Bloodmoon Ritual (The Eclipse Ritual #2)

Chapter 1

T alking heads on the TV were droning on as I cleaned the coffee cups. Working at the coffee shop wasn’t the best-paying job, but someone like me didn’t have a lot of options.

The news anchors were debating the topic that everyone in the city had been obsessed with for the last few months.

The region’s biggest, most powerful Congregation had a new Prophet.

“They call him Ronan Demon-rebuker, and information about his notoriously secretive Congregation is sparse. Our attempts to send surveillance out are dangerous, so speculation rages over what this change in leadership means. Some of our informants say that the smaller Congregations surrounding Ronan’s are restless, seeing an opportunity for expansion. Some are even calling him an Apostate and doubting his devotion to the Allfather. There are even rumors about a holy war to rid the land of his power and control. What does that mean for us in the cities? Stay tuned.”

My coworker Shannon glanced over at me. “You grew up in one of those cults, didn’t you, Thérèse?”

All the other workers turned and looked at me like I had three heads, and I flushed with embarrassment.

“Y-yes,” I said, stumbling over my words as they looked at me like I was a dangerous freak.

Believe me, growing up in one of the Congregations was not the kind of thing you ever forgot.

I braced myself for the endless wave of questions I always got when someone found out I had been raised in the cults.

What was it like?

Are all the stories about them true?

Do they really stone people?

Do they really go into Bloodwrath before battles?

Do you really have to obey the men?

No matter what they say?

Is it really as repressive and frightening as they say it is?

How did you escape?

It was impossible to put into words what my time in the cult had been. A painful mix of fear and subjugation blended with the constant power of an oppressive all-consuming love, twisting my heart until I felt wrung from the inside out.

But suddenly the loud blare of the emergency sirens rang out, saving me from having to answer.

Because the Congregations that control the whole of the PNW are so closed-off and secretive, people in the city know very little about the workings of each Congregation. After I was rescued six years ago in a raid by a group of militant social workers, I was required to do months of official governmental debriefing, and interviews about what life was like in the cult and what insights I could give them about how it worked.

Everyone wanted to know what I could tell them to give the weak cities any ammunition against the more powerful cults.

I told them as much as I could, but the truth was I had been constantly protected and guarded, in a way that meant I was unprepared for life on my own in the cities, to be given a government-funded apartment for six months then left to make my own way.

I had struggled making my own way. The cities were divided starkly into wealthier and poorer sections, constantly at risk from Congregation raids, the governments fragile and the city infrastructure crumbling around us after decades of failing to beat back the cults.

And I hadn’t even told them everything.

It would have been too painful.

Occasionally, I wonder what he’s doing right now.

If someday the sirens will be for him.

They blare again, a continuous, ear-splitting warning.

“Shit,” my boss said, and I turned around to see maybe a dozen Congregants roll down the street on motorcycles. “Fucking whore runs.”

Holy hell . My stomach tensed. This happens every few months, a group of Congregants rolling into town on the lookout for Unsaved women to kidnap and take back to live on their cult lands for a year or so. Until they get bored and dump them back on the outskirts of town. The ones still alive anyways.

It’s not Ronan’s Congregation; his is too big and prosperous and self-contained to need to find outside women. But the smaller Congregations often come to the wicked cities to pick Unsaved women to act as statusless cult whores. Whether they’re common women anyone can fuck, or whether they have special status, they can never be wives because they’re Unsaved. Impure. Unclean. Tainted with living in the city. Seen as only dirty whores and dirty cunts to fuck.

No one wants to be taken by one of the Congregation motorcycle gangs, but our Unsaved governments are so weak there isn’t much they can do about it. I put down the mug I was washing and tried to force myself not to cower behind the espresso machine. There was no reason to believe I’d be randomly chosen. I’m small, dressed in my big, baggy sweatshirt in the February chill, my strawberry blonde hair dyed a jet-black and pulled back in a messy knot. No makeup on. Pants covered in milk after the latte machine malfunctioned.

I was small and unremarkable and unmemorable.

And I liked it that way.

Still, I was tense as the men parked their motorcycles on the opposite side of the street.

Seeing any Congregants always brings back the memories.

Because. . .what if. . .someday. . . it’s him.

My phone dinged and I looked down, my fingers shaking as I silenced it. You weren’t supposed to do anything to draw their attention during a concubine run.

It was my sometimes-boyfriend Craig, reminding me that the birthday party for his dad was tonight.

What if the Congregants are still here? I texted him.

Nah, it’ll be fine , he texted back. They don’t stay long. Wear a dress .

