Chapter 10
T he next morning, I opened eyes that had crusted over from tears.
For a moment, I felt like something was wrong but wasn’t sure what it was, and when I rolled over, I felt cold and lost somehow.
Then I realized with a stab of fury that the feeling had been because Rhyder wasn’t here beside me, his big warm body pressed against mine, his arm pulling me close against him until I had slept, warm and cocooned.
Oh, he was not going to get around me this time like he always had: smothering me, drowning me in his love until I relented.
When I sat up, trying to comb the tangles out of my hair with my fingers, the tent flap opened and Rhyder came in, carrying a bowl full of what looked like hot steaming porridge.
“Good morning,” he said.
His eyes watched me carefully as I took the bowl and he knelt down to fold his big body to be level with mine as I began to eat hungrily.
“Let me brush your hair,” he said, his hand stroking my tangled curls.
“Rhyder, don’t—” I said, feeling something rise and almost choke me in my throat.
Oh, here he went again.
Always when we were younger when I would get frightened sometimes by the depths of his devotion, the dark possession, he’d do this.
His offerings.
The gifts that throbbed with a hard undercurrent of dark need.
So I didn’t protest when he began to carefully brush my tangled hair, sponge me off, lay out a toothbrush and toothpaste for me.
But I didn’t respond either.
The Seeking had been successful, and the Congregations there left in groups, a few dozen at a time, united through my brother’s dominance in a pact to wipe Ronan’s Congregation from the face of the earth.
“Let’s go,” Eli said. “We still have to perform the Reaping, and there are a few more Congregations to visit. We want our army as big as possible.”
The Reaping
I had heard of this ritual growing up, but never knew what it was, only that it was supposed to ensure only the fittest whores were allowed back in the camp to service the Congregants.
Back on the bike with my brother, my arms and legs carefully sponged of the physical evidence of his depravity, but he hadn’t scrubbed me clean.
Because I could feel it still, feel his obsession. My hips ached, bloomed with deep bruises where he had held me so tightly, my mouth and cunt still stinging from how hard he had taken me.
We skirted the boundaries of Ronan’s Congregation as the motorcycles slowed down, the miles of dangerous electric fencing humming in the February sun.
“The Garden,” Rhyder said. “Soon it’ll fall. I can’t wait to give you the land, sister.”
He nestled his chin in the crook of my neck, his rough beard scraping at my skin.
“I bet you still recognize the birds,” he said, his mouth full of my flesh.
They wheeled across the sky, dark and bright red shapes.
Of course I did
My brother did not like to be apart, ever, and he often took me hunting, glorying in how quick I was to spot birds, how many names I knew. Now that I had been in the cities I knew that these weren’t the proper names for them, but they all still came back to me. . .scarlet prayer warrior, black devil’s wing, Methuselah’s raptor.
I still knew their names
But again I didn’t give him the satisfaction of my reminiscence, and we rode throughout the day, snacking on dried meat and fruit and keeping Ronan’s lands to the right, only deviating once the sun began to slant downward.
I didn’t recognize where we were as the women began to be herded into a circle in the center of a clearing. I took my place beside the other women and Rhyder went with the men beyond where I could see into the woods.
We huddled together.
“What do you think they mean to do to us?” Norah asked. She was trembling almost uncontrollably.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I know I won’t survive,” she cried, her voice breaking. “I’m not strong. I feel like I’m on the edge of going completely mad with fear and doing something so stupid they’ll catch and kill me.”
“What’s the name of that man who came to show the drones?” I asked in a low voice. “It’s obvious you two have a history. Do you think he might ever take you away if you could escape?”
“Yes,” she said. “And his name is William. We had the same major in college. We were friends, and he was definitely interested, but I was too shy to respond or give him any encouragement. Stupid, isn’t it?” she asked. “Seems like such a stupid thing to be worried about when I’m literally here as a captured whore.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid,” I said.
“We could try to run,” one pretty woman with bright yellow braids who looked about 20 or 21 said.
“And get our throats slit?” Norah responded sourly.
“Maybe it’s better than what they’ll do to us.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Where would we run?” I asked. “We are a long way from the main road.”
And if we got scooped up by other Congregants they wouldn’t be kinder
“What are you complaining about?” the braided woman spat at me. “ You aren’t going to be fucked by a bunch of them at once. Everyone knows that big blonde one won’t let anyone else near you.”
I felt a curious twist in my gut, a mix of instinctive revulsion that it was my brother who was so sexually obsessed with me, and a little flip of sinful low pride.
Yes, it was a sin.
