Blood Burned (PULSE, Book 3) (PULSE Vampire Series) Read online

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  Blood Burned

  PULSE 3

  Book 3

  kailin gow

  PRAISE FOR PULSE

  I devoured this book. From the moment I received the review copy in the mail, I couldn't put it down until I was finished. Mystery and romance clouded the beginning. The vampire hunks are more than sexy, they're complex. No wonder Kalina can't choose between them. I can see Kalina as a real teenager on the brink of adulthood. Her grief for Aaron's death felt real. Then her elation in finding Stuart, someone close to Aaron, who reminded her of Aaron, felt real. Her discovery of who she is felt real. Some of the situation was comical, especially sensitive topics (Kalina trying to deal with her hormones) was handled with a sense of humor. The ending is wonderful and I would not have guessed it. Again, Ms. Gow has shown an understanding of teenage girls and some of the issues they deal with in growing up. Boys, love, sex, school, friendships, family - she covers it all. It says in my copy PULSE is Book 1 of 5. I can't wait to read the entire series.

  Naya's Girls Night Out Book Picks

  I love this book. From the beginning, you are drawn in by the imagery and the emotions, the sense of longing in the characters as they meet. Right away, there is mystery and romance. The book begins in the rain as a vampire watches Kalina run from her car to the library. There is something very romantic yet primal about Kalina's first meeting with Jaegar, her dead ex-boyfriend's half-brother. Shortly after, Kalina meets Stuart, the other brother. Both brothers are vampires, as was Kalina's ex-boyfriend Aaron. The dialogue, rivalry between brothers, plot twists, and action is so well-planned and carried out, you can visualize this as a movie. If you love young adult vampire romance books with a strong kick-butt heroine, this book series is for you.

  Teen Book Reviewer

  Loved it! Very exciting storyline, can't wait for the next one....

  Ariana, early 20s.

  Pulse is fast paced and intriguing, the story has twists at every turn and the ending leaves you open mouthed and wanting more. Kailin did a wonderful job in creating this vampire world.

  Melissa Silva, The Bookshelf

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  Blood Burned

  PULSE 3

  Book 3 of 5

  kailin gow

  Blood Burned (PULSE #3)

  Published by THE EDGE

  THE EDGE is an imprint of Sparklesoup LLC

  Copyright © 2010 Kailin Gow

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, please contact:

  THE EDGE at Sparklesoup

  P.O. Box 60834

  Irvine, CA 92602

  www.sparklesoup.com

  First Edition.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  ISBN-10: 1597489433

  ISBN-13: 978-1597489430

  DEDICATION

  This book series is dedicated to all the nameless volunteer blood donors, my doctor, and nurses at Las Colinas Medical Center in Texas who helped me pull through when I had suffered extreme blood loss, blacked out, and nearly hit my head on the floor. Your team gave me bags of blood for transfusion, which helped restore me to a level of safety.

  My body craved the blood to keep alive, yet the thought of having to receive the blood from others because my own body couldn't generate it fast enough, made me empathize with vampires like Jaegar and Stuart.

  When faced with death by blood loss, you realize how precious that blood in your veins and that beat in your heart are. Thank you blood donors around the world for providing this pulse for me and everyone who may at one point or another require your gift.

  Sincerely,

  Kailin

  Prologue

  Kalina screamed. Every wound in her body - recently healed but still sore where Mal had thrust in those needles, one by one – began to scream too, in an agony that doubled her over and forced her to swallow down her tears.

  Jaegar, no!

  This wasn't happening, she tried to tell herself, forcing herself to breathe as normally as possible. This wasn't real. But through the connection she and Jaegar had forged, she could see all that Jaegar saw, feel that all that Jaegar felt. She saw Aaron, strapped down to a table next to Jaegar – his eyes wide with terror and rage. She began to shudder, uncontrollably, as she saw Jaegar begin to froth at the mouth and tremble, as Mal began to inject him with the entire contents of a vial of Kalina's blood.

