Rough Exile

Chapter Ten

“IneverthoughtI would see anyone use that swing again,” Ilya said, tugging weeds out of the row he was working on. He was finally close enough to speak to, so I laid my book in my lap and watched him, while keeping a wary eye on Verni, who perched on Ilya’s back and was giving me a look I couldn’t interpret. She probably wanted to peck out my eyeballs.

“I really wish you’d let me help.”

“There are two of us to do this, so there’s no need for you to get your hands dirty.”

I looked down the row at Bron. Both men were shirtless and tanned from working in the sun. Ilya had welts, some of which were scabbed over. Bron had several old scars—raised, red, white, indented. At thirty-four, he seemed young to have so many.

“You know, you don’t have to let him beat you like that every night,” I murmured. “You two are practically the same size. You could hold your own in a fight.”

He shrugged, the muscles in his shoulders flexing distractingly under his tan skin.

“Things have been this way between us since he came here. It’s just how we are.”

“But it doesn’t have to be. You could stand up to him.”

“If he feels like I’m not cooperating with his teaching, maybe he will leave.”

“And that would be bad?”

Ilya stared at the bucket of weeds next to his knee. “You know I’m weak for him. It’s the opposite of what he wants for me.”

I bit back a laugh. “I know that’s what both of you want to believe, but you’re lying to yourselves, and each other.”

“Lying?”

“Well, you’re not being entirely truthful with yourselves. He enjoys bossing you around and doing what he wants, and I think he blames you for making him want you.”

“No. He doesn’t really want me. I’m just convenient. I can’t stand up to him.”

“You can’t or you don’t want to?”

“What kind of man would want another man to take him roughly every night?”

“A kinky bisexual man?”

He pulled up another weed and flicked it into the bucket. “What does that mean?”

Crap. How much did he not know? Where did I even start my explanation?

“Not everyone wants polite, regular sex. You know—one man and one woman, the lights off, the man lying on top of the woman, without touching her much with his hands or mouth, other than kissing.”

“When it’s just a man and a woman…who holds the belt? Who punishes who?”

“When it’s vanilla sex, there is no belt, and no one punishes anyone. You know what that’s like. There isn’t always a belt when we fool around.”

“True, but I like when Bron is rough with me. It makes me feel…” He threw another weed in the bucket. “Alive.”

“It’s probably more fun than weeding the garden.”

He frowned. “I love working out here, but it’s different.”

“I should hope so.”

He met my gaze, pointedly throwing another weed into his bucket. “This garden and the livestock feed us most of the year.”

“That’s impressive, considering how cold it seems to be here all the time.”

“It’s not cold, you’re just not carrying enough weight,” he declared. “You’ll see. We’ll fatten you up.”

“Like a Thanksgiving turkey?”

His brows rose, and he paused. “That is your harvest festival?”

“I…guess so? Although it’s in November, so it’s probably too late in the year to be harvesting much of anything by then.” I shrugged. “People get together with their families and have a big turkey dinner.”

“We used to have something like that here, when I was a boy. Yana and our nyanya would make a large meal at the end of summer.”

“Would your father come?”

“No.” He chuckled. “Once a year, in spring, we took the trip to the house in Moscow, but traveling there takes a long time.”

“How on earth would you get there? If there were nine of you, you must have needed a bus!”

“No, no. Maybe they did when the older ones were small, but by the time I remember going, many of the older ones were gone to live at the main house. My father wanted a hand in raising them, but only after they stopped being annoying. Maybe twelve or fourteen years old? Whenever Vas noticed you were grown, you went.”

“But you never went.”

He shrugged. “No.”

“He never noticed you were grown? It would be hard to miss.”

“I…was never a favorite. I don’t have the same steel in me that my father admires in my brothers, which reminds him of himself. My mother was also his much younger third wife. I was told he chose her for her looks, not her strength of character.”

I noticed the past tense he was using. “Did they divorce?”

“No.”

“Did she…disappear the same way Yana disappeared?”