Oceantide

by Everly Taylor

“Thanks,” she replied.

  “Why do you want to help her anyway?” I hazarded.

  “I feel bad for her, trapped somewhere she can do nothing about,” her voice sounded like she was somewhere else, and I had the feeling she knew all too well how Shay felt. Maybe not the exact situation, but I had the sense she understood her.

  “Your help will be appreciated,” I told her as I closed my eyes. Damned if I wasn’t starting to actually like my sassy roommate.

  Chapter 16 - Adar

  The nice accommodations the headmaster promised were definitely anything but. Bare walls and a meager mattress were the only things that my tiny, dank room could boast. Hell, the palace servants had better rooms than the shitholes in Shadow Isle. My room was so small I had started to feel claustrophobic and decided to spend as little time in there as possible. I didn’t have a roommate as I noticed others had and I wasn’t sure if that were a good thing or a bad thing. As soon as those doors opened, I was out and walking around what the headmaster had called the campus.

  “Campus, my ass,” I muttered as I walked down a long corridor that I hadn’t explored before. I’d only been here a couple of days and I already found that this building, once a grand castle, was filled with places to get lost in. I looked forward to exploring more to see if there were any hidden passageways like my home had.

  I fisted my hands at my sides as I remembered it wasn’t my home anymore. The Queen made sure to set me up so I would never be able to go back, never have the crown that my father wished for me.

  Angered at all that my own mother took from me I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and my heart raced. I stopped and leaned against a stone wall, my hands clenching and unclenching as I tried to keep my tears at bay. I was a prince and emotions were not allowed outside of the privacy of the bedroom. It didn’t matter that my father was murdered, and I was accused of being his killer. No, I had to keep up appearances, as a face of the royal family, even if I was the one accused of bringing shame to them.

  I tried to push the memories of my father collapsing to the back of my mind. I remembered it all as if it were in slow motion. Him falling, the guards hauling me off, and the sneer on my mother’s face knowing she had won. I needed to push past it if I were going to have a clear head to figure out a way out of this place and back to my kingdom. I also needed to come up with a plan to expose the queen for the treacherous bitch she was and get my kingdom back. On top of that, I would need to break the spell that bound me to bringing Una to her.

  Then there was my father’s long time advisor, Fallon. I had a funny feeling he had something to do with it as well. There was something about the way he looked, not just a lack of emotion, but almost a look of glee as they spoke of my father’s death. Maybe it was the darkness of the dungeon, or maybe I was so lost at the time I was imagining things that night. The only thing I knew for sure was that he didn’t seem like a man that had lost the king he faithfully served for decades.

  I promised myself right then that I would find a way to go back and find the truth. For my father, and for my people.

  Now I only needed to follow the rules here and do whatever it took for me to get out. I had no idea what that was, no one had told me anything. The headmaster didn’t speak to me at all on the journey to Shadow Isle and passed me off to the guards as soon as we entered through the enormous ornate doors. Doors that were very deceiving, making the outside look as though I would be entering a grand castle instead of the cold and barren reformatory.

  As if that weren’t enough of a shock to my system, the beautiful mermaid that had saved me that day on the beach, the one that I couldn’t stop thinking about and the very same one the queen was after; that shook me more than anything else here could have. The way she shut me down and was rude to me as if I had done something to offend her. I just didn’t know what to think of it, of her. I had a small moment where I thought about taking her to the queen, fulfill my oath, but it didn’t seem right. I doubted that would be the way for me to leave this place anyway.

  I’d spent my life being catered to by everyone around me, even the queen at some point, that was until I failed to give her what she wanted. Everyone wanted to be a part of my circle and so they did things to please me, to convince me to invite them in. This was the first time that anyone ever dared to speak to me like I was some commoner. I had expected for it to piss me off if that ever happened, instead, I had to admit that it made me like her even more. I just needed to find a way to get some alone time with her to show her I wasn’t the spoiled prince she assumed I was.

