Chapter 5
H e couldn’t control that flash of surprise in his eyes, or the way his fingers tightened on my chin.
“ Me ?” His voice was raw and uncontrolled.
“Sister, I’ve thought of nothing but finding you since the day they took you, and doing the Allfather’s will so he would reward me by leading me to you. And he has. And you—”
“The city—” I tried, but a muscle in his jaw twitched, the ones in his strong throat moving up and down.
“Whatever hold the city has on you will be broken. Do you understand me, Temperance ? Your place is with me and always has been.”
“You can’t do this!” I cried.
But I knew he could.
Tears prickled at the edge of my eyes, and I pushed and shoved at him, trying to bring my leg up to knee him in the balls.
One of my sleeves fell further down my arm as I struggled, and Rhyder’s eyes sharpened as they saw the tip of what I always tried to hide.
With a glance at me, he put two big fingers out and curled them around my long sleeve.
“Don’t—” I began, but Rhyder slowly dragged the sleeve down, his eyes still holding mine.
His thumb gently brushed over the marks, the dark swirls of the End of the World Serpent just as sharp and black as when he had tattooed them on me six years ago.
The memory was still sharp, like the slice of a knife wound, and it still replayed frequently in my nightmares.
It was the rainy season and our settlement had flooded as it often did, because we were small and often forced into the shittiest land. This time it was worse than usual. We had lost several people in the heavy rains and floods, but of course I was on Rhyder’s back as he waded through the high waters.
One of the Elders screamed as he was taken by the floodwaters downstream, the deluge so powerful that he was almost instantly pulled under.
My head jerked around at the Elder’s cries for help, the rains battering my headscarf and plastering it to my head. The older man’s eyes looked maddened with fear and I felt strangely wracked with shame, like it was a sin for me to survive and him to die.
Rhyder didn’t even look sideways, his eyes fixed on the higher ground and safety across the huge swell of waters.
I felt a shiver down my body. It was the first time I truly realized how dangerous my brother was.
If it was a choice between protecting me or the rest of the world
The rest of the world could burn and Rhyder would light the match
Other Congregants were using boards from destroyed homes as unsteady makeshift boats to paddle over, but my brother was so strong he was digging a huge stick for purchase into the ground, making his way slowly but deliberately across.
Big branches and even whole logs had broken from trees in the storm, and Rhyder had to dodge them while fording the river.
I could recreate the scene in my mind now, the chill of the early spring water on my thighs, my jaw chattering, my arms tight around Rhyder’s neck, thick bands of muscle beneath my arms and squashed against my breasts, my nose buried in his thick ponytail, the comforting leather and lye soap smell of him the only thing keeping me from melting into shrieking hysteria.
He’d had to use both hands to push a particularly big log away from us, and it was flowing so quickly that if he hadn’t moved so fast it would probably have knocked even Rhyder over.
He shoved the log clear, but on the way by the rough jagged edge scraped too close to me, the brutal edge of the broken log making a deep cut in my arm.
I cried out, instantly ashamed of myself for doing so because Rhyder twisted around mid-flood to see what was wrong.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I’m fine,” I gasped, ashamed of myself as always for being so weak and helpless.
For weeks, months, afterwards he had blamed himself, been an absolute psychotic freak about my injury, checking it constantly, re-applying salves and ointments.
And then tattooed over it with the Serpent.
Now his fingers traced the lines almost reverently, the air between us crackling with tension, and Rhyder suddenly pulled my arm forward and kissed down my scar, his lips lingering on each ridged imperfection.
I gasped, unwilling heat and confusion filling me, and I tried to pull my arm away.
But unlike when we were kids, Rhyder didn’t let go.
My frightened eyes met his, and his big hand wrapped firmly around my forearm.
I knew what the look in his eyes meant.
I don’t have to let you go now
Rhyder had been bound by our Congregation laws to wait until I was 20 to claim me. And he had waited. Loved me, desired me, and hadn’t taken me.
But he wasn’t going to wait anymore.
And now he could take what he wanted.
“I don’t want to go back,” I said, feeling breathless. “I want to stay in the city.”
There was a squirmy wrong sensation deep in my gut as Rhyder’s lips moved down my scar, his fingers slowly stroking the tattoo he had done to cover it up, make sure I didn’t feel self-conscious.
