The Eclipse Ritual: A Taboo Cult Romance, page 19
I whirled around and saw Ronan standing beside Father.
“One more piece of business,” the Prophet said, his voice rising. “One more thing if we want to keep the Allfather’s face turned toward us this year.”
I heard confused murmurs among the Congregation. All of the Helpmeets had pleased their husbands. No one would be left bleeding and dead in the snow. So what did the Prophet mean?
“The Enforcer has lost his way,” Father said, each voice landing like a rock in my stomach. “He is a danger to the Congregation.”
For a moment, there was absolute, frozen silence, then Father spoke again.
“He has allowed himself to be ruled by a cunt, by the soft wet flesh of a woman.”
There was another moment of silence, then Father spoke again.
“On my authority as Prophet, I command you to kill him.”
“No,” called Ronan sharply. “You are the one who is a danger to this Congregation. Let the Allfather settle this. Whichever of us can call fire from heaven is the one the Allfather favors.”
But I failed! That plan won’t work!
“You won’t get away using your forked tongue this time,” Father said, his voice rising in his madness and unholy zeal. “You keep a disobedient wife. You refuse to let her go. Your Judgement Day is now!”
He turned to the Congregation, gesturing with wild, angry arms. “Kill him!”
I screamed.
“NO!”
But I saw that our neighbors, our family in the Congregation, though still uneasy, had begun to pick up stones.
“Kill him, I order you to kill him,” the Prophet shouted, and I saw flecks of spittle flying from his mouth. “Kill him now or you will be turned away from the body and blood of the Allfather!”
With this dreadful threat, the men of the Congregation began to move closer to Ronan, and I saw someone throw the first stone.
My husband turned and ripped at the fence, and he was so strong that one of the boards came off in his hands with a hideous ear-splitting splintering of wood.
And then they were on him.
As he swung the board at the first attacker, I lunged toward him, but I felt an arm around my waist. I looked back in fury and it was Edmund.
“Get off me!” I cried. “I have to help him!”
“No,” Edmund said. “I told Ronan I would do this.”
Thorweald’s house.
I knew why Ronan had allowed Edmund to claim Thorweald’s house. It was in return for protecting me if our plan didn’t work.
I struggled wildly against Edmund’s hands, kicking and screaming.
“Stop it, goddamn it, Obedience!” Edmund said as I bit down on his hands.
We staggered into a nearby table, but he kept a hold of me.
I heard the sound of fighting but Edmund had twisted my headscarf so I could barely see.
I’d be damned if I would let any other man besides my husband hold me. I suddenly went limp, forcing Edmund to stagger, and I clawed desperately away, falling hard on the ground and running away in the dark.
I sent an anxious glance back at Ronan. Was that him on his knees?
The terror screamed at me, but then the struggling bodies moved, and no, it wasn’t him, it was someone else, and I saw Ronan’s dark head, still upright, the stone in Cenhelm’s hand raised to bludgeon him. I saw my brother strike out with his elbow, knocking Cenhelm back with a gush of blood to his nose.
But I had to hurry. There were too many men on him.
I flew as fast as I could, behind all the watching Congregation, branches slashing at my cheeks in the dark.
I felt my pocket anxiously.
Did I still have the flask of gasoline?
Did I have the godsdamn matches?
Yes, yes, I did.
I crept up as quietly as I could behind Father, my heart hammering in my chest.
I wasn’t even sure I believed in an Allfather anymore, but I prayed as hard as I could that he wouldn’t hear me. My feet seemed to stumble over each other, but Father was still railing at the men, calling on them to kill Ronan.
And for a moment, I felt transfixed by him, frozen in place. The gasoline flask seemed to burn my fingers. Was there no other way? How could I sin against the Prophet? Did I really want to risk the cold dead lands of Hell?
But then I remembered. Blasphemers couldn’t enter heaven. That meant my brother wasn’t getting into heaven. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go anywhere Ronan wasn’t. If the pearly gates had opened right in front of me, I would have still turned away and run to my brother, always to choose the cold, endless land of the afterlife with him instead of heaven without him.
I reached out and threw the gasoline onto Father’s tunic, putting my finger over the stopper so I could cover as much of the cloth as I could. It seemed like it was soaking in, but I really couldn’t tell in the dark. He turned around before I had finished and I emptied the rest of the canister over him, letting it drop from my burned fingers.
“What are you doing, whore? Get thee behind me. You’re next. I renounce you as my daughter.”
And I flicked a match on the box and threw it on my father.
Hot flames began to lick at his tunic immediately, at his pants, up to the neck of his shirt.
The Prophet looked down in surprise and I grabbed the canister and shook it as hard as I could, desperately shaking any remaining droplets on him. The flames seemed to be in all different shades of hellfire: orange, red, purple, yellow, pure white.
For one horrible moment I wasn’t sure I could speak, but then my voice came out, broken but high and loud.
“The judgement of the Allfather!”
I looked over desperately at Ronan.
He hadn’t fallen.
His face looked battered, and a trickle of blood fell from his lip, but he was still upright.
