The Forbidden Fruit

by S. K Munt

  It was the perfect time to visit Caldera Island, and the first time that we had been legally able to. King Elijah had made the general of the Corps division stationed there, Atticus Hartley, Prime Minister of Pacifica during his last trip, which meant that the islands, and the ocean between it and the western coast of Arcadia were now officially considered to be part of the Commonwealth of Calliel, governed by the sovereign of the Arcadian monarchy, which was Elijah. The title of prime minister was only a temporary arrangement for the general until one of the Barachiel boys was crowned sovereign of Pacifica, but the territorial rights were absolute, which allowed us girls to leave the mainland without having received our brandings first, because we were technically staying within Arcadian perimeters. By this definition, we could travel to St Miguel, Nitika and Rachiel- but would still not be allowed to go to Tariel or Rabia, or anywhere with a flag of its own, until we had been branded.

  The six-day voyage across open water was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before and though I loved every second of it (Kohén joked that I hung off the front as often as the mermaid figurehead of the ship) the other girls didn’t take to it so well. Kelia turned a lovely shade of green the moment she stepped onto the dock, and that colour didn’t fade for three days after we had stepped onto Pacifican soil, and the confined sleeping compartments and lack of deck space made Lette and Elfin so claustrophobic that Elfin looked ready to dive overboard and swim the rest of the way, just to stretch her long legs. Emmerly complained that the crew were smarmy and stared at her too much, but she did like being on the boat and spent a lot of the voyage at Kohén’s side, either telling him what she knew of sailing or sharing anecdotes that had been passed down to her from her seafaring, (now deceased) father.

  Much to my surprise, I found myself liking Emmerly even more during that voyage, but that ended up depressing me because I saw it at last- her squashed potential. Her love of the water and all things maritime was genuine, and she would have lived her life on boats if she’d been able to. For that reason alone, she truly could come to be Kohén’s favourite companion, and rightfully so. She was no princess, but she was growing out of her catty ways, and she was close enough to being a noble to be worthy of his attentions, as well as being genuinely fond of him and completely prepared to stay at his side- even if he did end up crowned King of Pacifica. And to top it all off, she had a sharp tongue on her, which Kohén was going to need if he was going to escape growing up as smug as Karol had!

  His spouse would loathe her and the golden glyph that I was certain she would eventually receive, when and if his time to join with a suitable partner came. I thought ‘when,’ to keep myself thinking realistically, and ‘if’ on the single, pure white feather of hope that such a day would not have to come between us.

  Kelia, on the other hand, was not cut out to be a seafarer’s wife, and I hoped that the boat trip would turn her off pursuing anything serious with Kohl- hoped. I was a nervous wreck about seeing them together, and seeing him again. What if he favoured her, now that she’d grown so tall and willowy? Or what if he made it obvious that he favoured me?

  What if you’re a demon for growing hypothetically jealous over two men?

  I wanted the boat ride to last forever so I’d have time to prepare myself for the moment of truth- seeing Kohl and Kohén side by side- but soon enough I was descending the gangplank, and there was Kohl (wearing his eye-patch!) waiting for me at the General-come-Prime-Minister’s side, surrounded by beautiful, exotic-looking girls in grass skirts- and at first glance, my heart began to flop about like a fish out of water.

  Oh sweet Jesus he’s gotten even more beautiful!

  Kohl was shirtless, and had obviously been standing in the sun for a while, so he was covered with a sheen of perspiration and practically radiating sunlight from his taut, bronze skin under several garlands of frangipani and hibiscus leis. He was wearing white silk pants with a gathered waistband and drawstring, which sat low on his impossibly narrow hips, clung loosely to his muscular thighs until just above the knee and then flared out to billow around his bare feet. The pants (and I saw quite a few of the local men wearing them in a various shades of coloured silk) were split at the sides almost all the way to hip, and no one wore them better than Kohl, whose bulging thighs were sun-stained the golden shade of coconut husk. In the year since I’d seen him last, he’d grown out his truffle-brown hair just long enough for it to be fastened back now with a stubby ponytail, and his shoulders were so broad in comparison to his waist, that some sort chemical inside me screamed: ‘Mate! Mate!’ on sight; a reflex that was not discouraged by the eye-patch, but rather enhanced.

