by Zaide Bishop
India let herself slide to one side, and Tare held her tight against her chest, her breath hot in India’s hair. They were both breathless and sticky and sated. It was the impossible made possible. Connection, trust, a bond between Varekai and Elikai. Perhaps even an end to the war. But all that seemed far away. Right now, there was just the pulse of Tare’s heart against her ribs, and safety.
Unheeding of the wind or even the first spattering of rain falling outside the car, India let herself slip into an easy, comfortable sleep.
Chapter Nine
Tare woke several hours later. The rain was falling softly, the sky dark and low. There would be nothing to burn now. All the wood would be wet. In a few days, the two tribes on the archipelago would stop looking for them. They would have few reasons to be near the channel again.
It was quite possible that help was not coming.
It did not mean they were stuck here. They still had the canoe; they could still hike east until they were far enough that they could navigate across the channel and land themselves back on the islands. India’s knee would need time to heal before they could make the trek. Tare would not leave the smaller brother behind, no matter what.
They had found a safe space. Tare would find them food. They would be okay here until India could travel.
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at the sleeping boy beside him. At first, it had been hard to think of him as anything but odd-looking, but now Tare could see India was beautiful. More beautiful than any Elikai. His delicate features, little upturned nose, slight and curvy frame. Tare even liked the bones and adornments in his crow-black hair and the ridiculous-looking breasts on his chest.
There was nothing about India he didn’t like.
He wanted to protect India. He yearned for him in a way he never had any of his Elikai brothers. The idea of India going back to the Varekai and Tare never seeing him again made him sick. He wanted them to be close like this, tomorrow, and the next day. He wanted to make India smile and laugh.
He wanted to have sex again, like they did before. Not now—he was still spent—but tomorrow and the day after that.
The intensity of his feelings confused him. It made him uneasy and defensive, as if something could come along and take India from him at any moment.
Or, perhaps worse, maybe India would not want to stay with him. Maybe he would want to go back to his own brothers, be pleased to go back to them, and not want to see Tare again at all.
He tightened his arms around the Varekai possessively.
India crinkled his nose and woke, blinking at Tare, then looking at the rain-streaked windows.
“It’s cold,” he grumbled.
“A bit.” Tare stroked his hair.
“We should wash.”
Tare nodded, and they left their things in the car, slipping out onto the asphalt naked and flinching at the chill of the rain.
They could not go too deep in the water, always wary of sharks and unseen crocodiles, but they bathed in the shallow waves, scrubbing away the traces of their passion before wandering up to sit at the edge of the asphalt and letting the rain rinse away the salt and sand.
“Do you see that?” India asked.
“See what?”
India was looking across the gray-green water, in the white shroud of the rain. “Shapes. Boats.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“Look. There.” He pointed.
“That’s just the shadows of the islands.”
“No, the rain is too heavy. They’re coming closer. It’s canoes, Tare.”
They sat in silence, watching the hazy shapes become darker and more concrete. Six canoes were powering strongly across the current, angling toward the shore with determined, synchronized strokes.
Even from a distance, Tare recognized the bones and glass fragments woven in their hair and the war paint streaking their skin. They were Varekai. India’s brothers.
India stood, tense with excitement, and padded a short way down the beach. He was still limping, knee swollen and purple, and so very naked. Tare stayed where he was, watching India move, the way his hips swayed from side to side and the delightfully appealing way his rump moved to compensate.
He tried to pretend the Varekai weren’t coming at all. That it would just be the two of them forever. But then the canoes were bashing through the waves on the shore and crunching into the sand. The Varekai dragged them up out of the reach of the grasping water and greeted India, fussing over his knee and the wound on his head, touching his shoulders and face, the same places Tare had kissed not so long ago.
Charlie padded toward Tare. He was armed with a spear, but his manner was open and unthreatening.
“You’re going to come back with us,” he said.
“Am I?” Tare asked archly.
“Of course. I have a deal with Sugar. Whoever finds the two of you first will return both safely to their tribes.”
Tare paused a moment to process this. Charlie had a deal with Sugar? Apparently a lot could happen overnight.
“You’re not going to trade me for fish and pretty little bones for your hair?” he asked drily.
“No trades,” Charlie promised. “The Elikai are beaching further east. We thought it was more likely you would be up that way by now. I lost the roshambo.”
“And you got lucky,” Tare murmured.
Charlie grinned. “Apparently.”
Tare’s gaze returned to India. He hadn’t even glanced back at Tare yet. Had he been completely forgotten already?
“Are you hurt?” Charlie asked. “India’s got quite a bang.”
Tare folded his arms tightly across his chest. “I’m fine.”
He wasn’t. His chest was aching. Why wasn’t India looking at him?
“Did you really save her?”
“Her... Yes, he fell in the channel. I followed him out, but we were already too far from the islands to get back. We landed twenty miles west of here.”
