“No. You were the dumb fucker who did a hair flick in the middle of a fucking battle,” Orion snapped. “How was I supposed to know that I’d end up beheading your hair as well as the Nymph?”
“Your rift was guarded?” I asked anxiously as I looked around for any sign of Darius.
“Yeah,” Orion confirmed. “But we managed to close it before too many of them could come for us.”
“We were working together like a dream team,” Seth said wistfully. Darcy let out a little squeak of excitement as she looked between the two of them hopefully and Orion gave her a look that said ‘no chance’。 “Right up until he decided to play Sweeney Todd with my luscious locks anyway.”
A snigger drew my attention over my shoulder and I found Gabriel standing there with his fist pressed to his lips as he and Leon both worked really damn hard not to fall apart entirely while looking at the state of Seth’s hair.
“You knew!” Seth accused suddenly, raising a shaking finger to point at Gabriel as he spotted him laughing and I fell apart too as I realised he was right. Gabriel must have seen this coming and hadn’t done a damn thing to stop it.
“Serves you right for cutting my sister’s hair off, mutt,” he taunted and Dante boomed a laugh behind him just as Seth lunged.
Gabriel was already sidestepping him before he even got close and I watched them with amusement for a few minutes while Seth tried his hardest to punch Solaria’s greatest Seer in the face without success.
But despite my amusement over seeing him get another taste of his own medicine, I couldn’t fully focus on their to and fro while my mind was consumed with fear for Darius.
I caught Geraldine’s eye across the group, seeing her own fear for Max in her features and I moved to her side, nudging her with my elbow.
“They’ll be fine,” I said, as much to myself as it was to her.
“Oh, I’m certain of it, my lady,” she agreed enthusiastically. “I’m more concerned about mortal wounds or maiming than I am of death. Lost limbs or jagged gashes, half eaten appendages or-”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said, my voice a little harsh as I willed her to stop.
“Oh sweet heavens, I am so sorry. Of course your Dragoon is most unlikely to have been half eaten or to have had a foot cut off or a finger shoved up the bombardier of a badger, or-”
A flash of light ended her terrifying ramblings and I squealed like a love struck idiot as Darius and Max finally appeared, darting forward to throw myself into my Dragon’s arms before skidding to a halt before him as I took in the sticky green substance which covered him from head to toe.
“You could have mentioned the fucking eperious slug which lived in that cesspit of a cavern, Gabriel,” Darius growled angrily, his chest rising and falling heavily as he dripped slime all over the floor.
Max was covered in the sludge too and he wiped it from his face aggressively, flicking it from his fingertips so that it splattered the grass beside him and I took a measured step back. The hug could wait.
“Oh right, yeah…sorry about that,” Gabriel said with that knowing asshole glint in his eyes again and I snorted my amusement before I could stop myself.
“You saw that too?” Darcy asked him, biting her lip to hold back her smile.
“What’s an eperious slug?” I asked curiously, taking another step away from Darius as he tried to wipe some more slime from his body, but it seemed to be sticking.
“Oh it is a most gruesome of beasts,” Geraldine supplied. “A huge and carnivorous slug which is big enough to eat an entire minivan in one bite when at full size. It likes to dwell in dark, dank caverns and wait for creatures to wander inside unawares. Then it pounces, traps them in its slime and devours them whole where they will be slowly dissolved within its stomach acid over a period of around a week. It is said to be a most horrendous way to die.”
“Yeah, it would have been,” Darius growled. “But we managed to blast our way out of the fucking thing eventually - it took almost every drop of magic I own to do it though.”
“The slime burns,” Max groaned and Gabriel laughed louder. My brother could be such a dick sometimes. I kinda loved that about him though. “I need to get inside and wash it off.”
“Not on your Nelly!” Geraldine cried, raising her hands and blasting the two of them with so much water that they were knocked clean off of their feet by it and sent tumbling away down the hill as they yelled at her to stop.
She didn’t stop though, not until every bit of slime was blasted from them and they were left panting and cursing in a puddle of mud at the foot of the hill.