Page 30 of Last Thrall of Asgard

“You are not perfect, Balder. You never were. You never need to be.” I licked up his throat.

He bucked his hips, and I opened our trousers for our naked cocks to collide. I did not move my hips in kind but let my weight rest upon him. I licked the side of his neck and up beneath one of his ears. I licked the lobe. The shell. The inside.

Balder bucked again, but every movement only made me press more weight upon him. As I suckled his ear and neck, I drifted one hand down his chest to thumb his nipples. I was fleetingwith my touch, making him pant and squirm as he grew harder and more desperate.

“Please… be harsher.”

“No.”

“You are here to help—”

“I am going to help you, Balder. Harsh, hard, neither is what is needed for you to feel. My masters tried to make me believe I needed that too. You are your own master, but as it seems you do not know how to treat yourself kindly, let me show you.”

I canted my hips, slowly, and as I played with Balder’s nipples, his ears, the sinew of his throat, I did not allow him to hasten our pace. This was not the same as Thorsten with me, or what I’d thought I wanted with Heimdall. I didn’t want to deny him for my sake but to take our time, so he could remember whatgoodfelt like instead of accepting feeling anything.

The scent of the bonfire strengthened, like part of Balder still believed he was lost to the fire. “What a marvelous smell,” I said.

“What? It’s awful. Terrible—”

“You.” I curled my fingers around his throat but squeezed only lightly, only enough to make him gasp and not lose his breath entirely. “You smell like a survivor. Like someone who stumbled butcanget up. At least to this lowly mortal, my respect is for someone who has been brought low and risen again, not for someone who never knew hardship.” I sat up to better shove our trousers lower and took our cocks in hand.

“Oli…”

“You are not perfect, and you never need to be. Right now, you need only be good for me, and to feel good in return.” Stroking our cocks together, I ran the blunt nail of my thumb along his slit.

“Ah!”

“That’s it. Youaregood, Balder. Not perfect.Good. So good. Just as you are, you… are enough.” Saying words I had neverheard spoken to me made tears prick my eyes, yet it felt a little like I had heard them for my sake too just by seeing the gratitude in Balder.

I reached back between his legs to begin circling his hole. It was more to test if entering him was how he wanted this, and his trembling at my tenderness, my caution to ensure he enjoyed what he was feeling, became an eager nod.

I rid us of what remained of our clothing, tilted Balder’s hips back to settle between his thighs, and rested one hand on his throat again. Just rested it there. With the other, I gathered some of our fluids and used it to open his passage.

I thought of Freyr circling my stretched hole, so with every thrust of a finger, I followed the intrusion with a grazing of my thumb around Balder’s ring.

“Oh…”

“Yes, so good for me, aren’t you?” I said. An errant "good boy" could be so belittling, as if saying, ‘what a subservient slave you are to be exactly what I want of you.’ But if said right, if intended right, it could mean the world. I’d only ever dreamed of Thorsten saying it as kindly as I spoke it to Balder. “So good. More than enough for all those who love you. That smell of ash included.”

The sway of the bed returned, along with the haze, like the poison was passing between our fluids, but it wasn’t as overpowering. Balder needed to be purged of it.

I removed my fingers to align my cockhead, and like before, only barely, just on the right side of what Balder thought he wanted of my grip, I tightened my fingers around his throat. He needed the reminder of his trauma, yes, but replaced with something kinder, with a sweet dream to rid him of the nightmares that plagued him.

“I know your weariness.” I pushed my tip inside him. “I know the sadness your brethren weather too. What peace it would bring them to know that even Balder can feel lost like they do.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” I used only my tip at first to fuck him, going deeper with each thrust. My grip on his throat loosened to a mere circling of my thumb around his bulb, just like I had grazed his hole. “You would not let them down to show weakness. You would ease them that, now, while they feel their weakest, their brother does too.”

Once I had fully sheathed myself within his passage, though the clenching in my gut urged me to snap my hips, I pulled out just as slowly.

“Do you believe me, Balder?” I circled the bulb of his throat again.

“I-I… I don’t know.”

“Then we are far from done.” I entered him again, so slowly that I shook as much as he did, and the bed rocked upon invisible waves. It had to be this way. He needed it.

Perhaps I did too.

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