I strained against his hold, but his power over me was as easy for him as breathing as his teeth gently bit my skin, then followed the sting with a kiss.
“Don’t try to get away from me again,” Rhyder said. “And the city won’t be safe,” he added. “Not once Ronan’s Congregation falls.”
“When his Congregation falls?” I cried, as Rhyder threw a leg over the motorcycle, hopping on behind me, pulling me back so my ass hit his thighs. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”
He kicked at the stand with one enormous black boot.
“He will fall,” my brother said confidently, his big arms on the motorcycle bars, trapping me between them.
Just like he had always wanted.
“Why do you think that?” I asked.
“The Allfather is on our side,” Rhyder said as he turned the bike around. “Holy War is coming. Soon.”
Fuck , I thought.
The only thing more dangerous than my Congregation would be my Congregation under the protective power of Holy War, which meant even more death and destruction could be wreaked on those viewed as in the way.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
The city would be in danger during a Holy War. Everyone knew the Unsaved were only a shadow government. Congregations ran the whole damn country, and Ronan’s had run the northwest for decades.
Unless Ronan fell fast, this Holy War could devastate the entire countryside.
“He’s a False Prophet, an Apostate ,” Rhyder said. “Our Prophet has been impressed by the Allfather that Ronan is outside Holy Writ.”
I suppressed a gasp. Apostate meant even the minimal rules of engagement in the Congregations no longer applied. An immoral Apostate could be killed on sight. And any Holy Warrior like my brother had the moral obligation to kill Ronan the moment they saw him.
“We have been doing holy prayer and fasting in preparation for raids,” Rhyder said, his voice a hum of pleasure against my back. “The Allfather has guided me to you so I can protect you. The Allfather is good . All the time .”
His big hand gripped my thigh, keeping my dress bunched lasciviously around my hips. But I didn’t make the expected response.
The words All the time, the Allfather is good stuck deep in my throat.
It was so strange to be between my brother’s legs on a motorcycle again, the feel of his protection achingly familiar despite not having seen him for six years.
And if there was holy prayer and fasting, Rhyder would have prayed the hardest, fastest the longest.
He had always been the most zealous in the service of our Congregation, our Prophet, the Allfather.
My mother had been killed, and my father had been harshly punished for it, but no one had ever accused Rhyder of disloyalty. From the very earliest age it was possible, he had been a holy warrior, first to fight and best and strongest on raids. I remembered that feeling of nerves when he went out on them at first, frightened by the knives he wielded.
But Rhyder was so good he was rarely even touched in battle.
“I need to go to my apartment,” I said. “I don’t even have shoes.”
My feet were dirty, bare, looking ridiculously tiny compared to Rhyder’s enormous boots.
“All right,” he said. “Give me the directions.”
His hand moved further up my leg, squeezing the skin, the big fingers splayed out to cover my whole thigh.
I tried to shake his hand off, but he only clamped on tighter.
“Mine,” he said, and I gasped as his fingers curved into my pussy, my panties stretched tight against flesh that seemed far too wet, and there was a grunt of something between pleasure and pain as he pressed me again his broad chest.
“As soon as my blood covers you, sweet little sister, I own you.”
“ Little ?” I shot back at him, trying to wriggle out of his grip, writhe away from the fingers that were sending pulses of heat through me. “You’re literally nine fucking seconds older than me.”
“That’s right,” he said. “And those nine fucking seconds mean I own you and I always will.”
One of my flailing hands knocked into a little compartment on the side of the motorcycle, and a tiny wisp of pure white cloth poked out.
Curious, not wanting to see, but already knowing in my heart what it was, I opened the compartment wider and pulled out one of my head scarves.
It had always been my favorite one, pure and soft, Rhyder bringing the bolt of fabric home after one of the skirmishes with Congregations on our borders when he had gone into the cities. He had probably taken it at knifepoint from a fabric store, I thought now, but it had made such a delicious soothing scarf. Cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
“I knew I would find you,” Rhyder said.
I pulled out the scarf and passed it through my fingers.
There were so many times I had craved wearing it in the past few years.
Not all the time. Not every day.
It was so hard because it was against the law in the cities, and when I had admitted my conflicted feelings to Craig he said I was stupid.
