by Megan Crane
It made Eiryn wonder how many women were really all that confused by the pretty clear demands of compliance, if the head douche in charge of the church had to spend so much time ranting about it. Or maybe there was more defiance in the compliant ranks than she’d imagined. Hell, she knew there was. She’d seen it herself. All the women in her caravan had calmly sipped that tea every morning, without discussion, to make sure they didn’t get pregnant. Young Kamala had left Jonathan at the first opportunity and hadn’t paid too much attention to his pointed, religious mutterings before that. Compliance might be the rule of the land, but that didn’t mean women weren’t able to find their own way to live with it.
But the bishop’s fingers on her jaw were starting to hurt, and he was still going. Eiryn tried to pay attention rather than imagining the numerous ways she could maim him without even getting up off her knees.
Not that he was saying anything interesting. “It is not yours to refuse or set boundaries or attempt to wrest control. You must give yourself over as a gift to the greater good, the end. You must sacrifice yourself to god. This is what women are here to do.”
Sex, as usual. Sex, always. The world kept turning because men wanted sex and, if they were overzealous jackholes like this one, they were perfectly happy to go to absurd lengths to make sure they got it exactly how they wanted it. Eiryn was a big fan of sex herself, particularly with Riordan. She wasn’t ashamed to admit that to herself, here in the least arousing place on the planet. She hadn’t minded her supposed duty at all these past couple of weeks, embarrassing as that should have been to acknowledge.
But she didn’t pretend she would have felt the same way about the compliant experience if it had been this asshole pushing up on her, ranting about commandments and her sacred duty.
Hell, no.
Eiryn smiled up at him, hoping she looked innocent instead of lethal. “I’m foggy on theology,” she said, fighting to keep her voice sweet. Unassuming. “I understand that sex is god’s will for men and women, that we might repopulate this punished Earth, amen.” The amen was pushing it. She could see it when his cold eyes narrowed. She hurried on. “But what were you doing in that woman’s mouth?”
His hand gripped her chin harder. As if he wanted to break a few teeth off her jaw. Given the way he liked to face fuck like a jackhammer, he likely did.
“You dare question a holy man of god?” he growled.
And Eiryn decided she’d had about enough of the gripping and the growling and the kneeling on cold stone floors, for that matter. In fact, she’d had just about enough of this guy altogether. The idea that Maud had spent years in this place, with him, made her want to tear down the whole damn Cathedral with her own bare hands. She decided she’d settle for a tiny little bit of payback instead, but only because she had far more important places to be.
“Here’s what I think.” She smiled up at him, making sure to meet that cold gaze of his and hold it, and no matter that it was a twisted sort of smile with him holding on to her so hard. “I think you’re a little tool of King Athenian. He must have been pissed when your pet mercenary failed to deliver as promised.” She let out a low whistle. “That can’t have been a fun meeting. I hear he’s even more of a dick than you.”
The bishop’s hand dug into her face. She thought he might leave marks.
“I am going to cane you until you bleed,” he promised her softly. “Then I’m going to teach you how to pray for your immortal soul, as diseased and tattered as it might be.”
That cold shiver slid down her back again, a prickly warning. This time, she liked it even better. It spurred her on.
“That sounds delightful,” she replied in the same soft tone. “Truly. But I think I’ll pass.”
Eiryn threw herself back, a swift backward push off her knees that yanked the bishop off balance, thanks to his grip on her chin. He dropped his hand as he lurched forward, then tried to correct it by lunging for her again. Perfect.
She got her hands on his arm and her feet in his gut and catapulted him over her head, tossing him across the stone floor. By the time he hit the ground and scrambled around, she was on her feet.
And ready. She was more than fucking ready.
All her attempts at compliance over the past two weeks seemed to cascade off of her, like so much water. She could almost feel them pool around her feet. When she raised her hands and took a fighting position, she had not one single doubt in her head about who she was.
And it wasn’t the least bit compliant.
She imagined the bishop had a few ideas himself now that he was on his ass, and none of them about a lowborn creature who’d come seeking his spiritual guidance.
“Who are you?” he demanded, climbing to his feet with a lot less grace than his nun had displayed. “A mercenary’s plaything? Did Krajic’s vile companions send you here for some misbegotten vengeance?”
And Eiryn really, really wanted to tell him exactly who she was. And then carve him into little pieces in the shape of the raider sigil she wore on her chest. But, of course, that would not be smart. It would be telegraphing her punches on a grand scale. It would cause trouble for the clan. It would be putting her brief, personal satisfaction ahead of her actual duties.
She got all that. But it was still a struggle to keep her mouth shut and her dagger sheathed.
The bishop lunged at her again and she sidestepped with laughable ease, using his momentum to throw him facedown at the foot of his chair. He narrowly missed the nun as he slid, but she was clearly well-trained. She tensed as the bishop tumbled by, but didn’t otherwise react.
He pulled himself up, holy fury blazing from his eyes. Then he charged at Eiryn because he was an angry little man who learned nothing, so she threw him again. Then again.
“I could do this all night,” she told him, taunting him. And definitely enjoying herself. “Can you? You’re looking a little creaky there, your holiness. If you don’t mind me saying it.”
