Chapter 7
“I love you,” Rhyder said, undoing my restraints so he could gather me in his arms and cover my face with kisses. His white teeth flashed with pleasure as he grinned at me.
“I’m so thirsty,” I whimpered. “Please can you get me some water?”
“Of course,” he said, “Come out and watch your first Seeking now that you’re back where you belong.”
My brother’s fingers traced the lines of his blood approvingly, gently rubbing it into my skin until I wanted to scream with the sensation, claw it off my flesh.
I wanted to shake him off but I was too frightened of what he’d do, so I was relieved when he let me put my filthy dress and his sweatshirt back on.
Then he led me back out, his hand on the back of my neck, directing me where he wanted me to go.
It looked like there were a few other Congregations joining for this Seeking, with dozens more motorcycles parked in a row at the gate.
I trailed in Rhyder’s wake as he walked over to where the other men were, feeling like I was sleepwalking.
Seekings were communal attempts to discern the Allfather’s will. Congregations did not generally require a strict separation between men and women during it or any other ritual, because Elders and Deacons simply didn’t think women would be able to absorb any of the information presented.
And because Congregants were generally permitted to access the cunts of any camp whores they wanted to, at any time they wanted to.
Although small, this Congregation had two or three common concubines of their own, easily identifiable with their plain dark or gray or brown dresses, while Helpmeets got to wear colorful dresses in any colors they chose. The Congregants filed in, nodding and greeting Rhyder, the different patches on their motorcycle vests showing which Congregation they belonged to.
They were seated around a large square table, and Rhyder sat down in a large birch-wood chair, pulling me onto his leg as the Helpmeets brought large mugs of beer or mountain tea before the ceremony.
My panties had been left somewhere in the Holy Place, and the move spread my wet cunt against his thigh. I shifted, trying to relieve the sudden uncomfortable pressure, but it only sent sparks of sensation ripping throughout my core.
Rhyder wrapped his hand around my throat, raising my chin gently as he leaned forward to hiss in my ear.
“I love the feel of my blessing fucking soaking you, Temperance.”
I wanted to turn and gouge his eyes out, but I was at least smart enough to know not to disobey in public like this, so I only tightened my lips as he stroked my hair, twining the tips around his finger.
My feet hung on either side of his thigh, brushing the ground.
His leg was wet, his release pooling under where I sat, but he didn’t mind, his hands stroking up and down my body like he couldn’t bear not to touch me.
Under my lashes, I covertly observed the other Congregants, mostly tough-looking men in their 20s and 30s, often deeply scarred from territorial disputes. Unless you were lucky enough to live in Ronan’s Congregation, territorial disputes were common, violent, and unavoidable.
“Have you decided to join in the Evangelism against Ronan?” Rhyder asked, addressing their Prophet Osric, who was big, ugly man with a mottled beard.
“Thinking about it,” he said, motioning to their common women. “Please, let me offer you our hospitality, Enforcer and Holy Warrior. Take any of our whores you like to suck your cocks and relieve your balls.”
He motioned and two women moved in front of Eli and Rhyder, waiting nervously.
They must be women from the cities, since that was the only permitted way to find camp concubines. Women raised in the Congregation were either virgins when they got married. . . or dead.
Their eyes were raised obediently, but I saw unmistakable signs of their previous lives on both of them. A Metallica tattoo on the black-haired one. Dyed bleach-blonde hair on the other.
They both looked dull-eyed and miserable.
“No,” Rhyder said in his deep voice. “I have my woman and don’t want any others.”
His hand rested on my hip, a low, heavy weight.
His woman
Eli began to list Ronan’s sins, as the woman between his knees sucked on his cock, her wet slurps echoed loudly in the cool respectful silence of the clearing.
“We have heard,” Eli said, “that he even did spit in the face of the Allfather by allowing his Helpmeet to give an old woman in his Congregation something to relieve the pain during her sin-cycle when her flow was so heavy they thought she might die.”
There were muttered oaths around the table.
