Chapter 65: A delicious offer
Third person’s POV
Jonquil was in her room in the yard set aside for warriors, one of the few still left in the wing this morning.
Most of the others had been herded off toward the baths hours ago, and every so often, when the wind shifted right, she could still catch the faint sound of laughter and running water drifting down the corridor from that direction.
She hadn’t gone. She had never much cared for the idea of lying still while someone else’s hands did the work her own body was built for.
So she trained instead, alone, the way she preferred it.
She moved through her forms slowly, the same drills she had carved into her muscles since she was old enough to hold a blade without her arm shaking. Sweat gathered along her spine and slid down between her shoulder blades. Her breathing stayed even, controlled, each strike landing and retracting with the same practiced rhythm, over and over, until the repetition stopped feeling like effort and started feeling like something closer to stillness.
She was mid-motion, fist extended, when the door creaked open behind her.
She turned without hurrying, wiping a forearm across her brow, and found Kara standing in the doorway, watching her.
Jonquil said nothing. She lowered her arms, let her breathing settle, and waited. Kara had come here for a reason. She would say it when she was ready, and Jonquil had never seen the point in rushing anyone toward words they weren’t yet prepared to give.
Kara stepped inside slowly, her arms loose at her sides this time, none of the crossed, guarded posture she’d worn in the corridor the night before. She looked around the small room first, at the sparse furs, the single worn blade resting against the wall, before her eyes came back to Jonquil.
"I’ve been curious," she said finally. "About what he does to you. The Alien." She hesitated, like the word still didn’t sit comfortably in her mouth. "You said, when he isn’t near, you notice it. I want to know what that feels like. I want you to show me."
Jonquil studied her for a long moment; long enough that Kara’s jaw tightened slightly, bracing for a refusal.
Then Jonquil nodded, once, simple and final. "I will show you."
. ~~~~~~~~~~
Stefan had spent the better part of an hour trying to pry a straight answer out of a court lady who clearly understood maybe one word in five of whatever came out of his mouth.
"When precisely," he’d asked her, in the smooth, unhurried tone he liked using when he wanted to sound important, "does this treatment session conclude?"
The woman had blinked at him, lost somewhere around the treatment, her mouth opening and closing without producing anything useful.
He had sighed, dragged a hand down his face, and started over, breaking the question down piece by piece until her expression finally cleared with understanding.
"The Flowers are many. The softening may not end until tomorrow." She told him.
Stefan let out a long, low breath at that news, somewhere between relief and dread. A whole day, then. Plenty of time to figure out how in the hell he was supposed to talk Belladonna, of all people, into voluntarily sitting in a tub of warm water while some delicate hands touched her.
"Do you know where the Flowers are lodged?" he asked next.
She stared at him blankly again.
"Where they sleep," he clarified, slower this time. "Where they’re kept while they’re here in the palace."
Understanding dawned on her face, and she lifted a hand, pointing him down one corridor toward the far side of the grounds. Stefan thanked her, tucked his hands into the folds of his long, flowing cloth, and set off in that direction, whistling something under his breath that had never existed anywhere on this planet before he arrived.
When he reached the yard, he spotted Jonquil first, standing beside a woman he didn’t recognize by name, though he placed her face immediately from the celebration the night before.
He raised a hand and waved, wide and enthusiastic, already grinning before he had fully closed the distance between them.
"Kara," Jonquil said, before he’d even reached them, "my clan sister. She would like to be shown what we do together."
Stefan opened his mouth. Nothing came out immediately.
He had walked over here bracing for a handful of things. A scolding from Jonquil, maybe, about wandering here. A cold glare from this stranger standing beside her. What he had not braced for, not even slightly, was Jonquil handing him a second woman like she was passing along a spare cut of meat at dinner.
His brain, reliable in matters exactly like this one, caught up fast enough to supply a single, smug thought before anything else could form.
A group sex? Well, he wasn’t about to argue with the universe when it decided to hand him a gift like that.
The system dinged before he could get a single word out loud.
[JONQUIL STATS UPDATED]
Desire: 100%
Loyalty: 80%
Affection: 70%
Trust: 70%
Recruitment Progress: 90%
Stefan’s eyebrows shot up. Ninety percent. He hadn’t checked her numbers in a while, too busy chasing others.
[NEW RECRUITMENT CANDIDATE:]
KARA:
Beast-kin: Panther
Status: Elite / Clan Sister to Jonquil
Desire: 1%
Loyalty: 0%
Affection: 0%
Trust: 0%
Recruitment Progress: 1%
He grinned wider at that one. Ground floor. He liked ground floor. Ground floor meant room to build something from scratch, exactly the way he liked it.
He stepped closer to Jonquil, close enough that only she would catch it, and dipped his head toward her ear.
"I’ll need food first," he murmured. "Before we start training in earnest."
Jonquil’s expression didn’t shift, calm and businesslike as ever as she replied; "You shall eat."
She turned and led the way without waiting for either of them to agree, and Stefan fell into step beside her, glancing sideways at Kara, who followed a pace behind, arms crossed again now, watching him with the same wary curiosity she’d worn the night before, like she still hadn’t fully decided whether any of this was going to be worth her time.
Jonquil had just pushed the door open...
But before they could enter the room, Dove suddenly appeared, her heavy chest easily blocking the entrance, her eyes sharp and when she spoke, her voice didn’t leave room for argument;
"The Queen shall see you now."