by S. K Munt
And I’m asking so that I can feel a little less guilty about how I’d be acting if it were Kohl handing me champagne, rather than you...
‘Nah,’ Kohén scoffed. ‘The white roses are dad’s touch- they’re technically the Barachiel flower but the locusts have been ruining them, so we’ve not seen them bloom in Calliel in over twenty years. They grow in abundance here though, and I expect we will see many next spring back home.’ He lay back on his elbows and eyed me. ‘And no you won’t find them on your bed on you twenty-first.’
‘Thank goodness, I said, then smiled. ‘Though if there is a chance for me to weigh in on how things go that day- I’d much prefer white rose petals, or even a few locusts- to finding Karol in my room again.’
Not that I’ll have to worry about that, because it is I who must go to him that day if he doesn’t find a wife in time...
He chuckled. ‘That’s a relief. But come on... I wasn’t going to pounce you on your birthday Larkin- I’m not an animal, and even though you’ll be free, I’ll still be prohibited from having sex with ladies outside of the harem until I get bound to one legally, remember?’ He waved his hand toward me. ‘Sort of the whole point of your caste to begin with...?’
‘I know,’ I said, abashed. ‘And I’m sorry for how weird I’ve been today. I just feel…’ I shifted the top into place and blushed. ‘Vulnerable, and displaced and still sort of like the world is rocking beneath my feet, and I don’t like that.’
‘Neither do I, which is why I’ve been tolerant of your smart mouth so far.’ He wagged a finger at me. ‘But that stops now, got it? I don’t pick the clothes, and I’m not going to feel bad at staring at you, because you’re beautiful, and ought to get used to being stared at because the whining is getting old. And like I said to Kelia- you two are spared the obligation side of this arrangement but get all the benefits, so the least you can do is treat me with a bit of respect every now and then, all right?’
I lowered my lashes. ‘I only rebel against you because I respect you enough to know that you will take it with grace, tolerance and good humour, Kohén.’ I made my confession while spinning my finger around the rim of the glass. ‘That is me demonstrating how much faith I have in you as my best friend, not a lack of respect for you as my superior- which I have in spades.’
‘Hmm, well...’ I looked up and saw him flush which made me flush on the inside. I’d spent so many months not looking at him that I’d forgotten how cathartic it was to drink him in.
Drink him in? Okay yeah… maybe put the booze down?
Kohén squinted at me. ‘Really?’ his voice was softer and much more self-conscious. ‘You think I have the making of being a leader?’
‘Of course I do,’ I said softly, though whether he was the best candidate for Pacifica was another, more volatile subject. ‘Why would you question that?’
‘You’re such a…’ he appeared to search his brain for the term. ‘Not anarchist, but something like it. I wouldn’t suppose that you’d paused your loathing for the monarchy long enough to consider how I would fit into it.’
‘I consider it every day,’ I said, giving a look to let him know that my words were loaded with what I wouldn’t say. ‘Every decision you make is seen as a foundation brick for the nation for me. And the ones you make regarding me well…’ I lay down on my side and smiled at him. ‘They’re fundamental.’
He chuckled. ‘Point taken, as always.’ He lay down across from me and appraised me thoughtfully before saying: ‘and on that note, I’m sorry if I alarmed you back at the dock, or in your room. But I refuse to believe that the love I have for you is cause for distress on your part after how I’ve managed to rise above the constant temptation to claim you as I am legally allowed to, and desperately want to do.’ He twisted his lips to the side briefly then continued: ‘and I’m sorry if I embarrassed you just now in front of them. But Kelia really got under my skin by taking that tone with me, Kohl pissed me off by practically drowning in his own drool over you-’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ I scoffed, brushing a rose petal away.
‘Pfft!’ Kohén snorted. ‘He couldn’t SPEAK, darling. And knowing that Kelia has already gone behind my back to express feelings for him, after hiding under her bed from me for the last eight months had me feeling inadequate enough as it was. I mean, what am I- some sort of demon? We look just like each other, so why does she forget her piousness around him, but hefts her guard up around me?’
