Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ursula could taste victory on the tip of her tongue. Just a few more steps. Just a few more words spoken, and everything she had lost would be hers again.
Eric’s vows would seal it. His pledge, his name, his title—they would all become hers. She inhaled through her mouth, and then again through her gills, pulling the moisture out of the air, double savoring of victory.
She had outwitted her brother, slipped past his defenses like the tide creeping over land. She had won. She almost pumped her fist in triumph, ready to relish the moment—except something stopped her.
Something warm. Solid. Steady.
Eric was still holding her hand. Not just holding it with his palm pressed to hers. No, his fingers were entwined with hers, down to the webbing of her digits.
She would have expected his hands to be soft, the hands of a pampered prince who let others do the work. But they weren’t. There were calluses along his palms, rough edges along his fingertips—marks of a man who touched the world instead of merely ruling over it.
In the last few hours that she'd known the prince, he'd shown himself to be the kind of man who stepped forward instead of standing back. The kind of man who threw himself into the fire, into the water, into the battle—not for glory but because he couldn’t stand to let others burn.
A man who earned respect instead of demanding it.
He was likely going to get himself killed one day. Men like him—leaders who rushed into battle at the front instead of standing behind the grunts—always did.
He squeezed her fingers again, infusing his warmth into her.
Those hands could easily pick her up, carry her, cradle her while she rested.
The fool man would ensure her safety, not letting any harm come to her as he pressed her to his chest. She would have to make sure to hold him back, keep him in line when she commanded his army to attack her brother and the Sea Kingdom.
“You don’t have to do this.” His voice was a quiet rumble against her temple. “I’ll protect you from your father whether we’re married or not.”
Her father was long dead and returned to the seabed. Oh, right. Eric didn't mean her father. He meant Ariel's.
“My kingdom may not be as vast as the sea, but anything that is mine”—he brought their clasped hands to his chest, over his heart—“will be yours.”
No conditions. No obligations. Just a promise. Yes, this man definitely needed a woman like her in his life to protect him.
“Because I saved your life?” Ursula asked.
Eric's fingers traced her cheek and slid down to her jaw. When his thumb brushed over her lower lip, a shudder rolled through her. “Because you made my life worth living.”
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 the House 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?”
“I do,” Ursula said, the words rolling off her tongue like the touch of silk on her damp flesh. It tried to glide, but in some spots it clung.
The mage lifted her arms. The magic in the air thickened, wrapping around them in unseen threads, binding them together in ways that no paper contract, no royal decree, no crown could undo.
“Then speak your vows.”
Eric turned to her, his dark eyes full and eager. “I vow to walk beside you. Where you lead, I will follow. Where you stand, I will stand. I vow to protect you. I vow to see you and to know you as I know myself because from this day, we are one.”
Ursula licked her lips, and for once, she didn’t craft a lie, didn’t shape her words to deceive. “I vow to walk beside you. Where you lead, I will follow. Where you stand, I will stand. I vow to protect you. I vow to see you and to know you as I know myself because from this day, we are one.”
The mage placed her hands over theirs. “Then by the laws of the land, the tides, the sky, and all who bear witness this day, you are bound. You may seal your vows with a kiss.”