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Apart from Absolon’s added strength, the experience was exactly the same as that first night in the forest. He’d lost control of so much that he’d needed a way to regain it, and Absolon had been that. He had wanted to give pleasure to know that he could have another man in his power whenever he chose. He needed that confidence, that reassurance, regardless of what he had to do to get it. The fact that he enjoyed sucking Absolon’s cock dry was an added benefit.

He didn’t stand. He waited until Absolon’s breathing had returned almost to normal. He didn’t touch himself, no matter how much he ached to. Only when Absolon looked at him, did he speak.

“Will you let me stay? With you?”

Absolon put his cock away and buckled his trousers without taking his eyes off Ragnar. And when he was done, he stalked over, grabbed Ragnar by the throat and hoisted him into the air. Ragnar’s eyes bulged in fear. Had he got it wrong? He grabbed Absolon’s forearm in some vain attempt to keep himself alive, but then Absolon brought him close and kissed him, long and deep and exploring, his tongue swiping over the thickness of Ragnar’s own. Relief swept through him, and he gave himself over.

Absolon broke the kiss abruptly, and Ragnar scrambled to stop his mouth reaching for more. So aroused and yet so helpless, he barely admitted to himself how much he liked it. He opened his eyes to Absolon’s smug grin.

“Yes, you can stay.”

* * *

That kiss was notone of capitulation, nor was it one of declared love. Absolon had done it to stamp his control over Ragnar, but if that’s what he needed to believe, then Ragnar could go along with it. Absolon needed another’s love to survive, and Ragnar could make him believe that’s what he was being given. In exchange, he would be made Darisami. All the affection he gave Absolon now could serve as payment, because once he was changed, he’d owe his former lover nothing.

Absolon allowed him to share his bed and in return Ragnar allowed him to use his body, drawing as much pleasure from it as he could without letting Absolon feel anything but in charge. Yet after the second night, he found himself drawing closer to Absolon’s body in the cold hours, hugging him from behind and wrapping his arm around as much of Absolon’s broad body as possible. He pressed his lips to Absolon’s shoulder, and the tension melted away. He didn’t shift from it, didn’t stop, but he didn’t overstep. There was something about those moments that he didn’t want to ruin with his plans.

In the dead of night, even his ambition slept.

As for their days, Absolon lacked structure and the farmstead was crumbling into ruin. He existed in a purgatory that befit his existence. Neither alive nor dead, neither human nor angel, neither peasant nor noble yet crossing both. He cared little for work, having no need for food to feed himself, but Ragnar got him into it. He warned that the tax collectors or the priests would come eventually demanding their tithe. Unless he planned on killing every single one in the Empire, he would do well to produce something. He replied sullenly that he would steal what he needed, but there was no denying the glint in his eye that he would have something to fill his time.

At least he had strength to work the farm himself, no matter how others—if they ever came—might grow suspicious. The first day he gently guided Absolon into putting his house in order, while Ragnar cleared out the cell he’d been confined to and repurposed it to what it was originally intended for as a tool shed and store.

He talked to him about what the land could produce. Absolon may have worked his family’s farm, but Ragnar had learned from those who swore fealty to his father. Management was what he did best, and Absolon was stronger than any beast of burden. It was too late in the year to plant crops, but the soil could be tilled, and weeds pulled in preparation.

And then there should be stables.

He proposed them on the third day, arguing with Absolon about where they should be and fighting against his flimsy resistance. Absolon loved horses and he could breed fine stallions and mares that the local baron would be proud to sit upon. They would also provide companionship for Absolon once Ragnar had departed. Though he didn’t say that.

After his oppositions had been overcome, Absolon dragged him into the forest with an axe and they set to felling trees. Ragnar assisted where he could but Absolon did most of the work, and the air was filled with the sound of trees crashing through the canopy and hitting the ground. Absolon worked like a demon until dusk and the two returned sweaty and grimy and covered in saw dust.

Ragnar felt double his age, but Absolon shone in his vitality. A barbarian like no other, showing no sign of exhaustion, he’d cut all he needed and sawn them into planks and posts. Ragnar asked if he could wash him which quickly led to him getting fucked against the trough. Absolon left him spent and satisfied.

When Ragnar woke the next day Absolon was gone but returned by noon with a bag of nails. He dug the holes for the posts and grew the stables. Ragnar helped; despite Absolon’s strength, some things required more than one set of hands.

By the end of the day, the stables had been erected and Ragnar was almost too exhausted to stand. Absolon had no such trouble and helped him to the trough. The strength he displayed on the battlefield was built for short bursts, not for sustained peasant labor. How had Absolon stood it on that family farm? Well, he hadn’t, had he? He’d left. In search of better things.

And found Ragnar instead.

Absolon stripped him gently of his clothes and washed him with cold water, running his coarse hands over his skin and proving that not every part of him was exhausted. Absolon smiled and continued washing him, but his strokes slowed and delved to the sensitive parts of him, around his neck, under his arms, his nipples, his obliques and down between his legs. His hand wrapped around Ragnar’s cock and he tensed, collapsed his head against Absolon’s body as he took the last of his strength, and stroked him into oblivion.

He woke early the next morning with Absolon curled around him. He scooted backwards, deeper into the curves of Absolon’s body, slipped Absolon’s arm under his, and fell back to sleep.

When he roused again, most of the day had passed and Absolon was gone. He dressed, needing the clothes more than ever now that winter was bearing down on them, and spied Absolon across the field. He waved and Absolon waved back, the light had faded already, the sun nearing its setting. Another day had passed without him noticing.

Another day with Absolon.

And another day when he hadn’t achieved his goal. He looked at the stable and saw what they had built together. He imagined it filled with horses, imagined the fields filled with barley,and the days passing in toil and his life slipping away in this strange domesticity. It seized him by the throat and warned him not to get complacent.

The Darisami wandered over and when he reached him, he was smiling. He bowled him up into his arms and kissed him. The grip on Ragnar’s throat tightened even as he lost himself in that kiss, in the freedom of it, in the love of it.

Absolon broke the kiss but for how long it had ensorcelled him, he didn’t know. “I thought you could do with some rest.” He didn’t unwrap his arms from around Ragnar’s waist.

“I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

He chuckled. “You nobles aren’t used to hard work.”

And despite the word hitting Ragnar’s back teeth, he laughed too. Genuinely.