Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR7YYSGZ4K3EBES5KHAWH9

Aurora slid the top deadbolt back with the side of her thumb, listening as the mechanism gave with a reluctant clack. The corridor outside smelled of damp coats and fried onions drifting up from the curry house below. Someone stood close enough to the door that their breath seemed to press through the wood. She drew in a quiet breath, counted, then cracked it open. Lucien Moreau filled the gap like a careful sin. He wore a charcoal suit that should have belonged in a glossy magazine and somehow still did, even with rain stippling the shoulders and darkening the lapels. His hair was slicked back as always—platinum, too neat for a man who’d just arrived unannounced. The ivory handle of his cane rested in his palm, the curve of it familiar in a way that made Rory’s stomach tighten. His eyes were worse. One amber, warm as whiskey. The other black as a cut in the world. Both of them fixed on her with an expression that hovered between apology and calculation. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Rory kept her hand on the door and let her face go blank, the way she had in seminars when someone tried to bait her into a losing argument. “You’ve got the wrong flat.” Lucien’s mouth softened, but not into a smile. “Bonsoir, Rory.” The sound of her name in his voice was an old touch—unwanted and intimate. Rory’s grip tightened on the door edge. She could feel the thin vibration in the wood from the building’s life: pipes, footsteps, a muffled laugh downstairs. A normal night on Brick Lane. Except for him. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I know.” He tilted his head, as if offering her a better angle of himself. As if she might find him easier to forgive from the side. “May I come in?” “No.” Lucien’s gaze flicked past her shoulder into the flat, taking in the chaos of books and scrolls stacked like precarious architecture, the pinned notes on the wall, Eva’s habit of building theories out of paper. Ptolemy the tabby sat on the arm of a battered chair, watching the door with narrowed, judgmental eyes. “Eva home?” Lucien asked. Rory didn’t answer. Her pulse had found a fast, steady rhythm, a courier’s heartbeat that understood being chased even when she wasn’t the one running. She tried not to notice the slight hitch in Lucien’s breathing, the subtle tension in the hand holding the cane. He looked composed, but he’d always looked composed. That didn’t mean anything. “What do you want?” she said. He hesitated. It was such a small thing—Lucien pausing before he spoke—that it landed like a confession. “To talk,” he said. Rory let out a short laugh that held no amusement. “That’s rich.” A faint sound came from the stairwell below. Footsteps, unhurried. Someone climbing, someone who didn’t live here. Rory’s attention snapped down the corridor. Lucien’s did too, quicker. He didn’t move for the door. He didn’t reach past her. He simply met her eyes again, and something sharpened there. Not charm. Not manipulation. A warning. “They followed me,” he said quietly. “If you leave me in this hallway, you will be part of it.” Rory felt the urge to slam the door in his face rise like bile. She also felt, with infuriating clarity, the logic of what he’d said. Brick Lane was busy even at night—tourists, drunks, delivery riders, people coming and going. It should have been safe. But Lucien didn’t bring ordinary trouble. Lucien brought the kind that learned your habits and waited in your blind spots. “Who?” she demanded. His jaw flexed once. “Not the police.” That wasn’t an answer. It was a category. The footsteps below paused, then resumed—closer now. Rory’s thoughts snapped into alignment like files sliding into a drawer. If she shut him out, those people would still come up. They’d knock, maybe. They’d ask questions. They’d push. Eva’s flat had three deadbolts, but not a miracle. Rory opened the door wider with a curt jerk of her wrist. “Fine. In. Quickly.” Lucien stepped through, and the air of the corridor seemed to follow him, cold and wet. Rory caught the faint scent of rain and something darker underneath, like smoke ground into fabric. She slammed the door and slid the first deadbolt home, then the second, then the third, the motions practiced from too many nights living in London with a past that wouldn’t stay buried. When she turned, Lucien stood just inside the flat, cane planted lightly on the worn floorboards. He didn’t move deeper, as if he understood this wasn’t an invitation so much as a forced truce. Ptolemy hopped down from the chair and approached with his tail up, sniffing Lucien’s trouser leg. Lucien looked down with the careful solemnity of a man being assessed by a judge. “He remembers you,” Rory said before she could stop herself. Lucien’s expression flickered. “Cats don’t forget.” Neither did