Chapter 17
I felt fear like a sticky raw heat all over my skin.
“He shouldn’t have to be burdened with a useless cunt like you,” Generosity hissed.
Anger flared through me, anger I knew better than to indulge in, but I couldn’t help replying to her instead of standing submissively with my head down as I ought to have.
“Don’t push Rhyder,” I whispered, my throat feeling dry. “You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I’m not his Helpmeet,” Generosity said contemptuously. “Only my husband is permitted to punish me. But you are a whore under my control and I can punish you how I like.”
“Don’t—” I began. “Rhyder wouldn’t like that—he—”
But she stopped me with a quick slap to my face, making my teeth chatter in my head.
“Stop talking, cunt.”
Then with a swish of her skirts, she was gone.
For several moments, I leaned against the building, holding my throbbing cheek.
What would my brother do when he found out?
He couldn’t find out!
I was not Rhyder’s Helpmeet. Officially, I was no more than a camp whore, and she as Enforcer’s Wife could punish me any way she chose. Even kill me.
Was that what she planned for me?
I hurried home, trembling, to put a cold cut of meat on my face, and luckily it seemed to work to decrease the swelling.
Rhyder came home later, excited about the progress against Ronan, reporting that they had sent different groups of Congregants to attempt to cut or damage more segments of the strong electrical fences that surrounded his Congregation.
“You have to promise me one thing,” he said later in bed.
“What?” I asked sleepily.
I didn’t want to admit to myself how fucking my brother was the only thing that distracted me from my terror about what would happen to me now that he had shown his love and devotion to the entire Congregation.
Rhyder couldn’t save me from Generosity . According to the Holy Writ, she had every right to punish me.
“Promise me you won’t leave the house on the night of the Bloodmoon Ritual.”
I rolled over sideways, causing Rhyder to groan as he stroked down the curve of my waist and hips.
“Why?”
“Promise me. It’s not safe, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“How is it not safe?”
“Promise me,” he growled, his fingers biting into the soft skin of my hips.
“OK, godsdamn, Rhyder. All right, all right.”
His fingers dug in like a bruise.
“I promise.”
Only then did he relax, but just barely, and his release was still wet and sticky on my thighs, when he flipped me over on top of him, moving my hips over his cock with hypnotic drugging waves.
I was filled with trepidation going into the next Spiritual Guidance session.
This time, the Prophet did not say anything to Rhyder about me, and my brother’s hand rested on my neck. Big. Warm. Comforting.
It didn’t happen until the end of the session.
“And now,” Eli said. “Helpmeet Generosity, do you have any discipline to enforce among the Congregation’s whores?”
She looked stunning, wearing a long petal pink dress and a delicate pink headscarf shot with silver to match.
“Behavior has been as expected for a group of sluts whose only purpose is as a warm cunt,” she said dismissively. “But there is one whore who unfortunately deserves public discipline this week.”
Since I was standing next to my brother, it was hard not to see how his lips immediately tightened at this, his face hardening at the words.
Sweat began to run down my back and sides and I desperately wanted to adjust my headscarf, but I was too afraid of drawing attention to myself.
For one moment, I was stupidly hopeful that the ceremony would pass without incident.
Then she spoke again.
“ Temperance .”
The world stopped moving for a moment, the slightly restless polite attention to the Enforcement turning suddenly sharper, more aware.
This time I couldn’t look at Rhyder, only feel the change in the air.
“What is her offense?” my brother grated out angrily.
“She looked at me with pride in her eyes,” Generosity said. “She should not do that. She is a whore here for men to fuck.”
“Come here, Temperance,” Eli said. “Holy Warrior, remove your hand. You know this is permitted according to Holy Writ.”
I couldn’t look at my twin, and I moved quickly, suddenly afraid he would object and refuse to let me go.
It was better to take whatever this punishment was and hope that was the end of it.
Although the day was cold, my chest felt prickly with heat, my hands slick with sweat as I walked up to Generosity. She was much taller and I was unprepared for how fast the first slap landed on my cheek, harsh and savage, knocking me down to my knees.
Shit.
I needed to stand up. As always, in the Congregation to be publicly weak was bad, very bad. If I couldn’t get up, other wives might start deciding to punish me, too. There might be other women who had wanted Rhyder, resented the fact that he had always been obsessed with his sister.
But she moved too fast, slapping me again before I could steady myself.
The blow rattled in my head, making the stark land swim around me.
For one horrible moment, I was afraid I would topple forward onto my face.
“Very good,” Eli said. “Whores should not look Helpmeets in the eye. They should be submissive at all times.
