Chapter 21: Come here, Flower
Stefan’s POV
Jonquil’s tent felt quieter than usual when we stepped inside, or maybe that was just the mood she was carrying in with her, filling the space with something heavy that had nothing to do with the walls.
I gestured for her to sit. She did, folding herself onto the animal skin with the same controlled precision she did everything else, spine straight, hands on her knees, like even sitting down was a posture she’d been trained into.
I stood in front of her and stared.
She stared back.
I had five hours. The mission was simple, make her happy. But the problem was I couldn’t make someone happy when I didn’t know what was making them sad, and Jonquil wasn’t exactly the type to volunteer that kind of information without being asked.
I was going to have to make her talk first.
I crouched in front of her, brought both palms up slowly, and held her face between my hands. She stiffened slightly, not pulling back, just registering the contact but she didn’t stop me. That was something.
"Jonquil," I said. Then, pulling the title from the way Lily had said it when she had told me her name, testing it as the smart conman I was: "Shield-third Jonquil..."
That got a reaction from her. Her brows pulled together hard, something sharp moving across her face.
"I am not Shield-third," she said, her voice coming out stiff and precise. "I am War Captain One." She paused for a second before adding; "I was Shield-second. Before."
The Beast Insight reading updated in the corner of my vision.
[JONQUIL’S CURRENT MOOD: Sadder.]
"Yup, accidentally made it worse, didn’t I? Of course I did." I groaned inwardly.
Well, I wasn’t one to give up easily. I kept my thumbs resting light against her cheekbones.
"Why aren’t you Shield-second anymore? You deserve to be." I asked, keeping my voice low.
"You should be." I added, using my words carefully so she’d understand me better.
She said nothing. I could see the hesitation moving through her, her jaw tight, her eyes going somewhere I wasn’t, like she was deciding whether to let me in or shut the door completely.
"Share with me whatever is making you feel burdened," I said, quieter now. "Whatever it is. I won’t tell anyone."
Another long moment. Then she spoke.
"One of my flowers showed me disrespect." She began and it was my turn to furrow my brows. I didn’t understand what that meant figuratively. Of course, she wouldn’t mean it literally, would she?
"I don’t know what that means. Can you make it simple?" I requested. She firstly looked at me and squinted her eyes.
"A flower I trained trampled upon me... She didn’t pay homage to me because I was lowered in station."
The pieces clicked when I remembered how Lily had instantly greeted Zinnia with a bow.
I sat back slightly, genuinely surprised. The specific smallness of it, not the demotion itself but the warrior who refused to bow hit differently than I expected. Back on Earth I’d seen executives crumble over less, but I’d always assumed that need for visible respect was a human fragility. Apparently not.
These women were the same everywhere. Power, rank, the particular sting of being seen as lesser by someone you’d built.
"That flower - warrior sounds ungrateful," I said.
Jonquil’s jaw tightened.
I thought about what I could say next. My usual instinct was to produce a line, something smooth and reassuring that would land in the right place. But Beast Insight had her reading as sad, not as a woman who needed reassurance so much as a woman who needed to feel what she’d lost again, even briefly.
I stood up.
I stepped back, rolled my shoulders, and bowed. Deep, the same way Lily had bowed to Zinnia in the tent, except I went lower much lower, my head dropping almost to my own knee level, held there for a full second before I straightened back up.
Silence.
Then Jonquil’s leg, flat against the ground where she sat, shook.
Once. Twice then thrice...
And then the corner of her mouth moved.
It was small. Barely anything. A curve so slight I might have missed it if I hadn’t been watching her face like my life depended on it, which, technically, it did.
She just smiled!
So these women actually know how to smile? Great.
"You do not need to do that," she said, and her voice had shifted, just barely, something warmer underneath the flat delivery. "I am not the General-Flower, who all flowers bow like that to."
"I bow to whoever I want, the way I want," I replied.
She looked at me and the small curve held.
The Beast Insight updated.
[JONQUIL’S CURRENT MOOD: Happy.]
[PRIMARY MISSION: COMPLETE.]
[REWARD: Libido Booster x1 — added to inventory.]
[+50 EXP]
[HOST EXP]
Current Level: 1
EXP: 250 / 1,000
I stared at the reward for a solid three seconds.
"A libido booster," I said, flatly. "That’s the reward? For making a woman smile." I pressed my lips together. "You know what, forget it. I don’t need it. I won’t be needing it. I’ve never needed that kind of assistance in my life and I’m not about to start now."
The System said nothing, which I chose to interpret as agreement.
[JONQUIL — STATS UPDATED:]
- Desire: 85%
- Trust: 22%
- Affection: 18%
- Loyalty: 7%
- Recruitment Progress: 38%
I blinked at the jump. Thirty-eight percent. A genuine smile from a woman who didn’t smile had done more for her recruitment progress than all the oral sex combined.
"Noted," I muttered. "Emotions hit harder than-"
I became aware that Jonquil was staring at me.
Not at the empty air I kept apparently zoning out into. At me. With an expression I recognized by now, the one that meant her body had remembered what we’d started and hadn’t finished, and was quietly making its opinion known.
I smiled slowly. After three days of penalties, debts, raging morning problems, and ten very embarrassing push-ups, something was going right.
"Right," I said, taking her hand, pulling her gently to her feet. "Let’s pick up where we left off. Properly this time."
She didn’t need to be told twice. She stood, reached for the fabric at her shoulder, and let it drop without any ceremony, standing in front of me the way she always did - completely unbothered, completely perfect, like being looked at had never once made her self-conscious.
My cock sprung in attention and I took a second to appreciate that view fully.
The System chimed.
[SUGGESTION: Use Libido Booster before proceeding.]
[Guaranteed performance enhancement.]
[Accept?]
I looked at the notification. Looked at Jonquil. Looked back at the notification.
"I will not be using that," I said, very firmly. "I am going to last two hours on my own, without assistance, because that is what I am capable of and I refuse to let a tiny glowing tin tell me otherwise." I straightened my spine.
"Watch me."
The System said nothing in response.
"Come here, my own Flower..." I reached for Jonquil’s waist, my mouth already watering.
That beasty cunt would be very sore by the time I would be done with her.