  I reached for a railing to steady myself, but there was no railing there and I lost my balance. I yelped, thinking I was about to fall into the shallows and saturate myself (in both water and embarrassment), but Kohl dashed forward and caught me swiftly like some heroic pirate, and suddenly I was in his arms and his sweat was on my skin and his scent was filling my lungs and head. I gasped, at a loss for a salutation that wasn’t ‘Holy shit!’ and he grinned at me.

  ‘Aloha!’ he whispered mischievously, his grin making his deep dimples prominent. ‘I thought you were sure-footed?’

  ‘Eye patch!’ I managed breathlessly, quickly touching my pendant, which he was still wearing around his neck and ignoring the need to pull him down to my mouth with it. ‘Threw me!’

  ‘I’ve been reading- and re-reading a lot lately,’ he said conspiratorially, and I flushed scarlet, knowing that he meant my letters. ‘So it’s just a precaution.’

  ‘And an effective one at that,’ I teased, ‘except the effect you’ve managed screams: ‘Caution!’ your highness.’

  His grin could have split his face. ‘There’s my girl!’ He pulled me up and hugged me to him tightly, and he was so hard and muscular that he could have crushed my body, my intellect and my heart in one.

  Now it’s clear that he’s water Nephilim, and not an electric one! Oh man, is it going to be a damp holiday under THIS toga!

  ‘You smell incredible,’ he whispered, taking the words out of my delighted sinuses, then leaned back before our clinch could be labelled as improper, and kissed my cheek so that he could whisper into my ear: ‘And you look like a sin just waiting to be committed, by the way…’

  ‘Me?’ I breathed, trying not to stare too hard at his chest muscles, and arouse the suspicions of anyone who might be watching. ‘You’re…’ my eyes shifted to the silver hoop in his right ear, and the urge to snag it between my teeth was strong- as was the urge to mount his shoulder like a good little bird ought to. I wasn’t a parrot but boy, would I hang on to that body tight! And I’d certainly fly after, if given the chance to!

  Dear God, how dare you put me in a pirate’s path and forbid me from being pillaged by him?

  Kohl bit his lip, and he was so tan that the hue of his eye was akin to neon sapphires, like Kohén’s when he was furious or excited. ‘I’m...?’ he baited.

  ‘Making me want to ask for permission to climb on board,’ I whispered, and his visible eye sparkled with mischief. He hugged me again and moaned slightly.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered into my ear, and my eyes widened. ‘Now I better go hug my mother before everyone else sees it- talk later.’ He released me just like that, onto legs that were not up to the task of supporting my weight, and knowing that my face was bound to be as red as my breathing was haggard, I stepped forward and accepted a lei from one of the grass-skirted girls, so I’d look just as enthusiastic to see the local colour as I was the local Barachiel.

  When I glanced back, Constance was gripping her son tightly and weeping down his shoulder and I felt a pang of sorrow, because he looked more irritated by her open show of affection, than grateful.

  That poor woman… she’s been counting the days to see him, while he’s been counting the days to see me!

  I sighed to myself on her behalf for the umpteenth time since I’d come to Eden. The duchess had been wrong no
t to fight harder for her right to keep Kohl in Arcadia, and I knew from his letters that he had never gotten over the sting of it- but she did love him, which was more than my mother could honestly have claimed for me so that was something at least. She’d not been able to keep him and his brother together, but she had broken and bent many rules to see him as much as she was able to and to set him up somewhere idyllic to serve his sentence, and though it was unfair to every other Corps kid in Calliel, I was glad that Kohl had been the recipient of such an advantage, because the fact that he and his brother were twins had been an especially cruel twist of fate and warranted a bit of extra consideration, as far as I was concerned. Every Given kid understood that they were living less of a life than their brothers or sisters were, but few of them were forced to see an exact replica of themselves do so, for want of a few minutes!

  ‘Is that a bloody earring in your ear?’ Was Elijah’s greeting. ‘Kohl… will you ever try?’

  Kohl’s face tightened, and I tore my eyes away before I heard his emotionally muted response. That poor guy!

  ‘Aloha,’ one of the girls said to me, taking my suitcase from my hands and I tried to smile at her, but I was so busy wondering if she was the shell-girl that it couldn’t have translated as a genuine smile.

