Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0SWEVC94E13Y04GR5J4Z1

The third deadbolt clicked and the door swung inward. Lucien stood in the corridor, water dripping from the shoulders of his charcoal suit, his platinum hair plastered to his forehead in darkened streaks. His ivory-handled cane hung crooked from his wrist. A fresh cut traced his jawline, the blood already darkening to rust. Rory's grip tightened on the door frame. Three months. Three months since the warehouse. Three months since he'd vanished into shadow and she'd told herself good riddance. "You're bleeding on Eva's welcome mat." "Hello to you too, Carter." His voice scraped like gravel. She noted the way he leaned slightly to his left, compensating for weight he wouldn't put on his right leg. The heterochromatic eyes—one amber, one black—held hers with an intensity that made her stomach twist. "Wrong flat. Silas' place is around the corner." "We need to talk." "Strange. You didn't seem interested in talking when you left me standing in that warehouse with a knife wound and a lot of questions." She moved to shut the door. His palm pressed against the wood. Not forcing. Just... present. "Please." The word cracked something in her chest that she'd spent twelve weeks fortifying. Ptolemy chose that moment to wind between Rory's ankles, meowing with the particular indignation of a cat whose dinner was late. The tabby's tail brushed against the door frame as he padded past, entirely uninterested in the drama unfolding on his threshold. Lucien's mouth twitched. "The cat hasn't changed." "Ptolemy has better manners than you." Rory stepped back and let the door fall open. "Fine. Come in. But if you bleed on any of Eva's manuscripts, she'll make whatever did that to your face look like a paper cut." He limped inside, his shoe squelching against the worn floorboards. The flat felt smaller with him in it. Every surface still overflowed with Eva's research—leather-bound grimoires stacked on the kitchen counter, scrolls unfurled across the sofa, index cards pinned to every available wall space. The smell of old paper and sandalwood incense hung heavy in the warm air. Rory shut the door behind him, engaging all three locks out of habit. When she turned, he was surveying the chaos with that analytical gaze she remembered too well. The one that missed nothing. "She's added to the collection." "Eva collects information the way you collect enemies." Rory moved past him toward the tiny kitchen alcove, deliberately putting distance between them. "Sit down before you fall down." "I'm fine." "You're leaving a trail." She gestured at the droplets marking the floorboards. "Kitchen chair. Now." For a moment, she thought he'd argue. His jaw tightened, the muscle there jumping. But then his right knee buckled slightly, and he caught himself on the back of a wooden chair cluttered with newspaper clippings. Rory cleared the seat with three efficient sweeps, dumping the research onto an already-precarious stack on the counter. "Sit." He sat. She pulled a first-aid kit from beneath the sink—one benefit of having a best friend who attracted supernatural trouble like pigeons to breadcrumbs—and set it on the scarred table between them. When she finally looked at him directly, under the flat's overhead light, the full extent of the damage became clear. Someone had worked him over thoroughly. His lip was split. The cut on his jaw was deeper than she'd initially thought. His right hand, braced against his cane, was scraped raw across the knuckles. And beneath the ruined suit jacket, his white shirt bore a spreading stain that couldn't be anything but blood. "You look like hell, Lucien." "You should see the other fellows." A ghost of his usual sardonic smile flickered across his face. "Actually, no. You shouldn't. It's rather unsightly." Rory opened the kit and pulled out antiseptic, gauze, medical tape. Her hands moved automatically, guided by months of patching up delivery drivers who'd taken spills on icy streets and, more recently, sewing shut the wounds that seemed to follow her new life like a shadow. "Shirt off." "Miss Carter, this is hardly the—" "Off." She met his gaze. "Unless you want me to cut it off you. Your choice." Something flickered behind his eyes—surprise, perhaps, at the steel in her voice. He shrugged out of the suit jacket with a sharp intake of breath, then fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. His fingers were shaking. Rory took over. The fabric was ruined anyway. She made quick work of the buttons, trying to ignore the way her knuckles brushed against his chest, the warmth of his skin through the thin undershirt beneath. She'd seen him injured before. It came with the territory of his particular profession. But this was different. This was worse. "You have a knife wound." "Observant as always." "That's not from tonight." The skin around the gash across his ribs was angry and inflamed. "Lucien, this is infected. Why didn't you—" "I was somewhat preoccupied." She pressed her lips together and reached for the antiseptic. "This is going to hurt." "I can