The Eden Chronicles Boxset

by S. K Munt

  I was also laughing on the inside- I’d just confessed my feelings for Kohl and my plans with Karol too him and he hadn’t even blinked. Telling the truth was easier than lying, for my truth was too insane to be given a second thought.

  ‘God…’ Kohén nuzzled my neck. ‘This is so perfect. You look like you’re a mermaid, and you’re in my arms in paradise…’ He grinned at me. ‘I’ve been hard all night. I tried to deal with it, but it won’t go down.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, fluttering my eyelashes. ‘What a coincidence- I was up late reading the bible, and about how touching oneself is a sin.’ I shook my finger at him and said: ‘the old God is very angry with you now. Perhaps that thunderstorm last night was his doing.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ he pecked my lips again and stood up. ‘Nice try but not even you’re that reckless, and I’m fairly certain that they stopped leaving Bibles in resort rooms a long time ago. Besides-’ he threw a towel at me, covering with sand. ‘That storm was an act of brother, not God and you’re going to seriously earn yourself a spanking if you keep up the lip.’

  I blinked. ‘You mean, they’re not one in the same?’ I turned to look back at Kohl. ‘I swear, he looks exactly how I imagined God-’ Kohén’s hands pulled me off the ground and spun me so that he could plant another hard kiss on my lips.

  ‘That’s one,’ he whispered, and a chill went through me.

  No- that was Karol, and suddenly, Kohén seemed as like him, as Kohl did to God.

  15.

  It was eventually time to leave (the sharks started filling the bay as dusk approached) and though Kohén tried to catch my eye when we all got out onto the track again, I began to move toward Jovi, who I was becoming very fond of and who I didn’t feel weird about hanging on to, for his breasts bounced more than mine. But before I’d taken two steps, Kohl slung his arm around my neck and said loudly:

  ‘So, Larkin. I heard you say that you wanted to go faster earlier today, but your guide was too worried for your welfare to do it?’

  ‘That’s correct,’ I said sadly. ‘But I understand.’

  ‘Well, I don’t give a fig for your welfare,’ he said, launching himself up onto his horse and then extending one salty wet hand to me. ‘So... do you wanna ride with me?’

  I did, and no one but Kelia and Constance looked disturbed when he flung himself up onto his saddle and pulled me on behind him- though Kohén did make a face and gave him the finger, and I smiled, mollified to see that I had guessed the right way to flip him off when he wasn’t looking, all of those months ago.

  ‘Hold on tight,’ Kohl whispered, turning his head to mine. ‘This is going to get a little out of control.’

  I pressed my cheek to his bare, warm and insanely broad back as we galloped off and whispered: ‘I hope so!’ and he chuckled again.

  We set a cracking pace, and it wasn’t long before it was just Kohl and I crashing through the jungle paths alone. The wind blew through my hair and the leaves ahead of us formed a canopy, allowing dappled sunlight through and though we were bouncing along pretty hard, I had no qualms with pressing myself against Kohl’s hot, bare back for support. His heart was racing as mine was, and I breathed in deeply and exhaled long and heavily, soaking up the moment of solitude.

  ‘Are you enjoying Caldera Island, beautiful?’ Kohl called back to me, and my heart started to gallop faster. ‘I’ve been dying to ask but I can’t seem to get a moment alone with you.’

  I swallowed and smushed my face into his back. ‘I know…’ I complained. ‘And I’m so sorry Kohl. I don’t think I would have come if I’d known that he intended to use this trip to romance me, and right in front of you! I feel wretched, absolutely wretched!’

  ‘So this is a new development then?’ Kohl asked, and his voice was strained. ‘I was a bit shocked to see the way that he’s been draping himself over you, but I had no way of knowing if this is how you’ve been this whole time or-’

  ‘No,’ I shook my head and squeezed him more tightly. ‘I would have told you if we had such an intimate relationship, and I wouldn’t have been sending you, uh… signals, if his sudden passion went two ways. I mean, there have been moments between us in the past, but they have always been sporadic and there have been none since my sixteenth, okay?’ I hesitated. ‘Well, we shared one kiss around the new year but that was seven months ago, and it was supposed to be the last for four years,’ I shook my head. ‘He’s been Mr Arm’s length all year but now he’s an octopus and I’m very confused and am sorry to have confused you too.’