It was a sin to have come on his leg, it was a sin anytime I had ever looked at Rhyder, looked at the broad span of his shoulders, the way his face frowned in concentration when he read evening devotions, the way his work pants rode low on his hips.
It was certainly a sin when at 18 I had seen him climb up on the bank after fishing in the stream, seen the outline of his thick cock as his pants were plastered to the strong lines of his body.
The little pull I felt in my cunt was just one of the reasons I was so fucked up.
The sun dipped below the horizon as the Enforcer entered the clearing, holding a pile of wooden stakes and chains.
I was filled with a nameless terror, all the more powerful because I didn’t know what the ceremony would entail.
“Remove your whore’s garb,” Eli intoned, circling us.
Some of the other women hesitated, but I knew no good could come of delaying, and immediately my hands went to my bedraggled red dress.
Only a few days ago I had put it on, hoping my boyfriend would like it.
Now Craig was dead or mutilated, savagely attacked by my unstable jealous brother, and the party dress was hanging from my body, the sleeves ragged and cut, my brother’s releases and mine streaked up and down the skirt.
I shivered as the dress fell to the ground around my ankles, my nipples peaking with the fear and chill.
Eli lit a torch and walked around our naked bodies, chanting
O Allfather
We seek to take these whores into our camp
So they may be used for the slaking of our lust
Purify them with fire and holy matter
Let only the strongest survive
As he walked in a circle, he turned the torch inward, walking closer and closer until the flames were turned on our backs.
The women who cried out in pain were cut, low in their calves and ankles.
Purge
Purge it out
Purge
Purge it out
I said nothing, even though the flames licked painfully at my back.
Then each woman was lined up in a row and shoved to our knees, our hands gripped roughly and tied with chains to stakes behind us.
I heard soft cries of pain and shock, but I stayed quiet. It didn’t help to cry. They didn’t care if we cried.
Trembling, I waited, the cool air swirling around my nipples, my thighs open, knees dug into the ground.
If we didn’t sit properly, Eli came around, yanking our heels back and tying our arms tighter so our faces were raised to the sky.
Then my head was jerked up roughly and a drink poured down my throat, the taste sickly-sweet, thick and syrupy.
Eli yanked painfully on my hair, forcing me to look at him as he got closer, his yellowed mouth parting as he examined me.
I didn’t know what it was but it couldn’t be anything good. I would’ve tried to throw it up but my hands were tied so I couldn’t.
“ You are a bad omen. Allfather willing, Rhyder will have so much he’ll kill you.”
So much what? I wanted to scream, the chains slack as I fought not to struggle against them.
I glanced behind me. The woods were dark here, the trees gnarled and grown together, only a few feet away from where we were all bound and chained.
Anything could be out there. The drink tasted thick in my mouth, making my tongue feel fuzzy and strange.
Eli chanted again.
Cleanse these whores
Make their filthy cunts safe
So we may take them into the most holy places of our land
Without fear
Then Eli himself disappeared into the woods and the smoke started, first with silvery gossamer tendrils, then rolling in great gray pillows, then finally blanketing the dark clearing.
It smelled strong, thick, sickly-sweet.
Incense .
Drums began to beat, at first low and staccato, then louder.
My heart began to pound with fear as Congregants entered the clearing one by one to the heavy, throbbing beat of the drums.
Men began to emerge through the smoke, incense-soaked, some still exhaling the pungent herbs through nose and throat.
I finally gave in and tugged desperately at my chains.
What did Eli mean that he hoped Rhyder would kill me?
Maybe they would loosen. Maybe I could escape.
But all it did was rub my bare wrists raw.
I didn’t see Rhyder anywhere.
The drink began to affect me as I saw dark, unearthly specters curling from the smoke, huge molten eyes seeming to leer at me. I felt tied to the earth itself, spiraling power from the dirt and trees running up my thighs, setting my cunt on fire.
One of the Congregants came to the woman beside me, jerking her head roughly up and fumbling in his pants for his cock.
When she squeaked in distress, he slapped her across the face and started to jerk off on her.
Another man came over and started doing the same thing, then he drew his knife and ran it down her back.
Purge the blood
Purge the blood
Purge the blood
The incense willow-‘o’-the-wisped between us, briefly hiding them from view, then clearing to show me another man over her as they covered her with cum,
“ O Allfather, save us from the uncleanliness of this whore ,” they chanted together, hands frantically jerking at their cocks.
A man I didn’t recognize stood in front of me.
He was tall and thin, and his face looked unfocused, the knife unsteady in his hand.
“Let’s see if this one survives.”
What was he on?
