Sophia to no end. But he was just as curious about her as she was about him. So far, he barely knew anything about her, only that she lived alone in her apartment, worked at the coffee shop to pay for college, and had other jobs, as well.

She always seemed pained to be in his presence, as if giving her precious time to him was an unpleasant experience, but then she’d never not met him outside. Even though he wasn’t allowed into her apartment, he knew she couldn’t resist coming down to the courtyard.

Tonight, she was especially restless. She had touched a sore spot – Elena, and she had the gall to act as if she didn’t care at all, as if he was a pathetic creature mourning over what he can’t have. He was more than that, he convinced himself. He was Damon Salvatore, and no woman, or girl, could make him believe he was anything less than the fine specimen he was. That was what he told himself as he slipped into the night, giving Sophia the peace she wanted the most from him.

Subconsciously, he had taken himself to the Old Wood to perch himself in a branch high up in a tree. It was where he went to think, to sulk, to scheme, to rest. The Old Wood was where he found peace, and also where, lately, he found his daily source of sustenance. His Power had dwindled a little, but he’d hardly had any excuse to use it. Things had slowly settled in Fell’s Church... up until a couple of weeks ago.

It was after he had resolved to abstain from human blood, one of the first nights he had gone hunting in search of worthy prey. Whilst stalking some deer, he felt the slightest twinge of Power miles away, deeper in to the wood. It was strong, and most likely an entity drawn to the place because of the Ley Lines, and all the supernatural disturbances that had occurred months ago. The Power felt feminine, and had a bittersweet taste to it, as he scented the air some more, the deer completely forgotten. He began to hunt something else – something bigger, perhaps bigger than he was. The thought of a challenge always excited him, and a challenge and a fight, well, he imagined he’d be sleeping like a baby once he’d defeated this unknown Power that had arrived in Fell’s Church.

He tracked the Power until the lead went cold, and to his disappointment, found nothing. When he’d felt as if he were on the verge of pouncing on it, he’d sense the Power slipping from under his nose, and could almost feel it laughing at him, humiliating him. He’d never heard of such a thing, an entity who was strong enough to hide from him at will, and then mock him with the splashback of their aura. He was humiliated, and even worse, still hungry. But the hunger could wait – what was it that the Power wanted from him? Of course, he was a powerful vampire himself, he wondered if it were testing him, seeing how far he could go.

He smiled at that thought, accepting the challenge the Power had so blatantly announced between them.

Since then, he’d caught wind of the Power every now and then. Sometimes it would appear two days in a row, sometimes it would disappear for a week, but it would always come back to tease him, always when he was in the middle of a hunt in the woods. There was never any news about a powerful creature that had turned up to Fell’s Church – none of the others seemed to know about it, and it didn’t seem to be causing such a disturbance that would reveal who, or what it was. It was something big and powerful, and yet, no one had other than himself even felt so much as a hint of it. There was always the odd murder in the surrounding towns, where the victims had been drained of their blood, but those were nothing of interest to Damon. The lack of killings proved it had hardly threatened his brother’s and Elena’s way of life in Fell’s Church, proved it was relatively harmless towards humans.

He was still suspicious. It wasn’t exactly on a killing spree, but who knew? Maybe it would change its mind and slaughter a whole town at once – he knew It was capable of doing so. And what did it even want from Damon? He had done nothing but keep watch of his brother and Elena since Klaus was finished off.

He’d never even once come close to catching it, and when he thought he did, he knew very well that it was because of some fluke, or that the entity he was chasing allowed him to do so – lulling him in to a false sense of hope that he could once, and for all, capture the mysterious being.

Now, Damon could feel a pair of curious eyes focused on him. He closed his eyes, scanning very carefully, and thoroughly, the surrounding area with his other sense. The Power was achingly close, he could feel it, and it was smiling at him. Not physically, but through its aura, which seemed neither here nor there.

‘Reveal yourself now, coward,’ he projected. Though his diet of animals weakened him, he was still quite powerful. Now, he allowed that power to surge through and around him, as a warning. The smile he was feeling turned to soft laughter, which only infuriated him. ‘I am not in the mood for these games. Who are you, and what do you want with me?’

Silence.

The smiling, the laughing, was gone, and all around Damon was silence. Not a creature stirred, and those that did so, did at the risk of being blasted into oblivion by the raw, angry ball of power that Damon had transformed into. Muttering to himself, Damon scanned the horizon for movement. The animals had been scared away, and so had any possibilities for dinner.

* * *

Sitting deep in the shadows was the white wolf, her grin seeming to stretch into the darkness. She had chosen to be close to him, close enough to tease him, let him taste her Power – but made sure that the white of her fur did not betray her presence. As easily as she slipped into his senses, she slipped out of them, smiling as she did so. When she had lost all interest in the Wood, he had come, and just couldn’t walk away. The opportunity to tease was just so irresistible.

She quietly watched him, sensing him with her ordinary senses high up in the trees. After a couple moments had passed, she heard the leaves rustling, and the flapping of large wings. He had gone in an angry spurt of feathers and flapping, and was now retreating to his lair, or whatever he called it.

‘I know who you are, Damon Salvatore,’ She quietly laughed, feeling the great crow in the sky falter in its flight, surprised and most likely taken off guard. ‘Just as you know who I am.’