AI The deadbolts slid back one after another with heavy, deliberate clicks. Aurora Carter stood on the threshold of Eva’s flat, her knuckles still raised from knocking, heart hammering against her ribs in a rhythm she refused to name. The door swung inward and the warm scent of curry and old paper rolled out to meet her, familiar enough to twist something low in her stomach .
Lucien Moreau filled the doorway like he’d been carved there for the express purpose of ruining her composure.
He wore a charcoal suit that looked too expensive for Brick Lane, the jacket unbuttoned to reveal a waistcoat the colour of wet slate. His platinum hair was swept back from his forehead, though one rebellious strand had escaped to graze his temple. The mismatched eyes—one amber, one black—widened fractionally when they landed on her. Then his mouth curved into that slow, dangerous half-smile she had spent the last eight months trying to forget.
“Rory,” he said, voice low and velvet -rough, the faint Marseilles accent wrapping around her name like smoke. “Or should I say Laila tonight? You never were consistent with your aliases.”
She hated that he still knew which ones she used when she wanted to disappear.
The tabby cat, Ptolemy, chose that moment to wind between Lucien’s polished oxfords and fix Aurora with an unimpressed green stare. She focused on the cat rather than the way Lucien’s shoulders filled the narrow hall, or the way his fingers tightened on the ivory handle of his cane.
“Eva’s not here,” she said, because it was the only safe sentence she could find. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “She texted me twenty minutes ago saying she was stuck at the British Library until at least ten. I came to feed Ptolemy and water her tragic collection of dying herbs.”
Lucien didn’t move. “She mentioned you still had a key.”
Of course she had. Eva, with her romantic heart and her meddling soul, had never quite accepted that some doors were better left locked.
Aurora lifted her chin. “And yet here you are. In her flat. Without her.”
“I was retrieving some research she asked for.” He lifted the cane slightly , indicating the leather satchel slung over his shoulder. “Ancient Sumerian wards. Terribly dull. You’d hate them.”
“You don’t know what I’d hate anymore.”
The words slipped out sharper than she intended. For a moment, the only sound was the low hum of traffic on Brick Lane and the distant sizzle of something frying in the curry house downstairs. Lucien’s heterochromatic gaze traced her face with the same precision he once used to map her body in the dark. She felt the inspection like fingertips.
“May I come in, Rory?” he asked quietly . “Or shall we continue this conversation on the landing where Mrs. Patel can hear every word and report back to the entire neighbourhood by morning?”
She should close the door in his face. She should tell him exactly where he could shove his Sumerian wards and his half-demon charm and the memory of his mouth on her throat. Instead, she stepped back.
The flat was exactly as she remembered—every surface buried under books and scrolls, towers of them threatening to avalanche at the slightest provocation. A single lamp cast a golden pool across the cluttered coffee table. Ptolemy immediately abandoned them both to leap onto the windowsill and glare at the street below.
Lucien closed the door behind him. The deadbolts sounded louder this time, each one a small betrayal. He set his cane against the wall with care, then shrugged out of his suit jacket and hung it on the back of a chair like he belonged here. The tailored waistcoat hugged the lean lines of his torso in a way that made her mouth go dry.
“Eight months,” he said, turning to face her.
“Don’t.” She moved into the tiny kitchenette, needing distance, needing something to do with her hands. She filled the kettle, set it on the hob with more force than necessary. “We’re not doing this.”
“Doing what, exactly?” He followed, stopping in the doorway. The space suddenly felt half its size. “Acknowledging that you left my bed before dawn with nothing but a note that said *Don’t look for me *? Or pretending I haven’t spent every night since wondering if you were alive?”
She gripped the edge of the counter. The small crescent scar on her left wrist caught the light—pale against her skin, the permanent reminder of a childhood fall from a tree in her grandparents’ garden in Cardiff. She traced it with her thumb, an old nervous habit.
“I left because staying would have been worse.”
“For whom?” His voice had dropped to that dangerous register that used to make her shiver for entirely different reasons. “You never gave me the chance to decide that for myself.”