Another man came over, staggering almost, his eyes looking glazed and unfocused too.
They began to fight in front of me, loud, sloppy smacks on each other.
I trembled as I knelt on the ground.
Then suddenly I saw a pair of very big black shitkickers stop right in front of me.
Rhyder
My heart leapt with a mixture of relief and sick fear.
“How many people do you want me to kill today, Temperance? Because I will do it. As many as you want.”
My brother’s pupils were blown, but because he was so big the dosage hadn’t affected him like it did the other men.
His lips were moving in a prayer, and he knelt down closer to my level.
What did he plan to do with me?
A heavy cloud of smoke wisped over us, briefly hiding my brother’s face from me, and his big hand moved for me, closing around my chin and throat, holding me steady.
The smoke swept by and I saw him kneeling in front of me, the pupils blown but his eyes still focused.
In the years since I had been taken, I had wondered what Rhyder looked like now, how he’d changed.
He hadn’t changed at all. His beard was thicker, his blonde hair longer, his broad shoulders even wider and more intimidating.
But he still looked at me with that unnerving, all-consuming obsession, and I could only tremble and wait under it.
Rhyder bent and spit on my forehead, holding my chin so I couldn’t move as the liquid ran down my nose, falling onto my chin.
“In the name of the Holy One, Ever-Faithful, Rod of Judgment, Merciless, Soulcrusher,” Rhyder chanted, but the chill of fear I always felt at his mania was dulled by my drink, by the incense in the air all around us.
Instead, my skin seemed to heat as he spit on me, his saliva feeling like the only thing that cooled my inflamed skin.
“ Let my righteousness cover her,” Rhyder prayed.
My tongue felt too thick to speak.
My brother stood to his full height and I stared up open-mouthed as he took his cock from his pants.
“Eyes on me,” he said. “I’m your master now.”
The smoke seemed to swirl sinuously around us, as I watched his thick cock above my head. He stroked it up and down, his hand moving from base to tip as I felt drool pool in my mouth.
His cock seemed to glow with an unearthly seraphic light, each thick vein pulsating and full, each one sending a throb to my own cunt.
It seemed to sing to me, call to me, his cock was a wicked temptation, and it was wrong for me to watch as the slick ran down my legs with need.
I was tied so tight that I couldn’t have escaped even if I had been strong enough to, and I only watched him with my eyes feeling like they burned in my head.
Rhyder was speaking the words so fast that I could barely distinguish each one in my incense-haze, his hand a rhythmic pump over his dick.
His eyes closed for a moment only and then they were back, zeroed in on mine, lips moving as the blood surged in my ears. I felt my blood moving through my body, felt each individual droplet merge with the next to fill my limbs.
My blood was as complicit as me , I thought as my core heated so that it was a burning heavy ache, my heart pounding in a heavy pulse through my cunt.
I couldn’t look away as I saw precum on the tip of his cock, drool beginning to pool unwillingly in my mouth and drip down my chin.
I opened my mouth wider, drool spilling out as I licked my lips and he released on me.
The ropes of his cum seemed to be suspended in the air in my heightened state, almost a glow to them, like they were fucking possessed or maybe even blessed by the strange savage powers of the Allfather.
They landed on my hair and face like thick, cool velvet, with one sliding down my cheek and into a corner of my mouth.
It seeped inside my parted lips, falling inside my mouth, tasting like heat and a summer thunderstorm and sitting on my tongue like a little cumulonimbus cloud. My tongue felt heavy as I moved the cum down to my throat.
I wanted to swallow him down, ingest the deep wicked wrongness of my brother’s come.
What would he feel like in my belly? Would he burn a hole through me or expand and fill me, splitting me open from the inside-out?
I licked my lips, tasting him there still, and my skin felt on fire, my cunt inflamed, slick wetness soaking my thighs, down to my ankles.
Then Rhyder was bending over me, breaking into the chains that bound me. I felt light as air as he released me, like I could float off into the ether.
“Aren’t you supposed to keep me tied up until the ceremony is over?” I said, my tongue feeling thick and woolly in my mouth.
“You shouldn’t be tied up at all,” he said. “There’s no test you need to pass. You’re going to be my wife no matter what.”
He put a hand under my ass and pressed me up against the big wooden post. It was just us in these heavy incense-clouds, just us and the magnetic charge that seemed to pull us together despite how wrong it was.
His dick was hard already, but it seemed natural this time to spread my naked thighs, raise my hips up as he began to press into my entrance, the big head of his cock splitting my wet pussy lips.
And when his mouth descended on mine, it seemed natural to open for him, meet his kiss, pant for him.
