Page 19 of Mystic Justice
I snorted. ‘Hardly. You mentioned a witch and a potion. Ogres don’t believe in taking healing potions, so there are only a few potions that you would actually use. You’re missing a mate, and by your own admission you’re facing increasing political and internal pressure from your den to fill it.’ I took another sip from my can. ‘My name came up.’
‘Your face,’ he corrected. ‘In a pool of water. A vision of loveliness.’
‘Uh-huh. And you’ve been in love with me ever since,’ I said caustically. ‘Love at first sight.’
‘Hardly,’ he scoffed lightly but his eyes were still drinking in every inch of my face. ‘I don’t know you yet, but I will. Perhaps love will come. But in the meantime, I won’t deny there is a magnetism between us that I am keen to explore.’
‘Potions can be wrong. Witches make mistakes.’
He studied me. ‘Amber DeLea brewed it for me in exchange for me cancelling a contract on her.’
My mouth dropped open. ‘You took a hit out on theCrone?’
He shrugged. ‘She wasn’t the Crone then. The point is that DeLea doesn’t make mistakes.’
I took another bite of sandwich but barely tasted it as my brain whirred. Amber was a potion mistress of the highest calibre; she’d even brewed a potion that allowed the human part of the Other realm to stay in the magical realm for longer without needing a recharge. She wasn’t just a good brewer; she was a freaking genius. The likelihood that she would mess up an important potion was slim at the best of times, but virtually non-existent when you considered that her life had been on the line.
‘Mates,’ Loki trilled quietly.
‘What does it mean?’ I said abruptly. ‘Being mates? What does that mean to the ogres?’
Krieg studied me with his mercurial eyes for a long moment before he spoke. ‘A monogamous binding. For life.’
‘Children?’
‘If you’d like them.’ He shrugged a shoulder casually as if he didn’t care either way.
‘And if I don’t?’ I asked harshly.
‘Then we won’t have them,’ he replied easily.
‘They would only be a quarter-ogre,’ I pointed out.
‘True, but the ogre genes are dominant so we tend to breed true. I’m only half-ogre but the only physical hint of that is the fact that my limbs are not as mismatched as they should be. I’m as strong and heal as quickly as any full-ogre. I have full tusks. If we had children, they’d certainly have the same attributes, and they wouldn’t need to go to the Common realm to retain them.’
Brain whirring, I decided that was enough honesty and blunt truth for one day. I steered the conversation back to less contentious matters. ‘Have you ever been to the Common realm?’
He nodded. ‘A few times.’
The answer surprised me because the creature side had no need of the Common realm. Why would he willingly shuck his strong ogre form for that of a far weaker human? ‘What do you look like in the Common?’ I asked curiously.
‘Shorter. Skinnier. No tusks.’ He brushed his free hand against the protrusions as if he were suddenly self-conscious about them.
‘I like your tusks,’ I blurted out because I didn’t for one moment want him to think that I was uncomfortable with any aspects of his creature-ness.
His thumb started sweeping my hand again; only when the caresses resumed did I notice that they had stopped. His eyes warmed. ‘Do you now?’
I did. They gave him a faintly devilish air that appealed to the teenage side of me that still fancied a bad boy.
I brushed my hands against my suit trousers to clean them then slowly reached one of them towards his tusks. I gave him plenty of time to pull back but he didn’t move. I had to sit on one of my legs to raise me high enough to reach them. As I stroked my fingers down the larger of the two, his eyes slid shut and he made a low sound that from any other man I would have called a moan. I wondered what would happen if I curled my hand around it.
Before I could investigate further, he gently pulled my hand away. ‘Touching my tusks is something we should do in private.’ His voice was gravelly.
My heart was beating faster than usual. ‘It’s arousing?’
‘Oh yes,’ he admitted gruffly and shifted in his seat. His chest was rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to get himself back under control. ‘I’ve never been touched like that before,’ he admitted. ‘It is only for our mates. I’d heard tales… ’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I thought them exaggerated but it appears they were, if anything, downplaying the effects of mate tusk touches.’
‘Whit-wooo,’ Loki whistled teasingly, clearly amused rather than censorious.
