Read One Night Burns (The Vampires of Livix, #1) for Free Online

slightly revealing canines that had grown with a snapping click. Sharp wicked points glinting in the waning moonlight.
    I shrieked and recoiled but he held my hand. The soft caress between his hands before had changed into a vice-like grip, trapping me, tethering me in his clutches. “Am I to die here?”
    “No!” He growled, snapping his teeth against the air like castanets. “I wanted you to know who I am.”
    He released my hand and I pulled back to the farthest I could go on the park bench. The iron of the bench armrest hurting hard into my back. I drew my legs up and held them with my arms. I stared at him trying to repress the rapid breaths heaving my breast. The pounding of my heart in my ears. He sat still. Waiting for me. “Am I safe?”
    “Yes.” The redness left his eyes. Although the receding moonlight darkened quickly. He had frozen there, not moving, not threatening. Waiting.
    “What are you waiting for?”
    “For you. I can tell you’re processing a lot of sudden, and frightening, and abhorrent news.” He turned to look over the city. I glanced too. The lights shone more brightly.
    “Aren’t you supposed to reveal your warts the second or third date?” I finally said, turning back to him. For some reason I became calm. I knew I shouldn’t. I should be running down that hill, passed the car, and along the road back to town. I would never make it but my gut told me I should be running. Get moving. Keep moving. Don’t stop until safe behind a locked door. Even if that door proved too weak to protect myself. Yet a corner of my mind found this weirdly, curiously interesting. No ghosts but vampires roam the world.
    “Usually later on. But I’m an impatient vampire.”
    There’s that word again. “You’re immortal, right? Why be impatient?”
    “I’m still new. A lot of humanness is left here,” he touched his chest. “You did something different to me after our first meeting.”
    “I did something … to you?”
    “I had to go on that business trip but I only thought of you.”
    “Hunger? Lust? Or –”
    “Like … Need,” he sat there not moving. Waiting for me. “Maybe it’s my recent turning. Something different … I looked forward to seeing you. Hoping I might find you back at the shop. I sat in meetings and my thoughts drifted to those wisps of hair hanging down by the sides of your face from the ribbons holding the rest up. The way your eyelashes curl at the corners of your eyes.”
    Why did I like this attention so? Luxuriously good like a deep kiss in the tighter corners of my mind. Being desired. Wanted. But … not … for … food .
    “Curious. About your hair. You change it every time I see you.”
    “Always have,” I put my hands up to my hair, no obvious bed-head problems. “Why? You don’t like it?”
    “No. I like it. Something about girls changing their hair style I’ve always liked. I’ve seen some women that get frozen in time. Still getting their 1980’s hair cut thirty years later.”
    “Anime.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You’ve seen it and probably didn’t know. Japanese Graphic Novel art. One of my hobbies. The style I do my hair in a lot.”
    “Cartoons?”
    “Cartoons are for kids. A lot of adults even in their 30’s and 40’s follow Anime movies and graphic novels. It’s a pretty big industry. Some draw fan art too.”
    “Do you draw it?”
    “Sometimes, in my free time.”
    “Really? That’s great!”
    I found my purse on the ground, I had carried it from the car out of habit. Why? Anyway, handy I had it and I rummaged around until I finally found one of my better gel pens with a durable premium ink. “Come here and give me your arm.”
    He slid slowly across the bench putting his arm out.
    I took the pen and pressed two dots on the top of his wrist next to the sides of his big stainless steel watch. I then eased his wrist over and undid the latch letting it fall into my lap. The heavy watch pushed my skirt down showing the definition