Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQE6P1AAS0X01QJ5TZXNXQ

The rain over Brick Lane wasn't a cleanse; it was a deluge that turned the grime of East London into a slick, reflective oil painting. Inside the flat, the air was thick with the scent of turmeric and cumin rising from the curry house downstairs, battling for dominance against the dusty, parchment smell of Eva’s obsession. Aurora Carter sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by precarious towers of books. Ptolemy, Eva’s temperamental tabby, was currently utilizing Aurora’s shin as a scratching post, rumbling with a purr that sounded like a idling diesel engine. She was trying to ignore the cramping in her legs and the memories of the day’s deliveries for the Golden Empress, but the silence of the flat was heavy, amplifying the jagged rhythm of her own thoughts. A knock at the door shattered the quiet. It wasn't the frantic pounding of a neighbour complaining about the leak, nor was it the rhythmic rap of a delivery. It was three slow, deliberate strikes. Heavy. Authoritative. Ptolemy stopped kneading and hissed at the threshold. Aurora unfolded herself from the floor, her movement scattering a stack of notes on Babylonian warding circles. She didn’t move immediately. Her time with Eva had taught her caution, and her time with Evan had taught her fear, though she had buried the latter deep beneath a layer of Cardiff steel. She approached the door, her hand hovering over the first of the three deadbolts. "Who is it?" she called out. "Open the door, Aurora." The voice was low, filtered through the thick wood, but it vibrated in the hollow of her chest. It was a voice that tasted of cognac and secrets. It was a voice she hadn’t heard in six months, not since the night the warehouse in burning Southwark collapsed and he had walked away without looking back. She should have told him to go to hell. She should have left the bolts thrown and retreated to the bedroom. Instead, her fingers betrayed her, sliding the cold metal latches back one by one. Click. Click. Click. She pulled the door open. Lucien Moreau stood in the dimly lit hallway, water streaming from his platinum hair in rivulets that darkened the shoulders of his charcoal suit. He leaned heavily on his ivory-handled cane, his posture ruined, the usual arrogant line of his spine bent like a bow. "You look terrible," Aurora said, the words slipping out before she could construct a better defense. Lucien offered a smile that was more grimace than charm. His heterochromatic eyes—one the colour of aged amber, the other a void of midnight black—were glassy. "And you look... entirely too comfortable for a woman staring at a monster." "I see a drowned rat in a bespoke suit," she countered, crossing her arms over her chest. She refused to retreat, refused to give him the space to step inside. "What do you want, Luc? I thought we agreed. You fix the problems, I stay out of the way. We don't cross lines." "The lines have moved," he rasped. He shifted his weight, and his left leg buckled slightly. He caught himself on the doorframe, his knuckles white around the ivory cane. "I had nowhere else to go. The safe houses are compromised." Aurora’s gaze dropped. Beneath the impeccably tailored jacket, a stain was blooming across the white silk of his shirt, just above the hip. It wasn't the bright red of human blood; it was darker, venous and sluggish. "Damn it," she hissed. All the icy resolve she had mustered melted instantly into pragmatic panic. She stepped back, pulling the door wide. "Get in. Before you bleed out on Mrs. Patel’s welcome mat." Lucien stumbled over the threshold, bringing the smell of rain and metallic copper into the cramped room. He navigated the maze of Eva’s research with the grace of a man used to walking on wire, even while injured. He collapsed onto the only armchair not currently occupied by scrolls, his cane clattering against the floorboards. Aurora threw the bolts back into place and turned on him. "I'm going to need the first aid kit. And vodka. For the wound, mostly." "Eva isn't here?" Lucien asked, his head lolling back against the upholstery. He looked pale, the stark white of his skin making the black of his left eye appear to swallow the rest of his face. "She’s in Oxford. Archives." Aurora moved to the kitchenette, grabbing a clean towel and a bottle of high-proof spirits Eva kept for 'medicinal purposes.' She returned to him, kneeling between his spread knees. The intimacy of the position struck her hard—a phantom echo of a different night, a different context—but she shoved it aside. "Jacket off. Now." Lucien complied, his movements stiff. He hissed through his teeth as he peeled the fabric away from the wound. Aurora worked efficiently, her hands steady. She had patched up scrapes during her childhood in Cardiff, and she’d bandaged her own wounds after escaping Evan, but looking at the gash in Lucien’s side required a different kind of fortitude. It was a clean slice, likely a blade, deep enough to be dangerous but missing the vital