AI The door clicked. The second deadbolt snapped back. Rory's fingers hovered over the third lock, the brass warm beneath her thumb. Through the peephole, the corridor warped into a fisheye nightmare of yellowed wallpaper and exposed pipes. She saw the charcoal suit first. Then the cane.
She twisted the last bolt.
Lucien Moreau filled the doorway, his shoulders blocking the hallway light. Rain dripped from the brim of his invisible hat—he wasn't wearing one, but the water in his platinum hair suggested he'd walked through the storm without cover. One eye caught the amber glow from the curry house sign downstairs, the other stayed pitch, a void that drank the shadows.
"You missed a button," he said.
Rory looked down. Her shirt gaped at the collar, three fasteners undone, the fourth straining. She crossed her arms. "Eva's not here."
"I didn't come for Eva."
Ptolemy wound between Rory's ankles, his tabby tail brushing her calves. The cat hissed. Lucien didn't flinch, but his knuckles whitened around the ivory handle of his cane. The blade inside remained sheathed, for now.
"You can't just show up here," Rory said.
"I didn't have your new number."
"You could have asked around. You're supposed to be good at finding things."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile. "You're wearing the shirt I bought you."
She hadn't realized. The fabric, soft and worn at the elbows, had been stuffed in her drawer for six months, untouched since the night she'd left his apartment in Brixton. The night she'd told him some distances couldn't be crossed by people made of different substances. Human and half-demon. Cardiff delivery girl and Marseille fixer.
"Why are you here, Luc?"
He shifted his weight . The cane tapped against the threshold, a sound like bones knocking. "Your ex is back in London."
Rory's hand moved to her left wrist, fingers tracing the crescent scar beneath her sleeve. "Evan doesn't concern me anymore."
"He bought something from a collector in Highgate last Tuesday. An object designed to find specific heartbeats." Lucien's amber eye flicked to her throat, where her pulse jumped against the skin. "He didn't come back for closure, Laila."
The childhood nickname slapped her. She stepped back, allowing the door to swing wider by instinct, by old habit. Lucien entered without invitation, his shoes—Italian leather, unscuffed despite the rain—crossing into Eva's territory. The flat smelled of old paper and turmeric from the restaurant below. Towers of scrolls teetered on the kitchen table. Research on ley lines, on threshold magic, on the proper way to salt a window against things that crawled out of Avaros.
Lucien navigated the clutter with practiced ease , though she knew he'd never been here before. He moved like he memorized floorplans in his sleep.
"You should have called," Rory said, shutting the door. The three deadbolts clicked home, one, two, three.
"I did. You changed your number."
"That was two months ago."
"And I've been busy arranging for your continued breathing." He leaned his cane against a stack of grimoires. The ivory gleamed. "Evan hired three men. They know you work nights for Yu-Fei. They know about the flat above Silas' bar, the one you moved out of last week. They don't know about this place yet."
Rory walked to the kitchenette, putting the counter between them. Her hands shook as she filled the kettle. "So you came to warn me. Noble."
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't pretend this is about courtesy." He rounded the counter, faster than a human should move, and his hand covered hers on the kettle handle. His skin ran hot, feverish, the demon blood singing beneath the surface. "You ran from me because I told you what I was. You didn't run because you were afraid."
She didn't pull away. The steam rising between them smelled of copper and rain. "I ran because you lie for a living. Because you trade information like currency and I couldn't tell if anything between us was real."
His thumb traced her knuckles, the touch precise, calculated , and devastating. "I never lied about wanting you."
"You omitted."
"Is that worse?"
"In my book?" She finally jerked her hand free, sloshing water onto the linoleum. "Yes."
Ptolemy leaped onto the table, knocking a scroll onto the floor. It unfurled between them, a map of London's supernatural veins, red ink marking places where the veil wore thin. Lucien stepped on the parchment without looking down, closing the distance until his breath warmed her temple.
"I could have made him disappear," Lucien said, his voice dropping to a register that vibrated in her ribs. "Evan. The men he hired. I could have solved this six months ago with a phone call and a price."
"But you didn't."
"Because you asked me not to. You said you wanted to handle your own monsters." His hand rose, not touching her, but hovering near the scar on her wrist. The childhood accident. The shape of it matched his thumbnail exactly. "So I watched. From distance. Like you demanded."
Rory turned her head. His mismatched eyes consumed her field of vision, the amber bright with something ancient, the black depthless and hungry. She remembered the taste of his mouth in that Brixton flat, licorice and smoke, the way his fingers had felt tracing that same scar while he asked her to stay.
"Why now?" she whispered.
"Because he's not just looking for revenge anymore. He's looking for the thing that makes you shine." Lucien's hand finally touched her, palm flat against her sternum, above her heart. "You don't know what you are, Rory. But Evan figured it out. And I can't watch from the shadows while he cuts it out of you."
She should step back. The kettle screamed, a high electric whine that matched the panic in her ears. Instead, she grabbed his tie, the silk smooth and expensive, and yanked. His mouth crashed into hers, all teeth and desperation, six months of silence breaking like a wave against rocks. He tasted exactly as she remembered, exactly as she'd tried to forget.
Lucien's hands framed her face, thumbs pressing into her jaw with possessive urgency. The demon in him showed in the heat radiating through his suit, in the way his tongue swept through her mouth like he was claiming territory.
"You don't get to do this," she gasped against his lips, even as her fingers tangled in his rain-wet hair. "You don't get to storm in and—"
"Then stop me."
She bit his lower lip, hard enough to draw a groan from his chest, a sound that wasn't entirely human. He lifted her onto the counter, scrolls scattering, Ptolemy fleeing to the windowsill. The height put them eye to eye, amber and black and bright blue, all the colors of warning signs.
"I needed space," she said, her hands under his jacket, finding the holster he wore beneath the tailored wool.
"You needed safety."
"I needed to not be a job for you."
Lucien pulled back, just enough to let her see the fracture in his composure, the way his perfect mask had cracked down the center. "You think this is professional? You think I give a damn about the fee?"
"You tell me. You're the broker."
He laughed, sharp and bitter. "I came here with nothing to offer. No deal to make. Just the truth that if he touches you, I'll tear this city apart looking for him. And I won't be civilized about it."
The scar on her wrist ached. She remembered getting it, age seven, climbing the fence at her father's office. She remembered Lucien kissing it the night she'd shown him, the way his lips had lingered like he could taste the history in her skin.
"You should go," she said, but her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer .
"I will." His hands slid under her thighs, lifting her off the counter with demon strength that made her gasp. "After."
"After what?"
He didn't answer. He carried her through the maze of Eva's books, past the three deadbolts that meant nothing against what walked in the dark, past the cat watching with yellow eyes. The bedroom door stood open, a mouth waiting to swallow them both. Outside, the curry house sign flickered , painting the room in brief flashes of orange light.
Lucien set her down on the narrow bed. His cane remained in the other room, the blade sleeping. He stood over her, breathing hard, his shirt finally unbuttoned at the collar where she'd tugged it.
"Tell me to leave," he said. "Use my name. Say it like you mean it."
Rory sat up. She reached for his scar—not physical, but the invisible one she'd left when she'd walked away. Her fingers rested over his heart, where the demon blood pumped steady and sure.
"Lucien."
He closed his eyes.
"Lock the door," she said.
His hand found the bolt. The click echoed through the flat, drowning out the rain.