Page 4 of Prince of Flowers
Again I looked him up and down, as slowly and deliberately as I could, to impress without words his total insignificance. Kind of challenging, considering at least one half of me — the lower half — was also very interested in checking him out.
“No idea who you are,” I said, giving him a slow, mocking blink.
His lips twisted into a sneer. “And yet you thought to summon me.”
I held out my grimoire, opening it to the page of the spell I’d used to call him. “Look. Look if you don’t believe me. The spell itself is named the Pact of the Unknown. You being the unknown in question. Don’t know you. Never heard of you.”
He recoiled as if someone had spat in his face while peeing on his bare feet at the same time. The fae man seemed to grow several inches taller, his muscles bulkier, the shadows at his feet lengthening.
“I am Prince Sylvain, high fae of the Summer Court, and you will show me the respect I am due.”
Again I shrugged, thoroughly enjoying how very angry I could make him with only the movement of my shoulders. “Never heard of you. And again, it’s not like I owe you anything.”
His chin tucked against his chest, at a loss for words. But then he opened his mouth again.
“I’ll have you know that I am among the most powerful of the high fae, a member of royalty. A summoner you may be, but I outrank you, human insect.” He pushed his fists into his hips again, smirking to himself, somehow becoming exponentially more pompous with every sentence. “You would do well to forge a pact with me.”
Fascinated by his arrogance, I burst out laughing. Sylvain, was that his name? It was hilarious how he’d swung so quickly from wanting to leave to trying to sell himself to me as a potential pact, an eidolon.
The man was mischief personified. I could smell the trouble on his skin, and a faint, pleasant scent of musk and grass, the smell of someone who spent his days in nature. And laced through that heavy, intoxicating fragrance was something sweet, like honey, like nectar from a rare flower.
“As if I would accept,” I told him coldly. “No way am I working with you. No way am I forging a pact with you.”
My insides churned as I struggled to decide whether I was lying through my own teeth. The man was hot as hell, the kind of guy I might consider for a one-night stand, even knowing I would really, really hate myself in the morning. If I ran into him at a pub in the Black Market — fuck it, why not? His body alone suggested he’d make for a good time, a rough tumble in the hay.
But we were talking about forging a long-term contract between summoner and eidolon. Depending on how things went, that could last a lifetime, even longer. I must have meant what I’d said. There was no way in hell I could work with someone like him. So infuriating, so full of himself.
And so dashingly handsome. Even without all the negatives, I already knew I’d have a very, very hard time maintaining a professional summoning bond with someone who looked like Sylvain. His chiseled body, the malicious twinkle in his eyes, those thick eyebrows that curved like daggers, that noble nose.
Sylvain was taken aback — no, positively stunned by my refusal to enter a pact. Standing like that, with his mouth closed, without any of the obscenities spilling past his lips? Gods above and below. The way the sun struck the jet black of his hair made it gleam with gold. If I tilted my head, I could envision him wearing a royal circlet, or a crown.
But then his lips drew back in anger, and all of that went whooshing away with the wind once more.
“Oh, wonderful,” he said. “Me, a prince of the Summer Court, so many responsibilities and so much to do with my life. And you think I would accept a pact with you? A human? Spare me.”
The sarcasm dripped like venom from his fangs — actual fangs that protruded from the sides of his mouth, almost past his lips, the more his anger mounted. Why did I find that so sexy? There was something wild, almost feral about him, how his body, his very features shifted with his mood. Was this how the fae worked? Part of me found it frightening. Yet part of me wanted to learn, to discover more.
“Oh, sure,” he said. “I’ll accept and become the errand boy of some feeble, frail, soft — ”
The wind whipped again, rustling through the grass at our feet, kicking up debris like a stirring dust devil. I looked down to see the leaves whirling in a pattern around the two of us, a spiral, inscribing a circle in the grass.
“Oh no,” I muttered, the pages of my grimoire fluttering once more, flapping like the wings of a silent bird. It opened to the pages of the Pact of the Unknown, the letters on the vellum burning gold as they sealed the terms of my contract. “No. No, no, no.”
Sylvain took a step back, a hand on his chest. “What — what was that? I felt something. What did you do to me?”
I raked a hand through my hair, slammed my book shut, and tucked it under my arm.
“Great job, genius. You accepted.”
He glowered, taking one step toward me. “I did not.”
I matched his step, leaves crunching underfoot as I stomped forward. “You did, too. And look where you got us. Now we’re stuck together.”
“I refuse,” he said, backing away, his arms stretched out as he turned in a circle, huge eyes searching the clearing like he was looking for the invisible powers that had forged our bond. “I was joking. I was obviously being sarcastic.”
“As if the ancient forces that govern the pact between a summoner and the conjured would ever understand the nuances of sarcasm. Don’t you know anything?”
He glowered again, stalking toward me, jabbing an accusing finger in the air between us. “No, don’t you know anything? I have things to do back in the Verdance. Real, actual responsibilities, and I won’t have you — ”
