Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0MV0M3947XDK0BPZQN4QM

The deadbolt turned with a click that seemed louder than it should have in the narrow stairwell. Aurora's hand froze on the door handle, her breath catching in her throat. Lucien stood in the threshold, haloed by the dim glow of the hallway light. His platinum hair was damp from the rain, slicked back as always, revealing the sharp angles of his face. The ivory handle of his cane caught the light. He wore the same charcoal suit he'd worn the night he'd walked out of her life eight months ago. "Rory." Her name left his lips like a wound reopening. She didn't move from the doorway. "How did you find me?" "Eva." He shifted his weight, and she noticed the tiredness around his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands. "I had to see you." "You had your chance to see me." The words came out sharper than she intended. "You made your choice, Lucien." Behind her, Ptolemy meowed from somewhere in the flat's depths, indifferent to the earthquake at the door. The smell of cold tea and old paper—the familiar scent of Eva's place—suddenly felt suffocating. "I made a lot of choices." His heterochromatic eyes held hers: one amber, one black, like two different souls warring behind his face. "Regretted every single one since." Aurora laughed, but there was no humor in it. "That's convenient. Eight months, and suddenly you regret it." "Can I come in?" He glanced down the stairwell. "The curry house owner is staring. I think he's contemplating whether I'm a threat or a lost tourist." She looked past him. Sure enough, the door to the curry house below had cracked open, a suspicious eye watching the tableau in the stairwell. "Fine." She stepped aside, not touching him as he passed. "But I'm not making tea." He moved into the flat, cane clicking against the worn floorboards. He navigated the labyrinth of books and scrolls with the careful grace of a man used to confined spaces, stopping near the window where moonlight spilled across a stack of research notes. "This is new," he said, gesturing at the papers. "Eva's been researching something. Runes, I think. She hasn't slept properly in weeks." Aurora leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. "You have three minutes. Tell me why you're here." Lucien turned to face her. In the moonlight, the demon-half of his heritage showed itself more clearly—the slight sharpness to his features, the way shadows seemed to cling to him a moment too long. "I heard about what happened. With your ex." Aurora's stomach dropped. "What do you know about Evan?" "Enough." His jaw tightened. "Enough to know you didn't tell me. You didn't tell anyone. You just vanished to London and expected the world to keep spinning without you." "I didn't expect anything." She pushed off the doorway, stalking past him toward the kitchen area. She needed something to do with her hands. The kettle. Yes. "I needed to disappear. That's not your concern." "It became my concern the moment—" He stopped. "The moment what?" He was directly behind her now. She could feel the warmth of him, the faint scent of cedar and something darker underneath. Demon. Always demon underneath. "The moment I realized I'd lost the only person who made me feel human," he said quietly. The kettle trembled in her grip. She set it down on the counter, steadying herself. "Don't do that." Her voice cracked. "Don't stand there and say things like that. You don't get to say things like that after what you did." "What I did." He laughed bitterly. "You want to talk about what I did? You threw me out, Rory. You looked me in the eye and told me you couldn't trust me because of what I am." "Because you lied!" "I told you I was half-demon! I told you everything—" "Not about Avaros. Not about your father's court. Not about the people who were looking for you, looking for me by extension—" She spun to face him. "I found the summoner's circle in your flat, Lucien. The one under your rug. You were going to summon something, and you never told me." Something flickered across his face. Pain, maybe. Or recognition. "You went through my things." "I was looking for explanations. For why you disappeared for three days without a word, only to come back smelling like sulfur and refusing to tell me where you'd been." "I was protecting you." "You were lying to me!" The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by Ptolemy's soft meow as the tabby wound between their legs, oblivious to the wreckage of two people standing in Eva's kitchen. "It was a binding," Lucien said finally. "A demon lord from my father's realm. He wanted me to serve him. I went to negotiate, to buy time so he wouldn't come to Earth looking for me—and by extension, looking for anyone I'd touched." He paused. "Anyone I loved." Aurora's heart hammered against her ribs. "You could have told me." "Would you have believed me? Would you have believed that I went there to protect you, rather than to serve him?" She wanted to say yes. She wanted to believe she would have trusted him. But the memory of Evan's hands around her wrists, the bruises that took weeks to fade, made the answer more complicated. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know what I would have believed. But I needed you to try." "I know." He moved closer, close enough that she could see the amber in his left eye glowing faintly—a demon's tell. "I know I failed. I've spent eight months trying to fix what I broke. But I couldn't stay away any longer." "I have a life here." It came out defensive, small. "I have a job, and Eva, and—" "I know." His hand lifted, hovering near her cheek but not touching. "I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm asking you to let me prove I'm not the man you think I am." She looked at him—at the slicked-back hair and the tailored suit and the cane that hid a blade sharp enough to carve through lies. At the man who made her feel like something other than a survivor, for a little while. "Why now?" she whispered. "Why tonight?" "Because I heard Evan was looking for you again. And I'd rather die than let him touch you." The words hung between them, heavy with meaning. She thought of the small crescent scar on her left wrist, the one she'd gotten as a child, the one that had nothing to do with Evan. But there were other scars, the kind you couldn't see. "You can't protect me from everything." "I know." His hand finally touched her cheek, feather-light. "But I want to try. If you'll let me." Ptolemy meowed again, demanding attention. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blared. The world kept spinning, just as Aurora had once hoped it would. She didn't say yes. She didn't say no. But she didn't pull away.