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I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to. . .come, either.

No one had said anything about that.

Women were not allowed to touch themselves, in case the pleasure made them whorish. But Saul had forced me to touch myself, to orgasm, and now that I’d had a taste of the depravity, I wanted more.

It was horribly wicked, and I hated Saul for what he had done to me, the pleasure he had forced on me.

Didn’t I? Then why did my hand feel so safe and secure in his?

The other men darted glances uneasily at each other. Strangely, it looked like only the Elders were here at church today. No one else.

That number was clearly much bigger than anyone else’s. Pastor Mickelson swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

“Looks like I’ll be preaching the sermon today, boys,” Saul said in his deep voice.

Then one wavering arm detached, wending its way down jerkily to me, to my body, to my aching breasts and hungry cunt, and it would know, the Eye of Nimhe wouldknow,that I was a wicked woman, an unnatural wife, a wanton who craved what her sick, depraved husband did to her. . .

But just as I was squeezing my eyes shut and waiting for the metallic probes to clamp down on my head, I felt a movement beside me and then a horrific crunching sound.

I popped my eyes open to see Saul’s fist clamped around the Eye, smoke steaming from between his fingers.

“No one touches my wife but me.”

“But—it’s a precaution,” the Pastor said. “To make sure she’s pure.”

“She’s exactly what I want her to be,” Saul said in a steely voice, one arm firmly around my waist.

I sat down in a wooden pew, but this time was different. Felt different.

My husband kissed me before heading to the pulpit.

“We will have to be cleansed before the Flood,” Saul thundered. “There is a great wickedness in the world and it must be eliminated. You all have fallen short and all must be made righteous.”

The Elders seemed to straighten up, look nervously at each other.

Saul’s deep voice rang out, echoing from the close-hewn dark rafters of the ceiling, seeming to fill the whole of the church, press down with inescapable power.

“Repent!” he called out, his voice deep and powerful. “Repent or be hidden forever from the Eye of the Serpent.”

I heard scattered “amens” in the crowd.

But I didn’t believe a word of it.

I couldn’t feel guilty either.

Couldn’t anyone see? How could they look at my massive husband up front and think he truly was a good man now?

Wickedness seemed to leach out of him, soaking through his suit. It was nothing but a paper-thin trickery over his wolfish self.

Everything from the scar across his face to the way his big, rough knuckles gripped the pulpit, screamed depravity and evil.

“And the greatest sin of all,” Saul said, “is disrespecting my wife.”

He raised his arms to the ceiling as the great and terrible Eyes of Nimhe began to emerge, twining, winding, seeking someone to devour.

I heard the heavy oak doors to the church slam shut and somewhere, in the walls of the sanctuary, I heard a gurgle.

The Elders began to rise from their seats, panic wafting off them.