by S. K Munt
‘Kick this topic out of this conversation, period!’ I exclaimed, burying my face in my hands. ‘Seriously, Kohén, I’m touched that you feel so guilty on my behalf, but it’s hard enough for me to accept the fact that I’ll never bear children, without being expected to comfort you over it too!’ I made myself as small as I could, curling him out of my personal space completely like a turtle in a shell and whispered: ‘I’m hanging on by a thread here, and you’re that thread. If you fray…’
The bed moved and suddenly, the warmth of Kohén’s body was all around me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, untangling me as though the embrace he was granting me was supposed to be soothing. ‘But now that I know that you love me, I’m finding the concept of not making love to you, or of you having my children a lot harder to accept.’
‘Don’t dwell on it then,’ I said stoically, already regretting having said them now that reality was dawning on me all over again and Kohén was forcing me to lie on my side beside him while he twined his ankles between mine. God, I didn’t want to think that he was doing this on purpose, but since when had we ever lain like this? ‘My words didn’t change anything.’
‘They changed me,’ he whispered, running his fingertips down my arm and dropping his gaze to my chest. When I saw his eyes flare with hunger, my stomach coiled so tightly that this time I did feel the device. He lifted his eyes to mine again and they were almost bright enough to light the room. ‘You made me feel like a…’ he bit his lip and lowered his face towards mine. ‘…man.’
Well fuck! Because THAT’S what the world needs more of!
‘No!’ I pushed his face back and stared hard at him. ‘The way you stood up to Karol for me made you a man. All I did was state the obvious while mentally drugged. But it didn’t change ME, Kohén, okay? I love you, but I’m no more willing to be your plaything now that I’ve said it, than I was when I kept it to myself! And we both know that I wasn’t getting out of here fertile so please, can’t we drop this and discuss sports before you make me…’ I tried to threaten him but I couldn’t- many of Maryah’s lessons had fallen on deaf ears but I’d learned not to provoke a Barachiel ego!
‘Make you…?’ Kohén prompted, and I knew that without a threat to his manhood, he wasn’t going to get it. He smiled and leaned in, biting my lower lip gently and whispered. ‘Heel?’ I was going to cook his scrotum and serve it up to Karol for dinner, but then he caught me off-guard and dragged his fingertips down my arm, displaying a shower of blue sparks that were every bit as beautiful to feel as they were to behold. I shivered violently and Kohén grinned and bit my lip again, just as his fingers went over my hip and pressed my skirt between my legs. ‘Or beg?’
I gasped as that singular touch brought me to the precipice of a sudden climax and Kohén’s murmur of satisfaction was muffled when he pressed his mouth to mine. Then we were kissing furiously and he was rolling on top of me and though my brain was screaming to stop him, my body convulsed at his every touch and groan, and the air thickened and crackled around us.
‘I love you!’ Kohén whispered between tongue-lashings, moving my strap off my shoulder and ravishing the skin there. ‘And you love me! And when I touched you, you…’ he made an Aeolian sound and moved his lips towards mine. ‘Fuck… Larkin I can’t! I can’t resist you and you should stop resisting me!’
‘For the sake of pleasure?’ I cried, moving my head away from his and pushing his hand away when it tried to find a way up my skirt. Undeterred, Kohén ripped down the top of my dress and caught my exposed nipple in his mouth and I bucked beneath him, feeling his stiff erection press through our clothes in its need to find me. ‘Kohén…!’ I wanted to scream ‘No’ but that was such a strong word- in the harem, forbidden. I was his and if I tried to say otherwise, he could have me banished, or could grow so furious in his lust that he’d just force himself on me anyway and feel poorly about it after. But by then it would be too late and I’d be ruined.
Stop! Please Kohén I can’t stop you, so stop yourself!
‘For love!’ He suckled on me and groaned so loudly before moving his lips up my neck again. ‘Our love. I would keep you Larkin and only you forever! I wouldn’t marry! And when I am king of Pacifica, I will make you my wife and eradicate the Given caste and-’ he lost his words as he kissed me again and this time, I relented because the promises he was making were so beautiful, and I wanted to believe in them- in him. I was aroused and I was in love and he was telling me that I could be his and only ever his and I was drunk on him. Mindless.
