Chapter 9 - The Seal
Ezekial
18:41 | Solarium Private Club – Suite 409
She hadn’t moved.
The seal he’d pressed into her blood was holding — for now — but it was only a patch over a dam with cracks spreading too fast to trace. Her pulse fluttered against his fingers like the wings of something too fragile to last.
Footsteps thundered in the hallway. He didn’t turn. Let them come. They had to.
The doorframe groaned again as two Solarium staffers pushed inside — dressed in dark slate uniforms marked with the subtle swirl-and-spike emblem of hospitality, enforcement, and discretion.
Their eyes widened when they saw the blood. One of them swore softly.
“We’ve called Council Enforcement and VeinCare Emergency,” the shorter one said, already pulling out a scanner. “We need to report this. Who —”
“She was on contract,” Ezekial interrupted, voice like stone. “I was standing outside the door. The fledgling —” he refused to say his name, “— lost control.”
The taller staffer took a hesitant step forward, scanner in hand. “Is she... is she still alive?”
“Barely,” Ezekial said. “Only because I’m keeping her that way.”
He stood slowly, coat falling open, blood still wet on his hands. “Contain the fledgling.”
Topher groaned from the floor near the shattered kitchenette. Two additional guards appeared, already moving to restrain him.
“No resistance,” one muttered in surprise. “He’s barely conscious.”
“He’s unstable,” Ezekial said. “He should not have risen so quickly. Not with my bloodline.”
They all understood what that meant. It wasn’t just strange. It was wrong. As weak as Topher was, there was no reason he should have risen so quickly.
The rest came in pieces.
A senior VeinCare rep arrived — tight-lipped, furious, and full of veiled legal implications until Ezekial handed her Jaquelyn’s data tag and medical readings. When she saw the numbers, her anger dropped into something colder.
“She’s got no immediate family on file. No partners. No emergency contact,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “She was adopted late. Parents passed in her twenties. No known siblings.” She looked up. “We’ll make arrangements with a hospital.”
“You won’t get her there in time,” Ezekial said flatly.
“But—”
“I’ve already sealed her. She’s still bleeding internally. The moment I stop holding her together, she dies.”
A beat of silence passed in the room.
“Then why haven’t you called a Council healer?” one of the staff asked cautiously.
He didn’t answer right away.
Because he’d considered it. He could. It might even work. Maybe. But to reach one with the right clearance would take time. Paperwork. Oversight. Exposure. They’d ask why he turned a childer like that and used a blood doll like her. They’d want to debrief her. Register her trauma. Turn it into notes. Into protocol. Into precedent.
He looked at Jaquelyn again. Her lips had gone slightly blue. Her pulse was fainter.
And he understood something then — not from logic, but from the old part of him. The part that remembered mountains and long winters. The part that buried his brothers in snow and flame.
He didn’t want to let her go.
He crouched beside her again, blocking the view from the others. Lifted her wrist. Her fingers barely curled.
“She deserves better than this,” he said softly.
The VeinCare rep leaned forward. “What are you doing?”
Ezekial didn’t look up.
He brought her wrist to his mouth. The energy around him dropped like a stone. Dense. Ancient.
“No witnesses,” he said. Everyone in the room froze.
“I’m turning her.”
There was a breath — a half-second too long — and then the VeinCare rep nodded once and turned away.
The staff followed, dragging Topher with them.
The suite door clicked shut.
His fangs pierced her wrist cleanly. There wasn't much left to drain, but it was sweet, like mead. The taste of it lingered on his tongue as he opened his wrist for her.
He didn’t feed her like he had Topher. He gave. He gave her blood. He gave her part of him. He gave her life. Blood filled her veins in a slow, deliberate pull — his power entwined in every cell. It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t flashy. It was final. The act that could not be undone.
But as the blood entered her — something happened.
He felt it.
Not the usual release. Not the cold burn of legacy being passed.
This was presence.
Her essence surged up to meet him — not after the fact, not distantly, not years later when the bond might develop — but now. It wrapped around him like smoke, like memory. Her body was still, but her soul… her soul reached back.
Ezekial froze, her lips still pressed to his wrist. His breath caught.
No one ever felt a turn.
Not like this.
But he could feel her — not just her hunger, not just the flicker of survival. He felt her.
Felt the moment her blood turned to fire.
Felt the moment her old heart stopped — and something new began.
It rocked through him, this impossible tether. Like the heartbeat of a star being born. His knees nearly gave out from the force of it.
He gasped — for the first time in a century.
Jaquelyn’s fingers twitched. Her spine arched, not violently, but like she was unfolding — reassembling from the inside out.
The golden light behind her eyes ignited. Not a flicker. A flare.
He gripped her tighter.
“Jaquelyn,” he whispered.
And she heard him.
He felt her hear him.
Her mouth parted — no breath yet, no words — but something ancient moved in the air between them.
The bond wasn’t forming. It had formed. Already whole. Already there.
Her lashes fluttered. Her hand curled in the fabric of his coat. And with that final motion — she inhaled. A full, greedy, gasping breath.
Her back arched, jaw tightening. Her eyes flew open — wild, golden, and lit from within.
She exhaled a sound that wasn’t quite a cry. It was a claim.
Then another breath — deeper — her hand fisting against his chest, pulling him in.
Alive.
Changed.
His.
And he — irrevocably — was hers too.