“I am Bishop Seph of the Grand Lake Cathedral!” he thundered at her. She guessed he did, in fact, mind her saying it. “The world trembles before me! I demand you tell me your name!”
The door made a sound behind her. She shifted her position to make sure no one could take advantage of her blind spot, hoping it was that beefy, red-faced guard again, because she still had some unresolved feelings about the word gash she’d love to share with him—but it was Riordan.
He sauntered into the stone chamber, cleaning off his blade on the leg of his trousers. He looked at the bishop. He studied the kneeling nun. Then he looked at Eiryn, who hadn’t even bothered to pull out her little dagger.
“You know you can’t kill him,” he said. Buzzkill that he was.
Because of course they couldn’t kill him. That would mean that when they tried to haul ass back to the eastern islands, they’d have the entire church after them. Some men were a little too well known to kill. At least, not without the entire raider brotherhood at her back and a better plan than get the hell home now and stop a massacre.
“Careful,” she replied, keeping her eyes on the holy dick. “The bishop is a very smart man who’s figured out we’re mercenaries, just like Krajic.”
Riordan rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I whore myself out for any bitch who wants to hire my ass. It’s the only way to live. Dishonor now, dishonor forever. Bring it on.”
“This disrespect will not be tolerated!” Bishop Seph spat. “The church will not stand for it!”
This time, Eiryn tripped him when he came at her, so he crashed to the ground and slid a few feet on his face. She pulled her short blade from her boot at last, ready to wrap this party up. Riordan stood to the side, looking mildly entertained as she went to stand over the sputtering bishop as he flailed over onto his back and brought her boot down hard between his legs. Right there on that cock he’d been waving around before. Not hard enough to hurt him too much or make him throw up or anything. But enough to make him pay close attention.
The blade was
just a little added incentive and a friendly little warning to keep his hands to himself. Especially when she crouched down and put it to his throat.
And sure enough, he stopped thrashing and muttering, to the point where his eyes bugged out of his head a little instead.
“Who hired Krajic, you or the king?” Eiryn asked when she thought she had his complete attention. Politely, she thought.
When he looked mutinous and outraged instead of responding, she increased the pressure on his cock, keeping the point of her blade nice and tight against his voice box.
“Make me ask again,” she told him softly, “and you’ll wish I caned you bloody.”
“Me,” the bishop spat out, because like all cowardly little bullies he could dish it out forever and take absolutely none of it in return. What a shock. She pricked his throat and knew he felt his own blood trickle down the length of it when he paled. “On King Athenian’s orders.”
“And what about that temple in the Catskills?” she asked in the same friendly tone. “Why are you running around burning church property to the ground?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The mercenaries gave you up, friend,” Riordan told him from his place across the room. “Fun fact about us whores for hire. We have no loyalty. We only have a price.”
“The church doesn’t burn down its own temples,” Bishop Seph gritted out. “That was the king.”
“Through you,” Eiryn prompted him.
He bared his teeth at her. “Yes.”
Riordan let out a bark of laughter. “What a good errand boy you are.”
The bishop shifted beneath Eiryn, as if his fury was eating him alive. She sincerely hoped it was.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly, sinking down so she got even more in his face, to make sure he’d spend a lot of time remembering this moment. “I really appreciate the spiritual guidance. And just think. You didn’t even have to use your magic wand on me like you did with the other girls.”
She bore down a little harder with her foot on the wand in question, and liked it when a push of air burst out of his mouth, sounding suspiciously like the high-pitched whine of a punk-ass bitch. A movement caught her eye and she saw the nun had given up staring at the ground and was watching Eiryn instead, her mouth slightly open and something like wonder in her gaze.
Eiryn nodded at her, then returned her attention to the worm at her feet.
“If you’re going to kill me, do it,” he panted up at her, his teeth bared. “I am a humble servant of god. I know what my future holds.”
“So do I,” Eiryn promised him darkly.
“You still can’t kill him,” Riordan said from behind her. “Are you going to drag this out all night? Let me know if you are and I’ll go sell my services to the highest bidder while I wait. Like us mercenaries love to do.”
Eiryn leaned in closer to the bishop. So close it was almost like a kiss.
Only much, much better.
“Maud says hi,” she whispered, purely to mess with him, and waited for his gaze to go a little wide. A little stunned and a whole lot crazy.
It was worth the fingerprints he’d left on her jaw.
Then she cold cocked him in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him the fuck out.
And that was even better.
* * *
Hauling ass out of Great Lake Cathedral City wasn’t as hard as Riordan expected it to be.
Once Eiryn finished playing her little games with the bishop, she followed Riordan out of the creepy-ass confessional chamber, stepping over the bodies of the guards he’d happily dropped when he’d come in after her. The whole way down the servants’ stairs he stayed tense, waiting for the nun they’d left behind to sound the alarm. Or the compliant woman he’d liberated from a grotesque “prayer session” to come screaming out of a corner, making too much noise and giving them away. Or more guards to appear on their rounds, but it seemed that the church took a lazy approach to its own security on equinox night. Something Riordan imagined would come to a stop once the bishop woke up.
