AI The third deadbolt gave way with a heavy, metallic clack. Aurora Carter, known to everyone who mattered as Rory, pulled the door inward. She expected to see Eva struggling with bags of groceries or perhaps Mr. Khatri from the curry house downstairs complaining about water seeping into his ceiling. Instead, the narrow, dim hallway of the Brick Lane stairwell framed the absolute last person she was prepared to face.
Lucien Moreau stood on the frayed welcome mat, looking exactly as he had the night she walked out of his office six months ago. He wore a tailored charcoal suit that somehow remained immaculate despite the sweltering, smog-choked heat of the late London summer. His gloved hands rested over the carved ivory handle of his cane, an elegant antique piece she knew firsthand concealed a razor-thin blade. But it was his eyes that instantly paralyzed her, heterochromatic and piercing—one the color of warm amber, the other absolute, fathomless black.
Rory gripped the edge of the door, the cheap wood biting into her palm. Her pulse kicked into a frantic rhythm, a betraying flutter thick in her throat. She fought to keep her expression carefully blank, falling back on the cool-headed logic that had kept her alive through the worst years of her life. She was twenty-five years old, had survived an abusive ex, and had successfully navigated the supernatural underbelly of London, but the sight of the slicked-back platinum blond hair of the Frenchman still made her want to bolt.
"You are a long way from Mayfair, Lucien," she said, forcing her voice to remain perfectly steady.
He did not smile, though a faint inclination of his head suggested a polite acknowledgment of her hostility. "And you are remarkably difficult to locate when you wish to be hidden, Aurora. May I come in?"
"No."
"It concerns the Avaros shipment," he said, his native French accent softening the sharp consonants of the English words, turning them into dark silk . "And it concerns you. Or rather, people who might be looking for you."
Rory hesitated. If she shut the door in his face, he would not force it. Lucien was a creature of strict rules, an information broker half-bound by demonic blood and half by old-world etiquette. But if he had braved the claustrophobic East London streets to find her, the threat was real. With a sharp exhale that ruffled her straight, shoulder-length black hair, she stepped back, pulling the door wider.
Lucien moved past her, bringing with him the faint, expensive scent of vetiver, cold rain, and dark magic. It clashed violently with the heavy aromas wafting up through the floorboards—turmeric, toasted coriander, and spilled beer.
Eva's flat was a disaster area on the best of days. Every available surface in the cramped one-bedroom was buried under unsteady towers of ancient books, curling parchment scrolls, and half-empty mugs of tea resting on frantically scribbled research notes. Lucien navigated the chaos with the predatory grace of his heritage, finding the single patch of bare floor near the tiny kitchenette.
From beneath a sofa drowning in translated grimoires, Ptolemy appeared. The tabby cat stretched, padded across the worn rug, and brazenly rubbed his cheek against the impeccably creased leg of Lucien's trousers.
Lucien glanced down, a rare flicker of amusement crossing his mismatched eyes. "I see Eva is keeping well."
"Eva is in Edinburgh for a summit. I am just staying here to watch the cat and keep out of sight." Rory crossed her arms, defensive, her right hand rubbing the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist—a nervous habit left over from a childhood accident that she only ever indulged when she was truly backed into a corner. "Tell me what you came to say, Lucien, and then you can go back to your pristine life."
He leaned his weight casually onto the ivory-handled cane, but his gaze remained locked on her face. "You left without a single word, Rory. Six months. You quit your delivery routes for the Golden Empress, stopped answering the secured lines. I sent envoys to Silas' bar, only to find your flat upstairs completely empty. I assumed you had run back to Cardiff."
"Do not talk to me about running," she shot back, the anger she had swallowed for half a year finally bleeding through her composure. "You made it perfectly clear where we stood, Lucien. I was an asset. A quick-witted human girl who could deliver packages for Yu-Fei Cheung without catching the attention of the Wardens. And when I started asking questions, when I started getting too close, you shut me out. You lied to me about the warehouse raid."
"I withheld information to keep you breathing," he corrected, his voice dropping an octave, slipping to a velvet register that vibrated in her chest. "You are reckless, Aurora. Brilliant, yes. Your mind is a trapdoor that catches everyone off guard. But you dive headfirst into waters you do not understand. Half-demons do not play by the rules of men. If I had brought you in on the raid, the Avaros syndicate would have flayed you."
"I can take care of myself. I have taken care of myself for years."
"I know you can."
The quiet admission stopped the argument dead in her throat. Across the cramped room, he was looking at her not as a stubborn asset or a fragile human, but as something else entirely . Something reverent. Something that terrified her. It reminded her entirely too much of the night she had fled into the London rain, realizing she was falling in love with a man who dealt in secrets and shadows. She had barely escaped the controlling grasp of her ex, Evan. She had promised herself she would never again hand her heart to a man who possessed the power to destroy her.
"Then why are you here?" she asked, the fight suddenly draining out of her, leaving her hollow and exhausted. The weight of the humid air in the flat felt suffocating.
Lucien abandoned his cane, leaning the lethal length of ivory and hidden steel against a precarious stack of leather-bound encyclopedias, and took a slow step toward her. The space between them vanished. He was five-foot-eleven of tense, coiled energy beneath the pristine tailoring, and at five-foot-six, Rory had to tilt her chin up to meet his dark, unreadable gaze.