My brother said nothing, though.
I brought the scarf to my nose.
It still smelled like Rhyder.
My hands almost trembled.
At this moment it felt like a relief to put it on, cool soft fabric wrapping me in what felt like comfort.
My brother said nothing, which made me pissed, but then I felt his exhale as I put on the headscarf, a low rumble of gut-deep satisfaction that made me want to punch him in the throat.
But, of course, I couldn’t.
We pulled into a space at my apartment, and Rhyder caught me as I stumbled off the bike.
He clasped my hands in his big ones.
“O Allfather,” he prayed, his eyes closed, his lips moving over my fingers, lips brushing past my skin.
For this reward we praise you
Death and vengeance have been acceptable in your sight
How many people had Rhyder killed to gain his reward?
He touched the talisman that always hung around his neck on a sturdy leather cord. It was a Holy Relic. As was customary for the boys of our Congregation, he had gone on a holy pilgrimage at 16, to the ruins of a sacred building that had been destroyed by the Unsaved decades ago in one of the many unsuccessful insurgent battles the Unsaved had fought to try to keep the Congregations from taking over the northwest.
They had failed but the Congregation church had been destroyed. And our Congregation had never forgotten or forgiven it.
To get an actual piece of the building, you had to kill the most Unsaved in a gladiator-style combat.
The Unsaved were mostly criminals, murderers or other violent men the city governments would offer up to the Congregations.
They could be dangerous and violent and the fight was to the death.
The young Congregants occasionally did get killed. But not my brother.
He came back from the pilgrimage with an actual piece of the holy building, encased in a little glass.
It always hung around his neck and I had never seen my brother without it.
“What was it like to kill those people?” I had asked him. “Was it—did they die quickly?”
“No,” Rhyder said.
I remembered him as he looked then, no beard but still big and imposing with that thick head of blonde hair, sitting on the steps below me.
It vaguely bothered me that he was so unconcerned.
Shouldn’t he be bothered?
“The Prophet ordered it,” Rhyder said, a line of confusion appearing between his brows.
And that was all Rhyder needed.
Our Prophet had a direct line to the Allfather and that was not to be questioned.
Of course, I had left the keys to my apartment, along with anything that made me a civilized person, back at Craig’s family party.
But it was no problem for Rhyder.
He simply felt up and down the wooden edges with one big hand, then hit the door above the knob, and it swung open.
And when I stepped through the door to my apartment, my brother stalking behind me, my stupid boyfriend Craig was there, rifling through my stuff.
“What are you doing ?” I cried, suddenly teetering on the edge of hysteria.
“Oh— Thérèse, I left some—stuff here. My other earpods, you know. . .”
“Get out of here!” I yelled at him.
“Who is Thérèse?” Rhyder asked, moving protectively beside me as if Craig the coward was going to do anything.
“Me,” I said, and when he stared at me uncomprehendingly, I added, “They made us choose different names. When they—when they took me away.”
My brother’s eyes were darkened with fury.
“They dared to give you a different name?” he spat.
I turned away from him. It was too much to look at him, too overwhelming to see the anger in his eyes.
Tears prickled at the corners of mine.
It was suddenly too much, going from being small, shy Thérèse Jones, a forgettable afterthought, to the center of my physically overpowering brother’s fierce, obsessive fixation.
“Take out your weapons,” Rhyder growled to Craig.
“Man, you can have her,” Craig protested, darting his little rodent eyes between us. “I just wanted my airpods. I’m not here to fight for her or anything.”
“You’re not going to fight for her?” Rhyder asked, his voice sharp with shock.
My brother did not realize how absolutely not a hot property I was in the city.
“No, man, you can have her,” Craig said, jamming his earpods in his pocket and backing away, trying to make it all the way around the room to the door without getting too close to Rhyder.
“It was only casual,” he said.
“You’ve touched my sister?” Rhyder asked.
Danger sped up my spine.
Craig’s eyes looked even more maniacal now.
“Not—not much,” he said feebly, and I saw the huge width of my brother’s shoulders tense as he reached down to his belt.
“Not that I’m implying she’s sloppy seconds or anything,” Craig began to babble in a panic.
“Shut up, ” I hissed at him.
