It might be all he had.
He was prepared to show them all his indifference. If only that was truly what he felt. It wasn’t. He was at heart a lost child looking for a home and someone to love, and for someone to love him in return. His experience in life thus far told him it would never be. Everyone he’d put his trust in had failed him, even his mother.
That right to live among his family had been stripped from him, and this new family on earth… well they didn’t seem to want him either.
Leander was becoming increasingly aware that this wasunlikely to be a temporary arrangement, at least not as temporary as he had originally thought. He was still stuck in this godsforsaken city where he had been cast out to remain for the rest of his natural life.
He knew what he needed to do. He needed to play the part of an air-headed lordling so well that he could fool everyone in Cariun and Estalian alike. The problem was… he was just having too much fun. He had turned harder towards alcohol and gambling and women or men. Whatever took his fancy of an evening. Anything that involved risk.
Anything that made him feel alive.
Leander was there at the front of the vanguard of life, offering himself up, just to feel something, anything. And he was out of coin yet again. Tonight he had been thrown out of the tavern not for being too drunk, but because he couldn’t pay his tab.
Ridiculous.
He should have stayed with the prince and his friend.
He had promised the barkeeper that he would be back the following day to pay off the lucrative tab he had accrued, as he always did. But it wasn’t enough for the barkeep, who thought he knew Leander’s sort only too well.
Leander stood still for a moment, gripping the outer wall of the inn as he closed his eyes to stop the world from spinning around him.
It took a good two minutes, but he finally felt like he was attached to the ground enough to release his grip on the wall and move one foot, and then the other, and he trudged down the darkened cobbled street to findthe next pub, where he would try to get more free alcohol.
But he didn’t get far before he felt a hand roughly slam down on his shoulder and twist him around.
The world lurched and Leander almost lost his footing. Next thing he knew, he was slammed against the wall of the building, head hitting the jagged stone and the air being forced from his lungs at the force of his back hitting the wall.
He cried out, more in shock and alarm rather than in any pain.
“Your money. Now, boy,” came a gruff voice.
Leander blinked once, then twice. “I have none,” he slurred truthfully, raising his hands as if that would prove it. He didn’t have a single coin on him, the last he had owned had been gambled away just a few minutes ago. “But by all means, frisk me. Give me a bit of pleasure tonight, because I don’t even have the coin to pay for a whore... so you’ll do.”
His assailant stared at Leander, taking a moment to process what he had said. Even in his inebriated state, Leander was quick to understand that this man was not the sharpest arrow in the armoury.
It was always the same with these types: act first and think later… if they thought at all. Leander waited patiently for his words to find their way from the man’s ears and through into his brain. He watched the proverbial penny drop and the man’s eyes darkened.
Despite himself, the demigod snickered. “Don’t hurt yourself, big man.”
The man slammed his fist into the wall, frighteninglyclose next to Leander’s head. He couldn’t help it, he flinched away.
Leander turned to look at the fist, then back to the man, surprise etched onto his face.
“I want?—”
But the attacker was cut off by a new arrival.
“Back away slowly, or I’ll castrate you,” someone spoke in a low, threatening tone of voice. “You like your balls attached, trust me. Back away.”
Leander watched as an arm snaked around the assailant’s neck—a significantly more palpable threat than the words that had just been spoken. Castration? Sounded rather painful. Not a way Leander would want to go.
Leander looked into his attacker’s eyes and noted the crazed look, almost feral, like he was certain he wouldn’t get away from this unharmed.
A lazy smile returned to Leander’s lips when he realised he was being rescued, and his attacker released him to face this new arrival. Leander’s knees gave way, simply due to just how sloshed he was. His attacker had been holding him up while the alcohol continued to coarse through his blood, affecting his faculties and the control he had over his own body.
“Go get ‘em…” Leander muttered just before he vomited over the back of his attacker’s shins and feet.
Distantly, Leander was aware of a brief scuffling fight happening nearby, but he did not pay attention as his body clearly wasn’t done with purging his stomach of whatever he had consumed that day. Nothing was safe, even his hands fell victim to his vomit. Leander glared at his hands,as if it was their fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
