AI The third deadbolt slid back with a heavy, metallic clunk that vibrated right through Rory’s palm. She kept her foot braced against the bottom of the door, a habit left over from Cardiff and Evan, though if something from London’s underworld really wanted into Eva’s flat, a size-six boot wouldn’t do much to stop it.
She pulled the door open two inches. The scent of Brick Lane’s rain-slicked pavement and the rich, cumin-heavy steam from the curry house downstairs rushed into the cramped entryway, immediately colliding with something entirely out of place: expensive cedarwood cologne and the sharp, ozone tang of Avaros magic.
Lucien Moreau stood on the narrow landing.
For three weeks, Rory had rehearsed what she would say the next time she saw him. She had a whole mental file of cutting, cool-headed remarks organized like one of her father’s legal briefs. Now, looking at him through the gap in the door, every single word evaporated.
He looked immaculate, which instantly irritated her. While the London drizzle had plastered her straight black hair to her temples during her evening shift for the Golden Empress, the rain seemed to have politely avoided Lucien’s tailored charcoal coat. His platinum blond hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place, and his mismatched eyes—one warm amber, the other pitch, bottomless black—fixed on her face with an intensity that made her stomach drop.
"You're at the wrong flat, Luc," Rory said, keeping her voice steady. "I live above Silas’s bar. Eva isn't here."
"I am aware of where you live, *chérie *," Lucien murmured, the low rasp of his Marseille accent curling around the words. "I am also aware that Silas’s wards are currently intact, whereas your friend’s charming little fortress has a courier from the Golden Empress eating leftover noodles in the kitchen."
Rory’s fingers tightened on the edge of the door. Her left wrist brushed the wood, the small crescent-shaped scar itching the way it always did when her pulse spiked. "I'm house-sitting. Ptolemy needed feeding."
As if summoned by his name, the fat tabby weaved between Rory’s ankles and let out a demanding yowl, entirely failing as a guard cat. Lucien’s gaze dropped to the feline, then rose back to Rory’s bright blue eyes. The faint, professional smirk he wore for the underworld’s worst monsters wasn't there tonight. He looked tired. And beneath the impeccable tailoring, he was leaning just a fraction too heavily on his ivory-handled cane.
Rory’s cool, logical brain did the math in half a second. The slight tension around his mouth. The way his left hand stayed tucked inside his coat pocket, pressing against his ribs. The fact that an information broker who guarded his neutrality like a dragon guarded gold had walked into East London unannounced at midnight.
She cursed under her breath, stepped back, and pulled the door open.
Lucien didn't move for a beat, as if surprised she hadn't slammed it in his face. Then he stepped over the threshold, the tip of his cane clicking softly against the floorboards. The cramped one-bedroom flat shrank the moment he entered. Every surface in Eva’s living room was buried under precarious towers of leather-bound books, unrolled scrolls, and frantically scribbled research notes, leaving only a narrow path toward the kitchenette. Lucien navigated the paper labyrinth with practiced grace, though Rory caught the microscopic hitch in his breath when he pivoted to let her shut the door.
She threw all three deadbolts. The silence that followed was thick, punctuated only by the hum of the refrigerator and the distant bass of a car passing on Brick Lane.
"Take the coat off," Rory said, turning to face him .
Lucien raised a pale eyebrow . "We have not spoken since the docks, Aurora, and you are already demanding I undress?"
"Don't call me Aurora, and don't be an idiot. You're bleeding."
The amusement faded from his heterochromatic eyes. "It is nothing. A disagreement over a tariff in Soho. Easily resolved ."
"If it was easily resolved , you would have gone home to your overpriced townhouse in Mayfair instead of climbing three flights of stairs that smell like vindaloo." She crossed her arms, holding her ground in the narrow space between a stack of Latin grimoires and a sagging velvet armchair. "Why are you here, Lucien?"