My brother cocked his head at Craig,
I didn’t even think he knew what ‘sloppy seconds’ was, but maybe he did, because the next thing I knew Rhyder had both knives in his hand, stalking toward Craig.
“For touching her,” he said.
“No, Rhyder, no ,” I started, trying to grab one of his belt loops.
“If your eye causes you to sin,” he continued.
“ Pluck it out .”
Then his knives flashed in front of him and he thrust both blades into Craig’s eyes, dragging them down his body as I screamed in horror at the bloody trails of flesh left behind.
With one easy move, Rhyder picked him up and threw him out the front door, and I heard his body hit the pavement.
I didn’t know if he was alive or dead
“Temperance, I need to get you out of here now,” Rhyder gritted out. He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, and I knew he was jealous . Jealous and furious that someone else had dared to touched me.
“ Allfathe r, Rhyder, just let me pack a bag!” I protested, skittering away from him.
He stood behind me as I grabbed my backpack, slipping some socks and sneakers onto my dirty feet.
What to take?
What do you pack when your feral despotic brother has come to claim you and drag you back into his depravity?
“Come on,” he growled, stalking behind me like an angry, violent shadow.
“I’ve got a lot of stuff to pack,” I shot back, starting to go through my books. “There’s so much I love and have to take.”
“So much you love ?” Rhyder asked, reaching an arm over my shoulder to pluck one of the books from my hands. “What is this you love ?”
“No, Rhyder,” I said immediately, feeling panic rise in my throat. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Sister, there is no one and nothing else for you to love but me,” he ground out. “Your love belongs to me alone.”
“Please no,” I whispered, watching him look angrily around at all my things.
He had never shared me.
When we were growing up, anyone who showed me even the slightest bit of attention was swiftly reminded who I belonged to.
Eventually the other boys in the Congregation stopped even trying.
“Don’t touch my stuff,” I said, balling my fists at my sides.
“No, sister,” he said, walking with his long strides around my apartment. “Your time in the city was an abomination and needs to be swiftly forgotten. There will be nothing remaining for you to love .”
He reached into his pocket and brought out a lighter.
“No, Rhyder!” I cried. “Stop!”
I flew at him, even though my brother had never once listened to me before when he was convinced what he was doing was right.
I dug my florescent nails into his leather-clad arm, ripping desperately at him.
But Rhyder flicked the light and held it to the book, the bright orange flames illuminating his face in the dim lighting of the apartment. His eyes were bright as he looked at me, shining with the gleam of his insane obsession and religious zeal.
“No, please ,” I cried, moving away from him, trying to take my books off the shelf as my apartment became rapidly engulfed in flames, the wisps and tendrils filling my small bedroom with my laptop, the bathroom with my seashell shower curtain, blocking my view of the window where I’d sit and read and wonder if I was truly free.
Well, now I had my answer.
I wasn’t free.
Not in this life or the next.
“Temperance, stay back!” Rhyder growled harshly, as I grabbed The Wind in the Willows , its spine on fire, the words bright-white for a moment, then crumbling into ash.
“it was my favorite,” I cried on a sob, the words on the spine seared into my memory.
He grabbed it from me as the flames burned my fingers, throwing the book in a corner of burning rubble, the flames pulling my curtains down in a shower of sparks.
Of course, nothing I did could touch him, but I still resisted leaving, clutching my kitchen table even as my entire apartment fell in ribbons of angry orange flame around me, the smell of pages crackling in the heat making my stomach roil with nausea.
“Please, just let me take one thing,” I begged.
“There is only me,” my brother said harshly, holding his hand out for mine. “I am here to love and save your soul from the Gray Place.”
“Stop, Rhyder!” I screamed. “ You can’t save my soul ! I’m wicked, I’m depraved, I’m tainted! Can’t you see?”
His brows drew together angrily, and he stalked over to me. I gripped the kitchen counter tighter, trying desperately to hang on, even as the cabinets crumbled around me in heavy splintering crashes.
But Rhyder plucked me up easily, throwing me over his shoulder and carrying me outside as the remains of my life collapsed and burned around us.
The smell of burning books was sharp in my nostrils.
As he carried me out, my ears filled with the high-pitched, urgent whine of the fire alarm and screams, I knew.
In the rubble of my life, there would always and ever be only Rhyder.