Page 57 of Ogres Don't Play

“Mirabel,” he growled, cupping my face and glaring into my eyes. “I am yours. Heart, body, soul.” He smiled slightly and his eyes softened. “You already have what you really want, my music, my instruments, and my hands. You’re making this political issue more of an obstacle than it has to be.”

“You think that because I’ll have such a shorter lifespan than you, that you can be with me and then deal with her after I’m long dead? Angels don’t live as long as some, but elves are immortal. I can’t get involved with someone who I know belongs to someone else. It’s not practical in the long run.”

He groaned and flopped against the side of the car, making it rock slightly. “Angels are anything but practical. You think it’s practicality, but it’s actually delusion.”

I scowled at him and crossed my arms. “Well, this delusional angel is going to order sushi.” I pulled out my phone and called an overnight delivery place while he shook his head, bemused at me. I needed to have something to lure me to the music hall. Sushi from the place that catered to infernal creatures, so it was open all night, would help me more than this fragile shell of anger and hurt pride that would crack the second he took me in his arms.

After I finished ordering sushi, and arranging delivery for the music hall, I hung up and then stared at Rook where he was studying me with the burning gaze that made my skin prickle. If he was truly determined to seduce me, how could I resist?

I called up Libby, because she had angel blood and would understand my dilemma better than anyone else I knew. Also, I had sushi to lure her with.

“Mirabel! I saw your performance. It was absolutely mythical! Are you a siren for real? Seriously, you’re going to need bodyguards after that, because rabid fans are a thing.” She sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

“Um, thank you. I just ordered sushi and wondered if you’d like to come over to share it with me.” Rook raised a brow, looking incredibly dangerous and impossible to resist. “At the music hall.” He leaned closer, his eyes raking over me, particularly my throat, making my pulse jump. “That’s where I’ll be. Because I live there.” Not in Rook the Luthier’s tempting cave of wonders.

She laughed. “Sounds like a party. I’ll be there in a few.”

“Great. Bye.” I hung up and pointed at him. “Stop looking at me like that. If I don’t live according to the dictates of my own conscience, how can you respect me?”

“Would you rather have respect or happiness?”

“Respect, obviously. I’m an angel.”

He laughed. “You’re a lot of things, but I think your defining race is musician.” His smile faded, and he shook his head. “Your music truly enchanted me. I’m only starting to come out of the spell. I apologize for attempting to seduce you.” His eyes gleamed, and I pressed myself even closer to the door.

“You don’t look very sorry.”

“That’s probably because I’m an ogre, and you are everything I want. I also have trouble respecting something so questionable as respect.”

“Respect isn’t questionable. That’s its whole point, not being questionable.”

He smiled at me and then reached out and pulled me against him. He rumbled and nuzzled my cheek with his. “Good. I’m glad we’ve come to that sensible conclusion. Don’t ask questions that will get you killed or worse, corrupt your soul.”

I should have pushed away, but he smelled so good, and he was probably done seducing me. I closed my eyes and sank against him, letting him hold me close while I listened to his heart beating the perfect baseline to the song of mine.

When the car stopped, I blinked, confused, before I looked over and saw the front doors of the music hall.

I slid across the seat and got out the door without looking back at the ogre, whose muscles provided the perfect pillow for my head.

“Driver will follow you in,” he growled after me.

I glanced back and then hesitated because wouldn’t sleeping in his bed and waking up with him be better than all the sushi in the world?

Driver stepped between us, blocking my line of sight. “Go in. Quick.”

I nodded and spun around, hurrying up the front walk to the music hall while my heart beat too fast in my chest, and my neck tingled and ached.

I was in my sitting room with sushi and Libby when she threw a sushi roll at my face, and it hit me right between my eyes.

“You’re not paying any attention to me. You’re hurting my feelings. No, actually you’re making me worry about you. Did the concert really mess you up?” She frowned at me, staring into me like I was a damaged book that she was intent on repairing. She was a librarian.

I rubbed the rice off my forehead and then leaned closer to her. “I was just wondering how you’d defeat a mountain troll.”

She blinked at me. “Oh. A nuclear bomb would probably do it. I used to have a sword, the most wonderful angelic relic in the world, and it could probably kill one of those things.”

“A holy relic! Of course! What else?”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Why do you want to defeat a mountain troll?”

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