The Loyal Steed: Part One (The Pleasure Hound Series) by Ines Johnson

Author:Ines Johnson [Johnson, Ines]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Heartspell Media, LLC
Published: 2015-05-11T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

She walked right by him without taking any notice. The sun was setting, dipping below the horizon. One of its rays shone brightly on his face like a spotlight. Aside from the fact that Liam was outside instead of in the lab, it was typical of his life with his fiancé.

A group of street boys approached him, harassing him for pocket gems. A bird chirped loudly on a branch above his head, its poop just missing Liam's shoulder. All of this cacophony went on around him, but Merlyn walked past him without even raising her head. In her hands, she clutched that blasted plant. Her brown face looked bright as the sun. Her lips swollen. Her eyes alight. The plant clutched tightly to her bosom.

Liam was used to being ignored. Used to not being listened to. It was his childhood on repeat. For years, he'd watched his mother ignore his sole living father, Josef. Liam had always known Josef was not his biological father. The two shared not a single trait. Josef was dark-skinned with curly hair and dark eyes. Liam was pale-skinned with floppy red hair and green eyes. His biological father had died when Liam was barely five. He remembered little about the man, except that his mother was always in an embrace with him.

The two adults constantly shooed Liam away and into the company of Josef. As a child, Liam hadn't minded. His mother and biological father had always disappeared behind doors and made strange noises. Noises that produced two sisters. As a boy, Liam much preferred to spend his days with Josef, uncovering the magic and mystery of numbers.

Josef was a mathematician. His formulas powered the energy grid that kept the city warm and bright during the winters. It made his family rich. It was the reason his mother had agreed to enter into a bond with the older man.

When Liam's biological father died, Liam had watched Josef try and console his mother, only to be shunned. Josef was then passed over a second time, for one of the manservants. Shoved into his office in the corner. Running numbers and improving the formulas that kept his wife in the lap of luxury while she snuck off with the help. He was left powerless, loveless, and silent in that house.

It was Josef who arranged Liam's bond with Merlyn. He'd done some calculations for Merlyn's Grand Mother. Josef knew that any offspring of the great Lady Regyn must have a practical mind. A mind that might be compatible with his son's. Josef believed that matching Liam with a girl who prized intelligence would give the boy a chance to be valued, to be wanted. If not for his body, than at least for his brain.

Looking down the street as Merlyn glided away, Liam saw more concretely than ever that his father had calculated wrong.

Liam glanced up at the signpost of the building she'd exited. Stallions, it read. Liam knew what the establishment was, a place of pleasure for males and sexually dissatisfied women.

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