take—" She poured it directly onto the wound. His whole body went rigid. A sound escaped him, something between a hiss and a gasp, and his hand shot out to grip the edge of the table. The muscles in his forearm stood out like cords. "Sorry," Rory said, not sorry at all. "Hold still." She cleaned the wound with brisk efficiency, fighting to keep her touch clinical. Professional. The opposite of the way she'd touched him before, in a different life, when his breath against her skin had made her forget every reason why getting involved with him was a terrible idea. The memory surfaced without permission. His hands in her hair. His voice in her ear, low and rough and saying her name like a prayer. The way he'd looked at her in the half-light, like she was something worth keeping. And then the way he'd looked at her in that warehouse, his face blank, telling her to leave and never come back. "I looked for you." The words fell out before she could stop them. "After. I went to every contact, every safe house. No one knew where you'd gone." Lucien's eyes fixed on a point somewhere over her shoulder. "That was rather the point." "Three months." She taped the gauze in place with more force than necessary. "Three months, and you show up at Eva's door at—" she glanced at the clock "—eleven at night, looking like someone put you through a meat grinder, and you expect me to what? Just forget everything?" "I don't expect anything." "That's rich, coming from you." His gaze snapped to hers, and for a moment, the mask slipped. Beneath it, she saw exhaustion. Pain. Something raw that looked almost like regret. "I came because I had nowhere else to go." The admission seemed to cost him. Each word was heavy. "I came because you're the only person in this city I trust to watch my back while I sleep." Rory's hands stilled against the bandage. Outside, a siren wailed past on the street below, blue and red light flickering across the papers on the windowsill. Ptolemy emerged from somewhere in the bedroom and leaped onto the table, sniffing at Lucien's injured hand with professional interest. The cat butted his head against Lucien's palm. "Traitor," Rory muttered. "He has excellent taste." "You gave him a saucer of cream once. That's bribery." "I believe the term is 'cultivating alliances.'" Lucien's fingers curled gently into Ptolemy's fur. The movement was tender, at odds with the violence written across his body. "You're still wearing it." Rory glanced down at the silver ring on her right hand. A delicate thing, shaped like intertwined serpents. She'd meant to throw it away. Had held it over a bin more times than she could count. But she'd never been able to let go. "I forgot to take it off." A lie. They both knew it. Silence stretched between them. The rain intensified outside, hammering against the windows, filling the small flat with the sound of water. "Why did you leave?" Rory asked quietly. "The warehouse. You just... vanished. One minute you were there, and the next—" She snapped her fingers. "I thought you were dead. I thought Evan had—" "I left to protect you." "That's not your choice to make." His laugh was bitter, barely a sound at all. "No. It isn't." He met her eyes, and the weight of everything unsaid hung between them like smoke. "But I made it anyway. And I'd do it again, even knowing what I know now." "Which is what?" "That walking away from you would be the hardest thing I've ever done." His voice dropped. "That I'd spend every night since wondering if you were safe. If you were happy. If you'd found someone who deserved you, because God knows I never did." Ptolemy purred loudly enough to vibrate the table. Rory's throat tightened. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to throw him back out into the rain. She wanted to erase the last three months of wondering and worrying and hating herself for caring. Instead, she reached out and touched his jaw, her fingers careful around the cut. Lucien went still. His breath caught. "You're an idiot," she said softly. "I've been called worse." "You're bleeding through the bandage already." He glanced down at his ribs, where red was already seeping through white gauze. "It appears I owe your friend a replacement tablecloth." "Eva doesn't own tablecloths. She owns danger." Rory pulled back, putting distance between them again. "You need to rest. That wound needs actual medical attention, not just my amateur patchwork." "I can't go to a hospital." "I know." She moved toward the sofa, shoving aside a pile of scrolls to clear a space. "You'll stay here tonight. Eva won't mind—she's in Cardiff until Tuesday, some conference on runic translations." "Rory—" "Don't." She turned to face him. "Don't thank me. Don't apologize. Don't do any of your smooth Frenchman routine. Just... sit there and let me finish cleaning you up, and then you're going to sleep on that sofa, and tomorrow you're going to tell me what the hell happened to you." He studied her for a long moment, his mismatched eyes catching the light in a way that still made something flutter in her chest despite everything. "As you wish."