07 | THE COLLAR

[PAST TIMELIME] 

It started with a fight.
No, not a fight.
A fracture.

She said something. I snapped. The words cut too deep. The silence afterward?
Deeper.

She walked out.

And I didn't stop her.

I told myself I was right. That I had to stay in control.

But the second that door closed behind her, the air changed.

The world didn't feel sharp anymore.
It felt flat.
Muted.

Have you ever noticed how silence is loudest when it's shaped like her absence?

I stopped talking.

No phone calls. No meetings. No interest in the empire I once devoured cities for.

Just the empty space where her laugh used to echo.

....

They found me in the gym.

2 a.m.

Fists raw. Blood dripping. One wall cracked. Another dented.

My knuckles were split open. I didn't stop.

Because when pain lives inside, you start craving the kind that leaves a mark.

And I needed her name carved into my skin just to remember I was real.

My right-hand man, Dev, stood frozen. Then he did the one thing I couldn't.

He called her.

I heard his voice behind me:

"Ma'am... please. He's not... he's unraveling. You need to come back."

Unraveling.
The word wasn't dramatic.

It was honest.

Because the seams she'd stitched in me were splitting.

....

She came.

She always does.

Like gravity, she pulled the storm back into shape.

I didn't wait for her to speak.

The second she stepped inside, I dropped.

Not dramatically. Not out of guilt.

Out of necessity.

"Please..." I rasped, crawling toward her. My knees hit the marble. "Punish me. Scream. Hurt me. Just don't—don't leave."

She looked down at me. Eyes unreadable. Lips parted. Chest rising and falling.

No pity.

No anger.

Just pure, unbearable presence.

She tilted her head.

And I felt her power all over again.

Flashback: The First Laugh

Let me tell you something no one believes.

She made me laugh once.

Really laugh.

It was six months after we met. We were at some gala I was hosting. Someone spilled wine down my shirt and tried to blame a server. I was about to destroy him.

But she leaned in, and with a wicked grin whispered:
"Relax, emperor. You'll live. It's just grape blood."

And I laughed.

Sharp. Loud. Real.

Everyone froze.

Because no one jokes with Aaryan Rajwansha. No one dares.

But she did.

"My laugh belongs to her. Like everything else."

I haven't laughed like that since.

I haven't needed to.

Because that one sound?
It lives in her now.

....

Later that night, I brought out the box.

Black velvet. Cold steel inside. Diamonds that shimmered like stars.

But the shape?

It was unmistakably a collar.

She raised a brow. "A collar?"

I nodded once. Voice quiet.

"Not to own you.
To remind me whom I belong to."

Her silence wrapped around me like chains.

She took the necklace, brushed it along my jaw.

Then pulled me to the bed.

....

Later that week, someone tried to bring her name into a tabloid piece.
A joke about how "Rajwansha's new pet wears diamonds better than his board."

I didn't respond.

I walked into the journalist's office.

Took his phone.

Slammed it against the desk until it shattered in my palm.

"Mention her again," I said, voice like death, "and you'll eat glass."

Because that collar wasn't a trophy.
It was devotion.

It was mine—and it only meant one thing:

"She doesn't wear my necklace to show she's owned.
I gave it to remind myself who owns me."

Men like me don't believe in surrender.

We believe in rules, in control, in legacy.

But with her?

I was never the king.

I was just the altar boy
learning how to kneel.

And the only prayer I've ever said since...
is her name.