Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR29BX8KY7VFEJ9A3NAYWG

The sound didn't start as a knock. It began as a vibration in the floorboards beneath her feet—a heavy, deliberate thud that shook the dust motes dancing in the shaft of light filtering through the grimy living room window. Rory didn’t jump; the delivery shifts had trained her to absorb shock without reaction, but her hand instinctively drifted to the handle of the carving knife she kept on the counter. She took a slow breath and moved toward the door. Eva’s flat was a chaotic sanctuary of Welsh clutter. Books the size of bricks were stacked in precarious towers along the plaster walls, mixed with scrolls of parchment she kept in glass jars and various research notes that bled together in coffee rings. The air smelled of curry dust, old paper, and Ptolemy, the tabby cat who currently regarded the entrance with the regal disdain of a queen surveying an inconvenient subject. Rory checked the peephole. The view was distorted, grey and curved, but the figure silhouetted against the dim streetlamp on Brick Lane was unmistakable. She unlocked the top deadbolt. Then the middle. Then the bottom. The metal slid back with a sharp *snick*, and she pushed the door open. Lucien Moreau was a wall of charcoal wool and aggression. He was soaked, water beading on his platinum hair and dripping from the hem of his jacket, turning the pavement outside into a puddle of oil and city grime. He didn't look like a man who should be standing on the landing of a curry house. He looked like he belonged in a penthouse on the south side, issuing edicts. His heterochromatic eyes—one a molten amber, the other a void-like black—locked onto hers the moment the door gave way. "Rory," he said. The name tasted like ash in the stale air of the hallway. "You don't have a key," she stated, her voice flat. "And you don't answer your phone." He took a step forward, heedless of the three deadbolts that had only seconds ago been keeping him at bay. He leaned in, the scent of him hitting her—ozone, expensive cologne, and the faint, metallic tang of rain on old skin. It was a predatory smell, one that used to make the hair on her arms stand up and her knees weak in equal measure. "Get out, Lucien. Eva isn't here. And even if she was, this isn't your jurisdiction anymore." "I'm not asking for Eva." Lucien’s mouth quirked, a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He tilted his head, the slicked-back blond hair catching the hallway light. "I came for you. You’re the one I know how to find." He held up a hand, displaying three wet, muddy fingers. "I walked all the way from the station. In this suit. If you think I’m joking, you’ve forgotten who I am." Rory folded her arms, the fabric of her faded t-shirt pulling tight across her chest. She tried to recall the face in the peephole—the arrogant half-demon fixer who spoke four languages and carried a cane that housed a blade the size of a steak knife. She tried to remember why she had chosen this moment to stay in London, why she had fled Cardiff to hide in Eva’s spare room. Lucien Moreau was the single most dangerous variable in a city already crowded with them. And yet, seeing him here, water dripping onto the worn rug, felt like the missing piece of a puzzle she hadn’t realized she was still trying to solve. "Who let you in?" she asked, though she knew the answer. Eva’s friends had a rough social circle, and Lucien had been instrumental in helping her escape Evan, the name that still carried a phantom stinging sensation on the back of her neck. He had been her shadow during the worst of it. "Nobody." Lucien reached for the handle, but his hand paused, hovering just over the wood. He looked at her, really looked at her. The amber eye shifted, dilating as he took in her tired posture, the dark circles under her eyes, the way she gripped the doorframe like it was a lifeline. "I climbed." Rory let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "You climbed a three-story apartment block with a half-demon metabolism and a cane that weighs as much as my left leg." "It’s not about the metabolism, Rory. It’s about the consequence." He stepped inside, the door swinging shut behind him with a heavy thud that silenced the noise of the street. "I have been smelling your smell for three weeks. The scent of your shampoo, the candle wax you burn, the way you drop your voice when you're angry. It was driving me mad." The intimacy of the statement made her throat tight. He had been tracking her. "I live above a curry house," she snapped, though her anger felt small against the overwhelming reality of him standing in her hallway. "If you were driving yourself mad, it’s because you were eavesdropping." "I listen." He set his cane against the wall—carefully, deliberately—and unbuttoned his jacket, letting it fall onto the floor. His undershirt was crisp white, the collar slightly frayed at the neck. He looked like he had stepped out of a time capsule, while she felt like she hadn't showered in two days. "I always listen." "You left," she said, the words tumbling out before she could check them. "You told me to go. You said we were complicating things." He watched her for a long, agonizing