Page 32 of Bloodmoon Ritual

Except for me, of course.

I was plucked off the seat by Rhyder and guided over with him.

I was too exhausted to protest, even if he hadn’t had a heavy hand on the back of my neck.

The Congregants darted curious glances at him. It was obvious seeing the Holy Warrior with a whore from the cities was not usual.

And if anyone wanted to treat me as the common property whores usually were, the look on my brother’s face would have discouraged anyone.

But Rhyder only gave them curt nods before propelling me across the sparse fields of their Congregation.

“Here,” he said, his arm around my waist, directing me into their small Holy Place.

Holy Places were where private rituals or penances were performed, and I shivered as I walked past the manacle and whip, some slick smears on the manacles that made my stomach turn over.

But my brother walked me past all those, lit a few candles, then pulled off his leather jacket.

This Holy Place was small and poor like the Congregation itself, one dark-wood room with barely a candle or two to light it, the shower only a narrow partition at the back.

“Get in the shower,” he said, moving to stand in front of me with his arms crossed. “You need to wash the City off you.”

His shadow passed over me in the flickering candlelight, looming over me, always able to impose his will and his zealotry on me.

“I hate you,” I said.

Rhyder seemed to still, his big fingers digging into his massive, tanned arms. His eyes were unblinking, his jaw looked like it could cut glass. Because I was glaring at him I could see exactly when he swallowed convulsively.

I knew he hated it when I said that. Sometimes when we were kids I had said it just as a way of getting back at him. Sometimes it felt like the one chink in my big asshole brother’s armor.

“Temperance,” was all he said, but there was a whole fucking cosmos in it.

I felt viciously pleased to see that it still bothered him, but he didn’t say anything more.

“I do hate you,” I said again, feeling stupid but saying it anyway.

His jaw tightened.

“You’re the fucking worst, Rhyder.”

When we were kids he had sometimes flinched when I said that.

While Rhyder had always been bigger, stronger, able to make me bend to his will, I had sometimes had a vicious small satisfaction in the slices of pain my words caused him.

When we were young, he had sometimes lost control when I said it, turning and slamming his fist into the side of our small cabin, making a low animal cry of despair, or if we were outside digging up mountain potatoes, he’d tighten his hold on the paring knife so hard he’d slice into his fingers.

As he got older, he’d merely wait, the heave of his big chest and the haunted look in his eyes the only indication that my words had affected him. And he’d wait patiently until I wasn’t mad at him.

It was stupid and petty, but sometimes I felt so small and powerless, trapped by my brother’s overwhelming love for me, that I didn’t know what else to do.

Rhyder’s strong hands were digging deeper into the thick bands of his muscles.

“Take your clothes off and get in that shower,” he said, indicating the little camp shower in the corner. It was a very basic affair, with a small stack of towels beside it. “I want to cover you, and then I’ll be able to complete your purification once we get back to our Holy Place.”

“No,” I said, and to my horror I realized I was stamping my foot on the ground. “I don’t want todothis.”

Rhyder’s eyes flicked to me, narrowed and hard.

“Get in the shower, Temperance. You need this to start the purification process.”

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