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“Take off your robe and get on that table,” Rhyder said, indicating the raised wooden platform in the middle where the holy oil and relics were laid out.

“Wait, no, Rhyder,” I protested.

“Why?” he growled.

“I don’t want you to see me naked!”

He put one big hand on the collar of my robe, tightening his hold.

“Temperance, your body is mine. You’re mine and you’ve always been mine and there’s nothing you can do to stop that. I want to get this done so I can finish purifying you in the eyes of the Allfather. He will see your heart, Temperance. It’s pure.”

It most definitely was not, but my brother could never be convinced of that.

Rhyder had taken off his leather jacket, even though it was cool in the Most Holy place, and I could see the shredded T-shirt stretched tight across the huge width of his shoulders, the thick bands of muscles in his chest.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. My knees felt weak.

“Get on the table, Temperance,” he said sternly, and I swallowed again.

When I still hesitated, unwilling to obey him but too frightened to try to run, my brother ripped the belt out of my robe and lifted me bodily up in the air, carrying me easily to the raised platform and tying me in a few swift motions to the chair.

“You’re such a fucking controlling psycho,” I cried.

The chair was raised so high I could look him directly the eyes.

“Controlling you?” he said, his voice low and gravelly as he stroked down my cheek with a big, rough finger, then moving to gently pull my hair affectionately. “Always. I love you so much, sister.”

My legs were still free and I kicked out as hard as could, first hitting him in the gut and then catching him under the chin.

My psycho fucking brother didn’t even flinch.

“My angel,” he said, curving his hand around my throat and pulling me closer.

Then he kissed me, gently at first, then the kiss rapidly deepening as I felt his breath begin to change.

It wasn’t fucking fair that he could kiss me like that, that his kiss could make me feel like this, a heated panic that barely concealed the way my nipples tightened painfully against the fabric of the robe.

I strained against the tie that bound me, and his fingers curved around my throat, each one huge and dangerous, but strangely delicate and gentle with me.

“You’re mine and you’ll always be mine,” he whispered in my ear, raising all the little hairs on the back of my neck.

It reminded me so much of the way it had always been. He’d always told me I would be his.

“I’m not yours,” I’d say sometimes. “I’ll have a proper husband when I’m 20.”

“No, you won’t,” he’d say. “You will haveme.”

“What if Iwantanother husband?” I’d retort, almost breathless sometimes. “What if I love someone else?”

“I’ll kill him,” Rhyder would say flatly, his eyes bright blue but cold as an ice storm. “You canonlybe mine, Temperance. You aren’t allowed to love anyone else.”

It waswrongand something was wrong with my brother, something in his zealous heart had turned his protectiveness into something that was dark and twisted, obsessive and depraved.

Did I really think I had escaped from it?

Or had I only been treading water in the cities, always with one eye on the door?

Knowing one day Rhyder would come for me.