The Tangled Tree

by S. K Munt

‘Her powers, because yes, she is nephilim too- or was.’ Kohl threw up his hands while I shot my dead mother’s corpse an uneasy look. ‘She unleashed a plague of fucking wasps after Kohén, which also threatened my life even though she’d been begging me to get Lark out of here to begin with!’

  ‘That can’t be true!’ Karol cried. ‘She-’

  ‘It is! Amelia-Rose was in the hall with father when Lark attacked him, and confessed that mother had been the one that had been plaguing us with locusts all along, trying to get back at him for not marrying her!’

  Karol gripped at his hair. ‘No! She wouldn’t have hidden that from me!’

  ‘But she did, and she used it to try and kill us.’ Kohl gestured to me. ‘They probably would have succeeded, but Lark had already set fire to Kohén and I both and the chandelier out of the ceiling- just like she MUST have done at Kohén’s ball last year- and when it fell, it set fire to mother’s dress and trapped Kohén. I put those flames out by drawing a wave from the spring and went to save them both, but the security guard kicked down the door to see what all of the chaos was, and Lark escaped! And then when he picked up mother to carry her out of here, a beam fell from the roof and hit them both while I was trying to get Kohén out from under that bloody chandelier!’ Kohl gulped down oxygen while Karol’s eyes began to overflow. ‘I raced out right after her, carrying Kohén to a healer, and that’s when I-’ his voice cracked and I felt a lump form in my own throat, ‘when I found father dead on the floor...’ Tears were streaming down his face now, and Karol’s too. ‘It was all Larkin, Larkin and mother! Karol I loved that girl but after she got that letter from you she lost her damned mind and became something else entirely, all right? So wipe that accusatory look off your face right now- the question isn’t just what did we do to her, but what did you do to her after, huh?’ He stepped forward, his stance menacingly. ‘Obviously, if you think we did something ugly to her to deserve being incinerated, then what did you try with her to warrant getting thrown out a three-storey window?’

  ‘Not what you think!’ Karol snapped. ‘And not what she thought either! Something I would have explained before she’d set me on fire if I’d understood how un-glued she’d become!’ He turned back to me. ‘Is everything he just said true? Did she truly lose her mind? It seemed that way but…’ his featured became pinched and he pounded the table in front of me. ‘But it was you that set her off! How could you contemplate branding her? You’re lucky this place is full of witnesses, or I’d kill you myself for the pain and disgrace you’ve brought upon this family this week!’

  I shrank back, mouth falling open but nothing came out. My skin hummed though and my hands sparked and when Karol saw that, he lifted his eyebrow in a challenge as his green eyes deepened to become the colour of algae again. ‘Oh is that how it’s going to be? You’d take me on before you explained-’

  ‘He can’t explain himself because he doesn’t know anything!’ Kohl said quickly, waving his hand at me. ‘He can’t remember a fucking thing. Guess that’s what happens when the girl you love drops a timber chandelier on your head, hmm?’

  ‘Oh get out of here!’ Karol frowned at me, stepping closer and looking sceptical. ‘You’re seriously telling me that you can’t remember a thing that happened after that light fell? How convenient!’

  I swallowed and shook my head before I ventured: ‘Actually… Prince Karol...’ he blinked rapidly while I held out my hands. ‘I can’t remember a single thing that happened before it fell, either.’ I frowned. ‘Least of all… this girl that I apparently just attacked… and loved?’ I looked to Kohl. ‘It was Larkin, right? That was her full name? I’ve heard Lark a lot too...’

  ‘Yes,’ Kohl said, and then looked at my brother, who was now gaping at me. ‘But you called her duckling or swan, depending on you mood at the time...’

  I made a face. ‘I’m starting to get why she dropped a chandelier on my head…’ I wet my lips. ‘It sounds like I treated her appallingly.’

  ‘Oh my God…’ Karol leaned in, peering at me closely. ‘You have got to be pulling a fast one on me, right?’

