Emotion swells in my chest like water soaked up into a sponge, until I’m saturated with a flattered sense of humbling pride that he let me into his small circle of people who he trusts with his secret.
“Poor guy, huh?” Judd cuts in, proving that they are, in fact, eavesdropping. “Has to choose between spikes coming out of his ass, or magic lines down his...unmentionables.”
My brows pull together in a frown. “He doesn’t have magic lines on his—” I cut myself off, but it’s too late. Lu chokes on her wine.
Judd barks out a laugh. “Ha! Told you!” he exclaims, slapping his knee with delight. “Pay up, Os.”
Mortified, I bury my face into my hands. “Oh goddess.”
“Don’t feel too bad, Gildy,” Judd tells me. “We always know everything about everything. I even know how many times Os takes a shit every day.” Osrik shoots him a glare. “Four, in case you were wondering.”
Gross.
“I wasn’t,” I mumble against my hands, still keeping my face buried in them. It seems safer, considering the direction of the conversation.
“Hey, Judd?” Slade calls, and I peek out from between my fingers.
He perks up, looking pleased with himself. “Yeah, Commander?”
“Shut up.”
A quick nod precedes Judd’s cheerful reply. “Yep, will do.”
I laugh against my palms until Slade’s firm fingers wrap around mine and tug them away from my face. “Don’t mind Judd. He can’t help but be an unendurable prick.”
“It’s true,” Lu chirps. “He thrives on it.”
“Yeah, but I keep you lot entertained,” Judd defends.
Shaking my head, I turn back to Slade and look him over cautiously. “So...just to be clear, you don’t have a spike that comes out of your ass, right?”
Lu, Judd, and Osrik all howl in laughter.
Slade just sighs. “No ass spikes to speak of.”
Bright side.
“So, are you still glad you came out to camp?” Lu asks with a smirk on her face.
“Apart from all the ass and shit talk? Definitely,” I reply, and the others grin at me, as if that was the right thing to say.
The easygoing camaraderie between them all is visceral, filling me with a sense of comfortable friendship that I’ve never experienced before in my life. There’s no underlying bitterness or competitiveness in the way they joke with one another. There’s no sense of jealousy or resentment. Instead, there’s an intense certainty about them. As if they’re family, that they know each other inside and out, and even when they’re mocking or joking, I can feel the loyalty they have for one another.
“So, you’re Rip tonight,” I note, looking over the spikes jutting up from Slade’s uniform.
“I am.” He glances down as two of my ribbons start toying with the laces of his boot, and his lips quirk. “Little flirts.”
I shrug, because I give up on trying to hold back the cheeky things. “Do you change forms a lot?” I ask curiously.
“Sometimes it’s necessary. But other times, I do it when I don’t feel like being the king and dealing with everything that comes with it.”
“It’s like an escape for you.”
He nods. “It’s not always easy being King Rot,” he replies sardonically, but I can see the edge of bitter truth to that, and my heart aches for him. I can’t imagine what he carries on his back as not only a monarch, but a feared one. Sometimes even a despised one.
“I can understand that. I actually envy it,” I admit quietly, watching my ribbons continue to twirl around his shoes and ankles playfully. “If I could stop being the gold girl even just for a night, I’d jump at the chance to not be me.”
Slade’s finger and thumb suddenly come up to grip my chin, and he pulls my face to look at him, his intense eyes boring into me. “Never say that,” he rumbles, the timbre of his voice pitched in firm demand. “The world would be a dreary place without your light.”