The rose garden is a maze of thorns and beauty, hidden away in the castle's eastern wing where few dare to venture. Kael leads me through winding paths lined with blood-red blooms, their petals soft as silk but guarded by vicious thorns that catch at my simple dress.
"Careful," he murmurs when a branch snags my sleeve. His hand steadies me, fingers lingering longer than necessary on my arm. "These roses have killed more than one careless visitor."
"Why did you bring me here?" I ask, genuinely curious. In the weeks since the blood moon, he's been different - not kinder, exactly, but... watchful. As if he's studying me for signs of something he both hopes and fears to find.
"Privacy," he says simply, leading me to a stone bench beneath an ancient oak whose branches create a canopy overhead. "And because I have something for you."
The garden is beautiful in its deadly way - roses climbing stone walls, their thorns sharp enough to draw blood, their perfume heavy in the still air. It feels like a metaphor for everything in this place: lovely on the surface, dangerous beneath.
"Sit," he commands, and I lower myself to the bench. The stone is warm from the afternoon sun, a pleasant change from the cold floors of his chambers.
Kael remains standing, pacing in front of me with the restless energy of a caged predator. His dark hair catches the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves, and for a moment he looks younger. Almost vulnerable.
"You've been... different lately," he says finally, stopping to face me. "More compliant. Less defiant."
"Is that what you wanted?"
"I thought it was." His fingers toy with something in his pocket - I catch the glint of gold. "But now I'm not certain."
"You miss my rebellion?"
"I miss..." He pauses, searching for words. "I miss the fire in your eyes. The way you used to look at me like you were planning my destruction."
The admission hangs between us like a confession. Like a weakness he never meant to reveal.
"Maybe I was," I say softly.
"And now?"
"Now I'm not sure destruction would be enough."
Something flickers in his dark eyes - surprise, maybe, or hunger. He moves closer, close enough that I can smell his scent: sandalwood and something darker, more primal.
"You've earned something," he says, pulling his hand from his pocket. The key to my collar gleams in his palm like captured sunlight. "Your compliance. Your... acceptance of your place here."
My heart stops. The collar has been part of me for so long I've almost forgotten what it feels like to breathe without its weight around my throat.
"Turn around," he says softly.
I obey, moving slowly, hardly daring to breathe. His fingers brush my neck as he fits the key into the lock, and I shiver at the contact. The collar has been my chain, my mark of ownership, my constant reminder of what I am.
The lock clicks open.
The weight lifts from my throat like a physical relief. I reach up instinctively, touching the bare skin where gold has rested for weeks. The absence feels strange, foreign - like missing a limb I'd grown accustomed to.
"There," Kael says, but his voice sounds strained. "You've earned this."
I turn to face him, and catch something unexpected in his expression. Not satisfaction at granting mercy, but something that looks almost like loss. As if removing my collar has cost him something precious.
"Thank you," I whisper, meaning it.
"Don't thank me yet." His smile is sharp as the thorns surrounding us. "Freedom is temporary. Conditional."
"What conditions?"
"That you remain mine. Collar or no collar, you belong to me. Nothing changes except the metal around your throat."
I nod, but something has shifted in the space between us. Without the collar's weight, I feel... different. Lighter. More myself than I've been in weeks.
"You can speak freely here," he says, settling beside me on the bench. Close enough that our thighs almost touch. "In this garden, with no one to hear us, you can say whatever you're thinking."
"And you won't punish me for honesty?"
"I might." His smile is wicked. "But I want to hear it anyway."
I take a breath, feeling air move freely past my unencumbered throat. "I think you're more afraid of my freedom than I am."
"Am I?"
"You removed the collar, but your eyes promise it can return at any moment. You give me permission to speak freely, but warn me of punishment in the same breath."
"And what does that tell you?"
"That you're terrified of who I might be without chains."
The words hit their mark. I see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way his hands clench into fists on his thighs.
"Maybe I am," he admits quietly. "Maybe I should be."
"Why?"
"Because the girl who refused to scream when I branded her, who turned my punishments into performances, who chose another's pain over her own... that girl was dangerous even in chains."
"And without them?"
"Without them, she might remember who she really is."
The words send ice through my veins. "You know something. About what I am. About what happened to me before."
"I suspect many things. Know very few."
"Tell me what you suspect."
He's quiet for a long moment, studying my face. When he speaks, his voice is carefully neutral. "I suspect you're not the simple slave girl you pretend to be. I suspect your blood carries secrets. I suspect removing your collar was either the smartest thing I've ever done... or the most dangerous."
"Which do you think it is?"
"Both." He reaches out, fingers tracing the line of my throat where the collar used to rest. "You have marks here. Faint lines that suggest you've worn restraints before. Long before I found you."
I reach up to touch the same spot, feeling the slight indentations his fingers have found. "I don't remember."
"Memory is a fragile thing. Sometimes trauma buries it so deep we forget we've lost anything at all."
"Is that what happened to me? Trauma?"
"I think someone tried very hard to make you forget who you were. The question is whether my removing this collar will help you remember... or whether some memories are too dangerous to resurface."
A breeze stirs the roses around us, carrying their perfume and the promise of thorns. I feel exposed without the collar's familiar weight, vulnerable in ways that have nothing to do with physical protection.
"I'm scared," I admit.
"Of remembering?"
"Of forgetting how to be afraid."
"Fear keeps us alive," he says, but his voice is gentle. "But it also keeps us small."
"Maybe small is safer."
"Maybe. But safe has never suited you."
When he kisses me this time, it's different. Not the desperate claim of a master asserting ownership, but something softer. More uncertain. Like he's kissing someone he's just met for the first time.
Without the collar between us, the kiss feels like possibility. Like choice instead of surrender.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"The collar can go back on," he says, but his voice lacks conviction. "If you want the safety of chains."
"Do you want me to want that?"
"I want you to choose. For once, I want you to choose."
I look at the collar where it rests on the bench between us - heavy gold that once defined my entire existence. Then I look at him, this vampire prince who's just offered me the most dangerous gift of all: the freedom to decide my own fate.
"I choose to see what happens next," I say finally.
Even if we lose ourselves in the process?"
"Especially then."
He laughs, low and rich, and for the first time since I've known him, the sound holds genuine pleasure instead of dark amusement.
"You're going to be the death of me," he says, echoing words from another night.
"Probably."
"And I'm going to let you."
"Definitely."
As we sit in the rose garden, surrounded by beauty and thorns, neither of us mentions the collar again. It remains on the bench between us - not forgotten, but set aside. A reminder of what was, and a promise of what might be.