Keller (The Stone Legacy #2)

Chapter 1 Quinn

ONE

Quinn

Mardi Gras: French for “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras marks the final day of the Carnival season, culminating weeks of parades, private balls, and krewe-led celebrations across New Orleans.

Organized largely by krewes—private membership societies that fund and stage parades—Carnival blends pageantry, exclusivity, and civic spectacle into one of the city’s most powerful annual rituals.

I'm already ten steps ahead before we hit the sidewalk.

Leah loops her arm through mine and exhales into the humid air. The street swells with noise, brass from a bar somewhere behind us and a woman laughing loudly up ahead. Neon bleeds pink and green across the cracked asphalt, and the whole Quarter smells like spilled beer, fried dough, and sweat.

"God, I needed that drink. Thank you for appeasing me." She squeezes my arm and grins.

I give her a weak smile.

"Whether you'll admit it or not, I know you did, too."

"I always need my Leah Time."

She bumps her hip into mine. "You were doing that face the whole time, so..."

"What face?"

"The one where you look like you're constipated."

I snort despite myself. "That's not a face. That's just my face."

"Exactly." She steers us around a couple taking a selfie in the middle of the damn sidewalk. "You're still on duty, Quinny. You need to learn how to turn it off."

If I could, I would. But I don't say that. Instead, I clock the two guys weaving toward the curb ahead. They're in their mid-twenties, loud, one of them carrying a drink. The other one's shoving him, laughing, and neither of them is watching where they're going.

I adjust our trajectory without thinking, angling us left so we don't cross their path.

Leah doesn't notice. She's still talking, something about the bartender and his ridiculous mustache, and I nod at the right moments while my eyes track the carriage line rolling past. Tourists crammed into open-air boxes pulled by horses that look bored as hell.

The driver on the closest one is half-asleep, reins loose in his lap.

"Are you even listening?"

"Mustache guy. Definitely trying too hard. Yeah, I got it."

Leah laughs and tugs me forward. "See? You were paying attention."

Not really. My jaw aches, and I realize I've been clenching it for the last three blocks.

I roll my shoulders, but they don't loosen.

The hum under my ribs won't quit, the thing that tells me to notice, to measure, to catalogue every damn variable in a six-block radius. I blame my training at Quantico.

Just tired. Just adjusting.

That's the line I've been feeding myself since the promotion. New role, new pressure, new stakes. Of course I'm wound tight. Anyone would be.

Leah stumbles on a crack in the pavement, and I catch her elbow before she can pitch forward.

"Whoa. Thanks."

"Watch your step."

"Yes, Officer." She salutes, and her grin is so damn bright it almost cracks through whatever this is.

We reach the curb, and I scan the crosswalk. We've got a green light, the walk timer counting down, fifteen seconds. The drunk guys are closer now, one of them staggering into a family with matching t-shirts. The mom glares, but the guy doesn't notice.

I shift my weight, ready to move, but Leah's still adjusting her purse strap, and I'm not walking without her.

The crosswalk timer flips to ten as the carriage line rolls closer. I grab her arm to indicate we have to go, and she snaps to.

Leah steps off the curb, and as I join her, my attention flickers, just for a moment, to the drunk guy now stumbling backward, arms flailing, drink sloshing. One of the guys stumbles and nudges into me, making me lose my balance.

In a split second, my foot catches the edge of the curb at the wrong angle, and gravity wins. I pitch forward into the street. My hands come up instinctively, but they're not fast enough, and the cobblestones rush toward my knees.

The carriage is right there.

Hooves pound closer as the metal wheels screech. Tourists shriek and laugh because they don't know yet, or they can't see.

My body locks. Every muscle freezes as if someone cut the power, and all I can do is watch the massive horse barrel toward me with its head tossing and foam flecking its bit. The driver jerks the reins, shouting something I can't hear over the roar in my ears.

Move, move, fucking move—

Nothing.

My lungs seize. My throat closes. The street tilts under my palms, and I'm stuck. Panic floods through my chest.

A hand clamps around my arm. The grip is iron with hesitation.

I'm yanked backward so hard my shoulder screams, and suddenly there's a body between me and the street. It’s solid, immovable, blocking out the noise and the light and the wheels that scrape past close enough to kick dust onto my shoes.

I gasp. Air rushes back into my lungs.

The man doesn't let go. His other hand steadies my elbow, and his body stays planted in front of me, a wall of contained force that doesn't flinch when the carriage thunders past. His breathing is steady and controlled, like he's not even winded.

