Run: 2026-02-25-01KJ94H3T8G5SHH14ZKJ1CR8NA

The first deadbolt clicked with a heavy, metallic finality that echoed through the small entryway. The second followed with a rasping slide, and the third gave way with a stubborn jar that vibrated up Aurora’s arm, aggravating the faint ache in her left wrist where the crescent-shaped scar pulled tight against her skin. She didn’t need to look through the peephole. She knew the weight of the presence on the other side of the door, a gravity that felt like the gathering of a storm over the Bristol Channel. She pulled the door open. Lucien Moreau stood in the narrow, dimly lit hallway of the Brick Lane tenement, looking entirely too grand for a building that smelled perpetually of turmeric and damp floorboards. He was a study in monochromatic elegance: a tailored charcoal suit that fit his lean frame with surgical precision, his platinum blond hair slicked back without a single strand out of alignment despite the fine mist of London rain clinging to his shoulders. He leaned slightly on his ivory-handled cane, the black and amber of his heterochromatic eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made the air in the cramped flat feel suddenly thin. "You're late, Rory," he said. His voice was a smooth, dark velvet, the Marseille lilt sliding over the words like a secret. "I'm not late, Lucien. I'm unreachable. There’s a distinction," Aurora replied, her voice steadier than the frantic thrum of her pulse. She didn't move to let him in. She stayed braced against the doorframe, her black, shoulder-length hair falling forward to shield her expression. "How did you find me? Eva swore this place was off the grid." Lucien’s gaze flickered to the interior of the flat, past her shoulder to where Ptolemy, the tabby cat, was currently perched atop a precarious stack of occult scrolls. "Eva is a scholar, not a ghost. And you, ma chére, are far too bright a spark to stay hidden in a curry house attic forever." He shifted his weight, the ivory head of his cane catching the flickering light of the hallway bulb. "It’s raining. My suit is Italian wool. May I?" Aurora hesitated. Seeing him was like reopening a book she’d slammed shut six months ago—a book filled with whispered deals in the corners of Silas’s bar, the dangerous thrill of the supernatural underworld, and the terrifying, magnetic pull of a man who was only half-human. She thought of Evan, the shadow of her past in Cardiff, and the promise she’d made to herself to stay in the light, delivering takeout and dreaming of a law degree she might never finish. But Lucien wasn't the light. He was the twilight, beautiful and treacherous. She stepped back, swinging the door open. "Five minutes. I have a shift at the Golden Empress in an hour." Lucien stepped over the threshold, his presence instantly shrinking the room. He moved with a predatory grace, navigating the mountain of books and research notes that covered every available surface. He didn't sit; he stood by the window, looking out at the neon glow of Brick Lane while Ptolemy let out a low, inquisitive meow. "The Golden Empress," Lucien murmured, the name sounding like an insult in his mouth. "Yu-Fei’s little empire. You’re wasting that mind of yours, Rory. You were meant for better things than dodging mopeds and lukewarm spring rolls." "I'm safe there," she countered, closing the three deadbolts one by one. The sound felt like an admission of entrapment rather than security. "Safe is a luxury I didn’t have for a long time. I like the boredom. I like that nobody knows what I am or who my father is." Lucien turned, his amber eye glowing with a faint, demonic heat in the shadows. The black eye remained a bottomless void. "I know who you are. I have always known." The air between them crackled. Aurora felt the familiar, frustrating heat rising in her chest. They had ended things in a blur of sharp words and sharper silences after a job in Southwark went sideways. He had kept secrets; she had pulled away, terrified that her attraction to him was just another manifestation of her talent for choosing dangerous men. "Why are you here, Lucien? Truly." He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and pulled out a small, leather-bound ledger. He didn't hand it to her; he held it like bait. "I need a barrister’s daughter with a penchant for out-of-the-box thinking. There is a dispute in Avaros regarding the soul-tenure of a certain merchant. The Avarosian courts are… labyrinthine. Even for me." "I'm not a lawyer," she said, though her eyes lingered on the ledger. "I'm a dropout with a delivery bike." "You are the most intelligent woman I have ever met, human or otherwise," he said softly, stepping closer. The scent of him—expensive cologne, old parchment, and a hint of something metallic like ozone—rushed over her. "And you are bored to tears. I can see it in the way you’ve organized Eva’s scrolls. You’re starving for a problem you can’t solve with a map of East London." He was close enough now that she could see the fine lines of weariness around his eyes. Being a fixer for the supernatural world took its toll, even on someone with demon blood. "You left," she whispered, the hurt she’d been nursing since autumn finally leaking into her voice. "That night at the docks. You didn't say a word. You just disappeared into the fog and left me with the mess." Lucien’s expression softened, a rare crack in his porcelain facade. He reached out, his gloved hand hovering near her face before he let it drop to the ivory handle of his cane. "I stayed away to keep the mess off you, Aurora. The people I deal with… they saw you as a lever to use against me. I couldn't allow that. I thought if I vanished, you could have the quiet life you kept insisting you wanted." "I wanted you to ask me what I wanted," she snapped, her blue eyes flashing. "Instead of deciding for me. You’re not my father, and you’re certainly not Evan." "No," Lucien said, his voice dropping to a low, rough growl. "I am significantly worse. And yet, I have spent every night for six months wondering if you were looking at the moon from some window and hating me for leaving, or hating me for coming into your life in the first place." The honesty of it was a physical blow. Aurora looked down at his hand, then at her own, where she was unconsciously rubbing the scar on her wrist. The silence in the flat grew heavy, filled only by the muffled sound of a car horn outside and Ptolemy’s rhythmic purring. She took a step into his space, forcing him to look down at her. "I don't hate you, Luc. That’s the problem. I hate how much I didn’t hate the chaos you brought with you." Lucien let the cane lean against a stack of law textbooks and reached out, this time finishing the gesture. His thumb traced the line of her jaw, his touch surprisingly cool. "The chaos is still there. It’s waiting for us. But the merchant in Avaros… it’s a legitimate contract. No blood, no knives. Just logic. Your specialty." "You came all the way here to offer me a job?" she asked, her breath hitching as his fingers slid into her hair, cupping the back of her head. "I came here because I couldn't breathe in a world where you weren't speaking to me," he admitted, the vulnerability in his heterochromatic eyes stripping away the last of her defenses. "The job is just the excuse to get past your three deadbolts." Aurora leaned into his touch, her eyes fluttering shut. The cool-headed, intelligent girl from Cardiff knew she should tell him to leave, that she should go to work and keep her life small and safe. But the woman who had fled to London for a second chance knew that safety was just another kind of cage. "Five minutes are up," she breathed against his palm. "I know," he murmured, leaning down until his forehead rested against hers. "Are you going to kick me out?" Aurora reached up, her fingers curling into the lapels of his charcoal suit, pulling him that final inch closer. "No. But if I lose my job at the restaurant because of this, you're paying for the curry." Lucien’s laugh was a low, melodic sound of triumph. He brushed his lips against hers, a tentative, questioning ghost of a kiss that tasted of rain and redemption. "Ma chére," he whispered, "I’ll buy you the whole restaurant, if only you’ll promise to never lock me out again." She didn't promise. She didn't have to. As she pulled him down into a real kiss, one that bridged the six months of silence and the miles of hurt, the three locks on the door felt less like a barrier and more like a secret they shared with the rest of the world. The scrolls could wait, the delivery could wait, and for the first time in a long time, Rory wasn't running. She was exactly where she was supposed to be.