Every dispute ends across the lord's desk. Heath commands and Lorcan clears the surface without question.
Lorcan needs the wages and the security of the ancestral title. He stays despite the risk that Heath will withdraw once the crisis passes. Each time tension rises, the broad lord orders him to kneel or bend. The slender manager counts the measured strikes aloud while the leather belt loops around his wrists. His birthmark flushes as obedience deepens into degradation.
The commands grow stricter with every near miss. Lorcan's dread of abandonment only sharpens his hunger for the control. Heath reaches for Lorcan's trousers.
