A Nurse to Tame the Playboy

She had expected to see a young man but the person sitting hunched on the ground in front of them, dressed in threadbare trainers, thin denim trousers, and a tattered wine-coloured jacket, didn’t even look old enough to have left school. How on earth had he survived if he’d been sleeping rough for a year?

‘What’s your name, son?’ Eli murmured as he crouched down in front of the boy, seemingly heedless of the broken glass, and discarded syringes, glinting in the moonlight.

With an effort, the boy raised his head. His skin was stretched tightly across his cheekbones, and there were dark shadows under his eyes, but though those eyes looked tired and scared, Brontë didn’t think he was taking drugs. At least, not yet.