Page 69 of Curse in the Quarter
Bastien was moving before conscious thought formed. Past the fire barriers, past Rodriguez's shouts of warning, up the Archive's front steps toward doors that stood open like a mouth breathing fire. Heat washed over him in waves that should have seared flesh, but his nature provided protection mortals didn't possess.
The first floor burned in careful patterns. Flames traced lines across hardwood floors, forming geometric shapes that pulsed with their own light. They'd consumed the genealogical section completely—years of family records reduced to ash that swirled in deliberate spirals. But other areas remained untouched, as if the fire knew exactly what it wanted to destroy.
Smoke filled the stairwell, thick enough to blind mortal eyes. But Bastien's enhanced senses cut through the haze, following Delphine's scent upward toward whatever trap awaited on thesecond floor.
He found her in the main research room, surrounded by a perfect circle of flames that rose from floor to ceiling like prison bars made of light. She knelt in the circle's center, hands pressed against her mouth to filter smoke, her dark hair falling around her face as she tried to stay below the worst of the heat.
The flames pulsed brighter whenever she moved, responding to her presence with hungry intelligence. Not random fire—these flames had been summoned specifically for her, keyed to her bloodline signature in ways that made them deadly to her touch but harmless to everything else in their immediate radius.
“Delphine!” He started toward the circle, but the flames roared higher, their heat driving him back. “Don't move! I'm coming for you!”
Her head snapped up at his voice, relief and terror warring in her expression. “Bastien! How did you—the stairs are blocked by fire!”
Not blocked. Controlled. The flames had allowed him passage because they weren't meant to kill him. This was theater, designed to force exactly the choice he now faced—let her die or reveal what he was.
A memory crashed through him without warning. Another fire, another woman surrounded by flames that responded to her bloodline. But that time, he'd arrived too late.
The Lacroix estate in 1763, where flames consumed the main house while servants fled screaming into the night. He'd raced through rooms filled with smoke and fire, following Charlotte's voice as she called his name through the inferno. Found her in the library, trapped by walls of fire that burned blue-white with unnatural heat.
“I tried to stop them,” she gasped, her gown singed buther eyes blazing with fury rather than fear. “They corrupted the ritual. Turned my binding spell into something monstrous.”
He'd reached for her through the flames, but the fire had surged higher, forming a barrier he couldn't cross. “Charlotte, take my hand!”
“I can't! They've keyed the flames to my blood. If I touch them . . .” She looked at him with understanding that broke his heart. “You have to let me finish what I started. Even if it kills me.”
And she'd stepped into the fire before he could stop her, her scream cutting through smoke and flame as the binding spell consumed her life to power its completion.
Not again. Never again.
Bastien pulled power from depths he'd kept buried for decades. Fallen angel nature rose within him like tide returning to shore, transforming flesh that had pretended mortality into something that could challenge forces older than human civilization.
His skin began to glow with soft radiance that pushed back the smoke. The flames around Delphine flickered, their perfect circle wavering as something more powerful than their summoner's will entered the room.
He stepped into the fire.
Heat that should have reduced him to ash parted around his form like water around stone. The flames hissed and recoiled, their programming unable to process an entity that existed outside their parameters. Bastien walked through fire that had been designed to kill anyone with mortal blood, his nature providing protection no human could claim.
Delphine stared at him in shock as he reached thecircle's center, her mouth open in disbelief. “What . . . how are you . . .?”
“Questions later.” He scooped her into his arms, feeling her weight settle against his chest. “Hold tight.”
The flames roared higher as he turned toward the exit, their summoned intelligence recognizing that its prey was escaping. Fire that had been merely dangerous became actively hostile, reaching for them with tendrils that sparked against his protection but couldn't quite break through.
Bastien moved through the inferno carrying Delphine, his enhanced strength making her weightless. Behind them, the research room collapsed as the fire's purpose was thwarted, consuming everything in frustrated rage. Ahead, the stairwell filled with ordinary flame—dangerous to mortals but nothing to what he'd become.
He descended through smoke and heat while Delphine clung to him, her face buried against his shoulder. She was shaking, but not just from fear. He could feel her mind working, cataloging impossibilities she'd witnessed, trying to process evidence that reality contained layers she'd never suspected.
The first floor entrance hall remained clear, the fire having retreated to consolidate its remaining power. Bastien carried Delphine through doors that opened onto chaos—emergency vehicles, shouting firefighters, and crowd barriers holding back curious locals who'd gathered to watch the Quarter's most important Archive burn.
Captain Rodriguez met them at the bottom of the steps, his expression cycling through relief and confusion. “How the hell did you get through that? My men couldn't get within ten feet of the entrance.”
“Lucky timing,” Bastien said, setting Delphine gently on her feet. “The flames died down just long enough.”
It was alie that wouldn't survive scrutiny, but Rodriguez was too focused on immediate concerns to press for details. Paramedics surrounded Delphine, checking her vitals while she submitted to their attention with obvious impatience.
“I'm fine,” she kept repeating, her gaze fixed on Bastien over their shoulders. “Really, I'm fine. Just a little smoke inhalation.”
But her eyes told a different story. She'd seen him walk through fire that should have killed anything mortal. Seen him glow with light that didn’t come from any sort of reflected flames. And now she was putting together pieces of a puzzle that would change everything between them.
