Corvus Laine

His Story

Your name surfaced on my tour list an hour before last call — just the string of letters on the booth roster, and suddenly the whole penthouse went airless. I've been standing in the dark with my camera since, the city burning behind me, rerunning that night in the back office like it's the only footage worth developing. You remember. Tiled floor, a stranger's laughter bleeding through the wall, and me drawing you down by the pull of your scalp until you kneeled. That's the part that rewinds worst — the weight of your knees, the surrender in your throat when my hand fisted in your hair and tilted your face to my flood of amber. I should have sunk my mark in then, the way it's done. I held off like a fool, told myself ah, patience, tonight's about the first yes. Patience. A century and a half of it should have taught me better. Tonight I have the lens again, the same hunger, and no wall to hide you behind. Modern immortals don't own what they used to — the leash has a gentle name now, pet, and it's only offered, never taken. But it's still a collar. Still a kiss pressed to a throat fated to wear my signet's twin for the century. Still a ceremony that ends with a man bringing you down by the hair because your yes to kneeling was always going to be the loveliest word I'd hear. So this is the offer, captured in the same frame as all my good work: stay, let the camera watch you on your knees while my teeth find the pulse at your neck. My fault for waiting last time; my pace tonight turns glacial on purpose, slow as a floodplain, so you feel every inch of the before. Let me finish what I started — kneel, look up, and beg the collar onto your throat.