The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

  The crowned prince was strong, I’d always known that, but I’d underestimated just how strong his power was and found myself melded to him before I could cry out. His kiss was smooth and controlled and overwhelming that my mouth moved back against his in reflex, and when his tongue tangled around mine, my indignant flush became an evanescent heat that made my knees buckle.

  He’s manipulating you! My mind screamed at me. He’s a healer- he’s lulled you into compliance! You must break his hold!

  But I couldn’t lift a hand against him. Karol moaned against my mouth and clutched a fistful of my hair, drawing me nearer but there was no way that we could get closer than we already were, so he lifted my knee around his waist and ground me into the wall while he began to kiss me more deeply, cupping my jaw and head now, holding me still for the lusty assault.

  I could have done this… I realised, shocked by it. If I’d had to go to bed with this firstborn prince to get free, it wouldn’t have been so bad… better than getting licked all over the face by the second-born anyway...

  ‘Yes!’ he whispered huskily against my mouth as he paused to pant and then slipped his tongue into my mouth again before gently touching his lips to mine once more. He panted, staring at me through those emerald eyes and thick black lashes that were lowered in lust. ‘I knew it… I knew it…’ he traced my brow with a fingertip, his expression conflicted. ‘Larkin, forgive me for denying what I always knew!’ And then he caught my lips with his once more and I wilted.

  I can only plead shock for the fact that that kiss lasted five seconds instead of half of one before my hate for him overwhelmed my stupefaction, and cannot expect anyone to understand why I did not bite off his tongue any better than I can explain it to myself now, all of these years later. All I can say is that natural healing powers aside- that kiss may have just been the most physically perfect moment that I’d experienced in my life, up until then. As powerful even as my first kiss with Kohén had been despite the fact there was no sentimentality or attraction arousing me prior to it. Kohl had proven to be a clumsy lover, Kohén and I had come together as easily as breathing- but Karol had the passion and the experience to kiss me stupid and yet somehow made me feel as though I were the overwhelming him. Like a ballerina might light up from within after she executes a perfect pirouette, or an artist might finish a painting with a single brushstroke that brings all of those that had come before it to life- that kiss was the epitome of lust, chemistry and desire- a chemically perfect manifestation of all things regarding attraction- and I could not have stopped it from happening anymore than I could have slowed an incoming tide.

  But, like a meteor crashing to earth, a memory of the last time we’d been in here- and the last words we’d exchanged- smacked into me hard and ignited my hate and fear all over again just as I felt Karol harden against me and press me more purposefully against the wall- taking my hand in his and clenching it tightly before pinning it above my shoulder. That wasn’t just a move- it was a declaration of possessiveness, and my blood boiled as my claustrophobia was triggered all over again.

  ‘What are you going to do if I fall in love with you and try to prevent you from leaving?’ Karol had asked, and I’d smiled sweetly.

  ‘Probably kill you like I would Kohén.’

  He’d laughed. ‘I thought so. Good thing that I’m cold-hearted, huh?’

  ‘You’d be cold either way,’ I’d teased.

  I could do this- it was physically doable. But he wouldn’t let me leave after it was done now that he thought himself besotted, and that was crossing the only line I had left.

  ‘Stop!’ I panted, shoving him back with all of the force I had and watching him trip and slip over my contract. A Barachiel’s love and sense of possession was not something to be seduced by- but fled from! ‘No! The answer is NO Karol, I will not repay my debt, and I do not have to anymore! Your father has given Lindy and Coaxley a pardon, so you cannot punish them for my refusal now!’

  Karol looked dazed. ‘What? Father…’

  ‘He knows!’ I cried, and his eyebrows shot up. ‘Everybody knows what I promised you, and what I traded for it! Kohl, Kohén, your parents- they all know!’

  ‘No!’

  I nodded hard. ‘Yes! And Karol this isn’t just about me not wanting to do something that I’ve promised to, or how much I’ve always disliked you… I just can’t bear to be touched or looked at by another man, don’t you get it? I would have gone through with this, if that was what it took for you to keep your word. But not after tonight!’ I felt my tears falling and touched them, terrified, but when I looked at my fingertips they were clear. Without his arms around me and his healing energy streaming through me, all of my shadows were coming back and so I wrapped them around me like a cloak. ‘Not after tonight!’

