Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
W hen we got to the car, he got in without putting me down and then held me close while he purred in his chest. My life was complete, with him here, good music in the world, everything absolute perfection. His scent was so incredibly appetizing. I turned my face to his shoulder, opened my mouth, and then sat up abruptly, slipping off his lap and onto the floor where I could stare up at him in the relative safety of knowing that he wouldn’t fit on the floor with me.
“What are you doing?” I demanded. Yes, my demands were always incredibly breathless.
“I’m taking you home,” he said, sounding very confident for someone who was still betrothed to someone else, troll or not.
“You can’t. I have to get up early for the jubilee, and you aren’t available.”
He rumbled low in his throat and leaned over me, cupping my cheek while his scent swirled intoxicatingly around us. “Your harp is waiting there for you. I need you to test it before I make the final adjustments to it.”
His eyes gleamed while his smile was the most seductive thing, only bested by his words.
I swallowed hard. Could I possibly resist a custom harp from Rook the Luthier? Not any more than Balry the vampire could resist. “Rook, I think it would be best if I didn’t have a new harp to distract me until after the Jubilee. And you’re betrothed to someone else.”
He rumbled again in his chest, so low and deep that it rumbled through my whole body. “Come with me. You aren’t safe at the music hall after you brought your music and magic to life. The streets will be crawling with Mirabel addicts that can’t get enough of you once they’ve tasted your song.”
His face lowered to mine, and I raised mine automatically before I pulled away at the last second. “How do you know?”
“I know music and magic fairly well. I intimately know all about being a Mirabel addict that can’t get enough once they’ve had your song.”
I stared at him, trying to look at him beyond the blur of music drunk that I seriously needed to shake off. His eyes were slightly glazed, and his forehead, when I put my wrist to it, felt hot. Was he really feverish? Surely not from my performance, but Ogres didn’t get sick very often.
“Rook, how are you feeling? I haven’t seen the Magr since I burned a weapon out of him. Has he had a chance to recover?”
He blinked at me, then scooped me up off the floor and back onto his lap, smoothing his hands over my hair, down my sides, to grip my hips securely. “If I were dying, would you nurse me back to health? I am dying for your sweetness, your goodness, your utter brilliance.”
I nodded. “Yep. I thought you were feverish, but now I know for certain.”
“Come with me to my shop, and see the harp I’ve crafted for you. It has everything to match you, with a slight iron ore core running through it that gives it strength and a slight variation to the sound that I think you’ll really enjoy.”
Okay, that sounded absolutely fascinating. I never would have thought of that, but if Rook the Luthier did it, then it would be amazing, unless it was more of an experiment. “And if I don’t like it?” The idea of me not liking something Rook the Luthier created was heresy.
He smiled, a half-smile that was so adorable. I wanted to snuggle into that smile forever. “Then I’ll make you another. I will, anyway. You’ll continue to grow in your musical gifts, and I will do my best to keep up with you, creating the most exquisite instruments that you’ve ever imagined. My life will be dedicated to your music.”
That was ridiculous, and flattering, but also terrifying. He was Rook the Luthier. I was one musician. Yes, I was okay, but Rich was much better than me. I couldn’t listen to him say those words, so I sealed his mouth with a kiss.
Every other kiss had been sweet, chaste, but this was not. The second my lips touched his, it’s like I’d lit a fuse and he exploded. His hands held me so tight while his mouth left mine and found its place at my neck. He worked over my skin with those delicate tusks while I turned into several different species of gasping fish.
He felt like…I wasn’t even sure how to define it. Intense, focused, like I was an instrument he was going to craft and smooth down, until he’d gotten to my core and revealed all the beauty and ugliness inside of me. Also shivery sweet, and also hot, feverish, hungry. He rumbled deep in his chest and then physically expanded until I had Magr holding me in the backseat of a suddenly very small car, his open mouth entirely around my throat.
I knew that they were the same person. At least Magr had told me that they were, and Rook never contradicted him, but to have the one come out of the other when I was being seduced by the luthier was a shock.
