First Fall: The Canoe Thief Read online

  Tare’s heart skipped. Maybe India would leave the islands and brave the channel. It was possible witchdoctors did that kind of thing. Instead the Varekai settled for easing his canoe along the jagged cliffs of the outer islands, where the harsh currents had stripped away the sand to leave only rocky crags.

  There, in the deadly waters—only a few feet from the swirling current that would rip him away from the safety of the known waters and out into the deep, dark water of the channel—India stood up in his canoe, braced against the stone wall and harvested herbs and small fruits that grew out of the vertical stone.

  Tare couldn’t follow. His canoe was too wide. Instead he had to duck around the south side of each island and wait in the gaps, watching India paddle past.

  Each time he was afraid that India’s canoe would wobble or drift and he would be whipped away, dragged to his death in the unforgiving ocean. If that happened, Tare would never see him again, and that, for some reason, was a very bad thing.

  Tare wanted to call out to him and tell him to stop being stupid, to come away from the channel and harvest among the islands, where it was safe. Safer. He supposed nowhere was really safe here.

  It was around midday that India finally left the dangerous waters and paddled between the islands to a sheltered lagoon. He pulled his canoe up onto the beach and settled in the shade of a date tree, unwrapping a banana leaf that contained dried fruit, dried fish and a fat slice of smoked pork.

  After marking his location, Tare tied his own canoe to a trunk, out of sight, and picked his way through the foliage to a well-shaded spot to watch. The smaller man seemed to be enjoying the serenity, quietly eating and watching two small speckled sandpipers chase each other back and forth in the shallows.

  If he had a sling and a rock, Tare thought, he could have lured the birds with fish and killed them. India seemed to have no such interest. Just for a moment, Tare wondered what would happen if he announced himself. Would the little Varekai let him sit nearby? Maybe even share his food? They could have talked. Tare could have asked him why the Varekai wove so many things in their hair or why their dogs were so damnably ugly.

  After his meal, India stretched out on the sand and closed his eyes. Soon his back was rising in the slow, smooth rhythm of the sleeping.

  This was it. Tare would never have a better opportunity to catch a Varekai. Full of food and sleeping alone in the shade, many miles from any help, it was as if India wanted to be caught.

  Tare rose silently and crept along the tree line to the Varekai’s prone form. He was close enough to smell the sweet spice of his sweat and the warm, musky smell of his hair. All he had to do was pounce.

  Instead, Tare sank down a few feet away, watching the Varekai breathe. He looked younger and more innocent in repose. The Elikai maintained the Varekai were ugly, with their fatty chests and round, wiggly hips. But India didn’t look that way now.

  He looked...beautiful.

  Confused and not altogether comfortable, Tare took his canoe and paddled home with nothing.

  * * *

  “Sugar, we need to talk.”

  Sugar sighed. He was sitting on his favorite shady pocket of grass, mending a net. It was where he went to think. It was practically in the village, so it was never complete solitude, but usually his brothers knew better than to disturb him.

  “What is it, Love?”

  Love sat down beside Sugar, looking out over the water. He hugged his knees.

  “It’s about Tare.”

  “My least favorite topic.”

  “He went out this morning, alone. He was gone for hours, and when he came back, he had nothing. No fish, no meat, no fruit. He didn’t even take a net or spear with him.”

  “I already know Tare is lazy,” Sugar muttered.

  Love glared, and Sugar sighed. Love’s affection for Tare had been obvious for years. Most of the Elikai had their preferred companions, though monogamy—such as that between some seabirds and parrots—was an unobserved practice. Apparently no one had told Love, as he pouted and sulked whenever Tare took another lover, even just for a night.

  “He’s not lazy. He’s...” He looked sad and guilty. “I asked him about it, and...”

  “And?” Sugar prompted.

  “And he was spying on the Varekai.”

  Sugar sucked in a sharp breath, and Love continued.

  “One in particular. He’s...he’s... I think he’s...” Love was tearing up.

  “Caught bloodlust,” Sugar finished for him.

