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An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

DamNATION

ISBN # 9781419908439

Edited by Mary Moran.

Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication: March 2007

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written

permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-

3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales

is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

Content Advisory:

S – ENSUOUS

E – ROTIC

X – TREME

Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-

rotic), and X (X-treme).

The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been

rated E–rotic.

S- ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

E- rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall

word count. E-rated titles might contain material that some readers find objectionable—in other words,

almost anything goes, sexually. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry in terms of both sexual

language and descriptiveness in these works of literature.

X- treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Stories designated

with the letter X tend to contain difficult or controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

D AM NATION

Nathalie Gray

Chapter One

Her warm skin felt like that of a ripe peach when his fangs punctured it. Helios

clamped his mouth over the wound when the initial gush of arterial blood flowed over

the blade of his tongue, titillated its surface, contracted its muscles to release saliva, the

sweet taste and exhilarating sensations an intoxicating cocktail.

Using utmost gentleness, he extended the fingers he had around her nape and

angled her chin slightly higher. As a lover would, she moaned against his shoulder

when Helios slid his free hand down the small of her back and arched her into him so

their bodies would fit. Not perfectly but close. None of them ever fit perfectly. They

were human after all. And he was not.

Helios sucked the oxygen-rich blood in long, burning draws, followed the inherent

rhythm of her heart, which he could feel against his breast, accentuated the pressure in

her back as he felt her slumping against his belly and when she exhaled a long whisper

of a breath, he closed his eyes and waited. She did not take long. He pulled away before

her blood turned sour and smoothing her hair back from her face, he lowered her gently

to the cold ground.

He was already standing by the time the last ribbon of her life rose in the glacial air.

* * * * *

“Humanity created us to serve, protect and to obey them. To wage their greedy

wars, work in their poisonous mines. They made us pleasing to the eye so their children

would not have nightmares, tall and strong and smart so we would adapt to

environments never meant to sustain life. They keep us under their heels by hoarding

the enzyme on which we feed, ensuring we remain docile, obedient, yet poison it so we

do not become a nuisance. They played god, tampered with our genes so we would

conveniently die in our prime. Humanity manufactured the ideal servant, the model

soldier and worker. They think they have created the perfect subspecies. Disposable.

Resilient. But they made a mistake… They gave us fangs!”

A loud cheer greeted Helios’ speech. Sibilants hissed and fricatives whistled

through his fangs. Having recently fed, he felt buoyed, sharp. But not afire as he would

have expected after such a heated address. Everyone else seemed to be.

He nodded to his supporters—some of them human sympathizers but most fellow

vampires—and jumped from his perch on a cargo container along one of London’s

abandoned docks. His black greatcoat fretted when he landed twenty feet below. A

shock of pale yellow hair fell across his eyes. Another of humankind’s “gifts”, the

unnatural color of his kind’s blond hair and eyes—electric blue—so they would never

DamNATION

mistake a vampire for one of theirs. How he loathed them, these monkeys who would

be gods.

But tonight he would deal them a crushing blow. Tonight, he would cut them right

at the knees…or at the throat.

* * * * *

The sound of footsteps made her stomach churn. Dawn knew she was being

followed, had been since she’d left the office and couldn’t do a thing about it.

Should she run? She even started considering taking her heels off. Running would

admit her fear though—stoke whoever was after her. If they were. Keeping her heels

would make her slower, an easier target.

So which is more important, Eindhoven, your safety or your ego?

Dawn kept her heels clacking loudly as she set her sights on the street corner in

front of her.

Admitting to fear, to anything, wasn’t in her job description nor was it in her

personality. Dawn Eindhoven, or “Hell’s Bitch” as the staff called the CEO’s executive

assistant behind her back—a nickname chosen and proliferated by herself, thank you

very much, losers —didn’t allow such a chink in her armor.

The wet concrete proved treacherous and she slipped a couple of times. Crap. Why

did she have to take a shortcut?

The one time in her life she’d been late, her, Miss Punctuality, the one time she’d

missed the last sky-train of the night—damn that never-ending office celebration—and

some lowlife with too much free time on his hands had decided she was worth

mugging. Probably an unemployed reprobate with bad teeth. Ugh. The utmost

abhorrence in her book. Well, she’d show him a thing or two.

I don’t spend all that good money on fitness gurus for nothing. A good kick ought to give me

a head start.

Snow began to fall and hid puddles into which she unfailingly stepped. Her wet

toes numb with cold, she pushed through the rising fear and the temptation to start

running. He wouldn’t make her run. No man would ever make her run.

Overhead, the tallest buildings thrust up toward the sky like blades of crystal and

steel, and blocked the moonlight. Giant billboards, glittery and inviting purchases or

commitments, haloed adjacent structures while sky-bridges arced overhead, threads of

faraway spiderwebs. They’d always reminded her of ancient Roman aqueducts, except

ten times the height. She could even spot some of the larger orbiting factories twinkling

in the sky.

She wished she didn’t have to walk on the ground like the unfortunates and

destitute. London was practically cut in half with a part on ground level and another,

newer, richer, right on top of the old one. Officially, residents could come and go as

they pleased through the maze of sky-tubes but unofficially, only the wealthy were

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