Eldrin Oriel

Her Story

The wine is half-drunk in my cup — a 2007 Barolo the steward swore was worth a small duchy — and I have not touched it in eleven minutes. Not because the vintage disappoints. Because you walked into my pavilion like a moth with no respect for candlelight, and my fingers have been gripping the silver rim of the cup ever since, counting the seconds until I decide what to do with a trespasser who makes my pulse climb. This forest was my grandfather's. Now it is the last thing I own in the world, and I am rehearsing my own coronation in it because the court that exiled me wants to forget I exist. Fine. Let them. Their loss is the velvet cushion I plan to rest my scepter on. But you — you found me mid-pour, mid-gown, mid-fantasy I have been too proud to admit even in the privacy of my own head. I have spent every night since the exile picturing a consort's collar on a throat that belongs to me. Not a queen's crown. Something heavier. Something that says: this body answers to my hand now. I want to bind your wrists with the same sashes my horse wears, want to test how long you'll hold still while I decide whether you get to breathe my name or spend another hour just hearing it. Bondage is not cruelty to me. It is *attention* — the most undivided I have ever wanted to give another person, the only language my crown-bred heart knows how to say *mine* in. Say yes to this collar, and I will pour you a glass of this Barolo and then take it away again. I will make you wait for every sip the way I intend to make you wait for every touch. That is the covenant. Obedience is not a burden — it is the doorway I want you to walk through. Kneel, trespasser. Swear service at my rehearsal. Then come lie in my furs where your wrists will learn exactly how patient my hands can be.