In some ways it feels like I never really escaped from my Congregation.

The whole state, the whole country , is trapped by them, all of us dreading their random incursions and fearing their holy raiding parties. But the Unsaved governments have no power to stop them.

All they can do is warn us and hope the Congregants get enough women quickly to satiate their lusts, then leave without getting pissed off and killing anyone.

There were monthly safety talks and reminders for what we were supposed to do during a concubine run.

Freeze and shelter in place.

Don’t approach them. They are dangerous.

Don’t talk to them any more than you have to. They are unpredictable and since the Unsaved don’t understand Congregation life, you can never be sure you won’t do or say something the Congregants consider a moral offense punishable by death.

Whatever you do, don’t assume they will be like men in the cities .

They aren’t.

I knew that better than anyone.

Don’t try to fight back. Congregant men are extremely violent and taught to fight from an early age.

They outnumber us. They outgun us. They outpower us.

Just let them take who they want to, and we usually get through a concubine run without any bloodshed.

You’re not supposed to pay them undue attention either, just go about your business, but of course it’s impossible not to look at them. Like most of the Congregants on whore runs, they’re big men in heavy leather jackets with patches showing which Congregation they belong to.

Everyone in the coffee shop is frozen in place, eyes locked on the group of men now getting off their motorcycles.

My eyes scan the group carefully. Two four six eight ten , ok, not too many of them, only a mid-sized raiding party. I could see the patch on a dark-haired man’s jacket that indicated he was this Congregation’s Enforcer. He went around to each of the other men, shaking the customary drops of holy oil on their heads. This was to keep the men pure, even though they’re literally here to find women to fuck and savage.

This is how they operate, though. A few drops of oil and you can do what you want.

The men then moved off in different directions to find whatever unlucky woman would be trapped with them to be fucked at will. Only one man remained at the motorcycles.

A Congregant coming into the city but not bothering to look for a whore? Did he think one was just going to magically appear? From the back, he looked huge, the kind of man who could easily get anything he wanted. He reached in one of the side bags of his motorcycle and pulled out what looked like a small holy book.

Oh god, here was the most dangerous type of cultist. The true believer.

Then the man turned, and I gasped loudly in the pin-dead silence of the coffee shop, instantly falling to my knees and clutching the cabinet.

Holy shit.

It was him.

My twin brother Rhyder.

It had been six years but there was no mistaking him. He was built like the back end of a semi-truck, a huge blonde bearded man with massive shoulders, the wingspan of a fucking giant from a fairy tale, big thick body, a huge hulking menace. Unlike me, who had to realize how plain and unprepossessing I was after I moved to the city and had access to a mirror for the first time in my life, my twin was instantly arresting and unusually handsome: chiseled cheekbones like a Greek god, bright blue eyes, strong jaw.

Tattoos of holy words curved up his neck until his thick long blonde hair tied with a leather strap covered it.

Although I was hidden behind the espresso machine, I felt my skin burn as he turned in my direction, my stomach clenching with anxiety.

I could see his lips move and I knew he was praying when he touched both his shoulders, but for one terrifying moment I thought he was calling for me, summoning me out of hiding.

He can’t do that , I had to remind myself. He doesn’t know I’m here.

Remember what they told me in debriefing.

He was simply a part of my history. I couldn’t change it, only accept it.

I hadn’t seen Rhyder since the day of the social worker raid.

That day we had fought about what would happen when we turned 20 in a few months. 20 was considered the year a woman came of age in our Congregation.

And could be chosen as a wife.

“Just—just let someone else have a chance,” I begged him.

My brother looked uncomprehendingly at me.

“A chance ? For you ?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling desperate, like it was hopeless, but trying anyway.

“Don’t. . . don’t scare everyone else away. Somebody else might want to have me as their wife,” I ended, feeling my stomach drop at the look on his face.

“Temperance, no one else is going to have you as their Helpmeet,” he said angrily, coming too close to me, boxing me into the wall of the small neat cabin we shared.

“ I am going to have you as my wife.”

“But you’re my brother, ” I protested.

“And?” Rhyder asked.

“And I don’t want you as my husband.”

He looked stunned at my words, turning away so I couldn’t see his face. But I saw a muscle in his jaw working.

“You don’t mean that,” he said, whirling his head back around.

“I do,” I said firmly. “It would be wrong.”

Rhyder’s eyes blazed at me. “ I’ll decide what’s right and wrong, Temperance. Not you.”

“Oh, so it doesn’t matter what I want?”

“No,” he ground out. “I am going to take you whether you want me to or not. I have waited patiently . I have not touched you. But you are mine , sister.”

