Chapter 7 - The Breaking Point

Jaquelyn

18:35 | Solarium Private Club – Suite 409

He moved too fast.

But not well.

Topher lunged — sloppy, wide, more instinct than aim — and latched onto her wrist with the grace of a drunk predator. The angle was wrong. His bite landed off-center, shallow. It hurt like hell but didn’t pierce deep enough to anchor. It was a mistake. His.

She exploited it. Jaquelyn twisted with the momentum, yanked her arm in hard, and hammered her elbow into his face. Once. Twice. A third time with the weight of her whole body behind it. Bone met cartilage. His head snapped sideways with a wet grunt, and the shock traveled down her arm with brutal satisfaction.

He stumbled, body folding inward, disoriented. But she didn’t wait. Her foot came up fast and sharp, catching him square in the gut. The force sent him back against the wall with a thud that knocked over a side table and rattled the lamp. He collapsed in a tangle of limbs, half-growl, half-gasp.

“Stay down,” she growled, already reaching for the blade strapped to her belt. She wasn’t sure when her voice had gotten that sharp. Didn’t care.

Topher shook his head like a stunned animal, snarling low in his throat. His pupils were gone. Nothing but black. His breath came too fast, his chest heaving like he’d run for miles. He looked up at her, and for a second — just one — he looked afraid. Then the hunger overtook it.

He charged again. This time, she met him halfway. Her blade slashed across his forearm, clean and shallow. Enough to sting. Enough to slow. He flinched — not from pain, but surprise. Like his body hadn’t realized it could still bleed.

But then he found his grip. His hands clamped onto her shoulders, unnaturally strong. The room twisted as he slammed them both to the floor, and Jaquelyn landed hard on her back. The air exploded from her lungs in one sharp gasp. Her skull bounced off the carpeted floor, stars bursting behind her eyes.

Then the bite came.

Wrong place. Right vein. Deep.

“Fuck!” she hissed through clenched teeth, as agony tore through her like fire on raw nerve. Her muscles seized. Blood pulsed in thick, hot waves. He latched on like a creature that had never known food — suckled like it was air, like she was the only thing keeping him alive.

She stabbed downward, blade aimed for his ribs, but he caught her wrist with terrifying precision. Too strong. Too fast. She couldn’t break free. Couldn’t stop the flow.

So she punched him. Over and over. Her free hand struck his cheekbone with desperate fury, each hit cracking something — her knuckles, maybe his face — she didn’t care. He didn’t stop. His jaw stayed locked, his lips sealed around the wound like a beast at the kill. His eyes closed, and a low noise — satisfied, almost tender — rumbled in his throat.

She was fading. Fast. Blood loss swirled behind her eyes like storm clouds gathering. Her pulse staggered in her ears, fluttering like wings caught in glass. The blade dropped from her limp hand. Her fingers curled uselessly. Numbness crept up her arms, her chest.

Desperate now, she drove her knee up into his ribs. It connected. A grunt of pain escaped him, surprised and feral. She rolled them, adrenaline surging for one last burst of control. For a second — one glorious, shaky breath — she was on top. She slammed her forehead into his nose, blind and furious.

He howled. Then he threw her.

Her body hit the dresser hard. Wood cracked. She bounced off it and crumpled to the floor. The taste of copper filled her mouth, metallic and sharp. Her limbs refused to move.

She heard him breathing — wet, ragged — crawling toward her again. Her vision danced. The world tilted. Colors faded. All of it blurred to static.

There was blood. So much blood.

All of it hers.

It soaked into the carpet, warm and sticky and endless. Her heart skipped. Then again. Slower. Her breaths dragged in unevenly, harder with each attempt. Her body screamed to stop. Just stop.

I am not going to die in this fucking hotel room.

But the thought unraveled before it finished. Her grip on reality slipped. Everything slanted sideways — gravity, time, breath.

CRASH.

The door blew inward like something biblical. A force shook the room to its core.

It was Ezekial.

He didn’t walk — he descended. He moved like judgment incarnate, all shadow and stillness, each step cracking through the moment like thunder in a glass dome. The air changed. Denser. Colder. Every molecule responded to his presence. Even the light backed away.

She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

But she knew.

Topher didn’t turn fast enough.

Ezekial’s hand wrapped around the back of his shirt, yanked him into the air like a disobedient child, and slammed him into the wall with enough force to split the drywall in a spiderweb of ruin. The sound was devastating — bone or plaster, maybe both. Topher slumped. He didn’t get a second chance.

Ezekial didn’t look at him again.

He was already at her side.

“Jaquelyn.” He knelt, voice a steady command. “Stay with me.”

She blinked slowly, lashes fluttering like they weighed a hundred pounds. Her lips moved. No sound came. She didn’t know what she was trying to say.

He pressed two fingers to her throat, seeking her pulse. His expression didn’t change — but she felt it. The tension radiating beneath his skin. The fury. Cold, absolute.

“You’re not dying. Do you hear me?”

Her body didn’t answer. But something in her gaze shifted. Her pupils focused. A flicker. Enough.

She felt pressure at her wrist. Not just touch — power. It surged like a current, warm and ancient, wrapping the wound in something dense and layered. A seal. A spell. Something old enough to hum in her bones.

Topher groaned.

Ezekial didn’t hesitate. He crossed the room in two strides and hit him — one strike, clean and brutal. The sound cracked like thunder. Topher crumpled. This time, he didn’t get up.

Ezekial returned to her side. The shadows seemed to part for him.

“I should have insisted to be in here,” he said, voice tight.

Her heartbeat stuttered.

Once.

Twice.

Then —

Nothing.