she. Rory crossed her arms, tugging one sleeve down by habit. The movement exposed the small crescent scar on her left wrist before she covered it again, and she hated that even her body had tells. “Start talking,” she said. “And make it good. Because the last time you wanted to ‘talk,’ you vanished for three months.” Lucien’s throat worked. He leaned his weight a fraction onto the cane, but his posture stayed immaculate, as if pain were beneath him. “It wasn’t—” “Don’t,” Rory cut in. The word came out sharper than she intended, and Ptolemy’s ears flicked at the tone. “Don’t try to varnish it. You left without a word. One night you were in my kitchen making coffee like you belonged there, and the next you were… gone.” Lucien’s gaze dropped to her hands, to the way her fingers dug into her sleeves. Then back up to her face. “I didn’t leave because I wanted to.” Rory felt the old anger stir, hot and thin. “You always do what you want. That’s your whole thing.” The corner of his mouth lifted, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You think I wanted to stop seeing you?” Her breath caught—small, traitorous. There were too many things in this room, too many words on paper, too many unfinished theories. None of it helped with the fact that Lucien stood a few feet away, damp from rain, looking at her like she was both problem and solution. Rory forced herself to keep her voice level. “Why are you here?” Lucien’s fingers tightened on the cane handle. “Because I can’t go anywhere else that isn’t already compromised.” “That’s a you problem.” “It’s becoming a you problem,” he said, and the softness drained away. “They know your name.” Rory’s skin prickled. “Who are ‘they’?” Lucien’s eyes flicked to the windows, to the thin curtains that did an admirable job of pretending they could stop anyone from looking in. “Avaros has more hands in London than you’d like to believe. And one of those hands is reaching for me.” Rory swallowed. The realm name carried its own weight. She’d heard it in pieces—overheard in Silas’ bar, murmured from the mouths of people who didn’t pray but still believed in hell. She’d heard Lucien say it once, in a moment of unguarded honesty that had felt like intimacy. “You’re half,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say that wouldn’t reveal how her fear had spiked. “You told me you weren’t—” “I am,” Lucien said. “And I have been careful. But something shifted. Someone wants leverage.” Rory stared at him, mind racing through possibilities with the same brisk efficiency she used to plan delivery routes. Leverage. That word meant exactly what she thought it meant. “Me,” she said. Lucien didn’t deny it. He looked at her, and for once there was no performance in the set of his shoulders. “You were never supposed to be in the line of fire.” Rory barked another humorless laugh. “That’s convenient. You decide what I’m ‘supposed’ to be, and when it gets dangerous, you disappear. And now you show up at Eva’s flat like—like a stray she should take in.” Ptolemy chose that moment to brush against Lucien’s ankle, purring. Rory shot the cat an incredulous look. “Traitor.” Lucien’s gaze softened at the cat, then sharpened on Rory. “Rory. Listen to me.” Her name again, quieter. It hit something tender under the anger. Rory held her ground. “I am listening.” Lucien took a small step forward, then stopped, as if an invisible line ran across the floorboards between them. He didn’t want to push, and that alone made her wary. He’d always pushed before. “I left,” he said, “because I received word that someone was asking questions about you. About a girl from Cardiff. About the delivery routes you take. About where you live.” Rory’s throat tightened. She remembered that month—how she’d checked behind her on the bike more often, how she’d flinched when someone lingered too long outside Silas’ bar. She’d told herself it was just London. She’d told herself her past with Evan had made her paranoid. “You could’ve warned me,” she said. “I didn’t want to frighten you.” “I’m frightened now.” Lucien’s jaw clenched as if that hurt him. “I know. I’m sorry.” Rory blinked at him. Lucien Moreau didn’t apologize easily. When he did, it usually came wrapped in charm, presented like a gift with strings. This one sounded bare. The footsteps outside came again—past the door this time, moving down the corridor. Rory held still, listening, hearing the faint scrape of shoe soles on old linoleum. The sound faded. Lucien exhaled slowly. His shoulders dropped a fraction. “They’re checking doors.” Rory’s blood cooled. “How many?” “At least two,” he said. “Maybe more waiting below.” “Why would they come here?” Rory asked, and hated the small crack in her voice. “You said they know my name, not Eva’s.” Lucien’s gaze flicked to the stacks of papers, the pinned maps, the way the flat looked like someone had been