He was giving her the sea. She tried to summon a smirk, something teasing, something to brush away the unexpected warmth in her throat. “You’re trying to keep me from leaving.”
“I'm trying to keep you safe. I want you to have everything you need. But I’m not trying to hold you hostage, siren.” He reached for her, tucking a strand of her red hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering along her jaw. “This is your home now. I want it to feel like it.”
This man. The people, the palace, the crown, the war—damn it all. She only wanted him. She would lie, cheat, and steal to keep him. And if the world tried to take him from her—she would drown it.
Ursula stepped back. Her hands went to the lacings of her gown. She undid them with a slow, deliberate pull.
Eric’s hands tensed at his sides, as if resisting the urge to reach for her. The silk slipped from her shoulders and pooled at her feet, leaving her bare under the dim candlelight. His gaze dragged over her, darkening with heat, with the same raw, unguarded need she had seen in his eyes the night before.
She stepped into the water, sighing as the warmth enveloped her nudity. The salinity was perfectly balanced. Her legs tingled, prickling with energy, with magic, and then—with a shift, a ripple, a shimmer of scales—her fin unfurled beneath her.
Ursula stretched, arching into the pleasure of being back in her natural state, letting herself float for a moment, weightless, free. Then she reached a hand toward her husband.
“Join me.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Eric stood at the edge of the basin. He watched in rapt fascination as his wife—his siren—slipped beneath the surface. She was bare save for the sapphire gem resting between her breasts. The candlelight flickered against the water, casting shifting, golden ripples over her shoulders, the slope of her back, the long lines of her legs. In the space of a single heartbeat, those legs were gone. Her skin shimmered, her magic rippling outward like a pulse, her thighs fusing, lengthening into something exquisite.
Her tail emerged, iridescent and gleaming beneath the water, deep violet and edged in silver. Her scales caught the candlelight like stardust. The delicate ridges along her fin flared, stretching as if breathing for the first time.
Gods, she was beautiful.
He swallowed hard, the sharp ache of longing punching through his chest. His fingers itched to touch, to trace every shimmering scale, to learn her in this form as intimately as he had in the other.
She turned then, her eyes catching his. Her lips curled at the edges, a teasing, smug smirk. His siren knew exactly what she was doing to him.
Eric had spent the day tending to his kingdom, seeing to his people, listening to their demands, easing their burdens. It had been his duty since the moment he had been old enough to understand what it meant to rule. Since before his mother had passed and his father had abandoned the crown to his vices. For years, his mind had been focused on the crown, day and night. Today, Eric's thoughts had been elsewhere.
They'd been on her. On tending to his wife. On seeing to her needs. Those thoughts had quickly become his greatest joy, his reason for being.
Of course, he had prepared her this saltwater bath. Of course, he had ensured the temperature was perfect, measuring the salinity with painstaking care. Of course, he had arranged for the raw fish and seaweed she preferred, despite the strange looks from the palace kitchen staff. And of course, when she lifted a delicate, webbed hand from the water, her fingers beckoning,her voice a velvet whisper—"Join me"—he obeyed immediately.
His clothes hit the floor in a careless heap as he stepped forward. The heat of the bath licked up his skin as he slid in behind her. He wrapped the whole of himself around her, mimicking how she had wrapped him around her pinky finger.
His siren let out a small, satisfied sigh, leaning back against his chest. Her spine aligned with his as she gave him her upper body weight. Her scales brushed his thighs where her tail curled against his erection. The sensation was unlike anything he'd ever felt—like water running over polished stone, smooth in one direction, catching slightly in the other. It was a delicate rasp, like the whisper of sand beneath the tide or the fine edge of a pearl-grit blade. Some places were soft and silken, others subtly ridged.
He loved the sensation—loved the contradiction of it. She was velvet wrapped in armor, danger cloaked in allure. Her scales clung and shifted with her smallest movements, sending tiny, electric thrills across his skin. And gods help him, but he wanted to feel every inch of her.
He pressed a kiss to the curve of her shoulder, trailing his lips along the damp skin of her throat. Though she'd been in interior rooms filled with cloyingperfumes, she smelled of the sea—salt and warmth, brine and something sweet.
He reached for the bowl of crushed sea salts resting at the basin’s edge and dipped his fingers in, rubbing the rough grains between his palms. Then he began to work them into her back, massaging slow, deliberate circles over taut muscle, over the knots in her shoulders, down the elegant line of her spine. His siren melted beneath his touch, her head lolling to the side, a soft sound escaping her lips—half sigh, half purr.
“More?” he asked against her ear.
Her response was a slow, languid stretch, her tail curling around his legs beneath the water, the fin brushing over his calf.
Eric was tired, exhausted from the day’s responsibilities, but caring for her, tending to her, touching her, loving her—it energized him, made him feel more alive than he ever had before. He reached for the small pitcher beside the bath and poured warm saltwater over her hair, running his fingers through the heavy, silken strands, untangling them with gentle strokes. Her breathing slowed, deep and even, utterly relaxed.
He kissed the back of her neck again. “You’re falling asleep on me.”
"No, I'm treasuring every second I have with you."
The warm water lapped gently around them. Eric ran his fingers through her thick red hair, rubbingcrushed sea salts into her scalp, massaging the tension from her body. Every time she exhaled, he felt the slight ripple of magic in the water.
“I’m keeping secrets from you.”
Eric's hands stilled at her words. His heart kicked up, not in fear, but in anticipation. He had suspected as much. He wasn’t a fool—his wife was a strategist, a woman who played the long game, who thought ten steps ahead. It was one of the things that fascinated him about her.
