Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMWDKNC6PZMNWXPW1B922W6

The three deadbolts clicked open in quick succession, and Eva's door swung wide to reveal Aurora standing in the doorway, takeout bag clutched in one hand and her motorcycle helmet tucked under the other arm. Her bright blue eyes went wide, then narrowed into something harder. "Lucien." The name fell from her lips like a stone into still water. He straightened in the armchair where he'd been sitting, amber and black eyes drinking in the sight of her. Six months. It had been six months since she'd walked out of his Mayfair office with her shoulders set like armor and her jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. She looked exactly the same—straight black hair falling to her shoulders, that small crescent scar visible on her left wrist as she shifted her grip on the helmet. But something in her posture had changed. The defensive hunch was gone, replaced by a confidence that made his chest tighten. "Bonjour, ma chérie." His fingers found the ivory handle of his cane, though he didn't rise. Not yet. "You look well." "Don't." The word came out sharp enough to cut. She stepped fully into the flat, letting the door fall shut behind her with a solid thunk. "Don't you dare 'ma chérie' me after showing up here without warning." Ptolemy chose that moment to emerge from beneath a stack of ancient texts, padding over to wind around Aurora's legs with a pleased purr. She bent to scratch behind his ears, and Lucien caught the faint scent of rain and motor oil that always seemed to cling to her after her delivery runs. "Eva invited me," he said carefully, watching her face for tells. The slight tightening around her eyes told him she hadn't known. "She needed information about the Avaros incursions. Professional courtesy." "Professional courtesy." Aurora straightened, setting the takeout bag on Eva's cluttered dining table with more force than necessary. A tower of scrolls wobbled dangerously. "Is that what we're calling it now?" The flat felt smaller with her in it, the cramped space between the book-laden surfaces suddenly electric. He'd forgotten how she filled a room without trying, how her presence could make the air itself seem to shimmer with possibility and danger in equal measure. "Where is Eva, anyway?" Aurora shrugged out of her leather jacket, hanging it on the back of a chair. The simple motion sent that familiar ache through his chest—too many nights watching her perform that same gesture in his flat, too many mornings waking up to find the chair empty. "Research meeting at the British Library. She should return within the hour." "Of course she should." Aurora's laugh held no humor. "How convenient for you both." Lucien finally rose, his cane tapping against the worn floorboards as he moved closer. Not too close—he'd learned that lesson the hard way. Aurora had always been like a cat herself, liable to bolt if cornered. "I did not know you would be here." "Bullshit." She spun to face him, blue eyes blazing. "You know everything that happens in this city. Don't insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise." She was right, of course. He'd known she'd taken to bringing Eva dinner on Thursday evenings, knew it with the same certainty he knew the tides of information that flowed through London's supernatural underground. But knowing and planning were different creatures entirely. "You're right." The admission cost him, but her shoulders relaxed a fraction. "I knew. But I came anyway." "Why?" The simple question hung between them like a blade. He could lie—God knew he'd built his reputation on beautiful, useful lies. Could tell her it was purely business, that the Avaros situation required all available resources. Could pretend the past six months hadn't been a special kind of hell, all charcoal suits and empty conversations with clients who weren't her. Instead, he said, "Because I am a fool." Something flickered across her face too quickly to name. She turned away, busying herself with unpacking containers of Thai food from the bag. Her movements were precise, controlled, but he caught the slight tremor in her fingers as she set down the pad thai. "You can't just—" She stopped, pressing her palms flat against the table. "You can't just show up here and say things like that, Luc. Not after what happened." "What happened," he said quietly, "was a misunderstanding." "A misunderstanding?" She whirled around, and there it was—the fire he'd fallen for in the first place. "You lied to me. For months." "I omitted certain details about the nature of my work—" "You used me." The words came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. "That vampire nest in Southwark, the werewolf pack in Greenwich—you sent me in there blind because it was convenient. Because I was too stupid to ask the right questions." Ptolemy meowed plaintively and slunk away to hide behind a stack of grimoires. Even the cat knew when to retreat. "You were never stupid," Lucien said. "Stubborn, reckless, magnificently infuriating—but never stupid." "Don't." But there was less heat in it now, more exhaustion. She sank into the chair across from where he'd been sitting, and for a moment she looked younger than her twenty-five years. Vulnerable in a way that made his demon blood sing with the need to protect her from everything, including himself. "I made mistakes," he continued, choosing each word like a surgeon selecting instruments. "I should have told you what you were walking into. Should have trusted you with the truth from the beginning." "Should have." She laughed, short and bitter. "The world's most useless phrase." He wanted to cross to her, to drop to his knees beside her chair and explain everything—the way she'd become essential as breathing, the terror that had gripped him every time she walked into danger for one of his jobs, the impossible calculation that keeping her ignorant might keep her safer. Instead, he remained standing, cane balanced between his hands like a barrier. "You left," he said finally. "I left because staying would have destroyed me." Her voice was steady now, matter-of-fact. "I was falling in love with a lie." The words hit him like a physical blow. Falling in love. Past tense. The knife twisted deeper when she didn't look at him as she said it, her gaze fixed on Ptolemy's tail disappearing behind a leather-bound treatise on dimensional theory. "It wasn't all lies." The admission scraped his throat raw. "What we had—that was real." "Was it?" Finally, she looked at him. "How would I know the difference?"