He looked at her then—really looked at her—and the air in the room seemed to thin. That was the dangerous thing about Lucien. With Evan, anger had been loud, a hurricane of slammed doors and raised fists. With Lucien, everything was quiet, razor-sharp, and terrifyingly focused. Three weeks ago at the docks, after they’d barely survived a trap set by a rogue faction from Avaros, he had pulled her against his chest in the pouring rain, his mouth a millimeter from hers, his black eye swallowing the dark. And then he had stepped back, told her she was a liability to his business, and walked away.
It had hurt more than she cared to admit to anyone, even Eva.
"I received a piece of information tonight," Lucien said quietly. He reached into his breast pocket—wincing slightly as the fabric pulled across his torso—and withdrew a folded slip of heavy cream paper. "A bounty has been placed on a human woman matching your description. Black hair, blue eyes, five-foot-six. The client was rather specific about the scar on your wrist."
Rory’s throat went dry. She didn't take the paper. "From the docks?"
"Yes. It appears our associate did not appreciate your rather unorthodox method of dropping a shipping container on his brother."
"It was out-of-the-box thinking," she muttered defensively, though her mind was already racing , cataloging exits, ward strengths, and routes back to Silas’s bar. "If you came to drop off a warning, you could have sent a runner. Or a text."
"A runner can be intercepted."
"And a text?"
Lucien’s jaw tightened. His knuckles went white against the ivory handle of his cane, right above the seam where Rory knew a thin, lethal blade was concealed . "A text would not confirm that you were still breathing."
The words hung between them, heavy and raw. Rory stared at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. "You said I was a liability, Luc. You made it very clear that our arrangement was strictly professional, and that it was over."
"I lied."
The admission was so simple, so devoid of his usual silk -tongued diplomacy, that it stole the breath right out of her lungs.
Lucien took a step closer, invading the small pocket of space she had claimed. Ptolemy chirped indignantly from atop a pile of scrolls and leaped down, abandoning them entirely. Rory couldn't step back without tumbling over a stack of folklore texts, so she tilted her chin up, refusing to cower.
"Why?" she whispered.
"Because I am half-demon, *chérie *, and my kind are possessive, selfish creatures by design," Lucien said, his voice dropping to a rough velvet purr that sent a shiver straight down her spine . He raised his free hand, hovering just beside her cheek without touching her, giving her the choice. Always giving her the choice. "Because at the docks, when that warehouse came down, my first thought was not of my network, or my reputation, or my life. It was of you. And in my line of work, caring for someone is the fastest way to put them in a grave ."
Rory looked from his amber eye to the black one, seeing the war playing out behind them. He wasn't cold. He had never been cold. He had been terrified—not for himself, but of what his world would do to a twenty-five-year-old law school dropout who delivered takeaway for a living.
Slowly, Rory uncrossed her arms. Instead of leaning into his raised hand, she reached out and took the lapels of his charcoal coat, her fingers brushing the fine wool.
"My father is an Irish barrister, and my mother taught secondary school in Cardiff," Rory said softly , holding his gaze. "I know how to spot a terrible argument when I hear one. If I’m already on a bounty list, staying away from me doesn't keep me safe. It just makes us both miserable."
Lucien let out a breath that sounded half like a laugh, half like a groan. His hand finally closed the distance, his long, cool fingers cradling her jaw, his thumb brushing across her cheekbone. "You are infuriatingly logical, Rory Carter."
"I try." She slid her hands from his lapels to the buttons of his coat, undoing them with steady, deliberate movements. When she parted the fabric, a dark, spreading stain bloomed across the crisp white linen of his shirt, just beneath his left ribs. "Sit down before you ruin Eva’s carpet. I know where she keeps the thread and the antiseptic."
Lucien didn't move toward the armchair. His thumb traced the corner of her lower lip, his gaze darkening with a heat that had nothing to do with Avaros and everything to do with the three weeks they’d spent apart.
"In a moment," he murmured, leaning down until his forehead rested against hers, the scent of rain and cedar wrapping entirely around her. "Let me look at you first."
Rory closed her eyes, her left hand coming up to rest over his wrist, the crescent scar pressing against the steady, rapid beat of his pulse . She didn't push him toward the chair, and for a long time, neither of them said a word.