First Fall: The Canoe Thief Read online

  First Fall

  By Zaide Bishop

  In a world that’s part paradise and part hell, two opposing tribes are divided by the most dangerous impulse of all: desire

  For years, the Varekai and Elikai tribes have each struggled in their own ways to survive against the elements, hunger and the deadly creatures of Eden.

  For just as many years, they have adhered to one rule: never make contact.

  The resourceful Varekai are called female.

  And the Elikai? A mysterious, animal breed called male.

  When an adventurous Elikai brother is caught stealing from the enemy, a beautiful, inquisitive Varekai healer, the rules keeping the two tribes apart begin to matter less and less. Stranded together in a perilous land, a curious instinct draws Varekai and Elikai closer together than their world has ever dared.

  And nothing will ever be the same.

  The Bones of Eden series continues with Second Heart

  Warning: First Fall contains explicit content, including dubious consent.

  This book is approximately 64,000 words

  Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Alissa Davis

  Dear Reader,

  As book lovers, no matter how much we want our favorite stories to go on forever, we know that eventually they will come to an end. The same is sadly true of my monthly letter to you. While I know some of you do look forward to this letter, we’ve decided that we can no longer continue to include it for some practical reasons, which I don’t want to bore you with. So this will be my last letter to you all. But never fear, the good books will continue to come every month and that is what’s most important!

  Still, I get one last chance to tell you all about the amazing books we have in store for you, and I’m going to take full advantage of the opportunity. Are you ready?

  Powerhouse author duo Alexa Riley follows up their bestselling full-length novels Everything for Her and His Alone with a trilogy of spin-off novellas. First up, in Stay Close, a Russian bad boy will do whatever it takes to conquer her headstrong ways and make her his. And don’t miss the next two novellas, releasing later in 2017 and early in 2018, as well as their third full-length novel, Claimed, coming in spring 2018.

  At Noble House, a first-of-its-kind hybrid fetish club that blends real life with the online, three lovers reunite to explore role play and high-tech toys as they battle demons from the past that could threaten their future. Sara Brookes’s Get Off Easy is only the first in her supercharged erotic romance series, Noble House Kink.

  The male/male romance Ethan & Wyatt trilogy by K.A. Mitchell is now available in one volume in mass market print, audio and digital formats. Opposites attract and ignite on campus as optimistic, open-hearted and sometimes clueless Ethan meets Wyatt, who has plenty of reasons for hiding under his hoodie. Together they face a jealous ex, disapproving parents and the most dangerous test of all: real life together off campus.

  Hot in the City author Jules Court is back with her third contemporary romance novella, Tease Me Tonight. Elizabeth Owens spent the last eight years as the responsible and celibate guardian of her little sister, but now Megan’s left the nest, and Elizabeth’s ready to let her wild side out with firefighter Will MacGregor. The only problem is Will wants a connection with Elizabeth that will last longer than one steamy night, and he knows if he gives in too soon to their attraction he’ll lose her. You can also pick up Hot in the City and Enticing the Enemy in digital, wherever Carina ebooks are sold.

  In Betrayed by Blood, the second installment in Beth Dranoff’s romantic urban fantasy Mark of the Moon series, covert agent turned bartender Dana is drawn back to her Agency past by an offer she can’t refuse from a guy she never thought she’d see again. Lured by curiosity, and torn between freedom and restraint, Dana has to decide whether she’s ready to look to the future while leaving the scars of her past behind.

  Romantic suspense author Katie Ruggle, writing as Katie Allen, joins Carina Press with the first of several erotic romance backlist releases leading up to her fall 2017 new erotic romance release. In her Research & Desire series, we’ll publish Erotic Experiments, Natural Selection, Carnal Chemistry and Double Dose in back-to-back months from July through October. Then look for book one of her new series in November 2017.

  Ten years after he rejected her, the Seduction Squad’s newest recruit, Christie Mason, finally has the chance to get her revenge on Theo Ward, but there are some fantasies that are best left in the past and some taboos that should never be explored in Seduction Squad: Tainted by Amanda Stewart.

  Robyn Bachar’s Contingency Plan is the next in her sci-fi romance series, The Galactic Cold War. Privateer pilot Lieutenant Jiang Chen searches for the location of a terrible superweapon, but when the mission threatens to reveal the dangerous secrets of her past, Jiang’s only ally is sexy chief of security Ryder Kalani, who is battling demons of his own. Start with book one, Relaunch Mission, today!

  Fans of TV show The 100 will want to read Zaide Bishop’s Bones of Eden series. Releasing in three volumes in July and August, these continuing stories have it all, from forbidden love to war to a race for survival. First Fall comes out in early July, followed by Second Heart later in July and Third Wave in August.

  That’s all for our dear reader letters, but please follow us on social media—Twitter or Facebook—or sign up for our reader newsletter to be kept informed about all our great reads in the future.

  For one final time, fellow readers and book lovers, here’s wishing you a wonderful life of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Publisher’s Note

  This is the first part in a three-part series; the story continues in Second Heart and Third Wave.