trying to solve the world with ink. “Your friend is loud in her research. People notice. And you’ve been seen here.” Rory’s mind snapped to yesterday afternoon—her and Eva hauling groceries up the stairs, laughing, Rory complaining about the curry smell that never left the building. Had anyone been watching? Had she been careless? She forced herself to breathe. Panic didn’t help. Planning did. “Sit,” she said, gesturing to a chair half-buried under a pile of books. “And tell me everything, from the start. Names, faces, what you know.” Lucien’s mouth quirked. “Still giving orders.” “Still ignoring them?” Rory shot back. To her surprise, he did as she asked. He eased himself into the chair with controlled movement, cane leaning against his knee. For an instant, when he shifted, Rory caught a glimpse of dark staining at his side beneath the suit jacket—subtle, but there. Blood, or something close to it. Her stomach dropped. “You’re hurt.” Lucien looked down as if noticing it for the first time. “It’s nothing.” “That’s what men say right before they pass out,” Rory snapped, already moving. She shoved aside a stack of papers on the small kitchen table, hunting for anything useful—Eva’s first-aid kit was somewhere under the sink, unless it had been swallowed by the flat like everything else. “I won’t pass out,” Lucien said mildly. “You don’t get to decide that,” Rory muttered, crouching and yanking open cabinet doors until she found the battered white kit. She stood and turned back toward him, only to stop short. Lucien watched her with a strange, quiet focus. Not the predator’s attention she’d seen in him when he negotiated. Not the amused appraisal he’d used on strangers. It was something else—something almost human. “What?” Rory demanded, thrown off. His amber eye warmed, the black one unreadable. “You’re still you,” he said. The words went under her skin. Rory’s hands tightened around the kit handle. “And you’re still impossible.” “Perhaps,” he said. His voice lowered. “But I am here.” That simple statement cracked something in her chest. He was here. After three months of silence that had tasted like rejection, after nights where she’d argued with herself—angry at him, angry at herself for missing him at all—he was in front of her, bleeding on Eva’s chair like he belonged in her life again. Rory crossed the room and knelt in front of him before she could overthink it. She set the kit down and reached for his jacket. Lucien’s hand came up, hovering near her wrist, not quite touching. “Rory.” “If you tell me not to—” she began. “I won’t,” he said, and there was a roughness to it that made her look up. His gaze had dropped to her left wrist, to the crescent scar peeking from her sleeve as she worked the fabric back. His fingers brushed it lightly—barely a touch, but it sent a jolt up her arm like a struck wire. Rory froze. Her breath hitched. Lucien’s voice went quiet. “I thought about this more than I should have.” Her throat tightened. “My scar?” “You,” he said. “All of you. The way you pretend nothing gets under your skin.” His fingertip lingered, then retreated as if he didn’t trust himself. “And the way you still open the door.” Rory swallowed hard. She forced her hands to keep moving, unbuttoning his jacket with brisk efficiency. Underneath, his white shirt was stained at the side, the fabric torn where something sharp had met flesh. She reached for gauze, alcohol wipes, anything to keep her focus on the practical. “This is going to hurt.” Lucien leaned back slightly, giving her room. “I deserve worse.” Rory’s laugh came out shaky this time. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it about deserving. Tell me who did this.” Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “A collector.” “Collector of what?” Rory pressed, peeling away the stained cloth carefully. “Debts,” he said, and his mouth tightened when the air hit the wound. “My father’s associates keep ledgers. They like to balance them.” Rory’s stomach turned. She cleaned the cut with a gentleness that surprised her, because anger had always been easier than tenderness. She didn’t want to be gentle with him. Gentleness felt like forgiveness, and she wasn’t ready to give that away. But the sight of his blood made something protective and furious flare in her anyway. “You came here because you needed a nurse,” she said, voice tight. “Or because you needed a shield.” Lucien’s gaze held hers. “I came because I needed you.” Rory’s hands stilled. The room felt suddenly too small, the air thick with paper dust and curry spices and the rain that had followed him inside. Ptolemy hopped up onto the table behind her, tail curling around a stack of notes, watching them as if bored by how predictable humans were. Rory forced herself to breathe again. “You don’t get to say that,” she whispered. “Not after leaving.” Lucien’s expression