The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  ‘A Barachiel promise!’ I gasped, bucking against Kohén’s hold on me. I didn’t have the strength to strike Kohl but I would try! ‘That’s as good as Satan’s! Actually no… Satan occasionally does what she says she will.’

  Kohl raised an eyebrow. ‘Close with Satan now, are we?’

  My eyes rolled back into my head when the throbbing began to intensify again. ‘She lives in my mirror! She talks to me all day long!’

  ‘Jesus Christ…’ I felt a cool hand smooth my hair away from my clammy neck. So hot! I was frying me from within! ‘She’s scalding to the touch and talking crazy. God Kohén, has she lost her mind this week? I guess she must have, to have been staring at you with that vacant, purple gaze despite all you’d done to her…’

  Get your hands off me! Both of you!

  ‘Her eyes were lilac before, not purple…. and probably never will be again thanks to you, so finish what you were saying or let me open the door!’ Kohén sounded like he was on the brink of tears again. ‘She doesn’t need champagne and smart remarks- she needs a healer!’

  ‘And now that I’ve branded her, she can get that and everything else that she wants- and so can we.’ The cold, wet bottle moved from my arm and I felt warm lips press near to my burn. I felt Kohén stiffen while I gnashed my teeth again and bucked- the heat of his breath was too much! ‘If you agree to stop fighting me for her... and share her instead.’

  ‘What?’ Kohén’s voice pitched. ‘Are you out of your mind?

  I’d been prepared for Kohl to suggest trading me back for the crown, but nothing could have prepared me for that and I sucked in a breath and sat up. ‘You stupid, fucking, worthless piece of-mmph!’ my eyes bugged when Kohl slapped his hand over my mouth, but I used my teeth to nip at the palm of his cool hand, pinching the skin between it just as Kohén jerked up his elbow, striking Kohl sharply in the underside of his nose He grunted, shook his hand free and then roughly tore me from Kohén’s arms.

  ‘Hey!’ Kohén lunged for me, but Kohl wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pinning them to my ribcage and kept the other clamped around my mouth. He squeezed my wound as he squeezed me and Kohén took one look at my face and held his hands up. ‘Stop! You’re hurting her! I won’t try and take her back just don’t hold her so tightly-’

  ‘See that’s what we can’t have!’ Kohl snapped. ‘I’ll hand back the crown but I will not regard you as my better, not in any regard. You won’t be ordering me around! You won’t go on assuming that you have some sort of bond with her that I do not- that you have some right to her that I do not! If we’re going to do this then we have to be equals in all of this; we play nice, or you don’t get to play at all!’

  ‘Play?’ Kohén tore at his hair. ‘What are you talking about?’ he pulled his headdress free when he realised he was still wearing it then grimaced, pressing his hand to his own sore which obviously wasn’t troubling him the way mine was still debilitating me. ‘This isn’t a game! We’re not children fighting over a toy-’

  ‘We fight over everything, and we always will! Unless we take her advice at last, and start working as two halves of a whole, like we were supposed to?’ Kohl kissed the side of my head and then inhaled my hair but then jerked back, leaning away from me when I began to gag, letting me twist slightly in his arms so that I would throw up on the floor not on him. ‘Shit, breathe baby… you don’t want to soil that lovely gown…’ he rubbed my back and I gagged again but nothing would come out- I had nothing in my stomach to throw up anyway. I moaned and he sighed, lowering his voice. ‘I know you don’t believe it right now and I know that Larkin is wishing me a speedy death… but I love her, Kohén, and I know that she loves me. She doesn’t feel it right now, but she will- she could forgive both of us if we spend the rest of our lives atoning for what we have done to her.’ He pressed his next kiss to the top of my shoulder, just like Kohén always had and practically purred. ‘She loves you too. I fear it’s a product of brainwashing, but it’s real enough to her for it to resonate with me. It’s not an ideal arrangement that I’m suggesting because it was up to me, she’d never be forced to endure your embraces again, and I know you’re going to baulk at the idea of letting me have equal time with her… but that is exactly what I’m suggesting!’ He tilted my face up while keeping my mouth covered. ‘Let’s stop fighting over her and start fighting for her, and everything that she dreams of! Alone, neither of us have the power to make any of her dreams come true or to stand against father, but together… we’d be unstoppable.’

