Sister, I Am The Queen In This Life

I went to sleep a nobody. I woke up a Queen. One night I was just a broke, exhausted college girl. The next, I opened my eyes in silk sheets, with strangers bowing and calling me Luna Queen. The face in the mirror is mine. The body is mine. But the life isn’t. The bruises on my wrists tell a story I don’t remember, and the King I’m bound to doesn’t love me—he loathes me. They whisper that his mistress rules the palace. They say the Queen was weak. Silent. Broken. But that was before me. Now I must survive a palace that wants me dead, a King whose touch burns as much as it scars, and a kingdom waiting for me to fail. The old Luna Queen bowed to cruelty. I am not her. And if this King thinks I’ll kneel, he’s about to learn what a true Queen is made of.

For ten years, my twin sister Ayra was the perfect fiancée to Julian Vance, the untouchable, merciless king of the city. She got the diamond, the penthouse, and the envy of the world, while I got the crumbs. Until the night Ayra vanished right before the wedding of the century. With a multi-billion-dollar merger, corporate empires and my little brother's life hanging in the balance, my toxic mother corners me with a chilling ultimatum: Step into your sister’s shoes. Wear her ring. Walk down the aisle. Pretend to be her until the Vance family finds her. I should have said no. But to protect my fragile little brother, I put on her veil, took her vows, and became his wife. I thought I was just a temporary placeholder. I thought Julian hated me. Until our wedding night, when he pinned me to the bed, trapped my wrists, and his lips brushed my ear, sending a shiver through my soul. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize my own wife, Maya?" he whispered, his eyes dark with a terrifying, possessive satisfaction. "Did you really think I didn't know it was you I spent the night with three months ago in the dark?" He knew. He always knew. Julian didn't just find out about the swap—he engineered it. He has been watching me for ten years, waiting to claim the girl who once saved his life. Now, I am trapped in a luxurious cage with a billionaire who orchestrates everything, carrying a secret pregnancy he deliberately planned, and realizing a chilling truth too late... My sister didn't run away. ​She was replaced.

My adopted sister, Selene Vale, and I were transported to the Beast Realm, where the Beast God allowed us to choose our fate. One path was to become a Warrior Female, blessed with powerful strength, sharp claws, and the ability to hunt and fight. The other was to become a Blessed Female, gifted with rare fertility, a beautiful human form, and a scent that naturally attracted the strongest males. In our last life, Selene was afraid she would not survive in this brutal world, so she chose the Warrior Female path. I became the Blessed Female. Selene was sent to the poorest clan in the north with three injured outcast males: a one-eyed wolf, a hawk with a broken wing, and a young feline shifter everyone believed was weak. Meanwhile, I was claimed by Theron, Darius, and Lucan, three of the strongest and most powerful males in the Beast Realm. Everyone envied me. Later, the three of them rose to rule the Beast Realm, and I was crowned Queen Consort at their side. Selene thought I had received everything she deserved. Consumed by jealousy, she dragged me into the poisonous Black Mist Swamp, determined to die with me. But she never knew the truth. The crown she envied was a cage. The three males who once worshipped me eventually locked me away, stripped me of my freedom, and treated my body as nothing more than a tool to produce powerful heirs. When I opened my eyes again, we were standing before the Beast God. We had both returned to the day we chose our fate. This time, Selene rushed forward first. “I choose to become a Blessed Female.” Then she turned to me with a victorious smile. “Sister, this time, the crown will belong to me.” “As for those three useless outcasts, you can have them.” She thought she had stolen my destiny. She had stolen my prison.

After waking up in the pages of a novel, I married the loyal second lead—the man who could never win the heroine's love. Blessed with exceptional fertility, I gave him two children in three years, and what began as a marriage of convenience slowly ripened into something like love. However, during the New Year's Eve ball at the palace, strange lines of floating text suddenly appeared before my eyes. [The queen heroine is faking her pregnancy. She's just waiting for the fertile side character to give birth so she can steal the child!] [The second lead is truly devoted. To secure the queen's position, he'd even offer up his own wife to the king's bed.] [Once the side character "dies in childbirth," the baby becomes the heroine's by right. What a perfect scheme.] The silver spoon slipped from my fingers and rang against the floor. So, the deeply devoted second lead was always meant to protect only his unattainable first love. In that case… Why shouldn't I take the crown for myself?

The Andersons' rule was simple and brutal: the inheritance passed to sons, never daughters. So, I lived as a man for ten years. Even Winston Quinn, the one I had been promised to since childhood, had no idea. To him, I was just his best friend. After taking control of everything, I was finally ready to tell him the truth. Before I could say a word, Winston grabbed my arm, smiling like he couldn't be happier. "Sam, there's something I've been keeping from you. Louise quietly came back last month. We're getting married! She really looks like you." My whole body went rigid. That “sister” I had made up, the one who was supposedly recovering overseas? Before I could react, a woman who looked eerily like me peeked out from behind him. She shoved me aside, her expression sharp and smug. "I'm back, Sam. Stop clinging to Winston just because you're my brother. Have some shame. Otherwise, I'll tell everyone you've got twisted feelings for your future brother-in-law!" I looked at the arrogant impostor in front of me and almost laughed from sheer anger. She was Louise Anderson? Then who the hell was I?

My younger sister and I shared a single body, though we each had our own souls. Ever since we were kids, our family decided who got to inhabit the body and who had to hibernate by drawing lots. I always drew the long stick, while Stella always drew the short one. Our family held a new draw every month. Whenever she was the one in the body, our parents and older brother would take her on vacations and road trips around the world. She got to see places I could only ever dream of. Whenever it was my turn to inhabit the body, they locked me inside the house and forced me to stay up all night, studying. I had to endure every hardship in life, from high school entrance exams to college entrance exams. Every challenge that mattered was my responsibility. However, whenever I succeeded, they made sure the next draw favored Stella. She effortlessly walked away with everything I had worked for. One day, she severely injured the daughter of a powerful local thug at school. My brother did not hesitate for a second to make the decision. “Tomorrow’s the first of the month, anyway. Since we’re the ones who decide the draw, switch Stella out. Let her wake up and take the fall for Stella.” Our parents did not object. Trapped deep within our shared body, I let out a bitter laugh. As I watched them protect my sister without a second thought and offer me up as the scapegoat, the last piece of my heart shattered. They did not know I had the choice to enter permanent slumber. I looked at them with a broken heart. From this moment on, I would never again live as Stella’s stepping stone or take the blame for her mistakes.