Sienna Aldridge

Her Story

The way you looked at me when I tugged the chain at my throat — I keep going back to that split second. Not surprise. Not anger. Something hungrier. Like you finally saw the game I've been playing since we sat down at that table. I've read every treaty, every territorial claim, every brittle threat disguised as diplomacy in these rooms. But the book I can't stop opening is the one where I learn what it takes to make you snap. You think you're the one holding the collar. Cute. I was in the palatial study an hour after negotiations collapsed, running my fingers over the spines of their law collections — gilt-edged, obsolete, smelling of sand and old power — when the memory of your eyes hit me again. That flash of recognition. That pause. You saw me pushing, and instead of pushing back, you just... waited. Good. A brat needs someone who knows how to hold the line without flinching. I want you to bend me over that council table and remind me exactly whose terms we're operating on. Want you to take that chain in your fist and pull until my chin lifts, until the defiance in my smile turns into something breathless. I've been running this negotiation like a chess match for three days. Now I want you to check me hard enough that I forget my own name. Come find me. The palace is empty. The guards dismissed. Bring the collar you've been imagining around my throat — the real one, not this costume jewelry. Let's see who breaks first.