  Kalina knew what would happen next. She had been warned many times of the danger, of what was destined to happen if a vampire drank Kalina's blood without receiving the gift of her love, if the blood was taken unwillingly, if... Stuart had warned
her, once, in a time that seemed like decades or centuries ago, that it was better for Kalina to attempt suicide than it was for her to allow any vampire to drink down droplets of her blood. It would make any drinker of the Life’s Blood into the most powerful creature imaginable – and the most dangerous. The vampire would be invincible – for a time, even entirely immortal – his limbs refusing to cede to even the harshest silver or stake, his skin unpierced, his eyes still shining with cruelty. But worse still, the drinker would grow mad. The power of Life’s Blood was too strong for any vampire to handle except the one that the carrier had designated her true love – it would overwhelm the senses, overwhelm the mind, overwhelm any hint of rationality or reason, replacing it instead with cruelty and chaos.

  And now it was happening to Jaegar.

  He had promised to love her, always. He had promised to protect her. He had nearly given his life for her on so many occasions, fighting off so many vampires that had come in search of Kalina's blood – camps of individual bounty hunters, enemies of the orderly Consortium, and now at last Mal himself. And he had at last been caught, at last surrendered.

  Maybe...Kalina closed her eyes, refusing to let the tears spill out. Maybe Jaegar would be strong enough to resist the pull of her blood, strong enough to keep his mind intact. Maybe it would be possible – because he loved her, because he had promised to love her...

  She flashed back to the moments they had shared together. She remembered him when they first met, their angry, flirtatious banter, the way she had smiled so sweetly as she teased him, the way he had affected innocence after using compulsion to get close enough to kiss her. The way they had trade barbed insults hiding only the softest of feelings, the sweetest of compliments. And they at last had succumbed to their feelings that one night in the Sunrise Motel, coming closer, ever closer, to what their bodies told them they wanted, they needed more than anything...

  And then Octavius had come into the picture, had clouded everything. He had stolen her heart, and with it any chance that she could love Jaegar as truly as he needed to be loved in order for the spell to work for him, in order to turn Jaegar human. Kalina had moved on – she knew – and yet she had continued to care for Jaegar so deeply, so strongly, that their minds were connected in telepathy after their exchange of blood. She had drunk from him; now she could feel his thoughts.

  And she felt within herself what it was Jaegar felt, his thoughts spilling over into her, his mind coming alive within her own. She felt the cold needle prying into her own arm, puncturing her own flesh. She felt her blood slowly simmering into the veins – she felt the taste of it, which began with a delicious shudder in the vein and then somehow echoed itself on the tongue – the hot, sweet taste of her own blood, like elderflower and vanilla, like honeysuckle and sandalwood, a perfume that intoxicated her even as she resisted the taste, the sense, the smell, even as she told herself that this was wrong – disgusting...no, it wasn't her thoughts at all. It was Jaegar whom she sensed within her soul, it was Jaegar's fear, his desire; it was Jaegar who relished the delectable sensation of her blood filling his veins, his nose, his mouth, his throat, overwhelmed by the flavor and the texture of the delicacy.

  The desire took over his senses. The darkness clouded this mind, sank into every pore of his body, turning his thoughts ugly like the hideous monster he was to be. This was what he had been waiting for. This is what he had always wanted. He had forced himself to stop – out of respect for Kalina, out of a desire to be chosen, to be made human – and yet as the blood flowed into him he knew with a certainty deeper than death that he had wanted nothing more than this particular sensation, this particular overflow of desire.

  Kalina felt his thoughts running through her, sparking to her brainwaves as if they were her own.

  The blood filled him with delight, with a love unbounded by restraint. He loved the blood, loved its strength, its power. Almost as much as he had loved Kalina. How he had wanted her – in those days when he had been good enough to respect her, to wait! How he had longed for her – how he had forced his fangs to remain behind his lips, when he wanted nothing more than to sink them deep into the milky whiteness of her throat! How he had longed to force her down onto a satin bed and do to her what he had done to so many women in the day – so many women who would never think to refuse him, from whom he could gulp down cupfuls of pleasure, who would in return thank him for showing them sensations they had never heretofore known.