  ‘Aloha, and Mahalo,’ I said, before turning back to watch the twins embrace. Once again, the sight of them together warmed my heart, but they didn’t look anywhere near as identical as they had six months before. Kohén had been studying a lot, and Kohl had been working his ass off and it showed. I admired said buttocks in the clingy white silk, until Kelia moved in for her embrace and there it was at last- jealousy. She’d gotten a bit of colour in her skin on the voyage across, and the sunlight was picking out a few golden highlights in her unusually frizzy, copper-coloured hair, and because she was dark as I was fair, I had to admit that she and Kohl looked good together- really good, even though he dwarfed her by several inches. White definitely looked better on her than it did on me too, (as tan as I’d gotten, white still washed me out a little) and my sudden envy was unexpected and hard to deal with.

  Don’t be a girl! You’re here to see the world- not scope out imagined competition you idiot!

  But seriously, why doesn’t she let go of him already? She has signed a contract too! Wrong prince little noble girl- so back the hell up!

  I turned away from the sight and stared down the beach, seeing it really for the first time and shaking my head in awe. The sand would have been a bright white, but it was practically buried in pumice stone, and the palm trees looked like something sketched by a crazy artist compared to the hemlocks and elms and pines in Arcadia. The sky was a bright, cloudless blue and the ocean aquamarine, and I was so overcome by it all that grateful tears welled in my eyes.

  I’m in paradise, and I’m going to have two more weeks to get to know Kohl AND experience this with Kohén and Kelia! I am lucky, even if it is an odd, manipulated sort of luck. It is not fair that an exception has been made for me either, so the least I can do is be grateful for what I do have, right?

  ‘Hey…do I see tears?’ Kohén came up to me and turned me to face him, his expression puzzled. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I am better than okay,’ I whispered, turning away to gesture to the breaking waves. ‘Because of you and your friendship.’ I gave him a sidelong smile. ‘So don’t worry, they’re happy tears.’

  Kohén chuckled and rested his chin on my shoulder, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulling me close as though there was a chill he was trying to shield me from. ‘Yes, because it’s your friendship that inspired me to move the statue of Liberty across an entire continent, and then you across a sea.’

  I stiffened in his arms and turned my face to his. ‘What does that mean?’

  He kissed my shoulder. ‘It means that I’ve brought you here to win your heart back, my darling,’ his words were more breath than tone, and they made my heart flutter with fear and every feeling I’d ever had for him that I’d been trying to slam the harem door on for over a year. ‘It means that avoiding you for the last few months has been painful and I couldn’t take it anymore, and it means…’ he kissed the back of my neck. ‘I wanted you out of that palace and on this vacation with my family, because there’s almost nowhere for you to hide here. I want my mother and father to see how happy you make me and realise that you’ll never be less than the love of my life to me... and I want my twin to get to know his future sister-in-law better.’

  Oh my God, he’s still contemplating marrying me?!

  My palms went cold and my fingers, numb. ‘That’s a lot of pressure to put on one trip, your family, an eon of traditions and us, don’t you think?’ I made a weak attempt at laughing, trying to lighten the heavy tension vibrating between my back and his chest. ‘I was kind of imagining coconut drinks by the ocean and little else. I mean…’ I wet my lips, ‘didn’t we agree that the subject of ‘us’ was one better left unexplored until I’m a free woman?’

  And until I’ve been dropped on my head so many times that I’m too brain-dead to recall the smile on your face when you left Emmerly’s room?!

  Kohén kissed the back of my neck. ‘YOU decided, and then your scores came in and since, I’ve been scared into believing that you might just know better than me.’ He squeezed me more tightly. ‘BUT if I’m going to be a king someday, I have to start being the one who makes decisions for himself and follows them through, and as far as you are concerned Larkin, my heart and mind have been set since I was five.’ He ran his hands down my stiff shoulders as I arranged a string of insults to fling at him by alphabetical order inside my head- starting with ‘A’ for Arcadian Laws, ‘B’ for Barren, ‘C’ for Corpse then ‘D’ for Duckling then ‘E’ for Emmerly, ‘F’ for fucking, ‘G’ for Golden payments…

  ‘H’ for Harem and HELL no am I going to become your duchess or the whore YOUR future duchess will loathe if you get so carried away that you-

  ‘No, don’t pout, and don’t think you’re going to be able to squirm out of my grip’ Kohén chastised me. ‘You love me and I love you and even though we can’t be together the way I want to be yet, I can sure as hell monopolise your time while I’m here, and I plan on doing just that…’ he nibbled on my ear and made a contented sound. ‘Starting at sunset.’

