AI Three deadbolts clicked in succession, metal scraping against strike plates. The smell of turmeric and cumin drifted up from the curry house below, thick enough to taste, permeating the cramped hallway of Eva’s flat. Rory shoved a stack of crumbling parchments off the entryway table to make room for the pizza box she expected. Ptolemy, Eva’s oversized tabby, watched from atop a precarious tower of occult encyclopedias, tail twitching with judgment.
Rory yanked the door open. "About ti—"
The words died in her throat.
Rain hammered against the roof, but the man standing on the landing brought a different kind of storm. Water sluiced off a charcoal suit that cost more than Rory’s tuition, darkening the fabric to obsidian. Platinum strands of hair, usually slicked back with severe precision, plastered against his forehead.
Lucien Moreau leaned heavily on his ivory-handled cane. One amber eye burned with a feverish light; the other, a pit of absolute black, swallowed the shadows of the hallway.
Rory gripped the door frame. Her knuckles turned white . She moved to slam the wood shut.
An polished oxford shoe wedged itself between the door and the jamb. The cane tip followed, biting into the floorboards.
"Don't," Lucien rasped. His voice, usually a velvety purr of French-accented arrogance, sounded like gravel churning in a cement mixer.
Rory shoved her weight against the door. "You have five seconds to remove your foot before I break it."
"A warm welcome, as always, ma chérie." He didn't budge . He looked thinner than the last time they stood this close, the sharp angles of his cheekbones casting severe hollows under the landing’s flickering bulb. "I have nowhere else."
"London is full of holes. Crawl into one."
"Those holes are currently being watched. This one isn't."
He pushed. It wasn't a violent shove, just a steady application of demonic strength that made her resistance irrelevant. Rory stumbled back, her heels catching on a rug buried under a drift of research notes.
Lucien stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind him. He collapsed the moment the latch clicked, practically falling against the wall. He slid down until he hit the floor, his long legs splayed out among the books. Rainwater pooled beneath him, soaking into Eva’s Persian rug.
Rory stood over him, chest heaving. The sight of him—wrecked, wet, and bleeding—ignited a volatile cocktail of fury and panic in her gut. She crossed her arms, shielding the small crescent scar on her left wrist, a nervous habit she hadn't broken in twenty years.
"Eva will kill you for dripping on the first edition *Ars Goetia * notes."
Lucien tipped his head back against the peeling wallpaper. He closed his eyes. "Eva has terrible taste in literature."
"You look like hell."
"Home sickness." One corner of his mouth twitched upward. "I need a drink, Aurora. Something that strips paint."
"I should throw you out."
"But you won't."
He was right. She moved to the kitchenette, stepping over piles of scrolls and dirty laundry. She snatched a bottle of cheap whiskey from the counter and two mismatched glasses. When she returned, Lucien had peeled off his soaked jacket.
The white dress shirt beneath stuck to his skin, translucent with rain and sweat. A dark, spreading stain bloomed across his ribs on the left side.
Rory dropped to her knees beside him. The anger remaining in her chest cooled into icy efficiency. She set the bottle down and reached for his shirt buttons.
Lucien’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. His grip was iron, his skin burning hot. "Careful."
"Let go." She stared him down . "Unless you want to bleed out on the floor. I'm not explaining a dead half-demon to the landlord."
His fingers lingered on her pulse point. His thumb brushed the crescent scar. The contact sent a jolt of electricity up her arm, sharp and immediate, dragging up memories of smoke-filled jazz bars and hushed conversations that lingered too long after business concluded.
He released her.
Rory worked the buttons loose. The fabric peeled away to reveal a jagged laceration slicing across his torso. It wasn't deep enough to eviscerate, but the edges claimed a sickly, greyish hue. Iron poisoning.
"Who got you?" She poured whiskey onto a cleanish rag.
"A disagreement with a client regarding the ownership of a certain artifact." He hissed through his teeth as she pressed the alcohol-soaked cloth against the wound. "Merde."
"You stole it back?"
"I reacquired it. There is a distinction."
"Hold this." She pressed his hand to the rag and reached for the bottle again. She filled a glass and shoved it into his free hand. He downed it in one swallow, the amber liquid vanishing without a grimace.
Rory watched the column of his throat work. Rainwater dripped from the end of his nose. He looked human like this—vulnerable, stripped of the armour of his reputation and his suits. It made him dangerous in a way the cane-sword never could.
"Why here, Luc?" She kept her voice flat, focusing on the wound. "You have safe houses. You have thralls. You have money."
"I burned three safe houses tonight to lose my tail." He opened his eyes. The black iris seemed to expand, eclipsing the white. "And I didn't want to be alone."
The confession hung in the humid air of the flat. It was heavy, suffocating.
Rory sat back on her heels. "We said we were done. Six months ago. You made it very clear that I was a liability."
"I said the *situation * was a liability."
"Semantics."
"Protection." He shifted, wincing as the movement pulled at his side. "And look how well that worked. You're working delivery for Yu-Fei again. Wasting that sharp mind on finding addresses in Clapham."