“Women must experience pain during their sin-cycle,” Osric said disapprovingly. “that is important. Each month is a test to see if they have been faithful. If their flow is too heavy, they must be declared Unclean and put outside the Congregation to die.”
“It is said,” Eli added, “That he did so because his Helpmeet requested it.”
I wondered about a Helpmeet who was able to command her husband in such a way.
The men shot measuring looks around the table at this. It was a serious offense.
“Such a man,” my brother said, “will be easy to defeat. And our Prophet, who is known across the land for his Wisdom and his connection to the Allfather, has declared him to be Anathema.”
Oh, Rhyder would do anything that fucking Prophet said, wouldn’t he?
He’d kill for the Prophet.
I shivered.
I’d seen him kill for the Prophet.
We were only 16, and our Congregation had captured some men in battle.
They stood in the center of camp, tied up with rough ropes, their faces scratched and bloody.
And all over some shitty patch of land that would barely grow a potato.
But that was how Congregations knew who was favored by the Allfather.
And our Prophet had only to flick his fingers toward the prisoners.
“Rhyder,” he said. “Kill them.”
They began to beg for mercy then, but my brother at 16 was already twice as big as a grown man, and I remembered the slow crawl of horror I felt watching him draw the two knives that were already customary to him, then slit the men’s throats.
My stomach wrenched and I wanted to turn around and vomit on the floor, fall to the ground with the knowledge that my brother was such a true believer he wouldn’t even hesitate, wouldn’t question if what he was doing was right or wrong.
The secret, wrong doubts my mother had planted in my head frightened me.
Surely it was a sin to doubt
Look what had happened to her.
“The Allfather has given us his lands,” my brother said confidently, his big hands both resting, uncomfortably warm, on my hips.
Heat and cum pooled between my thighs, Rhyder’s release sticky on my legs, soaking his thighs.
“We have seen them on our excursions,” he continued. “Green hills, streams filled with fish and crab. Dense forests filled with game. Ready for those who can take them.”
A Helpmeet made her rounds to refill his beer, and the Congregants seemed to freeze as my brother tapped my shoulder and casually handed me his mug of beer.
“Drink this.”
My cheeks flamed as I felt the eyes of the Elders turn to me.
Whores were not supposed to share the same food and drink
Whores were supposed to be treated as the dirt under your feet
You were supposed to use them as you pleased, then leave them. Alive or dead, what mattered was your power as a Congregant.
The problem was that my obsessive brother didn’t see me as his whore. He saw me as ordained by the Allfather to be his wife.
I felt frozen, pinned under the weight of their angry, disapproving stares.
Did they dare say anything to Rhyder?
He tapped on my shoulder again, holding the mug out to me.
The other men said nothing, probably testing, waiting, unsure and afraid of how my brother would react, looking at me with stony cold eyes.
I took and drank, my throat dry as bone, and the drink went down untasted like bitter gall.
Rhyder’s big thigh was hard and he began, almost absently, to rock me back and forth on it. My sleeve fell down my arm as my brother’s fingers caressed my bare shoulder.
I wanted to scream at him to stop, to tell him I didn’t want this, that I had never wanted this, but I said nothing. Whores were not permitted to talk unless spoken to.
With his other hand he ground my hips down, back and forth.
“it is time,” Osric said, “for the Seeking.”
My heart began to beat faster.
I tried to remember what my deprogrammer had said.
It’s not real
The Allfather isn’t really there
But he also said a lot of things that weren’t true. Like
Your brother can’t find you now
As twilight streaked across the sky and Osric spread his feet on the ground, I felt a shiver of fear all along my spine.
He began the Seeking by pounding with both hands on the gnarled old table, and I felt goosebumps raise on my skin as the rest of the Congregants joined in, beating hands and feet in a rhythmic, harsh symphony.
My brother began to stomp too, rising on the balls of his feet to slam his big shitkicker boots down on the ground in unison with the other men.
The rhythm began to vibrate through my body, angling up my back, tingling up my spine until my whole body felt alive with the power.
Both of my brother’s hands were on my hips now as his strong voice rose in the chants. I risked a little glance back at him as his voice moved into the harsh, guttural holy tongue, his throat working.
