Prologue

The day Ariel lost her voice wasn’t the day she stopped screaming.

They dragged her onto the sand like a corpse.

Legs that hadn’t existed an hour ago trembled beneath her. Her throat was raw from the pain of transformation, but no sound came. No gasp. No cry.

No song.

The world blurred—sky too bright, ocean too far, body too wrong. Her skin was sunburnt already. Her knees bled. She was naked, voiceless, and dying from a dream she was foolish enough to believe in.

And he didn’t even look at her.

Prince Eric rushed past her to the girl with dark curls and a honey-warm voice—the one who’d washed ashore just minutes later, wearing Ariel’s song like a stolen crown.

Vanessa.

A lie in human form.

Ursula.

Ariel opened her mouth to scream the truth, to warn him, to beg—

Nothing.

No voice. No power. No choice.

Just the sound of waves crashing behind her and the cold twist of betrayal curling up her spine like a hook.

She’d traded everything for love.

And now love stood twenty feet away, smiling at the woman who wore her voice.

Ariel closed her eyes and let the sea retreat from her body. It didn’t belong to her anymore. She had no kingdom left.

Just the taste of salt, the ache of defeat, and the quiet promise that one day—

She would take it all back.

Chapter One

Three Months Later

They kept her in the lower chambers now.

No windows. No mirrors. Just stone walls soaked in seawater and spells.

She was barefoot and bruised, hands rough with ash and grime. Her duties ranged from scrubbing the ballroom floors Vanessa danced across to polishing the throne Eric once sat on, smiling with a hand around his queen’s waist.

He’d stopped smiling lately.

Not that it mattered. Not to Ariel.

The ache she once had for him had curdled. Hardened. Died.

She didn’t want his kiss anymore.

She wanted his blood.

Footsteps echoed above her—high heels clicking across marble, laughter following like perfume. Vanessa. Always Vanessa.

Ariel didn’t need to look. She could feel her.

Like a splinter under the skin. Rotting. Festering.

The door to the chamber creaked open.

Vanessa filled the doorway in a gown the color of crushed velvet, her lips painted with something redder than wine.

“You missed a spot,” she said sweetly, pointing to a smear of dust near the stairs.

Ariel kept her eyes down. She’d learned that lesson early.

First week in the castle, she’d glared. Vanessa had pressed her hand to Ariel’s throat until her vision blurred and said, “You look at me like that again, and I’ll take your eyes too.”

But that didn’t mean she obeyed.

Not really.

Not where it mattered.

Not in her mind, where she still drowned Vanessa in every nightmare. Still set fire to every room she entered. Still kissed her just to bite down.

Because that was the worst part—

She hated her.

And she wanted her.

Vanessa stepped closer, heels clicking against the stone.

“I wonder,” she said, crouching low, her fingers dragging through Ariel’s hair. “If I gave you your voice back, would you scream? Or moan?”

Ariel didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

Her silence wasn’t power. Not yet.

But it would be.

Vanessa leaned in, mouth brushing Ariel’s ear. “You know the funny thing about winning?” she whispered. “Eventually, it gets boring.”

Then she stood. “Come upstairs. My bath needs drawing.”

Ariel rose, body sore but obedient.

That’s what they saw: a quiet, broken girl with seawater in her blood and nothing left to give.

But inside?

She was screaming.

And one day soon, the world would hear her again.

Only this time—

She wouldn’t be singing.

She’d be hunting.

Chapter Two

She used to miss the sea.

The weightless quiet. The hum of old gods in the deep. The way screams traveled slower underwater, like they had time to think before they reached you.

But now—

She missed her more.

The version of Ariel before the chains, before the collar. Wild and stupid and reckless with her love.

The girl who looked at her with fire, not fear.

Now Ariel scrubbed floors like a dog and refused to meet her eyes.

It should have satisfied her.

It didn’t.

Vanessa sat in the bath Ariel had drawn—warm, rose-scented, soft with goat milk and crushed herbs. She should’ve been relaxed. Pleased.

Instead, her eyes tracked the girl kneeling beside the tub, rinsing her arms with careful hands and not once meeting her gaze.

Good.

Obedience was necessary.

But still—

Still—

“Do you remember,” she asked lightly, “the first time you saw me in this skin?”

Ariel didn’t answer.

Of course not.

But Vanessa remembered everything.

The moment she rose from the surf wearing her voice. Wearing her dream. Every inch of Ariel’s world stolen and sewn onto her like silk.

And he fell for it.

Because men always fell for the right dress and the wrong woman.

She hadn’t even needed the spell in the end. Eric would’ve married her just for the voice, the pretty lies, the way she never argued.

But Ursula—Vanessa—had wanted to win.

So she’d gutted the girl’s hope and paraded the corpse through the castle.

Now Ariel was nothing more than a shadow in her own story.

Except she wasn’t.

Because lately—

Lately—

She was changing.

Vanessa watched her fingers. Precise. Steady. Controlled.

Too controlled.

She remembered when Ariel used to tremble under her touch. Not anymore.

She remembered when she flinched. When she cried.

Now she stared at the floor like she was studying it. Waiting. Calculating.

Like something sharp was waking up behind those quiet eyes.

Vanessa smiled.

Finally.

“You hate me,” she said softly.

Ariel stilled.

“I can smell it on you,” she continued, dragging her wet hand along Ariel’s jaw. “The way your pulse jumps. The way you breathe when I’m close. You hate me, and you still kneel.”

Ariel blinked, lashes wet with steam.

Vanessa leaned in.

“And I wonder,” she whispered, “how long you’ll keep pretending you don’t want to kill me.”

She watched the girl’s jaw twitch.

There it was.

The spark.

The bite.

Vanessa gripped her chin and lifted her face until their eyes met—finally, finally—and what she saw made her blood sing.

Not innocence.

Not fear.

But rage.

And something deeper.

“You’ll snap soon,” Vanessa said with delight. “And gods, I can’t wait to watch you try.”

She released her.

“You may go.”

Ariel stood.

For a moment, she didn’t move.

Then she turned, soaking in silence, and disappeared into the hallway.

Vanessa slid beneath the water, grinning like a wolf.

Let her gather her weapons.

Let her think rebellion tastes like freedom.

It didn’t.

It tasted like teeth and blood and salt—and Ursula had never stopped being hungry.