  It would be like Peter all over again. He’d become obsessed with the Varekai Charlie, before he was their leader. Peter had tried to follow him when he went hunting. He’d tried to speak to him. The Varekai had killed him.

  Before the last battle, the Varekai Lima had died the same way. He’d caught bloodlust for Nab and started to hang around the outskirts of the Elikai camp. They’d chased him away with rocks for a few months, but then one night he snuck into Nab’s tent. Nab had yelled, the Elikai had come running, and bloodshed between the two tribes had followed his death.

  Idiots. If Tare had the same illness, he would put the whole tribe in danger. Sugar groaned.

  “How many times?” he demanded. “How many times do I have to tell you all we must stay away from the Varekai? We must not talk to them. We must not interact with them. When we see them, we must walk away. This is why. They make us ill, and we are poison to them too.”

  “What are you going to do?” Love asked.

  “Speak to Tare. See if we can cure him before he tries to kill India or before Whiskey can stab him through the neck.”

  Sugar got to his feet, and Love scrambled up beside him. “Don’t be angry at Tare. It’s not his fault.”

  “It is! He should never have taken the canoes in the first place. Or disobeyed me and tried to take them back! It’s all his fault.”

  He could hear Love stumbling after him as he strode back into the village, but he ignored him, peering into all the huts he was likely to find Tare in. He wished he was more surprised to find him in the smokehouse, selecting a leg of ham.

  “You followed India.”

  Tare pulled a face. “Did Love tell you that?” He glanced behind Sugar. “I can see you there, you rat.”

  “It’s for your own good!” Love protested.

  “This is important, Tare. You know what bloodlust does. What it has cost us in the past. Now I need to know if you can control it, or if you are too far gone. If we can’t find a cure for this...” He shrugged. “I don’t know what we can do with you.”

  “You’re totally overreacting.” Tare hung the ham back up and stepped out of the smoking hut, closing the door. “It’s not bloodlust. It’s not bloodlust at all. Don’t Elikai want to kill Varekai when they’ve got it? I don’t want to kill India. I just want to watch him. Besides, I didn’t follow him because I was curious. I was going to kidnap him so we could—”

  “Kidnap him!” Tare was such a raging idiot, it was a minor miracle every day he didn’t fall on his own spear and die. “After the canoes, after the kidnapping, after everything, that was your solution?”

  “Stop yelling at me, I was just—”

  Sugar punched him. He felt a rush of guilt as soon as he did it, but his anger seemed to flow down his arm, and slamming his fist into Tare’s face was the only logical course of action. It hurt, and he shook his hand, trying to clear the bruised-bone feeling. Tare was already on his feet and launching himself at Sugar. There was no time to mount a proper defense.

  The scuffle was quick, painful, and ended when their brothers dragged Sugar and Tare apart. Sugar was glad. He was leaner than Tare, more of a thinker than a hunter, and the fight probably wouldn’t have gone in his favor.

  “Feel better?” Tare clambered to his feet, spitting blood. “I do.”
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br />   Sugar wiped his own bloody lip and looked up at Tare coldly. “No I don’t. How about we tell the rest of the tribe what you’ve been up to and why? Then we’ll see how everyone else feels.”

  Tare looked uneasy as their brothers gathered. Fox pulled Sugar to his feet. “Out with it, then.”

  “I followed one of the Varekai,” Tare said defensively, before Sugar could answer. “But it’s not bloodlust. We’ve had a Varekai here for years, and he’s never made any of us sick!”

  Romeo, standing at the edge of the group, balled his hands into fists. “Don’t you call me that! I’m not one of them!”

  Tare snorted. “Show us your cock, then!”

  Romeo snarled and lunged only to be held back by Xícara with one strong arm. Sugar blanched; this was getting out of hand. Further out of hand.

  “He doesn’t mean it, Ro,” Xícara murmured.

  “I do,” Tare said. “Why would the Varekai make us sick when Romeo doesn’t? He was in Eden with them. He drew the blood that created the world. He lives with us, but he’s Varekai.”

