AI The chain slid with a heavy metallic rasp, dragging tight against the wood. Rory released the three deadbolts one by one, the locks snapping into place with finality. She pushed the door inward, her grip tight on the brass handle, prepared to demand a delivery or a wrong number. The hallway smelled of damp concrete and damp wool.
Lucien Moreau blocked the frame.
He smelled of expensive tobacco, petrichor, and ozone—a scent that curled around the edges of her memory like a heavy blanket. He wore his charcoal suit, the fabric pressed to perfection despite the London drizzle, and he tapped his ivory-handled cane against the floorboards. The tip shone with a dark, sinister gleam.
"Rory."
Her name sounded like a gunshot in the silence of the entryway. She froze, the door halfway open. He shouldn't be here. Evan could be anywhere in the city, tracking her, and Lucien carried a scent that supernatural eyes could track for miles. He was a walking bullseye.
"Why?" she asked, her voice harder than she intended. It cracked at the end. She cleared her throat, stepping back into the dark hallway to hide the way her heart hammered against her ribs. "What are you doing here?"
Lucien lifted his head. The heterochromatic gaze swung to her, the amber eye dilating while the black one stayed avoidant, fixed on the floor. He looked older. The sharp angles of his cheekbones were shadowed , and the platinum blond of his hair was damp at the temples. He looked tired, a exhaustion that sat deep in the hollows of his eyes.
"I assumed you were sleeping," he said. His accent was a smooth, rolling French lilt that twisted around the English vowels. "It is late."
"It is." Rory gestured vaguely at the hallway, keeping the door slightly ajar. "You shouldn't be on my doorstep. You know the rules."
"I do." He didn't move . The cane remained planted, anchoring him to the world outside while he refused to step across the threshold. "The high road, the low road, and the wet road. I have been walking the wet road all day."
He looked too small in the overlarge space. The curry house downstairs—Yu-Fei’s—was loud tonight, the bass thumping a dull, rhythmic vibration through the floorboards. It was a chaotic mess of dining chairs stacked on tables, cardboard delivery boxes tucked into alcoves, and the ever-present haze of cardamom and fried onion. Eva would have a fit if she saw the clutter. But with Lucien standing there, the clutter didn't matter. The flat felt suddenly too small, too exposed.
Eva’s cat, a lethargic tabby named Ptolemy, vaulted off the couch and hissed at him. Lucien didn't even blink. He merely tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear, his hand lingering there for a moment, a small gesture of self-composure.
"Is Eva here?"
"No. Out."
Silence stretched between them, thin and fragile. Rory wrapped her arms around herself, the casual delivery uniform suddenly feeling insufficient against the chill radiating from him.
"You left a book," Lucien said.
Rory stared. "What?"
"On your desk. A first edition. I returned it."
She knew which book. The leather-bound grimoire she’d borrowed two weeks ago from Eva’s private collection. It was a prop, really , for a delivery job that required her to feign supernatural expertise. She hadn't even opened it. The realization made her stomach tighten. It was an excuse. He knew it was an excuse.
"You could have just sent a text," she said, though the defensiveness in her tone was weak.
"I had to deliver it personally."
"Why?" Rory stepped closer, driven by a sudden, irrational need to close the distance. "Did you think I was going to call you?"
Lucien looked up then, his amber eye locking onto hers. The black one shifted, a storm of pupil and iris. "Did you?"
The question hung in the air , heavy and charged with something unspoken . Rory bit her lip, the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist pulling tight. She remembered the first time they met in a seedy pub off the Strand. He had been surrounded by shadows; she had been arguing with a barrister about procedural law. He had stepped in—not with violence, but with terrifying calmness —and dissolved the argument with a single phrase in a language she didn't recognize. He had been the only thing standing between her and a vampire trying to bite her ankle.
And then he had left. Just as quickly as he had arrived.
"We aren't friends, Lucien," she said, her voice trembling with the attempt to keep it steady . "We aren't anything."
He nodded slowly , a stiff movement of the neck. "True. We are... complicated."
"That's a nice word for it."
He huffed a short, dry laugh. It didn't reach his eyes. He shifted his weight , and the cane slid an inch across the floorboards, screeching. "I came because I heard."
"Of course you did." Rory rolled her eyes, turning away to put distance between them and the deadbolt. "You know everything before it happens."
"I heard that you were leaving London."
The air left the room. Rory froze, her hand resting on the doorframe. She looked back at him, searching his face for mockery. There was none. Just a terrifying kind of honesty.