I was the girl in the book- the lovesick ingénue who would have her heart crushed, and when Kohén’s fingers sought out the fabric of my dress and pushed it down further, planting kisses punctuated with sparks all over my torso, I writhed in fear and lust. So help me I wanted him, but if I let him have me… I would be utterly dependent on the promises of a sixteen-year-old boy to shield me for my entire life. I had to say no- I had to risk being banished if I wanted to save myself. But then I saw those angry, hungry faces pressed up against the electric fence and that scary man who’d tried to carry me off as a child and I bit down on my own tongue until I tasted blood. Yes, there were worse fates than being Kohén’s whore- I could be anybody’s. A tear slipped down my cheek, so I turned my head and let the fight go out of my body, opening my legs and telling myself that it was all my own fault.
You were born unwanted. At least you can’t claim to be unwanted anymore…
34.
‘You taste… you look… you’re…’ Kohén’s voice died off and then I felt his hand on my cheek. ‘Crying?’ I turned my face further into the pillow and swallowed down blood and bile. ‘Larkin? Hey!’ He forced me to look at him and when our eyes locked, he let me go, horror constricting his face. ‘You’re crying! I’m flying, and you’re crying! Why?’ He pulled me into his arms and pushed my hair out of my face. ‘If this is so horrid for you, why didn’t you say to stop?’
‘I am forbidden to,’ I said, looking down at my bare breasts and beginning to tremble.
‘Since when do you care about rules like that? I can’t believe I almost… it felt like you were giving in to me!’
I looked up at him and let the tears spill out of my eyes when I whispered. ‘I was.’
‘Giving up is more like it...’ Kohén’s face contracted and suddenly, I was on the bed alone and he was moving away from me. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he asked, his tone wounded as he kept his back to me and straightened his clothes. ‘After all of these years, we’re not an ‘us’ to you, are we Larkin?’
I hung my head. ‘Caste laws are difficult to change, your highness, and until we are in the same caste, we can never be an us. I doubt that you’re the first Prince of Arcadia with wine on his breath to whisper to one of his girls that he was besotted enough to marry her someday...’ I paused. ‘Even though she cannot bear children and is therefore irrevocably ineligible.’
‘I want to change that- not the law but you! And don’t call me your highness!’
That’s not what the guidelines say...
‘What a wonderful promise to make, ten minutes after you couldn’t stop it from happening- and one minute after you tried to take advantage of that.’
‘You expected me to stop the procedure? Is that why you’re so upset with me? Or are you just angry that you’re so fucking beautiful to me that I can’t think around you?’
‘No,’ I said honestly. ‘I expected nothing of you but to keep your word, and you just came dangerously close to failing to do that so please, don’t ask me to hear another impassioned promise from you just yet, especially when it concerns my right to have children, which is an awful thing to lose hope for once- let alone twice!’
‘Your… oh, hell I…’ I thought I heard him sob but when I looked up, his back was still to me, and his posture was rigid. ‘Well, I can see that we are at an impasse, aren’t we? I want more of your trust so that I can have more of you, but you won’t grant it until I’ve seen the last promi
se through, will you?’
I looked him dead in the eye and said. ‘I wouldn’t be the first sixteen year old girl to take a well-meaning man at an ill-spoken promise,’ I said softly. ‘And that’s the reason why there is a law, isn’t it? To prevent idiotic women from giving everything to the man they love?’
Kohén turned to me and his cheeks were wet. ‘I’m not any man and you’re not any woman!’
‘No. You’re a prince and I, your property so that law cages me in where it protects others.’
‘You’re my best friend! And the love of my life!’ I blinked at him, a little shocked that he would use such strong words regarding his feelings for me and could not deny that my internal temperature warmed all over to hear them. He sat back down beside me and moved to adjust my dress but I flinched at his touch and his face fell. ‘I would move heaven and earth for you if I could, Larkin- I have already, and I will again!’ He looked so anguished I could barely stand it. ‘But if you can’t believe that something special about a third-born girl like yourself, brings out something special in a Barachiel like me, then what’s to become of us?’
