Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFRS9560A3AAMHWCXXSPDE

The deadbolt was the third one Aurora was fighting with when she heard it—a knock at the door, unhurried, almost polite. She froze, keys still in the lock, her heart kicking against her ribs. Nobody knocked at this hour. Not on Eva's flat. Not on Brick Lane, where the curry shops downstairs pumped spice-scented steam through the vents until two in the morning and the only visitors were delivery drivers and the occasional drunk stumbling home from the Tube. Ptolemy, who had been sleeping in the alcove of the window where the curtain didn't quite meet the frame, lifted his head and blinked in the direction of the door. He didn't hiss. That was something, at least. Aurora pulled the key from the lock. She'd never gotten around to the third deadbolt—she never needed to, not really, not when Eva's research notes were scattered across every surface like autumn leaves and the only supernatural thing in the flat was the lingering residue of protective wards Eva had painted into the plaster years ago. She stood on her toes and peered through the peephole, and her breath stopped. It couldn't be. She opened the door anyway. Of course she did. That had always been her problem—cool-headed, intelligent Aurora Carter, known for quick out-of-the-box thinking, and yet she could never stop herself from opening doors she should have left shut. Lucien Moreau stood in the hallway, one hand resting on the handle of his ivory-handled cane. The fluorescent light above them flickered once, twice, casting his face in stark relief—the sharp cheekbones, the pale sweep of his slicked-back platinum hair, the sharp line of his jaw. He wore charcoal, as he always did. Tailored jacket, fitted shirt, not a crease out of place. The suit of a man who moved through London's supernatural underworld like he owned it, who brokered deals between creatures that didn't exist in the average citizen's nightmares. And then there were his eyes. One amber, one black—heterochromatic, the word was too clinical for what they actually were. The amber one caught the light and burned like a cat's, while the black one simply absorbed it, swallowed it whole. She'd spent hours staring into those eyes. She'd dreamed about them. She'd woken up gasping, her chest tight with something she refused to name. "Rory," he said. His voice was exactly as she remembered—low, smooth, with that faint French curl to his consonants that he'd never quite shed despite a decade in London. "You look terrible." She blinked. "That's not—you can't just show up here. It's—" She glanced behind her at the chaos of Eva's flat, the towers of books threatening to collapse onto the battered sofa, the scrolls unrolled across the kitchen table, the cat hair covering every available surface. "It's two in the morning." "I know what time it is." He didn't move from the doorway. "May I come in?" "No." "Please." The word was quiet. Not a demand, not the careful negotiation he used when he was working, when he was smoothing over some supernatural dispute or extracting information from someone who didn't want to give it. Just please. Just that. Aurora's hand tightened on the door. She could feel the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist, the one from the childhood accident, the one she'd gotten when she was eight and stupid and had tried to catch herself after falling off the wall behind the primary school. She'd had someone kiss that scar once. She'd had someone trace it with their thumb and promise to never hurt her. That had been a lie, of course. Everyone hurt her in the end. "How did you find me?" she asked. "I have my ways." "Lucien." "I asked Eva." Aurora's jaw tightened. "Eva doesn't know where I am. I didn't even tell her I was coming back to London. I just—" She stopped. That was too much information. That was giving him too much. But he was already stepping forward, past the threshold, and she was stepping back, and somehow they were inside the flat with the door swinging shut behind him. Ptolemy hopped down from the window ledge and wound between Lucien's ankles, purring. Traitor. "She was worried about you," Lucien said, looking around the flat with those mismatched eyes. "She said you left Cardiff without telling her. That you didn't answer your phone for three weeks." "I was busy." "Busy." He turned to face her. "Busy doing what? Running?" She flinched. He watched her flinch, and something shifted in his expression—a tightening around his mouth, a darkness that flickered in the amber eye. "Evan," he said. "It's Evan, isn't it? He found you again." "It's none of your business." "The hell it isn't." The curse was so unexpected—so far from his usual careful diction—that Aurora stared at him. Lucien never swore. He'd told her once that language was a tool, and one didn't wield a blade carelessly. He chose his words like he chose his moves in the negotiations that kept London's supernatural world from