  ‘That’s what I thought at first, and I think everyone suspects the same thing because they’re giving him the silent treatment for his strange behaviour… but I think he’s on the level, Karol,’ Kohl said softly, studying me. ‘He didn’t know anything- not my name, this castle’s name- and his face hasn’t flashed with recognition once since he was healed, not even when his old Companions came in. I filled him in on a lot of stuff so he knows names and stuff now and that this is his house and who he is and what he is…. but I only had like, two minutes to bring him up to speed about most of it before I had to go outside…’ Kohl looked at me, shaking his head. ‘The healers say it’s amnesia brought on by concussion, and that they have no way of knowing how long he’ll be like that for. It should be short term because he was healed by two of them, but it could last months if not years…’ He sighed. ‘Or he could just be in shock. He knows what nephilim are and about God and Miguel and even Calliel- he just cannot relate to any of it in a personal way, and doesn’t seem to have any emotions- at all.’

  ‘From what I’ve heard- he never did!’ Karol said, but not as angrily as before.

  ‘I have them now,’ I whispered quietly, wetting my lips as I looked over at T’are. ‘I feel sorry for the man I was told was my bodyguard this past week and I am terrified of our older brother right now and felt bad for the girl that he dismissed rather rudely… and I feel really bad about all of the things that I was told about myself... I just don’t feel grief any private grief over any of it. Like you are all strangers, and that I am a stranger to myself.’

  ‘Unbelievable…’

  Kohl nodded. ‘You should have seen the look on his face when a healer showed him a mirror to prove how his third-degree burns had been healed from his face, neck and hands- and he looked at me and asked if we were twins ‘or something...’. It was the creepiest shit I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot worse…’ Karol said, still studying me thoughtfully. ‘Are you being honest, little brother? There are ways of finding out the truth, you know. And if you’re lying-’

  Finally my eyes filled with tears. ‘I think so. But I don’t know anything for sure and I…’ I looked over at the bodies in the corner. ‘This is going to hurt me, isn’t it? When my memory comes back? I loved this girl… and she accused me of rape and then killed my parents?’ I pressed my hand to my forehead, tearing up at the idea of it even though I had no idea what this girl looked like except that she’d had wings. ‘Who could survive that?’

  Karol looked dazed. ‘Holy sh-’

  ‘Don’t,’ Kohl said roughly. ‘I already know that Satan’s in this place with us, Karol- and I’d very much like to encourage her to haunt another family, if you don’t mind knocking off the blaspheme shit.’

  Karol shot him a look. ‘You take the lord’s name in vain more than any of us.’

  ‘I did,’ Kohl looked down at his bloody toga and sighed, shaking his head. ‘But I never will again after tonight, and neither should you.’

  ‘That’s usually good advice, but I’m starting to think that Amelia-Rose is a budding evangelist, so I caution you about how often you use the words ‘the lord’ little brother, or I’ll start to believe that she’s influencing you in an illegal sort of way and start searching your possessions for crucifixes and Bibles...’ Kohl rolled his eyes while I frowned, puzzled, and sighing, Karol straightened, and looked from me to my twin again. ‘Well… where is she now?’ His lips twisted in a cruel smirk. ‘The black swan, I mean?’

  ‘No one knows,’ Kohl said, looking haunted himself. ‘She flew off, crashed into the statue of liberty and then flew off again and landed by the falls, right near the top. I ran after her as soon as I had Kohén with a healer, found you and then made it rain when people pointed to her standing up on the rocks. She jumped, but she didn’t fly, Karol, I think she was starting to fall to her death like she once told
me she planned to…’ Kohl gestured out the windows, looking distressed. ‘But I drew in the tide to stop her from being obliterated on the rocks. Partially because I couldn’t stand to see her ended like that, but mostly because I wanted to make her pay for the destruction she caused on her way out of here.’

  Karol had gone grey at the mention of her jumping, but now his lips drew tight and he nodded. ‘And then?’

  Kohl shrugged. ‘I manipulated the waves, trying to get her to wash up on the shore, but after ten minutes nothing happened, and then people started screaming that you still had a heartbeat so naturally- I joined everyone inside again, waiting to see if you could be revived.’ He stood taller. ‘The guards are still on the beach, waiting for her and I plan on keeping them there all night and well into tomorrow, but we can’t send out boats to comb the waters until daylight-’

  ‘We won’t need to,’ Karol said, pushing off the desk and motioning to the small television screen across from the dining table that I’d been sat at. ‘I’ll activate her tracker now- that will help us narrow the search to a one-hundred metre radius of wherever she ends up.’