I reached over and stroked his hair back from his eyes. ‘Nothing has to become of us now, Kohén- we just need to remain friends…’ his blood-stung lower lip pouted prettily, and I smiled and touched his angel ring, stroking my fingers across his knuckles with a whisper of a touch, before going on: ‘Friends who are educated enough to know that if they can resist their urges for five more years... they just may end up as more, and maybe even with everything.’ His body was trembling but he was still with me, and that infused me with hope, so I touched his lips and whispered. ‘Be my friend now, and when I am free to love you, I promise to you that I will do so until the end of time.’
‘Miguel said the same thing to Satan,’ Kohén whispered, catching my fingers by lifting his between them and squeezing gently, but when he glanced at me sideways, his eyes were shining with the same gleam of hope that I could feel in my heart. He kissed my finger achingly gently. ‘I’m not Satan but…’
‘I believe that Miguel meant it when he said it,’ I whispered, and more tears rolled from the corner of his eyes. ‘Do you… friend?’
Kohén frowned, catching my other hand and holding them both against his chest. ‘What if you don’t love me in five years?’
‘Then it would be a very stupid move to sleep with you now.’ I smirked and he rolled his eyes. ‘But a love worth having can’t be ruined- and that I do believe.’
He looked down at my knuckles. ‘Just as I believe that if you truly loved me…’ he stroked Kohl’s ring with his pinkie. ‘You couldn’t turn away from this.’
‘It’s hard,’ I admitted, freeing my hand from his and brushing it down the golden buttons of his black ceremonial shirt, lingering to feel his heat and the softness of his suede vest. ‘Painful. I want you so much but I’m just so scared-’
‘Stop. Your fear wounds me, and your need is driving my own.’ Kohén stood and scratched behind his ear, not looking at me. ‘I’m going to need to separate myself from you, to make it five years without falling into your arms. We’re going to quarrel. I’m going to spark like mad and earn your anger. It’s going to cause us pain, and it’s going to mean a lot of trips away for me.’
‘Will you always come back?’ I asked in a small voice, wondering if he meant trips to see his island girls.
His blue eyes shifted to mine. ‘Will you always be waiting, and forgiving?’
I smiled. ‘That’s the easiest promise I could ever make.’
Kohén nodded and moved more tears from his eyes and then suddenly, leaned in and kissed me, whispering against my lips. ‘You’re the only girl in the world to me, and I’m going to make you my queen someday, Larkin, even if you try to put up a fight. Remember that okay? No matter what. Anything I ever do, is to protect you, little bird.’ He turned away and I heard him sob just as I began to shake, and opened the door. For a moment, he paused there and then looked back at me and said: ‘Happy sweet sixteenth. Your present is out on the lawn behind you… I hope it makes you see just how much you mean to me.’
I stood, slipping my arm back into my dress, wondering what it could be. He’d gotten Emmerly a small sailboat to represent her freedom and as an homage to her fallen sea captain father and noble roots, and she’d been deliriously happy. In fact, she’d come straight up to our dormer the morning after the ball and had hooted and hollered and even offered to take us all for a sail. Unfortunately though, she couldn’t. I’d been grounded for starters so I couldn’t even go outside and look at it with the other girls, but until we had our tattoos, we could not leave Arcadia’s boundaries which was why the duchess had not allowed me to go to Pacifica earlier that year- open water was the boundary line.
I would love it if Kohén got me something to symbolise my own freedom- like a small garden to grow cotton in, or a horse. He had once mused that he’d like to teach me to ride, because I’d need to be able to man a plantation someday. The idea that there was a pretty white horse waiting for me on the lawn behind the north wing had my spirits galloping, but I knew if I saw it now I would come apart, knowing that my freedom to leave Eden was still five hard years away, and while my dreams of owning a plantation still in tatters following my introduction to King Elbert- tatters that I was trying to sew back together and failing at.
‘Lock that door behind you, and it will tell me how much you love me- then come back in every time you need to see your best friend, and that will be gift enough.’
Kohén nodded sadly. ‘As you wish, my lady.’
‘Thank you… dear friend.’
