Trapped in a romance novel but I am the villainess!

Prologue

Peace. The Empress moaned as she became entangled with the two fresh faces which had been prepared. Fighting the peace was almost as bad as fighting the wars. Peace gave way to boredom and then boredom gave way to complacency.

Bored nobility joining bizarre sex groups. Bored soldiers joining violent mercenary bands. Bored politicians joining secretive divination cults. It all stank of the kind of stupid banal evil that ate away at a person.

Peace was the state the Empire had now found itself in, a state its ruler knew not how to function.

Castle Camlann still held the picturesque appearance perched on a high hill so that the sun rose above it every morning, denying the transgression that had accrued within its halls.

It was a crumbling bastion, the outer battlements eroded around the edges and the gun emplacements that were still present timeworn and ragged. The spires leaned and canted and it seemed far too large for the number of people in it. It was a small sad momentum on a lonely forgotten cliff a guttering candle that would be snuffed out for no reason, other than being unfortunate enough to be the lair of a monster.

Bars of sunlight cast down the corridors made motes of dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scratch-marks marred the walls, signs of a struggle. A servant laid on the floor, neck slit open.

The dead lay everywhere, men and women struck down in attempted flight, some slain by a blade, most by spent black powder emptying the barrel of a gun. Shot in the back.

The cry of pain was accompanied by the sound of flesh being punctured as blood spilt from the human water-skin staining the bearskin rug as it streaked across the marble floor. The body soon followed with a pathetic thud.

Behind the splash of blood stood a gorgeous woman, holding a silver butter knife in her hand. She stared manic at the enemy that she slaughtered.

The woman was in a long evening gown. Her pure white attire dyed a crimson colour by the endless blood. Beside her feet, a corpse still grasping a dagger and wearing an embroidered mask. Next to the corpse was its copy and another, then another, slowly revealing the whole room littered with the dead bodies of would-be assassins.

Taking her eyes off the corpses, the woman raised her eyes and smiled. The sight she saw was an amusing one: a group of frightened men huddled together like a pack of cornered animals; they stared at her in a greedy way, hungry for her blood but too afraid to act after witnessing how their compatriots had fared against the war goddess made flesh.

The description couldn’t have been more close to the truth. The woman stood tall with such captivating beauty that it could only be described as divine; while the blood made her resemble the picturesque idea of a monster on the battlefield, instead of a crazed woman in her bedroom.

Scanning through the masked faces one by one, the woman suddenly raised her hand and used one of the fingers to wipe off a drop of warm blood sliding down the corner of her lips. The pale lips were covered by a trace of redness, bright but sinister.

“How dare you disturb me at this hour.” The woman took the threat to her life as if it was just another small inconvenience.

“I don’t believe you’ve come here to have some ‘fun’ with me...” To demonstrate her meaning of fun the large, luxurious bed behind the women creaked and out from it spilt a pair of young boys, half-dressed, who ran in desperation towards the exit.

“Alexandra… No, Empress Alexandra…Your Highness, you have gone too far.” From the group of assassins, a voice spoke for them all and he walked out of the huddle.

Alexandra frowned as her name was called by the ring leader. Her eyes were full of disdain. To her, the other assassins were just ants, who did not even qualify to be killed using her own hands. But the man who led them was something else.

He had a strong but not overly large jaw and his cheekbones were well defined. His skin was darkened by the sun, and there were deep lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes. He wore a dark-blue soldier’s uniform with a silver representation of his house's coat of arms pinned above the heart a crescent moon with a knight's helmet centered in the middle, the helmet's visor shaped with the jaw of a dog. His uniform lacked an officer’s epaulets, but the weary experience in the man’s eyes left no question that he’d led armies on the battlefield.

A young man barely reaching his thirties walked towards the empress. Unlike the others, he held a sword and a posture of one who was experienced using it. Unlike the others, he was chivalrous and didn’t hide behind a mask. Unlike the others, he belonged to her. Richard Cobalt. Empress Alexandra’s favourite and first concubine.

“Far? Stop this nonsense and come to bed.” The words came from her lips freely in a carefree tone, but her piercing blue eyes glared past her golden locks that fell in front of her face, straight at him.

“You killed my son!”

“I lost my home because of your ungodly wars!”

“You tarnished your father’s name!”

The assassins threw out many more crimes the empress had committed, some damning others mediocre, everyone falling on deaf ears, except for when Richard spoke. “You executed the women I loved…”

The woman’s eyes shook and she lost her smile. “Love… Pathetic. You let that bitch touch you… You belong to me!” Not long after the outburst the woman swung her arm out and pointed the silver butter knife at Richard. “To think that you'd come back and bite the hand that fed you!”