organs. "Who did this?" she asked, pouring the alcohol onto the towel. "A disagreement with a client," Lucien murmured, unbuttoning his blood-soaked shirt. His chest heaved, the skin pale and smooth, corded with lean muscle. "They felt my price was too high." "You overcharge everyone," she muttered, pressing the soaked towel against his side. Lucien cried out, a guttural sound that he quickly swallowed. His hand shot out, gripping her wrist to steady himself. His fingers wrapped around the small crescent-shaped scar on her left arm—the mark from the childhood fence accident, the one he used to trace with his thumb when they lay in bed talking about nothing and everything. The contact burned. His skin was fever-hot, a byproduct of his heritage. "I didn't think you would open the door," he said softly, his amber eye fixing on hers. The black eye seemed to dilate, absorbing the light of the room. "I almost didn't." Aurora didn't pull her hand away. She kept the pressure on his wound, feeling the thrum of his pulse beneath her palm. "Why come here, Lucien? You have a dozen flats in London. You have contacts. You have warlocks who owe you favours." "I didn't want a warlock," he said. "I wanted someone who wouldn't ask for a piece of my soul in return." "So you came to the delivery girl?" Her voice was sharp, brittle. "Because I'm cheap?" "Because you are the only thing in this city that is real," he whispered. The admission hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. Aurora looked at him, really looked at him. The exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes, the damp platinum hair falling over his forehead, the sheer vulnerability of a man who treated vulnerability as a mortal sin. Six months ago, he had pushed her away claiming it was for her safety, that his world of shadows and demons would consume a human like her. He had broken her heart with the precision of a surgeon. "You left," she reminded him, her voice trembling slightly. "You walked away, Luc. You said I was a liability." "I said you were in danger," he corrected, his grip on her wrist tightening. "There is a difference." "Not to me." She pulled her hand free from his grasp, turning her attention back to the wound. The bleeding had slowed. She reached for the roll of gauze. "Lift up." Lucien gritted his teeth and shifted forward. Aurora wrapped the bandage around his torso, her arms encircling him. For a moment, her cheek brushed against his bare shoulder. He smelled of ozone and expensive cologne, a scent that triggered a visceral, aching sense of loss. She could feel the heat radiating off him, could hear the rapid staccato of his heart—or perhaps two hearts, she never did ask about the anatomy of a half-demon. When she finished, she tied the knot and sat back on her heels, creating distance. Her jeans were stained with his blood. "You need to sleep," she said, refusing to meet his eyes. "You can take the sofa. I'll lock up Ptolemy so he doesn't try to eat your stitches." Lucien didn’t move to the sofa. He watched her, his expression unreadable. "Aurora." She stopped gathering the bloody towels. "What?" "I missed you." The words were simple, devoid of his usual flowery linguistic gymnastics. They hit her harder than the sight of the blood. Aurora stood up, her back to him, staring at a stack of books on Sumerian demonology. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. "That's not fair," she whispered. "You don't get to say that. Not after six months of silence. Not while you're bleeding on my rug." "I would rather bleed here than live anywhere else," he said. Aurora turned around. He was looking at her with a raw intensity that made her knees weak. He looked lesser than the man she knew—the untouchable Lucien Moreau—and yet, somehow, more. She sighed, a long, ragged exhalation that deflated the anger, leaving only the exhaustion. "If you think this fixes anything, you're wrong. You're still an idiot. And tomorrow, when you're not dying, I'm going to yell at you properly." Lucien’s lips quirked into a faint, ghost of a smile. "I look forward to it, *chérie*." "Don't," she warned, pointing a finger at him. "Don't French me. I'm serious, Luc. Rest." She turned off the main overhead light, leaving the room bathed in the warm, orange glow of a desk lamp. The rain continued to hammer against the glass, enclosing them in a world that felt precariously small. As she walked toward the bedroom to fetch a blanket, she felt his gaze on her back, heavy and hot, a tether she wasn't sure she wanted to sever, even if she could. Ptolemy jumped down from her desk and trotted over to Lucien, sniffing the ivory cane before curling up near the fixer’s feet. Even the cat, it seemed, was a traitor. Aurora paused in the doorway. "One night, Lucien. Then you go back to saving the underworld, and I go back to delivering noodles." "As you say," he replied, closing his eyes. But as she walked into the darkness of the bedroom, Aurora knew, with a sinking certainty, that he wasn't going anywhere. And God help her, she didn't want him to.