She spun to face him. “You’re half-demon, Lucien. Your father’s people were already circling. The moment they realised you had a weakness—an actual, breathing human weakness—they would have used me against you. Or worse, used you against me. I saw what happened to Eva’s cousin. I wasn’t going to wait for them to decide I was collateral.”
Something flickered behind his eyes. The black one seemed to swallow the light for a moment. “You think so little of my ability to protect what’s mine ?”
“I’m not yours.” The words tasted like ash. “I never was. We were convenient. Hot. Temporary.”
The kettle began to whistle. Neither of them moved to turn it off.
Lucien crossed the small space in two strides. He didn’t touch her—smart man—but he stood close enough that she could smell his cologne, something expensive and woody with a hint of smoke that was probably literal. Up close, the scar that bisected his left eyebrow was visible, a thin silver line she used to trace with her tongue.
“Temporary,” he repeated, as if tasting the word and finding it bitter . “Is that why you still wear the pendant I gave you under your shirt?”
Her hand flew to her collarbone before she could stop it. The small silver disc rested warm against her skin, hidden beneath her jumper. A ward against lesser demons, he’d told her when he’d fastened it around her neck that first night. She’d never taken it off.
“That’s not—” She stopped, swallowing. “It’s useful. That’s all.”
His smile was small and devastatingly sad. “Of course.”
The kettle screamed. Aurora turned it off with a shaking hand, then braced both palms on the counter and let her head drop forward. Her straight black hair fell like a curtain, hiding her face.
“I loved you,” she whispered to the Formica. “God help me, I did. And it terrified me. Still does.”
The silence that followed felt endless. When she finally lifted her head, Lucien was watching her with an expression she’d never seen on his face before—raw, unguarded, almost reverent.
“Rory,” he breathed.
She didn’t know who moved first. One moment they were two feet apart and the next she was in his arms, his mouth crashing down on hers with eight months of pent-up hunger. She made a small, broken sound against his lips and clutched at his waistcoat, hauling him closer. He tasted exactly as she remembered—dark spice and something electric that might have been the demon half of him recognising its mate.
His hands slid under her jumper, palms hot against the bare skin of her back. She gasped at the contact and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, tongue sweeping in with devastating familiarity. She tasted the faint copper of his blood where she’d nipped his lower lip without meaning to. The small violence only seemed to spur him on.
They stumbled backward into the living room. A stack of books toppled with a soft avalanche of pages. Ptolemy yowled in protest from the windowsill but neither of them cared. Lucien’s fingers found the hem of her jumper and tugged upward. She raised her arms to help him, breaking the kiss only long enough for the fabric to clear her head. Her hair tumbled back around her shoulders in a black curtain.
He stared at her like a man who’d been starving.
The pendant—his pendant—gleamed between her breasts, rising and falling with each ragged breath. Lucien’s gaze dropped to it, then lifted to her face with something like wonder .
“Still mine ,” he murmured, voice rough as gravel .
“Shut up,” she said, and kissed him again.
They didn’t make it to the bedroom. The ancient sofa groaned under their combined weight as he lowered her onto it, following her down. His waistcoat buttons proved too stubborn for her impatient fingers; she ripped one off completely . He laughed against her throat, the sound vibrating through her bones.
“Impatient as ever,” he teased, but his hands were just as frantic as they worked the button of her jeans . The zip whispered down. His palm slid inside, cupping her through damp cotton, and she arched with a cry that echoed off the book-lined walls.
“Lucien—”
“Say it again.” His teeth grazed the sensitive spot beneath her ear, the one he’d discovered their second night together. “My name. The way you used to.”
She gasped as his fingers slipped beneath the edge of her underwear, stroking with devastating precision. “Lucien. Please.”
He groaned like the word physically pained him. In one fluid motion he reared back, shrugging out of his waistcoat and shirt in a single economical movement. The sight of him—pale skin stretched over lean muscle, the strange swirling mark over his heart that glowed faintly amber in the lamplight—stole what little breath she had left.
She reached for him, tracing the mark with reverent fingers. The glow brightened at her touch.
