I make the best positive and enthusiastically willing sounds that I can. Mabon stares at me for a long, long moment.
Then he sighs as if the weight of the world is upon his shoulders. He releases my tongue. The dagger disappears back into his robes. He clicks his fingers briskly enough to make his silver bracelets jangle, and just like that, my muscles are my own again.
I slide down weakly to the floor. Falling from kneeling, to on my ass.
Mabon flicks his long hair over his shoulder and strides out. Leaving me breathless and shaking. What the fucking hell just happened? Am I really still alive? I thought I was actually going to piss myself for a minute back there.
He went from considering murder, to deciding to take my tongue, to letting me go. A whirlwind of events. All furious and fast, and just like a summer storm, suddenly gone as if it was never here.
Mabon is beautiful and feminine and camp. But holy fuck, is he also deadly and terrifying and dangerous. Talk about power bottom. I think the term was invented for him.
I stagger to my feet and find him waiting for me in the next room with a glass of whiskey in his hand.
“Speak of this never again,” he says.
I nod so hard and fast I’m surprised my neck doesn’t cramp. Mabon gives one decisive nod and downs his whiskey in one swift, fluid move.
He is still agitated. I don’t need a silver chain to tell me that. His unease is clear in the lines of his body. Perhaps because we are alone in his rooms and he doesn’t need to hide it. Not from me, anyway. Because I already know, and I was stupid enough to tell him.
He is a prince. Of course he isn’t going to want a lowly pet knowing his secrets. Knowledge is power, and I shouldn’t have either of those things.
If I’m to gather useful intelligence and escape, I need to be cleverer than this. I need to play a twisting game of chess with a thousand constantly moving pieces. Letting my concern for Mabon burn through what little common sense I have, was a stupid thing for me to do. I cannot do it again.
I take a deep, shuddering breath. Time to pull myself together. I need to disperse this strange and heavy tension and show Mabon I really can move on and never speak of his secret ever again.
Once things have calmed down, and when I am alone, I will try to puzzle out why he is scared of the duke, and why he is so furious for anyone to know. Then I will try to figure out if any of this is useful information. But all of that is for later. Right now, I need to prove myself.
“So, Llywelyn is not the brightest,” I state.
It is the best I can come up with. Something completely innocuous would be far too blatant to work. Something vaguely bitchy seems like it would be Mabon’s style.
Mabon whirls to face me with blazing eyes. “You do not get to speak ill of my brother. Any of my brothers!”
My body stumbles back a step and I raise my hands in surrender. Okay, that was clearly the wrong topic of conversation. I thought the way Mabon had smirked at me over his brother meant he’d enjoy moaning about him.
I try my most charming smile. “All right. I’m sorry. But just so I’m clear, who are your brothers?”
Mabon huffs at me but seems to calm down a little. “Rhydian, Llywelyn, Tristan, Selwyn and Dyfri.”
I blink at him. “That’s a lot of brothers.”
“I know,” he agrees, with the very faintest of smiles on his lips.
“As an only child, you have my condolences.”
Mabon snorts and his purple eyes sparkle. Tension slowly drains out of the room. The air feels lighter now. Easier to breathe.
“I think I’ve only met Tristan and Llywelyn?” I ask.
Mabon calmly pours himself another drink. “And Dyfri.”
I give him a questioning look.
“You nearly ran into him in all your naked glory,” Mabon says, and he tips back his drink.
The dark-haired fey that I nearly scared to death is Mabon’s brother? I don’t know why that is surprising, but somehow it is.
“I don’t think he likes me very much,” I say wryly.
