A/N: This story is the sequel to my other story "Blood and Ashes," although I think it can also be read alone. If you haven't read or don't remember "Blood and Ashes" (spoiler alert!), here is the short version of the background for this story. Elena and Damon are together, and Stefan has left town on reasonably good terms with both of them. This 'verse went AU in the middle of season two (just because that's when I started working on the first story), so all of the people who died at the end of season 2 are still alive here, Jeremy doesn't see ghosts, Bonnie has never been super-powered and is still essentially a novice witch, etc. Other than that, I try to write as in-character and true to the universe of the TV show as I can. This story is M-rated for mild smut and language, but it's really not that bad by fanfiction standards ;) I'd just rather play it safe on the rating.

(I always promised myself that I would stick to posting one story at a time, but my muse has been demanding that I work on this one so I decided to also start posting it. I haven't forgotten about my other Damon story that's in progress, "Broken," and I am certainly committed to finishing both.)

Reviews are much appreciated, of course!

Chapter 1

Elena came out of the Nordstrom's dressing room with a smile on her face. She was wearing a loose, butterfly sleeve T-shirt and a ruffled mini-skirt. She grinned at Damon where he sat sprawled in a chair by the large mirror. "What do you think?" she asked.

"Too trendy," he said promptly, although he was smiling at her.

"Come on. I think it's cute."

"It is cute, but in two months, it will look like last season's trend. Stay away from trends, Elena." He shook his finger at her as she mock-pouted back at him.

"Says the guy who wears nothing but black," she retorted.

Damon shrugged. "Black is always in style. And it's my color."

Elena met the eyes of the middle-aged, slightly overweight woman who was sitting in the other chair, waiting for her daughter to come out of the dressing room. The woman was smiling at the banter between Elena and Damon, and Elena decided to try to enlist the woman on her side. She had seen the way she had looked at Damon like he was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. Which, Elena thought, he quite possibly was. If she wasn't mistaken, she thought Damon was actually a bit uncomfortable at the woman's glances. "What do you think?" she asked the woman.

"It's very cute, honey. You should buy it."

"Thank you," Elena said, watching as Damon rolled his eyes.

"Nope," he said, and Elena sighed. Shopping with Damon had been a blast. He had excellent taste, and his chair was surrounded by several large shopping bags filled with the clothes he had bought her. But apparently this outfit wasn't going to be joining her closet, and he had been getting more and more restless over the past hour. Sure enough, he looked at her with a hint of frustration in his blue eyes. "Do you have anything else in there or can we get out of here?" he asked.

Elena sighed. "This is it. I'll get changed." She turned and headed back to her dressing room, and the older woman followed her to check on her daughter. When Elena stopped at her door, the woman stopped, too.

"Are you a model, honey?" the woman asked her curiously.

Elena looked at her in shock. She thought it should be pretty obvious that she wasn't a model. She shook her head.

"Is he?" the woman asked quietly, gesturing back toward where Damon was sitting.

Now that was more than plausible, Elena thought. Damon really did look like a model, and he had the body of one, although it was reserved for her now. Elena smiled mischievously as an idea came to her. She knew Damon could hear them perfectly well. "Yes," she whispered back. "He's an underwear model. He just did a shoot for Hanes."

The woman's eyes widened, and Elena knew she was picturing Damon without his clothes on. She grinned. Let's see if anything embarrasses Damon Salvatore, she thought. She went into her dressing room to change, and she heard the woman ask her daughter something before quickly heading back out to the chairs to ogle Damon some more.

When Elena came out of the dressing room wearing her own jeans and slim-fitting t-shirt, she thought Damon might actually have been blushing at the woman's look. "Ready to go?" she asked brightly as he shot her a glare. She held up a denim mini-skirt that she had tried on earlier. "We just have this to buy."

