Page 31 of Shadow Waltz
I watched his hands—long fingers, carefully manicured nails, the kind of strength that could snap bones or caress skin with equal ease. There was something almost reverent about the way he handled the collar, like he was holding something precious that had been damaged.
“You have a choice,” Luka said, but when he looked at me, there was something vulnerable in those green eyes. “Wear it willingly, or force me to become someone I don't want to be with you.”
His accent wrapped around the words like silk around a blade, but underneath the authority was something that sounded almost like a plea. I found myself studying the planes ofhis face, looking for the man who'd offered me partnership just yesterday.
“That's not a choice,” I said, my voice coming out rougher than intended.
“It's the only choice I can give you,” Luka replied, setting the collar on the table between us. “Yesterday I offered you partnership, and I meant every word. But partnership in my world comes with requirements that might look like ownership from the outside.”
“This wasn't part of our agreement,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I could see the pain they caused him.
“Our agreement was made in theory. This is the reality.” He ran a hand through his hair, the first uncontrolled gesture I'd ever seen from him. “Everyone in my organization wears something that marks their allegiance. Guards have pins, Carina has her ring, Mason has their watch. This is yours.”
He moved closer, and I could smell his cologne—midnight and smoke—but today there was something else underneath it. Not violence, but exhaustion. The scent of someone who'd been fighting battles he didn't want to fight.
“You know,” Luka said, his voice taking on an edge that sounded more desperate than dangerous, “you agreed to work with me yesterday. Trusted me enough to shake my hand. But the first time I ask you to trust me again, you throw it back in my face.”
When he smiled, it was sharp around the edges but hollow in the center, like he was trying to convince himself as much as me.
“I don't want to force you, Ash.” The admission seemed to cost him something. “I've never wanted to force anyone the way I don't want to force you. But I can't protect someone who won't let themselves be protected.”
The casual mention of protection made my chest tighten. “So what, this is protection? A fucking collar?”
“This is visibility,” Luka said, and there was something almost pleading in his voice now. “In my world, people need to see who you belong to, or they'll assume you're available for anyone to take. The collar tells them that touching you means going through me.”
His voice dropped lower, more intimate, but it carried exhaustion rather than threat. “I killed three men yesterday because they threatened you. I'd kill three hundred more without hesitation. But I can't kill everyone who might want to hurt you unless they know you're mine to protect.”
The words sent shockwaves through my nervous system—not just the possessiveness, but the raw honesty of someone admitting how much they cared.
Luka pressed the collar into my hands, his fingers brushing against my skin with contact that felt more like a caress than a claim. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“I'm asking you to trust me. To trust that when I say this is protection, I mean it. To trust that I'd rather cut off my own hands than use them to hurt you.” He paused, meeting my eyes directly. “But if you can't trust me, if you'd rather die free than live protected, then I'll respect that choice. I'll make it quick, and I'll make sure it doesn't hurt.”
The sincerity in his voice, the way his hands trembled almost imperceptibly as he spoke, broke something open in my chest. This wasn't the cold calculation of a predator—this was someone terrified of losing something precious.
“You have until tonight,” he said, stepping back toward the door. “Not because I'm giving you an ultimatum, but because that's how long I can keep the wolves at bay without visible proof that you're under my protection.”
He paused at the threshold, and when he looked back, there was something broken in his expression. “I'm sorry it has to be this way, Ash. I'm sorry I can't give you the kind of freedom youdeserve. But I'd rather have you alive and angry than dead and free.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click, leaving me alone with the collar and the weight of understanding that what I'd taken for cruelty was actually the desperate action of someone who cared too much to let me go.
This wasn't invitation—it was ultimatum dressed up in expensive packaging.
I wanted to throw it across the room again, wanted to scream and rage and go down fighting like I always had. But the memory of Luka's eyes stopped me cold. There had been no bluff there, no negotiation. Just the flat certainty of someone who'd made similar pronouncements before and followed through on every one.
In the mirror across the room, I saw myself wild-eyed and shaking, hair mussed from sleep and lips parted with rapid breathing. I looked like someone on the edge of breaking, and for the first time in my life, surrender felt less like defeat and more like the only path to survival.
The bathroom called to me like sanctuary, and I stumbled toward it on unsteady legs, needing space to process what was happening to me. The mirrors reflected me from every angle, creating an infinity of bruised skin and terrified eyes that I'd never been forced to truly see before.
Steam rose from water hot enough to punish, and I stripped with shaking hands, cataloguing each scar like evidence in a trial where I was definitely the one being sentenced. The burn marks from cigarettes, the knife wounds from street fights, the small tattoo of wings on my wrist that Cass had convinced me to get during happier times—each mark told a story of survival.
But today they felt like warnings. Reminders of what happened to people who didn't learn when to submit.
The scalding spray beat down on my skin, making it easier to pretend I was somewhere else—someone else. I closed my eyes, letting the water burn away the memory of Luka’s eyes on me, the collar he expected me to wear. But it didn’t work. The heat of the water just blurred into something sharper, lower, until my body buzzed with a need I didn’t want to admit.
My hands slid down my chest, over ribs and bruises and that thin scar above my heart, until I wrapped my fist around my cock. I was already half-hard and growing, thickening against my palm, and I hated how easy it was—how just thinking about Luka, about his voice and his threat and the fucking collar, made my cock twitch and ache.
Why him? Why did the idea of his hands on my throat, buckling leather into place, make me hard when it should make me sick?