He looked wild, untamed, the veins standing out in his arms with how tight he gripped me.
I felt a trickle of sweat drip down my lower back and hastily looked forward.
His movements on my hips were steady and rhythmic too, the motions forcing my wet cunt in a slow, deliberate drag over his hard thigh.
Panic sliced through me as I realized what was buzzing and growing in my cunt was
Arousal
Deep and low, dirty and wrong
No!
But trying to wiggle away only ground my cunt deeper, and now my cunt was wet for another reason, my own slick heat pooling on his work pants. My pussy lips felt engorged, the pressure on my clit dragging me to the precipice of a shattering orgasm, then his hands pulling me back again.
I tightened my lips so he didn’t know what he was doing to me.
But then I felt his length pressing on my bare thigh, his heavy naked cock hard again, balls thick with need for me.
I felt flushed, heated with hated desire.
I wanted to come
In the cities this would have been unthinkable.
Out here, what my brother wanted he got .
His deep chanting began to be punctuated with deep groans and grunts, not bothering to hide what he was doing, the depraved wrong desire he had for me as he thrust his cock against my thigh over and over, still in time with that hypnotic, earth-deep beat. I felt bound to the earth, bound to Rhyder, swept up in terrifying power and obsession, my arms frozen at my sides.
“Who dares to know the Allfather’s will?” Osric called out, and Rhyder leaned up, pressing his chest against my back so his voice vibrated my ribs.
“I do,” he called out, and the Congregations responded.
Seek and destroy
Seek and know
The strong will win
The weak fall
Reveal to us your will, O Allfather
My lips mouthed his name, but what was I going to say?
That despite everything I still felt a frisson of fear every time he got up to fight?
Asked why I couldn’t even choose to have my own orgasm on my own time, instead of it being forced out of me?
There was a rustling awareness, a shifting as men began to get ready to head to the clearing in front of the long table.
Rhyder would get up soon to complete the Seeking.
If only I could hold out that long.
But I couldn’t.
The air was heavy with the throb and thump around me, the rhythmic chants and motions making my whole body buzz as I rode my brother’s leg.
Allfather, I couldn’t make any noise!
I gripped his thigh, feeling the thick bands of muscle there as my pussy ran slick with liquid heat, and I suddenly felt my brother shake beside me, the heavy length of his cock twitch as he came, the fierce warmth of his cock like a burning brand as he shot jets of cum all over my thighs.
And the tightening deep inside me suddenly twisted with a gut-wrenching pulse, and I came too, a blazing liquid release, my arms shaking as I tried to control my voice, biting down so hard on my lip that I tasted blood.
Rhyder was still coming, his hand tight in my hair, his lips on my throat and my body shaking underneath him.
I couldn’t help one loud gasp as my tremors subsided, my hips shaking and my stomach fluttering, my clit still pulsing over the rough fabric.
My hands felt sticky and warm, my brother’s pants leg soaked with my cum and his.
Did he know what had happened?
I shuddered to think.
“I love you,” he growled in my ear, and I felt his chest heaving behind me as he slipped an arm around my waist. “So much.”
I shivered under the terrifying power of my brother’s love.
Then I heard a gong and my brother set me gently down, his hand between my breasts, stealing, plundering a moment of sweetness because he could, then he strode into the center of the clearing where the other men were already heading, grabbing one of the ceremonial staffs as he did.
The ritual was simple. Since there was disagreement amongst the Congregations, Eli as the Enforcer would choose a warrior. And if that warrior could defeat all the other warriors, Eli’s Congregation would prevail, and the others would have to follow.
I could see how my Congregation had grown in strength and power since I had been taken, imposing their will on the other smaller Congregations.
Rhyder was driving their success at every Seeking.
I clutched the sides of my chairs as the clearing fell into darkness, the familiar wet thuds of my twin’s triumph echoing in my ears, making me feel dizzy.
When the fighting was over, there was only one man left standing in the clearing: his shirt slick with sweat, but not a mark on him as he stood broad-shouldered and big in the center.
Rhyder