  Her words stung when she said she shouldn’t have saved me. It brought back all the doubts I already had growing up as the son of a great king. That the kingdom would be better off without me, that the world would be better off. I straightened my chin, I would prove her wrong, show her that I was worth saving. Somehow. This was no longer just about me, but saving my people too, and getting them from under the thumb of the Evil Queen.

  I pulled myself back together and continued my walk and realized that I had ended up in the classroom wing. It was so early that the guards weren’t even stationed here yet. I had already grabbed breakfast, if you could call it that. Everything had been so inedible that I ended up nibbling on the cardboard biscuit and tossed the rest into the trash.

  Giggling from one of the nearby classrooms piqued my curiosity and I slowly crossed to the other side of the hall to avoid being seen. No one else should be down here this early and I wondered who it was. I followed the sound to the classroom where that scary, ninja-looking teacher's room was. The giggling came again, and I looked through the crack in the door and found two girls sitting on desks across from each other. Both of them were trying to balance a pencil on their noses, laughing when it fell off.

  I chuckled as I watched them, the first time I had seen a sight in this place that wasn’t depressing. The redhead whipped her head around to look at me and fell off the desk. I felt awful and rushed through the opening to help her up from the floor.

  She clung to me as I helped her stand and I noticed she let her hand linger on my bicep a little longer than necessary as she spoke, “Thank you. You’re such a gentleman.” She batted her eyes at me, but it didn’t come across as flirtatious as she seemed unable to focus on me.

  “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I caused you to fall. Are you okay?” I asked in concern. Though it was a short fall, she had landed on the stone floor with quite a thud.

  “I just hurt my bum,” she said seriously and her friend started cackling, which sent her into her own fits of giggles again.

  Her friend was just as beautiful as she was, though they were both very contrasted in looks. While the woman before me was light skinned with a speckling of freckles along her face and red hair that made her green eyes pop more. Her friend had tanned skin and dark eyes, hair so dark brown that it seemed almost as black as my own. The pair of them were certainly stunning together.

  Once the friend stopped laughing, she introduced them, “I’m Carmen and this is Alayna.” She held out a slender hand for me to take.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. I’m Prince Adar,” I replied automatically, the fact that I had been stripped of my title not even occurring to me. I took her outstretched hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles as she seemed to be waiting for something. “I apologize for interrupting your good time. I just heard voices and was surprised that anyone else was down here this early.”

  The way Carmen’s eyes lit up at my introduction didn’t escape me as she responded seductively, “We like to come here to be alone and the morning is the best time for it. It’s nice and secluded, no prying eyes for certain activities that some of the guards might not approve of.”

  The hair raised on the back of my neck and I knew I should just leave, but curiosity got the better of me. I raised an eyebrow, “And what activities might those be?”

  Alayna, answered with a grin, “Let me show you.” She dug in her pocket and brought out a small
vial filled with a weird powder that seemed to glow. “This is what makes life in this shitty place bearable,” she wiggled her eyebrows as she held it between her finger and thumb in the air between us.

  I had no clue what it was, but I took it from her as she held it out to me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, faintly glowing as if with a magic of its own. That was saying something too, I had a lot of experience with potions and rare materials in my time studying with the queen. I turned the vial over and it seemed to shimmer even brighter. It seemed almost mesmerizing.

  “You should smell it,” Alayna said, noticing how curious this little vial had made me. “It smells amazing.”

  Intrigued by this new substance, I carefully twisted the cap and started to lift it to my nose. I hesitated for a moment as I thought about how irresponsible it was for me to smell an unknown substance. There was no telling what was actually in this thing, but Alayna looked at me innocently and assured me it would be okay, so I brushed the doubts away. She seemed like such a sweet person. I couldn’t see her doing anything to cause me harm.

