The Eden Chronicles Boxset

by S. K Munt

  ‘You two don’t look that much alike…’ I said, feeling a bit sick.

  ‘Do you think we are alike?’

  ‘As much as you can be for two people raised so differently.’

  ‘I suppose…’ he cleared his throat. ‘You get along well. Kelia mentioned that you are going with him to the barracks tonight…?’

  ‘With Atticus, yes I am and I was going to ask Kelia to come along too.’ I smiled at him, relieved to see a bit more relief in his eyes, while silently cursing Kelia for interfering. ‘As a third-born, I could not stop myself from seeing what may have become of me.’ I turned away. ‘And as for us getting along- he is your other half, so I figured it was an unspoken command from you that I do. Not because you are a royal, but a twin.’ I gasped, and then pointed to a string of bright white stones that were reflecting blue light. ‘What are those? They look like ice!’

  ‘Those are diamonds, sweetheart- their bluish tint is a product of their supreme clarity.’ Kohén said softly. ‘Father says that is the most valuable necklace in existence, because each diamond is considered perfect, and there are at least seventy of them. You’d be hard-pressed to find another diamond to equal one of them, or to glow as prettily.’

  ‘Hard-pressed,’ I giggled. ‘Like a diamond. And that electric blue! It is just like the colour of your eyes when you are excited.’ I shook my head and grinned. ‘Perfect! How old is this stuff?’

  ‘Judging by the clasp, early twentieth century, we think.’ I felt him a brush a strand of my hair behind my ear. ‘But we won’t ever know for sure, and it’s hard to know the value of them, when there is nothing to compare them to.’

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked. ‘Roughly I mean. You’re usually pretty good at guessing this sort of stuff.’

  Kohén smoothed his fingertips down my braid. ‘You flatter me darling,’ he joked, but his voice sounded strange when he said it, like there was something he wasn’t saying and his voice was low, making me wonder if this was a secret or something. ‘Well, back then, it was probably only worth about a million dollars, I think, depending on the designer,’ he said. ‘But right now, I don’t know… six or seven million? Which is the worth of a very small kingdom with undeveloped land, or a VERY large favour.’

  ‘Whoa!’

  ‘I know.’ He pointed to the glass but didn’t touch it, telling me that the pale green glow shrouding the case was sure to either cause us pain, or trigger an alarm. ‘The collection as a whole is practically invaluable, and it belongs to Pacifica alone. Imagine that, huh? The tiniest, newest quasi-nation is now in possession of the largest collection of jewels on the planet!’

  ‘Yay for the underdog,’ I said, hugging myself so I wouldn’t be tempted to stroke the glass.

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate that, and I knew you’d fall in love with that choker at first sight.’ Kohén knelt beside me and turned my face to his, and his eyes were softer than coconut cream. ‘Which is why I’ve decided that it will be my wedding gift to you.’

  My mouth fell open. ‘Excuse me?!’

  ‘I want you to have it one day,’ he said seriously. ‘It is the only thing in the world that comes close to being as beautiful as you are, my little bird.’

  ‘That’s impossible!’ I whispered, shaking my head. ‘And unfair! Why should one person have so much when a whole kingdom could benefit from a seventh of the funds that it would take to procure that chain?’

  ‘Because I love you more than I love my kingdom or myself, and I have hurt you.’ His dimples vanished. ‘I need your forgiveness, darling- I need to know that you understand that you are what is priceless to me so that you marry me someday.’ He glanced at the glass, looking wistful. ‘And if you wore that, everyone else would know your worth too!’

  ‘Everyone would hate me!’ I exclaimed. ‘I would hate me! If it is my favour that you are after, why not invest a seventh of that amount of money into farming and construction so that the country can support the obliteration of the third-born caste?’

  Kohén frowned at me. ‘Because I will not have the funds to do that! If I am crowned king of Pacifica though, all of these will belong to me and that could be gifted to you, not purchased with money that Eden does not have to spare.’

  ‘So it is not a gift at all,’ I said. ‘You’re keeping the money in the family- just dangling it around my neck!’

  ‘Most women would kill for such a thing,’ he said, looking annoyed. ‘Why are you getting so angry? I banked on your delight!’

  You’re banking on owning me!