"You heard wrong. I live here."
"I heard that you were leaving the city. Permanently." Lucien took a step forward, encroaching on her personal space. He smelled like rain and danger, a lethal cocktail that made her head spin. "You packed the boxes."
"No," she lied.
"You packed the books."
That was the lie that killed her. Rory kept her face a mask of indifference , but her knuckles turned white as she gripped the wood. She had spent three days selecting which books from Eva’s chaotic library to keep in the small spare room. She had spent hours listening to Vlad’s folk tales and whispering incantations for obscure spells.
"I have to go. There is nowhere left for me here. Not with the bar going under and..."
She let the lie trail off. Lucien knew. He knew about the debt that required her to work double shifts. He knew about the bruises she kept hidden under oversized hoodies. He knew the city was eating her alive, and the only person who could save her was the demon standing in her hallway.
"You think running will fix it," Lucien said softly .
"It's not running. It's surviving."
He reached out. The hand hovering near her face was long-fingered, elegant, and tipped with ink-stained fingers. He didn't touch her, but the proximity was electric . The dark coat brushed against her shoulder, sending a shiver down her spine .
"I can fix it, Rory."
"Please don't." She closed her eyes, the weight of the temptation dragging her down. "You can't. You’re a fixer, Lucien. You fix things that are broken. You don't fix people."
"I think I might have broken you." His voice dropped, raw and stripped bare. "When I walked away. The silence ... it has been loud these past few months."
The dam broke. Rory turned, her shoulders shaking as she turned her back to him, facing the cluttered hallway. She couldn't look at him. If she looked at him, she would remember the feel of his hands in hers, the heat of his body, the way he made the dangerous things in this world feel safe.
"You didn't break me," she whispered. "I was already a mess before I met you."
"That is what I mean." Lucien stepped past her, the cane tapping a slow, insistent rhythm. The silence in the hallway shifted. The smell of him crowded hers out. He moved with a predatory grace, despite his cane. He reached the door to the flat and stopped, turning slightly .
Ptolemy, the tabby, abandoned his post on the top of a bookshelf and padded silently down, stretching his body long. He walked right up to Lucien’s boot and rubbed his cheek against the leather.
Lucien looked down at the cat, a flicker of genuine amusement softening his features. He stooped, offering a hand. Ptolemy sniffed his fingers, then allowed himself to be scritched behind the ears. "You have good taste, little one," he murmured in French.
Rory watched, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm in her chest. He was in her space. He was touching her things. He was touching her cat.
"Leave, Lucien."
"I'm not going anywhere." He straightened, turning back to her. "I tried to let you go. I stayed away as ordered. But when I see a lock I can pick, I can't just walk away."
He looked at her wrist, eyes narrowing. "You’re hiding that again."
She crossed her arms over her chest, hiding the fresh bruise on her forearm—Evan’s doing. "It’s nothing."
"It is a handprint, Rory." He stepped closer, invading her safety bubble again, refusing to give an inch. "I know that shape. I know the color."
"I said leave!"
Lucien didn't retreat. Instead, he set his cane against the wall with a heavy thud. Then, he closed the distance. One hand rested on the wall beside her head, caging her in. The amber eye burned into hers, dark and piercing.
"Don't go," he breathed.
The plea wasn't for the city. It wasn't for the money. It was for her. The realization hit her like a physical blow. He wasn't the calm, collected fixer right now. He was the demon from Avaros who was terrified of losing his only tether to humanity.
"I don't know if I can," she whispered back.
"Yes, you can." His other hand moved, lifting to cup her face. His palm was warm, his thumb brushing over the sharp bone of her cheek. He didn't hesitate. He didn't ask for permission. "You have to be strong, Rory. I taught you that. The fox doesn't cry."
"The fox runs," she countered, her voice cracking .
"The fox fights." His thumb traced her lower lip, stopping the tremble. "And sometimes, the fox lets the wolf in."
The noise from the curry house downstairs seemed to fade into a distant hum. The only thing left in the universe was the heat of his hand, the scent of the rain, and the amber light reflecting in his eyes. Rory knew she should shove him away. She should lock the deadbolts and pretend she was never there. But her feet were rooted to the floorboards, her body betraying her mind.
She had been sleeping with one eye open for months. But for the first time in a long time, she felt like she could close them .
"Lucien."
His name was a whisper on her lips. He leaned down, his forehead resting against hers, his breathing ragged. "Don't leave," he said again. "Please. Just... don't leave."