‘It’s probably a free will thing,’ I said, deciding not to point out that they didn’t look much alike at all right now. ‘I wouldn’t take it personally. It’s common knowledge that the more forbidden something is, the more attractive it becomes to the beholder.’
‘Yeah well, he’s not more attractive or a better person than I am and if she had a lick of sense to go with that free will, she’d batt those lovely lashes at me just once to humour me, as she’s been trained and compensated to do- and stay in my good graces!’ I raised an eyebrow, making it clear that I was unimpressed by the hot air he was blowing and he rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, so maybe I’m a little jealous that he’s like, grown a foot or whatever since I saw him last, and that my mother weeps all over him or that Atticus thinks the sun shines out his butt even though Kohl is responsible for so much unwanted rain- and if I’m being completely honest, I guess don’t care if Kelia’s on her knees right now giving the poor kid a break because I don’t want her anymore either.’ He frowned and I squirmed over the idea of Kelia giving Kohl oral sex. ‘But him looking at you is another thing entirely, so I just had to… I don’t know…’
‘Mark you’re territory?’ I supplied, taking a big gulp of my champagne. Yep, he really did.
‘Yeah.’ He scrunched up his face. ‘Sorry, but it’s a guy thing- and it’s not often that I have to deal with other guys our age drooling on you, you know? I’m not used to it.’
I chuckled ironically. ‘Sucks, doesn’t it? Having feelings for someone and worrying that they’re going to end up wrapped around someone else-’
‘Stop right there,’ he said, sounding instantly aggravated. ‘It’s not the same thing, but you’ve just proven exactly why I won’t be telling you what I do with other girls. You’re jealous enough as it is and I hate the fact that I make you feel threatened in that sense. Besides... it’s sick.’
I screwed up my nose. ‘Gosh! Now I have to know what you do if it’s that abhorrent?’
He tossed a grape at my head and I shrieked and ducked it. ‘Talking about it is sick. What I do is… normal, I guess.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, taking another sip.
‘No.’
‘Why?’ I said, fantasying about pulling out his new spine and beating him over the head with it. Since when did he say no to me? ‘I’m sick of not knowing about what you do and what you think all the time, like I used to- actually you’re right. I am jealous, and I hate sharing you with them, so maybe if you share something small with me I’ll feel less left out.’ I finished my champagne and then sat up and held out the glass for him to fill it with more. ‘Don’t you agree? All of this secrecy is killing us.’
He arched an eyebrow at me as he sat up and fetched the champagne. ‘What secrets do you have?’
I looked down and tossed my strawberry into my glass to see if it would taste as nice as they said it did in my romance books, and avoided his eyes in case he saw Kohl’s warm reflection within them, or my fear over what I would have to do with Karol. Gosh, come to think of it, I had many secrets from Kohén! The formula, my suspicion over Martya’s death, what my mother had said about my father... ‘I just mean... all of the doors that keep getting locked between us.’
‘Well, you’re welcome to unlock yours or join us at-’ he cut off when I gave him a foul look. ‘Okay not funny.’
‘Us?’ I demanded, my face going hot as my temper boiled over. ‘Kohén Barachiel! You don’t go with more than one at a time like your gross brother, do you?!’
Kohén groaned an
d lay on his back, covering his eyes. ‘Larkin… no, I’m not like that and you know it, and please- stop.’
My relief was more pronounced than even I’d expected. ‘Thank hell for that,’ I took a big gulp of bubbles like I was trying to douse out the hot flames of jealousy licking up inside me. ‘You know I’d never hear an ‘I love you’ out of you again if you even tried…’ I shuddered.
‘I know- that’s why I don’t do that kind of stuff with them, and go to them only when I must and not... And don’t say hell…’ he leaned over. ‘Here…’ he reached over and pulled the fastener out of the end of my hastily woven braid, coming his fingers through the still-damp lengths. His eyes moved to mine, and his lip curled in a not-quite smile in response to my perplexed expression. ‘I’m supposed to be wooing you, so you can’t go back looking as tidy as you left,’ he said. ‘The other girls will know something’s up, if you do. As will dad.’
‘So he does anticipate a seduction tonight?’ I asked curtly, but I wasn’t oblivious to the way that the air warmed between us (at least for me) after he’d suggested messing me up.
