1. The Ending I Hated

“Lady Elena, please wake up.”

Nora opened her eyes to find a stranger standing beside her bed.

For a few seconds, she  just stared at the woman, still too sleepy to make sense of anything. Then she noticed the canopy above her, the  silk sheets covering her body. The crystal chandelier hung from a ceiling carved in gold.

Nora sat up so quickly her head started spinning.

“Where am I?”

The servant blinked at her. “In your chambers, my lady.”

“My chambers?”

Her eyes moved slowly around the room. There was a marble fireplace, a wardrobe filled with gowns, and a dressing table covered in so much jewelry it could have paid her rent for a whole year.

But none of it belonged to her.

Nora pushed the covers away and jumped out of bed, almost tripping on her way to the mirror.

The woman staring back at her had long black hair, pale skin, and sharp green eyes. She was beautiful. There was no doubt about that.

But she wasn’t Nora.

Slowly, Nora raised a hand to her cheek, and the woman in the mirror did the same.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

Even her voice sounded different. It was deeper and smoother than her own, the kind of voice that belonged to someone used to giving orders.

“Lady Elena?” The servant took a slow step closer, looking unsure. “Should I get the physician?”

Elena.

Nora froze.

She knew that name. She knew those green eyes, that black hair, and the mean, bossy way Elena treated everyone. She even knew this room, although she had only ever pictured it in her head, back when she read the part of the book where the writer described it as a golden cage that silly Elena mistook for a throne.

Because just last night, Nora had gone to bed so angry at a book she could barely sleep.

And the woman in the mirror came straight out of it.

Until last night, Nora had been happy with her life.

Well, mostly.

She was twenty-five and worked as a junior editor, which meant her days were full of manuscripts, her nights were full of even more manuscripts, and her weekends were saved for whatever story she wanted to read just for fun. This time, she picked The King’s Fated Luna, a book half of the internet managed to convince her to read.

Now she wished she had never listened to them.

“No. No way, absolutely not.”

Nora sat straight up in bed, staring at the last page.

Seraphina was dead.

The main girl, who had survived forty chapters of poison, palace drama, and people who were trying to stab her in the back, was gone. And she died because the man who promised to keep her safe picked his crown over her. Adrian, the Alpha King, had just stood there and watched her bleed, all because of some prophecy he claimed he couldn’t fight.

Nora flipped back through the book, looking for a missing page, a typo, anything that would prove she had read the ending wrong.

There was nothing.

“Forty chapters of being her destined mate,” she hissed, staring at the ceiling, “and the second she actually needs you, you come up with an excuse?”

Because that was all Adrian ever did. Every time Seraphina needed him to choose her, he had a reason not to. His duty. His crown. The prophecy. Somehow, everything mattered more than the woman he said he loved.

With his golden eyes and cold stare, Adrian had somehow become every reader’s favorite. Nora never understood why. If she had been the editor, she would have circled his whole storyline in red and written WHAT DOES HE WANT? right there in the margin.

And the villainess wasn’t any better.

Elena Ashford, the daughter of a duke, was so sure the king belonged to her that she threw away everything else to get him. She had embarrassed Seraphina in front of everyone, accused her of trying to steal the king’s heart, and dragged her own already struggling family into shame.

Nora flipped the book to the chapter where it all started, the royal gathering, and read through Elena’s terrible speech.

“She grew up surrounded by powerful nobles,” Nora muttered, “and she’s this careless with her own future? If I were her, I’d just stay in my room and mind my own business.”

And that was only the beginning of Elena’s fall. After the gathering, she would be accused of stealing the royal seal, and the people behind the secret plot would make sure she took the blame for it. By the time the truth finally came out, her family would have lost all their power, and Elena would have been executed before the story was over.

All because she had been in the wrong place, with the wrong people, and no one was willing to believe her.

Nora switched off the lamp.

Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would find a better book. One where the heroine actually had some common sense, and the king knew the difference between loving someone and making excuses.

She drifted off to sleep within minutes.

She had no idea she would soon regret every word.

“Lady Elena?”

Nora gripped the edge of the dressing table until her knuckles started hurting.

