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“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Konrad looks out over the water, quiet for a moment. He drags his thick fingers through his wet hair then turns back to face me. “We ran from him and found this place, hid here for days. Only hunger forced us to return to the castle, and back into the viper’s pit.”
“What happened to you?” I ask, knowing the moment Leon’s fingers dig into my flesh that I’m not going to like the answer.
“He locked us in a cell in the dungeon and beat us to the brink of death,” Konrad explains.
“You were just children…” My voice trails off as I contemplate the horror they’ve been through.
“When he left us for dead, we vowed to never share this place with him. Over the years, as Malik began to imbue his darkness into our hearts, Konrad and Jakub eventually stopped coming here, but I never did,” Leon says, his fingers loosening their hold, his lips caressing the tender spot of skin where my neck and shoulder meet. “It was the only place I could feel free… even when I wasn’t.”
I can feel Leon’s warm breaths feathering over my skin, and the heat of his chest sinking into my back as he inches us closer together until I have no choice but to wrap my legs around Konrad’s waist, caught between them both.
“Brother,” Konrad mutters, his gaze moving from mine to Leon’s behind me. I see the love in his eyes. It’s fierce. It burns brightly, and when he looks back at me, the heat of it scorches my skin until I don’t feel the cold anymore. Until all I feel is fire.
Fire is pain. It’s death.
It’s also life and warmth. It’s hope.
It’s a contradiction, just like these men. Just like my feelings for them.
The constant push and pull, the heat and the ice.
Soon The Masks will die at my hands, yet here I am sandwiched between them, my body warmed by their presence. Leon’s heat seeping into my back, Konrad’s hands cupping my knees. I feel my icy heart thawing out because of their stories of abuse. Those stories, their trauma, it doesn’t excuse them for what they’ve done. It doesn’t. But it explains who they are, and why they do what they do. It’s a truth that I don’t really know how to deal with.
Can men so twisted, so messed-up by their past, who’ve inflicted pain and cruelty, ever be forgiven? Can they truly change?
I drill down into that thought as Konrad reaches for me, his palm cupping my face. His thumb gently caressing my cheek. When he leans in and presses a kiss against my mouth, I don’t stop him. When he pushes his tongue between my lips and slides his fingers into my hair I don’t shove him away. I let him steal a kiss, hoping that it will be enough to remind me that hecan’tchange. That the evil his father infected him with is too ingrained in his cells, that no matter what he does he’ll never be rid of it.
I expect him to go further. Only he doesn’t. He pulls back, brushing his lips over mine before saying: “You’re everything we’ve been taught to fear our whole life. You have the power to demolish all that we’ve built here. You have the ability to end the Brov legacy just like that woman predicted. Will you?”
He searches my face, waiting. Behind me Leon tenses. I debate lying to them both, but in the end all I can give them is the truth.
“Yes, very soon all of this will cease to exist.”
Behind me Leon lets out a long breath, as though he’s breathing air for the first time in years. Konrad’s reaction is no different. His shoulders relax, his muscles soften, relief brims in his eyes. “Good. We won’t stop you.”
“You won’t,” I say. It’s received as a question but is meant as a statement of truth.
Konrad grasps my hand, placing it over the centre of his chest. “You’ve already claimed Leon’s heart, and for what it’s worth, now you’ve added mine to the collection. All I ask of you, before you raze this place to the ground is one thing.”
“And what’s that?” I whisper, already knowing what he’s about to say.
“That you free Jakub, too.”
My throat tightens. “What if I can’t do that?”
“But what if you can?” Konrad smiles gently, echoing the very words my mother had said before he presses a chaste kiss to my lips and stands, diving into the water.