moment. The silence in the flat was heavy, pressing in on them, filled only by the sound of Ptolemy, who had vaulted off the sofa and was currently hissing at Lucien’s boots. "She told me to go," Lucien said, his voice dropping an octave, intimate and rough. "I didn't." Rory flinched as if he’d physically struck her. "She told you she was scared. She told you I wasn't good enough." "Jennifer—" He corrected himself, using her mother’s name. "Eva said a lot of things. She said I was a liability. She said I wasn't human enough." The air around him seemed to shimmer for a second, a flicker of something horned and too-large, the memory of his true form, before settling back into the perfectly tailored man. Rory looked away, towards the stack of papers on the table. "She was right about the liability part." "The only liability I've ever been to you is when I left," Lucien countered. He moved then, closing the distance between them. He didn't rush; he moved with that terrifying, effortless smoothness that had made him a legend in London’s underground circles. He stopped just outside her personal space, the heat radiating from him contrasting with the cool air of the flat. He reached out, his fingers hovering over the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. She instinctively pulled back, but he was too fast. His hand settled over hers, his skin cool and dry, grounding her. "I didn't come back because you're safe," he whispered, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin just below her wrist. "I came back because I can't stop thinking about you. About the way you laugh when you think no one is looking, about how you solve problems with a knife when words fail. The things you hide... Rory, I want to help you hide them, or carry them, or whatever it is you need me to do." Rory looked up at him. The amber eye burned into hers, dark and hungry. She saw the exhaustion in the lines around his mouth, the tension in the set of his shoulders. He was risking everything—his cover, his safety, his reputation—to stand in her hallway. "How did you find this address?" she asked, the rational part of her brain screaming that this was madness. "The networks are vast, and the price is always manageable." He tapped his temple. "But I used the scent. It was like a beacon. I recognized it before I even entered the city limits." "You could have come to Cardiff," she said softly. "And do what? Watch you from a distance?" He shook his head, a grimace of distaste on his face. "No. I need to see the light behind your eyes." Ptolemy jumped onto the back of the sofa, swishing his tail, but he didn't attack. He seemed to sense that the dispute was no longer about territory, but about something far more ancient and stubborn. "I don't want to go back there," Rory admitted, the confession spilling out into the stagnant air. "Not with Evan. Not with the law. Not anywhere." Lucien’s grip on her hand tightened, his fingers interlacing with hers until her knuckles turned white. He squeezed, hard and reassuring, pulling her slightly toward him. "Then don't. You don't answer to him anymore. You don't answer to the university, and you don't answer to me." She hesitated, the rational part of her brain screaming that this was madness. Lucien Moreau was a half-demon fixer who carried a cane. She was a law-abiding—mostly—delivery girl with a history of bad choices. "You broke the rules of the sanctuary," she said. "Rules are made to be bent," he murmured, dipping his head closer. His breath brushed against her cheek, warm and familiar. "Especially when they keep the people you care about away." Rory looked at the three deadbolts behind her. She thought about the ache in her chest that had been there for three weeks, the hollow ache that the rhythm of a mundane life hadn't been able to fill. She thought about the way his eyes, one solid gold and one abyss black, held a terrifying amount of focus. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, her shoulders dropping an inch. "You're wet," she said. Lucien raised an eyebrow. "Yes. It is currently raining in London." "Get your coat." The words surprised both of them. For a second, the tension snapped, replaced by the ridiculousness of the situation. Lucien’s eyes softened, the dark one dimming to a rich brown, while the amber flared with a sudden, blinding heat. "Are you sure? Because if you change your mind—" "I'm sure." Rory pulled her hand from his and turned toward the living room. "But you’re staying on the sofa. And you have to help me move these books off the chair. I can't reach the top shelf." She walked away, expecting him to follow. She felt his footsteps echoing behind her, heavy and steady, the rhythmic tap of a cane on the floorboards that matched the erratic beating of her own heart. He didn't say anything, didn't promise forever, didn't offer any grand declarations of devotion. He simply picked up his jacket, folded it carefully, and followed her into the chaos of her life. "Take the stairs," she said without looking back, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "I’m not climbing another fire escape for you." "I know," Lucien replied, his voice a low rumble in the quiet room. "I heard you the first time."