Page 52

Even then, he was unprepared.

“Afraid of the forest, Ragnar?” Absolon said from behind him.

Ragnar cursed and spun, stepping further into the weak midday sun. “Just walking your demesne, Sol.”

“It ends somewhere back there, beyond the stream.”

“So it is yours then? You bought it?”

“I did.” He stepped out of the shadow of oak and spruce carrying a stuffed satchel. “Lysander left behind a lot of possessions. He liked to collect things, jewelry in particular, and when he abandoned me, I sold everything, hoping he’d hear about it and it would bring him pain. I turned away from everything he wanted me to be and became what I’d always said I was—a peasant. I bought this place, hoping it would draw him back. But it didn’t. Trogen provided some company, but the silence provided fertile soil for my hate of you to return.”

“You have built yourself a fine home.”

“Better than the one you and I lived in.”

Ragnar shrugged. “That hovel was more of a home than the one I grew up in.” And that was the truth. It was where he kept his most prized possessions, along with his most treasured memories. Maybe he’d go back there one day. He pointed at the satchel. “Is that for me?”

Shrugging it off his shoulder, Absolon held it out at arm’s length. Ragnar came closer and took hold of the satchel, but when Absolon retreated, Ragnar grabbed for his hand. Absolon froze and looked at Ragnar with the full strength of his sadness. Unwanted, abandoned, cursed. Ragnar told himself he only wanted to twist those feelings to his advantage, but his soul ached to see Absolon so forlorn.

“Come with me.” He tugged Absolon towards the line of trees.

Absolon resisted. “You should dress, or you really will die of the cold.”

“Later.”

He pulled and Absolon followed. The temperature cooled in the shade and Ragnar’s skin livened with the brisk wind and anticipation. There was nothing to fear in the trees, not with Absolon there, and soon the magic of the woods opened before him. The smell of damp rich earth, the twitter of birds and the trickle of fresh water…how the place must sparkle in spring!

“Do you remember our first night in the forest after we left the army?”

“Left? You were court-martialed and I deserted, but yes, of course I remember.”

“Do you also remember how grateful I was that you were there with me?”

He stopped. “That wasn’t gratitude. You were a raging lunatic. Your temper was so bad the animals in that barn thought a storm was coming. I was frightened of you.”

Ragnar closed the gap again and steered Absolon until his back was up against a tree. “Is that all you felt? Fear?” Ragnar placed his hand on Absolon’s chest and slid it down his muscled abdomen and lower to press against the bulge of his trousers.

Absolon’s hand gripped Ragnar’s wrist, and Ragnar nearly purred from his might. He bit his bottom lip and held Absolon’s gaze with an intense focus that could have burned wood. Despite the hold tightening on his wrist, he was still able to press his palm against the outline of Absolon’s thickening cock.

“I would have let you do anything to me then,” Absolon whispered.

“And now?” Ragnar sank to his knees, still held, still in Absolon’s power. He looked up, determined, strong, in control. “You helped me then. Allow me to help you now. Let me take your pain and swallow it whole.”

Absolon’s cock twitched, throbbing and primed, having grown beneath Ragnar’s attention and the stirring of that remembrance of their first night together in the forest. Both unwanted. Both abandoned. Both cursed.

And both desperate to forget everything that had happened.

Absolon’s grip loosened enough to give Ragnar assent, and with his free hand unbuckled Absolon’s belt and untied his trousers, letting them drop to the ground to reveal Absolon’s erection. Ragnar wet his lips and forgot himself. Forgot that this was all meant to be about tricking Absolon into making him into a soul-eater. Forgot that this was all about power. Forgot all the wrong that Sol had done to him and he had done to Sol.

Instead, it became all about their pleasure.

He took Sol far into his mouth and relaxed his throat to limit his gagging. Even then tears welled in his eyes. He moved his head back and forth, building up a rhythm, with Absolon trying not to thrust but cursing when he did. Ragnar’s throat opened wide to take him deep, feeling full, feeling secure and complete with Absolon there. He gripped the shaft with his free hand, using his saliva to make him slick and move in time with his head so Absolon never lost a second of pleasure.

He focused on his other wrist, the one Absolon still held and held so tightly his bones hurt from the squeeze. He could snap his wrist and Ragnar wouldn’t care. Absolon’s fingers burrowed into Ragnar’s hair and gripped him, and no matter how much Ragnar tried to control the motion, Absolon took over, his hips pushing deep into Ragnar’s throat. He relaxed and gave himself over completely to Absolon’s frenzied thrusting, moaning at the sound of Absolon’s groans. His own cock ached to be touched, straining and throbbing in exquisite pain.

And when he thought Absolon was going to punch through the back of his throat, when his scalp sang out in pain, when his wrist creaked close to breaking, Absolon came into his mouth with three hard jolts. Ragnar swallowed his thick offering whole. Absolon spasmed, his breathing labored, then pushed Ragnar away.

Ragnar sat back on his haunches, cock tenting and leaking into the blanket that covered him and licked his lips of anything that had escaped and sucked it into his mouth.