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LENGTH: Long Novella
SENSUALITY: Carnal

Cover art (c) Amber Moon 2004
ISBN 1-58608-313-9
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When vampire Dmitri Leonid and his clan return to their home planet after a 300-year exile, they are met with the same hostility and hatred that had driven them away. But if they wish to endure, if Earth is to survive an eternally deadly threat, they must help humanity to fight off the all-powerful, galaxy-conquering Carpathian clan. But Dmitri has more to worry about than the Carpathians. His reincarnated lifemate, Tanya, is now the feisty Zanna, suspicious commander of Earth’s unified defenses, and she’s painted him as Earth’s arch enemy. Through astral projection and time-travel, Dmitri seeks to prove to Zanna he is the hero, in particular her hero, not the enemy.

Rating: Contains graphic sex, explicit language, and violence.

ETERNAL DAMNATION

By

Ashley Ladd

© copyright December 2004, Ashley Ladd
Cover Art by Amber Moon, © copyright December 2004
ISBN 1-58608-313-9
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

Blood.

Not just any blood but gloriously delectable, verdant blood. Billions of strongly pumping vessels lured ‘The Lion’, vampire king Dmitri Leonid. No planet in the galaxy manufactured pure, undiluted blood like the inhabitants of Earth. How he had ached for her bounty.

Sensing the harvest even across space, his gums prickled.

"Blessed be. Our 300-year fast is almost at an end," Sacha, the ship’s second-in-command said, renewed energy resonating in his voice.

Dmitri ran the tip of his tongue over his tingling gums, tracing the edges of the fangs that just broke through the surface. "It’s been an eternity, for sure." And not just to taste the luscious nourishment again, but for a much more important kind of nourishment….

Laser fire slashed through the sky rocking the ancient, barely space worthy ship, knocking him sideways into the control panel. Dmitri cursed the Goddess who was supposed to be their protectress but who hadn’t favored them for the past three centuries. He caught and righted himself and then shook his fist high in the air at his arch enemy’s star ship which closed in on them with preternatural speed.

"Shields! Weapons report." Dmitri whirled around to ensure his head security officer heard him and launched an effective counter attack. How he ached to call for reinforcements. Back in the Carpathian Wars more than four hundred years prior, they had numbered in the legions. Now their entire clan consisted of less than three-hundred vampires that manned two rag-tag star ships. Their enemies piloted at least fifty A-class ships, their soul chilling purpose, to conquer the galaxy. Their numbers grew by the day as they assimilated the humanoid races with whom they came into contact. But their main objective remained Earth, their home planet who had kicked them off world almost five centuries before. Now all-powerful, the Carpathians were ready to return and conquer the gem of the universe.

Although raw that his home world had exiled him, Dmitri preferred to quietly slip back and mingle among the unsuspecting humans, not blaze in and destroy the lush planet unlike any other they had encountered in their centuries-long pilgrimage. Lushly green Earth was a treasure to be cosseted and cherished, not ravaged. Not to mention a much more personal agenda….

When a plasma ball hurled at them, Dmitri gritted his teeth as he clutched the captain’s helm. "Hard astern!" His forehead creased and his gums tingled heralding the protrusion of his fangs. Adrenaline pumped fast and furious through his veins and his fingers itched to strangle the captain of the malevolent ship with his bare hands.

Mere seconds later, Dmitri was flung to the floor. When Sacha maneuvered the bulky ship hard astern, his head crashed against a bulkhead.

When he regained his senses, something wet and sticky flowed down his cheek. He touched his undead flesh gingerly, and lifted back bloody fingers. He licked them and closed his eyes in ecstasy. Excruciating torture.

His crew also wrinkled their noses and sniffed. Those whose fangs hadn’t already protruded as they neared Earth, erupted now.

Cursing his stupidity, knowing they couldn’t rein in their blood lust any more than he could stop his own. Fresh blood drew out their predatory instinct and it would be suicide to remain in their midst with a raw seeping wound. Quickly he swiped at the blood and gauged its flow as he rose to his full height, and hissed, "Number One take command and take us to safety. I’ll be in hospital chambers." He blinked to the sanctity of his quarters and raised the shields.

Blood was in desperately short supply and had been since leaving their true donors on Earth. Diluted humanoid blood from their adoptive planets had drained their former virility. Hopefully coming home to Earth would return them to their former health and strength. They had to be careful not to damage the populace and make it necessary for the humans to drive them away again or all hope would be lost.

If their rival clan didn’t annihilate them--or Earth--first. Damn!

When his flesh had healed itself, he lowered the shield and marched to the elevator. Precious little exercise was to be had out in space and thus he shunned astral projecting and shape-shifting into winged creatures to walk whenever he could so his muscles wouldn’t atrophy.

Red alert sirens split the air a second before blaring lights strafed across the dimly lit corridor and Sacha’s voice blared overhead, "Red alert. Enemy intruders have boarded the vessel. The humans are armed and dangerous."

He froze in place.

Humans? Not the Carpathians?

Having only just arrived in orbit around the planet they hadn’t had time to perform reconnaissance. After so many centuries, the humans could have created weapons deadly to vampires. The Carpathians had grown complacent after conquering so many worlds, but their arrogance could be their doom. Humans had always been the most resilient, most creative foe. Perhaps Nikolai’s memory had grown rusty. Dmitri snarled. It was more likely that Nikolai felt himself invincible. Having life after death often did that to a being.