  For Annie:

  After all these years I am still excited to see you. Every single day.

  Table of Contents

  Part One: The Canoe Thief

  Part Two: The Stealing Game

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Zaide Bishop

  About the Author

  PART ONE:

  The Canoe Thief

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter One

  Charlie did not want to see any more of her sisters die, but, standing on the shore, the hot surf rolling around her toes, she didn’t know how she could stop it. Two of the tribe’s canoes were missing. The theft was nothing less than an act of war.

  Gathered on the beach, the Varekai looked over the scene with fervent anger. Black-and-white war paint patterned their bodies in stripes and swirls, spots and patches. In the trees they would vanish in the foliage, but on the sand they stood out starkly against the shimmering turquoise sea.

  The canoes were vital to the Varekai, and each one had taken months of loving care to build. In the ever-fluctuating dangers of the archipelago, they meant access to food, water and materials. Losing two of them would cost precious time and resources. Not to mention the hours of labor and the blood, sweat and blisters that had gone into their construction.

  “They’ve gone too far.” Whiskey’s teeth were gritted, green eyes burning. She’d been the first to pick up her s
pear, but now most of the sisters were holding their weapons with a tense, vivid anger. Charlie felt her heart sink. Whiskey’s passion was always contagious. In a hunt it was a strength, but on days like this...

  “I say we come down on them at nightfall.” Whiskey gestured west with the point of her weapon. The bones, aluminum and polished wood woven into her flame-colored hair clicked and whispered like angry spirits. “We’ll take back what’s ours—then we’ll take everything they have!”

  The ragged cheer made the hairs on the back of Charlie’s neck stand on end. Their enemy, the Elikai, were bigger, stronger and unflinchingly bold, but her sisters were fast, cunning and bloodthirsty. In their last battle, Whiskey had killed the Elikai leader with a spear through the throat. Charlie had been certain the war would escalate until there were no people left. But Sugar, the new Elikai leader, had called off her sisters and taken them home.

  There had been an uneasy truce since then. For four long years, the tribes had scarcely seen one another. Now this thievery was going to ruin everything.

  “We’ve had peace for eight seasons.” India didn’t look at her sisters but at the oversized footprints and draglines in the sand. She was the smallest and darkest, the tribe’s witchdoctor. The salvage in her hair rattled as she moved. She had more than most: little skulls of rats and seabirds, shells, polished glass, copper wire and the glossy metal insides of cans that reflected the light like water. The swirls of white clay stood out starkly on her inky black skin, and despite her diminutive size and quiet, measured tone, all the sisters stopped to listen. “The tribe shrinks with every wet. We cannot afford to lose more sisters to fighting.”

  The wet and the dry were the only two seasons in the archipelago, though India had been mapping out a calendar of eighteen smaller ones that coincided with the arrival and departure of birds, the spawning on the reefs and the budding of certain fruit trees.

  “So we let them take our gear? Steal our livestock?” Whiskey was raging. “What next, India? Will you give them our spears and the hides off our backs?”

  Charlie stepped closer, ready to move between them, but India remained impassive in the face of her sister’s anger. “Until Eden gives us new sisters, or we have some way to replenish our numbers, we cannot risk ourselves over canoes. No life is worth a boat. We will make new boats. The trees will grow us new branches, but nothing in the world gives us back the sisters we have lost.”

  “The Elikai don’t get their sisters back either.” Whiskey jabbed her spear to the west again. “Let them keen their loss. I say we strike!”

  “No.” Charlie had heard enough of their arguments. Neither was right. The Varekai could not be timid or bloodthirsty.

  “We can’t storm their village.” Charlie paced the sand, thinking. “They are too large and they know their territories as well as we know our own. We will be outmatched. We will trade them something for our canoes.”

  Whiskey scoffed. “For what? We’re going to give up hard-earned food or weapons for something we own?”

  “No.” She stopped pacing and grinned at them. The idea came quick and easy. Revenge and a solution, all balled into one, without any bloodshed. “We’re going to capture one of the Elikai sisters. Capture, mind you, Whiskey. We will hold her here and then send a party to negotiate the trade. We will get our canoes back and no one will be harmed.”

  India nodded. “That we can do.”

  Whiskey nodded too, though more slowly. “We can demand more for an Elikai sister. Weapons, food, they’ll give us anything we want.”

  “Just the canoes,” Charlie said. “For now.”

  * * *

  “What have you done?”

  The Elikai stood around the canoes, most of them shocked into silence. Not Sugar, though. He could barely contain his rage, balling his fists to stop himself from trembling. The smug look on Tare’s face was not helping.

  “I found some boats.” Tare feigned innocence. Sugar’s nails felt like they were drawing blood on his palms.

  “You stole some boats! You took these from the Varekai. We’ve had peace with them for eight seasons and you’ve stolen their canoes!”

  “We need canoes.” Tare hunched his shoulders and glared. “Why are you acting like this is a bad thing?”

