AI The sharp, insistent chime of the doorbell sliced through the stale air of Eva's flat. Rory, mid-scroll through her phone, froze, a half-eaten biscuit poised halfway to her mouth. Who the hell would be here? Not Eva, she’d said she was out with friends. Not Silas, he had his own shrine downstairs. And certainly not the landlord, not with the smell of burnt toast still clinging to the air from this morning’s culinary disaster.
She set her mug down with a soft thud, the ceramic cool against her fingertips. The tabby cat, Ptolemy, uncoiled from his nap on a precarious tower of books and gave a disgruntled twitch of his tail. Rory stood, brushing imaginary dust from her worn jeans, and padded towards the door. Three deadbolts, Eva’s insistence. Each one a testament to a past she never spoke of.
Hesitantly, Rory flipped the first bolt. It protested with a groan, a sound that echoed the unease settling in her stomach . The second followed, then the third, each click a step further into the unknown. She braced herself, gripping the brass knob, and pulled the door inward.
And then she saw him.
The usual impeccable charcoal suit was present, the sharp lines of his tailoring hinting at the taut muscles beneath. His platinum blond hair was slicked back, almost too perfect . But it was the eyes that snagged her breath. One, the colour of warm, molten amber, glinted with a familiar , unnerving intelligence. The other, a startling, impenetrable black, gave nothing away. Lucien Moreau. Here. On Eva’s doorstep.
A beat passed, perhaps two, stretched thin by the sheer impossibility of the moment. Rory’s mind, usually a well-oiled machine of quick calculations and logical deductions, stuttered. She felt a phantom warmth spread across her left wrist, the faint crescent scar a ghost of a memory.
“Rory,” he said, his voice a low, smooth rumble that brushed against her skin like fine silk . It was the same voice that had whispered promises she’d since learned to distrust, the same voice that had once soothed her, and later, utterly undone her.
“Lucien,” she managed, the name feeling alien on her tongue. “What… what are you doing here?”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, barely there, like the shadow of a thought. “Eva mentioned you might be around. Helping her with… research?”
Rory tightened her grip on the doorknob. Eva, damn her nosy, well-intentioned soul. “Something like that. It’s late.” The implication hung in the air , a silent question about why he was here, at this hour, at her friend’s place.
He took a small step forward, his heterochromatic gaze sweeping over the cramped, book-laden interior of Eva’s flat. The air, already thick with the scent of old paper and dried herbs, seemed to thrum with an unspoken tension . He shifted his weight, his ivory-handled cane tapping a soft rhythm against the worn floorboards.
“Indeed, it is,” Lucien conceded, his gaze returning to her . “But some matters, Rory, cannot wait for the morning.”
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. The last time he’d said something like that, it had led to a week of waking up tangled in sheets only to find his side of the bed cold. A week of unanswered calls and a note that simply read, *Forgive me.* She hadn't forgiven him. Not ever.
"What matters?" Her voice was sharper than she intended. She felt a pang of guilt for her tone. He looked… different. Not softer, exactly, but there was a weariness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Or perhaps she just hadn’t noticed, too consumed by her own hurt.
“A situation has arisen,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper , though it carried clearly in the quiet space. “One that concerns both you and I. And Eva, of course.”
Rory’s brow furrowed . A situation? He dealt in situations. He was a fixer, a broker of favours in the shadowed corners of London’s supernatural underbelly. She, on the other hand, delivered noodles and tried to forget the life she’d left behind.
"What kind of situation?" she pressed, her mind already racing through possibilities. Rogue demons? Stolen artefacts? Political manoeuvring within the covens? Lucien never dealt in petty crime.
He paused, as if weighing his words carefully . “Unpleasant ones. Ones that require a certain… discretion. And a certain expertise that few possess.” He glanced at her, a subtle acknowledgment of her own sharp mind, the part of her that had always intrigued him, even as it frustrated him.
