Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQFTK2QFFD77ND2HQJD5AZ

# Unannounced The knock came at half-past eleven on a Thursday night, sharp and deliberate against the worn wooden door. Eva's flat had three deadbolts for a reason—friends called ahead, and enemies could go to hell. Rory set down her tea, the half-read grimoire forgotten in her lap. Through the peephole, she saw nothing but the dim hallway light and the blurred shape of someone tall enough that the fish-eye lens compressed him into angles and assumption. She didn't open the door. "I know you're there," Lucien's voice came through the wood, smooth as cognac. "Your light is on. And you have a cat that's meowing rather insistently against this door." Ptolemy was, in fact, making a pest of himself, drawn by whatever scent had carried down the stairwell. Rory sighed, setting the grimoire aside properly this time, and dealt with the deadbolts one by one. Click. Click. Click. When she opened the door, Lucien Moreau was exactly as she remembered: impeccably dressed despite the late hour, his tailored charcoal suit sharp enough to cut, his platinum hair slicked back in that way that made her want to run her fingers through it and mess it up completely. The ivory handle of his cane caught the hallway light. His heterochromatic eyes—one amber, one black as obsidian—fixed on her with the intensity of a predator recognizing prey. Except Rory had never been his prey. That was the complicated part. "How did you find me?" she asked, not moving from the threshold. "You told Eva where you were going." His French accent flavored his English like spice in wine. "Eva told Yuki. Yuki mentioned it to someone at a very indiscreet party in Shoreditch. I happened to be present." "Of course you were." His mouth quirked at one corner. "May I come in, or are we doing this in the hallway where your neighbors can eavesdrop?" Rory considered the option—the hallway had witnesses, which felt safer than being alone with him. Alone with Lucien had never been safe. Not in any meaningful sense. She stepped back and Ptolemy darted between their legs, delighted at the opportunity to inspect this new visitor. Lucien's expression softened as the tabby wove between his ankles, and that small gesture of tenderness made something in Rory's chest clench painfully. He'd always been good with animals. Patient. Gentle in a way he rarely was with people. The flat was exactly as chaotic as Lucien would have expected—Eva's flat always was. Books in precarious stacks, research notes pinned to every available surface, scrolls propped against lamp bases. The curry house downstairs perfumed everything with turmeric and cinnamon. There was a threadbare sofa, a mismatched armchair, and one reading lamp that cast everything in warm, amber light. It looked like exactly the kind of place Rory would run to. Somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. "You look well," Lucien said, and she heard the truth beneath it—that she looked different. Lighter. Less haunted than the last time he'd seen her, three months ago in a bar in Bloomsbury where the meeting had been engineered by mutual friends who hadn't believed they'd actually stay away from each other. They'd stayed away from each other for two years before that. "I'm fine," Rory said, which was neither an answer to his observation nor a lie. She was fine. She'd built something approximating fine out of delivery shifts and late-night research and Eva's relentless presence. "What do you want?" Lucien moved deeper into the flat without invitation, his cane tapping softly against the hardwood. He studied the chaos of Eva's workspace the way he studied everything—as if he could read the secrets written in the margins. His movements were precise, economical, and unbearably familiar. She'd once known the exact rhythm of his walk, could pick him out of a crowded room by the cadence of his footsteps alone. "I have information," he said finally, turning to face her. "About your ex-boyfriend." The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Evan. She'd fled Cardiff because of Evan, because his fists had become as much a part of their relationship as his lies. She'd left him after two years of carefully catalogued injuries she could explain away as clumsiness, exhaustion, stress. It had taken Lucien's intervention to get her out—Lucien, who'd appeared like some exquisitely tailored avenging angel and made very quiet threats in very dangerous language. And then Lucien had left too, because she'd asked him to, because she'd been terrified of being anyone's project or obligation. "He's dead," Rory heard herself say. "No." Lucien's amber eye was bright with something she couldn't quite name. Concern, perhaps. Or anger. "He's very much alive. And he's been making inquiries about you. Recently. In Cardiff." "I don't care." The words tasted like ash. "You should." He took a step closer and she held her ground, though every nerve in her body screamed at her to move. To run. To maintain the distance she'd so carefully constructed. "He's connected now. To people in my circle. People who owe me favors and would be happy to facilitate his questions if he asked. The supernatural underworld is smaller than you'd think, Rory. Information flows like water. And you—" His voice dropped lower. "You've become interesting." "Interesting," she repeated flatly. "You're staying with Eva. You're asking questions about blood magic and binding wards. You've been to the archive in Whitehall twice." He paused, and she watched him watch her. "You're looking for something. Or looking to protect yourself." He wasn't wrong, but that wasn't really his business anymore. That hadn't been his business for a long time. She'd made sure of it. "You still haven't told me what you want," she said. "Haven't I?" Lucien set his cane against the armchair with deliberate care. When he looked at her again, something in his expression had shifted—become less guarded. "I want to know if you're alright. I want to know if you need help. I want to know why you left without saying goodbye." The question hung in the warm, curry-scented air like a ghost. Rory's bright blue eyes held his mismatched ones, and she felt the weight of two years of absence, of hurt carefully buried, of attraction that had never entirely dulled. "I couldn't—" She stopped, started again. "You were making me soft. Making me dependent. I needed to know I could survive without anyone." "And can you?" His voice was very quiet. "Survive without anyone?" No. The answer was immediate and terrifying. She couldn't. She was surviving with Eva, surviving with Yu-Fei and the routine of deliveries, surviving with research and late nights and the careful construction of a life built on solid ground. But surviving and living were different things, and she'd spent the last two years confusing the two. Lucien closed the distance between them. He was close enough now that she could smell his cologne—something expensive and dangerous, with notes of smoke and something older than human. Close enough that she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight imperfection where a scar bisected his left eyebrow. "Evan is a small problem," he said. "One I can handle before breakfast if you'd like. But the larger question remains." His hand came up, and he traced his knuckles along the line of her jaw with exquisite gentleness. "Can you survive without me, Rory? Or were you just afraid that you didn't want to?" Her breath caught. She could pull away. Should pull away. This was Lucien, who'd been broken and careful with her once, and whom she'd broken in return. But his hand was warm against her skin, and his eyes—one amber, one black—held the same hunger she felt burning in her own chest. "I still can't do this," she whispered, even as she leaned into his touch. "I know," he said, and kissed her anyway.