Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYB9GNE1B62VZ1MXZYVWCF

The door creaked open three inches, stopped by the security chain. Aurora Carter squinted through the gap, one bright blue eye visible in the dim hallway lighting. "Lucien." Her voice carried no warmth. "Aurora." His smooth French accent wrapped around her name like silk. "May I come in?" Rory's fingers tightened on the doorframe. Three deadbolts. She'd installed them herself after Evan. After everything. Lucien stood in the hallway, impeccably dressed as always in a tailored charcoal suit, his ivory-handled cane resting against his leg. One amber eye, one black eye—both fixed on her through the narrow opening. "What do you want?" she asked. "We need to talk." "That's what you said last time." Her jaw tightened. "Before you disappeared for six months without a word." Lucien's hand moved to his tie, straightening it. A nervous habit she'd once found endearing. "Circumstances were complicated." "They always are with you." She started to close the door. His cane shot out, blocking the gap. "Please, Aurora. Five minutes." Rory stared at the cane, then back at his face. The heterochromatic eyes that had once made her heart race now just made her tired. She closed her own eyes for a moment, sighed, then unhooked the security chain. The flat smelled of old paper, curry from the restaurant below, and Ptolemy's litter box. Books and scrolls covered every available surface, stacked in precarious towers that threatened to topple at the slightest vibration. A tabby cat stretched on the sofa, blinked at Lucien once, then curled back to sleep. "Your feline still dislikes me." Lucien stepped inside, his presence suddenly making the cramped space feel even smaller. "Ptolemy has excellent judgment." Rory crossed her arms. "You have three minutes. Clock starts now." Lucien removed his jacket, folding it neatly over the back of a chair—clearly an invitation to stay longer. "The supernatural underground is buzzing." "So? Not my problem anymore." "It is when they're whispering about you." His amber eye caught the afternoon light streaming through the grimy window. "About what you can do." "I told you, I'm done with all that." Rory ran a hand through her straight black hair. "I deliver food. I go home. I try to sleep without nightmares. That's my life now." "Normal doesn't suit you." He took a step closer, the scent of expensive cologne and something else—something metallic and otherworldly—filling the space between them. "I saw you yesterday. Outside the Golden Empress." Rory's breath hitched. "You were watching me?" "Protecting you." His voice softened. "Someone's asking questions about the Cardiff incident." Her fingers instinctively touched the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. "That's over. Evan's gone." "Not just Evan." Lucien's cane tapped against the floorboards. "Others know what happened. What you did." "I didn't do anything." Even to her own ears, the denial sounded weak. "You saved Eva's life." Another step closer. "You opened a door that shouldn't have been opened, and you pulled her back before it closed." Rory turned away, walking to the window that overlooked Brick Lane. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Yes, you do." His reflection appeared beside hers in the glass. "I taught you better than to lie, Aurora." She whirled around, anger flashing in her blue eyes. "You taught me how to survive, then vanished when I needed you most!" "I was protecting you!" "By leaving? By letting me think—" She cut herself off, turning away again. "It doesn't matter now." "It does to me." When she didn't respond, he continued, "I never meant to hurt you." Rory laughed, a harsh sound. "Could have fooled me." "I had obligations." His voice dropped lower. "To my father's realm. Things I couldn't explain." "Things you still can't explain, I'm guessing." She finally turned back to face him. "Why are you really here, Lucien?" He reached into his suit pocket, withdrew a folded piece of paper. "They know what you are. What you can become." "I'm human." The words felt hollow even as she said them. "Half-human, perhaps." He held out the paper. "Like me." Rory didn't take it. "I'm nothing like you." "Aren't you?" Lucien stepped forward until they were barely a foot apart. "I see the way you move, the way you notice things others don't. The way the air around you sometimes shimmers when you're angry." She swallowed hard. "That's not—" "It is." His fingers brushed her wrist, near the scar. "I felt it the first time we met. That pull. That connection." "The only thing I feel when I look at you is betrayal." But her voice had lost its edge. Lies, all of it. Her body remembered his touch, remembered the electricity that had passed between them. Remembered nights spent talking about realms and magic, about his demon father and human mother, about her own inexplicable abilities that she'd always dismissed as coincidence. Lucien's thumb stroked her skin. "I came back because I couldn't stay away. Because I heard rumors about someone with power gathering in London, and I knew it was you." "I don't want this life." But her resolve was crumbling. "You don't have a choice anymore." His other hand came up to cup her face. "They're coming for you, Aurora. With or without me." The familiar warmth spread through her at his touch, that dangerous current she'd tried so hard to forget. Her eyes closed involuntarily, leaning into his hand for just a second before pulling away. "You can't just show up after six months and expect—" she started. "I expect nothing." Lucien's voice was rough. "I'm asking for a chance to explain. To help you." "Why?" His heterochromatic eyes held hers. "Because I care about you. Because I never stopped." Rory's phone buzzed on the cluttered coffee table—a reminder of her normal life, her job waiting. She glanced at it, then back at Lucien, at the impossible choice he was offering. "I have to get to work," she said, the words a lifeline to the ordinary world she'd built. "Will you come back?" he asked. "Will you let me explain everything?" Rory grabbed her delivery bag from the hook by the door. "I don't know." "That's not a no." A small smile touched his lips. "It's not a yes either," she countered, shouldering past him. "I need time." "Take all the time you need." He followed her to the door. "But don't take too long. They're closer than you think." Rory paused with her hand on the doorknob, the weight of his words settling over her. "What happens if I say no? To everything. To you. To this... world?" Lucien's expression softened. "Then I'll protect you anyway. Like I should have done before." His simple declaration hung in the air between them, heavy with regret and possibility. Rory opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Instead, she pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway, leaving Lucien alone in her flat, surrounded by her books and her secrets and the sleeping cat who had somehow known all along that things would never be simple between them.