Page 45 of Bloodmoon Ritual

“Yes, they are,” Eli said. “Except for that one.”

And he pointed directly at me.

Cold, frozen fear gripped my heart.

No please no please god no

Eli’s eyes flicked over me briefly, as if wondering what Rhyder saw that made him so obsessed, then he opened the gate and left.

The man reached in and dragged me out, my body hitting every fence post on the way.

“You’ll do,” he said.

He was a tall and sinewy man in his 50s, sunken cheeks with crossed knife wounds on his face. Out here away from the cities, Congregations fought hard over shitty pieces of land and it looked like this man had come out on the wrong end of many fights.

“You don’t have a pox do you?”

I hesitated a moment too late.

Rhyder was sitting with his back to me at the table with the Elders and Congregants, his hands raised to the heavens as he prayed, the holy words of thanksgiving spiling from his mouth.

All it would take was opening my mouth. . .

One little word

Rhyder

And my brother would save me as he always had before.

But the anger at what he had done still flared like a dry, crackling heat inside me, the sickening vision of my books and papers, everything I owned, going up in flames.

And by the time I recollected that he was my only protection, it was too late.

This other man had a hand over my mouth and was dragging me into the thin and patchy woods surrounding the center of their Congregation.

Shit

Eli clearly wanted me dead, what if this man left me somewhere to die?

I tried to drag my feet but he only shook me so hard my teeth rattled.

“Stop it, you stupid whore.”

We went further into the dry, tangled brush beyond their settlement.

I tried to struggle, but he just dropped me to the ground and started rummaging around in his pants.

“We haven’t had a good whore run in a while. Fuck, I need this.”

“I belong to—” I began, my throat dry.

Who?

Who did I belong to?

I swallowed bitter bile.

“I belong to Rhyder Oathbringer. He—”

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