“Who do you think I am?” Constantine asked slowly.
I ignored him and focused on my surroundings. He was clearly here to distract me from my task, and I’d already wasted enough breath on him.
My flowers had all turned to ash again while talking to him, and the remaining light overhead glimmered like little stars between the dark vines. I tried to tap into their magic to unweave them, but the Dark Source hissed in response.
“All right,” I said to it. “Then how about this?” I took holds of the roots and called on a burning thwomp. It sprouted high and proud, fire billowing from its limbs and blasting right through the roof on my canopy.
I grinned, proud.
And then the thwomp cried out in pain as it incinerated into dust.
My heart skipped a beat, the sudden blow knocking me to my knees.
Constantine rushed forward, his hand grabbing my arm as he shouted my name.
I shoved him back with a bolt of power, Zeph’s Warrior Blood thriving inside me and alighting me from within. The spell left my lips on instinct, the enchantment one Zeph had taught me during one of our sparring matches. And it shoved Constantine to the ground.
“What the fuck?” he demanded on a wheeze.
“Touch me again, and I’ll paralyze you.” Then I cocked my head to the side. “A spell courtesy of your prickly little thorn, Dakota.” It would be fitting to use the enchantment on him since he’d sent that lying fae to infiltrate Zakkai’s camp.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, sounding shocked and dismayed. “Aflora, who do you think I am?”
“Is this the part where you remind me you're a former king and demand I bow? Because I don’t think I’m in the mood for that. If anyone is going to bow, it’ll be you.” And I would thoroughly enjoy making him do it. Assuming I could. The fact that he bent beneath Zeph’s spell was an interesting development. Constantine should have been powerful enough to block it.
“A prince,” he hissed. “And no, princess, I’m not going to demand you bow. But hit me with another spell and we’re going to exchange some words.”
“Sounds like an empty threat since you’re already talking,” I told him.
Which again he’d distracted me from my task.
Sprinkle dust, I needed to focus.
He was just a—
A volt of electricity hit me in the side, knocking me to the ground on an “Oomph.”
In the next beat, the shadowy figure had me pinned to the ground with a knee between my thighs. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.
“Get off of me!” I shouted, a spell lining up on my lips.
But his mouth captured mine, silencing me in an instant.
Technically, I could still utter the spell in my thoughts. However, I wasn’t as well-versed in the art of mental enchantments. And my brain also failed to function properly.
Because Constantine is kissing me.
What in the lily cookie?
Why is he…?
His tongue parted my lips, the familiarity of the taste hitting my taste buds and cascading me beneath a wave of confusion.
Kols.
He tastes like Kols.
How?