Blood and Incense
Viktor's hands were shaking.
I'd seen him disarm a feral vampire with a rosary and a knife. I'd watched him walk into a nest of six without backup. But here, in this tourist-filled church with its gold-leaf angels and the smell of incense thick enough to choke on, his hands trembled like he was the one being hunted.
"Every day since the chapel," he said. "Every single day."
"Save it." I kept my arms crossed. Nikolai stood close enough that his coat brushed my shoulder. "You said you had information about Mara."
"I do." Viktor glanced at the tourists snapping photos of the frescoed ceiling. "But not here. There's a café three blocks east. Kavárna Slavia. Meet me there in twenty minutes."
"Why not now?"
"Because I need to make sure we're not followed." He stood, and for a second his hand moved toward me—old habit, the way he used to grip my shoulder after a hunt. He caught himself. Let his arm drop. "Twenty minutes, Sera. Please."
He walked out through the side entrance, past a group of Japanese tourists and their guide explaining the symbolism of the Baroque altar. I watched him go, that familiar gait, the slight favor of his left leg from a werewolf bite in Prague-5 that never quite healed right.
"We're not going." Nikolai's voice was soft enough that I had to lean in to hear him over the echo of footsteps on marble.
"Yes, we are."
"It's a trap."
"Maybe." I turned toward the exit. "But he knows something. And I need to know what he knows."
Nikolai caught my wrist. Not hard—he never grabbed hard—but firm enough to stop me. "Sera. Listen to yourself. You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking fine."
"You're thinking like someone who hasn't fed in seventy-two hours." His thumb pressed against my pulse point. "Your heart rate is elevated. You're sweating despite the temperature. And you've been clenching your jaw so hard I can hear your teeth grinding."
I pulled my hand free. "I'm fine."
"You're going into withdrawal."
The word hit like a slap. I stepped back, putting space between us, between me and the pull I'd been fighting since we left the safe house. The ache that had nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with the memory of his blood on my tongue, the way his memories had felt like coming home to a place I'd never been.
"Don't call it that."
"What would you prefer I call it?" He moved closer, and God, even in this church full of people and prayers and the weight of centuries of faith, all I could focus on was the pulse in his throat. "Your body is adjusting to the bond. It needs—"
"I know what it needs." My voice came out sharper than I meant. An elderly woman lighting a candle glanced our way, frowning. I lowered my voice. "And I'm handling it."
"Are you?"
I was. I had to be. Because the alternative was admitting that some part of me wanted this, wanted him, wanted the connection that came with his blood more than I wanted to stay myself.
"Twenty minutes," I said, and walked out before he could argue.
The café was exactly the kind of place Viktor would choose—corner booth with a view of both entrances, close enough to the street that you could run if you needed to, far enough from the windows that a sniper would have trouble getting a clean shot. Old hunter habits died hard.
He was already there when we arrived, a cup of coffee cooling in front of him, untouched. He'd positioned himself with his back to the wall. Smart. Harder to stab someone when they could see you coming.
"You came." He sounded genuinely surprised.
"You said you had information." I slid into the booth across from him. Nikolai remained standing, one hand resting on the back of my seat. Protective. Possessive. I wasn't sure which bothered me more. "So talk."
Viktor's eyes flicked to Nikolai, then back to me. "Alone."
"No."
"Sera—"
"He stays, or I walk." I leaned forward. "And before you start with the Order protocols and the rules about fraternization with vampires, remember that you already broke protocol when you let us leave that chapel alive. So either you're all in on this betrayal, or you're not. Choose."
the balance tipped in his expression. Pride, maybe. Or regret. Hard to tell with Viktor—he'd always been good at hiding what he felt.
"Fine." He wrapped both hands around his coffee cup like he needed the warmth. "Mara didn't die in a random attack. She was investigating something. Something big enough that the Consilium wanted it buried."
"What kind of something?"
"A facility. Underground, outside Brno. She'd been tracking unusual blood shipments—medical-grade, high volume, all going to the same location. She thought it was a feeding operation. Black market blood trade."
Nikolai's hand tightened on the back of my seat. "And?"
"And she was right. Partially." Viktor finally looked up, met my eyes. "But it wasn't just about feeding. They were experimenting. Trying to create artificial blood bonds."
The words hung in the air between us. Around us, the café continued its normal rhythm—espresso machines hissing, conversations in Czech and English and German blending into white noise. But in our corner booth, everything had gone very still.
"That's not possible," Nikolai said.