"Because my life has been exceptionally quiet since you vanished," he said softly, stepping so close she could feel the heat radiating from his chest. "Because I find I no longer care for peace."
He reached out. She stiffened, fully expecting him to reach for her face, to pull her into a kiss she desperately wanted and feared in equal measure. Instead, his gloved fingers hovered over her crossed arms, eventually brushing her left wrist. He gently caught her forearm, his thumb skimming the pale skin just below her sleeve where the small, crescent-shaped scar rested. The touch was achingly tender, a quiet anchor in the chaotic room.
Rory stared at the contrast of his dark leather glove against her skin, the bright blue of her eyes fixed on the slow, deliberate movement of his thumb. He remembered. He noticed everything. It was the blessing and the curse of the Frenchman.
"I lied to myself, Aurora," he murmured, his voice thick with confession . "I told myself that keeping a distance from you was a strategic necessity. A simple matter of professional boundaries to protect an asset. But you and I both know I am a creature born of the Avaros realm. My demonic blood demands possession. It demands risk. And you were the greatest risk I had ever encountered."
"So you pushed me away," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly despite her best efforts to maintain her armor.
"Because allowing you close felt entirely too much like weakness." He surrendered the last inch between them, his chest brushing her arms, forcing her to untangle them or step back. She held her ground. "And then you left. And I discovered what true weakness actually felt like. Empty nights in an empty office. Listening to the hum of the city and waiting for a painfully clever girl with black hair and bright blue eyes to charm her way past my security."
Rory let her arms fall completely to her sides, exposing the vulnerable line of her throat. Her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, echoing in her ears.
"I am not a good man, Rory," he continued, leaning in until the warm air of his breath ghosted across her cheek. "I broker secrets that ruin lives. I walk a razor line between humanity and hell, and there is blood on my hands that will never wash clean. I cannot promise you safety. I can only promise you truth. No more lies of omission. No more locked doors."
"Why now?" she breathed, searching the amber and black depths of his eyes. "Why wait six agonising months to tell me this?"
"Because it took me exactly six months to dismantle the syndicate that was tracking you. You were marked, Rory. The moment they saw us together outside the Golden Empress, they decided you were a point of leverage. I spent every day and every night since you left ensuring there was no one left alive in that syndicate to use you against me."
Rory felt the breath leave her lungs in a rush of pure shock. All this time, she had thought him cold. She had thought him indifferent, a ruthless pragmatist who had discarded a plaything when the game became too complex . Instead, he had meticulously dismantled an entire underworld operation piece by piece to guarantee her security, working endlessly in the shadows while she hid in an apartment above a curry house, fiercely nursing a broken heart.
She looked up into his mismatched eyes, finally seeing the bone-deep exhaustion hiding beneath his perfectly styled platinum hair and immaculate posture.
"You took apart a demonic syndicate."
"I did."
"For me."
"Yes."
Rory abandoned her cool-headed logic. She leaned into him, her hands sliding up the lapels of his charcoal suit. The sudden touch drew a sharp intake of breath from Lucien. Beneath the expensive fabric, she could feel his heart racing just as fast as her own. He was not as calm as he pretended to be, and the realization gave her a profound sense of strength.
"You are an absolute fool, Lucien Moreau," she said, a slow smile finally curving her lips . "I could have helped you."
"Next time," he promised, his voice thick with a raw, desperate emotion she had never heard him surrender to before.
He removed his gloves, one by one, tossing the expensive leather carelessly onto a pile of Eva's translations. Barehanded, he cupped her face. His skin was unnaturally warm, a trait of his heritage, sending a jolt of fire straight through her veins. He traced the line of her jaw, his thumb dragging across her lower lip softly , silently asking for the permission he refused to demand.
Rory gave it by closing the distance.
The kiss was a staggering collision of unspoken apologies and heavily repressed desire . There was nothing polite or measured about it. Lucien tasted of dark coffee, rain, and danger, his large hands gripping her waist as if he intended to pull her directly into his soul. Rory anchored herself by burying her hands in his slicked-back hair, ruining the perfect styling, shivering as he backed her up until her shoulders hit the wall, barely missing a framed chart of magical ley lines.
Ptolemy offered a confused noise from the floorboards, completely ignored by the two humans tearing away the barriers between them.
When they finally broke apart to draw a ragged breath, the stifling, spicy air of the flat felt electric . Lucien kept his forehead pressed firmly against hers, his eyes closed, his chest heaving.
"Come back to Mayfair," he said quietly, the words a plea rather than an order .
Rory let out a shaky breath, a genuine, luminous laugh escaping her throat. She looked past his shoulder at the cramped flat, the ridiculous stacks of magical texts, and then back to the man who had just destroyed an underworld empire simply so he could stand in her hallway.
"Only if you promise I do not have to wear those terrible silk dresses to your meetings," she replied, her eyes bright .
Lucien opened his eyes, the amber and black filled with a quiet, fierce joy that rivaled the sun. "Whatever you desire , Aurora."