“You could have gone on alone.”
“But I didn’t.”
Charlie’s gaze flicked to Eden, rising out of the cracked and shattered buildings behind Tare. He looked so intense that Tare glanced back to be sure there wasn’t some gargantuan monster sneaking up on them. There was nothing, just the alien, decaying landscape.
“Did you go in?” Charlie asked.
“Eden? No. We slept in a car.”
“Ah. Next time,” Charlie murmured. He shook himself, like a shiver had gone down his spine, and ink-stained water splattered across Tare from his hair. “Come on. Before some mainland monster finds us.”
Tare nodded but padded up the beach again to collect their clothes and weapons from the car. Some of the Varekai had already dragged his canoe to the water to be towed. They would only go a few miles further before striking out. With plenty of arms to row, not weakened by injury or a day dragging a heavy canoe without breakfast, they would have the strength to reach the islands.
India was tired and shivering by the time they piled back into the canoes. Tare slipped in beside him, ignoring Whiskey’s warning glare. India huddled up against him, both hands on his own swollen knee, as if trying to soothe the ache.
Tare breathed a quiet sigh of relief to feel the Varekai’s body against his. He thought everything between them had been forgotten. But here he was again, close enough for Tare to feel the warmth in his skin and the rise and fall of his breathing.
He rested his cheek against India’s wet hair, inhaling the scent of him, ignoring the scratch of bone against his neck.
“We’ll be home soon,” he promised quietly.
“And we’ll never, ever have to see your face again.” Whiskey gave him a hard look. “Ever.”
“Try not to pin all your hopes and
dreams on that,” Tare retorted. “You might be disappointed.”
“You might slip and fall on my fish knife. Repeatedly,” Whiskey said. “Then your sisters would cry. Their wailing would upset the birds.”
India rolled his eyes. “Stop. Please. You’re giving me a headache.”
As they crossed the channel, in a neighboring canoe Charlie stood and blew a conch shell. The bellow rose like a storm across the water, echoing out into the sky with impossible sound. Tare could feel it vibrating inside him. When it died down, they heard the echoes of it rippling back off the broken buildings. Sad little sounds, like the mainland was calling them to come back.
He was signaling to Sugar, Tare realized. The Varekai and Elikai really were working together. Wonders never ceased.
Charlie stood twice more to blow the conch at short intervals. After the third blow, when the echoes had faded, there was a replying wail that did not come from Sugar. From the mainland, something vast screamed back at them, far louder, far more primal than the conch’s rising moan. Charlie sat after that.
They spent the remainder of the trip in tense silence.
* * *
The Elikai came for Tare in the gloaming, with pink and orange still in the sky but all the banks and treetops deep in shadow.
India had sat with Tare while they waited, but they had not spoken. The alien wail from the mainland had frightened everyone, even the unshakable Whiskey. At least on the islands the monsters were known. Goodyear and Toyota, Altec and Samsung, the crocodiles and pythons so vast and recognizable they had names. Who knew what monsters roamed in that vast wilderness of broken buildings and skeletons?
Tare was sick with worry that his brothers had not been fast enough, that the call of the conch shell had not reached them before the mainland’s monster, though he did not realize how sick he had been until the relief of seeing the Elikai canoes through the gloom brought bile into his throat.
“They’re here,” he said to India.
He nodded. “It is time for you to go home to your sisters.”
“But—” He hesitated. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.”
India studied him with his dark eyes, almost black, earnest and patient at the same time. “You know you can’t stay. The Varekai and Elikai don’t belong together.”
“But we were together.”
India looked around quickly, but none of the other Varekai were close enough to have heard him.
“Yes.” His voice was low. “But our tribes have rules.”
“Will you break them?” He leaned his shoulder against India’s.
“How?”
“Promise you’ll meet with me. At the Ram’s Head on the morning of the new moon.”
India bit his lip. “Tare...”
His mouth was dry. What if India didn’t want him? What if he was the only one who felt like this? “Do you want to?”
“I have a responsibility to my tribe. My sisters.”
“There’s more to life than herbs and creepy pig-skin dolls,” he said fiercely, gripping India’s arm. “I’ll go mad if I don’t see you again.”
“You’re already mad,” India said, searching his gaze.
“I need you.”
“I...”
“Tare!” Sugar called as the Elikai canoes nosed against the sand.
They rose to their feet together, Tare supporting India when his knee threatened to fail him, and padded down the silty sand to meet them.
Fox was first off the boat, and he greeted Tare with a fist square in the jaw. Tare, caught completely off guard, hit the sand, tailbone and ears ringing.
Sugar and Xícara scrambled to hold Fox back, but he didn’t make any effort to go after Tare again. He just glared with a look that indicated it would be a very long time before they were true brothers again. The watching Varekai snickered, though not India, who crouched awkwardly by Tare’s side to help him up.
