Savage Hearts (Queens & Monsters #3)(55)

When I’m lying in the water and his hands are in my hair, he starts to speak to me again in Russian, like he did the last time he gave me a bath.

He talks and talks, his voice low, the cadence of the foreign words hypnotizing.

There’s emotion in his tone, but it’s not anger. If anything, it seems like the opposite. Like he’s trying to get me to understand something of vital importance to him.

I want to ask him what, but I don’t.

I know he won’t answer.

When he’s rinsed me, dried me off, and put another of his huge clean shirts over my head, he announces it’s time for my stitches to come out.

“Oh. Okay. Do I have to go to a hospital for that?”

The look he gives me is insulted. He picks me up and brings me back to bed.

He fluffs the pillow under my head, pulls the sheets up to cover my crotch, lifts the shirt up to just under my breasts, and peels off the bandage. From a drawer in the nightstand, he removes large tweezers and a pair of surgical scissors, both wrapped in plastic.

Anxiety blooms over my skin like a rash. “Is this going to hurt?”

“No. You’ll feel a tug or two, but that’s all.”

I nod, knowing that he’d tell me if it was going to be painful.

He opens the tools, cleans them with a gauze pad and a sharp-smelling liquid from a brown bottle, then leans over me and goes to work.

After a moment, he says, “You’ve healed well. This scar won’t be bad.”

I’ve resisted looking at the wound until now, so that’s a relief to hear. When I lift my head and peek down at my uncovered stomach, however, the relief evaporates, replaced instantly by disgust.

“Not bad? It’s hideous!”

“You’re exaggerating again.”

“I’m Frankenstein! Look at that gash! It’s a foot long! And why the hell is it shaped like a lightning bolt? Had the surgeon been drinking?”

“He had to go around your belly button.”

“Couldn’t he have made a crescent moon? I look like Harry fucking Potter, times ten!”

“Stop shouting.”

Groaning, I let my head fall back to the pillow. “So much for wearing bikinis.”

“You could get a tattoo to cover it up. Add to your collection.”

His voice remains even when he says that, but there’s an echo of warmth in it that gives me pause.

“I’m sensing you have something you’d like to say about my tattoos, Mal.”

Snipping and tugging at the ugly black stitches, he quirks his lips. “Just curious.”

I sigh and roll my eyes. “Where do you want me to start?”

“With the one on the inside of your left wrist.”

The speed with which he answers makes it obvious he’s been thinking about that one for a while. It’s a single line of cursive black writing and consists of four words: Remember Rule Number One.

“Well, if you must know, that one’s my favorite.”

“What’s rule number one?”

“Fuck what they think.”

He stops mid-snip and looks up at me. “Who’s they?”

“Everyone. Anyone else but me. It’s a reminder that other people’s opinions don’t matter. To live my life how I want, regardless of outside pressure. To be unapologetically me.”

After a moment, he nods slowly, satisfied. He goes back to work, teasing out a severed stitch and placing it to one side on the old bandage. “And the words ‘you can’ on your right ankle?”

“I used to say ‘I can’t’ to my mom a lot when I was little. It was just an excuse for something I didn’t want to do, or something I thought was too hard, but she wouldn’t let me get away with it. She’d just stay calm and say, ‘You can.’ And then I would, because I didn’t want to disappoint her. The tattoo reminds me to keep going when I want to give up.”

I’m quiet for a moment, lost in memory. “My mom was the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Mal glances up at me, his eyes piercing. “Was?”

I nod. “She died when I was a kid. Ovarian cancer.” My voice drops. “It’s not a good way to go.”

“There aren’t any good ways to go. Some are just faster than others.”

“My great grandma died in her sleep at ninety-nine. That seems pretty good.”

“Sure, if you didn’t have to live to be ninety-nine to get there.”

“What’s wrong with getting old?”

“Don’t know many elderly people, do you?”

“Not really. Why?”

He says cryptically, “Old age isn’t for the faint of heart.”

The little pile of snipped black stitches is growing. And he was right: I’ve barely felt a tug. He’s good at this.

From what I can tell, he’s good at everything.

“What about the dragon on the nape of your neck?”

I grimace. “Big yikes.”

“Translate.”

“I got that during my Game of Thrones phase. I was obsessed with Khaleesi. A little boss bitch who owned three dragons and kicked butt all over the men? Yes, please. Wait. Is that…is that a smile I’m seeing?”

“No,” he replies instantly. “That’s just the face I make before projectile vomiting.”