Wait, Rook was seducing me? Of course he was. That’s why he was trying to lure me to his shop with promises of harps. What else would seduce me without question? Well, maybe whatever he was doing with my neck. His hands were so large, impossibly strong, capable of crushing me, but instead, he was agonizingly gentle, as he caressed my head, my back, urging me closer without any use of raw force. His tongue and tusks sent shocks of electricity through me with every sweet contact.
I held onto his ridiculously large shoulders while my breathing came short, and his tongue lapped over my skin, from my neck and then around my right shoulder, the scraping of his teeth combing with the softness of his tongue to create an orchestra of sensations that flooded my brain until I was left with one thought.
“What would this sound like?” I mumbled as I threaded my fingers through his satiny, dark blue hair.
He rumbled in his chest, like that was an answer, and then his teeth were tugging on the neck of my elven light armor tunic. He growled and tugged harder, but the stuff was meant to withstand explosions and shrapnel. Probably if he really bit down on me, he’d bite me in half and get through the armor, but he was being incredibly careful with me.
He pulled away and found the hem of my tunic before tugging it up.
The feel of cool air on my wet shoulder brought me to my senses, and I covered his hands with mine, holding my shirt down while I blinked rapidly and tried to recover what was left of my brain. “So, that’s lust. Huh. I think it sounds like Dvorak.” I shivered and trembled from the force of it.
He stared at me, his eyes burning and gold light patterns chasing over his skin as he flexed his magic. “I will compose a piece for you that touches every one of your sensations. Consider the music that we will create together.”
Not a chance could I do that and stay sane. I patted his face, feeling the pulse of energy just beneath his skin. “Driver, take me to the music hall before Rook does something he regrets.” Except maybe he wouldn’t regret it.
He captured my hand in his, swallowing it whole, like he’d no doubt like to do to the rest of me. “I regret nothing, not when it comes to you.” His low voice was the perfect baseline to the music of my heart.
I forced a smile while my pulse leapt in my throat. I’d never felt so alive, awake, aware, like every single one of my nerves was doing acrobatics. “I don’t suppose you’ve found a way to break up with your troll girlfriend without going to war,” I said, trying to sound light, but instead, I did a very good impression of hyperventilating.
His brows lowered into a very impressive scowl. “Not yet. Sacrificing thousands of lives sounds better all the time.”
I patted his face, and then my fingers trailed down his cheek with the glowing intricate pattern to his tusk. It was smooth, like ivory, and he probably thought it was weird that I was touching it until my fingers touched his bottom lip, such silky smooth satin. I shivered and the golden lines in his skin brightened as I traced the line of his bottom lip.
I swallowed and curled my hand into a fist, trying to shake off the desire that wracked me. “There are no other options?”
“Other than someone challenging her claim on me and defeating her in the battle? No. Lanise has volunteered, but then I’d be betrothed to her, so that doesn’t exactly work. Also, Lanise would die.”
I stared at him, those eyes, the golden flashing over his skin, my heart pounding as I studied him. “How do you defeat a troll?”
His eyes narrowed, and he put me on the seat beside him before crossing his arms and glowering out the window. “Absolutely not.”
“I just asked a question.”
“A bad question.”
“There are no bad questions.”
“No, that is most definitely a very, very bad question you must not think, much less ask. You already did.” He turned his gaze on me, serious concern in those depths. “You can’t defeat a mountain troll. All she has to do is sit on you, and you’re dead. She’ll rip off your arms first, then your legs, then eat you whole.”
“I thought I was your miracle, who could accomplish impossible things, like resuscitating the music hall in Singsong City.”
“That doesn’t translate to defeating a mountain troll. Several females have tried, and they have died very gruesome deaths. Besides which, you don’t want to be bound by something as unromantic as a contract I am under against my will.”
I shook my head, because I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be bound by anything at all, but the idea that some mountain troll could own him was absolutely untenable.
“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?”
“No reason.”
“Liar. Tell me or I’ll tell Anna what you’re up to, and she’ll probably turn you into a raccoon.”
“Why a raccoon?”
“She hit one with her car recently, and feels guilty for its death. Tell me why.” She prodded me with her poky finger until I rolled my eyes.
“Rook is betrothed to a mountain troll for some kind of treaty.”
“So, if you defeat her, he’s free from the treaty?”
“No, the treaty would transfer to me.”
