AI The last deadbolt slid free under Aurora’s thumb and the door jerked open hard enough to rattle the chain.
Lucien Moreau filled the doorway like an insult in a tailored charcoal suit, hair slicked back, one eye amber and the other black, his ivory-handled cane planted on the landing as if he owned the building. A dark stain spread beneath his left ribs where fabric clung too close.
“Lock it.”
Rory kept her hand on the chain.
“You’ve got some nerve.”
Lucien’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a wince .
“Oui. And you have three deadbolts. Use them.”
Ptolemy, Eva’s tabby, slipped between Rory’s ankles and let out a low, offended sound that belonged on a much larger animal.
Lucien glanced down at the cat.
“Even your sentries have opinions.”
Rory didn’t step aside. She angled her shoulder into the gap, the way she had learned to do when a man decided space belonged to him.
“You don’t get to turn up here.”
Lucien’s gaze flicked over her face, precise, almost intimate. It landed on her left wrist, on the small crescent scar that always felt like it carried a pulse of its own whenever she grew angry. His pupils tightened.
“Apparently I do.”
He leaned in. Not enough to touch, enough to make her lungs react as if he had. He smelled of expensive cologne with something metallic beneath it, copper and smoke.
Rory tightened her grip on the chain.
“Tell me why you’re here before I slam this into your pretty face.”
Lucien’s breath brushed the gap.
“Because someone wants to open you like a letter.”
Rory’s throat went dry. She heard the hallway beyond him, a building that always seemed to hold its breath, neighbours who pretended they heard nothing. Lucien shifted his weight and his suit jacket pulled, revealing a darker spread at his side.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
“I don’t care.”
Lucien’s gaze lowered to her mouth, then rose again, calm as a blade.
“That’s a lie you tell well.”
The chain rattled when Ptolemy jumped up, planting his front paws against Rory’s shin as if he planned to climb her like a tree. The cat’s hackles lifted.
Rory unclipped the chain and stepped back, just enough.
Lucien moved the moment she yielded, sliding inside as if he had memorised the width of her reluctance. He didn’t limp. He didn’t hurry. He simply occupied the flat, and the narrow entryway shrank around him.
“Shut it,” he said.
Rory slammed the door and threw the deadbolts one after the other. The clicks sounded like punctuation to a sentence she didn’t want to finish.
Lucien watched her hands work the locks.
“You kept the habits.”
“It’s Eva’s place.”
“She taught you well.”
Rory turned. The corridor of the flat opened into a cramped living room where every surface carried books and scrolls and curling notes held down with mugs and crystals and the odd, ridiculous ceremonial dagger Eva had bought from Camden and insisted “felt right”. A curry house smell seeped through the floorboards, cumin and fried onions that never quite left the air.
Lucien’s eyes scanned the chaos.
“You’re nesting.”
“I’m minding the flat.”
“You don’t live here.”
Rory crossed her arms.
“Don’t start.”
Lucien’s cane tapped once, a soft, deliberate sound. He swayed for the first time, subtle enough that a stranger would miss it. Rory didn’t. She had spent enough of her life watching men pretend they didn’t hurt.
He pressed a gloved hand to his side and the glove came away slick.
Ptolemy hissed.
Rory swallowed.
“What did you do?”
Lucien’s eyelids lowered.
“What I always do, chérie. I solved a problem. It multiplied.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You preferred it the last time.”
Heat flared in Rory’s face, immediate and furious. A flash of his mouth at her throat, teeth grazing skin, his voice in French murmuring something that had sounded like worship and threat braided together. Then the memory snapped shut, like a book she refused to open in daylight.
Rory stepped closer anyway, because her body betrayed her morals with tedious consistency. She looked at the stain again.
“Sit down.”
Lucien didn’t move.
Rory pointed at the battered armchair by Eva’s overstuffed bookshelf.
“Sit. Down.”
Lucien’s smile sharpened at the edges, but he obeyed. He lowered himself with control that made the act feel obscene, the way he spread his legs slightly , cane resting across his knees like an extension of his spine. His breathing stayed even, but his jaw tightened.
Rory grabbed a fistful of tissues off the coffee table, immediately realised how useless they looked, and tossed them back down.
“You’re not dripping on Eva’s rug.”
“You sound like a wife.”
Rory’s eyes flashed.
“You sound like someone who needs a tetanus shot.”
Lucien leaned back. The amber eye held warmth like candlelight. The black eye held something deeper, a pit that didn’t reflect.
“I don’t get tetanus.”
“Fine. Stitches. Bandage. Whatever half-demons get when they insist on bleeding on other people’s furniture.”
