Page 24 of Under His Rule

“I never gave permission for this,” he growls, clutching me closer to his body, almost like a lion protecting its pride.

“I … I apologize, Patriarch,” the woman mutters under her breath, and she immediately bows. “It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t. I’ll make sure of it,” he says, still as valiant as before.

Then he walks off without saying another word to the woman. I wonder whether I’ll see her again. If I’ll have the chance to say how much I hate her and this place. I wonder if he’ll let me.

“Are you afraid of her?” he asks, still walking with me in his arms.

I don’t reply, but I do nod.

I don’t know what it is about him that makes me so silent, so compliant.

His face darkens. “Then I’ll see to it she doesn’t come anywhere near you again.”

Just like that, he can unravel someone’s hold over me. That’s the kind of power he wields. This whole community is under his rule. Just like me.

He carries me back to my hut. When Emmy opens the door, her mouth is wide open, and she stares at us for a full ten seconds before moving aside so he can enter.

“Welcome, Patriarch, welcome.” She bows. “This is … unexpected.”

“Leave us,” he commands.

All the girls immediately get up from their bunk beds and the chairs and rush out the door. Even April is whisked away. Where to, I have no clue, as the patriarch immediately closes the door behind him.

He carries me to the bunk bed and sets me down on the bottom one to the left. “Stay here.”

I do as I’m told as he walks over to the cabinet and produces a box filled with bandages, which he brings back.

He gently tugs my arm until I yield and give him my hand, which he holds so softly between his fingers. My eyes home in on the tattoo on his hand, the symbol of a house, which was also on the scarf I have at home. Why does he have that same symbol on his hand?

That tattoo is the sole reason I’m here. If I had never seen it online, I wouldn’t have gone after it. I wouldn’t have found him in that joint … and he wouldn’t have taken me.

Why is this tattoo so important?

I wish I could ask, but I can’t get the words off my tongue.

He wraps the bandage around my hand and tightens it with a piece of tape. Has he done this before? But he’s a patriarch, so other people do this for him, right? If I understand the rules, everyone’s at his beck and call.

When he’s finished, he mutters, “There.”

He sits down across from me on the other bunk bed, and for some reason, I can’t stop wondering if he’s ever sat down on one before.

“If that doesn’t heal in a couple of days, you tell one of your hut sisters, and they will alert an elder for me. Okay?”

I nod. He smiles.

It’s the first one I’ve seen in this community that’s actually genuine. But it also makes me want to cringe.

“You know you can talk to me, right? I don’t bite,” he says.

But he does. He most definitely does.

Noah

She’s so fearful of me. I understand why, but she doesn’t need to be.

I won’t hurt her. Not in the way the elder’s wife has.

I’m still mad at myself for letting things escalate the way they did. That elder’s wife never should’ve put a hand on her. But I didn’t give explicit instructions on what they could and couldn’t do while she was in her initiation, so I accept partial blame for this.

Still, that elder’s wife will never go near her again. I will make sure of it.

I don’t want my precious prize to get wounded. Or worse … be scarred for life.

She’s far too valuable to be treated like that. If only she knew.

It’s too soon to start something, but when I look into her eyes, I want nothing more than to bring her back with me to my temple. But I can’t. This has to be done the regular way. She has to walk this path before I can claim her … before she becomes mine.

A question lingers on her lips, and I tilt my head to watch. “Who are you?”

I’m surprised that’s the first thing she’d ask.

“A patriarch, but you already know that,” I muse.

I wish her fellow hut sisters hadn’t shouted it off the rooftops, but it must be hard to contain their enthusiasm when they see one of us.

“But my name is Noah,” I say.

“Noah,” she repeats, narrowing her eyes at me. My name rolling off her tongue has a particular feel to it, and it makes all the hairs on my body stand up in excitement.

“What do you really want from me?” she asks.

I lick my lips. “Your life.”

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