Ariel’s Possessive Prince (Filthy Fairy-tales #9)

Chapter 1 Ariel

Ariel

Elder Madeline’s voice threads through the water like a ribbon of bubbles. “And one day a giant star fell from the sky, and where it crashed, a crater formed. When the rains came, it filled with water, and from the life that clung to the dead star, our people were born.”

The merchildren ooh and ahh, blowing perfect rings that drift toward the vaulted kelp canopy.

I smile as I glide past, red hair streaming, fingers skimming a school of silver minnows that scatter like gossiping aunties. Same story, same ending. We’re the children of a stubborn star and a very dramatic splash.

Sunlight spears down in liquid columns near the boundary wall, painting everything in stained-glass stripes. The edge of Father’s kingdom—of my known world—glitters like diamonds. I angle my body toward it, tail flicking, pulse matching the soft thump of the lake’s heart.

“Ariel!”

The water shivers around my name. That voice could make Leviathans sit up straight. I stop mid-flick and turn, chin up, because I am definitely not one of those Leviathans.

“Father! I’m busy today.” I fold my arms across my chest. Sure, my tail sways like it does when I’m nervous, but he doesn’t need to know that.

The Lake King drifts toward me with all the disappointed gravitas of a thousand barnacled thrones. His white eyebrows meet in the middle. “Your absence has been noted far too many times.” He tips his head toward the town center. “Community meeting.”

I sigh, the long-suffering kind that says, Fine, I’ll pause my destiny for bureaucracy. “Coming,” I mutter, and follow.

Our plaza is a cathedral of swaying plants—purple fronds with buttery yellow blossoms that wave as if we’re the parade and it’s a holiday. Father settles onto the carved shell throne and gestures for me to hover close.

“You haven’t patrolled in weeks,” he says, voice low. “You’ll go today. You’ll pair with—”

“Not Salina,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “Please tell me not Salina.”

“—Salina.” His mouth twitches. “And if you skip it, the council will punish you. I won’t be able to stop it. In fact, I’ll double it.”

I blink. He never uses his king-voice on me. My throat goes hot and tight, and I duck my head so he won’t see it. Around us, mermaids gather in twos and threes, chattering about oyster allotments and merman prospects and whose mother makes the best seaweed dumplings.

None of that interests me. Patrol doesn’t either. Our laws say humans are dangerous and curious in equal measure. My people say we must keep them away. They hate humans.

I… don’t.

“I wish a human would come down here,” Salina purrs at my shoulder. Of course, she’s suddenly there. “I’d tear his gross legs off with my teeth.”

“Good morning to you too,” I say sweetly. “Shall we?”

Salina’s eyes glitter poisonous green. Her long, thin blue tail slashes the water. Salina doesn’t do half-measures. She’s a sharp blade with a single purpose, pleased with her own shine.

We slip past the village, past homes woven from kelp and driftwood, past the coral arch where couples tie their promise knots, and into the open lanes where the plants grow taller and the light turns to honey.

Salina talks and talks about how she’d love to “prank” the next boat that dares skitter across our sky.

I stop listening. Patrol is good for one thing, and it’s not listening to Salina fantasize about human carnage. It’s treasure.

Our rules tell us to destroy the human trash. My heart says… but what if it’s beautiful?

Between the fronds, something gleams. I dive, shoulder-first, and find a glass cylinder no taller than my palm. Inside, flecks of gold are suspended in a clear liquid, turning lazily like captured sparks.

“Oh,” I whisper, delighted despite myself.

I tuck it into my messy bun and scan for Salina.

All clear. My rock formation waits ahead like a secret mouth in the stone.

Inside, my “trash” is safe—a tiny box that hums when you press the right edge, a string of plastic pearls so cheap they’re perfect, and a scratched mirror that still loves my face.

Another cylinder lies half-buried by the entrance—deep green glass with a label in bold purple bearing an ugly skull. I wrinkle my nose at the skull but adore the color and reach—

“What are you doing, Ariel?” Salina’s voice slices the water. She zips up behind me, suspicion coiling around each word. “Were you about to touch that human trash?”

“For goodness’ sake.” I flick two fingers, and—yes, fine—use a quick burst of magic to pop the green bottle out of sight. It hurts my heart a little to do it. “I was avoiding the new trash falling from above. Look.”

We both glance up as a shadow drifts across the sun. Brown cylinders tumble down—silver and blue labels flashing like fish scales.

“I’ll take care of those awful creatures,” Salina says, delighted.

She gathers the cans with a sweep of her hands and flings them back toward the surface. I hear a faint thwack and a human yelp.

Salina giggles. “I think I hit one in the face.”

I roll my eyes, adjusting the gold-flecked cylinder in my bun. “We should live in harmony with the humans, not hurt them.”

Her head snaps around. “We should live in what with the humans?”

“Nothing,” I say brightly. “Nice shot.”

She narrows her eyes but lets it go. Miracles do happen underwater.

On our way back, I spot Grandmother drifting near the plaza. She always looks like a long story I want to sit in. I slip to her side.

“Glum?” she asks softly, as if we’re discussing the weather at a very dignified tea. “Patrol again?”

“Apparently forever,” I murmur. “I just think… couldn’t we use our power for something more than scaring people who don’t even know we exist?”