Generosity hit my ear, and this time I did stumble forward, only catching myself at the last minute from landing in the dirt.
I felt my face flush, not just with the pain of her hand, but the fear of shame.
I wondered how many people were looking at my brother.
Their gazes seemed hungry.
There was a hungry vengeance in their cold, dead eyes.
How many people were using this to try to punish Rhyder? Eli certainly, and Generosity. But did this go all the way up to the Prophet?
What was my brother thinking now? Was he ashamed of how weak I was?
I had taken punishments before all right, hadn’t I? I was meek and a rule-follower, but it had happened. He hadn’t been angry at me then. But I had been able to stand on two feet and bear it. This time, I had fallen down.
Shame suffused me as blood dribbled down my chin from a cut on my lip.
I heard my brother shift, the old leather of his jacket creaking. Absolute silence was required for all weekly punishments, but I could have sworn I heard his breathing too, the way it rattled harshly in his chest.
As my vision briefly cleared, I saw that he was gripping his flesh so hard there were deep gouges in his arms. His eyes blazed at me. Was he angry?
Get up I screamed at myself.
Lurching hard, I finally staggered to my feet, and I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my baggy dress to hid how they trembled.
Generosity looked at me, her eyes glittering, and slapped me once more across the face, the blow splitting my lip again.
This wouldn’t end here
Maybe not today, maybe not the next time
But they wouldn’t stop until they killed me
“You may go back to your place,” she said, her voice echoing in the silence.
Without looking at my brother, I went back to my place beside him, trying to walk slowly, one foot in front of the other, so I wouldn’t stumble.
“This week’s discipline has been concluded,” Eli said, and there was low triumph in his voice, the way his long yellow teeth met as he smiled.
“ Not yet ,” Rhyder said.
There was a sudden stillness, a wary awareness in the Congregation.
“I claim the right to a Testing,” Rhyder said.
I felt my skin vibrate, awareness of Rhyder’s rage slid along my skin like a deadly serpent. Fast and deadly.
Eli glanced over at the Prophet uneasily.
Testing was a way to settle disagreements between men in the Congregation. Any Congregant could claim the right to test another to see what the Allfather’s will was.
To refuse a Testing was a source of great shame.
A Testing meant 12 minutes in the center of a circle with Rhyder.
12 minutes for each of the 12 warriors the Allfather killed the moment he came of age.
12 minutes during which no one was supposed to intervene.
12 minutes for the Allfather to show his will.
“What is the issue, Rhyder?” the Prophet asked, stroking his beard.
“I do not want Temperance punished like that.”
The Prophet seemed to be waiting for something else, but there was nothing else.
Never had been for Rhyder.
“Punishment is necessary for all women,” the Prophet said, and the bitter bile rose in my throat again.
“She has done nothing wrong, Holy One,” Rhyder said through gritted teeth. “This was a mistake and the Testing will show that. I did not see any pride in her eyes.”
The breeze ruffled the sparse hairs on the Prophet’s head as he fixed his gaze on Rhyder.
“Brother Rhyder, she has been living in the cities. Sin clings to her like a foul miasma. She is unclean,” Eli put in.
But I saw how his eyes darted to the Prophet again.
“My righteousness covers her,” Rhyder said harshly, and I darted a glance over at him, noticing the way the muscles in his jaw stood out. “Do you doubt my devotion to the Allfather?”
There was another brief silence.
The Prophet said nothing.
“I claim the right to a testing with the Enforcer,” Rhyder said again, striding over to where the short, heavy cudgels laid outside the circle, always in readiness.
“Perhaps you are right, Brother Rhyder,” Eli said. “The whore punishments are taking up too much work time. They will be curtailed in future.”
There was silence. I heard the distant cawing of a crow, solitary and harsh.
Rhyder said nothing. Merely looked fixedly at Eli, a cudgel in each hand.
“I claim the right to a Testing,” he repeated.
I tasted blood and violence on my tongue.
Again, the Prophet said nothing.
My cheek and lip ached, the blood dripping down my chin and into the hollow of my neck.
“Keep your house in order,” Rhyder said harshly. “Temperance did nothing wrong. She doesn’t look at anyone with pride in her eyes. She is sweet and mild.”
I saw Eli dart a glance over at the Prophet.
“You heard the Holy Warrior,” the Prophet said. “Take up your cudgels.”
Generosity looked at me, and I saw a flash of white teeth as she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth.
But I didn’t look back at her.
I tried to warn you, I screamed internally as Rhyder and Eli began to circle each other.
I tried to warn her what would happen if Rhyder got pissed off.
