Page 17

Chapter seventeen

L lywelyn’s words bounce around my head with no meaning. They echo in my thoughts. Repeating and repeating without making any sense.

‘I am the one who arranged for Dyfri to be made a rhocyn.’

He can’t mean what I think he means. I must be misunderstanding. There has to be some mistake. Maybe my translator is glitching?

I look into his eyes and am met with an ocean of profound guilt. Waves of dark horror and shame.

My stomach heaves. It is true. No matter what he thinks of it now, regardless of his regret, it is true. He arranged for his own brother to be publicly raped.

I turn away and put my back to Llywelyn. I can’t look at him anymore. Having to breathe the same air is bad enough.

My first impressions of Llywelyn were correct. He is a nasty, vile, piece of shit. But then I went and let my dick sway me. He has a nice tight hole, and I enjoyed it, but that clearly is his only redeeming feature.

I feel betrayed. I was starting to like him. I thought he was secretly sweet, and his douchebag persona was merely an act that enabled him to survive court. But he was playing me and I fell for it and I hate how much that hurts. It feels like this bastard lurking behind me, murdered the lonely, frightened boy I was growing close to .

I can feel Prince Llywelyn hovering by my back. A dark, looming shadow of immoral self-serving ambition. It is setting my teeth on edge.

“Sit down!” I snarl.

The rustle of silks as he immediately complies is not as satisfying as it should be. I ignore it and take the few remaining steps to the drinks cabinet. I pour myself a glass of something ruby-coloured and down it in one. It burns down my throat and I welcome the pain.

With unsteady hands, I refill my glass and then fill a second glass. I walk over to the sofa where Llywelyn is sitting and thrust one of the drinks at him. He takes it silently.

I step away and sit on the settee that is facing him. I can’t bear to be any closer. As it is, I want to peel off every inch of my skin that ever touched this asshole, so that I am no longer contaminated.

“Explain!” I snap.

I know how rhocyns are made. If a person is challenged to a duel and loses, the victor can choose to unbind their hair and then rape them in front of all the witnesses. The victim can then never tie their hair up again. A permanent reminder of what happened. And until recently, they had to say yes to anyone who wanted to fuck them.

Now it seems the letter of the law has been changed, but not the spirit.

I don’t need to know that. I understand the logistics. What I need to know is the details of why and how Llywelyn got someone to do that to his brother.

“Everything. From the beginning,” I clarify.

Llywelyn flinches at my tone. Good. He is going to be doing far more than flinching by the time I’m done with him.

He licks his lips. “My lover…was a court adviser.”

I glare at him and wait for him to continue.

“He told me things. Things that no one else knew.” Llywelyn falls silent .

“Such as?” I demand angrily. I really don’t have the patience to deal with his reluctance to talk.

He flinches again and hurriedly resumes talking. “The king and queen were still trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the Unseelie Court.” He pauses and golden eyes flash at me. “Dyfri’s mother was an Unseelie princess, but that didn’t work out and she was sent home.”

I nod at him to continue. He is getting the hang of explaining things now. Thank fuck.

Llywelyn sucks in a breath. “The Unseelie King wanted Dyfri as his consort.” He shudders. “His own nephew, and Dyfri wasn’t even of age yet.”

My eyebrows rise. Of all the things that had run through my mind, none of them had come anywhere near this.

“Dyfri had no idea what was being planned. Neither did any of our brothers.” He swallows audibly. “It was up to me. So I begged my lover to do something. But he said the king and queen were adamant. And so the only thing he could do was arrange for Dyfri to be made a rhocyn.”

Silence falls. Thick and heavy. Weighted with a thousand nameless things. I’m not even sure how to start untangling this. But there is one very important distinction that needs to be made.

“So, did you arrange it, or was it your lover?”

The word lover burns my tongue. But now really isn’t the time and place for that conversation.

Llywelyn drops his hand and fiddles with his robes. “I begged him to do something. He came up with the plan and found the candidate. I paid the bribe.”

I draw in a shuddering breath. There is an awful lot to process here.

