Page 51 of Savage Assassin

“Elena–” Levin warns, but it’s too late.

The gash runs from the bottom of my ribs down to my hip. The stitches are better than I might have expected, but I can see from the swollen edges of it that Levin was right–it will scar. And it won’t be pretty.

“I’m sorry.” There’s a regretful look on his face. “Not really a skill they teach us. More about stopping a man–or yourself–from bleeding out rather than making it look pretty.”

“It doesn’t look so bad.” I peer at the closed gash again. It’s ugly, there’s no doubt about it, but the stitches are straighter than I might have otherwise expected.

Levin chuckles. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

“I mean–I think someone else might have done a worse job. Not a doctor,” I add, a small smile twitching at the corners of my lips. “A doctor might have kept it from scarring. But someone else like you.”

His eyes widen slightly, and then he laughs. A real laugh, not the dry chuckle I’ve heard from him before. He rubs one hand across his mouth, shoulders shaking until he’s finally able to stop, and then he shakes his head.

“You continuously surprise me, Elena Santiago.”

The compliment sends a flush of warmth through me, but I try not to show it, hoping that my cheeks aren’t turning as pink as I feel like they are. “Why? Because I’m not in tears that I’m going to have a scar?”

Levin shrugs. “Plenty of people would be.”

“Plenty of girls, you mean.”

He shakes his head. “I’ve known a decent few men that would be upset about a scar like that. Especially if it fucked up their handsome faces. On the side– maybe not so much.”

“A scar on the side isn’t so bad?”

Levin chuckles again. “Women like the war stories.”

“Oh?” I cock my head at him. “How many ‘war stories’ do you have?”

His mouth twitches. “Plenty. Too many to count at this point.”

“At least none of them are on your face.”

Levin turns a little towards me, tapping the side of his jaw. “There’s one here. I just usually keep some stubble, cover it up a little. Nothing that can’t be disguised, thankfully.”

“And where else?”

The silence is instant. Levin’s mouth tightens, and I know I’ve pushed a little too far.

“Well, I’m not looking to impress any women,” I tell him lightly, trying to shift the tone of the conversation back to levity. “So I guess I’m out of luck.”

“You never know,” Levin smirks. “Some men like a tough woman. Actually, any man who doesn’t isn’t a man worth his salt, in my opinion.”

“Are there a lot of men like that in Boston?”

He lets out a breath, standing up, and walking over to me to hand me one of the MRE packets. “Are you thinking you’ll stay in Boston, then?”

I hesitate, not quite sure what the answer is to that. “I don’t know,” I tell him finally, honestly. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. But I’m not sure how I could go back home. My father won’t be able to make any kind of marriage arrangement for me now that I would want–not that I necessarily would have loved who I would have ended up with before, but there would have been more value in it–if that makes sense.”

Levin lets out a long breath, raising an eyebrow as he sits back in the sand and opens his ‘breakfast.’ “In terms of the kind of world I know your family exists in, yeah, it makes sense,” he says finally. “But in terms of thinking of you as someone whose only value lies in what kind of marriage you can make, or how ‘pure’ the man who agrees to marry you thinks you are–” he shakes his head, the last part coming out laced with distaste. “I can’t really make that make sense in my mind, even though I know it’s the way things are. Or–” he shrugs one shoulder. “Even if I can make sense of it, I can’t agree with it.”

I look at him in surprise. I hadn’t really wondered what his thoughts were about it, but hearing them feels different than I’d thought it would. “Do you think I should stay in Boston?” I ask suddenly, poking at the food he handed me, and Levin frowns.

He’s quiet for a moment, and I can’t help thinking how handsome he is. His jaw is tensed, making the sharp lines of his face stand out even more, and his blue eyes stand out against the dark of his hair and stubble in a way that makes my heart stutter a little in my chest.

He hadn’t said anything about last night, and I’m certainly not going to unless he does. But I can think of so many things that I wish we’d done together–and so many that I still want to.

“That’s not something I’m qualified to give my opinion on,” he says finally, shoveling a bite into his mouth. “Your decisions are yours to make, Elena.”

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