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My twin scrubbed me gently, carefully, sucking in his breath as he saw any of my bruises, the marks he had made by gripping me so tightly, trying to fuck me until I loved him.

I didn’t want to say anything or feel anything, but I couldn’t control the full-body shiver that shook me at the feel of his fingers, the calloused tips scraping by my skin.

He flicked his eyes over to mine but didn’t say anything for a moment, moving from my hair to the back of my neck.

“I looked for you,” he said. “Did you think I had forgotten you?”

My throat suddenly prickled with tears.

Had I thought that?

There were times. . .

Sometimes I wondered, my brain oscillating between fear and uncertainty.

“It certainly took you long enough,” I said, working to keep my voice sounding cool and unconcerned. “I expected you to find me a lot sooner.”

Why was I being such a fucking bitch?

He made a low grunt of pain.

“That is—must have been the Allfather testing me. I will find out why you were taken so far away. On my life, I will find out who sent that raid.”

Rhyder’s fingers tightened for a second, and I felt his breath on my skin, prickling it and sending goosebumps along me.

What was making me feel like that?

I finally allowed myself to directly look at him, study him carefully.

The blue eyes, hair that now was the same shade as mine. The way his big, tanned arms rested on the side of the tub, even the way the muscles in his neck and jaw throbbed. The way I could even see the outline of his thick dick against his dirty work pants.

Temptation

I couldn’t deny it. There was something in me that responded to his touch, the way his fingers worshipped every inch of my skin.

Whether it was cult trauma or blood calling to blood, it was there.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You were taken so far away. Every single city we went to, I rode up and down the streets, showed your picture to city officials.”

I knew it was true. They had taken medaysaway from him.

“Usually they wouldn’t bother,” I said. “I wonder why they rehomed me so far away.”

Rhyder’s eyes moved down my body.

“I’m going to find out.”

He bent down to kiss my throat, fingers tightening in my hair, his tongue flicking over my skin, sucking me greedily into his mouth, his other hand dipping in the bathwater to curve around my waist.

“Rhyder, no,” I said, feeling that squirmy twist in my gut again.

He darted a sharp glance at me, then put both hands under my armpits and lifted.

“You can get out now. The last stage in your purification process.”

He handed me a bathrobe and began to gently dry my skin.

I clutched the robe tighter about my chest. It smelled like the strong, milky soap the Congregation always used, and it brought back so many memories I could almost feel tears starting to my eyes.