Page 67 of Dominion’s Collar

Sebastien crosses the floor in his leathers.

He doesn't come to the bar. He doesn't need to.

He passes close enough that his gaze catches mine, then continues toward the corner booth. No pause. No instruction.

When he reaches it, he settles into his usual seat. Renata sends the scotch without being asked.

Sebastien looks at me.

Then he crooks two fingers.

My body responds before the rest of me finishes the thought.

I lift my Negroni and cross the room to him. The cushion is waiting beside his chair.

The ritual is the same one we've built visit by visit. Collar. Bar. His summons. My place at his feet.

Tonight every step feels familiar… none of it feels simple.

This time, I don't kneel. The usual protocol is his feet, the cushion, the position that says yours in a language the whole room understands. Tonight I slide into the booth beside him. He doesn't correct me. Whatever he reads in my face tells him this visit is a conversation, not a scene.

His hands rest on either side of the scotch glass. Days ago those hands held a flogger. My skin hasn't forgotten.

The awareness lives low in my abdomen, a hum that has no business in the middle of a case, and I let the Negroni's bitterness cut through it.

"You look tired," he says.

"You look observant."

"One of us gets paid for it." The corner of his mouth doesn't move, but his eyes do. The fractional adjustment that functions as his version of a smile.

I take a sip of the Negroni. Let the bitterness ground me.

"I spoke with Vivienne Thibault today," I say. Not a question. A placement. I set the name on the table between us and watch his face.

The stillness arrives like a door closing. His hand on the scotch glass doesn't tighten. It simply stops. The cessation of all motion. Other people hold their breath. Sebastien holds his entire body.

Months ago, I would've missed it. The freeze would've read as composure, as the general containment that defines him. Now I can see the difference between Sebastien at rest and Sebastien actively not moving. The distinction lives in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw, in the focus behind his eyes.

He knows Vivienne. She means something to him, and whatever she means was already loaded before I said the word.

"She had interesting things to say about Elysium," I continue.

"Vivienne generally does." His voice is level. The scotch glass rises, and he drinks. The action is deliberate, a man choosing to move after choosing to be still.

"You knew her at Elysium?"

"Elysium was a small world." The deflection is smooth and tells me nothing I didn't already know.

He lets the silence hold for a beat, then tilts his head, fractional, calibrating how much rope to give. "Every conversation we've had about your book circles back to Elysium. You're writing about the lifestyle. Elysium closed years ago."

My drink is halfway to my mouth. I set it down.

"Elysium is part of the story," I say. "The community didn't start here. It migrated."

"You're not writing about migration." He says it without inflection, which makes it worse. "You're writing about what went wrong. And you're asking specific people specific questions about a specific time."

The accuracy is surgical. I keep my expression level, but the effort registers and he sees it.