The Villain Duke's Butler Served Him Too Well novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Gray House

Hadrian left the way he'd come, with his gloves back on and his smile in place.

The servants dispersed in silence.

By ten o'clock the house was quiet and the doors were locked.

Corwin found Leander in his bedroom, standing in the middle of the floor with his coat still buttoned.

"Gray House," Leander said.

He said it to the wall.

"My lord?"

"Gray House.

"He'd have me there by..."

His chest hitched.

He pulled at his collar with both hands and the top button flew off and rolled under the bed.

"I can't," he said, in a thin high voice Corwin had never heard from him.

"I can't breathe.

"Corwin, the walls, the..."

Corwin crossed the room and took his wrists.

They were ice.

Leander's pupils were blown wide, and he was looking through Corwin at something a long way off.

Every instinct Corwin had said to soothe him, to murmur, to let him lean.

He had been doing that for two years, and Leander had learned to hide from it.

What Leander needed was something to hold on to.

So Corwin used a voice he had never once used in this house.

"Leander," he said.

"Look at me."

Leander's eyes snapped to his face.

"Kneel."

Leander's knees folded.

He went down onto the rug.

He knelt there looking up at Corwin with his lips parted and his chest heaving.

"Good," Corwin said.

"Hands on your thighs.

"Breathe in through your nose for four.

"Out through your mouth for six.

"Do it with me."

Corwin breathed with him.

Leander copied him, shakily, and again, and slowly the wild light in his eyes steadied.

Corwin kept his hands over Leander's, and counted aloud.

"Again."

"Again."

At the eighth breath, Leander said, in a cracked whisper, "Don't stop."

"I won't."

"Don't stop giving orders."

"I'll give you as many as you want."

"I want..."

Leander swallowed.

"I want you to tell me what to do.

"All of it.

"I've been choosing for so long.

"I want you to choose."

Corwin stood looking down at the Duke of Dauntrey on his knees on his own rug.

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