The Spring Prince
Getting lost in the woods seemed very like us. I loved my friends—they were brothers, really—but hanging out in city parks did not make us outdoorsmen. Even Wally, the outdoorsy-est of us, looked like he wasn’t sure which planet we were on anymore.
“I blame you.” I pointed a finger at Milo.
He groaned and flapped his arms. I was pretty sure he was trying to create a breeze up under his kilt without any of us noticing. Dumbass was probably chafing his balls off.
“You followed him,” Wally said to me.
“And you followed me.”
“And I followed you,” Zalman said before tweaking Wally’s nipple.
Wally flinched—we all knew he was sensitive there—and Zalman grinned like the devil when Wally actually growled at him.
The two of them were seconds away from a fight and, even know it was practically their love language, I really wasn’t in the mood to referee.
“Alright!” Milo hollered, making me flinch. “You’re hungry, tired, and cranky. I get it. Me, too. So how about we look for a place to sit down, have a snack, and enjoy where we are for a while?”
“Okay, Sergeant Milo,” Wally said with a roll of his eyes.
Milo puffed up a little. “That’s Captain Milo, thank you very much.”
I didn’t need to be told to get the snacks out more than once.
Shrugging out of my backpack, I set it on the ground and dug out the trail mix I’d made.
I’d put something each of them would like in it, hoping nobody would bitch about it being too healthy.
Dark chocolate for Zalman, macadamia nuts for Milo, and dried cranberries for Wally—I’d even toasted the oats and pumpkin seeds. But first…
“Drink your water,” I told them for the hundredth time.
We were all sweating—well, except Zalman, who might be part dessert lizard—and they were shit at remembering to hydrate.
I hadn’t gone from the fat kid in freshman year of high school to the healthy and built guy I was now without learning how to take care of myself.
I stared them each down until they took a drink from their water bottles.
This kind of thing happened every year. Our first outing would usually go horribly wrong in some ridiculous way, and then we’d spend the rest of our vacation doing the touristy things that were safe and itemized while also poking at whoever screwed up until we flew home.
So, this time, we would be making fun of Milo for getting us lost in the woods.
“Huh,” Zalman said, “this looks suspiciously like a fairy ring.”
I looked over, seeing rectangular rocks that were too thick to be paving stones arranged in a circle that was maybe six feet wide. Growing out of the spaces between the rocks were pretty little wildflowers in purple and white. I got out my phone to take a photo.
Milo chuckled. “I wish.”
I made to frame the shot, but Milo stepped in front of me and into the circle. He threw his arms up and hollered in alarm. I dropped my phone and lunged for him, but he was…gone.
At first, I stood there staring, just dumbfounded. Where was he? He’d slipped on something. He’d been falling. There wasn’t anywhere for him to—
The edge. The edge of the path was right there. Had Milo gone over?
I rushed closer, stepping over the rocks.
“No!” Zalman said and grabbed at my arm.
Now I fell, dropping down to splash into warm water. I went under, the water closing over my head. I didn’t know how it had happened. Why it had. There hadn’t been any water inside the ring of rocks.
And I couldn’t swim!
I clawed at the water, kicking my feet. I had to go up. I had to get air!
Suddenly, it felt like something wrapped around my middle and hauled me up.
Like a giant hand squeezing me, the thing pulled me up until I could gasp a breath.
It pressed me against…the side of a pool?
I was clinging to a rounded ledge of cream-colored stone and blinking up at a naked guy squatting in front of me.
He had blue hair and butterfly wings on. And he was naked. His pubes were blue.
The fuck was happening?
“Are you okay?” he asked, bright blue eyes wide.
I nodded. Technically, I hadn’t drowned, so I was okay. But where the hell was I and who was he? What came out of my mouth was, “I was hiking. Did I fall down the mountain?”
His blue eyebrows hopped up. “Mountains? Those are miles away from here. You fell right through the ceiling and into my pool.”
I looked up since he was pointing. Shouldn’t there be a hole? Shouldn’t I have injuries? But the ceiling was beautiful tile work depicting a sunny day with flowers, butterflies, and bees. So I had just magically passed through a ceiling without breaking anything or hurting… Magically…
“Where am I?” I asked on a whisper.
“My pool.”
I shook my head. “But where?”
“The palace of the Spring Court?” He cocked his head at me, frowning. “Are you a spellworker? Did you manage to open a ring?”
I stared at him. Not even at his dick, which was right there practically at eye level, but at his pointed ears and his wings. He thought I could be magical. Zalman had said fairy ring. Fairy’s had courts.
“I went through a fairy ring? There’s no way!”
I pushed myself up and out of the pool, and he scrambled backward out of my way.
He was so small I could’ve picked him up and swung him around like the cheerleaders back in high school.
All of a sudden, he gave a squawk like a bird and spun around only to slip on the water I was making puddle all around us.
I made to grab him, stop his fall, but his wings fluttered and kept him from hitting the ground.
They also propelled him forward until his feet caught up, and then he was jogging over to a cluster of lounge chairs.
“I’m so sorry,” he said as he snatched up a wad of blue and green cloth. “I swim in the nude because no one ever comes down here, so why not? You know? But I’m sorry I was in your face like that and— Oh, my gosh, how embarrassing…”
“I mean, it’s fine. Of all the things to freak out about at the moment, a little nakedness isn’t one of them.”
He barked a laugh like maybe he agreed with me as he held the cloth to his chest and swung two strips of it over his shoulders.
Using his chin, he held the cloth up while he reached down to whip a longer part of the bottom half of the cloth around his waist. That part caught the strips, he did something to secure that long bit at his waist, and he’d basically made a dress that left his wings uncovered.
And I’d thought watching Milo get into his kilt this morning had been a crazy amount of effort.
“Milo!” I hollered and looked around. But it was just me and the butterfly guy. “Did someone else fall in earlier? He disappeared just before I stepped over the rocks. And Zalman? I swear he grabbed my arm.”
“No, no one else came through the ceiling.” He padded back to me. “Just you.”
I scrubbed the water from my hair and wiped down my face. “This is insane. Absolutely insane.”
“I don’t understand either, but I have some people we can talk to about it.” He gave me a patient little smile. “What’s your name?”
“Bridge Flint.”
“I’m Prince Hydris.”
“You’re a— Well, okay.” I gave him a bow. Sort of.
Hydris giggled. “Come on, Bridge. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
He started walking away, but I had to say something. “Uh, what about the wet?”
“Oh!” he said when I plucked at my sopping t-shirt. “Yes, of course.”
He held his hand out to me, and for a second I thought maybe I was supposed to go hold it, but then it felt like a vacuum was all around me.
There was no noise, but a definite sucking sensation as the water on me just…
got off me. It literally coalesced into a ball between us, getting bigger and bigger until I was actually totally dry from my hair to the toes of my hiking boots.
He even managed to get the water from my underwear and socks.
“Holy shit. You grabbed me out of the water, didn’t you? You can manipulate water.”
Hydris gave the water ball a push and sent it splashing into the pool. He blushed and shrugged. “Yeah, I did. I’m sorry if I squeezed, though. I was startled and you were struggling so I wanted to be fast.”
“No, that was fine. You did great.” I touched a hand to my heart on top of my bone dry t-shirt. “Thank you. Really.”
His blush got brighter. “You’re welcome.”