If they didn’t realize how he felt about me, they did now.
It took all of two seconds for Rhyder’s powerful arm to shoot out, blasting past Eli’s defenses.
And the Enforcer’s rib broke with a sharp, unmistakable crack.
Rhyder was not fucking around.
This wasn’t a ceremonial scrap.
Rhyder was trying to hurt him.
Eli wasn’t a small man either, he was at least six feet tall and had a wide, muscular body. But my brother towered over him, both in height and the broad width of his shoulders and legs.
He wasn’t going quickly, either. Each blow came with slow, overpowering precision, the two men circling each other until Rhyder would strike.
I marveled at the way he was keeping his rage in check enough to injure Eli so methodically. Shattering his kneecap in a splintering crack that resounded through the dry clearing.
Moving to dislocate his shoulder.
Eli tried to block, strike back.
But it didn’t work.
Maybe I should have felt guilty about the way my nipples tightened under my robe at the sight of how Rhyder’s work pants hung low on his hips, the way his T-shirt stuck to his back, the strength of his arm. But I didn’t.
Eli tried to swing one of the heavy cudgels, his breathing heavy and painful.
But my brother sidestepped it easy, letting Eli overcorrect past him, then Rhyder elbowed him in the back, a precise, heavy strike that sent Eli crashing to the floor.
The Enforcer was on his hands and knees, retching blood on the ground, his injured right arm cradled against his body.
My brother didn’t give a shit, stomping his heavy boot down on Eli’s chest, and I heard the ribs crack like firewood.
“Stop!” the Prophet barked out, rising from his chair. “Stop this, Rhyder.”
My brother obeyed.
The Prophet’s face looked gray beneath his beard.
Because he now realized what I already knew.
Rhyder could not be reasoned with when it came to me.
“She will not be punished again,” Rhyder said. “The Testing has spoken.”
For a moment I felt the denial hover on the Prophet’s lips.
Then he said, “The Allfather is good.”
My brother’s face split wide in a smile, and he raised his arms to the heavens.
There was not a mark, not a scratch on him.
Who could stand against him?
“All the time,” he replied. “The Allfather is good.”
I saw Eli cradling his arm as he stood slowly up, and I knew he would not be telling Generosity to discipline me again.
My whole face ached, and I wanted to cry.
“Come, Temperance,” Rhyder said, and I turned and followed him.
When we got inside the house, my brother moving to the sink for a cool cloth to clean my injuries, I was shocked to realize that his big hands were shaking so hard it was difficult for him to grab the washcloth.
“I am so sorry, sister,” he said, pulling me into his lap on the sofa. “I don’t know why they did that. I don’t know how they could be so blind not to see that you’re the purest and best person ever to walk on this godsdamn wicked earth.”
When he had put salve on my injuries he pulled me back into his arms on the couch and I rested my head against his broad chest, his heart still pounding so wildly, pumping so crazily that I felt his fierce anger all through my body.
“Brother, they are never going to let you take me as your wife,” I whispered.
“Temperance, of course they will,” he said, his fingers gentle on my skin, pulling my headscarf carefully off so he could stroke my hair. “The Prophet knows your heart.”
I knew that was not true, but Rhyder had idolized and revered the Prophet for as long as I could remember. How could I convince him the Prophet wanted me dead?
“I am afraid,” he continued, “that someone in this Congregation ordered the raid and you to be taken. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m convinced it was Eli now.”
“Brother why do you love me?” I burst out, looking down at my small, weak body. There’s nothing remarkable about me. I’ve only ever been a liability.”
“Nothing remarkable about you?” Rhyder growled, his arms tightening around me. “I’ve told you your face and body drive me to distraction, Temperance. Your body is like Paradise to me. And you’re so clever, sister. The way you could always read so fast. You know I can’t read like you do.”
Of course he couldn’t. From such a young age he’d been set on the path to training as a Holy Warrior. Schooling and education had been the last thing the Congregation needed for him. The only important thing was that he obeyed commands.
“Want me to read to you?” I asked.
I had always used to read the Holy Writ to him in the evenings.
“Would you?” he asked eagerly. “I’d love that.”
And I took the thick, heavy book, flicking through the pages heavy and worn from Rhyder’s devotion, and I flipped to one of the least awful passages, the story of the End of the World Serpent, and how she had killed the Allfather’s enemies with her venomous fangs, how she had broken and then remade the world, over and over again, capricious, confident in her ability to break and rebuild, and then I put the book carefully aside and turned around, and I was in his arms, Rhyder kissing me as hard as he could, and was it me or the serpent rebuilding piece by piece as his tongue curled over mine?