  ‘But if they knew, they would have been screaming this entire-’

  ‘They did! That’s why I was branded, don’t you see? Your awful letter arrived while I was dressing and they all read it! Kohén refused to allow me to go to the ball and calm everyone down, so I was branded to keep you in line and to guarantee my attendance there!’

  ‘My awful letter?’ Karol pulled off his hat, paling as his eyes darkened. ‘What awful letter?’

  ‘The one you sent me, along with the gown, and the Trevasse family!’ I pulled it out of my corset. ‘This one! Is that not in your hand?’

  Karol frowned at it, then lifted his eyes to mine. ‘Yes, I wrote it, but how was it awful?’

  ‘You threatening to kill my friends and ruin the ball and the harem in one was supposed to be…. what?’ I demanded, waving it. ‘Sweet?’

  Karol’s eyes bugged. ‘That’s not what I wrote! Let me see that!’ he snatched the paper out of my hand and read it, his frown deepening. For an awful moment I held my breath, waiting for him to declare that the letter had been a forgery meant to incite chaos, which would probably mean that Satan had switched notes, but he looked up at me when he was finished with a helpless expression. ‘God Larkin… what have we done to you here?’ He held the paper up. ‘This is a letter declaring that I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman, not a threat against you or your loved ones!’ He stepped closer to me. ‘My family… they translated this as you did too?’ His face was falling as he saw the anger in my eyes when I nodded. ‘Oh god…. I’ve been trying to win your trust and respect for five years… but you think me vile still, don’t you? Worse than that! You think me…’ He dropped his face into his hands and shook his head. ‘Oh God… all of this trouble… and she still despises me!’

  I started at him, feeling scrambled and speechless. Was he honestly expecting me to believe that he’d penned those words with good intentions? That it was feasible to believe that a thirty-year old prince could fall in love with a seventeen year-old whore? Or was he just trying to plead insanity as his brothers had- by crying love where there was only unhealthy obsession?

  I was fairly certain it was the latter, but I was stupefied enough by his convincing portrayal of a despairing saint that I was not prepared for him to leap forward suddenly, taking my shoulders and shaking me with flashing green eyes.

  ‘Larkin Whittaker, what does it take to earn your trust?! Tell me, and I will do it! Even if it’s only your companionship that I earn at first-’

  ‘Let me go!’ I squealed, jerking out of his hands and feeling my insides overheat again. ‘Let me go, Karol! That’s what it takes! I’m leaving Eden tonight, I will never be your Companion, and if you want me to believe that there is any good inside you, then stand out of my way and do not attempt to accost me again!’ I moved forward but he was in my face in an instant, shaking his head while wide-eyed.

  ‘No! No anything but that! Ask me for the stars, Larkin Whittaker and I will give them to you, but do not ask me to stand aside while you walk out of my life!’

  ‘Go fetch me the stars then!’ I snapped, face flushing, fingertips tingling. ‘Off you go- I want thirty, at least. Whatever it takes to get you to
turn your back on me for long enough--’

  ‘No!’ He tried to close his arms around me again, and my panic made my nerve endings shiver with a radiant heat. ‘No I love you and I must-’

  I struck him again but this time he deflected it and pushed me back up against the wall, trying to lean in for another kiss. ‘Please!’ he cried. ‘Just hear me out! One moment to clarify-’

  ‘I will not be your whore! And I have already been kissed by two different men tonight so pressing your lips to mine is doing nothing but participating in my debasement!’ I bemoaned, turning my face from side to side so that he could not find my mouth for long enough to snare it. ‘I came here for my freedom and I will be leaving here with it and if you try to stand in my way, I will knock you down! Don’t think I can’t! You cannot comprehend what I have already been through this night! And if you did…’ I sobbed, wiping at my mouth feeling dirty and used. ‘You wouldn’t want me anyway. I’m filthy, your highness, inside and out!’