Transmigration was something that only happened in romance novels. In real life, people didn’t just fall asleep in their apartments and wake up in the same books they had been complaining about all night.

But the room didn’t go away. Neither did the mirror. And the servant was still standing there, watching her with a worried face.

The servant.

Nora turned around, and a small detail from the book came back to her. It was barely three lines long.

Clara, Elena’s maid. The one person who never left.

“Clara,” Nora said slowly.

The young woman’s face had relief written all over it. “Yes, my lady.”

Nora felt a tiny bit of guilt. In the book, this girl had stayed by Elena’s side until the very end, and Elena had never bothered to thank her even once.

Nora swallowed hard. “What day is it?”

Clara told her, and Nora felt her stomach drop.

She knew that date. She had read about it just six hours ago.

“The royal gathering,” she whispered. “It’s tonight.”

“Yes, my lady. At sunset.” Clara paused for a moment, then walked over to the wardrobe and pulled out a gown as red as fresh blood. “I’ve prepared the red silk, just like you asked. You said Lady Seraphina wouldn’t be the only woman everyone in the hall would be looking at.”

Nora stared at the dress.

She remembered it. The writer had used an entire paragraph to describe every little detail of that gown, right before Elena wore it and ruined her own life.

So Elena had already made up her mind. The story wasn’t about to begin. It was already moving, and Nora was standing right in the middle of it, wearing someone else’s face, trapped in someone else’s body.

She looked down at her hands. They didn’t look like hers.

She wasn’t just reading Elena’s story anymore. She was living it. And unlike all the readers who had complained about the villainess in the comments, she couldn’t just close the book when it got too hard to read.

Which meant only one question really mattered now.

How do I survive this?

“Maybe,” Nora said carefully, “I could just send my apologies and say I’m not feeling well.”

Clara’s eyes widened. “My lady, I—”

A loud knock cut her off.

Clara rushed to the door and opened it. A palace servant dressed in a royal uniform stood outside, and he bowed.

“Lady Elena. His Majesty the Alpha King sends his greetings and expects you at the gathering tonight.”

Nora’s heart skipped.

Expects.

Not invited. Not hoping she’d come. He expected her to be there.

She knew right away what that meant. A duke’s daughter who ignored a direct order from the king wouldn’t just be quietly hiding in her room. She would be giving the whole court something to gossip about even before sunset. And with the Ashford family already struggling to hold their position, a scandal would be the last thing they needed.

Nora knew exactly where this was going. The royal seal. The accusation. The execution. And hiding at home wasn’t going to save her from any of it.

“Please tell His Majesty,” Nora said, surprised by how calm this new voice sounded, “that I’ll be honored to attend.”

The servant bowed again and left.

The door shut behind him, and the room went silent.

Stay in my room. Nora almost laughed. She had been so sure of herself when she said that.

Nora took a slow, deep breath and did what she did best. She looked at the story like one of her manuscripts and decided what she had to cut.

Cut the red gown.

Cut the speech.

Cut every scene where Elena Ashford even looks at Seraphina or Adrian.

She turned to Clara, who was still holding the red silk in her hands like she wasn’t sure what she should do with it.

“Not that one.”

Clara blinked. “My lady?”

“Something plain. Something dark, if you have it. Nothing anyone would look at twice.”

The maid just stared at her.

That was when Nora realized Elena Ashford loved being noticed, and she always made sure people looked her way.

Clara studied her for a moment. She looked curious, but also unsure, like she was looking at a face she had known for years but suddenly couldn’t recognize. Then she bowed her head slightly.

“Right away, my lady.”

Nora  turned back to the mirror as Clara rushed over to the wardrobe.

The woman with green eyes stared back at her, calm and impossibly beautiful.

Nora knew the whole story. Every mistake. Every accusation. What she didn’t know was what would happen once she stepped outside of it.

Nora had no intention of following Elena’s story to the same ending. She did not need to become a heroine or win anyone’s heart. For now she only needed to avoid trouble, stay alive, and find a way to change the fate waiting for her.

She knew how Elena Ashford’s story ended.

And she had until sunset to make sure it didn’t.