Ursula stopped breathing. She had two ways to pull oxygen into her lungs. Both failed her.
“I want to spend my life with you. But I’ll never force you to do something you don’t want to do.”
“You are forcing me to do something.” She tipped her face up to his, watching as his pupils dilated. Dragging her hands up his chest, she felt the rapid thrum of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips. “You’re forcing me to wait longer than necessary to claim my husband.”
His sharp inhale, the way his grip on her waist tightened,sent a thrill curling down her spine. "I'm yours to command, my siren."
Ursula didn't care to tell him what to do. She was far more interested in watching what he came up with. Because everything he'd done since she'd pulled him out of the sea had been aimed at her. It was the best foreplay of her life.
The air inside the temple was thick with incense and the sharp scent of sea salt, the kind that lingered on the skin, in the hair, long after one had left the water. Candles flickered in the carved alcoves of the stone walls, casting shadows that danced like rippling waves. At the center of it all stood the mage. Her hair was as white as sea foam, long and straight. Her face was unlined, timeless, as if she had stepped through the ages without them touching her. She regarded them with steady, piercing eyes—the color of pearls beneath the moonlight.
Ursula had met enough mages in her time to know that the most powerful ones never showed their true age. Still, she lifted her chin and held the woman’s gaze, daring her to question why she, the long-lost princess of the sea, was standing beside the Coastal prince, hand in hand.
“We want to be married today,” Eric announced.
The mage’s lips twitched. “The wedding was set for next tide.”
“That will be the state ceremony, for the court, for politics, for treaties and kingdoms. But this…” Eric's thumb stroked absently over the back of Ursula’s hand. “This will be just for us.”
The mage tilted her head, considering them both. “Why so eager, Your Highness?”
“Blame my racing heart,” Eric said with a charming grin that Ursula had no doubt got him his way without his crown.
The mage’s gaze flicked to Ursula. For a single, tense-filled moment, it felt as though the ageless woman saw everything.
The truth.
The deception.
The game Ursula was playing.
The mage inhaled slowly, drawing in the air like she was listening to something beyond their ears. “Perhaps your heart is racing because it hears a lulling song.”
Ursula went still. Her pulse slammed against her ribs, her stomach twisting into a cold knot.She knows. She knows, she knows, she knows?—
“You are not the expected tune,” the mage mused, her fingers curling as if plucking invisible threads of fate. “But I think the two of you together will make a great song for all peoples.”
Beside Ursula, Eric smiled, looking as if he could hear the music the mage predicted they would make.The mage reached forward, taking their joined hands, her grip cool but steady. And as the ritual began, Ursula thought of all the things she would gain from this union: her throne, her vengeance, her rightful place in the sea.
As the mage spoke the first words of binding, Eric’s grip on her hand tightened. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t possessive.
No, that wasn’t quite true. There was a claim in it—a quiet, steady assertion that she belonged to him. What startled Ursula was how little she minded the claim.
The mage’s voice echoed through the temple. It was laced with an ancient magic that hummed in the air like a melody woven through time. The glow of candlelight flickered against the carved stone walls, illuminating the symbols of land, sea, and sky—a reminder that this world was vast, made of more than just one kingdom, one people, one way of being.
“We gather here beneath sky and stone, before the watchful eyes of those who came before us to weave together two fates, two lives, two souls—so that from this day forward, no tide nor storm, no claw nor blade, no force of nature nor magic nor time itself shall pull them apart.”
There was power in vows. Power greater than gems or spells or even the rule of kings.
“Prince Eric of the Western Shores, son of theHouse of Tiberian, heir to the throne of men—do you stand before us freely? Willingly? With a heart unburdened and a soul unchained?”
“I do.”
“Ariel of?—"
"No," Ursula insisted. "Call me by my true name: Siren."
"Siren of the Abyssal Depths, daughter of the Sea King’s bloodline, heir to the tides—do you stand before us freely? Willingly? With a heart unburdened and a soul unchained?”