“Asshole,” Tare snapped at Fox.
“You had it coming.” Fox’s tone was cold.
“You don’t think I’ve suffered enough?”
“Get back in the canoe,” Sugar told Fox. “Just...go.”
Fox went, though he looked pretty smug to Tare. Sugar pulled him to his feet. “He was right, you did have it coming.”
“Thanks, boss. I really appreciate that.” Tare pouted. This was not the grand welcome he had expected. Then a little dark-haired shape propelled itself through the night and wrapped around Tare like a skirt.
“Oh Tare!”
Tare sighed and patted Love’s head. “Miss me?”
“I thought you were dead!” The crack in the smaller man’s voice betrayed he was crying.
“I could never die, I’m too pretty,” Tare promised him.
“At least until your jaw swells up and turns purple,” India pointed out. Tare rubbed where Fox had punched him, but before he could reply, Love released him and rounded on India.
“This is your fault! You stay away from Tare! We all know you’re a witch. You did some kind of witchy magic!”
His fists were balled, and India took a wary step back. In the same moment, Tango and Mike raised their spears, and Whiskey stalked a little closer. The Elikai tensed too, and Tare quickly dragged Love backward.
Sugar and Charlie stepped in the middle of it all, before there was a misunderstanding.
“I should take my brothers home,” Sugar said.
“That would be best,” Charlie agreed. “We wouldn’t want this first successful agreement between our peoples to end in bloodshed.”
“Let’s go.” Sugar gave Tare a shove toward the canoe.
His chest seized. “I haven’t said goodbye.”
India was being tugged away toward the path by his brothers. He was looking back at Tare, biting his lip. Watching him go made Tare’s chest ache and his breath catch in his throat.
“You had all afternoon. Go.” Sugar shoved Tare again, and suddenly India was out of sight.
He sighed and hoisted himself into the nearest canoe. Too late, he realized he’d joined Fox. The other man glared at him.
On the beach, the Varekai were vanishing into the trees, and before Tare could leap out of the canoe and scramble after them, the Elikai had cast off and were ghosting between the rocks and islands, paddling toward home.
“You almost got us all killed,” Fox said. “The Varekai declared war.”
“They are kind of temperamental,” Tare agreed.
“I hope you learned your lesson,” Fox muttered. “I hope this is the last time you’re going to have any dealings with that Varekai. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
Tare looked back toward the fading shore. They’d come out of Eden naive and imagined they’d progressed. They thought themselves masters of their domain now, but it was all a lie. A...a mistake. They didn’t know anything at all. “You’re wrong. That Varekai is our only chance for salvation.”
* * * * *
PART TWO:
The Stealing Game
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
Something was moving in the trees. Something was stalking him. Love hadn’t seen it yet, but it was there. The water lapped gently around his hips, and he clutched the armful of water-lily tubers more tightly against his chest as he tried to watch every root-bound bank at once.
His breath caught in his throat. His eyes watered. He wanted to run, but every time
his mind screamed at him to move, nothing happened. It was better to stay here, frozen in the water, than to confront whatever was on the bank. The pool was safe. He was almost certain of that. The saltwater crocodiles that hunted in the archipelago were the most dangerous predator the Elikai faced, but he had checked for them thoroughly before he entered the water.
A piece of the dense jungle seemed to slide away, and Love gave a squeak of fear. He tried to make out the shape behind the movement, but his stalker was well camouflaged. Was it a snake blending so seamlessly with the patches and swirls of leaves and light? A jaguar?
A frog chirped. Then in a flurry of movement, a small songbird burst from the cover of his nest, shrieking bird insults as it fled. Love dropped the armload of tubers and, turning to flee in the other direction, almost impaled himself on the spear of the Varekai who had materialized on the bank behind him.
He was tall, with masses of flame-red hair woven with bird skulls and shells, and hungry, green jaguar eyes. His waist was small, his hips wide and full. On his chest, a strip of leather hide covered fist-sized breasts. His skin was painted in black ink stripes, like a tiger.
“We’ve been watching you for an hour.” His tone held open contempt.
“I’m just—” Love’s voice caught in his throat. “I’m just gathering food. I’m not doing anything to you.”
“Just relax, little sister.” Love could hear Charlie slipping into the pool behind him. Despite being the Varekai leader, he was less frightening than his companion. His nut-brown hair and nut-brown skin seemed less threatening than Whiskey’s stark reds and whites. And Charlie’s hazel eyes were always bright and merry, as if this were just a game. “Hands behind you.”
Love considered resisting. Putting up some kind of fight. But he was completely unarmed and the smallest of the Elikai tribe. That was why he gathered roots, honey and berries instead of hunting with his brothers. Certainly, they valued his honey, when he could find it, but he was slightly pitied. By everyone. Even the Varekai.