“Ah. So you’re trying to force the pretty ogre to marry you. Will he not give you instruments if you aren’t married?”
“He seems willing enough to give me anything I want without anything at all.”
She nodded, pursing her lips. “But he can’t give you himself as long as he’s tied to the troll. You can’t play halfway. Either he’s yours, or he’s not.”
I gestured at her. “Exactly!”
“Also, you have to be selective, or you’ll turn into one of those angel whores.”
I stared at her. “Angel whores?”
“You haven’t met a totally corrupt angel? You must have stuck pretty close to the HOSTs. They don’t allow corruption in their ranks. You know, everyone on earth is a mixture of light and dark, good and evil, so even the holiest creature can fall, and even the darkest infernal monster can rise. Trust me, I married one of the latter.”
“About that…How can you marry an infernal creature who doesn’t believe in marriage?”
“Your ogre doesn’t believe in marriage?”
I shrugged. “He thinks that we’re already mated, so marriage is just something he’s willing to play at to please my delusional angel.”
“Delusional angel? He didn’t say that to your face, did he?”
I grabbed a sushi roll and stuffed it in my mouth so I didn’t have to answer her.
“He did,” she crowed, shaking her head. “You’ll have to make him suffer for that. What would he hate most?”
“Me challenging the mountain troll. He doesn’t think I can beat her.”
“Can you?” she asked, then shoved two sushi rolls in her mouth.
That was a good question. “I don’t know. Can you tell me more about what I’d need to win?”
“Their hides are incredibly difficult to pierce, so if you had a holy relic that can burn through it, that would be ideal. The trouble is that even with a holy sword, you’d need to get a lot of hits in, without getting a scratch on you. You can’t withstand a blow from a creature like that, not a single one. Have you been training? How’s your footwork?”
I winced. “I haven’t trained for years, but I should still have muscle memory.”
“Yeah, no. That’s not going to work. Maybe if you had a year to train for it, and an armory of the angels, you might have a chance. I agree with your ogre. You can’t beat her.”
I scowled at her and picked up a sushi roll in my fingers. “You’re probably right, but the alternative is a troll/ogre war where thousands of ogres get eaten alive.”
“Literally. Or you can accept that you and ogre lover aren’t meant to be, and focus on your career.”
I nodded. That was the sensible route. “Or, I could just say that we’re mated, and that’s good enough.”
She shook her head no. “Not a chance. The second she hears that he’s happily settled down, she’ll come with her armies or whatever, and rip you apart.”
I pointed at her. “You lack a sense of hopeful possibility.”
She smiled a sharp grin at me. “Which is why I’m still alive. You, however, are full of delusional hope, which is why you took on the Music Hall.”
“I’m not stupid enough to challenge a troll in a battle that I know I can’t win.”
“No? Good. You could possibly hire an assassin.”
“And then there would be war. Also, I am sick of assassins.”
She raised her brows. “Sick of them? Are you telling me that there were more attempts?”
I sighed heavily. “I’ve been too busy with the Jubilee to really stress out about it, but yeah. Last time it was an elven assassin, and Rook thinks he might have been hired by my maternal grandfather.”
“The elf in you is trying to kill you? How exciting. How did you survive it?”
“He took the arrow for me, and I burned it out of him, then made him puke out the poison.”
She stared at me. “You burned it out of him? Elven arrowhead used by assassins, and you burned it?”
“I couldn’t have pulled it out, or it would have splintered or exploded, or… at least that’s what I learned in my weapons class.”
“Yes, the strategy is fine, but the reality is…You can’t burn spelled arrowheads.”
“I sang it into flames.”
“Sang it into flames?” She shook her head and leaned back in her overstuffed chair, crossed her arms, and studied me. “Instantaneous fire hot enough to burn metal without burning up your ogre lover? How is that even possible?”
I was starting to question myself. “I’d spelled him with dinner, spelling him all day, so he…No, that’s why I was able to pull the poison out of him. I suppose I played an underlying protection layer around the arrow, so when I turned the metal to ashes, it only burned the surface skin that touched the metal. I had an old elven music spellbook that I learned front and back. It was pretty basic, so I adapted it to different things over the years until it’s mostly instinctive at this point. Still, sometimes I really have to work at it.”
