AI The third deadbolt slid back with a heavy metallic clunk, and Rory yanked the door open, a sharp remark about the hour already on her tongue. It died the instant she saw who was standing on the cramped landing.
Lucien Moreau filled the doorway, looking entirely out of place against the peeling wallpaper and flickering fluorescent bulb of the stairwell. He wore one of his impeccably tailored charcoal suits, the wool dark and dry despite the London drizzle misting the window behind him. Both of his gloved hands rested atop the ivory handle of his cane. His slicked-back platinum hair caught the jaundiced light, and that unsettling, familiar gaze—one eye warm amber, the other pitch black—locked onto hers.
Rory’s hand tightened on the brass doorknob. Her heart executed a traitorously steep drop into her stomach before rebounding against her ribs. "You're at the wrong flat, Luc. I don't live here."
"And yet, here you are," Lucien said. His voice was a low, velvet murmur, rough at the edges with the faint cadence of Marseille. "Cat-sitting for Eva while she chases leads in Prague. Which means you are alone, and for once, not running deliveries for Mrs. Cheung."
She didn't move from the threshold, blocking his path with all five-foot-six of her frame. "It's past midnight. Whatever information you're brokering, I'm not buying."
"I am not selling." He tilted his head down, his mismatched eyes sweeping over her—taking in her bare feet, the oversized Cardiff University sweatshirt, the straight black hair falling loose around her shoulders. Something dark and heavy flickered in the amber eye. "May I come in, *chérie *? Or shall we discuss the blood on my shirt out here where the neighbors can listen?"
Rory’s gaze snapped to his torso. Beneath the unbuttoned jacket, the crisp white linen of his dress shirt was marred by a blooming, dark stain along his left ribs. He wasn't leaning on the cane for show tonight; his knuckles were white against the ivory grip, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
Swearing under her breath, she stepped back.
Lucien moved past her into the cramped living room, bringing the scent of rain, expensive cedarwood cologne, and the metallic tang of copper. As she shut the door and threw all three deadbolts back into place, the thick aroma of roasted cumin and turmeric from the curry house below rose through the floorboards, mingling with the smell of old paper.
"Sit," Rory ordered, gesturing toward the only clear space in the room—a worn velvet armchair wedged between towering stacks of occult encyclopedias and loosely rolled scrolls.
Lucien eyed a precarious pile of Eva’s research notes on the side table before lowering himself into the chair with a controlled wince. He rested the cane—which Rory knew concealed ten inches of razor-sharp steel—against the Cushion. Ptolemy, Eva’s fat tabby cat, immediately abandoned his perch on the radiator to weave between Lucien’s polished oxfords, purring like a chainsaw.
"Traitor," Rory muttered to the cat, crossing into the tiny galley kitchen. She grabbed the first-aid kit from beneath the sink, wet a clean dishcloth with warm water, and returned.
Lucien had already shrugged out of his suit jacket and was working on the buttons of his shirt with his left hand. His fingers were stiff, clumsy. Without a word, Rory dropped to her knees on the threadbare rug between his legs and batted his hands away.
"Let me," she said, keeping her voice clinical. Cool-headed. That was what she did best—solve problems, assess the angles, keep the emotion locked behind thick glass.
Up close, the heat radiating off his half-demon physiology was palpable , a furnace beneath pale skin. She unbuttoned the linen and parted the fabric. A jagged laceration, four inches long and sluggishly weeping dark red blood, scored the taut muscle over his ribs. The edges of the wound were faintly blackened, smelling of ozone.
"Avaros iron?" she asked quietly, reaching for the antiseptic wipes.
"A cheap imitation," Lucien replied, his breathing shallow as she pressed the wet cloth to his skin to clear the blood. "A collector in Soho thought he could renegotiate my fee after the fact. He was mistaken."
"Clearly." Rory tore open an antiseptic packet. As she reached back toward his ribs, the sleeve of her sweatshirt rode up, exposing the small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist.