  ‘You don’t have to make excuses for your relationship with him, or your conduct,’ Kohl said back, keeping his voice loud to be heard over the pounding of hooves against the dirt packed road. ‘He has told me a few things, of course- that he was pretty sure that he messed up with you by going to Emmerly when you may have been coming to him. That you told him I love you just before then, during your initiation but refused to discuss a future with him after, and that you have cooled toward him completely since the week I left. I hoped it was because of me-’

  ‘It was for many reasons, and he is right about several of them and clueless about the others’ I said, hugging him tightly and thinking about Karol’s leer. ‘But yes, your arrival and departure changed me, and that has altered the dynamic between your twin and I so drastically that I don’t know what I want anymore.’ I sighed. ‘But he’s pretty set on marrying me still, and though I have refused to consider it until I am free, and think it is the most inconceivable, hair-brained plan I’ve ever heard- I cannot lie to you and say that I wouldn’t… I mean… if it was possible I- I…’ I rested my head on his back and groaned. ‘God, do we have to discuss this now? I just wanted to soak you up while I had the chance to!’

  Kohl slowed the horse to a trot before bringing it to a complete stop, and then wrapped his arm around mine so that one of his hands was caressing the ring on my right hand, but his other was holding the reins and horse steady. ‘I’m sorry Lark- I want that too. But like I said: I know how I feel, and what I’m willing to risk to win your hand… but I cannot fight my brother for something he has already won again- it will break me.’ He touched my neck, where the bruise was. ‘As it broke me to see you together last night.’

  ‘That was your rain?’ I asked. ‘You did it to break us apart?’

  ‘No. I did it because I could not help it. But yes, I am glad that I broke you apart because I wasn’t sure if you were kissing him by choice or force. Seeing you running away after- and not staying with him to ride out the storm- improved my mood greatly though. Just as seeing you laughing together today instead of fighting eased my mind from worrying that he’d been too forceful.’

  ‘He wasn’t trying to force himself on me,’ I said quickly. ‘I still don’t believe that he’s capable of that. But your father is hoping he will and is wondering why he hasn’t, so I had to allow Kohén to…’ I touched my neck and winced. ‘Ruin me a little, even if only on the surface.’

  ‘I thought as much- I’ve heard mother complain about you endlessly since she arrived.’ he let out an annoyed sigh. ‘She believes that you are set on joining with him or becoming his favourite whore who he will not part with- effectively ruining his chances of marrying a good girl like herself. And yet father wants Kohén to keep you around if he loves you so dearly- but only so long as you are his favourite little whore and not his master who interferes with his need to breed and join with someone else.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘How lofty their dreams for him!’

  Kohl chuckled. ‘I know. Luckily for me, they don’t care what I do!’ He looked into my eyes, and then exhaled. ‘But I do care- a little- about what you do, sweetheart. I want to be with you, and I can handle knowing that you are indulging him in this feigned romance to appease his royal ego… and if he betrays his word to you by taking you by force, I will still take you into my arms after, and settle for being your second so long as I am your only from thereon.’ He swallowed. ‘But if you had lingered and
reached for him as he had reached for you after that downpour, or if you go to him willingly because he is your first choice… I would not reach for you after.’

  ‘You cannot reach for me at all,’ I whispered. ‘You saw how he handled Kelia yesterday- I can’t even imagine what he’d do if he saw us touching this tenderly!’