Grandmother’s mouth softens. “You sound like your mother, Gods rest her soul.”

Hearing her mention my mother always triggers a brief pang of loss in my heart.

I barely remember the gentle, flame-haired woman who sang me to sleep with sweet lullabies.

I only know that she died as a result of what the elders called human carelessness and that my father blames them and misses her to this very day.

They never told me details when I was little, only that she ventured too close to the surface and was caught in a storm she couldn’t outswim.

But as I grew older, the whispers filled in the rest.

Oil on the water. A chemical slick that burned through the shoals. The current carried it for miles before it found her. They said it wasn’t anyone’s fault, that the humans didn’t mean to poison the lake, that it was “just the way of their world.”

But I’ve seen the wreckage since, the broken bottles and plastic nets, the shimmer of gasoline rainbows that choke the sunlight. Every time the surface ripples with that unnatural sheen, I see her face again in my mind, fading beneath it.

Grandmother watches the storm gather behind my eyes and sighs. “Your mother wanted peace between our kind and theirs. She believed we could teach them. But her heart was too open. It cost her.”

I nod, though a part of me still wonders if peace is possible. “Maybe she wasn’t wrong,” I whisper. “Maybe it just wasn’t the right time.”

“Keeping them away keeps us safe,” Grandmother insists. “They’re dangerous, little starfish, no matter how charming their smiles.”

“I’ve never seen one up close,” I lie. “How scary can a smile be?”

She gives me a look that says she’s lived long enough to know. Then she pats my cheek and floats off to rescue another mermaid from Salina, who’s cornered her with a barrage of truly upsetting gossip. The mermaid’s expression suggests she’d rather be eaten by a carp.

Duty: done. Sanity: fraying. Which means it’s time for the cure. I slip away, away through corridors of waving grass and past the gentle hum of the vents where warm water rises until the lake grows shallower, the water sweeter, the light like poured milk.

I shouldn’t be here. It’s very near the line where “Ariel, you’re reckless” becomes “Ariel, you’re banished.” But the world here tastes like new adventures, and I’m weak.

I hover in the reeds and wait.

The purr of an engine arrives before the boat does: a low thrum, different from the big, snarling motors that chew up the shallows and spit oil like insults.

This one is almost… respectful. I lift my head above the surface for a breath and catch a flash of white hull, ropes coiled neatly, gleaming instruments I haven’t learned the names for.

I lift my head above the surface and glimpse him as he cuts the engine and drifts: broad shoulders framed against the darkening sky, hands steady on the controls.

He’s tall in that way humans sometimes are—long lines, long reach, built like he could plant his feet on the deck and hold a whole storm in place out of sheer stubbornness.

Big, too, not soft-big but solid-big, like he’s been carved with the intention of being leaned on.

Dark hair, wind-ruffled and damp at the edges, curls over the back of his neck and falls across his brow in a way that would annoy a lesser creature.

He just shoves it back, distracted, like he genuinely forgot he’s beautiful.

And his eyes—when he glances down at the readout of one of his instruments and the light hits just right—I see the green.

Not flat green. Lake green. Forest-after-rain green.

Green with gold caught in it like sunlight on shallow water.

And he’s careful, my human. Never tosses his trash.

He coaxes samples of water into containers and lowers quiet contraptions on elegant lines.

He has a way of frowning at the lake that says he loves it and is terrified for it at the same time.

It makes my chest tight and fizzy, which I’m told is how love works in romance stories and indigestion in the bad ones.

Last time he came, he used a scooping device that scraped the lakebed.

I tucked an oyster into it—a plump one I knew held a black pearl—because gifts for the surface are the only way I know to say thank you for being gentle.

When he pried it open and smiled, my heart…

ugh. I floated upside down for a full minute. Embarrassing.

Today, clouds are muscling in from the west, stacking into dark towers that prick the skin with static. A rush of cold water slips through the shallows. The hairs on my arms lift. Thunder rolls across the lake like a giant turning over in his sleep.

“Don’t,” I whisper to the boat. To the man. To myself. “Not today.”

I sink back under and braid a strand of eelgrass through my fingers to keep them from fidgeting. But the boat turns, anchoring in its usual spot. He’s here. Of course he is.

He lowers his devices. He measures. Writes things on a board with quick, neat strokes.

I shouldn’t be here, and I definitely shouldn’t tilt my face up through the green light to catch how the sun breaks over his cheekbones, but I do.

Curiosity might not kill cats underwater, but it can certainly get mermaids exiled.

The wind rakes fingers along the surface, and the boat rocks. Lines snap taut. He moves to secure the sail—fast and competent—until the boom lashes wild in a sudden gust and cracks him hard across the head. He stumbles.

My stomach drops into the silt as he falls overboard.

For half a heartbeat, I freeze. The rules, the warnings, Grandmother’s kind eyes telling me not all smiles are safe. Water swallows the sound of the storm. The lake opens its arms. My body chooses before my mind does.

I kick hard. The water parts as if it loves me. I slice through the dark toward him, toward the bright thread that is his life in the water, and the line I’m about to cross with no way back.

Next time you tell yourself not to do something wildly reckless—listen.

Another crack of thunder. Another roll of wind. I move faster.

And hope, foolishly and ferociously, that the star that made us is still on my side.