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Thankfully, the staircase was still intact, and he took it two steps at a time, holding the wet blanket to his mouth as some small protection against the acrid smoke that clawed at his throat.
By the time he reached the bedroom, his lungs were aching and it felt like his skin was burning off from the heat. But he was still on his feet.
He pushed open the door and looked around. The bed was on fire and the roof had crushed half the room.
“Stark,” a voice called out weakly over the roar of the fire, then erupted into coughing.
They were in the closet - Olivia, with a tiny Maltaffian girl wrapped around her and clinging tightly. He moved to them instantly, scooping them both up in one arm.
“What are you doing here?” Olivia’s voice was a pained rasp.
“We have to get you out,” he told her, wrapping the blanket around the two of them. “Put it to your mouth and try to breathe through it.”
There was a crash out in the hallway and the door tothe room fell in a shower of sparks. Flames leaped into the room and the little girl screamed. Olivia made comforting sounds to her.
Only one way out then…
He approached the collapsed roofing. A massive beam had fallen, but Stark was strong. His days in the field were not so far behind him yet. And he had the energy of a desperate man.
“Hold onto me,” he told Olivia. “Don’t let go.”
She nodded and he felt one arm tighten around him as the other held the girl. Bracing himself, and calling on all his strength, he grasped the blackened beam and pushed.
It groaned, but didn’t move.
He repositioned himself and tried again, using momentum this time to add to his strength.
The beam wiggled just the tiniest bit, but still didn’t budge.
“Stark,” Olivia whispered against his neck.
It felt like a goodbye.
Yet that shiver of her breath on his skin awoke something powerful within him. He needed to protect his mate.
Mate… my mate…
The flame that rose in his chest put the ones that licked at the walls to shame. Strength like nothing he had ever felt before flowed through him, and he lifted the beam and moved them under it effortlessly.
A ladder still hung from the window, and he threw his leg over the sill and climbed onto it as the crowd outside went silent.
He slowly and carefully lowered the three of them rung by rung until he reached the ground. The people all around them seemed to come back to life instantly. There were cheers and happy yells as well as gasps of disbelief.
“Breelyx?” someone moaned weakly.
“It’s her grandmother,” Olivia murmured.
Stark carried them over to the woman who lay prone on the sidewalk, one of his men had put a brace on her leg and another was applying salve to her burns.
“Grandma,” the little one cried out.
Stark set them down gently and Olivia let the little girl go to her grandmother. Both of them were weeping and holding each other and it put a lump in Stark’s throat.
“Why did you do it?” Olivia asked him softly. “You could have been killed.”
“I couldn’t leave you in there,” he told her, his voice husky.
Her hand went automatically to her belly.
