A curse that burns. A killer who watches. A love too close to the flame.

Bastien Durand has spent two centuries belonging to no faction and beholden to no court in New Orleans' hidden world. His neutrality has kept him alive. But when vampire bodies begin appearing across the city, intact and carved with the symbols of a bloodline destroyed over a century ago, his careful balance shatters overnight.

The dead are not random. Someone is settling an old debt in blood. Worse, a curse has branded itself into Bastien's flesh, broadcasting his every movement to every power in the city. The more he investigates, the more exposed he becomes. The murders are not his to solve. They are his to witness.

Delphine LeClair, archivist and the woman Bastien has stopped pretending he can stay away from, pulls buried records into the light with a precision that reshapes the entire case. She stands closer than anyone should to a man the whole city can now find in the dark.

What is building between them has outlasted lifetimes neither of them can fully name. What is hunting them has studied Bastien long enough to know exactly how he will move, who he will protect, and what it will cost him when the trap finally closes.

A smoldering, slow-burn paranormal mystery where old blood, older magic, and a love that refuses to stay buried collide in a New Orleans that never forgets.