Chapter 15
I t was almost high noon outside when I finally woke up.
In my exhaustion, I had slept for almost 14 hours.
The other side of the bed felt warm, but Rhyder wasn’t there.
I rolled out of bed, feeling stiff and achy and sore all over, a thick, sticky trail of my brother’s cum running down my leg.
My hand landed on something cool and crinkly, and I looked down to see a little gathered pile of winter cranberries on a piece of paper.
Another of Rhyder’s offerings
I wanted to throw them out the window after he had insisted I was his wife last night, but my stomach was growling, so I popped one in my mouth instead. Sweet, tart, Rhyder must have climbed up to the peaks to get them.
The house we had shared was a small but sturdy wooden structure with only three rooms. There was a living room with a couch, Rhyder’s work bench, and my work bench. Mine had been used for sewing and mending clothes, making blankets, and I ran my finger down the warm cream-colored wood.
Not a speck of dust on it. Rhyder had kept it cleaned and ready for me.
There was a bedroom, small bathroom with a shower, and a kitchen with a two-person table.
My fingers ran down the faded Yule paper stars in the window. It had been ten days after Yule when I was taken. My brother had kept them up, preserved and waiting for my return.
Walking into the kitchen, I saw that he had left five hard-boiled eggs, a crusty loaf of bread with butter, and a pitcher of cool water on the counter.
Five boiled eggs?
Apparently this was what my colossal brother ate for breakfast.
I took one singular egg and a slice of bread and butter and moved around the kitchen.
It was so familiar. In fact, it looked like barely anything had been changed.
There was something covered on the counter and I twitched the cloth off to see. . .a loaf of bread.
And not just any loaf. A loaf made in the cast-iron that had been my mother’s. The same loaf that had been cooling on the rack when I had run outside to see what that noise was. Six years ago.
Rhyder hadn’t moved it.
I looked closer, startled to see what looked like dark, deep-red smears all over the bread.
Fuck, was that blood?
My hands suddenly began trembling uncontrollably, and I covered the bread up and began to back away, but my eyes couldn’t help noticing things.
In fact, there were little smears of blood all over the house, streaks on the edge of the table, high on the fridge, even on the door handle.
What the fuck had Rhyder been doing?
I stumbled to the door, and suddenly my brother was there, his big frame filling the entrance.
"Did you get enough to eat?” he asked, his eyes warm.
No one who knew my brother only as a religious zealot and inflexible Holy Warrior would ever guess that his eyes could look so warm, that a smile could curve up on the harsh handsome planes of his face.
When I said I had, he bent down to kiss me.
“Let me take you around,” he said. “Show you the new boundaries of our lands. We’ve expanded.”
I felt eyes on me as Rhyder guided me through the camp, his hand tight and affectionate.
But the preparations for Holy War only filled me with uncertainty and fear.
After my brother had shown me around the camp, now over two or three times as big it had been, with two or three smaller Congregations conquered and absorbed, the Enforcer came up to him.
“Rhyder, you are needed to go over strategy,” Eli said. “As for you,” and he looked like he didn’t even want to say my name. “Go find Generosity. No idle hands.”
I nodded, and turned to go, but Rhyder’s warm palm was on my neck, turning me around to touch both my shoulders, touch his forehead to mine.
“ Blessed be ,” he said. “Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts together.”
“B-blessed be,” I stammered in response, feeling conspicuous and afraid.
And I felt Eli’s eyes on me as I left, cold angry disapproval scraping down my spine.
As I walked over to where a group of women stood preparing root vegetables, my insides twisted with nerves. I wasn’t used to the contemptuous glances, the loathing.
Growing up, our Congregation had not been strong enough to do regular runs into the cities to get concubines.
But as a whore, I had the lowest status in the camp.
There were only two other women who had made it through the Reaping and the other Congregation’s attack, and they would stay in a smaller house at the edge of the ring of wooden houses, watched over by an older widow named Aunt Piety, who monitored them.
But you could tell it was Elder Eli’s wife Generosity who was in control of all the women in the settlement, both Helpmeets and Whores.
I remembered her very well, a tall, beautiful woman a few years older than I was, thick brunette hair, lustrous dark eyes, and a bold red mouth. Her headscarf looked new and finely-made, a silky scarlet red that showed off the fine natural color of her mouth to perfection.
Back in the cities, my friends would have fucking killed to look like Generosity did without any makeup.
I remembered, too, very well, that she had always had a crush on my brother.
For as long as I could remember.
Her lustrous eyes always lingering on him as he came back from hunting or toiled in the heat, his T-shirt stuck to his powerful body.
But Rhyder never looked to the right or left.
Only at me.
“You smell like whore,” she said when she saw me, raking her eyes in disgust across my face, her nose wrinkled in disgust.
I said nothing. Generosity had all the power and I had none.
She suddenly reached forward, and yanked my gray shift down in front of the other Helpmeets, exposing one of my breasts to the chill.
“Tiny,” she said dismissively, giving my nipple a hard and painful pinch. “How would you ever expect to feed babies? These are sad.”
She gave the underside of my breast a quick, sharp slap.
I sucked in my breath to swallow the pain.
