Page 22 of Dominion’s Collar

Renata leans across the bar. Casual motion. The look she gives me isn't.

"Obsidian wants to see you. Private room, second floor."

The tightening low in my stomach has nothing to do with investigation strategy. The loop I've been fighting all night gets louder the moment his name crosses Renata's lips.

"Now?"

"He said whenever you're ready." A beat. "When Obsidian says that he means now."

She lifts her chin toward the staircase. A man materializes at my elbow. Dark hair, easy smile, the kind of charm that makes you forget to notice how carefully he's assessing the room.

"Cole," he says. "I'll walk you up."

He keeps the pace conversational on the stairs. The questions are light: how I'm liking the club, whether Renata's been taking care of me. Genuine warmth, but the care underneath it runs deeper than casual.

At the top, he opens a door and stops. "If you need anything, I'll be right outside. You're not obligated to stay if you're not comfortable." He's still smiling, but his eyes have shifted to something more professional. "He knows the rules. So do I."

Then he steps aside, and the room closes around me. The private room is smaller than I expected. Warm wood paneling, low amber lighting, two leather chairs angled toward each other across a table that holds a crystal decanter of water and two glasses. The kind of room built for conversations that require walls.

Sebastien is already seated. He doesn't stand when I enter. He watches me cross the room and take the chair across from him with unhurried attention. He's been thinking about this conversation longer than I've known it was coming.

"Margot spoke to you," he says.

"Word travels fast."

"Margot spoke to me first." He lets that sit. "She asked if I had any interest in mentoring a new member who seemed reluctant to participate."

"And you said yes?"

"I said I had a different proposal."

The silence he leaves after that sentence is surgical. I wait for the scalpel.

"A consideration collar," he says. "Thirty days. Exclusive while you're wearing it."

I wasn't expecting this. A conversation, maybe. An invitation to scene. The word collar rearranges the room around it.

"You've never done this before."

"No."

"Why me?" The question comes out unedited. "You've had experienced submissives who don't need a manual. I've watched them scene with you from across the room." I don't look away. "So why the novice with the book deal?"

He doesn't answer immediately. When he does, the register is quieter than anything he's said to me.

"Every woman I've scened with arrived already knowing what she wanted. The negotiation was a formality. The dynamic was satisfying." He pauses. "And predictable."

"And I'm not predictable."

"You perform well. You've studied the vocabulary, the protocols, the frameworks." His gaze doesn't shift. "But you haven't lived any of it. And you don't know what you are underneath the research." He leans forward. "That's what interests me. What happens when the performance falls away."

His answer lands in a place I didn't fortify. Because he isn't describing a submissive he wants to train. He's describing me—the real one, behind every layer of preparation and cover and careful construction. The one who doesn't know what she actually wants from this world and has been using the investigation as permission to stop asking.

That terrifies me more than Margot's deadline.

The investigator in me runs the calculation. Obsidian's collar will open doors my limited membership can't. Social proximity to the most connected Dom in the building. People talk differently around a collared submissive. They assume she belongs. That calculation takes less than a second.

It's not what makes me say yes.