"It shouldn't be." Viktor pulled a folded paper from his jacket. Slid it across the table. "But Mara found evidence that they'd succeeded. Three times. All three subjects died within a month, but for those weeks, they exhibited all the signs of a genuine bond. Shared memories. Physical dependency. The whole package."
I unfolded the paper. It was a photocopy of a medical report, half the words in Latin, the other half in a technical jargon I didn't understand. But I recognized one name at the bottom of the page.
Dr. Cassia Vex.
"She's a doctor?"
"Was. Before she was turned." Viktor's voice had gone flat. "She's been working on this for decades. Trying to find a way to create bonds without consent. To control humans through manufactured dependency."
My stomach turned. I thought about the ache in my chest, the pull toward Nikolai that had been getting stronger every hour. The way my body craved his blood like it was oxygen.
"Mara found out," I said slowly. "And they killed her for it."
"She found out, and she tried to stop it." Viktor's hands were shaking again. "She went to the facility. Alone. Against my orders. She thought she could gather enough evidence to bring the whole operation down. But they were waiting for her."
"You knew." The words came out cold. "You knew she was walking into a trap, and you let her go."
"I didn't know. Not until—" He stopped. Swallowed. "By the time I got there, she was already dead. And the facility was empty. They'd cleared everything out. No evidence. No bodies. Nothing."
"Except Mara."
"Except Mara." His voice cracked. "I carried her out myself. Told the Order it was a random attack. A feral vampire. Because if I told them the truth, they'd bury it. They'd make a deal with the Consilium, sweep it under the rug, and Mara would have died for nothing."
I wanted to hit him. Wanted to grab him by his collar and slam him against the wall and make him hurt the way I was hurting. But my hands stayed flat on the table, and my voice stayed level.
"So you lied."
"I protected her investigation. I kept her notes. Her evidence. Everything she'd gathered." He reached into his jacket again, pulled out a USB drive. "It's all here. Names. Dates. Financial records. Enough to prove what the Consilium was doing. Enough to bring them down."
Nikolai leaned forward. "Why give it to us now?"
"Because the Order found out I had it. They gave me an ultimatum—hand over the evidence, or face execution for treason." Viktor set the drive on the table between us. "I chose option three. Give it to someone who'll actually use it."
I stared at the small black rectangle. It looked so ordinary. Plastic and metal and silicon. But if Viktor was telling the truth, it contained everything. Proof of what they'd done to Mara. Proof of what they were still doing.
Proof that the bond between Nikolai and me might not be real at all.
"Take it," Viktor said. "Finish what she started."
My hand moved toward the drive. Stopped. "What's the catch?"
"No catch. Just—" He hesitated. "Be careful. The Consilium has eyes everywhere. And if they find out you have this, they won't just kill you. They'll make an example of you. Both of you."
"Let them try." I picked up the drive. It was warm from being in his pocket. "Is there anything else?"
"One more thing." Viktor's eyes met mine, and for the first time since the chapel, I saw the man who'd trained me. Who'd sat with me after my first kill and told me it was okay to feel sick. Who'd been at Mara's funeral and cried when he thought no one was looking. "I'm sorry. For all of it. For not protecting her. For pointing that gun at you. For every choice I made that led us here."
"Sorry doesn't bring her back."
"I know." He stood, left money on the table for the coffee he hadn't drunk. "But maybe this will."
He walked out. I watched him go, this man who'd been my mentor and my betrayer, and felt nothing. No anger. No forgiveness. Just the hollow ache of something that used to matter and didn't anymore.
"We should go," Nikolai said quietly. "Before the Order realizes he's made contact."
I nodded. Slipped the drive into my pocket. Started to stand.
The world tilted.
I caught myself on the edge of the table, but my vision was blurring at the edges, and my heart was doing something arrhythmic and wrong in my chest. The café sounds got louder, then softer, like someone was playing with the volume.
"Sera." Nikolai's hand was on my arm, steadying me. "When did you last eat?"
"This morning." I thought. Maybe yesterday morning. Time had gotten slippery since the chapel. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're going into shock." He guided me back into the booth. "Stay here. I'll get you water."
"I don't need—"
But he was already gone, moving through the café with that preternatural grace that made humans step aside without realizing why. I pressed my palms flat on the table, focused on the cool laminate, the sticky ring where Viktor's coffee cup had been, the grain of the wood underneath.
The ache in my chest was getting worse. Not pain, exactly. More like hunger, but deeper. Cellular. Like every part of me was reaching for something just out of reach.