  What? NO! Kohén NO! Don’t you even consider this! I looked up at Kohén and shook my head, weeping and feeling immensely relieved that he looked as horrified as I felt. My stomach was still cramping up painfully and I was melting from the inside out, but the urge to vomit had returned to be the urge to die.

  ‘You want to share her… as in… actually share her?’ Kohén recoiled, face wrinkling. ‘Out of the question! I’d concede to let her go and see which one of us she wants, and even give you the chance to freely win her heart again, if that is possible… but anything else is-’

  ‘She won’t choose one of us, Kohén, not if she’s given her free will back! We’ve both done too much to hurt her! She’d take death over a life with either of us now and gladly, which is why I branded her- to take the choice out of her hands again- and that’s exactly the way she likes it.’ The arm that was wrapped around me retreated, tugging on the necklace gently and then dropping to trace a line across my collarbone. ‘Don’t you Larkin?’ Kohl nibbled gently on my earlobe as I moaned in horror, and when he slipped his finger into the top of my cleavage, I shuddered. ‘You don’t want to like it, but there’s darkness in you- a craving to be ultimately possessed. Those books you loved so much… they were all about women that were stronger than steel, until the right man came along and tamed them. And that’s you, sweet swan. Like a wild mare, you don’t want to be ridden… but when you are ridden right… oh, how you gallop!’

  But the only thing galloping was my heart rate and body temperature and to prove it, I gagged again and this time, Kohl let me go.

  25.

  ‘Kohl leave her alone!’ Kohén looked sick, and his sparks were beginning to crackle as far as a foot away from him as Kohl pulled back my hair so that I could throw up without wrecking it. But once again, nothing came out, and all I could do was sob and gasp for air. ‘This is despicable!’

  ‘No, it’s what she wants,’ Kohl pulled my hair behind my head to straighten me up again now that he’d deemed it safe once more and suckled on my pulse so hard that I cringed and tried to squirm away from him. But he slapped me quickly right near my brand and I screamed, knees weakening. ‘She’s a complicated girl, and isn’t that part of her appeal?’ I felt him tug hard on my zipper and suddenly, my bodice and wings were falling away, revealing the corset beneath again. ‘She rebels against the concept of women being dominated by men- of being treated as inferior to anyone- and yet she can’t help but be attracted to the men that manage to overpower her anyway. By fucking her without her consent, you became that kind of man, and by branding her today, I joined you. It’s the same with Karol- he had something to give her and she knelt before him and begged him to do so. Don’t you get it? She never wanted to preserve her virginity- she wanted it taken from her! She just wanted someone to understand that without her demeaning herself by asking for it!’

  I called him every name under the sun and jerked and twisted in his grasp but he only held me more tightly.

  ‘I wouldn’t have believed it but when I saw how she melted at your touch that night… when I saw how she came again and again-’ My face flushed so hot I knew my make up had to be melting off now. Fuck the Barachiels- all of them! Their ability to twist their evil deeds to make it seem like they were answering the demands of others was their greatest skill and most fatal flaw. ‘Oh, how I enjoyed watching that! I was devastated, but I haven’t been able to sleep since. Of course it’s not you I see her riding in my head but me, and t
hat’s something that will help you get through this Kohén… see your hand on this delicious breast…’ He cupped me through my corset and squeezed greedily, and my fever spiked again. It wasn’t lust I was feeling, far from it, but all Kohl heard was my muffled gasp and suddenly, I felt him hardening against my rump. ‘See your fingers, seeking entrance to-’

  ‘Stop!’ Kohén stepped forward before Kohl’s hand could slip under the slit in my skirt, shooting a tiny spark that bit into the back of his brother’s hand, making it twitch and smoulder while Kohl gasped behind me, and I sobbed in relief when he stopped pawing at me and started shaking it out and cursing. ‘Just stop! I won’t agree to this! This is my worst nightmare you’re suggesting, not a solution!’