I shook my head to try to clear the memories, but they stayed stubbornly with me, Rhyder’s set jaw as he strode angrily into the woods to hunt after our fight. Whenever he was angry, he always went deep into the forest, brought home twice as many kills.

Rhyder had always gotten what he wanted. Because of his zeal and devotion, he was highly-favored by the Prophet.

I knew he would make me his wife. And I did not want that.

I could not breathe under the suffocating power of his love.

So my first emotion when I saw the militia from the city was a strange relief.

It was the only thing that could have saved me from Rhyder.

I wasn’t prepared for the cities, though. For life without my brother’s protection.

But it had been six years. Maybe he was married by now.

I heard the door to the coffee shop open.

The air inside the coffee shop immediately changed, and I tasted terror and metal on my tongue.

It would’ve been smarter to stay completely hidden, but I had to know.

My fingers convulsively clutching the cabinet, I peeked around the corner.

But it wasn’t Rhyder, just two other men, one big and one small. They were walking leisurely around the coffee shop, examining all the women there.

I recognized the big one. It was the Enforcer himself, a heavy thickset man in his late 30s named Eli who had been the Enforcer when I was still in the Congregation.

He was a cruel, unforgiving man with a greasy face and thinning dark hair who drove any sin hard before him, and he stalked impatiently around the coffee shop. If a woman caught his interest, he yanked her head up, looking her over with a contemptuous eye. Then he’d lift up her shirt, pinch the underside of her breasts, then rip her pants or skirt down and turn her over harshly to spread her cheeks, shove fingers in her asshole and cunt to see if they pleased him.

My heart clutched with fear as one woman got flipped over the table, her laptop smashing into the ground, her pants ripped harshly off her body. Eli took both of her plump cheeks in his hands, shoving two fingers into her asshole and making her face twist in pain.

Then he spat in her direction and turned his back.

“No whores with loose assholes. We can’t allow sickness or disease into the camp.”

Each woman he shoved aside impatiently.

“Let’s keep going,” the other man said.

I was shaking so hard that I had to dig my hands into the smooth steel of the cabinet to keep my jaw from clattering.

Please just go

I didn’t believe in the Allfather anymore, but I couldn’t help desperately wishing

Anyone out there, please please help me

Instead, my trembling hands knocked into one of the low-hanging mugs.

To my agonized eyes, it seemed to hang in the air for long seconds before dropping heavily to the ground and shattering.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit

Eli’s head instantly jerked around, his eyes narrowing at me.

The Enforcer’s head tilted, and I wondered if he vaguely recognized me, but couldn’t quite place me. It would have been six years since he’d seen me and I didn’t think I had a very memorable face.

“She’s tiny,” the other man said. “Probably wouldn’t even last through the Reaping.”

He had a long ferrety face and looked a bit like Abel, who had been a few years younger than me, just with a patchy beard now.

“She doesn’t have to last through the Reaping,” Eli said. “She’s just a whore. Sometimes it’s just easier not to have too many to take back with us.”

He put a hand on my sweatshirt and dragged me upright, lifting me so high off the ground that my feet were dangling in the air.

“I bet your asshole and cunt are nice and tight, aren’t they? Let’s go.”

In my position, I was forced to meet everyone in the coffee shop’s eyes.

Some looked frightened. Most look relieved.

One woman looked sympathetic.

No one tried to help me.

Because it would be suicide to try to go against a Congregant.

I didn’t even bother trying to kick and scratch at Eli. I knew how men in the Congregation were. It would be smarter to wait and see if I could find an opening to escape. I would have one chance. Maybe no chance. But if I kicked this man and it pissed him off enough, I might get a clout upside the head for my pains and I’d be too disoriented to try to escape.

So I said nothing.

But I felt spikes of panic as he dragged me out, heading for the big truck that had just noisily parked beside the coffee shop. It had thick bars of iron and heavy chains around it, and I knew it was used to keep the women inside until they took them wherever the first night’s stop would be.

My brother hadn’t turned around yet.

What would he say when he turned around?

Had he forgotten about me?

What if being in the cities for six years meant he’d think I was nothing more than a worthless whore?

My stomach felt like I would be sick. Rhyder was terrifyingly, brutally pious. Would it be more painful if he gave me the punishment that I deserved, according to the Congregation? Or more painful if I saw that same look in his eyes? The one he always had when he looked at me?

The one that meant no matter what I did I wasn’t getting away from him.

Eli yanked the truck gate open, and was about to throw me inside, when Rhyder turned around, the leather in his jacket crinkling as his big body shifted.

Our eyes met.