  ‘Tracker?’ Kohl leaned back, looking startled. ‘So she really does have one? I thought Kohén was making that up!’

  ‘In her womb…’ Karol looked back at him and made a face. ‘Sorry, I keep forgetting how much of this stuff you couldn’t know.’

  I made a choked sound and they both turned to stare at me. ‘Good grief...’ I said, rubbing at my eyes, ‘sorry but that just all sounded so…a tracking device in her womb?!’ I exhaled slowly, looking from one face to the other. ‘I’ve been told that I was obsessed with this girl by your girlfriend Ora, Karol, and yet I allowed her to pleasure me for jewels, denied her her freedom even after it was granted, permitted someone to stick a tracking device into her womb, branded her as a whore and continued to sleep with other girls the whole time?’ The guys looked at one another, then me, then nodded. Feeling something sharp stab inside my gut I stood and pulled on my hair. ‘And everyone’s what… surprised that she went on a rampage? I don’t blame her! What the fuck was the matter with me?’

  ‘That was a popular question an hour ago Kohén, but right now, I’m not so sure if you were the problem- or if she was working her hellish thrall over us for all of these years and making us act like heathens while believing....’ Karol sighed heavily, scratching at his hair in an agitated manner. ‘I hope to find out, though. Dead or alive, this tracking device will lead us to her. And I really hope she’s alive…’

  ‘Still want to make good on all of the things you promised her in that letter once you find her?’ Kohl asked, and it sounded like he was mocking him. ‘Good luck with that.’

  ‘No. So I can take them all back, actually.’ Karol wiped at his face, and I got the feeling that he was crying. ‘And then, once it’s clear that I am never, EVER going to long for her again… I’m going to kill her.’

  ‘You’re not going near her!’ Kohl cried. ‘If anyone in this family can take her down, it’s me! Fire… water… you see where I’m going with this, yeah?’

  ‘The only place you’re going is back to Pacifica- and as far out of from Larkin’s reach as possible. She’s too dangerous for you to risk confronting again Kohl!’ Karol said brusquely. ‘If your powers were a match for hers, how the hell did that fiery nymph get out of this room to start with, let alone past your tide?’

  ‘What would you have done in my place, oh powerful healer?’ Kohl demanded. ‘Soothed her fevered brow? Kissed her brand better?’

  ‘Someone fucking should have before she boiled over but no, that’s not how I plan on handling the bitch now!’

  ‘You’re not gonna handle her at all! You’re the one she got dead, remember? It’s you that’s not match for her, not I!’

  ‘You’re the one she wasn’t afraid of enough to try to kill!’ Karol pointed out. ‘And I am your king so you will do as I say- you’re not going anywhere near Larkin Whittaker without a fucking army, got it?’

  ‘Maybe I’ll raise an army then, hmm?’

  ‘Maybe you should TRY!’

  Acid bubbled in my stomach. ‘Can either of you do that? Kill someone, I mean? I thought we were descendants from angels!’

  The king looked back at me and smiled grimly, eyes dark as night. ‘Yes we are descendants of angels,’ he said, and his face was glistening with his tear tracks. ‘Which is why I’ll never allow the devil masquerading as a swan into our hearts- or lives- again.’ He stood taller and began to move towards the door, motioning to the screen. ‘That will take a few minutes to start tracking her… watch it until I return please? I need to speak with Ora quickly, but we cannot afford to waste a second locating Larkin Of Eden, so come and find me if something shows up before I come back, all right?’

  ‘Off to make that marriage proposal now that the one you wanted on the side is officially off the menu?’ Kohl demanded snarkily

  ‘If I ever use the word ‘marriage’ again, feel free to bludgeon me to death with something, all right?’ Karol grumbled. ‘No I just need to make sure that certain things that I have confessed in Ora of late will remain between us now that my temporary insanity has cleared up.’

  Kohl sighed. ‘You’re going to let a lot of people down, Karol.’

  ‘Frankly, my brother- I don’t give a damn.’ And then the door slammed shut behind him. I flinched and saw Kohl look to me.

