And she doesn't pull away.
I feel her love. Not words, but something deeper. A truth that resonates through the bond like a bell being struck. I love all of it. Even the broken parts. Especially the broken parts.
Then I feel something else. Something strange, tangled in her blood where Konstantin's modifications live. The bond is touching it, wrapping around it, and I feel the shape of what he built into her. The trigger. The kill switch. It's there, buried deep, waiting for a signal that would turn her into a weapon.
The bond doesn't destroy it. But it does something else.
It anchors her. Wraps around the core of who she is and holds on. Whatever command Konstantin sends, it will have to go through me now. Through us. Through this connection that neither of us fully understands.
It's not a cure. But it's a shield.
Then I feel something else entirely. A burning sensationspreading across my chest, directly over my heart. Not painful. Warm. Insistent. Like something being written into my skin.
Celeste gasps against my wrist, and I know she feels it too. Her free hand claws at the fabric over her heart.
"What..." She pulls back just enough to look down at herself, tugging her torn shirt aside. Her eyes go wide.
A shape is forming on my chest. Deep crimson, the color of blood, etching itself into my skin like something being branded by invisible fire. A crescent moon, curving elegantly across my heart.
Through the bond, I feel Celeste's shock as she watches the same thing happen to her. The same mark, forming over her heart. A mirror image of mine.
What is this?
But even as I think the question, I know the answer. The bond isn't just internal anymore. It's marked us. Claimed us. Made us visible to each other in a way that can never be hidden or denied.
I seal the bite at her throat, and she releases my wrist. The blood exchange is complete. The bond is formed.
For a long moment, we just breathe. Her in my arms, both of us trembling with the aftermath of what we've done.
Then I feel it.
A flutter in my chest. Faint at first. So faint I think I'm imagining it.
But it comes again. And again. Steady. Rhythmic.
Impossible.
"Maximus." Celeste's voice is barely a whisper. Her hand presses against my chest, right over the place where the sensation is coming from. Right over the new crimson mark. "Do you feel that?"
I do. I feel it in my chest, and I feel it in hers, through the bond. Two flutters, perfectlysynchronized.
"That's not possible," I say. "Vampires don't have..."
"Heartbeats." She finishes the word for me, wonder in her voice. Her hand moves to her own chest, pressing against the space beneath the ring I gave her, against her own new mark. "But I feel it. I feel yours. And mine. They're..."
"The same." I cover her hand with mine, pressing it harder against her chest. Beneath our joined hands, I feel it. The impossible rhythm. A heartbeat. Her heartbeat. Matching mine perfectly.
"How?" she breathes.
"I don't know." And I don't. In six hundred years, I've never heard of anything like this. Blood bonds are powerful, but they don't give vampires heartbeats. Nothing does. We're technically dead. Our hearts don't beat.
Except now they do.
"Maximus." Celeste's voice is strange. Wondering. "Your chest. The mark."
I look down again at the crimson design. In the dim light, it seems to pulse faintly, glowing with a soft luminescence that matches the rhythm of our shared heartbeat.
"You have one too," I say.