Lucien’s hand shot out, his bare fingers wrapping around her wrist before the wipe could touch him. His skin was scorching . He didn't grip her tightly—he knew better, knew every ugly detail of Evan and the reasons she had fled Wales—but the contact sent a jolt straight up her arm.
Slowly, his thumb brushed over the pale crescent scar.
"Why did you come to Brick Lane, Luc?" she asked, her voice dropping an octave. She didn't pull her hand back. She couldn't seem to remember how. "You have healers on your payroll in Mayfair. You have a dozen safe houses between Soho and here. Why come to Eva's?"
Lucien looked down at her. In the dim light of the cluttered flat, the black eye looked bottomless, the amber one like molten gold. "You haven't answered my calls in three weeks, Aurora."
The use of her given name made her stomach twist. "There wasn't anything left to say. You made your position very clear that night at the docks."
"I made a calculation," he corrected softly, his thumb still tracing the small curve on her wrist. "You were drawing the attention of things that belong in my world, not yours. Walking away was the logical choice."
"I'm not a law student in Cardiff anymore, Lucien. I'm in this world whether you like it or not." Anger flared in her chest, hot and sharp, cutting through the ache she’d been carrying for twenty-one days. "And you didn't just walk away. You shut the door in my face after—after everything, and treated me like one of your liabilities."
"Because you are!" The restraint in his voice cracked, just a fraction. He leaned forward, ignoring the pull on his torn ribs, bringing his face inches from hers. "Do you have any idea what you do to my judgment? I have survived in this city for a decade because nobody knows what I value. And then you show up with your bright blue eyes and your reckless mouth, delivering dumplings into the middle of a triad negotiation, and suddenly every enemy I have knows exactly where to aim."
Rory stared at him, her breath catching. "That's why you left? Because you were afraid they'd use me?"
"I was afraid of what I would burn down if they tried," Lucien whispered.
Silence settled over the flat, broken only by the distant rumble of a night bus down on the street and Ptolemy’s steady purring. Rory looked at his mouth, remembering the taste of him in the dark alley behind Silas' bar three weeks ago, the desperate, bruising way he had kissed her right before he told her he never wanted to see her again.
She pulled her wrist from his grasp, not to retreat, but to press the antiseptic wipe against his wound . Lucien hissed through his teeth, his head dropping back against the armchair, exposing the long line of his throat.
Rory worked quickly , her fingers steady even as her pulse hammered in her ears. She cleaned the scorched flesh, applied a thick layer of burn salve, and taped a sterile gauze pad over his ribs. When she finished, she didn't get up from the floor. Instead, she rested her palms on his knees, looking up at him through the dark fringe of her hair.
Lucien lifted his head. The impeccable fixer was gone ; he looked exhausted, slightly frayed, and entirely too human.
"You're an idiot for someone who speaks four languages," Rory said softly .
A ghost of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. "Five, if you count the High Demonic dialect of my father's court."
"Five, then." She rose onto her knees, bridging the space between them, and slid her hand up the bare skin of his chest, feeling the rapid, heavy thud of his heart beneath her palm. "And you're still terrible at risk assessment. Leaving me in the dark doesn't keep me safe, Luc. It just makes me angry."
His hand came up to cup her jaw, his fingers threading into her black hair. The amber eye burned into hers. "I got into a cab in Soho bleeding through my coat, and I gave the driver this address before I even realized I had spoken it aloud. I tried to stay away from you, *chérie *. I failed."
"Good," Rory breathed.
She leaned in, and the remaining distance vanished. Lucien groaned low in his throat as his mouth met hers, the kiss neither gentle nor hesitant. It tasted of three weeks of bitter silence and the terrifying relief of giving in. Rory gripped the lapels of his ruined shirt, pulling herself closer between his knees as his other arm wrapped around her waist, hauling her up until she was practically in his lap, careful only of his bandaged left side.
When they finally broke apart, both of them breathing hard, Lucien rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed.
"Eva's bed is barely big enough for one person, and half of it is covered in grimoires," Rory murmured against his lips, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone.
Lucien opened his mismatched eyes, a dark, familiar heat settling into his gaze. "Then I suggest we clear off the books."