‘Frankly yes. But before you get all tangled up in that delightful string underwear, bear in mind that I’m only going through the motions to put his mind at ease so he stops hounding me about it.’ He smiled gently. ‘My father is happy that I’ve found romance within the harem, but he’s not going to believe it’s a two-way romance if he never sees evidence of a physical connection between us.’ He strummed my hair gently, untangling it, and his touch was so gentle and sensual that I was holding in a moan with my breath. ‘To buy us time, I’ve told him that I love you and that I intend to keep you around permanently, but that I may not act on it until I can kick the other girls out to appease you- and he’s okay with that... to a degree. But if I can’t get you wearing gold, I need to at least make it appear that I COULD if I wanted to. Hence: sunset picnic.’
I was a little moved by that. ‘A desultory seduction masterminded by the future prince, huh?’
‘Unbearably slow,’ he smiled wryly at me. ‘Seemingly eternal.’ He blew out a breath to his brow. ‘The future prince feels about nine hundred already.’
I tilted my head. ‘Then do you have to do the white rose dance with Kelia too?’
Kohén snorted, shaking his head. ‘No. My father knows that she turns me off, and he understands that completely. Like with him and Maryah, he expects her to get out of this unadorned because we lack for chemistry- but because she’s also so fragile, he knows that I’ll delay kicking her out for as long as I can stand to keep her around.’
‘Turned off by her?’ I asked, startled. ‘But you once said that she was the prettiest one!’
‘She was,’ he agreed. ‘But you’ve eclipsed her on a solar and lunar level since, and she has not developed well in your shadow. In fact, she’s become whiny, demanding, anti-social and spoiled- and her face is almost constantly puckered up-’
‘Okay, okay this is my friend we’re talking about here,’ I reminded him. ‘Ease up.’
‘She’s not your friend,’ he said coldly. ‘She clings to you because you’re the only one tolerant enough not to kick her off, and because she knows being special to you makes her off-limits to me.’
‘Fine, if that’s what you think,’ I said, not in the mood to stand up for Kelia’s timid nature in light of the way she’d talked down to me earlier, and sort of moved to think that I had so much sway over Kohén’s personal choices in companionship. ‘But why is it okay for her to get out of the fake romance stuff-’
‘Because I’m fucking wild about you, okay?’ he exploded, making me twitch. ‘Because nothing is fake for me when it comes to you and everyone knows it! I make these grand gestures and trip all over myself and demand overseas excursions….’ he grimaced. ‘But you’ve stopped being my shadow since you turned sixteen, and it’s making people speculate. My father doesn’t want to believe that you’re manipulating me because he’s genuinely fond of you but my mother thinks you are trouble and-’
‘All right!’ I said softly, catching his hand and smiling tentatively at him while my heart skipped several beats at the surge of energy that passed between our palms. ‘It’s all right please; don’t make my hair all staticky in your distress. I flipped out this afternoon because you’ve left me alone for months-’
‘You wanted me to,’ he said.
‘I know, and I appreciate the fact that you have. I was just caught off-guard, is all. I mean honestly…’ I shrugged. ‘I’d started thinking that you’d moved past us, you know?’
Kohén’s eyes lifted to mine in shock. ‘Are you kidding? Larkin I… I fall more in love with you every day.’ He leaned over, bracing himself against the ground and added: ‘and I want you more every second! It’s hard for me to stay away from you, but I do it to keep you calm.’
I looked down at the blanket beneath us and bit my lip, confused by the way my heart was pounding. I’d come here expecting to fall harder for Kohl, and yet here I was with Kohén, and the way he’d just looked at me had made me shimmer on the inside, like he’d reduced me to molecules of radiant light and heat.
‘Oh,’ I whispered. ‘Well…’ I swallowed. ‘Mystery cleared up then.’
His hand came down on mine- his winged ring against my wooden one. ‘You still love me too, right?’
I looked up at him, not certain what to say, but certain that he was using his charge against me to heat me from the inside out because I had been too angry at him for too long for the passionate emotions stirring inside me to be for real now. ‘I do,’ I admitted sadly. ‘But I don’t know in what way anymore, Kohén.’