  I turned to face him, practically snapping: ‘What happens at sunset?’

  ‘Father is arranging for us to have a romantic picnic for two in the caldera that the island was renamed for,’ he said, smiling proudly. ‘And guess what? I get to take you on horseback! You’ve always wanted to ride, haven’t you?’

  This was his father’s doing! I was so angry that I was surprised that steam wasn’t shooting out my ears. ‘And why does your father care what we do all of a sudden?’

  Kohén shrugged and looked away. ‘He doesn’t. I mean, I asked…’ his voice faltered and I crossed my arms and glared at him.

  ‘Will there be jewellery in that picnic basket, your highness?’ I demanded, feeling like I was about to burst into tears.

  ‘No,’ Kohén said, but a look flashed across his eyes and I KNEW that there would be, probably at his father’s insistence. That didn’t mean that Kohén expected to get it on me of course, but people were staring to expect such things and suddenly, I wanted to be back on that ship and sailing home. ‘You know I’m not going to ask for that sort of thing from you…’

  ‘Then what are you asking for?’

  He looked wounded. ‘A little faith in me? In us?’

  I shrugged. ‘Fine. Then leave whatever trinket he’s gifted you behind, or you’ll need faith that a healer’s going to be able to pull it out of your father’s ass after I’m done with you both!’

  ‘Larkin!’ He stepped into me and went to put his hands on my shoulders, but I saw the concern and suspicion on Kohl’s face behind him and that was enough to kill my good mood or any chance of redeeming it completely.

  ‘Excuse me your highness, I’m seasick and need to th
row up.’ And with that I swerved around him, took Kelia’s hand and yanked her away from where she’d been gawking at Kohl, before it was her that I threw up on.

  11.

  Almost everyone lingered on the beach to eat the ‘Welcome’ luncheon that had been prepared for us, but Kelia was green enough for me to be able to plead that we be shown to our rooms so that she could rest, and so we were led to our accommodations by a chubby native Pacifican named Jovi who pointed out everything interesting along the way. There was a huge white plantation mansion with a wraparound porch and pillars on the beachfront, and though Jovi told us that the royal family had always stayed there in the past, it had been gifted to the PM since he’d been appointed the position, and new accommodations had been built for the Barachiel’s behind it.

  The main house had a beautiful pool or rather, five beautiful pools built to spill into one another over stone waterfalls, and it served as a barrier between the PM’s residence and the VIP accommodations behind it all. My jaw dropped again when I saw where we were to stay, because it wasn’t so much a house as a tiny resort of our own, cloaked by a jungle of tropical foliage and rainforest trees. Six bungalows had been built in a semi-circle around another lush tropical pool, and there was an outdoor barbecue area AND a Basket-Racket court as well!

  Five out of six bungalows were identical to one another, but the sixth one, in the middle, was larger and had a hedge fence in the rear to offer the occupants (the king and duchess) privacy. Each cabin was adorable; all were painted white and had a small porch each to match the main house, only they had thatched roofs instead of red tile and when we got inside ours, we realised why- there was no electricity! We had a small kitchenette and a bathroom, which was standard, but even though the interiors still reeked of fresh paint and were incredibly modern at first glance (way more modern and minimalist than the décor in Eden which was all grey-stone furniture with timber accents) there were no light switches, ceiling fans or solar panels to speak of. Jovi explained that this was because Caldera Island had only just completed stage one of their development plan and so far, only three places on the entire island had electricity: the main house, the barracks’ kitchen and administration building, and the town hall, which doubled as an evacuation centre when the monsoon seasons reared their ugly, windy heads. (Or when Kohl lost the plot and howled at the moon as sexually frustrated Nephilim boys did!). But aside from the people who spent a lot of time in those places, almost everyone on Caldera Island still lived as though the dark ages had never lost their grip on the world- either dark age, AD and AA.