  ‘You really don’t remember her?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Huh…’ Kohl turned back to the screen. ‘I don’t know if you’re the luckiest man alive, or if I pity you. But I suppose time will tell, won’t it?’

  I felt a searing pain in my chest then and averted my eyes, trying to feel around in my brain to see if it was linked to some memory, but it wasn’t. And then I looked down at my filthy, blood-smeared chest and saw the cause of the pain- in a large, lumpy wound that resembled a boil that I hadn’t noticed before because I had an outlandish feather necklace covering most of my chest. I looked closer and saw that it was a brand to match the ones on my Companions and realised what it was- my mother’s parting gift to me. I frowned down at it, confused. My healer, a strange, dark-skinned man with beautiful, haunting eyes had examined me so thoroughly after I’d come to… how had he missed it?

  ‘I don’t know why we seek to cover scars…’ the healer had said as he’d brushed his fingers over my shoulders and torso, but not my chest. ‘I think they’re important- a map that tells us where we’ve been, and where we ought to go.’

  ‘What can you tell from my skin?’ I’d asked him, and he hadn’t looked at me as he’d answered:

  ‘You don’t have any scars,’ he’d said, rising to go back to Karol. ‘Where you have been and where you need to go has been recorded on the flesh of others and now that they’ve scattered, I’m not sure that you’ll ever find your way...’

  And then he’d left me.

  As Larkin had left me.

  As my parents had left me.

  I didn’t need my memories back to suspect that somewhere along the line, God had left me too.

  But as I looked down at the only scar I had- the only thing about me that I could see that made me different from my twin, I cupped my hand over it protectively and vowed to keep it as my compass point of finding my way back to God.

  And for her sake, I prayed that Larkin of Eden remained lost to all of us. Though if the look in my brothers’ eyes was anything to go by- she didn’t have a shot in hell of escaping us now. Not unless she raised an army of her own.

  That was when a gasp sounded across the room, and before I could even look that way, I was hit hard in the face with a spray of water that knocked me off the chair- but did not block the sight of my mother’s ‘corpse’ sitting up, or the sound of her screaming as my twin raced across the room- and punched her square in the face.

  -End-

  Dear Readers! I hope you enjoyed The Tangled Trees! Book #4 in The Eden Chronicles, The Wildest Wood
s, will be out by June 2017!

  Please leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon! I get such a thrill out of reading your feedback!

  And please like my Facebook Page ‘The Fairytail Saga’

  Other Titles By

  S.K Munt

  The Fairytail Saga

  (Adult Paranormal Romance)

  The Marked Ones, The Fairytail Saga #1

  Three Rings, The Fairytail Saga #2

  Heads Or Tails The Fairytail Saga #3

  -Urchin Prequel to The Fairytail Saga-

  Stained Glass- The Fairytail Saga Finale #4

  The Legasea S.K Munt

  Kissed By A Muse Trilogy

  (Adult Paranormal Rock ‘N Roll Romance)

  Unchained Melody, KBAM#1

  Turn The Page, KBAM #2

  More Than Words, KBAM #Finale

  The Highway To Never After Quartet

  (Zombie Apocalypse Romantic Suspense)

  Palpitations, THTNA #1

  Sanguivorous, THTNA #2

  Kinemortophobic, THTNA #3

  Thanatophobia,THTNA #4

  The Harlequin Bros Legacy

  (Adult Dark Fantasy and PNR)

  The Harlequin Doll, THD#1

  The Marionette, THD#2

  The Eden Chronicles

  (Adult Dark fantasy PNR)

  The Given Garden

  The Forbidden Fruit

  The Tangled Trees

  The Wildest wood (May 2017)

  All titles available through Amazon Kindle, 6 available on paperback via Amazon.com

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  S. K Munt is a mother of 4 who lives in the Sunshine state of Queensland, in Northern Australia and has been writing full novels since she was a little girl.

  ‘The Tangled Trees’ is her nineteenth novel since she first published in 2013, and when she isn’t writing, Samantha is running after her three daughters and baby boy, hosting karaoke, surfing, rehearsing for the local musical theatre company, producing her own plays under the title ‘Thespian ink’ and avoiding sleep in general.