AI The third deadbolt snicked open, and Rory hauled the door inward, already reaching for the saag aloo she’d begged Eva to pick up on her way back from the university archive. What she got instead was rain, cold and sharp, driven by a Brick Lane wind that carried the thick, warm scent of cumin and fried onions from the curry house below, and Lucien Moreau, standing in her hallway like a ghost she’d spent three months trying to exorcise.
His charcoal tailored suit was soaked through, the fabric darkening at the shoulders where rain had plastered it to his 5’11” frame, his usual slicked-back platinum blond hair fallen in stringy strands over his forehead. One eye burned amber, the other swallowed by black, the mismatched pair glinting in the dim glow of the bare hallway bulb, and his ivory-handled cane— the one that hid a thin, lethal blade she’d only seen him unsheathe once, to disarm a rogue fae who’d tried to rob Silas’ bar—propped in the doorframe, its rubber tip stopping her from slamming the wood shut in his face.
Her tabby cat Ptolemy twined around her ankles, meowing a sharp complaint about the cold draft seeping into the cramped flat, and Rory’s own voice came out sharper than she meant it, raw with the shock of seeing him here, of all the places he could have tracked her. “How the fuck did you find this flat? No one but Eva knows this address. I made her swear not to tell a soul.”
Lucien’s French accent, usually smoothed thin by years of navigating London’s polite upper crust, thickened with what looked like relief, then regret . “Eva didn’t tell me. I tracked Evan. He got the restraining order thrown out last week, paid off a magistrate in Cardiff to erase the police reports you filed. He’s in London. Asked after you at Silas’ three nights ago, told the bartender he was your boyfriend, that you’d moved out without telling him. I got here as fast as I could.”
Rory’s blood turned to ice. She fumbled backward, yanking the door shut behind him, and slid all three deadbolts home one by one, the chain clinking into place as she pressed her back to the wood, gasping like she’d run a mile. Evan. She’d thought she was safe here, buried under Eva’s mountains of books and scrolls, tucked above a curry house no one from her old life would ever think to check. The small crescent scar on her left wrist, the leftover from a childhood bike crash, burned where she rubbed it raw, a nervous tic she’d never been able to shake.
Lucien stood still in the middle of her tiny living room, having to sidestep a teetering stack of grimoires to avoid knocking them over, every surface of the flat cluttered with Eva’s research notes, loose-leaf paper slipping off the arm of the couch, scrolls tied with frayed twine stacked on the kitchen counter. He looked out of place, too polished, too sharp for the chaos of Eva’s flat, but his eyes never left her, like she was the only thing that mattered in the mess of books and dust.
“Why are you really here?” she said, and the old anger bubbled up, the same anger that had made her storm out of her flat above Silas’ three months prior, the night they’d last spoken. She remembered that night clear as day: she’d just hung up with the police, Evan having banged on her door for an hour, screaming threats through the wood, and Lucien had showed up, cane in hand, leaning against her kitchen counter like he owned the place, and said I can fix this. Make him never bother you again.
She’d snapped. Fresh off two years of Evan controlling every part of her life, telling her what to wear, who to talk to, erasing her boundaries one by one, Lucien’s offer had sounded identical. She’d screamed that she didn’t need him to murder someone for her, that she wasn’t some damsel that needed a half-demon fixer to fight her battles, that she’d rather live on the streets than let someone else make her choices for her. She’d packed a bag that night, moved in with Eva, blocked his number, thrown out every little thing he’d left at her flat, from a spare tie to the lemon drops he kept in his suit pocket.
“I didn’t come here to force anything on you,” Lucien said now, reading the anger in her face, his hands lifting like he was calming a spooked animal. “I know what you thought I meant that night. I know everyone looks at me and sees the demon’s son, the guy who solves problems with a blade and a bribe. But I would never have killed Evan for you. I would never force that weight on you. I know what it’s like to have everyone expect the worst of you, to assume you’re only capable of hurting people. I’d never do that to you.”
He took a slow step forward, his cane tapping the scuffed floorboards, and explained what he’d actually meant by fix it: he was going to report Evan’s unregistered work van to the DVLA, get his UK work visa revoked for the under the table jobs he’d been working, pay off his boss at the Cardiff construction firm to fire him for theft, leave him stranded in his dad’s Welsh village, too poor to scrape together the train fare to London, too tied up in legal trouble to ever come after her again. “I fumbled the words,” he said, his voice cracking, and Rory’s anger melted a little, because she’d never seen Lucien anything less than composed. “I was so scared he’d hurt you, that I’d lose the chance to tell you I’ve been half in love with you since you delivered dumplings to my office and yelled at me for tipping too much, that I said the first stupid thing that came into my head. I didn’t explain. I’m sorry.”
He pulled a crumpled paper bag from the inside of his suit coat, soaked at the edges but still intact, and held it out. It was from the bakery on Whitechapel Road, the one she’d gone to every Sunday for lemon drizzle cake, ever since she’d moved to London. “I bought one of these the day you left. I bought one every Sunday after that, kept it in my office fridge, hoping you’d come back. I didn’t push. I thought you hated me, that I’d ruined everything, and I’d rather give you space than make you uncomfortable. But when I heard Evan was in London, I couldn’t stay away. I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
Ptolemy, who hated every stranger that ever crossed the threshold of Eva’s flat, who hissed at Eva’s dates and swatted at the delivery people that brought takeout, padded across the floor and rubbed his head against Lucien’s shin. Lucien bent down, slow, and scratched him behind the ears, like he’d spent his whole life around cats, like he’d always wanted one of his own.
Rory’s shoulders shook, and she started crying, the tears hot on her cheeks, her straight shoulder-length black hair falling into her face as she stepped toward him. “I thought you didn’t care,” she said, her voice breaking . “I drove past your office once, two weeks ago, just to see if your car was parked out front. I checked my phone every day for a text from you, even though I blocked your number. I was scared , Luc. I was so scared of letting someone else take control, of wanting you so bad that it scared me more than Evan ever did. I’m sorry I called you a monster. I never meant that. I’m so sorry.”
Lucien set the cake down on the only clear spot on the coffee table, and pulled her into his arms, his suit still damp from the rain but his body warm through the fabric, his cane clattering to the floor. He cupped her face, his thumbs wiping the tears off her cheeks, and kissed her, soft at first, like he was scared she’d pull away, and Rory kissed him back, her hands fisting in the lapels of his suit, the taste of rain and the mint he chewed on his lips, the first good thing she’d had in longer than she could remember. When they pulled apart, his mismatched eyes were bright, the amber one glowing a little in the lamplight, a half-demon tell she’d only seen once before, when he’d been protecting her from that fae at Silas’.
“Can I stay?” he asked, quiet, like he was still scared she’d throw him out. “Just for a few nights, until I get Evan sent back to Cardiff. If you want me to leave after that, I will. I’ll never bother you again. I just need to know you’re safe.”
Rory shook her head, grabbing the lemon drizzle cake and two forks from the kitchen drawer, tugging him down onto the couch next to her, Ptolemy curling up between them on the cushion. The rain lashed against the window, the curry house below locking up for the night, the hum of the fridge the only other sound in the flat. “Don’t you dare leave,” she said, sticking a fork into the cake and holding a bite up to his mouth. “I don’t want you to leave. Not ever.”