Nikolai returned with water and something that looked like a sandwich. "Eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Your body doesn't care." He pushed the plate toward me. "Eat, or I'm carrying you out of here, and I promise you won't enjoy the attention that draws."
I picked up half the sandwich. Ham and cheese on rye. It tasted like cardboard, but I forced myself to chew, to swallow, to pretend my hands weren't shaking.
"Better?" Nikolai asked after I'd finished half.
"No." The word came out before I could stop it. "It's getting worse. The pull. The need. I can feel it in my bones."
"I know."
"How long until it stops?"
"It doesn't." He said it gently, like that would make it easier to hear. "The bond is permanent. Your body will always crave my blood. But the intensity fades. After the first few exchanges, it becomes manageable."
"How many is a few?"
"Five. Maybe six." He paused. "We're at two."
Four more times. Four more times of drinking his blood, seeing his memories, feeling the ghost of his emotions like they were mine. Four more times of losing a little more of myself to this thing between us.
"I can't do this," I said.
"Yes, you can."
"You don't understand. Every time I feed, I see more of you. More of Mara. More of what you had together." I met his eyes. "I see you loving her. And I feel it. Like it's my emotion. My memory. And I don't know where you end and I begin anymore."
"Sera—"
"I need to know if this is real." The words came out raw. "This thing between us. Is it the bond, or is it actually us?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Around us, the café continued its evening rhythm. A couple at the next table laughed at something on a phone screen. The espresso machine hissed. Someone dropped a cup, and it shattered on the tile floor.
"I don't know," Nikolai said finally. "I've had blood bonds before. Political alliances. Temporary arrangements. They felt nothing like this."
"But you can't be sure."
"No." He reached across the table, covered my hand with his. "But does it matter? Real or manufactured, the bond exists. We exist. And right now, your body needs to feed, or you're going to collapse in this café, and I'll have to explain to a very confused paramedic why your blood work shows vampire markers."
He was right. I hated that he was right.
"Not here," I said.
"No. Not here." He stood, helped me to my feet. "There's a metro station two blocks south. Abandoned platform. We'll have privacy."
The defunct station in Karlín smelled like rust and old water. Graffiti covered the walls—tags and murals and political slogans in three languages. The platform lights were long dead, but Nikolai had brought a camping lantern from somewhere, and it cast long shadows across the cracked tile.
I sat on the edge of the platform, legs dangling over the empty tracks. My whole body was vibrating with need now, and I couldn't tell if I was hot or cold. Both. Neither.
Nikolai sat beside me. Rolled up his sleeve without being asked.
"You don't have to do this," I said.
"Yes, I do." He held out his wrist. "And so do you."
I took his arm. His skin was cool under my fingers, and I could feel his pulse, steady and slow. Vampire slow. The opposite of my racing heart.
"Last time, I saw you and Mara," I said. "In Brno. You were together."
"Yes."
"Were you in love with her?"
"Yes." No hesitation. No softening of the truth. "For six weeks, I loved her more than I'd loved anyone in two centuries. And then she ended it, and I understood why, and I loved her more for having the courage to walk away."
"Why did she end it?"
"Because she knew it couldn't last. Because she was human, and I'm not, and eventually that math doesn't work." He shifted closer. "And because she was in love with someone else."
My breath caught. "Who?"
"I don't know. She never said. But I could hear it in her voice. The way she'd check her phone. The way she'd smile at messages she wouldn't let me see." His thumb brushed across my wrist, finding my pulse. "I think she was trying to forget them. With me. And when it became clear it wasn't working, she was honest enough to stop."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. What we had was real, even if it was brief." He met my eyes. "Are you ready?"
No. Yes. I didn't know anymore.
I bit down.
The memories came faster this time. More controlled. I could feel Nikolai guiding them, showing me what he wanted me to see.
Mara in a hotel room, spreading blueprints across a bed. "The facility is here. Underground. Three levels. Security is tight, but there's a service entrance on the east side that's only guarded during shift changes."
Nikolai leaning over her shoulder. "And you're certain this is where the shipments are going?"
"Positive. I've been tracking them for three months. Every delivery ends here." She tapped the blueprint. "Whatever they're doing, it's big. And it's bad."
The memory shifted. Same room, different night. Mara was crying, and Nikolai was holding her, and I could feel his confusion, his desperate need to fix whatever was breaking her.
"I can't do this," she said against his chest. "I can't pretend I don't feel this."