My brother groaned, his tongue plunging into my mouth, tangling with mine, eager and possessive. We seemed to melt together, the smoke wrapping around us so that no one could see how his hands dug into my scalp, wrapped around me, how my nipples were diamond-hard.
Rhyder was trying this time to go slowly, cupping one breast, then the other in his hand, fighting whatever they had given the men to make them into little better than slobbering beasts.
But I was powerless against the effects of the incense, and I gripped his big arms and ground down on his cock, forcing my cunt over the thick length, my legs gripping him tight around the waist, fingers clutching him, wanting to feel his skin under my fingernails.
“Temperance, shit!” Rhyder growled in my air. “You’re going to make me lose control.”
But I didn’t care, gasping with the effort, rocking my hips back and forth over half of his cock. The drug seemed to drive me, and I felt a heavy, raw urgency.
I needed all of him in me, every thick, heavy inch of him.
“Temperance—” Rhyder began, his voice sounding rough, and I bent to his ear.
“ Harder”
It was only one word, but it broke my brother’s self-control.
With a feral low grunt, he snapped his hips forward and buried his cock to the hilt.
I cried loudly as my entire core burned with his size, my pussy lips stretched pink and wide as he began to take me roughly, jerking in and out as he covered my mouth with his.
And I wanted it, all of it.
There was a tiny part of my mind that was screaming at me that this was wrong, but the heady rolling urgency of the ceremonial drug swamped it.
His cock pinned me against the wooden post, and I felt Rhyder descend to my throat, licking and sucking hard, drawing my skin into his mouth.
“You don’t know how long,” he groaned as his words wreathed around my head, imprinted on my flesh. “How long I’ve wanted this. How many times I couldn’t concentrate in meetings while you were gone. How many times during Body and Blood I had to leave and touch my cock because you weren’t beside me.”
His words inflamed me, even the bonedeep wrongness of him thinking of me during Body and Blood.
I needed more
More of my brother
My neck and back felt slick with sweat as my nails dragged down his body, my cunt tightening, my clit swollen with desire.
“ More ,” I cried, feeling half-mad with need and Rhyder thrust even harder, his fat cock engorged and hitting every inch of me.
“Always,” he promised, as he ground me against the post. “I will always give you more, Temperance.”
And I came with a loud groan, my body tensing and releasing in delicious lengthy waves.
I gasped with the pure, exquisite pleasure of it, stars exploding in my eyes like pink cotton candy, like soft sweet tendrils all over my body.
My release triggered his, and he was so big I felt each twitch and pulsation as he pumped heat into me.
“I love you,” Rhyder was saying over and over, his mouth so hungry for mine.
My lips felt swollen but I was drunk, drugged, weightless in his arms.
He smelled like that familiar leather and heat and work, and even the sick spiral of the incense didn’t stop me.
My hands were on his shoulders, the muscles feeling like velvet, the tips of my fingers burning up as they stroked his skin, slipping under the collar of his T-shirt to twine around his neck.
And oh Allfather, he wanted me to touch him so badly.
I felt my core begin to ripen again, the incense tendrils wreathing around our heads, hiding us from sight, Rhyder’s cock barely softening before it was hard again.
The long lines of his tattoos seemed to loosen from his body and spiral around my head. Some were verses from the Holy Writ but I saw others were my name, or two hearts, and I felt my own heartbeat pound through them, each pulse strengthening my brother’s unholy obsession.
The world was liquid, it wasn’t raining, but I still felt drops on my skin, a cool glide down my thighs.
And it seemed like my orgasm was endless, wave after wave breaking over me as I tasted my brother’s name in my mouth. Was I saying his name or only thinking it? He tasted like raw heat, a thread of hot, roaring blood. I thought I could feel his spit and blood inside me, feeding a strange beast until I was kissing him back as hard as he was kissing me, my arms around his neck, my hands in his hair, pulling on the leather strap that always held it back.
Surely it was someone else moaning his name, someone else’s cunt convulsing
But it wasn’t
It was me
Rhyder’s cock was unending. Was he simply always hard?
His release felt slick and wet on my thighs; I felt it drip back into my ass as he drove into me over and over again.
I gasped as my cunt convulsed around his cock, and Rhyder was still hard even as I hit my peak again. And again.
Strange figures seemed to swirl out of the smoke, blackened hands reaching for me as my cunt squeezed so tight I wondered if I’d die right here in the woods, wrung full of Rhyder.
Then my brother jerked around with a choked oath, and I felt his blood spatter my face as the claw of a huge bear slashed at his shoulder.