  ‘It is the perfect solution!’ Kohl snapped. ‘We both get her this way!’

  ‘What way? I don’t see how any of this has a hope of-’

  ‘You stay on as the firstborn twin and we never reveal that we know otherwise! We tell father and Karol that mother refused to brand her so we did it instead! We tell them that she bolted, hide her body until we can find a way to toss it outside to the Banished, and let them take the fall for her death after! Father will only care that Larkin is still beautiful and willing to put on a brave face out there tonight- because you and I have agreed to make amends for the sake of the family- and then when I board that boat to Pacifica- probably later next week now because we’ll have an important funeral to attend first- you and Larkin will come with me! You can request to be provided with a house on Isthmus, and then ask that I be accommodated there too once it has been built, seeing as how we will both have titles there, General and Prince! We will each have a private chamber of course, and as far as everyone knows, she will dwell in her own personal harem within for your benefit… but two keys will be cut to fit the lock on her door and we will both be at liberty to use them!’

  My stomach sucked back against my spine as Kohén’s jaw dropped. ‘You cannot believe that will work! All you have suggested is dependant on Larkin playing along and she’s not that fucking good at acting-’

  ‘It will work, and it will work beautifully, and if Larkin values the lives of Lindy and Coaxley and their sweet little third-born girl, then she will keep her mouth shut but her eyes sparkling on the matter until the day they die- of natural causes, of course.’

  I’d probably been foolish to believe that there was a chance that Kohl would snap out of this evil mood of his sometime soon, but I had, but that threat passing his once-sweet lips broke me and I wilted.

  ‘What?’ Kohén demanded. ‘How? Father has pardoned them!’

  ‘In theory- but he won’t hand it to them until he’s seen her brand, and that means we’ll have the chance to swipe it back yet.’

  I shimmered with loathing- every nerve ending hissing like snakes, and turned away from him again. Just let me die! Satan please… I beg you! Let Kohén strike out in rage and shock me by accident! Let the pain make my heart fail! Do something, anything, if it will make this nightmare stop!

  ‘You’re sick,’ Kohén bemoaned. ‘Turning her kindness against her like that.’

  ‘It’s nothing that hasn’t been done to me! And it’s not something that I intend to have to use against her, once you agree to my demands- and I know that you will. No one will know that I am seeing to her needs as well, of course- that will be our little secret,’ Kohl reached into the cup of my corset and caressed my right breast and I saw Kohén’s face turn ashen. ‘She will pretend to have issues with it at first, but we will do all that we have promised her and more, Kohén-’ he tugged on my nipple and I whimpered, ‘and she will learn to forgive us and make her peace with her new lot in life. Just imagine it, Larkin…’ Breathing heavily, Kohl rubbed his hand over my mid-section and then squeezed my hip while he scooped my breast out of the top of the corset. ‘You’ll have cotton fields that will stretch to meet the horizon, a library full of every book that you could ever dream of reading, your freedom to swim and run and sunbathe and climb trees and surf… and access to not just one of the men you love, but both. You will not have to feel guilty for giving into your attraction to me, because you will have Kohén’s blessing to do just that, and you will not have to fear losing your best friend- because he will most likely be fucking you every second that I am not.’ My skin blistered in gooseflesh that did not feel cold but boiling hot, and when Kohl saw the little bumps, he chuckled. ‘See?’ he looked up at his twin, who was gaping at us, astonished. ‘Just the thought of getting serviced by the both of us has her hyperventilating.’

  ‘I think the fact that you’ve lost your mind is what has thrown her here!’

  Kohl sighed and moved to my other breast. ‘Why is it so crazy? There are two of us, two of these…’ he twirled my left nipple between his fingers and ground his hips against me again, breathing lustily. ‘Two beautiful places that we can kiss at once, two beautiful legs to spread, two sweet hands to hold…two ears to whisper dirty things into…’ his hand slid into my skirt again, ‘two tight, warm places that she can be taken- simultaneously if she’s so inclined…’ My muscles seized up as Kohén’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. ‘Have you had both yet little brother, or is there a virginity left that I can claim?’