“Like spelling the dinner you fed your ogre lover? What was the spell? Were you trying to make him more amorous?”
I shot her a look. “No, of course not. It was a truth compulsion spell.”
“Ah, that’s much more ethical.” She stared at me with a cocked head. “So, are there music spells you can use to defeat this ogre chick? Do you want me to hunt down possible texts in the library for you? It’s still a sketchy plan, but it beats you trying to defeat her with raw force when you’re clearly so incredibly musically diabolical. You’ll need a spell for armor, a really good spell for armor, as well as angelic armor in heavenly gold, if you can get some. Then you’ll need a spell to slow her down, and weaken her, then you’ll need a spell that speeds you up, and strengthens you, and then you’ll need a spell that…”
“You think it’s easy to learn new spells?”
She shrugged. “You get used to specialized kind of magic, like death spells. I can learn one of those with a glance at a scrap of paper. You’re used to learning music, so you should be fine. I wonder if they have some written as songs, then you could go out like it was a proper concert, except for the angelic armor, although some of those pieces are so pretty, you could definitely make a good presentation if you needed to.”
I stared at her. “You’re actually helping me plan this impossible thing.”
She stuffed her mouth with sushi and nodded, then started talking before she’d chewed it all. “Of course, because you’re a delusional angel. It’s either help you defeat her, or watch you step off the cliff with nothing but faith and hope. You don’t have wings, like your pretty brother, so you’ll definitely need a lot of rope. Not literally, unless you’ve had training with ropes, otherwise you’ll just strangle yourself.”
I stared at her. “Why do I get the feeling that you could easily set me up with an assassin?”
She smiled at me and tossed a knife in the air that came down right between my fingers, slicing the sushi roll I’d been holding. “No idea. I’ve got to get home. My husband will be worried about me. Also, now I want to hit the stacks and see what tomes I can find on elven music magic. Do you read elven?”
I nodded. “Of course. I know a smattering of most languages that involved themselves in the musical arts.”
She grinned fiercely. “Of course. I’m sure Elven operas are famous.” She leaned over the table and gave me a quick, rib-creaking hug before she pulled back. “Get some sleep. Magic takes more energy than… After the concert, do you feel energized or drained?”
“Usually I stay up all night after I play such enjoyable pieces.”
She squeezed my hand. “Perfect. Using music to defeat her might actually work then. I’ll send over whatever I can find in the stacks.”
“Tell the Scholar hi for me.”
She sniffed. “Mm hm. Tell your ogre lover hi for me, too.” She walked out, and Lanise walked in, like she’d been waiting outside the door.
When I saw her black eye, I stood up, gasping. “Lanise, what happened?”
“Crowd control. You need control music.”
Yaga fluttered up from her place on the back of my chair and landed on Lanise’s shoulder, cooing like she was worried about her. Then she tried to peck the purple swollen eye, and Lanise rumbled a laugh as she batted the chicken away.
“Not blueberry.”
I caught Yaga as I stood. “What do you mean, crowd control?”
“Goblins fight fairies.” She pointed to her eye. “Werewolf throw violin.” She shook her head and smiled maliciously. “I throw werewolf. Goblins, Fairies, run fast.”
“Oh. I thought you meant that I did something to mess with the audience.”
She shrugged. “Make feel too much. Anger. Happy. Need control music.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I didn’t work a spell on anyone, I just played.”
“Not play if not control.”
“I can’t not play.”
“Play alone.” She crossed her arms and glowered at me.
Frustrated, I took my harp and Yaga, and went to my room to play alone. She let me be alone, probably because an ogre was hanging out on my deck. I could see his silhouette and it made me ache terribly for Rook the Luthier. But look at me, resisting the lure of the harp for the sake of my soul. Also because long-term, it just wouldn’t work, however lovely it would be tonight.
I played my harp, not paying attention to notes, just playing how it had felt with him in the back seat of the car, the conflict of desire and logic, struggling to not feel so much.
I was broken out of my playing by a distant roar, deep, anguished, echoing how I felt. My hands slipped from the strings and I sighed heavily. I was acting like a lovesick fool, playing my heart when I should be sleeping. I had another day at the Jubilee tomorrow. And it was bound to be stressful.