“Yes, Mistress,” I replied.
“You were always a little slut, weren’t you?” she hissed. “Just dying for your brother to notice you.”
I bit back a bitter reply. On the contrary, I had tried everything to turn Rhyder’s improper attention away from me. None of it worked.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said again, one of my hands clutching my plain gray garb.
“You’ll wash the soiled clothes free of shit and blood,” Generosity said, pointing at several heavy baskets full. “Don’t be lazy either. Laziness is not tolerated in whores.”
Norah and I were sent over to do the heavy washing down at the stream, the frigid waters ice-cold.
There seemed like an endless amount of laundry, many of the items heavily soiled and needing to be washed repeatedly with the lye soap.
“What would you do if you could get out of here?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I know I’d finally admit how I feel to William.”
My arms ached from the laundry when we all gathered in the center of camp for the Body and Blood ceremony.
Eli passed by me without a glance.
“Open your mouth to receive the Body and Blood, Holy Warrior.”
I felt Rhyder’s anger like a slow-rolling fire.
No Body for me
No Blood for me
None of the savory bread, none of the soursweet wine. I was only a whore now.
Rhyder took a bite of the bread, then a sip of the wine.
And my brother turned to me and put a hand on my jaw, popping my mouth open.
Then he bent over and spit the holy matter into my mouth, making goosebumps break out all over my skin.
Not just the crumbs that were usually given to the Helpmeets.
The full Body and Blood
Mixed with his own, spit into my mouth.
A sign that I was worthy , I was righteous . I was blessed.
It was the highest taboo, and I almost choked as I swallowed it down.
No one said anything.
The Body and Blood was yours to distribute as you wished. The taboo Rhyder had broken meant that he saw me as equally worthy.
What would this lead to?
*
I WAS EXHAUSTED WHEN I felt into bed that night.
My brain whirled with sensations. Generosity’s open hostility and violence, the disgusted, angry looks of the Congregation.
Eli’s face when Rhyder had spit the Body and Blood into my mouth.
The Prophet’s measuring look at me.
They did not like his regard for me
They mistrusted it
Feared it might make him less obedient
How far would they go to ensure the Congregation’s control over him?
It wasn’t long until I heard my brother’s footfalls, surprisingly quiet for a man of his huge stature.
The room was pitch-black with only a sliver of moonlight and I closed my eyes tightly, pretending to be asleep.
Through my slitted lids, I saw my brother slowly pull off his shirt and lay it carefully on a chair. Then his hands moved to his belt buckle and I tried to relax my body, still my breathing, even if my heart stuttered in my chest.
He slid into the bed, putting a massive hand on my belly and pulling me against his chest.
“I know you aren’t asleep,” he said, a laugh in his voice. “How are you doing?”
I didn’t want to say anything, but with his warm legs on mine, the width of his broad chest, and his fingers tight on my body I knew it was pointless to pretend.
“I feel. . . overwhelmed.”
Was it better or worse to tell Rhyder about the resentment and hatred I felt toward me in the Congregation?
“Why didn’t you climb for a Helpmeet while I was gone?” I asked, thinking about the naked envy and rage I saw on the faces of the women.
His hand stilled, then tightened on me.
“Don’t you see? There has never been anyone but you for me. It was you, sister, you or a lifetime of celibacy.”
“Did the Prophet never order you to climb for a woman?” I asked, feeling a little trickle of pride.
Automatically, I squashed it.
Pride was a sin.
But I paused, casting my mind back over all those years. Driving down any pride in my brother’s obsession was as automatic as a breath to me. But how many times had I driven it down? How many times did that flicker of pride still flare, still burning quick and bright that I was the one he was fixated one, I was the only one he had eyes for?
“Any order to climb for you would be from the Devil,” Rhyder said in a tight voice.
I felt violence gathering on my tongue.
Rhyder was dangerous when tested.
What if they tested him?
“You were made for me by the Allfather and I never want to be apart from you for even an hour ever again,” my brother said, and my worries about the Congregation vanished as he bent to my bared throat, his hand snaking up between my breasts to raise my chin for better access.
“ Rhyder, ” I said, my nipples tightening at the feel of his muscular arm on my soft skin, the no and the yes mixing on my tongue until I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
But he only flipped me on my back and rolled over with a lithe motion until he was between my thighs.
“ Yes , sister. Your body is mine. I know the secret to your sweet little sounds now.”
And he suddenly bent his head until his tongue licked up my wet slit, swirling around my clit.
I was embarrassingly, shamefully wet for him as he circled my clit, stroking my pussy lips with the rough tips of his fingers, pulling them apart to devour my swelling clit.
“Oh Allfather, you taste so good,” he groaned, his beard rubbing my sensitive skin, my thighs already trembling with how fast he brought me to the brink.
“Rhyder. . . slow down,” I gasped inarticulately, my hand in his thick unbound hair.
The same color as mine, I thought as the moonlight shone in through the window. A rich, deep gold.
“ No ,” he said, his hands tightening on me, bringing my hips up so he could devour me fully trapped.
“I want your sweet release now. And then I want another one.”
I felt the morality slip away from me as my hand pulled at his hair, urging him wordlessly to continue.