He lit up at the sight of his wife. She was radiant in silk, her red hair piled atop her head, her sea-colored eyes meeting his with warmth. The weight of the day, the troubles of the court, the chaos of war—all of it melted away the moment he saw her.
“Ariel, I’d like you to meet my friend?—”
A sharp sound rang out. The unmistakable rasp of steel being drawn from its sheath. Phillip's swordflashed in the sunlight. And he pointed it straight at Ariel.
Eric was on his feet instantly, but before he could even demand an explanation, Phillip's expression shifted. His grip on the sword loosened. His brows furrowed in deep confusion as he lowered the weapon.
“You are not Ariel.”
Eric didn’t think. Instinct roared through his blood, hot and undeniable. In a heartbeat, he was on his feet. He yanked his wife behind him, putting his body between her and the man who had been his friend for as long as he could remember. His sword was at his hip, but his hands clenched into fists, ready to tear through flesh if Phillip so much as twitched toward his wife.
“Explain yourself,” Eric demanded, his voice low and dangerous.
“Ariel used her siren song to attack me. She called the sea to destroy my kingdom. My castle lies in ruin. My people—my soldiers—dragged into the depths by her call. If we hadn’t sealed the gates when we did, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
"Ariel has been with me for days."
"I've already told you, this isn't Ariel. This is not the woman who attacked me."
What madness was this? It had to be the ravages of war that was turning the prince's brain addled. But why wasn't Ariel denying him?
Shock. That had to be it. She'd just had a blade raised to her throat in a place she'd thought safe. She'd come to him, thinking she was safe. And here, in his inner sanctum, she had nearly been assaulted.
Eric wanted to kiss the color back into her cheeks. He wanted to coax a sound from her throat by licking the column of her neck. But now wasn't the time for that. He needed answers from his ally before he made the man an enemy.
Phillip had lowered his sword, but Eric sensed the threat was still in the room with them. Phillip was wrong about Ariel, wrong about her aunt. Grief and anger had clouded his judgment.
Eric needed to reason this out. "Why would a sea princess attack your kingdom?"
“Because Ariel and Aurora are lovers,” Phillip responded.
That caught Eric up short and silenced him. He noticed that his siren still hadn't said a word. She wasn't denying any of this. He had been around her long enough to know that she always had something to say. That sharp wit, that unfiltered tongue—it was one of the first things that had made him fall for her.
Yet now she was silent.
And it wasn’t just silence—it was the look on her face.
She wasn’t shocked. She wasn’t indignant. She wasn’t even surprised.
A frenzied cry rang through the chamber, full of disbelief and fury. The sound hit like a thunderclap, loud and damning. Sebastian stood in the doorway, his claws curled into tight fists, his bulbous eyes wild with horror as they locked on to the woman at Eric’s back.
The crab took a shaking step forward, his voice rising. “Sea witch!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Ursula could hear the faint lapping of the tide beyond the castle walls, the distant caw of gulls circling over the cliffs. But inside the office chamber, nothing stirred—not a breath, not a whisper. Every pair of eyes—the crab's, the Forest King's, the Coastal chamberlain's—was on the man standing before her, the man who had vowed his life to hers only one day ago.
Eric did not speak. He turned slowly, his grip on her hand slackening. His face was unreadable. The hesitation in his eyes was enough to make her chest tighten with something dangerously close to fear.
Ursula tore her fingers from his grasp. This had been inevitable, hadn't it? Every man in her life let her down. Why should he be any different?
Squaring her shoulders, Ursula lifted her chin, letting her voice ring out with unwavering authority. “I am Queen Ursula. Wife of King Eric. A princess of seas and sovereign of this coastal land by right of marriage.”
Sebastian's bulbous eyes filled with outrage as he shuffled forward. “Queen? Ha! More like imposter! Liar! You tricked the prince into marriage, and now you seek to claim the throne!”
“I tricked no one. King Eric spoke his vows to me. Not to a name. Not to an illusion. To me.”
The weight of her own words settled over the room. They were true. Eric had not married her because he believed she was Ariel—at least not in the end. He had chosen her. Over and over again.
