The boy was sure the only gold that ran through his veins was the kind the vampires bled with their syringes and tubes. The boy found it difficult to believe when they were condemned to a life of grueling training, constantly pitted against one another in the hopes that they would one day emerge from the chrysalis of death to be revealed as the greatest treasure any vampire could possess: a chimera.Ĭhimeras were rare and indistinguishable from humans, so the human children collected from the farms were gathered and sifted through like sand, all in hopes of finding that one gold nugget in a million grains. Another child plucked from the blood farms, saved from a life hooked up to needles that would bleed him dry, if he wasn’t purchased by a wealthy vampire or an elf who wished to use his lifeblood for magic. He was Blue Eyes in the small brunette’s mind. He looked into the wide blue eyes that met his own, surrounded by a veil of long hair as black as his pupils. One of the guards blocking the door growled audibly and he saw the headmistress adjust her grip on the long handle of her prod.Ī hand grabbed him by the arm, pulling him back to his place in line. The boy let out a tiny whimper as the ragged edge split his skin. He’d caught his toe on a broken piece of white tile that seemed to morph into the same dimensionless space as every other clinical plane in the room. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the small brown-haired boy near the end of the line stumble. The children lined up along the wall, bare feet padding silently and eyes averted as the woman with the electric prod stood by, watching closely. Davis/Joel Abernathy Facebook group here! Sign up for the Joel Abernathy newsletter and L.C.

With thanks to my wonderful beta readers and ARC team, and special thanks to Eli for your support as a Sigma Patron! No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Burning for You by Joel Abernathy