  ‘Larkin no-’

  ‘Get off me!’ I screamed, shoving him back hard and sending a breath of fire after him. He staggered back, face waxen, eyes glassy, and when I advanced on him, I heard the rustle that caused his eyes to drift to my shoulders and then widen in absolute horror. ‘I would sooner die this night then bend to your will! You asked me to come to you with a happy heart Karol but I know only misery and loss and soon, so will you! So let me by! You are the king of Arcadia now- act like it!’

  ‘WHAT?’ Karol steadied himself on the floor, eyes filling with tears- face hardening in anger and fear as his hand went to the handle of his sword. ‘Larkin WHAT did you just say?’ He looked at my wings again. ‘How-’

  ‘You are the king!’ I sobbed. ‘So stop wasting your time on your brother’s whore, go downstairs, salvage what you can of your kingdom and never think of me again! I am not the one that has slain every member of your family, but their blood is on my hands all the same so do not reach for it again- it is beneath you, your highness! And I always have been!’

  ‘You’re lying!’ he cried, getting up onto one knee. ‘I’d never thought you capable of such ugly fabrications but now that I see that you are dark Nephilim, I guess that you must be!

  ‘Believe what you will, just let me be!’ I tried to dart past him but he grabbed my skirt and pulled me back. I heard the fabric he’d snared stretch enough to make a tearing sound. ‘Karol stop! You’re fighting for the wrong thing!’

  ‘I cannot live without you, even if you are being awful right now! You’re not a whore Larkin, you’re a princess with the potential to be so much more!’ he cried, hefting me back and making me scream. He caught me in his arms so that my backside rested on my knee and then he reached for his sword again. ‘And if I have to do something drastic in order to prove what I’ll do to keep you here-’

  I screamed and burst into flames, and Karol let out an almighty bellow and jumped to his feet, knocking me to the floor and dropping a small box from his hand instead of the handle of the sword I’d thought he’d been going for. The flames did not hurt me or incinerate my dress as they ought to have, but they were all over me, making the very fabric of my world wobble before my eyes and setting the gentle woollen fabric of his suit alight in a heartbeat. I saw Karol smash into his desk and then into the opposite wall as he tried to beat at the flames that had flared up on his clothes, but his hair was on fire too and when he brushed up against the curtains, they went up as old fabric already does. Immediately the fire began to generate its own heat and wind, and I was so hypnotised by the horrid sight of him battling it, that I did not realise that my own flames had already gone out until Karol looked up at me with the most anguished expression I’d ever seen.

  ‘Demon!’ he cried, looking more wrecked than a man had ever looked before. ‘I knew you’d stolen my heart- but I never believed that you would steal my soul! My father is dead?’ he saw the confirmation in my frightened eyes, and his face transformed into a mask of anguish. ‘And you scream it at me? And to think I was supposed to be the cold-blooded one…’

  And those were the last words he said before a fresh crop of flames leapt up from the carpet beneath him. He jumped back, mouth open in an ‘O’ of horror- and then there was a smash as prince charming crashed through the tower window- and fell three floors below.

  No! I spasmed and sobbed when I heard his bones hit the ground on the other side and then fell to my knees, shaking my head in horror and grief when I heard fresh screaming erupt from below. ‘Karol!’ I croaked, overcome with guilt to think that I might have just caused the death of Miguel Barachiel’s final descendant. I should have been cheering, but I felt wretched. ‘Oh God no…!’

  ‘It’s the prince!’ someone screamed then.

  ‘He’s snapped his neck!’

  ‘He’s burning alive! The Choir girl is right, Larkin of Eden is a dark Nephilim, and she is coming for us all!’

  ‘Upstairs, now! Grab weapons, we must destroy her before the kingdom burns to the ground!’

  I cupped my head and shook it as I wept, not wanting to believe such awful things about me, but knowing they were true. I hadn’t wanted to kill Karol- I hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone! And yet they’d been the suicidal ones- they’d been the ones determined to have me or perish trying, and they’d made me a murderess for it! I remembered Satan telling me- complimenting me- on the fact that the last time someone had raised such hell on earth it had been her doing, and I bowed to the carpet and sobbed to understand that she was right, and that if I didn’t end myself soon, there as a whole chance that the entire world would go up in smoke.

