Read The Copper Horse #2 Pride for Free Online

about all this; Reuben had learned until now that the boy
wouldn’t help much, even if he had the best of intentions. He was
too worried about his own life.
    Jack sighed,
his face a bit tense, and Reuben felt obliged to soothe him.
    “Don’t worry,
Jack. I’m a big boy, learned a lot since I was brought here.”
    But it didn’t
seem to work. Jack’s eyes were still firmly on the floor. “I
should... I am your groom, and it’s not right for him to be a brute
if you’re good.”
    “I don’t think
he knows any better." Reuben shrugged, avoiding Jack’s gaze. "He
likes it that way."
    Jack frowned as
he gestured for him to get into the tub. “It isn’t good to follow
good deeds with punishment, any trainer knows that. Maybe he would
understand it if I put it like that.”
    Reuben’s lungs
clenched. “Please don’t tell him, Jack! He would beat me!” If Erik
thought Reuben hated what they did, he’d surely be sent away, back
into the gutter and away from Erik’s gentle hands.
    Jack bit his
lip with a sad, tense expression. “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s not your
fault he’s like that.”
    Jack swallowed,
looking away, but he eventually reached for the sponge. “As much as
I am thankful for what he did for me, I can’t overlook his
cruelties towards the stallions.”
    “You were the
one who said he could do as he pleased...” Reuben sank lower into
the water.
    Jack snorted.
“Because he can.” There was something definitely off about his mood
today. Was this conversation still about last night? Jack soaped up
the sponge and used it to gently wash sweat off Reuben’s skin.
    “He seems well
respected in Bylondon.”
    Jack shook his
head. “He’s not respected, exactly. Everyone knows what he does,
but he is an important figure, being a Dal, and the greatest forger
around. Perhaps in all of Britain.”
    Reuben
swallowed. “He only got called out on it once.”
    “By someone
very foolish.” Jack looked up, tight-lipped. “Our master, he might
be good if we please him, but those who don’t, he hangs in the
dining room.”
    “I think,
sometimes, that it’s his eyes. Like there’s a normal person and a
demon in him.” Reuben gave in to the fingers massaging his back.
Only now was he feeling the strain of the day. It seemed he was
‘giving in’ to a lot of things these days.
    “Which one'd
you think made him kill Chestnut?” Jack sighed, his hands stilling
on Reuben’s body. “It was a year ago today.”
    Despite feeling
sorry for his predecessor, Reuben couldn’t stomach the idea of
someone hurting Erik. “What exactly happened? Chestnut... he
attacked our master?”
    “He did, but
how can you blame him. He was being used against his will,”
whispered Jack.
    Reuben slouched
in the tub, lowering his eyelids as warmth took the soreness away.
That much was true. He himself enjoyed the kind of treatment Erik
offered, after learning about it and getting used to the shackles,
but what if he didn’t? Erik probably still suspected him of
pretending, so he could get more than he deserved. On his first day
at the mansion, Reuben hadn't been questioned about preferences.
Erik had plowed him until it hurt, as if Reuben really were an
animal that just needed to be tamed. With Erik’s cock. If Reuben
didn’t get his secret pleasures from the treatment, he would have
probably considered Erik a foul, cruel man with no regard for other
human beings.
    “I suppose. He
must have been braver than me.”
    “He was a
strong, proud man.” Jack hid behind Reuben’s back under the
pretense of washing his hair.
    “How did he
cope?”
    Jack sighed,
proceeding with the usual routine. “Anger. Often, he would be angry
at me as well...” he trailed off, his movements ceasing for a
second.
    “Because of the
grooming?” Reuben gulped.
    “That as
well... I think he resented the way I looked at him, but at the
time... I didn’t know any better,” whispered Jack.
    Reuben frowned
and turned to face him. “What