  ‘It’s too much pressure, and I am NOT most women!’ I cried. ‘And I am not swooning Kohén but offended, and if you knew me at all, you would have anticipated that!’ I pointed to the case. ‘I would not sell you my body for gold, so you want to buy my forgiveness for going to other women with diamonds?’ I stepped into him. ‘What would you do if you were penniless huh? If these urges were just as strong, but you without the funds to marry me or access to a harem- how would you have handled them?’

  Kohén glared at me. ‘To have these urges, one has to be a Nephilim- and there are no penniless Nephilim Larkin, and even if there were- they would not be royal and prohibited from having a relationship until they are thirty like I am, so your question is unfair!’

  ‘No- your answer is unfair, and wrong.’ I stepped back. ‘Kohl is a penniless Nephilim with urges that he can’t have met for four more years by paying for it, or nine years after THAT by marrying! And, yet one year after coming of age, he is a virgin still and no one’s dropped dead yet!’

  ‘He doesn’t have the love of his life with a body from the very devil in his face every fucking day!’ he cried.

  ‘Do NOT use your love for me as an excuse for what you have done! I will hate you for it even more!’

  ‘You hate me anyway!’

  ‘Be grateful that I feel something so passionate for you yet!’ I exclaimed. ‘I want to be numb to you Kohén!’ I clutched at my chest as I felt the crackle of breathlessness develop in my airways. ‘I want to forgive you, but I don’t think I can, okay? Knowing that other women can do for you, what I cannot-’

  ‘They cannot!’ Kohén roared, and I jumped. ‘They never have!’

  I made an awful face at him. ‘Oh come ON-’ but he lunged forward and took hold of my shoulders, silencing me.

  ‘Why do you think I am so frustrated?!’ he demanded. ‘Why do you think I have been keeping my distance from you this last year? Because I was so happy? So satisfied that I climb the walls? So sated that I hum?’ He squeezed my shoulders more tightly. ‘I have known release with one of those girls -ONCE- and since then, trying to do it again has been a maddening exercise in futility- and it is all your fault!’

  My mouth popped open. ‘What? They wear gold! They speak of your prowess-’

  ‘They like my stamina! They think I am a God because I stay hard enough long enough to find THEM again and again and they’re so inexperienced, that they don’t realise that they are not doing the same for me, okay?’ he released me and stepped back. ‘So it’s all been for nothing. I hurt you for nothing! I keep going to them now because I have already ruined them for marrying someone else, and feel indebted to gift them with as much gold as I am able to in compensation for that. But it does practically nothing for me. In fact, I have to take them by their hair and turn their faces away so that I can pretend they are you enough to get hard at all, and if I’m lucky, I can fool myself for long enough to get to the precipice of release with the friction- so that I can finish myself off in my room after! But I have not come with any of them since your sixteenth birthday, and I’m fairly certain I never will with anyone; ever- again!’ He stepped closer to me. ‘But with you…’ he shook his head and swallowed hard. ‘I can get there in my dreams with you and the other night, when I touched you, that was almost enough too unman me.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘That can’t be true,’ I whispered. ‘If you could arrive with Emmerly once-’


  ‘It’s not physical, Larkin.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘I am emotionally impotent. My body works and responds just fine to a point, but every time I get close, I see your face in the hall that night after I left Emmerly’s room when I was sated and…’ his voice broke on a sob and he turned away. ‘The guilt… its like I’m denying myself permission to be sated again without you, lest it would cause history to repeat or my future to implode!’

  ‘Oh my god,’ I whispered. ‘That’s… awful.’ And it was- we’d been ripped apart by that harem, and it had all been for nought.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said roughly, and then turned back to me. ‘Lark? I have to know… why were you in the hall that night? Really?’

  Oh no! No, no, no!

  ‘I told you…’ I said softly, looking down at the carpet. ‘I wanted to thank you for the statue.’

  A long silence followed this and he whispered. ‘How were you going to thank me? Tell me the truth, please.’

  Tears pooled in my eyes and one dripped onto the floor as I remembered how full of hope and love I had been in that moment. I knew I shouldn’t say it, but I had to. ‘I was going to tell you that if you let them go, I’d be your only…’ tears clogged my throat, stalling my speech.

