Magic Graves by authors_sort Read Free Book Online

the greatest vampire legend of all-but whatever you do, don't call him Dracula. Vlad's ability to control fire makes him one of the most feared vampires in existence, but his enemies have found a new weapon against him - a beautiful mortal with powers to match his own. When Vlad and Leila meet, however, passion ignites between them, threatening to consume them both. It will take everything that they are to stop an enemy intent on bringing them down in flames.
    Note: This excerpt does not include the entire beginning of ONCE BURNED, so it does not start at chapter one. Since this has not been through final editing yet, portions of the excerpt may change slightly from the published version.

ONCE BURNED excerpt

    I faced my captors in what looked to be a hotel room, my hands folded in my lap as if I was placing a dinner order and they were waiters. If you ever meet another vampire, don't panic. You'll only smell like prey, Marty had warned me. I knew what my captors were after seeing their eyes turn glowing green. That was why I didn't bother lying when they asked me how I doubled as an electric eel and had the ability to siphon information through touch. If I lied, they'd only use the power in their gaze to make me tell the truth - or do whatever else they wanted - and I didn't want to give them any more control over me than they already had.
    I also didn't try to run even though they hadn't tied me up. Most people didn't know vampires existed, let alone what they could do, but because of my ability to pick up information through touch, I'd known about vampires since before I met Marty. My abilities meant I knew all sorts of things I wished I didn't.
    Like the fact that my captors had every intention of killing me; that topped the list of things I wished I didn't know at the moment. I'd seen my death after being forced to touch the auburn-haired vampire again, and it was an image that made me want to clutch my neck while backing away screaming.
    I didn't. Guess I should be grateful that my unwanted abilities meant I'd experienced so many horrible deaths; I could look at my impending execution with a morbid sort of relief. Getting my throat ripped out would hurt - I'd relived that through other people enough times to know - but it wasn't the worst way to die. Besides, nothing was set in stone. I'd seen a glimpse of my possible future, but I'd managed to prevent Jackie's murder. Maybe I could find a way to prevent my own.
    "So let me get this straight," Auburn Hair said, drawing the words out. "You touched a downed power line when you were thirteen, nearly died, and then later, your body began giving off electric voltage and your right hand divined psychic impressions from whatever you touched?"
    More had happened, but it wasn't information I wanted to reveal and he wouldn't care about those details anyway.
    "You experienced the voltage part yourself," I said with a shrug. "As for the other, yeah, if I touch something, I get impressions off it." Whether I want to or not, I silently added.
    He smiled then, his gaze roving over the thin, jagged scar that was the visible remains of my brush with death. "What did you see when you touched me?"
    "Past or future?" I asked, grimacing at either memory.
    He exchanged an interested look with his buddies. "Both."
    How I would love to lie, but I didn't need psychometric abilities to know if they doubted me, I'd be dead in moments.
    "You like eating children." The words made bile rise in my throat that I swallowed before continuing. "And you're intending to drink me to death if I don't prove useful to you."
    His smile widened, showing the tips of his fangs as he didn't deny either charge. If I hadn't seen similar menacing, fanged grins through the eyes of people I'd been psychically linked to, I would have been pants-pissing terrified, but a jaded part of me simply acknowledged him for what he was: evil. And I was no stranger to evil, much as I wished otherwise.
    "If she's the real deal like