The wound wasn't healing.

  Elena checked Viktor's shoulder again, carefully peeling back the bloodied bandage. The gash had turned an unnatural bckish-purple at the edges, with thin dark lines spreading outward like tree roots beneath his pale skin. She pressed her lips together, concern etching deeper lines in her forehead.

  Elena checked Viktor's shoulder again, carefully peeling back the bloodied bandage. The gash had turned an unnatural bckish-purple at the edges, with thin dark lines spreading outward like tree roots beneath his pale skin. She pressed her lips together, concern etching deeper lines in her forehead.

  Using a clean cloth, she wiped away the seeping fluid from the wound. Its color and consistency were unlike anything she'd seen before—not quite blood, not quite pus, but something in between with an iridescent quality that caught the dim light.

  "What was in the weapon?" she asked, keeping her voice steady despite her growing arm.

  Viktor's eyes closed as he concentrated. "Silver... particute. Suspended in a... catalyst compound. Designed to... spread through our system." He winced as she probed the wound. "Disrupts cellur regeneration... our primary advantage."

  Elena sat back on her heels, processing this information. She'd been applying basic first aid principles for days, not understanding why he wasn't improving. If anything, he'd gotten worse—much worse.

  "Is there an antidote?" she asked, already suspecting the answer.

  He shook his head slightly, then seemed to regret the movement. "Fresh blood... can sometimes counteract it. Provides... raw materials for... regeneration." His voice grew fainter. "But I'll manage."

  _*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">Elena wasn't a vampire expert, but she'd been paying attention these past weeks. Viktor had been carefully rationing the animal blood they'd collected. It had never seemed to provide him much strength, but he'd insisted it was sufficient. Now, watching the dark lines spread from his wound, she understood it wasn't nearly enough.

  A cold calcution formed in her mind, the immunologist in her taking over. "You need human blood."

  Viktor's eyes snapped open, suddenly focused. "No." The single sylble carried surprising force given his weakened state.

  "It's the logical solution," Elena continued, her scientific mind already weighing variables. "My blood specifically might help more than random human blood, given what we've learned."

  "Absolutely not." Viktor tried to push himself up and failed, colpsing back with a grimace. "Too dangerous."

  "For whom?" Elena challenged. "Me or you?"

  "Both." His jaw clenched. "I haven't... fed directly from a human since my transformation. I don't know if I can... control it."

  Elena began rolling up her sleeve methodically. "Then we create controls. We make it a procedure, not a feeding." She reached for her pack again, retrieving a length of rubber tubing she'd salvaged from the boratory. "I can make a tourniquet. We'll time it. Set clear limits."

  Viktor watched her with an expression somewhere between fear and hunger that made something twist inside her chest. "Elena, you don't understand what you're offering."

  "I understand that you're dying from a specialized weapon designed to kill your kind," she said bluntly. "And I understand that my blood has unique properties we've only begun to analyze." She met his gaze steadily. "This isn't sentiment. It's science."

  The lie hung between them, not entirely convincing to either of them.

  Viktor closed his eyes again, his face tight with internal struggle. "If I lose control—"

  "You won't," Elena interrupted. "You're too stubborn." She tied the tubing around her upper arm, creating a makeshift tourniquet. "Besides, I keep a stake under my pillow."

  His eyes opened again, a flicker of his usual dry humor surfacing. "That's... not as reassuring as you might think."

  Elena pulled her small notebook from her pocket. "I'm going to document this. Heart rate before and after, wound progression, your physical response." Her clinical approach was as much for her own benefit as his—a way to frame this intimate act as a medical procedure, to maintain some emotional distance.

  Viktor watched her preparations, his expression growing more troubled as the reality of what she proposed sank in.

  "Elena," he said softly, "blood sharing for our kind isn't just... nutrition. It's..." He struggled for words. "Intimate. I'll experience more than just the physical substance."

  She paused in her preparations, a pen hovering over her notebook. "What do you mean?"

  "Emotions. Sensory memories. It's one reason vampires prefer direct feeding to stored blood." His voice was barely audible now. "I'll... sense things from you. And there might be... effects afterward. A connection."

  Elena absorbed this information, adding it to her notes with a slightly unsteady hand. "That's valuable data," she said finally, her scientific curiosity genuinely piqued despite the circumstances. "All the more reason to document this properly."

  A faint smile touched his lips. "Always the researcher."

  "Better than being the test subject." She finished tightening the tourniquet and moved closer to him. "I'm setting my watch for thirty seconds. Not a second more."

  Viktor's breathing had become more bored, whether from pain or anticipation she couldn't tell. "Your wrist," he whispered. "Not your neck. Wrist has... smaller vessels. More control."

  Elena nodded, extending her arm toward him. She could see her pulse fluttering at her wrist, quickening with a complicated mix of fear and determination. Viktor's eyes fixed on the movement, his pupils diting until they nearly swallowed the iris.

  "Thirty seconds," she repeated firmly.

  With visible effort, Viktor raised a trembling hand to take her wrist. His touch was cool against her skin, his fingers positioning her arm with unexpected gentleness. She was struck by the care in his movements, even in his desperate state.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered, and then his mouth was on her wrist.