"It pays the rent. And nobody shoots at me."
"Boring."
"Safe."
Lucien turned his head, locking that mismatched gaze onto hers. The intensity of it pinned her in place. "safe doesn't suit you, Rory. You have too much fire to be a courier. I see it in you. The barrister's daughter who fights demons in back alleys."
"I don't fight them. I run away from them. Usually."
"Not tonight."
He reached out, his hand trembling slightly , and tucked a strand of damp black hair behind her ear. His fingers grazed her jawline. The heat from his skin radiated against hers, a stark contrast to the chill of the rain-soaked room.
Rory stopped breathing. Every survival instinct she possessed screamed at her to pull away, to remember the icy dismissal in his voice the last time they spoke, the way he’d shut the door of his town car and driven off without looking back.
She didn't move. She leaned into the touch, just a fraction of an inch.
"I missed you," he murmured. The words sounded torn from him, reluctant and raw.
"You have a funny way of showing it."
"I am a creature of bad habits."
"You're a creature of arrogance."
"That too."
Rory pulled back, breaking the contact. The loss of warmth left a phantom ache on her skin. She grabbed the whiskey bottle and took a swig straight from the neck, the burn grounding her.
"We need to stitch that up." She gestured to his ribs with the bottle. "Eva has a sewing kit somewhere. Probably under the cat."
Lucien chuckled, a low, rasping sound. "Domestic urgency. I like it."
Rory scrambled up, putting distance between them. She needed to rummage through the chaos of the flat, needed a task to occupy her hands so she wouldn't do something stupid like grab the lapels of his ruined shirt and kiss him.
She found a tin of needles and thread on the bookshelf, wedged between a text on Babylonian summoning rites and a cold cup of tea. She returned to the floor, threading a needle with steady hands.
"This is going to hurt."
"I have had worse."
"I recall." She knelt beside him again. "Ready?"
He nodded, gripping the neck of the whiskey bottle.
Rory pierced the skin. He went rigid, muscles seizing under her hands, but he made no sound. She worked quickly , drawing the edges of the wound together. The smell of copper and expensive cologne—sandalwood and bergamot—filled her senses.
"You never asked," he said, his voice tight with pain .
"Asked what?"
"Why I came back tonight."
"You said you had nowhere else."
"I lied."
Rory paused, the needle hovering halfway through a stitch. She looked up.
Lucien stared at the ceiling, beads of sweat gathering on his brow. "I could have gone to the Embassy. I could have gone to the shadows. I came here because if I bled out tonight, I wanted the last thing I saw to be those infuriatingly bright blue eyes."
The needle slipped, pricking her finger. A drop of her blood mixed with his.
"Don't say things like that," she whispered.
"Why? Does it complicate your simple, safe life?"
"Yes."
"Good." He turned his head, catching her gaze again. The amber eye swirled with gold motes. "Complicate it with me, Rory."
She tied off the last stitch and snipped the thread with her teeth. "You're delirious. It's the iron poisoning."
"The iron is fading. My healing factor is already purging it." He sat up, groaning as his abdominal muscles contracted. He ignored the fresh bandages and leaned forward, invading her space until their noses almost touched. "I am perfectly lucid."
Rory stayed rooted. The air between them crackled, thick with the history of a hundred arguments and a thousand unspoken desires. She could see the pores of his skin, the dark flecks in his amber iris, the faint scarring on his lip from a fight years ago in Paris.
"You're going to get me killed one day, Moreau," she said.
"And you will likely be the death of me first."
He didn't wait for permission this time. He closed the gap.
His lips were cold from the rain, but his mouth was hot, demanding. It wasn't a tentative reunion; it was a collision. Rory’s hands found purchase in his damp hair, gripping the platinum strands, pulling him closer. The taste of whiskey and rain overwhelmed her.
Lucien groaned low in his throat, his hands sliding around her waist, pulling her flush against his injured side. He didn't seem to care about the pain. He kissed her like a man drowning, desperate for oxygen.
Rory kissed back with the same ferocity. The anger she’d held onto for six months, the hurt of his abandonment, the fear of his life—it all poured into the contact. She bit his lower lip, drawing a sharp inhale from him, then soothed it with her tongue.
Ptolemy knocked a stack of books off the table. The heavy thud echoed through the flat.
They broke apart, chests heaving, foreheads resting against each other.
"Stay," Rory commanded. It wasn't a question.
Lucien ran his thumb over her lower lip. "Try and make me leave."
"I might regret this in the morning."
"Undoubtedly." He shifted, testing his side, his face tightening but the colour returning to his cheeks. "But tonight, ma chérie, we are alive."
Rory stood up and offered him a hand. He took it, his grip firm, the leather of his palm rough against hers. She pulled him up from the floor of Eva's cluttered sanctuary .
" Bedroom," she said, nodding toward the narrow door near the kitchen. "Eva's on a dig in Egypt. The bed is free."
"And you?"
"I'm tired of sleeping on the sofa."
Lucien’s smile was the one she remembered—sharp, wicked, and entirely too charming for a creature of the underworld. He retrieved his cane. "After you."