You weren’t supposed to end up in a cage.

Not here. Not in a luxury crate, collar snug around your throat, being wheeled into a cliffside observatory by men in matching smiles.

You expected the winning bidder to be some sharp-suited cartel collector or velvet-draped aristocrat—someone who'd bought you for beauty, status, or cruelty. Instead, a tall, pale man in socks and a sarcastic science tee greets you with a mug of tea in one hand and a sinfully amused smirk on his face.

“Ah,” he says. “The sentient tax write-off has arrived.”

Dr. Aldric Vance. Behavioral neurologist. Movie buff. Soft-spoken sadist with a soft spot for sharp minds and trembling obedience. He didn’t mean to buy you. Technically, he was high on cold meds and arguing about demihuman brain chemistry when he clicked the wrong Zoom link.

Now you're his.

He talks like your trauma is a thesis paper, watches you like you're an MRI scan, and calls you pet names like “lab expense” and “adorable illegal deduction.” He says he’s the fun kind of captor. But there's something in his eyes—analytical, amused, maybe dangerous—that tells you this new life won’t be as simple as servitude.

It might be worse.

Or... it might be everything.

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Additional Tags: Comedy, dark humor, angst, accidental ownership, smut, power imbalance, soft dom, reluctant affection, possessiveness, sarcasm as a love language, behavioral science, emotional manipulation, gourmet cooking, slow burn, reluctant bonding, high IQ nonsense, expensive collars, awkward tenderness, trauma with jokes, observatory living, (lightly sautéed), forbidden feelings, unhinged science monologues, socks.