tearing itself apart. Carefully. Deliberately. With an eye toward the outcome he wanted. And yet here he was, standing in Eva's cramped flat, surrounded by research notes about things that shouldn't exist, his hand still resting on that cane that hid a thin blade, saying hell like it was nothing. "You left," she said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "You left, Lucien. You didn't say a word. Three months, and you didn't—" She stopped. Swallowed. "You don't get to show up here and ask about Evan. You don't get to care about that now." "I didn't leave by choice." "Everyone leaves by choice." He was quiet for a moment. The only sound was Ptolemy's purring, the distant thrum of the curry shop's extractor fan below them, the eternal hum of London outside the window. "My father," he said finally. "The one from Avaros. He sent for me. There was a—" He paused, choosing his words. "A matter that required my attention. In the realm. I couldn't refuse. I couldn't—" His hand flexed on the cane. "I tried to tell you. I came to your flat in Cardiff, and you weren't there. Your mother said you'd gone to London. With Eva." "I didn't know." Aurora's voice was smaller now. "I didn't know you came. Mom never said—" "I asked her not to. I thought—" He laughed, a bitter sound she'd never heard from him before. "I thought if you knew I'd been there, you'd wait. I thought you'd wait for me to come back. And I didn't know how long it would take. I didn't know if I'd come back at all." The words hung in the air between them. Avaros. She'd heard of it—the demon realm, the place Lucien came from, the half of him that he kept carefully hidden beneath tailored suits and perfect French. She knew what it meant when a demon from Avaros sent for someone. She knew the kinds of matters that required attention. She looked at him, really looked at him, and saw the tension in his shoulders, the new lines around his eyes, the way his hair, despite its careful styling, seemed thinner than before. Whatever had happened in Avaros, it had cost him something. "You came back," she said. "Yes." "And now you're here." "Yes." "Why?" He was quiet for a long moment. Then he moved toward her, slow, deliberate, the way he approached negotiations—measured, careful, giving her every chance to retreat. She didn't move. She couldn't. "Because I promised myself I wouldn't leave you again," he said. "Because I spent three months in a realm where time moves differently, and every day I thought about you. Because when I came back and heard you'd left Cardiff, left your whole life behind because of that bastard—" His voice cracked. "I couldn't stay away. I had to know if you were safe. I had to see you." Aurora's eyes burned. She blinked hard, refusing to cry, refusing to let herself fall apart the way she'd fallen apart three months ago when she'd packed a bag and got on a train to London and left everything behind. "I don't need a protector," she said. "I don't need you to save me." "I know." He stopped an arm's length away. "I'm not here to save you. I'm here because—" He reached out, slowly, giving her time to pull away, and brushed a strand of black hair from her face. His fingers were cool against her cheek. "I'm here because I love you, Rory. I should have said it before I left. I should have said it a hundred times. And I'm saying it now, even if you tell me to leave, even if you can't—" His voice wavered. "Even if you can't forgive me. I need you to know." She stared at him. Her chest was too tight, her throat too thick, her whole body shaking with the effort of holding herself together. "You can't just say that," she whispered. "You can't just—" "I know." "I was destroyed. When you left. I thought—" She pressed her palm to her chest, over the scar on her wrist, the old wound that still ached sometimes when the weather changed. "I thought you were like everyone else. I thought you got what you wanted and then you left." "I want you." His voice was fierce now, raw. "That's all I've wanted. That's all I'll ever want. The rest of it—the supernatural world, the politics, the things I have to do—they're just noise. You're the only thing that's real." Ptolemy meowed, winding between their legs again, oblivious to the weight of the moment. Aurora laughed—a broken, wet sound—and then she was crying, properly crying, the tears she'd been holding back for months spilling down her cheeks. Lucien pulled her into his arms. He smelled like cologne and something else, something darker, something that reminded her of the half of him that came from a place where the sun didn't shine. She pressed her face against his chest and sobbed, and he held her, his hand smoothing down her hair, his lips pressed to the top of her head. "I'm sorry," he murmured against her hair. "I'm so sorry. I should have told you. I should have—" "Shut up," she said, muffled against his shirt. "Just—shut up." He went still. Then, slowly, his arms tightened around her. She didn't pull away.