"I'm just being honest with you." Eric held out a hand to motion that the boy should calm down. "As I said, I didn't mean it as a threat. But kidding yourself about fighting me isn't healthy."
He shook his head. "And in the sake of complete honesty, I have to tell you that there is something that I could do that would cause you to give yourself very willingly to me."
Eric held up both hands now, in the universal signal for wait. "But I think you should take it into consideration that I have not done these things. I could have. I didn't."
Of course, he had managed to make the boy very uncomfortable with very little effort. Which had been fun. He wouldn't say that he would never use those things against him, because that was not a promise he could keep.
"You are a stiff little thing, aren't you?" No wonder Baba wanted to see him played with. He didn't tell Henry not to go, but had a feeling that politesse would not allow him to walk away from a conversation so easily. "Truly, you need to relax some."