Page 32 of Ogres Don't Play

“Music Master?” he rumbled, touching my shoulder, only for a moment, the barest brush of connection before he pulled away. He growled at someone, and the car almost immediately jerked forward.

It took a few minutes for me to get it together enough to sit upright. I looked out the window and saw that we were nearing the neighborhood that was respectable for Song, heading for the Luthier’s shop. Perfect. I needed to talk to him about this incredibly weird situation, but at the moment, I just wanted to fall into his arms and take a nice nap in his even nicer bed. With him.

The car pulled to a short stop and the enormous ogre got out immediately, closing the door behind him, walking off with the bag of loot in his hand as the car continued.

“Wait! He has…” I stopped talking, because the driver gave me a look, and I felt like if things didn’t go well, I’d end up his prisoner. He’d be worse than Lanise, and she’d been ridiculously impossible. I slumped down in my seat and spent the next few minutes working on my breathing and meditation so I’d have it all together when I finally faced Rook, if that’s where I was going and this wasn’t a different political party that I didn’t know about. I really needed to read the material on ogres that Libby had given me. I pulled out my harp and prepared a few defense runes, but my hand already throbbed from my earlier cut, and it would take some time for my magic to recover.

Happily, the car pulled up in front of the shop, and I could see through the window and past instruments, Rook behind the counter, working on something that gleamed with angelic gold. Was that my harp? He raised his head and the excitement aboutmy harp shifted into this soul-wrenching aching to gaze into his eyes forever. Through a shop window.

I broke eye contact and wrapped my harp back up in its case, my hands trembling from the effort. My door opened and the scarred ogre with white eyes held out his hand, like he could see I needed some help. Seriously? Well, just because I knew that he was definitely one of the most notorious ogres in the world, didn’t mean I had to be rude. Also, I wasn’t sure I could get out without fumbling.

He helped me out with the care you’d expect from a master assassin, and I straightened up and gave him a nod before I headed for the front door, pushing it open with a jangle of the bell.

I stopped in the entry, glancing at the exquisite lute that Tiago would absolutely drool over. There was no price tag on it. Of course not. It was priceless. When I looked up at Rook, I kind of swallowed hard when I saw Yaga, my chicken, perched on his broad shoulder. She was so comfortable there, like she’d accepted him as my other half, even if I struggled.

I licked my lips while he watched me come closer. The goblin’s bag of loot was on the counter next to a pile of wood shavings.

“You owe me a life debt,” he growled.

You couldn’t deny that ogres had one-track minds.

Well, two could play that game. “You lied about why you wanted Lanise in my music hall. The goblin attack was the second on my life. What do I have to do with your politics if I was a target before you approached me? I’d love to think that an alliance to the Music Master could possibly be important enough to warrant two assassination attempts, but it doesn’t add up.”

He vaulted over the counter and took two steps until he was right in front of me, so I had to crane my neck to look up at him. “You could ask your father.”

I inhaled sharply and took a step away from him, but I’d lost track of the room and ended up knocking the back of my knees into the piano bench. I would have fallen on it if he didn’t snag my waist with one arm and pull me back against him.

I put my hands on his chest to push him away, but found myself sliding them up around his neck instead. My lips buzzed from the memory of the last time I’d seen him. No! I wasn’t getting lost in him when he’d just brought up my father. Absolutely not, even though his lips were so soft and his tusks so sweet and adorable.

I licked my lips because I couldn’t help myself, but I wasn’t going to kiss him. Not a chance. “What do you know about my father?”

“I have an extremely good nose for blood.” His eyes fell down to my throat when he said that.

Be still my beating heart. “Your nose is very good. Yes, no one’s going to argue that, but what does that have to do with two assassination attempts? What could you possibly have to do with protecting me from my father’s enemies? Did he hire you?” It was unfathomable that my father, commander of the HOSTs, would ever stoop to hiring ogre mercenaries, but I was running out of possibilities.

“It is a matter of politics.” He slid his hand up my back to curl around the base of my skull, the hand of an artisan with the strength of an ogre. He could crush me so easily, but instead those fingers massaged, like he knew that’s precisely where my headache was from overextending myself this evening.

“Ogre politics? That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?” I tried to resent him, but his fingers felt so good, and his mouth had the slightest smile in the corner, revealing more of his adorable tusk than usual.

“I am not working for your father. He would never hire ogres. You know this.”

“And yet…”

My words were cut off when his head bent and his lips brushed mine. Holy sweet fire rippled through me, and I grabbed him with both hands, leaning into him like a drug addict who had been resisting her fix for far too long.

He pulled back and frowned at me, his lips moist from my extreme resistance to his seduction. “You owe me a life debt.”

Ah. Ogres were tenacious. Of course, he’d come back to that. “Two of them, if the other ogre is on your payroll.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “On my payroll? You think…” He shook his head in bemusement. There was something funny about hiring the other ogre, but he was one of the stone artisans. Maybe he was hiring Rook. That was a thought.

I swallowed hard and then said, “Just as well. One life debt is enough. I was perfectly safe, and I took Lanise with me since my bodyguard, I mean assistant, would always protect me. Almost like she’s an elite bodyguard with extensive training who watches me sleep so no one can kill me while I’m at my most vulnerable.”

He took one of my hands off the back of his neck and held it horizontal to the floor so everyone could see the way that it trembled. “Perfectly safe? It’s a wonder that you didn’t burn yourself out using battle magic of those levels without a troop around you to draw upon.”

I winced. He officially knew not only who my dad was, but who I was and my whole dismal history. “How do you know me?”

“I’m Rook the Luthier. I know all the musicians that show exceptional potential.”

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