The silence stretched again, thick with history. She remembered late nights in clandestine meetings, whispered conversations in dimly lit corners, the dizzying thrill of being drawn into his dangerous world. It had been intoxicating, and then, it had been utterly devastating.
“Eva knows you’re here?” Rory asked, a genuine question this time. Eva was notoriously protective, and knew far too much about Rory’s past with Lucien to welcome his unannounced arrival.
“She does,” Lucien confirmed, a hint of amusement in his voice . “She’s… indisposed at the moment. But she gave her blessing. Of sorts.”
Rory nodded slowly , accepting the plausible deniability. Eva, bless her ever-optimistic heart, would always try to play peacemaker. “And you came to me?”
“Where else?” he asked, tilting his head slightly . The movement drew her eye to the subtle glint of gold around his neck, a pendant she hadn’t noticed before. “You’re involved, whether you wish to be or not. And I… I find I require your particular brand of pragmatic sorcery.”
Pragmatic sorcery. It was one of his ways of describing her quick thinking, her ability to find solutions in chaos. A compliment, in his peculiar language. But it didn't erase the bitter taste of past betrayals.
“Sorcery?” She scoffed lightly . “I deliver Chinese food, Lucien. My ‘sorcery’ involves mastering the art of the double-park without getting a ticket.”
He took another step, closing the distance, and the air crackled between them. She could feel the warmth radiating from him, could almost smell the faint, exotic scent that always clung to him – a mix of expensive cologne and something wilder, something ancient. It was a scent that had once made her dizzy with desire .
“Don’t play games, Rory,” he murmured, his amber eye glinting . “I know what you are. What you’re capable of. And what happened last time… was not your fault alone.”
The unspoken accusation, combined with the hint of an apology, landed like a physical blow. She flinched almost imperceptibly. The ‘last time’ hung between them, a dark shadow cast by events she preferred to keep buried. Events that had led her to Eva’s cramped flat, and the anonymous hum of London.
“There’s nothing to ‘play,’ Lucien,” she said, her voice deliberately cool, a carefully constructed wall . “I’m not involved in your world anymore. I’m trying to build a different one.”
His gaze held hers, unwavering . “Your world, Rory, is currently under threat. And mine, increasingly, appears to be intertwined with yours. We have a mutual problem, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.” He extended the ivory-handled cane, not as a weapon, but as if offering a peculiar kind of truce . “There’s a new player in town. And they’re making moves. Dangerous moves.”
She looked at the cane, at the elegant craftsmanship and the concealed danger within. Then she looked at Lucien. His eyes, those impossible, striking eyes, pleaded with an intensity that was both familiar and terrifying. The attraction, the infuriating, undeniable pull, was still there, a dangerous undercurrent beneath the layers of resentment.
“And you expect me to just… march into trouble with you?” Rory asked, her voice low, laced with disbelief and a reluctant curiosity she couldn’t quite suppress .
Lucien’s lips curved into a genuine, if small, smile. It was a rare sight, and it sent a jolt through her. “Not march. We’ll tiptoe. Perhaps even pirouette, if you’re feeling particularly daring.” He stepped closer, his charcoal suit a stark contrast to the worn comfort of Eva’s flat. His voice dropped again, intimate and compelling. “Tell me, Rory. Are you still wearing that little silver charm on your wrist? The one that looks like a crescent moon?”
Her hand, as if of its own volition, went to her left wrist, her fingers tracing the faint scar. A cold dread, sharp and sudden, pierced through the lingering embers of their complicated history. How could he possibly know that? She never showed it to anyone. Not since… not since he’d last seen it.
“How…?” she breathed, her well-constructed composure crumbling.
He didn't answer, but his eyes held a knowing, almost predatory gleam. He simply turned, his cane tapping a final, decisive rhythm on the floorboards, and walked away from the open doorway, leaving Rory standing there, the chill of the night air suddenly much colder. The deadbolts remained undone, and the promise of trouble, the kind only Lucien Moreau could bring, hung heavy in the air .