  I sniffed it and inhaled the scent of lilacs, one of my favorite scents. It reminded me of spring days when I would walk through the gardens with my father as a boy. He always was a man that appreciated nature and the outdoors and had encouraged my own appreciation. I took another large whiff, letting the scent envelop me as fond memories surfaced. I quickly realized my error when the fine dust went up my nose, the stinging and burning immediate.

  My eyes started watering and I wiped at my nose, handing it back to Alayna quickly. She took it and I watched through watery eyes as she inhaled it deeply before passing it to Carmen. “Mmm, it smells like chocolate,” Alayna said before falling into a fit of giggles.

  “It smelled like lilacs to me,” I chuckled, my head feeling as if I’d drunk an entire jug of wine. I giggled as I thought how weird it was that she thought it smelled like chocolate, when it was clearly flowers. “What is that stuff?” I asked as a rush of heat flowed through my body. I glanced down as I started to feel as if I were floating, checking to make sure my feet were indeed still planted on the ground.

  “Pixie dust,” Carmen giggled. “It’s the best, isn’t it?” she asked in her sing-song voice.

  I nodded my head yes as a wave of dizziness passed over me. Whatever this pixie dust was it was definitely a powerful drug. My whole body felt heavy and I swayed as the weight made me seem like I was tipping over. Alayna reached out and gripped my arm, and another kind of heat rose in me, though very different from the last wave that had almost made me nauseous. This time her touch made me want to rub my dick all over her, lose myself in her heat.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Princey,” she cooed as she moved her hand down my arm and to my chest, gently nudging me to a seat. Everywhere her hand touched, I felt this fire that tingled and burned, but felt so damn good it made me want more.

  Another hand caressed the back of my head and for a moment I panicked, wondering what Alayna could be if her hands were on my chest and in my hair at the same time. Carmen seductively leaned over and whispered in my ear as I realized it was just her. “Let us take care of you Prince. We’ll make sure you enjoy every moment of this.”

  My mind screamed at me no, that I didn’t want this. That I should run back to my room and stay there until this drug wore off. Yet my body betrayed me, pulsing with need and enjoyment from their attention. My dick was hard as a rock and I couldn’t stop my baser urges and I had to rub it.

  Alayna’s face wavered in front of me, coming in and out of focus almost like one of those funhouse mirrors at the carnival. My hand stroked my dick as Carmen’s breasts pushed against my back, it felt so damn good, I didn’t want it to stop.

  I closed my eyes and pictured Una as I rubbed myself, her bright purple hair and killer curves. How fucking amazing it would feel if her pussy replaced my own hand. I could picture Una’s round tits bouncing as she rode me hard. In my mind I could feel the tightness of her pussy wrapped around my dick. I was so far gone in my fantasy that I no longer knew reality from imagination.

  I bucked up against my hand, stroking it and gripping it tighter. I needed to release, to relieve this aching in my body. Fire filled my veins and I couldn’t hold out any longer, “Una,” I cried out as I came hard and my body trembled.

  I sagged against the chair, my relief from my release immediate, though my head was still fuzzy and my body incredibly heavy. Voices yelled something around me, and I struggled to focus on what they were saying, on who they even were coming from. I didn’t open my eyes though, they felt heavy and I knew whatever I saw would be as out of focus as my hearing was.

  I laughed as I was pulled up roughly by my arm and I tried to lean into the skin that touched me. The grip should have hurt, yet it felt so good as I was forced to my feet. I seemed to float still as I was pulled along somewhere, and a male voice said something. Maybe my name? I didn’t know and it didn’t really matter.

  My head bobbed as I struggled to hold it upright and more voices joined the first guy. It sounded like there were a bunch of them talking though I couldn’t understand any of them. It was as if they were all speaking a foreign language or something.

  At last the person let me lay down, in a bed or on the floor. I had no idea other than it felt good to rub my body all over it. The fire returned to my veins as it had before, and my cock grew hard, ready for another release. I reached down to stroke it again, but some cruel person pulled my hand away, pinning both of them above my head. I writhed on the bed as my body begged for another release, though they didn't seem to care.

