AI The first deadbolt gave a heavy, metallic click, followed by the second and third. Rory didn’t like being this jumpy, but Brick Lane had a way of seeping into your nerves after midnight. The scent of turmeric and cumin from the curry house downstairs usually acted as a comfort, a savory blanket over the city’s grime, but tonight it felt oppressive , thick enough to choke on.
She pulled the heavy door open just a crack, the security chain still engaged. She expected a delivery gone wrong or perhaps one of Eva’s eccentric academic contacts looking for a lost translation. She didn't expect Lucien Moreau.
He stood in the dim yellow light of the hallway, looking as though he’d stepped directly out of a dream or a nightmare, depending on the day of the week. He wore a tailored charcoal wool coat that probably cost more than Rory’s annual rent, and his platinum blond hair was slicked back with its usual lethal precision. The only thing that marred his image of untouchable elegance was the slight tension in his jaw and the way he leaned a fraction too heavily on his ivory-handled cane.
"Rory," he said. His voice was a low, melodic rasp that still had the power to make the hair on her arms stand up. "You’re staying at the sanctuary of scrolls, I see. Eva mentioned you were house-sitting."
Rory’s grip tightened on the edge of the door. "Eva’s been talking to you? I specifically told her I didn’t want anyone to know where I was. Especially not you, Lucien."
He tilted his head, his heterochromatic eyes catching the light. The amber one glowed with a faint, predatory warmth , while the jet-black one remained a bottomless void. "She didn't tell me. I’m a fixer, darling. Finding people is what I do. And you are remarkably difficult to lose when I don't want to lose you."
"The locks are here for a reason," she said, though her heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. "Go away. We said everything that needed to be said in Southwark."
"We said nothing in Southwark," he countered, stepping closer to the door. "You yelled a great deal, and I was... uncharacteristically silent. It was an imbalance I’ve come to regret."
Rory looked down at his hand on the cane. His knuckles were white. She looked back up at his face, noticing for the first time the slight grayness to his complexion. He wasn't just here to talk. He was hurt.
She sighed, a sound of pure, frustrated defeat, and unlatched the chain. "If you bleed on Eva’s Persian rug, she’ll have both our heads. Get in."
She stepped back, allowing him to limp into the cramped flat. The space was a labyrinth of waist-high stacks of books and ancient, yellowing scrolls. Ptolemy, the ginger tabby, looked up from a pile of research notes and let out a sharp, disapproving chirp before leaping onto a bookshelf.
Lucien closed the door behind him with a soft thud. He didn't lock the deadbolts; he just leaned against the wood for a moment, his eyes drifting shut. The silence between them was heavy, filled with the ghosts of their last encounter —shouted accusations, the rain on the Thames, and the crushing weight of things he wouldn't tell her about his life in the Avaros underworld.
"Sit," Rory commanded, pointing to a velvet armchair that was currently buried under a stack of journals. She unceremoniously dumped the journals onto the floor, ignoring the way Lucien winced at the lack of organizational respect.
He sank into the chair, his cane clattering against the floorboards. Rory stood over him, her arms crossed. "Talk. Why are you here, and why do you look like you’ve been run over by a carriage?"
"A minor disagreement with a business associate," Lucien murmured, reaching up to undo the top buttons of his coat. "The kind who uses silver-edged blades. It’s... inconvenient for someone of my heritage."
Rory’s breath hitched. "Silver?" She moved instinctively, her anger momentarily eclipsed by a panicked flick of her training. She knelt before him, her black hair falling forward as she reached for his hands. She checked his palms first, then began unbuttoning his waistcoat with trembling fingers.
"Rory," he said, his voice softer now, warning and pleading all at once .
"Shut up," she snapped. "I’m looking for the entry point."
She found it on his left side, just above the hip. A jagged tear in his white silk shirt was stained with an alarming amount of dark, sluggish blood. The skin around the wound was beginning to turn a sickly, bruised purple—the reaction of his demonic blood to the silver.
She stood up and hurried to the kitchen, grabbing a bowl of water and a clean cloth. When she returned, she found him watching her with an expression she couldn't quite decipher . It wasn't the cold, calculating look of the Frenchman who brokered secrets for the elite; it was something raw and dangerously human.
"You're still doing it," he said as she began to dab at the wound.
"Doing what?"
"Fixing things that aren't your responsibility. You fled Cardiff to get away from a man who broke you, Rory. You came to London to start over. Why are you kneeling on a floor in Whitechapel, tending to a half-demon who lied to you for six months?"
Rory paused, the wet cloth turning pink in her hand. She looked up at him, her bright blue eyes fierce. "Because I'm a person, Lucien. Even if you've forgotten what that's like between all your deals and your shadows. And because I can't just let you die in my friend's living room."