  ‘My only friend?’ he asked thickly. ‘Companion?’

  My throat felt like it was full of sharp rocks. I shook my head.

  In a small voice he asked: ‘My everything?’

  I nodded, and suddenly the room filled with blue light and I ducked and screamed.

  17.

  ‘Fuck!’ Kohén turned around and punched the wall, and his fist disappeared through it. ‘Fucking hell! I knew it! I waited! I hoped! You-’ he turned back to me and pointed a finger at me and I screamed and rolled out of the way, even though only plaster dust fell off his fist with some of his blood.

  ‘Don’t hurt me!’ I squealed, scrambling to my feet as he yanked me back up with a crackling hand. ‘I’m sorry!’

  ‘You’d think I’d hurt you?’ he cried. ‘All I’ve ever wanted to do is love you!’ He pulled me roughly to him and pressed his mouth to mine so hard and with so much passion that static crackled between our lips, making me jump. He then released me just as violently, turning away again to bow to the ground, facing away from me. ‘Fuck!’ he hit himself in the head. ‘FUCKING HELL!’

  ‘Kohén stop!’ I got my feet and pulled on his arm, pushing him down as I did. ‘Please, don’t!’

  ‘You don’t understand me!’ he bemoaned into his hands. ‘Or the way I feel for you! I make ONE mistake and you punish me-’

  ‘I’m not punishing you!’

  ‘Well, I am being punished by someone, aren’t I?’

  ‘I didn’t know!’ I protested. ‘How could I? You’ve been so in control of your powers that I thought that was a sign that you were handling this! That bolt you just sent out-’

  ‘I train with Regan for four hours a night to keep my powers under control, while you’re all sleeping soundly!’ he snapped hotly. ‘And I wouldn’t have had to do anything with anyone if you’d just-’ He spun around and took me into his arms. ‘Why didn’t you say it?’

  ‘Because by the time I realised that I could say it, it was too late!’

  ‘Why did you let it go too late?’ he demanded tearfully. ‘You knew I was at your door!’

  ‘I didn’t see her- Liberty- until after I’d done crying and…’ I shrugged. ‘I ran straight out to find you the moment I did, but you were already coming out of her room and yes, it was too late.’

  He lifted my face to his. ‘But you understood what the statue symbolised? My devotion, I mean?’

  I smiled wryly. ‘For about two and a half minutes, I was fairly sure there had never been a man more devoted to a woman since Miguel Barachiel.’

  ‘And I proved you wrong and myself utterly worthless over ONE error?’ he asked, stricken.

  ‘The error was not yours, but mine.’ I looked down at his chest. ‘I interpreted your gift to mean more than what it did, Kohén. All of that time, I’d feared what giving in to you would mean for my future, and I’d always equated leaning towards you, as leaning too far over the edge of the Tidal falls. It is a thrilling thing to do, but I’ve always pulled back the moment that I felt gravity grasp me and urge me toward danger and then have stayed back after- certain that I would fall and end up pushed under the ocean’s surface with the power of the water, and be pinned down to drown. I would lose my purity, my status, my dreams- and all for the want of a man who could never marry me.’ I swallowed. ‘But I saw my statue and I realised that I didn’t care if I drowned or not, because the fall would be so beautiful. I believed that your love would be a fair exchange for any dream- that I wouldn’t need a future if I had your heart, and there could be no greater love than one that made me feel as vulnerable but protected as yours did.’ I wiped away my tears but they continued to fall. ‘So I went looking for you, ready to tell you that I didn’t need cotton, my reputation, a wedding band any of it- and then I saw you with Emmerly, and it was more like I had fallen over the side of the falls at low tide rather than high tide.’ He groaned morbidly and I looked up at him again. ‘Instead of drowning, I was pulverised into the rocky, sandy grotto beneath and that’s when I knew- I couldn’t give you my heart, because I’d ALREADY given you my heart- and you had just shattered it….’ I gasped for the pain shooting through my heart and bowed. ‘You broke me that night, and I have been breaking into smaller pieces since so yes, it is too late because I don’t think I an ever allow myself to fall in love again.’

  ‘God… Larkin… no! I’m so sorry!’ he gripped my elbows and pulled me closer. ‘That’s what I thought at first! But you were so cold and seemingly unaffected by it that I thought… I thought maybe you could separate the two and be okay.’

