“Ilya,” his voice was low, panicked. “I need you more than I need the blood under my skin.”
“Bron—”
“I can refuse to take over, and we can go back to the island. It will be like before.”
“So, the three of us will hide there forever and be ashamed?”
“I know you wanted to have the option to re-join the family, but do you really care about any of these people, Ilya? They turned their backs on you. They left you there to rot. No one cared what we were doing before, so why would they care now?”
“I don’t care about them. Winning Vas’s approval was hollow. I wish we could go back to our old life, but we can’t erase what we’ve learned.” Tears leaked from Ilya’s eyes again, and I went to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He rested his cheek against the top of my head, and I let my tears soak into his shirt.
Bron was looking at us from the other side of the bathroom. He wiped a tear away before Ilya saw it. He’d been raised to hide his emotions, but even he wasn’t heartless.
“It would be wrong,” Ilya insisted.
Bron held up his hands, as though to stop Ilya from saying more. “Don’t decide now. Think for a few days. Even if you don’t give me an answer for months, I don’t care. I’ll wait for you forever if that’s what you need.”
“And what about when Vas insists you find a wife?” Ilya said miserably. “What then? I won’t sneak around behind your wife’s back. That isn’t fair to us or to her.”
“You’re going to end everything between us over a theoretical wife?” Bron demanded, incredulous.
“No. Everything has to end because we are brothers, Bron.”
“When I got to our island, we were strangers. Everything that has happened since? We’ve earned that. We’ve earned everything that led up to that damned breakfast this morning, and I’m not willing to let it all go because Vas tumbled my mother thirty-four years ago. What about me? What about you? Why can’t we take what we want? We took Delilah for ourselves, so why can’t we have each other?”
He approached us slowly. Was he worried we would bolt from the room? When he was in front of Ilya, he brought his hand up to his face, wiping away his tears with the pad of his thumb. Ilya shoved away his hand, but Bron growled in disapproval.
“I take what I want, too. The two of you are mine, and I don’t care if they drag me into the street and shoot me, I’m not giving you up.” He wrapped his arms around us and pressed us back against the vanity. We had no way to slide out from under his arms, but I didn’t try. Ilya put up a brief struggle, but Bron’s lips came down onto his, subduing him. They had spent so much time together before this, with Ilya submitting to whatever Bron wanted, that maybe standing up to him was an insurmountable task.
Maybe I should have been disgusted by them kissing, but how could I blame them for not being able to shut off their feelings? This new information didn’t erase their past. It was weird and upsetting that they were related, but maybe Bron was right. Did it have to change everything? Their staying together wouldn’t have ramifications for anyone. They deserved to be happy, and maybe letting Vas ruin everything would be the real crime.
Bron broke the kiss and brought his lips to mine. They tasted like Ilya’s tears and mine.
I didn’t want to lose either of them, but until they settled things between them, all I could do was wait.
We stood there long after the kiss broke off, clinging to each other.
I wished we could go back to bed and wake up to find all of this was all a bad dream.