AI The first deadbolt clicked open with a heavy, metallic thud, followed by the second and the third.
Rory braced her shoulder against the battered oak of the door, expecting the takeaway driver she’d summoned twenty minutes ago to stave off her third evening in a row of instant noodles. Instead, the draft from the stairwell pushed in a sharp, unmistakable current of bergamot, damp wool, and metallic iron.
Lucien stood in the dim, yellowed light of the hallway.
He looked as though he had stepped out of an antique tintype, entirely out of place against the faded, curry-scented wallpaper of the Brick Lane building. His charcoal suit was tailored within a millimeter of his life, not a single thread out of place, though the silver tip of his ivory-handled cane rested with a little too much weight against the floorboards.
His odd eyes—one amber as honey, the other dark as ink—swept over her. They lingered on her frayed grey sweatshirt, the straight black hair tied back in a messy knot, and finally settled on her face.
"You took your time with the locks, Malphora," he said. His voice was a low, smooth baritone, the French cadence smoothing the rough edges of his English.
Rory kept her hand on the edge of the door, her thumb tracing the crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist—a nervous habit she hated herself for indulging. "You don't get to call me that anymore, Lucien. And you certainly don't get to stand on my threshold at ten o'clock on a Tuesday."
"It's Wednesday," he corrected softly . He shifted his weight, and for a fraction of a second, his composure faltered. A hairline fracture in his immortal vanity.
Rory’s eyes dropped to his side. Beneath the tailored lapel of his coat, his left hand was pressed tight against his ribs. A faint, dark stain was soaking into the silk lining of his waistcoat.
"You're bleeding," she said.
"A minor disagreement regarding a ledger in Soho," Lucien said, though his breath caught on the last syllable. "And I am not at your threshold. I am currently hovering just outside it, awaiting your hospitality."
"My hospitality died three months ago on a pier in Rotherhithe when you vanished without a word."
Lucien’s amber eye flared, catching the overhead light like a cat’s. "I left to keep you off a ledger that had six different bounties written on it. But if you prefer I bleed to death on the linoleum outside your neighbor's flat, I can certainly oblige."
Rory stared at him. Her mind screamed at her to throw the deadbolts back into place. Lucien Moreau was a mess of half-demon politics, classified secrets, and a ruinous charm that had nearly undone her entire life before she’d pulled herself back together. She’d spent twelve weeks convincing herself that the absence of his infuriating, quiet presence was a relief.
Ptolemy, Eva’s battered tabby cat, trotted out from behind the stack of research texts cluttering the narrow hallway, trod over Rory's bare toes, and began headbutting Lucien's hand-made leather shoes.
"Traitors, the lot of you," Rory muttered. She leaned back and pulled the door open. "Get in. Before someone sees you bleeding on the stairs."
Lucien slipped past her into the cramped flat. The door shut behind him, the three locks snapping into place with deliberate, aggressive slowness.
The flat was a labyrinth of open books, loose parchment, and half-finished research notes that Eva had left behind before heading north for the week. Lucien navigated the clutter with practiced grace, though his breath came shorter now. He settled onto the battered green armchair near the window, setting his cane against the side table with a dull clatter.
"You look well," he murmured, his eyes tracking her as she marched into the tiny kitchenette.
"I look like a girl who was about to eat bad pad thai in peace," Rory called back over the sound of running water. She grabbed a clean tea towel, a bowl of warm water, and a bottle of high-proof grain alcohol she kept for cleaning Eva's metal instruments.
When she returned to the main room, Lucien had already peeled back his coat and jacket. His white dress shirt was stained crimson across the left flank, the linen torn in a neat, wicked slash.
Rory dropped into the footstool opposite him. "Shirt off."
"Always so direct," he murmured, but his fingers worked at the mother-of-pearl buttons with visible effort. "No preamble? No interrogation?"
"Interrogation comes after I make sure you aren't going to die on Eva's carpet. She'd never get the smell out." Rory set the bowl on the floor between them. "Hold still."
She pressed the warm cloth to the wound. Lucien hissed through his teeth, his fingers tightening instantly on the armrests of the chair. Up close, the heat radiating off him was immense—the infernal blood in his veins running hotter than a normal man's, even when injured. She could smell the faint scent of ozone clinging to his skin, mixed with the iron of his own blood.
"It isn't deep," she noted, her voice dropping into the cool, analytical register she used when she was trying very hard not to feel things. "Clean cut. Human steel?"
"Mostly," Lucien gritted out. His dark eye was fixed on her face, unblinking. "With a bit of silver plated along the edge to slow the healing. A crude touch."
"You deserve crude for walking into Soho alone." She poured a splash of alcohol onto a clean corner of the rag. "This is going to burn."
"I am familiar with burning, Rory."
She didn't give him the satisfaction of looking up. She pressed the soaked cloth directly into the slash.
Lucien didn't scream, but a harsh gasp tore from his throat. His right hand shot out, catching her left wrist. His fingers wrapped around the delicate bone, right over her small crescent scar. His skin was scorching , his grip iron-tight, yet there was a tremor in it that betrayed him.
Rory froze. Her heart slammed against her ribs, sudden and violent.
"Lucien," she warned, her voice barely a whisper .
"Look at me," he commanded softly .
She forced her gaze up from his bloodied torso. He was staring down at her, the amber in his right eye glowing faint and golden in the dim room. The distance between them had collapsed to nothing; she was crouched between his knees, her hands soaked in his blood, his fingers pinned around her pulse point.
"I didn't go to Rotherhithe to leave you," he said, the French warmth thick and dangerous in his throat . "I went to burn the ledger."
"You didn't say goodbye," she said, hating the raw edge that slipped into her tone. "You packed your slick little leather satchel, you paid off the barkeep downstairs, and you disappeared. I thought you were dead. Or worse, that I’d just been another contact on your payroll."
"You were never on my payroll, Malphora."
"Don't call me that," she snapped, trying to pull her wrist back . His grip didn't break; instead, his thumb slid gently across the crescent mark on her skin, a feather-light touch that sent an unwanted spike of heat straight down her spine .
"It suits you," he murmured. "Brave. Unyielding. Stubborn to a fault." He leaned forward slightly , his chest rising and falling in shallow, pained hitches. "If I had told you what I was doing, you would have come with me. You would have stood in that cellar in Soho, putting your clever, beautiful mind up against men who skin people for sport."
"I can take care of myself. I left Cardiff to get away from men who thought they knew what was best for me."
"I know," Lucien whispered. His black eye seemed to swallow the room's remaining light. "That is why leaving you was the hardest thing I have done in thirty-two years. And staying away... proved impossible."
Rory’s breath hitched. The air in the tiny flat felt thick, heavy with the scent of rain, blood, and the sudden, suffocating reality of him. Three months of built-up anger, of quiet nights listening to the rain hit the window above Silas' bar, threatened to evaporate against the steady, hot rhythm of his pulse beneath her hands.
She looked down at his mouth, then back up to his heterochromatic eyes. "You're an idiot, Lucien Moreau."
"A flawed man," he conceded, the ghost of a smirking grin touching his lips despite the pain. "Forgive me."
"I haven't forgiven you," she said, though she didn't pull away when his hand slid from her wrist up to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling softly in her short black hair.
"Not yet," he agreed, leaning in until his forehead rested against hers, his warm breath fanning across her lips. "Give me time."
"You have until I finish bandaging this," she murmured, her hands resuming their work with gentle, agonizing care . "Then you're explaining every single detail."
Lucien closed his eyes, letting out a long, shuddering breath that sounded dangerously like relief. "A fair bargain, Laila. A fair bargain."