A platoon of human warriors materialized before Dmitri, blocking his path. Before he could blink away, the warrior woman who led the band of soldiers raised her weapon at his heart.

Shockwaves hit him full force making him freeze. Dumbfounded, he was unable to stop staring.

Tanya….

Pulling himself up short, he stared at his reincarnated lifemate. "Tanya," he whispered on a wisp of air that tickled his lips. Although he had longed for this moment, he hadn’t envisioned their reunion to be so quick upon his return--or so deadly.

Tanya’s warlike stare didn’t waver, just sliced through him. No flash of recognition flickered across their golden honeyed depths.

He drank in the vision he had feared never to gaze upon again. Although his great height eclipsed most females of his species, this statuesque beauty nearly stared him in the eye. Spiky, silvery hair was shorn short in a militaristic fashion, totally opposite her long-flowing feminine style that she had preferred in her last lifetime.

Brave but not stupid, he tried to diffuse the hostility brimming in the air. The weapon in her hand was unlike any he’d seen on other worlds and unlike the Earth guns of old. Even vampires could die if disintegrated by laser blasts and this could be some form of laser gun or other equally lethal weapon. Or at least their atoms would float disconnected in space through eternity so they may as well be dead.

Nor could he lose her again, not after traveling across oceans of time and space to find her. He would not risk her trust--her love--by harming her people.

Speaking slowly and carefully, he hoped the humans of this century still spoke one of the ancient languages with which he was acquainted. Absent were the accouterments of twenty-first century Earth, the last century he had inhabited this world. Nothing labeled this band of soldiers as European, American, or Asiatic. He would be amazed if the same governments and boundaries existed, if any of his contemporaries’ ways were still practiced. "We come in peace. We’re friends." He held up his empty hands slowly so as not to provoke the soldiers. "We mean you no harm. We pose no threat."

More beast than soldier, the feral beauty snarled at him. She narrowed her darkening eyes at his mouth so that he could smell her menace. "Then what are those?" Venom dripped from her final word.

Too late he remembered his protruding fangs. Glancing down cross-eyed at himself, he retracted them.

"You’re a vampire," she hissed recoiling. "Our ancestors banished your kind centuries ago. They permitted you to live with the proviso that you never return. Now you bring your wars and bloodlust back into our space. That does not constitute an act of friendship."

He bowed regally with a sweeping gesture. Yearning for his succubus assailed him and it took every ounce of his willpower not to take her in his arms and taste of her again. Her lethal blade and loyal troops told him he dare not. Yet. She would have to be wooed carefully and turned if they were to stop this painful cycle of reunion, re-acquaintance, and separation. "Do you not remember me, my love? I have never forgotten you."

She stared at him as if he had lost his mind and he wondered if perhaps he had. But no, he was not mistaken about her true identity. He would know his life mate--his soul mate--even if she had been reincarnated in a male frame. "I know no vampires. None of your kind has been on my world since long before my birth."

He would not press the issue at the point of her blade. Later, when she could not impale, disintegrate him, or slice off his head, he would get his opportunity to awaken their eternal love.

"Our clan is neutral in the war. Nikolai’s clan launched a surprise attack."

Tanya’s eyes narrowed more, barely slits above her high cheek bones. "We know no Nikolai. State your purpose here, vampire." Her finger twitched on her lethal weapon. Obviously humans had reverted to their warlike natures. No one in the band confronting him looked like a computer geek. Any one of them would make a formidable foe. The soldiers resembled Valkyries, not the soldiers and mercenaries of the twenty-first century. Perhaps humans had evolved--or devolved. It was too early to tell.

He didn’t feel it wise to admit to sneaking back like a thief to a world that feared and despised his kind. "We were sucked into a vortex and transported from the far side of the galaxy. We were trying to return to our space when our enemy’s ship engaged us in combat."

"Try again and this time, no more lies." The ice that seemed to frost Tanya’s heart misted her breath. It formed ice crystals on his own as well. It would take much to melt the ice around her heart and find the woman beneath the soldier, but he resolved to do so.

He would bet that the truth would earn him a blade to a vital organ. Death came on swift wings to those who underestimated their enemies. His mind raced for a plausible rationale. "Nikolai’s ships have convened on Earth. They are the enemy, not us. We could not leave you defenseless."

Tanya quirked her brow. Gripping her weapon tighter, she jerked it toward his face. "I see no difference. Both fleets are attempting to invade Earth. None of you are welcome."

The humans had not forgotten their grudge. Nothing had changed for the better.

Fall back. Regroup.

Protective instincts kicked in and his muscles corded. With a growl, he thinned himself on the air, sprouting the wings of a raven, and soared toward safety.

Laser blasts nearly missed him, but fractured his ship.

"Project out, Sire!" Sacha’s voice reverberated in his head.

A small security squad materialized behind the human leader, ready to grab her. As they were about to crush the silvery leader, she and her warriors disintegrated into a sparkling mist.

Dmitri did a double-take. Interesting.

So now the humans could project and they had vastly improved weaponry. He suspected they would prove most formidable adversaries.

He cursed Nikolai’s band of blundering pirates. It would have been much easier to slip back unannounced.