Damon nodded, a look of relief on his face that made Elena giggle until he glared at her. She watched as he gathered up their bags, handing half of them to her. Most of the stuff was for Elena, but there was also a birthday present for Caroline, which was the whole excuse she had used to convince Damon to go shopping with her, and some black shirts and jeans that Damon had bought for himself. Elena hadn't been able to convince him to even try on anything interesting, although of course he looked good in everything he took into a dressing room. She almost giggled again when she thought of his expression when she had brought him what she thought of as the stereotypical vampire outfit – a dark red shirt, black jeans, and a black trenchcoat. Of course, Damon had flatly refused to have anything to do with that look. She did have a secret hidden at the bottom of one bag, however. She had bought him a blue shirt that she knew would look amazing with his eyes, and she was hoping that maybe he would actually wear it if it came from her.

As they left the store, Damon looked at her with a pouty expression on his face. "That was low."

Elena giggled. "She's so heading home to look for pictures of your latest photo shoot."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Thank god she won't find any. She asked me if I knew Michael Jordan."

"What did you say?"

Damon shrugged, grinning and giving her a look that said what can you do? "I said he was really tall in person." He paused. "Still, you fight dirty. Maybe I'll return some of these clothes I bought you?" She could tell by his eyes and smile that he was teasing her.

"Nuh uh," Elena said, clutching at the bags she was carrying. "These are all mine." She poked a finger into his chest. "You have torn up too many of my shirts. You owe me new ones."

He smiled at her in a way that made her melt. "Maybe we should have bought two of everything so I could tear the new stuff off of you, too?"

Elena wasn't normally big on public displays of affection, but at that moment she wanted nothing more than for him to kiss her senseless right there in the middle of the mall. To distract herself, she kept talking. "And besides, it's not like we ever have time for anything normal like shopping. Gotta buy everything now while we have the chance."

"Interesting logic," Damon said. She could see the lust behind his eyes, too. Maybe he was right that it was time to get out of there. She had to make one more stop, however.

"Speaking of torn clothes," she began and then realized that line wasn't going to calm either of them down. "One more store."

"Elena. . . ."

She gave him her best flirty look. "You'll like this one." She pointed as she took his hand, dragging him in the direction of Victoria's Secret.

Damon sighed. "Last store?" he asked, and Elena nodded. "Fine," he conceded. He let her drag him toward the pink and black entrance to the store, but Elena could see that his attention was no longer on her. He was looking around the mall, eyes sharp and alert. It was what Elena thought of as his predator-sensing-a-threat look, and she felt a chill run up her spine. Maybe Damon wasn't just tired of shopping; maybe he sensed some kind of danger. He had in fact behaved very oddly back at Nordstrom's, insisting on finding a dressing room with only one entrance before he would let her out of his sight. They had offended several clerks before Damon had approved of a dressing room. That would be just my luck, she thought grimly, for some supernatural threat to come after me at the mall. Elena shook off that line of thinking. They were well away from Mystic Falls, in a crowded mall where no one knew them, and besides things had been downright quiet for the past three weeks since Stefan had left town after she and Damon had gotten together.

•••••

Damon tried to act nonchalant as he waited outside the dressing room in Victoria's Secret, loaded down with an embarrassingly large number of shopping bags. He was mostly ignoring the blonde clerk who was flirting with him shamelessly and who had already blown off several customers to continue doing so. At another time Damon knew he would have had the blonde for sex and dinner, in that order, but right now he just wanted her to leave him alone. First, because he was with Elena now and he had no interest in random blondes anymore, and second because he was certain that the threat he'd been sensing on and off for the past two hours was somewhere in the store.

Damon scanned the store, ignoring the various lingerie displays and focusing on the customers. The blonde clerk finally seemed to have gotten the message that he wasn't interested – or maybe it was the vibe of dangerous predator that he was currently giving off – and let herself be dragged away by an overdressed older woman, and Damon was grateful for the end to her chatter. He extended his senses, trying to let his instincts guide him.