  ‘I know,’ he cringed. ‘I feel awful for telling him about her writing to me but I couldn’t help it. One of the natives who was helping us unload the luggage saw Kelia hugging me and asked if this was the great beauty that I’d spoken of who wrote to me so often, and she said yes with a big, proud smile- not realising that Kohén was right behind her!’ I groaned. ‘Yes,’ Kohl went on. ‘Kohén didn’t alert her to the fact that he’d overheard her then and there, but he asked me immediately about her after you two left, and because he was clearly in a bad mood already, I tried to laugh it off; saying that it was nothing and that I’d been talking her up for appearance’s sakes, and that I’d only sent two postcards back, you know? But when she came looking for him to give him a hard time about your get-up, she walked into his bungalow, saw me sitting on the couch, assumed he was out of earshot and told me that she’d missed me desperately.’ He chuckled. ‘But Kohén was in the kitchen and though I knew he’d heard every word, I didn’t anticipate him detonating about it the way he did, and embarrassing her.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s pissed at me now and though I feel badly about the way it played out, I am relieved that she has backed off.’

  ‘So am I,’ I confessed. ‘God, I’m an awful person.’

  ‘No, you’re bound to a man against your will, but draw every other man with eyes, ears or a nose to sense you with to you like bees to pollen.’

  I smiled. ‘I am so crazy about you right now for getting that overused analogy accurate, because everyone else says honey, but the instinct drives them to copulate with the bloom.’

  ‘I read,’ Kohl joked, and not for the first time. Then, he picked me up and easily twisted me so that I was sitting in front of him, face to face, and the motion made my heart skip a beat. ‘And I’m trying to get a reading on you, so hold still while I do that, okay?’ He clasped my face in his hands and lowered his head so that his eyes were staring into mine, and I couldn’t breathe. His gaze moved to my mouth, then back up to my eyes, and he smiled. ‘I don’t think a man alive has ever wanted to kiss someone as badly as I want to kiss you, every time that I see you.’

  ‘You can’t,’ I whispered, but my face tilted to his. ‘Kohl I want to explore what’s between us, but it must be done carefully for the next few years with every sense but touch, you understand that, don’t you? I will not break my vow to him.’

  ‘I won’t kiss you,’ he promised, and then plucked a frangipani from the lei around his neck. ‘I don’t want to outrightly betray my brother any more than you do, and I love you more for keeping your word to him. But….’ he pressed the bloom to my nose, and I closed my eyes and inhaled the heavenly aroma, before he moved it to press against my throat and then ran it down to my clavicle with the most delicious, most tentative touch I’d ever known. I shivered. ‘If I were allowed to put my lips on you,’ Kohl’s voice was husky, ‘this is what they’d be doing…’ he ran the frangipani down between my breasts and I gasped and arched, moaning when he passed it over my belly button. I felt a rush of heat between my legs and as though he sensed it, he agonisingly-slowly trailed the petals over my hips until I gasped. Then the bloom was against my lips and I whimpered and heard him suck in a breath.

  ‘And they say there’s no electricity on this island…’ he whispered. ‘What I feel right now could light up Tariel!’

  I opened my eyes. ‘Was that electricity?’ I whispered. ‘Because I feel more like I’m on fire- the kind of fire only you will be able to put out, being the beautiful, powerful Nephilim that you are.’

  His eyes darkened. ‘You care for us both,’ he whispered. ‘And you have imagined futures with us both and without either. I don’t want to push you Larkin, or steal his girl via manipulation, or cause either of you any strife- but I can’t walk away from this unless I am forced to. So tell me, honestly, that you are set on him and I will release you and find a way to treat you like a sister. But tell me that you could love me more- tell me that there’s even the slightest chance- and I will steal as many chaste moments of your time as I can between now and our twenty-first birthdays.’

  ‘That’s all you need from me?’ I asked, awed and touching the small silver hoop he’d had pierced into his right ear, like the bird attracted to shiny things that I was. ‘The affirmation that we have a slight chance? No physical gratification demanded, and no promises to be made?’

  ‘I cannot demand what you cannot give,’ he whispered. ‘I know that you are between a rock and a hard place. But, if you could give me the slightest indication of how you see me… eye patch and all… that this could be enough for you...’

  I smiled, took the flower from his fingers and pressed it to his lips. ‘This is what my lips would be doing, if I were free to use them on anybody that I wanted to,’ I whispered, and then trailed it down his neck and over his chest. The look he gave me could have set the rainforest on fire, but we heard the approaching stampede of hooves before that spark could ignite us. Kohl twisted me again until I was behind him, and then guided my arms until they were around him once more before I’d even had the chance to blink. He let out a: ‘Ha!’ and then we were off, and though I knew we’d just had an incredibly close call, I was suddenly too drunk on Kohl to care.

