Page 33 of Dominion’s Collar

Weeks of careful cultivation. One collar. The access gap is staggering.

The woman from Elysium is telling me about the transition, how Margot rebuilt the community after the collapse. I'm nodding and mentally cross-referencing her timeline against Claire's emails. The collar makes me look like I belong here. That changes what people are willing to say to the woman taking mental notes at the bar.

Sebastien returns in leathers that do exactly what leathers are supposed to do. The black sits close against his thighs. The shirt he's replaced the dark button-down with leaves his forearms bare, roped muscle visible in a way street clothes concealed.

He crosses the floor, and the room adjusts around him—small redirections of attention and posture tracking his movement without breaking conversation. He doesn't stop at the booth. He stops behind me, his hand finding the back of my neck where the collar sits, thumb resting against the lock.

"Learn anything useful?"

"Several things." I keep my voice neutral. "Including that your collar is a better networking tool than LinkedIn."

His thumb moves against the lock. Absent. Proprietary. Confirming it's where he put it, the same reflex as adjusting a cuff link. "Come."

The booth. The scotch already poured. The cushion appears from wherever he keeps it, set on the floor beside his feet with a precision that tells me the position has been calculated.

I lower myself onto it. The polished wood is cool against my bare legs. The cushion is thick enough to be comfortable, not enough to let me forget I'm on the floor.

His thigh is level with my shoulder. The leather is warm where his body heats it, and I can smell it from here, mixed with his cologne and the scotch. The position puts me at the height of his knee, his hand, and the line of his hip. Every sightline in this arrangement is designed to remind me whose floor I'm sitting on.

From this angle, the room reorganizes. The bar is a distant line of amber light. Renata is a silhouette moving with purpose. The scening area is visible through the archway. The sounds arrive differently from floor level, filtered through table legs and the shoes of people standing above me.

Everything looks different when you stop standing. Some of it looks better than I'd like to admit.

His thigh is close enough to lean into, and I don't, and the not-leaning takes more discipline than I'd budgeted for a Thursday.

Near the staircase, Margot intercepts Cole. Whatever she tells him, his jaw sets and his shoulders broadcast every opinion he's choosing not to voice. He heads for the far hallway. Margot watches him go, unbothered.

"They do this often?" I ask, tilting my head back to find Sebastien.

"Define often."

"More than once a week."

"Then yes."

Cole reappears from the hallway, crossing the floor toward the booth. Tall, solid, moving with an ease that says the muscle is functional rather than decorative. His gaze drops to me on the cushion, then rises to the collar, then finds Sebastien.

"Well," Cole says. The single syllable contains a paragraph.

Sebastien's hand doesn't move from my neck. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face did."

Cole's expression shifts from pointed observation to something closer to genuine amusement. He looks down at me again. "He's been sitting in this booth for five years without collaring anyone. I just want you to know that, for context."

"I have context."

"You have his version of context." Cole grins. Quick. Pointed. He's been saving this. "Five years in this booth and apparently all it took was better company."

Sebastien goes still. Not the controlled stillness he wears like an accessory. The kind that makes the air around the booth lose a degree. The hand on my neck doesn't tighten. It doesn't need to. Cole's grin fades at the edges.

"Fontenot." One word. The temperature in his voice could frost the scotch.

Cole holds the look for a beat, then raises both hands and retreats toward the bar. Not grinning anymore. He found the line and he knows he brushed it.

Sebastien's thumb resumes its circuit along the collar. Slower now. Each pass against the leather has shifted register, less inventory and more statement.