The door shut between us, and when I heard it lock, my head dropped. I’d never felt worse in my life! My blood and skin were still humming from his caresses and my heart from his words and yet the despair of not having him was almost unbearable. I sat down on the bed and stared at the closed door and trembled, wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t seen the tears on my cheeks, and who I’d be now. Would he have left after? Or would he have held me forevermore?
I sat like that for the better part of an hour, stunned and confused and had to listen to him choking down sobs on the other side of the door for the longest time before I buried my head in my pillows and moaned in anguish. I’d thought that his touches and kisses would leave me once he locked the door, but I’d meant it when I said that I wanted him too, and couldn’t imagine how anything in the world would ever feel better than loving him as openly and rightfully as God has intended his people to do- perhaps not even freedom. What was freedom, anyway? An open gate, or open arms? He’d offered to open that gate for me no matter what, but because I hadn’t trusted him too, I’d closed my arms between us and now, he was paying dearly for being the first and only person to ever love me.
Knowing that my will was weakening with every passing, lonely second, and his every time the lights in my room dipped to provide his anguish a surge, I stood up and began to walk around the room, curiosity guiding me through my turmoil- touching the pretty white bedspread and marvelling at how soft it was, and then fingering the white canopy and realising that even it didn’t feel as sensually soft against my skin as Kohén’s kisses had. There was a record player in the corner, so I slipped a recording of an archaic choir out of its cover and put it on, knowing that if I didn’t tune Kohén out somehow, I would surely break down and run to him.
He was waiting for me to run to him. Praying that I’d have a change of heart- and suffering my distrust.
There were little touches everywhere that I knew Kohén had put in place for me- pillar candles that smelled like coconuts, a map of the old world framed above the new one, a globe, a variety of brand new books on shelves about gardening, history and even a few romances. Gone with the Wind, Pride And The Prejudice- everything I’d ever loved was there for the sake of making me a home in his harem.
I ventured into the closet next, but the sight of those white and gold dresses dangling from velvet ha
ngers gave me the creeps, as did the drawers stuffed with lacy garments, oils and contraptions I’d seen in books but never in real life. There were manuals in those drawers too and the images on the covers made me blush and hurry out of the closet quickly, where I shut off the record player. Never again would I associate gospel music with anything pure! But at least Kohén’s tears had subsided.
No it’s not a romantic bedroom for a prince’s best friend and true love- it’s a honey trap. You can’t trust him, and you can’t love without trust! He just asked you to do what Karol asked you to do, they’re from the same cloth and if you bind your heart to his, you will lose your sense of self straight away!
I moved to the bedroom window, sniffling back tears, and pulled open the heavy brocade curtain, wondering if I could see the hilt of the cliff and the Tidal Fall from my new position within the castle, and then I saw a sight that made my blood run cold first in disbelief, and then hot with love.
She was crooked, she was cracked and she was wearing a toga too- but Lady Liberty was on the lawn outside of my window with her torch held high, burning not to represent freedom and acceptance, but Kohén’s feelings for me. Suddenly, we were children again flipping through a newspaper together.
‘You should tell your father to pull Lady Liberty out and put her somewhere else. Like here! She’s nobility, after all, and a symbol of what was right about America- she belongs here in Eden.’
‘Send in a team to rip her from the earth, dismantle her, lug her across the country instead of resources and rebuild her in North Arcadia?’ Kohén asked. ‘Well, it will cost thousands if not millions, and she’ll probably disintegrate on the way over but for you sister dear- anything!’
I punched him in the arm. ‘You’ll do it if you truly love me,’ I said.
‘Yeah well, I guess I don’t...’
But he did. He truly, truly did. Had it cost thousands? Millions? How on earth had he gotten Elliot Bronx to part with it?! My mind spun and then suddenly I was remembering what he’d said earlier about me not being ‘actually’ punished. Was that why I had been sent to my room for five days- so that he could sneak in and reassemble the Statue Of Liberty for me? Was that why the girls had gotten colder toward me? Was that why Karol had made that joke about me lowering my torch? Dear God! It was madness, complete madness! And utterly the most romantic gesture I could ever have dreamed of.
