Page 16 of Ogres Don't Play

I didn’t scream again, though. I could cope with pain. Instead of screaming, I started humming, closing my eyes and focusing on music, the one thing in my life that hadn’t ever let me down. The problem was that the pure and holy hymn I started singing wasn’t just mine because Rook took up a second part that hadn’t existed before he made it his, turning my song into our song, and bringing his magic burning to life inside of me.

It made it impossible to focus on the music to block out my pain. I opened my eyes to glare at him, but he was busy weaving magical runes over the raw mess that was the left side of my body. Where was my skin? Not to mention my clothes. It hadn’t seemed that bad earlier. Weird. Then again, it was goblin metal, and that tended to keep splitting even after the impact to more thoroughly mutilate whatever it hit.

“I hate goblins,” I mumbled, tugging on my tied wrists to try and do something about the mess going on. No way I could survive that.

“We are in accord. How convenient that we are already of the same mind on such an important subject.”

I scowled at him and then felt his strength enter me while he collapsed on the edge of the bed beside me, one of his legs over mine, trapping them to the bed. “What did you just do?” I tugged on my wrists again, but it was pointless. He’d tied me up very securely. In fact, if he’d just killed himself with whatever he’d done to me, I’d probably be here until I died. I wasn’t sure if even Anna and her sorceries could free me.

“You owe me a life debt,” he mumbled, words slurred until he collapsed even more fully, limp, unconscious, leaving me to finish bleeding out on my own.

I’d never slept with a man before, but I was almost certain being tied to a bed with an unconscious ogre against my side was not the ordinary way of things. My blood was giving him a rash. I watched it form on his neck and shoulders without anything I could do about it. Unless I licked it off him. I couldn’t possibly do that, but when a blister started rising up, I decided that since he was unconscious, he wouldn’t know about it, and if I owed him a life debt, which I wasn’t going to admit, I should definitely do something for him. I didn’t seem to be dying, and that was all thanks to his efforts to keep me alive.

So I licked his shoulder, just enough to get my blood off him, and then his neck, because it had droplets of my blood that were starting to fester the sweet skin beneath. He tasted sweet beneath the salty blood. It was weird, but less weird than when he reared up and grabbed my throat, my licking apparently having woken him. He stared down at me in a moment of bewildering uncertainty as he unconsciously flexed his hand.

“You’re crushing my throat,” I wheezed out, and he immediately released me, then pulled a blanket up over me, which was probably good because my skin had mostly grown back so you could consider my lack of clothing indecent.

“Your tongue was on my neck,” he said, still looking at me with uncertainty, like he’d never been so shocked in his life. I really needed a book on ogres to figure out what their taboos were. I only liked shocking people intentionally.

“My blood was burning you. You’ll probably still have some blisters.”

“Your blood? You were licking off your blood so that it wouldn’t harm me? Ah.”

His ‘ah’ was accompanied by a narrowing of his eyes, like he didn’t trust my explanation, but whatever else could I have been licking him for? He wasn’t wearing my clothing, after all. Ogre traditions were so weird. And my neck was still tingling.

“I wouldn’t say that I owe you a life debt, but?—”

“You do. You owe me a life debt.” His rich, low voice was absolutely immovable.

I continued on like he hadn’t interrupted me. “But I can owe you a rash debt.”

“A rash debt? I didn’t save you from a rash. I saved you from death.”

“But rashes are worse than death,” I said as seriously as I possibly could. “Particularly blood rashes. Trust me on this.”

“I trust you on nothing. You bespelled me to sleep while I was creating your harp. You almost got yourself killed while you were under my protection.”

“I’m not under your protection. You kidnapped me. That’s not protection, that’s…” I sputtered, because I wasn’t sure what that was, but I wouldn’t have been in this position if he hadn’t kidnapped me in the first place. Except, why had goblins attacked? Song wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere where they could do what they liked without facing consequences from seriously dangerous residents. Only a complete idiot would throw a goblin bomb in the middle of the under-city, unless it was a very well-paid assassination attempt, but if that was the case, was I the target?

I felt myself go very still as that possibility sank into me. I’d pulled Cutter around, or the bomb would have struck me full blast instead of him. Yes. I’d definitely been the target. Seriously? Goblins wanted to kill the music master of singsong city? I’d get my revenge. They would be singing for me before the month was out, and they would be paying for my hall. And they would be donating their time to my efforts. But who had hiredthem? Who wanted me dead? I understood my dad sending someone to bring me back, like Gavriel, but who would pay the exorbitant charge that an assassination attempt in Song would cost just to kill me?

He nodded like my silence was agreement. “I will return. You will remain with Lanise. Spare her your wiles or I’ll hang you naked from a wall somewhere.”

I blinked at him as he got to his feet, stumbled slightly, and headed towards the door. “Where are you going? You spent too much magic on healing me. You’re hardly up for anything other than sleeping. Lay back down and I promise not to lick you again. Although I don’t get why it freaks you out so much when you did it to me. It doesn’t make sense that wearing a shirt justifies…”

He shot me one last look and then was gone, leaving me alone for a good five minutes I spent trying to figure out how to get my hands free, and then I passed out. I woke up a long time later from the buzzing burning all over my skin. I was wearing bandages that I desperately needed to rip off so I could scratch myself. I writhed around, only to have a very large green hand land on my chest, holding me down.

The hand belonged to a muscular arm that disappeared into the sleeve of a black t-shirt. An ogre woman was lurking over me, her expression mostly blank, with a hint of threat. “Break scabs, Arrook take my hide.”

“What will he do with it?” Maybe it would go into an instrument, a nice drum set, for instance.

“Then he hang you from wall. Naked. Hu-mil-i-ate you.” She jabbed my forehead with a large green finger to punctuate her words.

“I see. So your skin is worth doing something with, but mine isn’t?” I covered my sudden fear with humor. It was all very well to wake up with ogres threatening you, but if he’d told herthat he’d hang me from a wall just like he’d told me, maybe he was serious. How could I possibly be a respected Singsong City Music Master after being publicly displayed like that? I’d much rather lose some of my skin than my entire reputation.

“You want Arrook take your skin?” Her eyes widened like I’d shocked her, and then my neck tingled, like it was competing with the agonizing itching for what could drive me the most insane. Groan.

“Where is he?”