"I'm not going to die," he said, though his hand shook as he reached out, his fingers hovering just inches from her face . He didn't touch her, but she could feel the heat radiating from him. "But I couldn't go to the clinic. Not with the magpies watching my usual haunts. I thought... I hoped you might still have a weakness for lost causes."
"You're not a lost cause. You're just a headache," she muttered, moving back to the wound.
As she worked, the proximity became a physical weight . She was acutely aware of the scent of him—expensive cologne, old paper, and the metallic tang of blood. She could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the way his throat moved when he swallowed.
Her wrist brushed against his belt, and the sleeve of her sweater pulled back, revealing the small, crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist. Lucien’s hand suddenly closed over her arm, his grip firm but not painful.
Rory froze. "Lucien, don't."
"You still have it," he whispered, his black eye fixed on the pale mark. "The souvenir of a man who didn't deserve to breathe the same air as you."
"It's a part of me," she said, her voice small . "Like your eyes. Like that cane. We all have our marks."
"I should have killed him when I had the chance," Lucien said softly . There was no theatricality in the statement; it was a simple, terrifying fact.
Rory pulled her arm back, her heart racing for an entirely different reason. "No. That’s exactly why I left you, Lucien. Because you think the answer to everything is a blade or a deal. I don't want to be protected by a monster. I wanted to be loved by a man."
The silence that followed was so profound that Rory could hear the muffled sound of a car horn three blocks away. Lucien’s expression shuttered, the amber light in his eye dimming. He looked away, his jaw tightening.
"I am both," he said quietly. "And I have never known how to separate them for you."
Rory felt a lump form in her throat. She finished cleaning the wound in silence , her movements efficient and clinical to mask the fact that she wanted to lean forward and press her forehead against his chest. She applied a dressing she found in Eva's medicine cabinet, taping it down with more force than necessary.
When she was finished, she didn't get up. She stayed on her knees, her hands resting on her thighs. "Why did you really come here, Lucien? You have dozens of safe houses. You have people who would die for you."
Lucien reached out, and this time, he didn't hesitate. He tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear, his thumb grazing her cheek. The touch was electric , a spark that traveled straight to her core.
"I was tired," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper . "Tired of the masks. Tired of the cold. I realized that if I was going to bleed out, I wanted the last thing I saw to be something real. You are the only real thing I’ve ever found in this city, Rory."
Rory leaned into his palm, despite every logical instinct screaming at her to run. "You're a liar, Lucien Moreau."
"About many things," he agreed, leaning down until their breaths mingled. "About the cost of information, about the depth of my ruthlessness, and about my intentions for the soul of London. But I have never once lied to you about how I feel when I enter a room and find you in it."
He didn't wait for her to bridge the gap. He leaned down and kissed her—a slow, desperate reclamation that tasted of salt and longing. It wasn't the suave, polished kiss of a broker; it was the kiss of a man who had been starving and had finally found bread.
Rory responded with a fervor that frightened her, her fingers tangling in his platinum hair, pulling him closer. The hurt of their parting, the months of silence , the fear she’d felt when she saw him at the door—it all dissolved into the heat of the moment.
When they finally pulled apart, both of them were breathless. Lucien rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed.
"You have to leave in the morning," she whispered, though she didn't move away.
"I know," he said.
"And this doesn't fix anything. You’re still a half-demon fixer with too many enemies, and I’m still a girl trying to stay out of the dark."
Lucien opened his eyes. The black and the amber were inches from her blue. "I know that, too."
He reached for his cane, using it to push himself up, but he didn't head for the door. Instead, he reached out a hand to Rory, helping her to her feet. He didn't let go of her hand once she was standing .
"But for tonight," he said, looking around the room filled with Eva's dusty secrets and the steady, rhythmic purr of the cat, "could we just be people in a flat on Brick Lane? No demons, no pasts. Just us."
Rory looked at the three deadbolts on the door, then back at the man who had bypassed every one of her defenses without even trying. She squeezed his hand.
"Just for tonight," she agreed. "But you’re sleeping on the sofa. I'm not explaining a half-demon in my bed to Eva when she gets back from Oxford."
A small, genuine smirk played across Lucien’s lips—the first real one she’d seen in years. "As you wish, Rory. But I should warn you, I'm a terrible houseguest. I have very specific requirements for my morning coffee."
"Get on the sofa, Moreau," she laughed, the sound bright and unexpected in the quiet flat.
As she watched him settle onto the small, lumpy couch, his cane leaning against the armrest, Rory realized that the locks on the door weren't nearly as strong as she’d thought. But for the first time since she’d fled Cardiff, she wasn't afraid of what was inside with her.