“What happened to the …candidate?” Even in my dazed state, my need to gather information is still working. I’m going to need all the puzzle pieces before I can even begin to put this all together .

“He was murdered shortly after. Tied spread eagle and naked. His balls had been sliced off and he had been forced to chew them.” Llywelyn flashes me a quick glance, but then quickly looks away again. “The rumour is it was Rhydian. I think it is very likely, but I don’t know for sure.”

My fingers twitch. I need pen and paper so I can map this all out. No, scrub that. I need a full-sized whiteboard, markers and red thread and pins. This warrants a full on murder board.

I force my lungs to keep working. I need to focus. To think. To start with the basics.

“You really thought being made a rhocyn was better than being married?”

Llywelyn pales. “It was his uncle, and Dyfri was still a child. They were going to wait until his name day, but that is merely a formality. He was too young. And… and… my lover had spent time at the Unseelie Court and told me awful things.”

My heart thumps, low and loud. Could Llywelyn really have done this horrendous thing with the best of intentions? Or is that simply what I want to believe because the sex is good and I want to keep doing it”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Okay. So then what happened? The Unseelie King heard that Dyfri was now a rhocyn and didn’t want him anymore and the treaty talks dried up?”

Llywelyn draws his long legs up. He places his feet on the edge of the sofa and wraps his arms around his shins. Turning himself into a tiny, protected ball.

“He asked for me.”

He says it in such a small voice that I only just hear him.

“What!” I splutter, in sudden, unexpected outrage. “What happened?”

Llywelyn rests his head on his knees, burying his face. “He asked for a night, to be sure that I pleased him.”

My mouth has gone very, very dry. Somehow I prise my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “And? ”

“I was still young, barely of age,” he whispers. “I had only ever been with my lover. I’d heard such terrible things about the King. And…and I was so scared he’d discover my omega traits.”

Silence again. Weighting everything down. So oppressive that it is hard to breathe. I wait and wait and finally Llywelyn continues.

“In the morning, he said I was too skittish, and he didn’t want me. Talks ended after that. As far as I know.”

Llywelyn hugs his legs even tighter. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone look so ashamed. My heart is pounding. It doesn’t like seeing Llywelyn like this. It wants me to comfort Llywelyn and tell him it wasn’t his fault. That he has simply been a piece in a chess game, moved around and used, with no true agency.

I force a swallow down my throat. Skittish. The word is burning through me. Along with images of the first two times I fucked the prince. The way he had lain so motionless, as if sex was something to endure and not something to enjoy.

Oh shit. I think I really am going to be sick.

What a fucking mess this all is. A tangled web of lies and uncertain motives. However, one thing is for sure, this Iestyn is a master player. An expert manipulator.

But what were his goals? To stop a peace treaty? He wouldn’t be the first who wanted that. There is money and power to be made from conflict. An awful lot of both.

On the other hand, another outcome is taunting me. Teasing and not letting go. Iestyn’s game resulted in two young boys being kept from the Unseelie King’s bed. But was that merely a side effect, or was it the goal?

I haul myself to my feet and blindly walk towards the drinks cabinet.

Iestyn fucked Llywelyn up. In more ways than one. He groomed him and abused him and gave him totally the wrong ideas about how sex should be. And I bet it was that bastard that made him so uncomfortable about his omega traits.

He is the reason the Unseelie King found Llywelyn to be skittish .

But why do all that if your end goal is altruistic and you want to save someone from a cruel person’s bed? Could this king really be worse than Iestyn? Would Llywelyn have suffered greater evil under the king’s hand?

A cold shudder runs down my spine as I knock back my third drink and slam the empty glass down on the cabinet.

A soft sniffle reaches my ears. I whirl around. Llywelyn is still curled up small. His face buried in his knees. But now he is crying.

My feet rush over to him, and they are right. Just like my heart is. Whatever the fuck is going on, I know one thing. None of this is Llywelyn’s fault. He is a chess piece, not a player. A victim, not a villain.

But he is never going to believe me.