  “Because I negotiated peace!” Sugar resisted every urge in his body to shake his brother until he had double vision. “Because they’re going to want them back and I doubt they intend to swim on over and ask politely!”

  “Yes, but—” Tare grinned, sky-blue eyes glittering with amusement, “—now we have more canoes than them.”

  “It isn’t a competition!” Sugar wished he could tie rocks to him and throw him in the channel. Or at least find some way to make him see sense. If Tare was any more of an idiot, he would fall over taking a piss.

  The Varekai might have been smaller than the Elikai, but they were warlike and sadistic. They painted their skins with squid ink and clay so they became almost invisible in the trees, and on the full moon the beating of their war drums carried across the archipelago, keeping Sugar awake with a quiet, uneasy fear.

  It was the Varekai who had spilled the first blood in Eden and given birth to the world. The world, which was full of dangers and death. If not for the Varekai, Sugar and the other Elikai would still be safe in Eden, where they belonged.

  The Elikai would have won in a fair fight, but there were no fair fights with Varekai.

  “We could take them back,” Love said, wringing his dark little hands. “Just leave them somewhere the Varekai will find them. That will be enough, don’t you think?”

  “You’re not serious.” Tare was incredulous. “Do you have any idea what I went through to get these? Have you even considered how I got two canoes back here alone? I’m not letting you give them back! Sugar, be reasonable.”

  “Tare’s right.” Fox touched the nearest canoe, examining the workmanship. “We shouldn’t fear the Varekai. It’s been a long time since we lived in Eden. While we get broader and taller, they stay the same. We were naive then, but not anymore. Now we’re strong enough to take what we want.”

  Romeo spat, eyes flinty with raw hostility. He was lean and light-boned, shorter than most of his brothers—though not as short as Love—but eight times fiercer. “You think that, but you’re wrong. The Varekai have snake eyes and crocodile skins. And they have their bloody witchdoctor.”

  Of all the Elikai, Romeo was the most experienced when it came to Varekai, because before the world was born, he was a Varekai. When the tribes had fled the broken shell of Eden, either in the confusion or by cruel design, Romeo had been left behind by his Varekai brothers. He had been so frightened when the Elikai found him. Alone, vicious and inconsolable. He never talked about it.

  Some of the brothers shifted, uneasy to hear India mentioned. None of them were really quite sure what a witchdoctor was capable of, but India had books salvaged from the mainland, books with secrets from the world before that gave him powers the Elikai did not possess. Sugar would have given his left nut to get his hand on those books but suspected he’d lose a whole lot more than that if he ever tried.

  “We’re still bigger.” Fox glanced at Sugar. “We’re still stronger.”

  “And if the Varekai decide to hunt us?” Sugar arched an eyebrow. “If we have war again?”

  “We’ve killed them before,” Fox said.

  Tare sighed. “I didn’t want anyone killed. They just have so much neat stuff. They don’t eat as much as us. They have time to make things.”

  “We could have negotiated trading,” Sugar said through gritted teeth. “We could have moved from peace to barter, and now you’ve launched us back into hostility.”

  “What are you going to do, Sugar?” Love looked up at him with wide brown eyes.

  “Hope the Varekai brothers will listen to reaso
n. I will go tomorrow and ask if we can return the canoes without consequences,” Sugar said, wishing just once Tare would refrain from destroying everything around him. Or that Zebra would stop poking large things with lots of teeth. Or Maria would stop picking fights with the others. Or that any of them would leave him alone long enough for him to focus on what was important.

  Because if they would all just stop fucking around for a few months, he might be able to rig up some solar power and plumbing. Wasn’t plumbing worth a bit of peace and quiet?

  Tare folded his arms across his chest. “I took them. Let me go.”

  “No.” Sugar rounded on him, fists clenched. “You’ve done enough. I want you to stay here. Do not go into the eastern islands again. Stay away from the Varekai. Understand?”

  Tare frowned as he watched Sugar stalk away. The problem with their “fearless leader” was that he wasn’t really fearless. Sugar was too cautious. And he thought too much. In fact, some days that was all Sugar did. He’d draw things in the sand or sketch on paperbark. Sometimes he came up with neat designs and made useful things, like pulleys and fishing hooks, but most of the time all that thinking struck Tare as a waste of time.

  He wasn’t going to let Sugar take back the canoes either. He was the one who’d stolen them, he should get to take them back. Sugar just wanted all the fun jobs.

  “Please tell me you’re going to do what he says,” Love said, standing in Tare’s shadow to keep the sun out of his eyes.

  They weren’t exactly forbidden to go near the Varekai, but there was a general consensus that it was best for everyone if the two tribes stayed far away from each other. Tare was curious, though. He couldn’t help it. The Varekai were so different.

  “Sugar is too cautious.”

  “He’s not, Tare. The teachers kept the tribes separate in Eden for a reason.”

  “Bloodlust,” Tare muttered.

  “Bloodlust,” Love agreed. “And that whole ‘murder everyone’ thing they have going.”