Page 75 of Savage Princess

I see Levin start to refuse, but my sister shakes her head, glaring at him. “Don’t say no. We’ll all have dinner at the house and hear about the whole thing, whatever you want to tell us. You can leave in the morning like Connor said. I know Niall wants to see you, too.”

She puts her arm around my waist, leading me out the door. “I can’t wait for you to meet Aisling—she’s so small, but you’ll love her, and—”

I glance back once at Levin. He’s not looking at me, and I feel my heart sink.

He’ll be here for one more night. But I don’t think it will change anything.

—

I wake up with a start, in the middle of the night, from a dream about him. We’re on the beach again, the sand lumpy underneath the blanket, Levin stretched above me. I can see the moonlight on his skin and the flicker of heat in his eyes, and there’s no one else in the world except us two.

Instead, when I open my eyes, I’m in a strange bed alone, in a strange room.Mynew room, in my sister’s house.

I’d excused myself as soon as I’d finished eating dinner, unable to sit and listen to Niall and Isabella ask Levin questions about what had happened. I hadn’t wanted to listen to him tell it all again. Instead, I’d pled exhaustion, which wasn’t untrue. Isabella had taken me to the guest room that she’d made up for me and hugged me goodnight, promising we’d talk more tomorrow and that I’d get to spend time with Aisling.

I’m looking forward to all of it, of course—to being with my sister again, to meeting my niece. But none of it numbs the pain of knowing that tomorrow, Levin will be gone.

I get up to go to the kitchen and get some water. My head hurts, and I pad quietly through the house, not wanting to wake anyone. I’m on the verge of taking the glass back to bed when I look out of the kitchen window that overlooks the backyard. I see a familiar shape standing there, his hands in his pockets as he looks out over the water beyond the property.

It’s Levin. I know it’s him, and I set the glass down, walking to the backdoor, and letting myself quietly out. He turns before I’m halfway across the yard, his senses as keen as always, and I see his brow furrow in the moonlight.

“Elena, you should be—”

“In bed, I know,” I cut him off. “I woke up, and I was thirsty. And I—”

I don’t finish the sentence, that I missed him in bed next to me. That after so many nights sleeping next to him, the empty space next to me feels like an ocean. That I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.

He takes a deep breath, but doesn’t say anything. And I’m not entirely sure where I find the courage to say what I do next—except that I know if I don’t, I’ll never get another chance.

“You don’t have to be alone forever, you know,” I say softly, looking up at him. “What we had was real. I know that you know that. It doesn’t have to be over.”

“It does.” Levin’s voice is quiet but firm. “You know it does, Elena.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying desperately to keep the tears burning at the back of my eyes from welling up and spilling over. “Did you feel anything?” I ask softly. “Did you–did you love me at all?”

A part of me wants to take the words back as soon as I say them, but I also want to know. I might never get another chance to ask.

“Elena.” Levin sways towards me a little, as if he wants to touch me, but his hands stay firmly wedged in his pockets.

“My job was to protect you,” he says quietly. “I’ve done that. There’s nothing more I can do for you. You–you deserve better than a man nearly twenty years older than you, who’s lived a hard life and can’t love someone the way you deserve to be loved.”

“That’s not—”

“The only thing I can still do,” he continues, as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “is protect you by going far enough away from you that you can get over what we had and have your own life. And tomorrow, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“And you?” I ask softly, wrapping my arms around myself. “Are you going to get over it?”

He says nothing. He looks down at me, and I can see an ocean of hurt in his eyes, so much of it that I can feel it in my own chest. I can see that he wants to kiss me goodbye.

But instead, he turns away, walking in the other direction, down towards the water. And this time, I let him go.

I stand there, until I’m very sure that he’s not going to come back. And when I go back to bed, I lie awake for a long time, tears dripping down my cheeks until finally, I fall asleep.

All my dreams are of him, restless and fractured, all the time we spent together between Mexico and now. And when I wake up, there’s a piece of folded paper beneath my door.

Slowly, feeling as if I’m in a dream still, I get up to retrieve it. In bold, scrawled handwriting, are what I’m pretty sure are the last words Levin will ever say to me.

Elena,

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