  Oh God NO! Why isn’t anyone pounding on that door anymore? T’are, help me!

  ‘N-no… I wouldn’t…’ Kohén stammered, but he was staring at Kohl’s hand, fascinated- and not at me, ‘she wouldn’t…’

  ‘But she will… she’ll ask for it, Kohén, and if you won’t give it to her there, you’d better fucking believe I would…’ Kohl squeezed my backside and I felt my tears streak down my face again as he chuckled. ‘Oh don’t look so horrified- I know you’ve considered it, and I know she will.’ Kohl smacked my ass lightly and then went back to stroking my breasts. ‘And look, I’m not completely overcome- I am aware that what I am suggesting is rather manipulative and immoral… but I only suggest it because I know in my heart that Larkin wants to be with us both, and it’s only a matter of time before she admits it to herself and makes her peace with it all. Then, we will be able to lift the threat from Lindy and Coaxley’s head and she will stay anyway, not because she has to, but because she will know that we can make her happier than anyone else can.’

  Kohén’s eyes searched mine as he stepped forward, and I was horrified to see that his sparks were diminishing as his eyes were darkening. ‘Is this true? On any level? Would you be able to-’

  ‘She’s not going to agree now, you idiot!’ Kohl snapped as I began to writhe and fight him, not caring if I agitated the pain anymore because the heat overwhelming me was making every part of my body burn as fiercely. ‘She needs to be convinced and that’s going to take some time, but I don’t have the time to convince you! We have to present a united front against father and soon, so agree now!’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘You can! You can give her so much! We’ll open an orphanage there and we’ll collect third-borns and she can raise them! She can give them all the advantages that we gave her, without them having to sacrifice anything for it! We’ll make her the queen of Calliel, even though she’ll never have the title she’ll have the respect and admiration of all, and we will get it too, for having treated her so kindly!’ Kohl was hyperventilating with excitement as he explored me. ‘And just think of the opportunities it will present us with! We can both take spouses and never have to worry about how we feel about them, because our needs will be met by our true love! We can have kids, and she can feel like a mother to them as well as the others! We’ll choose spouses that will adore her as we do, as most women in Calliel do right now, and force them to treat her with the kindness that our mother didn’t bestow upon her until it was too late!’

  ‘You keep saying we, and as beautiful as some of the pictures you are painting in my mind are, I cannot stand that ‘we’! I love her too much to share her!’

  ‘Enough to let her go?’ Kohl demanded, cupping my breath and squeezing it hard a
gain, causing the flesh to bulge between his fingers. ‘Enough to never have her again?’ His fingers slipped into the front of my skirt and yanked it back over my hip, baring one leg and garter. ‘Ever?’ His hand snaked around my hips and caressed my golden panties through the part he’d made in the fabric, and I closed my thighs around his hand, making him chuckle once more. ‘The heat coming off her, Jesus! What’s it like, Kohén? Tell me… sinking into this…? Is it heaven?’

  I was weeping freely now, but when I looked up at Kohén, was gutted to see that he still wasn’t looking at my tear-streaked face, but between my legs where luckily, I was numb.

  ‘I…’

  ‘Was it worth it?’ Kohl breathed, groping me hard enough for it to hurt and thickened against my back. ‘Tell me that having her wasn’t worth what it did to your soul, and I’ll let her go.’

  Kohén’s face contracted. ‘Stop…’ he whispered, but he stepped closer, eyes drifting across my breasts now. ‘Please… don’t make me do this…’

  ‘Was it worth it, Kohén?’

  Kohén dropped his face into his hands and shook his head. ‘Fuck…!’

  ‘Kohén! Man up!’

  No! Stay a boy! My sweet boy! The one that gives me butterflies! I sobbed when I felt my panties tugged down crookedly beneath my skirts, allowing Kohén a glimpse of my intimate flesh.