Lucien’s gaze stayed fixed on her, as if he watched her hands even when she stood still.
“You’re angry.”
Rory marched into the tiny kitchen nook, yanked open a drawer, and found what she needed by instinct, not thought. Eva’s place carried supplies the way other people carried spare candles. Rory found a first aid kit wedged behind a jar of turmeric. She grabbed it and a clean tea towel.
“I’m not angry.”
Lucien’s voice followed her, smooth as silk drawn over a bruise.
“You’re furious. It’s prettier on you than fear.”
Rory returned and dropped the kit on the coffee table with a thud.
“You don’t get to know what suits me.”
Lucien’s fingers moved to his jacket buttons.
“Then don’t look at me like that.”
Rory’s laugh came out sharp.
“Like what, Lucien?”
His hands paused. His gaze lifted again, and for a moment his expression slipped. Not soft. Not kind. Something old and hungry that made Rory’s pulse trip over itself.
“Like you remember.”
Rory knelt, because the kit sat on the low table and because she refused to loom. She refused to let him think he made her cautious. Her knee brushed his polished shoe. The air between them felt cramped, charged .
She snapped open the kit.
“Take it off.”
Lucien arched a brow.
“My suit?”
“Your jacket. Don’t be dramatic.”
“I excel at drama.”
“You excel at being impossible.”
Lucien stood with a fluid motion that made Rory’s stomach clench. He shrugged out of the jacket, then the waistcoat beneath, each movement unhurried, each layer revealing more of the stain. His white dress shirt clung to his torso, soaked through at the side.
Rory’s mouth went dry.
He watched her reaction and didn’t hide the satisfaction that crossed his face.
“You always did appreciate good tailoring.”
Rory leaned in and pinched the fabric at his ribs. The shirt stuck. Warmth pulsed under her fingers.
“You’re going to ruin it.”
Lucien’s low laugh rumbled.
“I have several.”
Rory grabbed the scissors from the kit.
“I’m not stripping you for fun.”
Lucien’s hand closed around her wrist before she could cut.
His fingers wrapped just above the crescent scar. His touch made the old mark flare with heat as if it remembered him too.
Rory froze.
Lucien’s thumb slid once, slow, over the scar.
“This,” he murmured, in a tone that sounded like he spoke to an altar , “still bothers you.”
Rory yanked her hand back.
“It’s a scar.”
“It’s a door.”
Rory stared at him, anger and something else tangling in her chest.
“Don’t start talking in riddles. Not here.”
Lucien’s gaze flicked past her shoulder to the stacks of Eva’s notes.
“This place loves riddles.”
Rory cut his shirt anyway, the blades biting through expensive cotton. Lucien hissed through his teeth, the first crack in his composure. It pleased Rory more than it should have.
“Good. Feel that.”
Lucien’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Cruelty looks natural on you, Rory.”
She paused, scissors hovering.
“Don’t call me Rory.”
Lucien tilted his head.
“You introduced yourself that way.”
“I introduced myself as Aurora.”
“You introduced yourself as Laila the second time.”
Rory’s stomach tightened. Eva’s ridiculous aliases, the nights they had spent inventing new names to feel safer, to feel untouchable. Lucien had been part of that, too. He had made it feel like a game until it hadn’t.
Rory pressed gauze to the wound. Blood slicked her fingers. It smelled sharp, but there was something else beneath it, a faint burnt scent like singed paper.
“This isn’t normal.”
Lucien’s hand caught hers again, gentler this time, his fingers warm.
“It’s iron. Mixed with something older.”
Rory’s eyes lifted to his.
“What hit you?”
Lucien’s lips parted, then closed. A refusal.
Rory leaned closer, not quite nose to nose, close enough to feel his breath .
“You don’t get to bleed on my hands and keep secrets.”
Lucien’s gaze dropped to her mouth again. His voice softened, and that softness carried danger.
“I didn’t come for your hands.”
Rory’s pulse pounded. She pressed harder on the wound out of spite.
Lucien’s breath caught.
“Ah. There she is.”
Rory reached for antiseptic. The sharp smell filled the space, cutting through curry spices and old paper. Ptolemy hopped onto the sofa and stared as if he planned to judge every choice Rory made.
Rory poured antiseptic over the gash. Lucien’s fingers dug into the armrests.
“You need stitches,” Rory said.
Lucien watched her with a look that made her skin prickle.
“You did well with your ex, yes? The one who liked to leave marks.”
Rory’s hand stilled. Her eyes snapped up.
“Don’t.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
“He’s in London.”
Rory’s throat tightened, the name she didn’t want tasting like rust.