As his gaze circled the store one more time, a young woman on the far side of the store raised her eyes to meet his. Vampire, he thought with a sudden certainty. It was damned hard to identify other vampires on sight – there were no concrete clues to differentiate them from humans, especially at a distance – but there was something about this girl. In truth, she reminded him of Anna, small and pretty but with confidence born of many years of being at the top of the food chain and nearly invincible.

Dark eyes continued to match his stare, and the girl spoke in a voice so soft that even a human standing right next to her wouldn't have heard. "Damon Salvatore," she began, and Damon narrowed his eyes that she knew his name. "There's a warlock after her."

"After Elena?" Damon responded in the same impossibly low tone of voice.

"Yes. Protect her." And with those words, the strange vampire turned and left the store.

Damon cursed under his breath. He couldn't go after her because that would leave Elena exposed, but he badly wanted some answers. Who the hell was that vampire? How did she know who he was? And what did a warlock want with Elena?

With another curse, Damon turned to head into the dressing room. It was past time to leave. It took him only a second to figure out by the scent of her body and the sound of her breathing which dressing room Elena was in. The door was locked, but Damon snapped the lock easily and opened the door. Elena whirled around from where she was facing the mirror. She was wearing only a bra and her jeans, and she instinctively crossed her arms over her chest to try to cover herself. "Damon!" she exclaimed. "You can't be in here."

Damon couldn't help but smirk at her modesty. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her wearing way less than that almost every day for the past three weeks. Still the fact that she could still feel shy turned him on; it was so characteristically Elena and so unlike Katherine. "We have to leave," he said. "Now."

Elena glared at him. "Stop being impatient. I'm almost done."

Damon was vaguely aware that he was more than a little out of control, but the vampire in him was closer to the surface than usual in reaction to the encounter with the other vampire and the sudden discovery of a new threat to Elena. He moved closer to Elena, and he saw her actually take a step back.

Just then the blonde clerk appeared at the still-open door to the dressing room. "Sir, you can't be in there," she started automatically. Then she saw him. "Oh, it's you. . . "

Damon turned to her, capturing her eyes with his. "You never saw either of us," he compelled her instinctively.

The woman backed away. "I never saw you," she repeated as she closed the door.

"Damon, what are you doing?" Elena's brown eyes were worried. "What's going on? You can't just go around compelling people. . ."

Damon put his hands on either side of Elena, trapping her against the back wall of the dressing room. "There's another vampire here," he said.

"Here? In the store?"

"Yes. She told me there's a warlock after you. So we need to leave now," he repeated, trying to calm himself down.

Now Elena looked scared. "Okay," she said shakily. "Just let me get dressed."

Damon grinned down at her, feeling more like himself as he regained control. He gestured at the bra Elena was wearing. Her breathing had sped up with his dramatic entrance, and her breasts were heaving. It was hot as hell. "We're buying that, by the way," he said, doing his eye-thing.

That snapped Elena back to herself, and she shoved him in the chest. "Get out of here," she said, although he could see her fighting to keep from smiling. "I'll be right out."

•••••

Damon was almost disappointed that they had made it out of the mall without any further incidents. He desperately wanted to track down that other vampire and pin her against a wall by her throat until she told him everything she knew. He had tried to pick up her scent in Victoria's Secret, but he had no chance in a store that devoted an entire room to scented lotions and perfumes and god only knew what else. The place was practically an assault on his senses. He had a sneaking suspicion that the other vampire had planned it that way.

In reality he was more than a little worried that she had been telling him the truth. He didn't relish the idea of going up against a warlock. Damon had never much cared for magic, and he had never mastered the technique of convincing witches to do his bidding. Most recently, he couldn't even convince Bonnie Bennett of his sincerity in his relationship with Elena.

Damon shot a glance toward Elena as he gunned his car onto the freeway. She was staring silently out the window, and he wondered if she was as worried as he was. She didn't seem inclined to talk about it, and he wasn't in a particularly talkative mood either. With a sigh, Damon turned up the stereo and headed toward Mystic Falls.