  I had been cold; ice cold, and I had not yet defrosted. ‘I was in shock,’ I whispered. ‘I honestly thought I was going to die…’

  But then Kohl came along with his jar of fireflies, and kept me alive… and has kept me alive since!

  ‘You didn’t even cry when I saw you the next day! You made jokes! You…’ He shook me, shaking my tears free. ‘And now you say that you’ve been breaking up since, but hiding that so I would not have a chance to see the damage and fix it?’

  ‘It can’t be fixed!’ I wailed, trying to fight him off as he tried to crush me against him.

  ‘Yes it can! Now that I know what you were willing to sacrifice, I can send them away, and we can have a fresh start! And once I’ve proven how faithful I will be to you-’

  ‘You don’t get a fresh start!’ I said, shoving him off again. ‘Don’t you get it? We were an US already to me! I cannot go to another man, so my loyalty was never going to be compromised! It was YOU who had to prove that you had what it took to be my true love, and you failed!’

  ‘You told me it was inevitable!’ he looked winded. ‘That you wouldn’t be able to do it for me so they could… you pressed my hand into Emmerly’s! You gave me your blessing!’

  ‘No, YOU told me that it was inevitable by making that an ultimatum in the first place! And I stupidly hoped that you were wrong! That you’d feel her hand in hers and feel nothing! Well, more fool me huh? Message learned- if a Barachiel tells you that he loves you, but is going to have to fuck someone else then believe it, because Barachiels mean every word they say and do not compromise for anybody! Even the girl they love! Which I’m sorry Kohén- but that means that it isn’t love you felt but fixation, just like Miguel and Satan! What we have feels real, but it will not stand the test of time!’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘I thought everything was fair?’ I demanded hotly. ‘I thought this world was perfect, right?’ I slapped my head. ‘Oh wait- when things go wrong for you, Karol and your father, it isn’t fair! But for Kohl and I it’s: ‘Well you’re third-born so fucking DEAL with things being unfair!’

  ‘Stop throwing the fact that you are third-born in my face
!’ he cried. ‘I do not throw it in yours!’

  ‘You do not anymore, but society will until I prove that I am more than that!’

  ‘Well, here’s your chance- take that chance on me! Say you’ll marry the prince! This is your Cinderella fantasy Larkin, and I am trying to make it a reality- but you keep throwing the glass slipper at my head and making me wonder if I am crazy to offer it to you!’

  ‘You are crazy! And I grew out of fairy tales a long time ago, your highness, because I realised that there is no such thing as a happily ever after for a woman in this world, not even for your mother- who has lived every facet of a fairy-tale and yet still cries herself to sleep in her bedroom alone!’

  ‘I’m saying that I want to marry you, not join with you! You’ll never live my mother’s life!’

  ‘I already have!’ I cried. ‘In Cinderella, the prince turned his back to the ugly step-sisters, Kohén- he didn’t fuck them and hand out rare shoes as a consolation prize!’ His face twisted in grief. ‘And if your twin Kohl HAS to rise above his needs by law, you could sure as hell manage it for love if you tried, but made it one week without going for the pussy that was yours and nearby for the taking because YOU DID NOT LOVE ME ENOUGH TO TRY!’

  Kohén’s face constricted. ‘Yes I DO! I went to her so I wouldn’t pound down your door!’

  ‘That’s not love!’

  ‘YES IT IS! And I am GOING to marry you!’

  ‘No!’ I cried, and he drew back like I’d stung him. ‘No, no NO you WON’T! I won’t say yes! I will run! And if you do not take me at my word right now or banish me for denying you, then I will run TONIGHT! I will swim until I drown!’

  ‘How can you say that?’ he asked, aghast. ‘Just the other night we were-’

  ‘I will not survive your dreams and promises if I stay!’ I cried, thinking of Karol as I ripped at my sarong, then kicked it free. ‘You have such grand dreams for us but you have built them on a foundation of nothing but your sexual frustration and optimism! And if you will not take even two seconds to consider the fact that is your frustrated cock making these promises without a lick of sense then- here!’ I tugged at my bikini strings, exposing my breasts. ‘Have some clarity of mind!’