No Prey, No Pay

Chapter 2

Slowly the sun died behind the horizon, sweetly sinking into the infinity of the ocean to get it well earned rest.

Anyone of the crew retired in their quarters, sleeping tight in their hammocks and rocking from time to time when a slightly bigger wave hit the side of the boat.

The deck was empty, aside the heaving figure of the Prince still tied up to the mainmast: his hair was vaporous, frizzy around his face, his mouth open while he was taking deep, ragged breaths through the fabric still on his tongue, his eyes half closed in the trance of his suffocation.

His gills were closed shut, twitching every time he inhaled the air around him.

Aoi could feel his tail starting to feel numb, his scales dry and flaky, all his little fins drooping and the bigger fin at the end was starting to look pale.

One of the hubs took away the harpoon from it, leaving only a gaping hole in his white flash, blood oozing out of the wound thick and slow.

Lazy thoughts passed his mind in that moment: he could almost feel the salt of the ocean, he remembered the days passed playing with his best friends in the kindergarten, the soft sensation of laying on a meadow of seaweed, talking and making jokes with maids and butlers of his home.

All those memories flashed in his eyes because his mind was starting to shut down, without oxygen.

Aoi's tail quivered, spasming while his last strength tried to wake him up, to make him move "you learned your lesson, Prince?" a softer voice came out of his field of view and a couple of fingers reached for the rag to pull it out of his mouth.

Suddenly, a bucket of sea water splashed on him and in the matter of a minute, his body reactivated with a gasp, gills wide open to regain all the breath he could not take before.

Aoi coughed violently, curling himself again before raising his head, resting his nape against the wood pole: right in front of him, with still the bucket in his hand, Reita was looking at him with a strange look.

He was still wearing that silly mask of his, but Aoi could see his eyes shine and his flushed skin.

His jacked was no more on his shoulders and the first three buttons of his wine shirt were undone "y-you...felt guilty, pirate?" whispered Aoi, still growling and fierce in his mind, but his body was everything but threatening.

Reita chuckled softly, before kneeling down again to look directly in Aoi's face "we leave guilt at the port, Prince" the blond exhaled and Aoi sniffed a strange, sweet and harsh scent coming with his breath.

A loud thud came from their side and Aoi flinched without even knowing, looking at the bucket roll away from them "and unluckly, we leave also women at the port...for weeks, for months" his voice was smooth and less dangerous, almost...caring?

Aoi lifted an eyebrow looking into his dark marbles while feeling both his hands caressing his body from his sides up, touching his gills, his chest, his neck.

There, Reita grabbed his throat and moved him slowly towards himself, grinning "and you know, Prince...you have really the face of a pretty gal, under the moonlight" he spoke tilting his own head.

Aoi could feel Reita's gaze on the cheekbones, on the bridge of the nose, down along it until those dark irises sank on his lips, watching them with a strange look.

With a deep hunger.

Reita then moved quickly and while he was still pressing his fingers around the merman's neck, his thin but voracious lips crashed against Aoi's mouth, taking the bottom lip between the teeth.