  Fox scoffed quietly. “You said yourself they bleed on the full moon as punishment for drawing first blood. Romeo has never bled. Have you, Romeo?”

  He shook his head vehemently, fists still balled. “I’m not one of them. I’m Elikai.”

  Sugar bit back his initial reaction, which involved calling them all idiots. “Tare is sick. Until we find a cure for the bloodlust, he can’t leave camp. We’re going to have to organize a watch.”

  “That’s stupid!” Tare protested.

  “It’s to keep you safe.” Sugar turned his back on Tare. “To keep all of us safe.”

  They were bold words, but no matter how confident he sounded, Sugar’s gut was twisted with worry. He couldn’t lose another brother, but he couldn’t tether them like dogs either. He had no idea how to protect them from themselves.

  Chapter Five

  Tare was sulking. Sugar had made it clear in no uncertain terms that Love couldn’t be one of his babysitters, which made escaping much more of a challenge. It wasn’t that Love was gullible exactly, just that Tare was very good at sweet-talking him, and Love always wanted to please.

  Love could have been convinced that Tare only wanted to see India “one last time.” But Fox, who was watching Tare currently, would only laugh.

  Tare needed to be more cunning. Which was a bit of a challenge, because when it came to cunning, Fox surpassed all of them by miles.

  Fox had agreed to let Tare hunt with him, so that he could be watched and productive at the same time. So they were on Pinnacle Island with bows and spears to hunt goats.

  Pinnacle Island was the largest in the archipelago. It was so large, it had freshwater rivers and waterfalls, not just the springs and pools that they survived on elsewhere. It was also riddled with caves and dominated by a mountain that rose up higher even than the fat distant peaks on the mainland. It was the high vantage point and the caves that allowed the Varekai and the Elikai to survive the cyclone season and storm surges that accompanied it.

  During the summer monsoon, they would live in the caves for months at a time, bored out of their minds, hidden from the wind and swirling debris, surviving on increasingly gross dried fruits and meats. Pinnacle Island was also home to thousands of goats, and when the preserved food ran low at the end of the season, goats were their primary food source.

  Fox, it seemed, had an off-season hankering for red meat, and that meant a short canoe ride and a very long, tiring climb up the mountain face. However, last year they’d had nothing but goat meat for five whole weeks, and Tare would have rather rolled around on broken oyster shells than smell cooking goat meat again.

  “Are we going to stay in the caves tonight?” Tare asked as they dragged the canoe up the beach, beyond the highest tide mark.

  “No. We don’t have furs, and I don’t want to sleep on bare stone.”

  “This is going to be so much work,” Tare muttered.

  “We might not have to climb far. There is more food for them lower down the mountain.”

  Being on the largest island gave Tare a vague sense of unease. Usually when they arrived here, it was all together. They would be carrying food and their belongings. Often they would be trying to outrun the first season’s storm, which could come out of a clear sky and flatten trees and flood islands in less than an hour.

  Tare had never been here before without the sickening fear that his hut, perhaps the whole village, would be gone when he returned. It had happened twice before, and there had never been a cyclone without months of repairs following.

  Fox didn’t appear to share his tension, simply gathering his weapons and setting off through the badly overgrown path that would take them toward the summit and the caves.

  Inwardly, Tare sighed. They were going to be at this all day. He detested hard work. Fishing was easy, why chase goats back and forth across a mountain when you could be wading in the shallows with a net? Never mind that he didn’t want to be here at all. He wanted to see India again. The little Varekai would be doing something much more interesting than looking for fresh goat shit.

  He needed to distract Fox so he could get away. Make him sleepy, perhaps, so he’d nap.

  Everyone liked to nap after sex: that was universal. It was hot; a nice nap in the shade would be a perfect diversion. The only problem was Fox was not the most enthusiastic of Tare’s brothers when it came to sex. Unlike Tare, who had slept with nearly every Elikai in the tribe, Fox seemed to prefer getting his release alone. He didn’t like to kiss or snuggle, before or after sex. He didn’t even seem to like looking at his brothers during the act. He’d close his eyes, as if he was trying very hard to picture something else entirely.