"Then don't pretend." He cupped her face, tilted it up. "Mara, I—"
"No." She pulled back. "Don't say it. Please don't say it."
"Why not?"
"Because it'll make this harder." She wiped her eyes. "I'm ending this. Us. Whatever this is."
"I don't understand."
"I know. And I can't explain. Just—" She touched his face, gentle, like she was memorizing him. "Trust me. This is the right thing."
The memory shifted again. Mara alone in a car, driving through darkness. Her hands were tight on the wheel, and she was crying, and I could feel Nikolai's perspective—watching from a distance, following her without her knowledge, because he couldn't let her go into danger alone.
She pulled up to a building. Industrial. Isolated. The facility from the blueprints.
She got out of the car. Checked her gun. Took a breath.
Walked toward the entrance.
And then the memory went dark, and I was drowning in Nikolai's grief, his rage, his absolute certainty that he should have stopped her, should have been faster, should have saved her.
I pulled back, gasping. The abandoned platform came back into focus—graffiti and shadows and the camping lantern's harsh light.
"You followed her," I said.
"Yes."
"You saw what happened."
"No." His voice was raw. "By the time I got inside, she was already dead. And the facility was empty. They'd cleared out everything. Like they knew she was coming."
"Someone tipped them off."
"Yes." He pulled his sleeve down, covered the bite marks. "Someone in the Order. Someone she trusted."
Viktor. It had to be Viktor. He'd known about her investigation. He'd told her to stand down. And when she didn't, he'd—
No. I couldn't think that. Wouldn't think that.
But the doubt was there now, a seed planted in the space between loyalty and truth.
"There's more," Nikolai said quietly. "One more memory. But you need to be prepared."
"For what?"
"For the truth about the bond. About what Cassia was really trying to create."
I looked at him. At this vampire who'd loved my sister, who'd held me while I cried, who'd given me his blood and his memories and pieces of himself I wasn't sure I wanted.
"Show me," I said.
He held out his wrist again. I bit down.
The memory was different this time. Older. Nikolai in a laboratory, strapped to a table, and Cassia standing over him with a syringe full of something dark and viscous.
"This won't hurt," she said, smiling. "Much."
She injected him. He screamed.
And then I was inside his body, feeling what he felt—the burn of the serum in his veins, the way it rewrote something fundamental in his blood, the sensation of being unmade and remade into something new.
"There," Cassia said, satisfied. "Now you're ready."
"Ready for what?" His voice was hoarse.
"To be the template. The first successful artificial bond." She leaned close. "Congratulations, Nikolai. You're going to help me change everything."
The memory ended. I pulled back, and the platform was spinning, and I couldn't breathe.
"You're one of them," I said. "One of her experiments."
"Yes."
"The bond between us—it's not natural. It's manufactured. She made you into—" I couldn't finish the sentence.
"A weapon," Nikolai said quietly. "She made me into a weapon. One that could create bonds at will. Control humans through dependency. And I didn't even know until Mara started investigating." He stood, paced to the edge of the platform. "That's why Cassia wanted her dead. Because Mara figured out what I was. What I could do. And she was going to expose everything."
"Does the Consilium know?"
"Some of them. The ones who funded Cassia's research." He turned back to me. "The ones who want to use people like me to control the human population. To make blood bonds a tool of subjugation instead of—"
He stopped. Looked past me toward the tunnel entrance.
"Nikolai?"
"We need to go. Now."
"What—"
And then I heard it. Footsteps. Multiple sets. Coming from both directions.
We were surrounded.
Nikolai moved in front of me, and I saw his fangs extend, saw the predator surface in his eyes. "Stay behind me."
"How many?"
"Six. Maybe seven." He tilted his head, listening. "Order hunters. They found us."
"Viktor sold us out."
"Or they followed him. Either way—" He grabbed my hand. "Run."
We ran toward the south tunnel, but figures emerged from the darkness—three hunters in tactical gear, crossbows raised. We pivoted, tried the north tunnel. More hunters.
Trapped.
The hunters closed in, a tightening circle of black kevlar and blessed silver. I recognized one of them—Marcus, from the Prague chapter. He'd taught me how to load a crossbow when I was sixteen.
"Sera Kovač," he said, his voice echoing in the empty station. "You're under arrest for treason against the Order. Surrender the vampire, and we'll make this quick."
"No." I stepped forward, putting myself between Nikolai and the crossbows. "You want him, you go through me."
"Don't be stupid, kid. He's using you. The blood bond—it's not real. It's manipulation. Mind control."
"I know what it is." My hand found