  ‘To answer your question,’ I called out, running my fingers down his stomach as I adjusted my grip, and scenting the flower that was still in my other hand. It was so much lovelier than the stink of roses. ‘I am enjoying Pacifica and the hard places I’ve been pressed against very much!’

  I felt his laughter tighten his stomach beneath my fingers, and wondered why any girl would be stupid enough to want a noble over a man who worked with his hands- and waist!

  *

  We had a fish fry that night out in the open air around our pool, and it was more fun than I’d ever had before in my life. Under the starry sky we drank cocktails and played games in the pool that Kohl taught to us all and then after that, Kohén dragged Kelia and I onto the clay Basket-Racket court so that we could explain the rules to Kohl, who’d never played a game despite the fact that the court was right there.

  ‘Jovi and Atticus play a lot,’ Kohl said to me, his voice slurred a little as he admired the racket in his hands. ‘And the general has often said that he’ll have to have me over for a game sometime… but I work from sunrise to sunset, you know? And the other kids don’t get invited over so...’ he swallowed and so did I, rubbing his lower back in comfort. ‘I hope I’m good at it, I mean… I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of him and father and talk them out of inviting me back...’

  My heart had folded for him so many times since we’d met that I was certain that it had a permanent crease down the centre of it by then. ‘You couldn’t be terrible at anything,’ I assured him. ‘Just… just try and keep your shots on their side of the net and between the lines, and try and get it into that basket behind us at every opportunity that you get… okay?’

  He looked at me, his expression mournful. ‘Will you play on my side?’

  But I cringed and looked up to see that Kohén was already beckoning to me from the other end of the court while Kelia slunk toward us with a dejected look on her face. ‘I don’t think that’s a great idea but… but I’ll go easy on you, okay?’

  Kohl sighed sadly and did not look at me. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Kelia’s really good,’ I assured him, feeling awful. Drunk wasn’t a good look on him.

  ‘Okay…’

  I patted his bare shoulder and then walked toward Kohén with a regretful heart, and his eyes were shining. ‘Ready to whoop some butt, sweetheart?’

  I took the racket he was holding out to me from him. ‘I don’t know Kohén I mean…’ I look
ed back toward Kelia and Kohl, then back to him, lowering my voice to whisper: ‘Do you think that’s a good idea? I mean, they’re already the underdogs. Can’t we let them win a few games, at least?’

  But Kohén laughed and took my free hand, dragging me across the court behind him. ‘And what good will that do them, huh?’

  ‘It will give them a little bit of pride,’ I pointed out. ‘And they both need more of that, and we both know it.’

  ‘Pride is not given, Lark- it’s earned and it can only come from the inside out.’ He pushed a lock of hair out of my face and lifted my chin to regard me, and I scented coconut milk and rum on his breath. ‘You were born without a skerrick of pride to call your own, but you are glorious now because you have earned every inch of the esteem that you’ve accumulated. And you’ve transitioned from being the underdog, to the potential future queen of Arcadia because you have worked hard to become a force of nature- not because I felt sorry for you, or you for yourself.’ He leaned in and kissed me gently, and he tasted so sweet that I had to struggle not to kiss him back too eagerly. ‘And you have inspired me to reach for the skies in order to win your esteem because of it.’ He pulled back and tapped my wet hair with the racket. ‘So don’t cripple their evolution, by handing them anything that they have not earned, especially a victory, or you will only further to encourage the ridiculous belief that children born noble are entitled to more than anyone else.’

  I stared at him, a little dazzled yet again. Sometimes when I thought I had him pegged, he’d do or say something to prove that he was wise beyond his years, and it never failed to leave me breathless. Like when he’d declared as a five-year old, that he didn’t want me to go easy on him in poker- but wanted to know how to win the hard way off the bat, or the way he’d held his tongue about my mother, believing that I needed to experience the shock without a prior warning first.