tightened, the slightest flicker of pain. “I know.” Silence stretched, threaded with distant sounds from downstairs—music, laughter, the clatter of dishes. Life going on, indifferent. Rory finished bandaging him with hands that had stopped trembling only through sheer stubbornness. She taped the gauze down, then sat back on her heels, keeping space between them even though her pulse insisted on closing it. Lucien looked down at the bandage, then back to her. “Thank you.” Rory’s jaw clenched. “Don’t thank me. Just—tell me the truth. All of it. Were you ever going to come back? Or did I only get lucky because you’re bleeding and desperate?” Lucien’s breath left him slowly. He reached into his pocket with careful movement, as if not to spook her, and pulled out a slim object—a folded piece of paper, worn at the creases. He held it out. Rory didn’t take it at first. Then she did, fingers brushing his. His skin was warm. Too warm. She unfolded the paper. Her own name was written there in neat, elegant script—his handwriting. Under it, an address. Not Silas’ bar. Eva’s flat. Rory stared at it, confused. “I wrote it the night I left,” Lucien said. “So I wouldn’t… lose you entirely. I told myself if things got worse, I would come here, where you would be safe. And if things got better…” His throat tightened on the last word. “I would come back and ask you to let me stay.” Rory looked up, caught between anger and something softer that terrified her more. “Ask me.” Lucien’s gaze didn’t flinch. “I’m asking now.” Rory’s breath hitched, and for a second she couldn’t hear the building, couldn’t hear the city. All she could hear was the old ache in her chest shifting, making room for the possibility that his absence hadn’t been indifference. That he’d been thinking about her the whole time, carrying her name like a compass point. She should have said no. It would have been clean. It would have been safe. Instead she found herself rising, closing the distance on instinct, and stopping just short of him, close enough to see the fine lines of exhaustion at the corners of his eyes. “If I let you stay,” Rory said, voice low, “it’s not on your terms. No disappearing. No secrets that put me in danger. You tell me what’s happening, and you trust me to handle it.” Lucien’s gaze searched her face. Something in him loosened, as if he’d been holding himself together with pure will. “I don’t know how to do this without secrets,” he admitted. “But I can try. For you.” Rory’s throat tightened. She hated that those words made heat rise under her skin. She hated that she wanted to believe him. “And what about us?” she asked, the question slipping out before she could smother it. “Was that—was I just a distraction? Something pretty to keep you entertained while you played fixer?” Lucien’s expression went still. Then his hand lifted, slow and careful, and hovered near her cheek without touching, waiting for permission. Rory didn’t give it with words. She leaned into his palm. His touch was gentle, reverent almost, as if he’d been starving and didn’t trust food not to vanish. His thumb traced the edge of her cheekbone. His gaze dropped to her mouth, then rose again, asking a question he didn’t seem brave enough to speak aloud. Rory’s heart hammered. “Lucien,” she whispered. “I wasn’t entertained,” he said hoarsely. “I was… relieved. With you, I could forget what I am.” Rory’s breath shuddered out of her. She should have stepped back. She should have remembered every reason to keep distance. Instead she caught his wrist lightly—feeling the pulse there, steady—and pulled him forward the last inch. Their mouths met, not gentle at first. It was a collision of everything they’d withheld: her anger, his restraint, the ache of time that hadn’t dulled desire so much as sharpened it into something dangerous. Lucien’s hand slid into her hair, fingers threading through the straight black strands at her shoulder, anchoring her as if he’d been afraid she’d vanish like he had. Rory tasted rain and something darkly sweet—him. She kissed him harder, punishing and hungry, and felt him exhale against her mouth like surrender. A knock sounded at the door. Sharp. Deliberate. Rory froze with Lucien’s lips still against hers. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Lucien drew back, his gaze snapping toward the door, his whole body coiling. The knock came again. Rory’s mouth tingled. Her heart pounded for two reasons now—one she understood, one she didn’t want to. Lucien’s cane was suddenly in his hand, the ivory handle gripped like a promise. His voice was low. “Stay behind me.” Rory’s own fear steadied into something colder. She reached for the nearest heavy object on the table without looking—an old hardcover book with a cracked spine—and stood at his side instead. “No,” she said, eyes fixed on the deadbolts. “We do this together.”