‘Like hell you don’t,’ he whispered, looking even more alarmed. ‘Say you’ll marry me still, and mean it!’
‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘Even though I am bound to respond to your every request with a yes- that is the one thing that YOU are not permitted to ask of me.’ I smirked. ‘And just try and run off to your mother and father to complain that your whore said ‘no’ to a marriage proposal from you- and see who ends up on the other side of the fence!’
‘You think I’d do that?’ he demanded, looking hurt.
‘I think you just threatened Kelia with that fate for far less of a betrayal than denying your love,’ I pointed out. ‘So who knows what I’d be in for, if your feelings for me flipped?’
‘As yours have for me?’ he asked.
‘My feelings for you are like a canoe in a squall,’ I whispered. ‘They’ve flipped about so many times that I don’t know if I’m drowning in them, or surviving by clinging to them alone. And I will not know if I am destined to love you or hate you or be indifferent to you until the storm has passed, and I have been granted the space and the freedom to paddle where my heart urges me to.’
Kohén’s eyes flashed dangerously as he pulled me into his arms and onto his lap, angling me across it so that my head was on his shoulder and my backside in the cradle of his crossed legs. ‘You’re scaring me Larkin,’ he whispered, but he did not look scared- he looked certain of something illicit. ‘And I don’t like being scared.’ His lips pressed against mine when he whispered: ‘you love me in every way that a woman can love a man, got it? I am your best friend, your lover, and your benefactor: say so now!’
‘If you command me to, then I must,’ I whispered, ‘that won’t make it all true though-’ I groaned when he kissed me with angry, lustful lips, forcing mine open so that he could strum my tongue with his and forcing me to admit the truth, at least to myself:
I wasn’t sure what the word love even meant any more, but I adored him and I wanted him, and I hated myself for it.
13.
A thrill shot through me as Kohén’s charge hummed around me, one that was as fearful as it was excited, and I tried to push him off before things could get out of hand, but he pulled back first and whispered:
‘You want me!’ he whispered. ‘And you love me, I know you do! You’re just afraid of being trapped and though I’ve alway
s been understanding of that and have tried to do whatever is in my power to put your mind at ease- you’re stopped offering such comfort back and I’m starting to wonder if I’ve held you too far from me to know me anymore.’ He sat taller and rearranged me again so that I was straddling his hips, and wrapped my legs around his waist before holding my face steady with his hands. ‘I gave you space and you took it, and you never infringe on mine- though you must know that I would gladly welcome it. I go to other women and you allow it without showing the faintest hint of jealousy. I tell you that I love you, and you tell me that you must say the same, and I speak of plans for our future and you shut down…’ he pushed my hair out of my eyes. ‘You shut me out, my love, so tell me why I shouldn’t believe that my mother and fathers’ fears are warranted, and that you are just using me to get your way, preparing to discard me after?’
I stared at him with a racing heart. ‘Because if your love for me is true,’ I whispered, ‘then you would know me well enough to understand that I could never use or discard anybody intentionally.’
‘And if your love for me was true,’ he countered, ‘you would not be able to bear this distance between us any better than I have!’
My eyes welled. ‘Who says that I have been dealing with it well, Kohén?’ I ran my fingers through his shaggy hair, which looked almost black in the moonlight, realising that it was true- I had been dealing, just not well. ‘The more valuable the hand, the more impassive the poker face must be!’ I ran my hands down his neck. ‘My heart has been breaking for over a year now, and if I must accept that you will go to them, as you asked, you must accept that I will withdraw from you or suffocate in my own jealousy and heartbreak!’ I kissed him roughly then whispered. ‘Yes I love you, and yes I desire you, but I am not your everything, Kohén! You must pursue a throne, and your studies, and have your arousal sated and travel often without me, while I must wait patiently and witness the locking of doors and the departure of vessels all alone! I have signed a contract to do that, so I live my life around yours accordingly, and you have offered me more after, and that means so much to me!’ I swallowed. ‘But aside from your word, there is no guarantee that I am safe investing even one of my hopes for the future in you, so it is unfair that you demand every one of them!’