When they walked right back out the door they’d come in, he thought they’d be stopped and questioned. At the very least. He could feel Eiryn’s matching tension right behind him—but the new guard outside the door barely looked in their direction, too busy scowling at a couple of compliants getting a little overly touchy in the street right in front of him.
Five steps later and they were swallowed up in the crowd, gone as if they’d never been there.
The entire city appeared to be out in the streets around the Cathedral. If there was a method to it all, it was lost on Riordan. Happily, that wasn’t his problem. He ignored the people, who were getting more riled up by the second, and cut his way through the crowd with precision. He didn’t look back to make sure Eiryn was following him. He knew she was, and if she wasn’t, she knew the way as well as he did.
It was almost too easy to make it back to their rooms and collect their stuff. Then walk back out into the crowd and get swallowed up in all the shouting and singing all over again. This time, Riordan headed south, out toward the various parking areas to look for a truck that might get them to the ocean, and fast. There was no outcry as they wove their way through all the compliant people, right there in the glare of the brightly lit Cathedral. No guards came running. No one paid them the slightest bit of attention.
“This is creeping me out,” Eiryn said when they finally made it through the worst of the crush. “How did we walk right out of there?”
She frowned over her shoulder at the mess of light. The big drums sounded eerie and mysterious this far away. The songs and chants lost all definition and sounded less like hundreds of voices and more like the wind. A compliant storm. Riordan didn’t like it.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” he agreed. “That bitch knows our faces.”
Riordan found a truck he liked in the third lot they visited, about a half hour’s walk south of the commotion in Cathedral Square. The vehicle was big and old, but with the kind of modifications he thought he wanted for this balls-out trip they were about to take to the coast of the Mississippi Sea, like a powerful grill on the front that could handle frontal assaults and an extra external fuel tank. Almost full up, as if its owner had a long, treacherous drive planned.
“First or second watch?” he asked Eiryn as he checked all the connections and tires, waiting while she picked the lock on the passenger door.
“Second,” she replied. She tossed the door open and climbed up into the passenger side of the vehicle. Then she slid down the bench seat and unlocked the driver’s side door for him. “The steering wheel’s still here. What an idiot.”
Riordan privately thanked the idiot who’d had enough misplaced faith in the holy city to leave his steering wheel attached to the truck’s steering column instead of taking it with him, the way people expecting a rougher crowd tended to do. It saved him having to break into a second vehicle to find one he could use. He swung up behind the wheel and messed around with the wires beneath it, trying to remember the lessons he’d been taught about how to do this before he’d started going on active raids every summer. Because a raider never knew what he was walking into or when he might decide a ride was a better plan.
“Easy,” he said with a grin when the engine turned over. “Like everything tonight. Which means there’s probably an army at the entrance to the Eighty.”
Eiryn shot him a glance from her side of the bench seat. “It should be just a little bit farther south. Unless you want to find that northern approach and hit it that way.”
“South is fine.”
Besides, if there was an army waiting on one end of the city they’d likely be everywhere else, too. Might as well get into it here, where it would be easier to retreat into the crowd. He put the truck in gear, eased out of the tight parking space, and headed for the main street.
This far south of the action, the streets were clear of people, and in
no time he found his way down to the Eighty, the only remaining maintained roadway in the western highlands. There was no army. There was no one around at all, for that matter. It only made him more uneasy. Riordan drove off the surface streets and straight onto the ancient highway. Then he pointed them east and slammed his foot on the gas, rocketing them up into the mountains.
“I don’t see anyone behind us,” Eiryn said a tense stretch of time later, her attention in her side mirror, the way it had been since they’d gotten moving.
The overlit city melted into a pool of gold in his rearview mirror, then disappeared, leaving nothing but a low orange hangover in the night sky. Good riddance, Riordan thought. He kept expecting a chase. Or some assholes hanging around, waiting to jump them on their way out. But there was nothing. Only the mountains, the falling temperature the higher they climbed, and the September night.
“Let’s give it a little longer,” he muttered, keeping the accelerator low, scanning the empty road all around them for signs of life. Any life at all.
About forty-five minutes out of the city, with nothing in his rearview mirror, he pulled off the highway. He didn’t want to set them up as a target, so he took the first dusty old local road he could find, pitted and reduced to dirt. He followed it through an abandoned collection of buildings too rundown and few to be any kind of settlement, and then up a hill. He parked there, pointing the truck back toward the highway so they could see anyone coming. Then he killed the headlights.
And there it was. The dark. The thick black of night, not the false brightness of that terrible city.
Riordan took a minute. He saw all the stars he’d missed down in the valley with the Cathedral lights polluting the sky in all directions. The quiet stretch of mountains ranging along the other side of the freeway, looking gentle against the dark. The soft, eroded headstones of the ancient cemetery he’d parked in. A breath he hadn’t known he was holding left him then. And it almost hurt him to switch on the interior lights.
Eiryn climbed into the backseat and Riordan took the front, checking all the door pockets and built-in compartments now that they didn’t have to worry about the truck’s owner coming upon them.