I smell something clean. It’s his soap, or maybe cologne, something sharp and expensive that cuts through the Quarter's humidity. Heat radiates from where his hand grips my arm, fingers pressing hard enough that I'll feel the shape of them tomorrow.

"Breathe." His voice is low, calm, and cuts through the spiral in my head like a blade. "That was a close call."

I blink. My vision clears, and I see him for the first time.

Thick black glasses frame his engaging brown eyes. His sharp jaw and dirty-blond hair, pushed back from his face, is messy but intentional. His eyes sweep over me once, assessing, before locking onto something behind my shoulder.

He releases my elbow but keeps his hand on my arm. His gaze shifts to the drunk guys now frozen on the curb, eyes wide, one of them still clutching his stupid plastic cup.

"Walk away."

It's not loud or a threat, but the way he says it makes both of them shrink.

They stumble backward. One mutters something that might be an apology. The other trips over his own feet. They're gone in seconds.

The man's hand drops from my arm.

The absence is immediate and disorienting. My skin still burns where he touched me, and my pulse hammers so loud in my ears I can barely hear the street noise rushing back in.

"Quinn!"

Leah crashes into me, hands grabbing my shoulders, her face pale and frantic.

"Oh my God, are you okay? I was across the street when I realized you'd fallen, and I had to wait for the carriage to pass. Are you okay?"

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat is tight and my tongue thick and useless.

"Quinn, talk to me."

I nod. Force air through my teeth. "I'm—yeah. I'm fine."

I'm not fine. My knees shake, my hands are trembling, and adrenaline burns under my skin like live current. All I can feel is the phantom weight of this stranger's grip, the heat of his body, the steadiness that saved me. Literally.

Leah's still talking, something about the carriage, the driver, those assholes who nudged into me, but I'm not listening.

My eyes search the crowd once I realize he's gone. It's like he was never there. There's no trace except the bruise already forming under my sleeve and the rush in my bloodstream that won't settle.

"Quinny, seriously, are you—"

"I'm fine." My voice cracks. I clear my throat and try again. "I just need a second."

Leah's hand rubs my back, grounding and gentle, but all I can think about is how his hand felt nothing like hers. How his presence didn't comfort, it commanded. A shiver runs through me, and I shake it off.

"Sit down."

Leah's hand presses on my shoulder, guiding me toward a bench outside a closed gallery. The smell of damp brick and old plaster clings to the air, and the streetlight overhead flickers.

"I don't need to sit."

"You almost got trampled by a horse. You're sitting."

I sink onto the bench because arguing takes energy I don't have. The wood is damp under my thighs, cold through my jeans. Leah crouches in front of me, her face pale in the streetlight, and reaches for my arm.

"Let me see."

"It's fine."

"Quinn."

I roll up my sleeve. The bruise is already forming. There are five distinct marks where his fingers pressed, dark against my skin. Leah touches the edge of it, featherlight, and winces.

"That's going to hurt tomorrow."

It hurts now. A deep ache that pulses in time with my heartbeat, but I don't say that. Instead, I pull my sleeve back down and lean forward, elbows on my knees.

"How did that even happen? One second we are walking across the street, and the next you're being whisked up by a blonde-haired Clark Kent."

"Honestly, I don't know. I think one of those drunk guys hit me, and I lost my balance."

Leah sits beside me, hip bumping mine. "I guess you need to be ready for anything in this city."

My stomach twists. The nausea hits suddenly, leftover adrenaline with nowhere to go. I swallow hard and focus on the cobblestones between my feet. Count the cracks. Breathe through my nose.

"You're right, that guy did look like Clark Kent. Trimmer, but he was delicious. I guess that’s a silver lining."

"Did you get his number?"

My hand moves to my arm automatically, fingers brushing the bruise through the fabric.

I laugh nervously, as if I were thinking about asking a guy for his number in that split second. “I was a little distracted by the horse."

Leah leans back against the bench, arms crossed, and the look she gives me is pure calculation. "Good point. That's too bad."

"Let's go. I'm good, I promise."

"You're shaking."

I look down. My hands are trembling in my lap, fingers curled tight. I flatten them on my thighs and press until the shaking stops.

"It's okay to be freaked out."

No, it's not. Because I shouldn't have frozen. I should have moved. I've trained for worse situations than this, actual threats, not drunk tourists and bad timing. But instead, I locked up like a rookie, and if that man hadn't been there—