  “I need Una,” I begged, my voice sounding foreign, even to myself. It was slurred and high-pitched, completely different than my normal tone.

  “I doubt she will want to see you after that little display of yours in my classroom,” a deep, rough voice said, this time managing to make it through the fog in my brain. I recognized the voice but I couldn’t place it. “I’m giving you something to help you sleep off the dust. Let your body recover from the effects. We will talk when you wake up.”

  I felt a pinch in my arm and it felt just as good as it felt bad. I moaned again and tried to get closer to whatever had given me that sensation. The need for some sort of release still coursing through my body. “Rest, Prince,” the voice commanded as everything faded into blackness.

  Chapter 17 - Una

  I was pissed beyond belief that the man I had saved, the man that practically landed me here, was dry humping Alayna, of all people. I had decided to head to class early, hoping to find time to talk to the professor before class started. Only to walk in on Carmen rubbing her tits all over Prince Adar’s back, and Alayna getting ready to climb on him to ride him like a cowgirl.

  How fucking dare he do that! It was a smack in the face after all I had given up, after I had risked my life to make sure he had one. And now he was fucking wasting it on those two psycho bitches. I didn’t give a fuck if I interrupted them as I stomped through the classroom to get to Chan’s office door.

  It made my blood boil even more that they were so caught up in their passion, they didn’t even notice my presence. I pounded on Chan’s door and even that didn’t cause any of them to flinch, let alone look in my direction. My power rose to the surface, the fury in me making it more difficult than ever to control it and not unleash everything I had on those assholes.

  Chan didn’t answer and I was wasting my time and anger standing there listening to the moans and giggles of those three idiots. I stomped to the door, shoving a desk out of my way as I passed them. The legs of the desk scratched across the stone floor followed by a loud thud, but still they didn’t give a fuck they had an audience.

  Just as I was about to leave I paused, hearing my name come from the prince’s lips. I spun around, ready to unleash all my anger on him when I realized his eyes were closed and his head thrown back, the look of pure pleasure on his face. His body quivered as Alayna hovered in front of him, ev
erything about his demeanor looking as if he had just blown a load.

  I watched as fury rolled through Alayna as she slapped him across the cheek, his head lolling to the side as he only giggled in response. “You asshole! I fucking shared my dust with you, and you have the nerve to not only not let me ride you, but call out Una’s name as you came? What the fuck?”

  I had to stifle a giggle that threatened to surface, even though my humor did nothing to lessen my anger. I rushed from the room, needing to find Chan now more than ever. First, I needed to find out if the dust thing was true. Second, I needed to make sure someone checked on the prince to make sure he was okay. Maybe the asshole deserved to die for taking the shit, but I couldn’t just walk away. I would never be able to live with myself if I did nothing, and he died as a result. Damn my fucking conscious, I thought as I rounded the corner.

  I slammed right into someone and glanced up as Professor Chan glowered down at me, “Watch where you’re going, and slow down, Miss Una.”

  “I’m sorry, Sir” I mumbled. “There’s a student in trouble in your classroom. It seems he had some pixie dust and is really messed up.”

  Chan nodded curtly and strode to his class without a backward glance. I didn’t stick around or follow him back to see what happened after that. I knew he would do what he could and anything that happened to the prince now was beyond my control. I had done what I could for him, even in his moment of stupidity. I was sure Chan would tell me what happened when we met up at the end of the day for “study time.”

  Instead, I turned and went looking for Jet and Beck. I missed Jet since he wasn’t around last night and I intended to show him just how much I missed him. I appreciated the time he gave me alone with Beck, but I needed him too. I tried to brush away my anger at everything I just witnessed, but the more I thought about it, the more it infuriated me.

  “Fuckers,” I complained to Jet after giving him a proper hello. “My friend is wasting away in the caves, suffering beyond belief and these assholes think it’s all fun and games to use her dust for their own fun!”