“On your knees!” my husband called out immediately, his voice loud and authoritative. “Pray to the Allfather to save us!”
I saw them tremble, people begin to fall to their knees. My brother had managed to get a rock in his hand, and I saw him slam it on Cenhelm’s head, a brutal, efficient blow, and Cenhelm staggered and fell.
Ronan immediately moved to the back-and-forth cadence that the Congregation was used to and they obeyed him as they watched the flames cover Father’s tunic.
We call on you
Save us
We call on you
Save us
I saw the bodies, the faces fall to the icy hard ground, the voices raised to the heavens as Father burned.
I went around behind him on my belly, grabbing a hold of the hem of the Prophet’s cloak. I tried to get my little knife out, but my fingers were so burned they wouldn’t move.
I gripped at his hem, trying to make sure he couldn’t move to get the fire out. Father noticed and started kicking at me, his hard boots coming in painful contact with my shoulder.
But still I hung on.
“You goddamn little whore,” he said venomously, and he looked like an unearthly demon, the hatred blazing bright in his eyes as the flames flickered up at his collar.
I heard soft steps, and Father jerked his head around, but I had already heard what accompanied those steps: a soft schick sound that I recognized only too well.
There was a sharp rustle and then I heard a low, choked grunt as Ronan split him open. My brother gutted my father, and his flesh ripped as Ronan drew the knife from his belly to the base of his throat.
“The Righteous judgment of the Allfather,” Ronan bit out, and he stepped back as Father fell to his knees.
Then he was next to me, wiping down his knife, dark with the Prophet’s blood. His hard hands helped me gently to my feet.
“Are you all right?” he asked, a sharp edge of worry in his voice.
“I’m fine,” I gasped out, and Ronan tucked my arm in his.
“Pray,” he ordered again to the Congregation. “Pray that the Allfather turns his face to us again.”
He moved back between the prostrate bodies lying flat on the ground, desperate prayers ascending to heaven as Father burned and bled to death in front of me, his body convulsing in agony.
Ronan strode between the bodies, every member of the Congregation out at the Ritual lying flat now, sobbing and crying with the unexpected horror of the Allfather’s concrete sign of displeasure.
“Beg for forgiveness for throwing a stone at your Prophet,” my husband said, his harsh voice loud and authoritative, his work boots walking dangerously in between the members of the Congregation.
I saw them all then, the faces that had just been raised to watch his murder, now raised to kiss Ronan’s hand.
And he went around to everyone, making sure he got the sign of loyalty from each and every member of the Congregation.
When he had completed this rotation, he stood behind all the bodies flattened to the ground in fear. “Now pray,” he ordered again. “The Allfather says to pray without ceasing. You will pray until I tell you to stop.”
He still had my hand in his and he pulled me back to near the fire.
“Are you OK?” he asked again, his fingers stroking my hair, holding my chin gently in his hand.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Edmund couldn’t stop me. No one could keep me away from you.”
“Well, I had to try,” Ronan said, and his thumb stroked across my lips. “You know I had to try to keep you safe.”
“I don’t want to be safe,” I said. “I want to be with you.”
“And you always will be, wife,” Ronan said. I could see one of his eyes swelling up, and I had some medicinal rosehip cream for that at the house.
I felt an unutterable relief that it was just his eye, and not his broken body, that I had to attend to.
“Aren’t you going to ask me to make the sign of loyalty?” I asked, feeling the warm heat of the crackling fire on my frozen skin.
My husband was the Prophet now.
“No,” Ronan said, and he felt my head gently, making sure I was all right. “My wife already belongs to me, and I belong to my wife. My body and blood are yours, Honeybee. My authority as the Prophet is for you. I love you.”
I smiled, my eyes lingering on his face. He was alive. He lived. He was the Prophet.
“It’s all for you,” he said, and his voice stirred the curls behind my headscarf, sending prickles running all along my skin. “It’s always been for you.”
The fire of my brother’s obsession bit me and burned me, and I let it consume me totally, falling to my knees in front of the new Prophet.
“I want to make my sign of loyalty anyway,” I said. “I love you.”
Then I knelt before him, the warm lick of fire on my back, and I put my hand on his cock, drawing it out of his pants.
He exhaled, his big hand resting easily on my head, pushing the headscarf back to caress my hair.
Then I took my brother’s cock in my mouth and closed my lips over it, my eyes on him, eager and anxious for the taste of him on my tongue, over and over again.
The next book in the series:
BLOODMOON RITUAL
Coming Summer/Fall 2024
In BLOODMOON RITUAL, Ronan consolidates power, but other Congregations start testing the boundaries of his land. In a nearby Unsaved town, Temperance works as a coffee barista. Several years ago, as a teenager she was rescued from her Congregation by a social worker militia and given a new name and identity with a foster family. But there is someone who has never stopped looking for her, a zealous and inflexible holy warrior who will do anything to get her back.
Also watch for ILLICIT BLOOD
A Taboo Dark Academia Romance
Coming 2024
Thank you for reading! <3
What a blast this book has been, and I can’t wait to write the next one <3
Rivenhall, Kate, The Eclipse Ritual: A Taboo Cult Romance