  If it had been Zebra guarding him, or even Dog, this would have been a lot less challenging.

  Fox waded knee-deep into a freshwater creek. At his feet, freshwater crayfish and fat-clawed yabbies scrambled out of the way. They could have harvested a basket of those and forgotten about goats. But no, Fox was too pigheaded for that.

  The midday heat was oppressive. Tare watched Fox cup handfuls of freshwater and splash his face and neck. It trickled down his smooth chest and plastered his dark brown curls to his face. Tare placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “What?” Fox demanded, distracted.

  “You look handsome like that.” As fickle as Fox was about sex, it was true. It was easy to want him.

  “Stop playing around.” Fox flashed him an annoyed look. “It’s hot.”

  Tare grinned. “You do. And we have all this cool water to splash about in. The goats will still be there if we have a break. Not long. We can bathe and relax a little.”

  “We haven’t even started yet, and you want a break. You’re so lazy, Tare.”

  “I’m not lazy.” He gripped Fox’s hips lightly. “I’m bored. Play with me.”

  “Stop it...”

  Fox tried to step away, but Tare slid his arms around Fox’s waist, pressing his chest to Fox’s back.

  Fox gave an exasperated huff, trying to turn and look at Tare. “You’re hopeless. You’ll do anything to get out of work.” That was probably true.

  “Mmm.” Tare breathed in the hot, damp scent of his hair. He kissed wet skin and tasted salt. Fox’s efforts to dislodge him were increasingly half-hearted, and Tare let his hands drift downward to slip between the grass threads of Fox’s skirt to cup the soft cock within.

  “I want to hunt.” Fox put his hand on Tare’s wrist but didn’t push him away.

  “I’ll do all the work. You can just sit there, like the king of the hill.”

  Tare held Fox’s member, squeezing gently in a smooth, pulsing motion. It was still flaccid, but Fox’s resistance was wavering. Even an Elikai who was not all that enthusiastic about sex found it ha
rd to turn down a free climax.

  “Don’t kiss me,” Fox grumbled, the tension starting to leave his bunched shoulders.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Tare promised. In his hand, Fox was starting to thicken. Tare caressed him until he was erect, then slid around Fox and knelt on the sandy bottom of the creek, chest deep in the water now, but face-to-face with Fox’s cock.

  Fox groaned when Tare took the shaft into his mouth. It was a desperate, aching groan. The kind, Tare thought, that came from avoiding sex all the time. Tare rarely let himself get so frustrated, and despite the amorous activity, the cold water was keeping him soft.

  He swirled his tongue around the head of Fox’s shaft, sucking as it slid back out, then pulling it deeper again. Fox was rigid, the muscles in his thighs taut and trembling with every movement. His eyes were squeezed closed.

  Tare wanted to sigh, exasperated at his brother’s tension. He took the cock deep into his throat one last time, then stood up. Fox’s eyes flickered open, wide and distressed.

  “Sit over here.” Tare pointed to a smooth rock. “You’re going to fall over.”

  “I am not...” Fox’s cock wobbled, pointed determinedly at the sky as they waded through the shallow water into the shade.

  “Much better,” Tare said as they both sat.

  Fox looked uneasy, but lay back with Tare’s coaxing. Tare stretched out beside him, head-to-toe style, and squeezed Fox’s erection in a loose fist before taking the head into his mouth again.

  Almost reflexively, Fox found Tare’s cock with his right hand and began to stroke it. Without the cold water keeping it down, the caresses brought Tare to life, though he did his best to ignore it, focused on the task at hand.

  It wasn’t enough to get Fox off. He had to be exhausted. He had to be so sated and fulfilled that he promptly passed out here in the shade. That would require timing. And skill.

  Ignoring the hand on his own erection, he sucked faster and harder, moving Fox closer and closer to the edge, only to pull back when Fox was getting close to release.