Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT003K2N3XT1P2AHN7DQ2SK

The knock came at half past midnight, three sharp raps that cut through the silence of Eva's flat like gunshots. Rory froze mid-step, the mug of tea in her hand forgotten. She'd been pacing for the last hour, unable to sleep despite the exhaustion that pulled at her bones. Another knock, softer this time. Almost hesitant. "Eva's asleep," she called through the door, not moving closer. "Come back tomorrow." "It's me, Rory." The mug slipped from her fingers. Hot tea splashed across the wooden floor, soaking into the Persian rug Eva had found at a car boot sale. That voice—smooth as aged whiskey, with just a hint of Marseille beneath the polished London accent. She hadn't heard it in three months. "I know you're there." Lucien's words carried through the heavy oak. "I can hear your heartbeat." Damn his demon heritage. Rory's hands trembled as she stepped over the spreading puddle and reached for the first deadbolt. Then the second. Her fingers hesitated on the third. "What do you want?" "To talk." "We did plenty of talking three months ago." "No." A pause. She could picture him on the other side, probably adjusting his cufflinks or smoothing that platinum hair. "You talked. I listened. Then you left." The memory hit her like a physical blow. The warehouse. The blood on his charcoal suit. The look in his mismatched eyes when she'd told him she couldn't do this anymore—couldn't watch him walk the knife's edge between human and demon, couldn't pretend his underworld connections didn't terrify her. She turned the final lock. Lucien stood in the narrow hallway, and her breath caught. Even at past midnight, after whatever business had brought him here, he looked immaculate. The hall light caught the sharp angles of his face, throwing shadows that made him look more dangerous than she remembered. His ivory-handled cane rested against his leg, though she knew he didn't need it for support. "You're bleeding." The words escaped before she could stop them. A dark stain spread across the left side of his shirt, visible where his suit jacket hung open. He glanced down as if noticing it for the first time. "Occupational hazard." "And you came here?" Anger flared, hot and familiar. "Eva's got Ptolemy to think about. She doesn't need your world bleeding into hers." "I didn't come for Eva." The weight of those words settled between them. Rory's fingers tightened on the doorframe. Behind her, Ptolemy meowed from his perch atop a stack of medieval manuscripts. "Five minutes," she said finally, stepping back. He moved past her, careful not to brush against her despite the narrow entrance. The scent of his cologne—sandalwood and something darker—made her stomach twist. She locked the door again, all three bolts, while he surveyed the cluttered flat. "It hasn't changed." He picked up a Byzantine text from the coffee table, handling it with the reverence Eva would approve of. "Still a library masquerading as a living space." "Lucien." He set the book down and turned. In the lamplight, she could see the exhaustion he'd been hiding. The amber eye seemed duller, the black one deeper. Blood had soaked through his shirt now, creating an expanding map of violence across expensive fabric. "Sit," she ordered, pointing to Eva's ancient sofa. "Before you bleed all over her research." He obeyed without argument, which worried her more than the blood. She grabbed Eva's first aid kit from beneath the kitchen sink—Eva kept three, having learned the hard way that supernatural research came with its own risks. "Jacket and shirt off." His fingers moved to the buttons with practiced ease. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall behind his head, on one of Eva's charts mapping demon hierarchies. Anywhere but on the lean muscles she remembered too well. The wound ran along his ribs, deeper than she'd expected. Claw marks, from the look of them. Something with very particular ideas about anatomy. "Verath demon?" She knelt beside the sofa, antiseptic in hand. "You've been studying." "I live above a bar that caters to the supernatural. I picked up a few things." She pressed gauze against the wounds, perhaps harder than necessary. "This needs stitches." "It'll heal by morning. Benefit of mixed blood." Her hands stilled. There it was—the thing that had always stood between them. Not just his demon heritage, but how casually he wielded it. How easily he moved between worlds while she stumbled in the dark. "Why are you here?" She focused on cleaning the wounds, tried to ignore the way his breath hitched when the antiseptic hit raw flesh. "Really." "There's a price on your head." The gauze slipped from her fingers. "What?" "Fifty thousand pounds. Posted three days ago in all the usual places." His hand caught hers, steadying it. "Someone wants Aurora Carter found and delivered. Alive, specifically." "That's impossible. I'm nobody. I deliver Chinese food and live above a bar." "You're Brendan Carter's daughter. That makes you somebody to certain people." Her father. Of course. Even from Belfast, even after she'd changed her number and stopped returning his calls, Brendan Carter's shadow stretched long. "What did he do?" "The better question is who did he cross?" Lucien winced as she resumed cleaning the wounds. "Your father has a talent for making enemies. This time, it seems one of them decided to use you as leverage." "And you came to warn me?" She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice. "How noble." His hand shot out, catching her wrist. The touch burned through her skin, familiar and foreign at once. "I came because I've spent three days killing everyone who tried to collect." The words hung in the air. She looked down at his hand on her wrist, at the blood beneath his manicured nails. Not his blood, she realized. His grip gentled but didn't release her. "You can't protect me from my father's mistakes." "Watch me." "Lucien—" "You left." The words came out raw, nothing like his usual polished delivery. "You walked out of that warehouse and disappeared. Do you know what that did to me?" She tried to pull away, but he held firm. His amber eye burned while the black one seemed to pull light from the room. "I know exactly what it did." Her voice cracked. "I saw what you became that night. What you're capable of. I couldn't—" "Couldn't what? Couldn't accept what I am?" "Couldn't watch you enjoy it." He released her as if burned. She grabbed fresh gauze, needing something to do with her hands. The silence stretched, broken only by Ptolemy's purring and the distant sound of late-night traffic. "I don't enjoy it." His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. "The violence, the blood—it's necessity, not pleasure." "Your demon half—" "Is part of me, yes. But it doesn't control me." He caught her hand again, gentler this time. "When I killed those men in the warehouse, when I tore through them like paper—I didn't do it because my demon side demanded blood. I did it because they were going to hurt you." Her vision blurred. "Don't." "Three months, Rory. Three months of you haunting every shadow in London. Do you think I came here bleeding because I had nowhere else to go? I have safe houses across the city. I came here because—" The bedroom door creaked open. Eva stood in the doorway, wild-haired and wielding a cricket bat, her pajamas covered in cartoon owls. "Right," she said, taking in the scene—Lucien shirtless and bloody on her sofa, Rory kneeling beside him with tears on her cheeks. "I'll put the kettle on, shall I?"