“Evan doesn’t know where I am.”
Lucien’s smile carried no humour.
“He knows now.”
Rory’s fingers curled around the needle packet hard enough to crinkle it.
“Because of you.”
Lucien didn’t blink.
“Because of your friend’s research. Because of what you are adjacent to. Because you keep stepping close to fires and insisting you won’t burn.”
Rory’s laugh came out as a breath.
“What am I adjacent to, Lucien?”
His gaze dropped again to her wrist scar.
“A keyhole.”
Rory shook her head once, sharp.
“You talk like Eva after two espressos and a conspiracy thread.”
Lucien leaned forward, slow despite the blood, bringing his face closer. The mismatched eyes held her like a grip.
“Eva’s clever. She opens books. You open doors.”
Rory’s hands moved again, because if she stopped she would listen, and if she listened she would feel . She threaded the needle with a steadiness that surprised her.
“Hold still.”
Lucien’s lips curved.
“You always give orders when you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
Lucien lowered his voice.
“Your pulse says otherwise.”
Rory pressed the needle into his skin. Lucien’s body went tense under her hands. She stitched with practised, angry care, each pull of thread a question she couldn’t ask.
Why did you leave?
Why did you kiss me like you meant it?
Why did you vanish the next day as if I hadn’t tasted you?
Lucien didn’t look away. He watched her the whole time, as if he wanted to see what her hands confessed when her mouth stayed shut.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
Rory tied off the last stitch and reached for the bandage.
“I’m not.”
Lucien’s fingers closed around her forearm, just below the elbow, steadying. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t rough. It felt like ownership dressed up as help .
Rory’s breath caught.
“Let go.”
Lucien didn’t.
“You patched me up. Good girl.”
Rory’s eyes narrowed .
“I’m not your anything.”
Lucien’s thumb stroked once, an absent motion that made her skin lift in gooseflesh.
“You could have left me outside.”
“I should have.”
Lucien leaned closer. His voice turned quieter, the French accent thickening as if it slid out when he stopped pretending.
“But you didn’t.”
Rory swallowed. She could feel the shape of his attention, heavy and intimate as a hand at the back of her neck.
“Tell me why you’re here,” she demanded, and hated the tremor that wanted to creep into her voice. “Not your riddles. Not your seduction. The truth.”
Lucien’s gaze sharpened.
“I brought you something.”
He reached for his cane. Rory’s muscles tensed, ready to snatch it, ready to run. Lucien flicked his wrist and a thin blade slid free with a soft, vicious whisper of metal.
Ptolemy yowled and leapt off the sofa.
Rory surged to her feet, her heart slamming against her ribs.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Lucien didn’t raise the blade. He used it like a scalpel, slicing open the inner lining of his discarded waistcoat with careful precision. He reached inside and withdrew a small object wrapped in black cloth.
Rory’s mouth tightened.
“You smuggled contraband into my friend’s flat. Wonderful.”
Lucien unwrapped it.
A ring sat in his palm, old gold scored with tiny symbols that made Rory’s eyes ache to focus on. It looked wrong in a way her body recognised before her brain did, like a word she had heard in a nightmare.
Lucien held it out.
“Take it.”
Rory didn’t move.
“What is that?”
Lucien’s smile vanished.
“A claim.”
Rory stared at the ring. Her stomach rolled.
“No.”
Lucien’s gaze hardened.
“You don’t understand. They used your name in a contract.”
Rory’s laugh broke, brittle.
“My name isn’t on anything.”
Lucien’s voice turned flat.
“Malphora.”
The word struck the air like a slap. Rory’s skin tightened across her arms.
“That’s not my name,” she snapped.
Lucien’s black eye seemed to swallow light.
“It will be, if they finish the ritual.”
Rory’s fingers curled around the edge of the table.
“Who are they?”
Lucien opened his mouth.
A heavy knock slammed into the front door, hard enough to make the deadbolts shudder in their sockets.
Rory’s blood chilled .
Another удар, slower, deliberate, as if whoever stood outside enjoyed the sound of her defences failing one by one.
Lucien’s head turned towards the door. His body went still, predatory, pain forgotten.
“Too late,” he said.
The lock plate glowed red, then white, metal heating from the outside in. The smell hit Rory a beat later, burning and bitter, like incense fed to a furnace.
A voice seeped through the door, not loud, not strained, intimate as a whisper pressed into her ear.
“Aurora Carter,” it called. “Open up, love, you’ve got something that belongs to Avaros.”
The first deadbolt snapped with a sharp metallic crack, and the door lurched inward against the remaining locks.