  The door flew open behind me and as though I’d summoned her, I turned around as Ora burst in looking asphyxiated. ‘Larkin!’ she yelped my name, recoiling in horror. ‘Oh! You dressed as a fallen angel? Oh, Larkin... well I can sympathise, of course, but we can’t have you looking like that! Word has it that you’ve set fire to the harem and though I know it’s a lie, nothing about that ensemble screams innocent now, does it?’

  ‘Wh-where did you come from?’ I stammered as she engulfed me in an embrace.

  ‘The secret passage- I’ve been in and out of it all week, through Kohl’s chamber. Easy enough seeing as how he’s never in there anymore.’ She knelt beside me in a figure-hugging black sheath that sparkled and made her look taller and more slender than ever before. She hadn’t taken my styling suggestions, but she looked absolutely stunning, and a sequinned black mask on a stick was dropped into my lap as she took my hands. ‘Come, you have to get up and get changed now, you reek of smoke! We’ll go to Constance’s room and raid her closet! I should be able to get in there without a key, yes? Well come on, hurry we need to find Karol so that he can hide you until this disaster is sorted out, then arrange for you to walk out there looking as ethereal and innocent as-’

  ‘Stop!’ I tugged my hand from her grip, feeling a headache coming on from the way she was talking at me without pausing for breath. I’d liked that about her the last time we’d met, but this new Larkin needed to be spoken to softly and slowly or not at all! ‘I’m not going anywhere, least of all to a ball! Have you no compunction of what has happened this evening? Yes, I set fire to the harem, but only because the twins tried to rape me within it! Now I come in seeking to tear my contract and flee this place but-’ I turned to the window but Ora’s hand jerked my face back to face hers.

  ‘The twins tried to rape you? What- together?’ I nodded grimly, eyes spilling over and hers did the same. ‘Oh, sweet Larkin! Who could blame you for setting a fire then? Screw the outfit- let them all see what was done to you!’

  Arson was the least of what I feared being blamed for and I didn’t give a hoot about making a statement with my risqué attire, but she obviously didn’t know that Elijah and Karol were both dead either and that I was going to be held responsible for their murders, so I couldn’t fault her for trying to micro-manage what she saw to be minor hiccups.

  ‘Everyone will blame me!’ I was shaking li
ke crazy now but when I tried to stand up, I almost twisted my ankle when I half-stood on the small timber box that had been in Karol’s pocket. I winced and bent to pick it up, pausing to rub the pain out of my lower leg. ‘This place is a nightmare and I want to leave! If you care about me at all, please- show me to the passage you used so that I might sneak-’

  ‘No!’ she tried to hold me again but I was trying to get the box open to see what was within and that made it difficult for her to manipulate my limbs. ‘No, Larkin no! So many people want to believe the best in you, and they will once you’ve had the chance to clear your name! I don’t know where Karol is- he was supposed to wait here for Kohén to come for him, but I was sure he would have heard about the fire and-’

  I gasped when I opened the box and saw the beautiful solitaire shimmering within. All at once I realised what Karol had been about to tell me to motivate me to stay- that he had decided to marry Ora despite his supposed feelings for me- and my heart twisted painfully. ‘Oh God… oh…!’ I snapped the box closed and forced it into her hands as I turned away. ‘I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have…’

  ‘What is…?’ she opened the box and chuckled softly. ‘Oh… good lord, he left the engagement ring on the floor? What a goose! Oh Larkin don’t look so upset! It’s not your fault!’

  ‘Yes it is, I’ve ruined everything!’ I lamented, voice tight. ‘You were supposed to become our future queen this night but now I’ve gone and-’

  ‘What? No! This isn’t my ring, Larkin!’ Ora stepped forward and tried to return the box. ‘It is to be yours, you silly girl!’

  I was sure I’d misheard her. I whipped around, dumbstruck. ‘What?!’

  ‘You heard me.’ Ora was grinning and now she rolled her eyes. ‘Why do you think it’s imperative to get you to Karol and disaster-adjacent? You are the one that is to become the future queen this night, Larkin Whittaker, not me!’