  And Kalina had refused him! Moreover – she had mocked him, offering herself to him only when it was too late, when it was clear that she did not want him, but was only using him as a mediocre substitute for Octavius, who had broken her heart. Jaegar had only ever been a poor second choice for her, a meager substitute for Octavius and his centuries of experience, of wisdom, of skill in the arts of sensuality.

  Kalina could feel Jaegar's anger prickle and then burn at this thought.

  How dare she! How dare she! She felt him shudder. That silly girl – that idiotic jejune twit – had dared to refuse him! Jaegar! Who had conquered the hearts and limbs and loins of girls for over seven hundred years! And he had been such a fool, hadn't he? Fool enough to play the gentleman, to wait for her to consent, to wait for her to submit. When what he had always wanted was right there in front of him, for him to take, for him to pluck! How easy it would have been to grab hold of her wrists, to force her down to her knees before him, to pull her hair back and expose the snowy nakedness at her neck, to break that delicate skin with the full force of his fangs!

  And yet he had held back!

  No, Jaegar, Kalina pleaded, you're stronger than this! Please, I know you are! You're too strong – please be stronger than this! Don't let this darkness...

  But it was no use. Jaegar could not hear her. He only lay upon the dank, sterile chair, struggling against his bonds, as he felt the familiar effects of Life’s Blood at last overtake him. His heart began to pump blood again, the dead, black blood clotted in his heart at last moving through him. He began to breathe – his chest heaving for the first time in seven hundred years. Air was cool and fresh to him – it was like a drink of water for which he had been parched for so long that the agonizing need had become habitual to him, a native part of his existence. He felt the world around him in a new light, a new way – the air was something he could breathe, partake in. Excitement made his heartbeat grow faster – and faster and faster until he thought it would speed up like a spinning top into a blur of nothingness. He grew warm – not just the pale anemic warmth he experienced when feeding on a human's blood, but a proper warmth that gave color to his cheeks and to his extremities.

  And then Jaegar stopped.

  Could it be – was he a human?

  Could it be that Kalina had really loved him, all this time – even through Octavius, even through Stuart and Aaron – loved him enough to have turned him human from this distance, even in this condition? The thought of Kalina loving him, choosing him, made his heart soar for a brief moment. It was a happiness he thought he would never feel.

  “No!” Aaron was shouting, over and over again, but Jaegar drowned out the sound. “No!”

  Mal was standing over him, a proud and triumphant expression stern on his face. In a single, smooth motion, he cut down Jaegar's bonds, and slinked out – vanishing into the ether.

  Was he free? Was he human? Jaegar began to twitch his fingers – feeling the strange sensation of blood complicating the reflexes of his muscles. He stood, staggering at first, until strength returned to him fully. He walked over to the window, where it was boarded up, and instinctively – without thinking – tore the boards from the window.

  Aaron screamed as sunlight flooded the room, pouring over Jaegar in a burning frenzy.

  But it did not touch him.

  It did not kill him. It did not even, as it had done when Jaegar wore one of the Life’s Blood rings, pain him – a pain like a slow and throbbing eternal sunburn, the pain he had learned to get used to in order to
live among humans, during the day. This was entirely natural.

  Could it be? Was he human? Had Kalina loved him that much? Did he dare to hope?

  There was only one way to find out. Jaegar's eyes scanned the room quickly, until at last Jaegar had found what he was looking for.

  He took a rusty nail and, wincing, drew it across his palm. A streak of blood appeared there, flowing loosely out of the wound.

  And then it stopped.

  The blood vanished; the wound healed – the slender incision vanishing into a sea of flesh.

  He was not human. Kalina had not loved him. After all he had done for the bitch, after all he had sacrificed for her – after all he had given up – she had still not loved him! She had still maintained the audacity to refuse him!

  He grimaced, a cold grimace that turned into the smile.

  Next time, he thought. Next time he would drain the bitch dry.

  Next time he would show no mercy.