Page 69 of Dominion’s Collar

"I should go," I say, turning away from him and lifting my hair.

He removes and pockets the collar. "Lock your doors."

The instruction is the same one he gives every time I leave. Tonight it sounds different. Tonight it sounds like a man who's measured the distance between his doors and mine and has reasons for wanting those doors secured.

I walk across the floor. Renata catches my eye from behind the bar and lifts her chin.

The gesture is small, easy, the shorthand of a friendship that's becoming real enough to complicate the reasons I'm here.

Back in my street clothes I stop at the entrance and glance back. Habit, mostly. The room is the same sprawl of leather and low light it always is.

Gaudet is standing near the lounge. He's watching me leave. His expression carries the same easy warmth it always does. The smile reaches his eyes. Everything about his posture wishes everyone well on their way out.

He's just watching longer than usual. And the warmth, for the first time, doesn't reach all the way across the distance between us.

Parked at the curb, I check the mirrors before pulling out. The habit is automatic now. I check the seatbelt, the headlights, and the rearview mirror for reasons that have nothing to do with traffic.

The man in the booth remembers my sister by name. The man near the lounge has started paying a different kind of attention.

‘Be careful.’ Vivienne told Claire the same thing. It didn't stop Claire, and it won't stop me. The advantage I have over Claire is I know how the first version of this story ended. I intend to write a different one.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sebastien

She tested me last time. Dropped Vivienne's name and watched my face the way a journalist watches a source. Dropped Claire's name and watched harder.

She caught the freeze. I watched her catch it, and neither of us said what we'd seen.

She sat beside me instead of kneeling. I let her. Whatever she was carrying had changed the shape of our usual protocol, and correcting her posture would've answered a question she hadn't asked yet.

What Natalie doesn't know is that every name she placed between us connected to a name I wrote on a legal pad after Luc left my study. Claire Bergeron. Natalie Chastain. Two names. Two sisters. One dead. One wearing my collar.

Luc is pulling Elysium records through Rapier. Booking systems, access logs, property filings. The investigation is moving underneath both of us like groundwater, and neither Natalie nor I can see the whole shape.

Tonight I'm going to light a fire on her skin.

The stage is set. Center of the main scening area, the padded table positioned beneath the amber downlights. Fire blanket folded on a side cart beside a spray bottle and two wet towels. My fire wands rest on a tray lined with foil, the Kevlar-wrapped tips dark against the metal. Isopropyl alcohol in a squeeze bottle, the correct concentration. No synthetic fabrics on any surface within reach.

Preparation is routine. The routine is the point. Fire play leaves no room for error, and the preparation itself is a form of discipline. Every item in position. Every contingency addressed before the match strikes.

I've done fire play with experienced submissives who negotiated it as a specific request. The technique is mine. The control is mine. Every pass of flame calibrated to warm without burning, to startle without harming. I've never lost a submissive's trust during fire.

Tonight I'm accepting trust I haven't fully earned.

Cole is leaning against the bar rail with a drink in his hand. He sees the setup and straightens slightly. Not concern. Assessment.

"Natalie?" he asks from across the floor.

"Yes."

"She good with fire?"

"It's in the contract."

Cole nods. The charming version of Cole Fontenot is nowhere present. This is the operative, and the operative trusts my competence without questioning it. He lifts his glass a fraction. Goes back to nursing his drink.

The scening area isn't empty. A couple is finishing a rope scene on the far side of the floor. Marion is settled in the lounge archway with a glass of wine, comfortable, watching nothing in particular. The same two Doms who are always near the suspension rig are talking again. Good guys. More enthusiasm than technique, but they keep showing up.