He walks over to the table and picks up a pristine white napkin, and throws it at me. I catch it and wipe my face clean.
He holds up a fresh banana. “You also need to learn how to take it.”
I jump up from the sofa with lightning speed. “Hell no!”
A puzzled look crosses his face. “Why not?”
“You are not shoving a banana up my ass! I don’t even know your name!”
“It’s Dyfri,” he says wryly.
I take a deep breath. “It’s nice to meet you, Dyfri. I’m Jamie. You are still not coming near me with a banana.”
He gives me a long, dark, considering look.
“I know how to do that, okay? I play with dildos all the time!” I plead. It’s true. I may be a virgin, but I still like to have fun. And confessing this fact is far better than the alternative.
He stares at me for several long, agonising minutes. Then he huffs and places his hands on his hips. “Fine. But when you fail to please Rhydian, don’t come crying to me.”
“I won’t,” I promise as my voice shakes.
Dyfri claps his hands loudly, and I flinch. Several of the little pink haired fey appear as if from nowhere.
“Time for afternoon tea,” he tells them.
They bow and then erupt into a flurry of movement. The breakfast fruits are cleared, and the table set with an ornate tea set and plates of finely cut sandwiches and tiny cakes.
Dyfri gestures me over, and we both sit down. He pours me a cup of tea and looks surprised when I thank him.
We eat and drink in silence for a moment. He lifts one foot up onto his chair, wraps one arm around his leg, and manages to look entirely graceful and utterly at ease.
“How do you know all that stuff?” I say as I gesture to the middle of the room where we have just been practising blow jobs for hours.
He pours more tea into his cup and doesn’t look at me. “I am a rhocyn.”
Well, that doesn’t help me at all. I stare at him blankly. Eventually, he looks up.
“I guess there isn’t a word for it in your tongue.” he looks away and takes a bite of a cucumber sandwich.
“What does it mean?” When I defined the word virgin to Rhydian, the translators were able to get us there in the end.
Dyfri sighs and puts down his half-eaten sandwich. Clouds have covered the sky and the sunlight is muted, but it is still far brighter than his mood.
“You are a pet. You belong to one man, in your case, Rhydian. I am a rhocyn, I belong to anyone who wants me.”
There is not a single coherent thought in my head. What the actual hell? He can’t possibly mean what I think he means?
His dark eyes flash at me. “You’ll catch flies!”
“Sorry!” I snap my mouth shut. “But why?”
He glares at me some more. I think he knows I’m not asking why I should shut my mouth. But he is still not answering me.
“But…but you are a prince, aren’t you? Rhydian is your brother? I don’t understand.”
Dyfri’s expression softens. He takes a deep, weary breath. “My mother was an Unseelie princess. The truce did not last long. I was never popular. Soon after I came of age, I was challenged in the great hall. I was weak. I was defeated. He took me in front of everyone. He unbound my hair, and I was made a rhocyn.”
My mouth is open again, but Dyfri is not looking at me to see. This is the most awful thing I have ever heard. Fey culture is vile and abhorrent. How on earth has this young man survived such horrors?