  Elena had expected pain—a sharp bite, tearing sensation, something to match the violent images she'd carried of vampire attacks. Instead, there was just a brief sting, quickly repced by an odd warmth that spread up her arm. She found herself cataloging sensations with scientific detachment: accelerated pulse, slight dizziness, a curious tingling where his lips met her skin.

  For Viktor, the experience was overwhelming. Elena's blood flooded his system like liquid fire, so different from the weak animal blood he'd been subsisting on. With it came fshes of sensation—her nervousness, her curiosity, fragments of her memories tangled with the taste of her. He struggled to maintain control, to take only small, measured swallows despite every instinct screaming for more.

  The thirty seconds seemed simultaneously endless and instantaneous. Elena's watch beeped, and Viktor immediately pulled away, though it took visible effort. A drop of blood—her blood—glistened on his lower lip before he wiped it away with shaking fingers.

  The effect on him was immediate and dramatic. Color returned to his face, and his back straightened as new strength flowed through him. The gssiness in his eyes cleared, repced by a sharp crity she hadn't seen since they'd met. He looked more present, more vital—more human, ironically, than he had in weeks.

  "Your wound," Elena said, pressing a gauze pad to her wrist with her free hand.

  Viktor pulled away the bandage on his shoulder. The bckish lines were already receding, the wound's edges turning from necrotic bck to a healthier pink before their eyes.

  "Remarkable," he murmured, his voice stronger. "The progression has not only stopped but reversed."

  Elena reached for her notebook, jotting observations with scientific precision, trying to ignore the strange intimacy that lingered between them. "How do you feel?"

  "Everything is... sharper." Viktor's gaze moved around their shelter as if seeing it for the first time. "Colors. Sounds. Thoughts." His eyes returned to her with an intensity that made her breath catch. "I can still sense you. Your skepticism. Your curiosity." A faint smile. "Your discomfort with me knowing these things."

  Elena felt heat rise to her face. "That's... disconcerting."

  "Yes." His smile faded. "I warned you there would be a connection."

  She focused on untying the tourniquet, buying time to compose herself. "Is it permanent?"

  "No. It will fade, mostly. Though never completely, I think." He touched his healing wound gingerly. "Thank you. I know what this cost you."

  "It was the logical solution," Elena insisted, retreating to the comfort of scientific rationality.

  Viktor didn't challenge the statement, but something in his expression told her he wasn't entirely convinced. Neither was she.

  She checked her pulse again, noting it in her book. "We should document the healing progression hourly. And track any... connection effects." Her voice remained steady, professional. "This could have significant implications for our understanding of vampire physiology."

  "Always the scientist," Viktor said softly, but there was no mockery in his tone—only a strange tenderness that made her look away.

  They spent the next hour in a careful dance of observation and documentation. Elena checked his wound, measuring the receding infection with precise notes. Viktor tested his returning strength, cataloging improvements with the methodical approach of a fellow researcher. Neither mentioned the lingering awareness between them—the sense that something fundamental had shifted, a boundary crossed that couldn't be uncrossed.

  As night fell, Elena found herself watching Viktor move around their shelter with renewed vigor, the graceful efficiency of his movements both familiar and suddenly strange. She caught herself wondering which of her emotions he had tasted, which memories he might have glimpsed.

  "It was mostly impressions," he said quietly, as if reading her thoughts. "Nothing specific. Nothing... private."

  Elena startled. "Can you hear my thoughts now?"

  "No." Viktor shook his head. "But your expression is quite eloquent."

  "Oh." She closed her notebook, suddenly tired. The blood loss, though minimal, had left her lightheaded. "That's something, at least."

  He approached, stopping at a careful distance. "You should rest. I'll take watch tonight."

  Elena nodded, settling onto her bedroll. The strange intimacy of their shared blood hung in the air between them, neither fully acknowledged nor entirely ignored.

  "Viktor," she said as he turned away. "The connection—does it work both ways? Can I sense you too?"

  He paused, considering. "I don't know. It's not something I've experienced before." A hesitation. "What do you feel?"

  Elena closed her eyes, focusing inward. "Crity," she said finally. "Like my thoughts are sharper. And something else..." She frowned, trying to identify the unfamiliar sensation. "A presence. Not thoughts, exactly, but... awareness. Of you."

  Viktor nodded slowly. "It seems the connection does work both ways, to some degree. Interesting."

  "Interesting," Elena echoed. The scientist in her was already considering the implications, the possible mechanisms, the data they could gather. But beneath that analytical yer was something more basic—the strange intimacy of sharing blood, of carrying a piece of him within her just as he now carried a piece of her.

  She watched him move to the entrance of their shelter, his silhouette strong and sure against the fading light. For all her careful scientific framing, there was no denying that something had changed between them—something neither her meticulous notes nor his careful expnations could fully capture.

  The gift of blood had saved his life. The same blood that had sadly started this apocalypse. What neither of them yet understood was everything else it might have set in motion.