Page 72 of Ogres Don't Play

He slid a ring onto my finger, but not the one my dad had given him. No, he put that one on my other hand. Perfect. I had two rings. It looked like four, because my vision was getting blurrier and blurrier along with a ringing in my ears, but it didn’t matter, because however many Rooks swam in my vision, I’d take them all.

“Now I’m taking my daughter home,” my dad said, before he picked me up and then launched out of there with his pretty wings, carrying me away.

Wait! He couldn’t take me away from my new husband before I’d been thoroughly kissed. Then again, no one was going to stop him. The world was a blur. Miles passed in seconds, and my stomach would have rebelled if it hadn’t already been turned into hamburger. Happily, I lost consciousness and didn’t wake up until I was strapped to a bed with tubes in my arms and nose. I must look so pretty.

Rook was sitting beside my bed in the comfortable chair my dad had spent a lot of time in the last time he’d brought me home. Rook’s eyes were closed, his head resting against the left wing of the floral chair, but he wasn’t sleeping. I could smell his thoughts, and they were heavy, slightly panicked, also a complicated tangle of something like perfect complex harmony.

“Are you composing?” I mumbled, then I realized how dry my mouth was.

His eyes popped open and he studied me for a breathless moment before he shook himself and poured me a glass of water.

“You’re awake.” His relief was palpable, both in his beautiful voice as well as the scent of him. “Your skin has taken its natural tone, a green tinge like glittering scales. If you’d like to replace the glamour, you can,” he said, voice steady, calm, but I could smell his relief and worry and the song. I could smell the song. What a useful thing to be able to smell.

I took a drink while he supported me around my shoulders, holding the beautifully cut glass to my lips. But it was nothing compared to his scent, rich, heady, like a cello warming up.

“What do you play?” I asked once I’d gotten a few swallows.

His lips tilted in the slightest smile. “That’s what you want to know? Of course it is. I play a little of most things.”

“How much is a little?”

“Not enough to impress the music master of Singsong City.” He picked up my right hand and held it up, slowly raising it to his lips, and pressed a featherlight kiss that barely touched his tusks to my skin. He had such pretty tusks.

“Why are you wearing this skin?” I asked, tightening my grip on his hand.

“I don’t fit in the chair with the Magr. You can smell me composing music?” He raised a brow and looked so rakish and disrespectable that I shivered in delight.

“So, you are composing something?” I tried to grab him with my left hand, and then I looked at it, or the bandages it was wrapped in. That hand was not doing so well. Was my ring still on it?

I blinked at it, then remembered the bite of heavenly fire. Baking inside my armor. Yaga knocking me away from the fire before my dad saved us all. I took a slightly hyperventilating gasp as I squeezed his hand. “You composed a new version of Singsong’s symphony. How did you get those musicians? You promised them instruments, didn’t you? You’re going to spend the next decade paying them off instead of making me anything.” But what if I never recovered full use of my hands? What if I never played again?

He smiled and pressed my right hand to his cheek. How had it not burned? That was the hand that had been holding Hero. She must have protected me from the flames. What an excellent weapon. And to think that I’d actually wielded her, and defeated the troll, and gotten married. I should focus on the good things, not on the rising panic. Music was my life. What if I couldn’t play?

I curled my fingers around his jaw, holding on with all of my strength. “You married me?”

He nodded, covering my hand with his, pressure on my hand that made me aware of all the bruises and the formerlydislocated finger. It wasn’t burned, but it still wasn’t great. “Of course. Your father would have chopped off my head otherwise.”

“Hm. At least it would be a quick and painless death.”

He shook his head. “I can’t die yet. Ever since I’ve met you, my head has been full of music that I need to write, that I need to hear you play.”

I stared at him while my heart ached and my stomach churned. “How bad is my hand? You think I’ll be able to play again? Heavenly fire…”

He caught my face in his hands, gazing at me with an intensity I’d never seen before. “You will heal. Even with only one hand, you’re the finest, most capable and breathtaking musician in the world.”

I swallowed hard while my eyes watered. This is what marriage was supposed to be like. Even if I was ruined, he could still see the beauty. I cleared my throat. “You know all those musicians, the best in the world, but you want me to play, even if it’s with one hand?”

He leaned forward until his forehead was against mine, eyes flickering gold while his thin lines of magic came to life under his skin. “You are the only musician in the world to me. How do you feel?”

I loved him so much. And he loved me too. That really was a miracle. “I’m mostly numb from the painkillers, but how much of my body I can’t move is a pretty bad sign,” I admitted.

His eyes grew stormy as he stared at me. “You almost drained all the musicians as you laid those souls to rest. You would have died if not for your grandfather’s efforts. I really don’t like you almost dying, however good it is to lay souls to rest. Please don’t do it again,” he rumbled, rubbing my hair with his cheek.

I gave a shaky laugh. “I have no plans to ever do anything like that again. I left the HOSTs because I didn’t like all the blood.You don’t have any other secret troll fiancé’s I have to defeat, do you?”

He growled. “No. And if I did, I wouldn’t let you deal with it. My precious love, I’m not worth fighting for.”

I snorted. “You’re Rook the Luthier and my favorite composer. You’re also the only person I want to snuggle for the rest of my life. What could be a worthier cause than music and snuggling?”

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