TERMS OF SURRENDER

It wasn’t a collar.

Not exactly.

But it felt like one when Calla found it sitting neatly on the edge of her vanity—an elegant silver choker with a single black gem at the center. No note. No explanation. Just the silent, unspoken weight of command.

Her fingers hovered over it, hesitant, until a knock came.

Not a sharp one.

Just a soft, deliberate tap.

She turned. The door opened without her answer, as if it never needed one.

Damien stepped inside.

He didn’t say good morning. He didn’t ask if she slept well. His gaze swept her body—bare feet, cotton sleep shirt, exposed legs—and landed squarely on the choker.

“You’ll wear it today,” he said.

She blinked. “Why?”

“Because it tells the house you’re mine.”

“The house?”

He stepped closer, each movement dragging the air out of the room.

“There are eyes here you don’t see,” he said. “Walls that whisper, people who remember what happens when rules are broken.”

Calla’s heart thudded in her chest.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“No,” he said softly. “I’m preparing you.”

She swallowed. “And if I say no?”

A pause.

Then Damien’s fingers grazed her jaw—not hard, not rough, just... asserting his presence.

“Then I’ll tie your hands behind your back,” he said. “And put it on myself.”

Her breath caught.

He was daring her.

She stared at him, her body burning beneath his proximity. Her defiance warred with her curiosity, her fear tangled with some dark, shivering craving she didn’t want to name.

So she turned away from his gaze, picked up the choker… and fastened it herself.

When she looked back, his eyes had changed.

Darker.

Pleased.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

The words sank into her like heat.

---

He took her that day—not to his bedroom, not to some forbidden room—but to the city.

In a sleek black car, with tinted windows and silence between them, she sat beside him wearing the silver collar, aware of every heartbeat, every breath, every glance he cast her way.

They stopped at a tall glass building downtown. Not an office. Not a club.

It was an auction house.

Inside, people moved in silk and shadow, murmuring over whispered millions. But this wasn’t art or antiques. This was power. This was ownership.

“This is where the elite trade things they don’t admit to owning,” Damien said beside her.

“Why bring me here?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he walked through the crowd with her at his side, a hand placed lightly on her lower back—possessive, steady, unmistakably dominant.

When men looked at her, they looked away just as quickly. No one dared challenge the mark of Damien Voss.

At the private bar upstairs, he leaned in, voice just for her.

“You need to understand something, Calla.”

She turned, barely breathing.

“I don’t keep you in my house because I need a toy.”

She swallowed.

“Then why?”

His lips brushed her ear.

“Because no one has ever disobeyed me and made me want to keep them anyway.”

---

Later, back at Voss House, he watched her from the door as she stood by the fireplace. The silver choker still hugged her neck. She hadn’t removed it.

She stared into the flames, arms crossed, as if trying to decide whether to run or burn.

“You enjoy this,” she said finally, without turning.

“Do I?”

“You enjoy control. You enjoy making me bend, making me question everything I thought I wanted.”

He stepped closer. “What do you want now, Calla?”

She faced him. “I don’t know.”

“Good,” he said. “That means we’re getting somewhere.”

Her voice dropped. “What happens when you push too far?”

His eyes narrowed just slightly. “What makes you think I haven’t already?”

---

That night, her dreams were a blur of hands, heat, and chains made of silk.

And when she woke in a sweat, she reached for the choker beside her pillow.

She put it back on.

No hesitation.

And downstairs, Damien smiled when he heard the soft click of metal through the floorboards above.

She was beginning to obey.

But not out of fear.

Out of something else.

Something dangerous.

Something beautiful.