“Eight months,” he said again, almost wonderingly, as he pushed her jeans and underwear down her legs. He paused to press an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her knee, then worked his way back up with teeth and tongue until she was writhing beneath him.
When he finally settled between her thighs, bare skin to bare skin, they both stilled. His forehead dropped to hers. For a moment the only sound was their ragged breathing and the distant thump of bass from the curry house below.
“Look at me, Rory.”
She did. The black eye and the amber one held her captive with equal intensity .
“I never stopped,” he said, voice barely above a whisper . “Not for a single day. Not even when I hated you for leaving.”
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away fiercely. “I know. I’m sorry. I thought—I thought I was doing the right thing.”
His hips rolled forward, slow and deliberate, and she forgot how to form words entirely. The stretch of him inside her was perfect , overwhelming, like coming home and falling apart all at once. She wrapped her legs around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, urging him deeper.
They moved together with the easy rhythm of long familiarity and the desperate edge of new desperation. Each thrust dragged a broken sound from her throat. His mouth found hers again, messy and perfect , tasting of salt and want and the particular magic that was entirely Lucien.
The sofa creaked ominously beneath them. A scroll rolled off the armrest and bumped against her shoulder. She laughed—actually laughed—into his mouth, and felt him smile in response.
“Eva’s going to kill us,” she gasped as he hit a particularly devastating angle.
“Worth it.” His voice had gone guttural, the demon half bleeding through. The amber eye was glowing now, casting patterns across her skin. “Look at you. So beautiful. So *mine *.”
The word should have rankled. Instead it sent heat spiralling tighter and tighter in her core. She dug her nails into his shoulders, leaving crescent marks that would probably heal within minutes but felt important in the moment.
“Lucien—I’m—”
“I know.” He slid a hand between them, fingers finding the exact rhythm she needed. “Let me feel you, Rory. Let me have this.”
The orgasm crashed over her without warning, sudden and shattering. She cried out his name like a prayer, body arching tight as a bowstring beneath him. He followed moments later with a low, guttural sound that vibrated through both of them, hips stuttering as he spilled inside her.
For a long while, the only sound was their breathing slowly settling. Lucien collapsed half on top of her, careful not to crush her completely , his face buried in the curve of her neck. She threaded her fingers through his damp platinum hair and held him there.
Eventually he lifted his head. His eyes—both of them—were soft in a way she’d rarely seen.
“Stay,” he said. Not a command. Not quite a plea. Simply the truth between them.
Aurora traced the line of his jaw with one finger. “I still have a psychotic ex and your demonic relatives to worry about.”
“We’ll handle them.” He turned his head to press a kiss to her palm. “Together this time. No more running.”
She was quiet for so long that she felt him tense. Then she smiled, small and tentative and real.
“No more running,” she agreed.
Ptolemy chose that moment to leap onto the back of the sofa and stare down at them with profound feline judgement. Aurora started laughing first—helpless, disbelieving laughter that shook her entire body. Lucien joined her, the sound rumbling through his chest and into hers where they were still joined.
The tabby cat, clearly disgusted with both of them, turned tail and stalked toward the kitchen in search of dinner.
Aurora reached up and brushed the stray lock of hair from Lucien’s forehead. His heterochromatic eyes caught the lamplight, amber and black, human and demon, somehow both entirely hers.
“Eight months,” she murmured, echoing his earlier words.
His smile was slow and devastatingly tender. “Worth every second if it brought you back to me.”
She pulled him down for another kiss—slower this time, sweet with promise and the particular magic that happened when two complicated people finally stopped running from each other.
Outside, London kept turning, full of curry houses and supernatural threats and all the reasons she’d once thought she couldn’t have this. Inside Eva’s cluttered flat, surrounded by books and the faint smell of cooling curry, Aurora Carter let herself believe, for the first time in eight months, that maybe she could.
Lucien’s fingers found the small scar on her wrist and traced it gently , reverently, as if memorising it all over again .
They had time now.
They had each other.
And for tonight, in this cramped flat above a curry house on Brick Lane, that was more than enough.