Richard stared blankly at her and replied in a soft yet sorrowful voice. “You were truly amazing once and I would have followed you anywhere I… I believed ...” The words the man had tried to speak got stuck in his throat. “I was mistaken. A mistake I will correct.” Turning his gaze to the assassins. “Be at ease, brave man. I will face her.”

Without further pause, before the assassins could utter a single thank you Richard charged towards her, sword in hand. The empress that he believed and followed, was not nearly this cruel. She was noble once. However, just like the changing of seasons was inevitable, the women in front of him had also changed. The only thing that she had left was not nobility but tyranny and he couldn’t bear to look at it any longer.

“HEY! It’s just getting to the best part!” A whine came from a young woman who had her eyes glued to her phone reading the novel before it got snatched away from her.

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Chapter 1: The Pauper within the Princess.

Princess Alexandra: A book is as dangerous as any journey you might take. The person who closes the back cover may not be the same one that opened the front one. Treat them with respect.

Friday night, no different from any other night the restaurant buzzed with people. Waiters taking orders, young couples on first dates to a group of women sat at their usual table drinking and unwinding after a long day at work. “Ugh, why did he have to be engaged?”

“I did tell you yet like a moth to the flame you went and asked him out anyway.” The eldest of the group looked down at her friend who had their face flat against the table, right next to an impressive collection of empty pint glasses.

“I thought you were kidding … I have the worst luck.”

“Ya think?” Their reply oozed with sarcasm before it was replaced by a bite of pizza.

“Bitch.” She said, with a pathetic slur the word tumbling from her mouth in a rush of barely distinguishable syllables. Immediately, what was left of her sober mind made her realise as her head shot up from off the table. “Oh no! What's going to happen if I see him at the office? It’s going to be so awkward… Kill me now.”

Aside from her, the youngest of the three women peeled the drink coaster that had gotten stuck to their friend’s face. “At least you tried.”

“Bet she’s wishing she didn’t. I love you but you need to drop the high standards and start looking for a guy who is in your league, preferably not already in a relationship.”

A sigh crept from her lips as her friend stated the obvious. “I know, I know, I wish I was more like Alexandra then I’d have no problem getting whomever I wanted…”

The girl aside from her spoke up, curious. “Whose Alexandra?”

“Please don’t ask.” Taking a sip of wine as the eldest of the three of them knew what was coming next.

“Alexandra! The best!” Ecstatic, the drunk girl reached for her phone and turned it on. As she skimmed through it she described the women without pause. “Not only is she beautiful but a badass!”

“And fictional.” The rant was cut short by a quick dose of reality from the other side of the table. “Look I need to call it a night.”

“Me too, sorry.”

“Huh?! But it’s still early…”

As her friends left her, lost in her drunken stupor, she began to think how wonderful it would be to have been in a world where she could have any guy she wanted, if only it wasn't a total fantasy.

After moments of sitting in the restaurant thinking of her ideal world, she took a glance at their phone to see the time and noticed a strange notification. ‘That's odd, I don't remember there being any new chapters.’ As she opened the notification her head began to feel woozy and her body light as she felt everything around her fade away.

It was dawn when she opened her eyes, and the cold air descended. She rubbed her eyes and rose from her seat. The room started out as only a haze of white and lavender and gold to her sleep-addled eyes. Slowly, the fog of sleep lifted and strange furnishings came into view: two intricately carved posts at the foot of her bed rose up, decorated with white marble vines and columns and embellished with gold flourishes. They connected to a lavender canvas overhead.

Outside of the four-poster bed, the room was equally lavish. An ornate white dressing table stood on the left wall, the handle of each drawer gilded and the mirror's edge as detailed as the bedposts. On the opposite side was a floor-to-ceiling set of four windows, from which the morning light streamed through, falling on her soft skin and bedsheets, lighting each to bold dreamlike hues that almost seemed to shimmer. On the other side of the doors was a spacious balcony, on which sat white stone planters of flowering shrubs, their petals as deep azure as the sky.

‘Is this a dream?’

And a very vivid lucid dream. She looked out of the window, and the blue flower petals, which have just begun to form dew, caught her eyes. The strange sight filled her with the desire to rest her eyes some more.

‘Was I sleeping? When did I fall asleep?’

She blinked twice and started to question why she didn’t feel hungover from last night. Eventually, her mind caught up with her body and she saw through her disorientation her eyes snapped open.

‘Wait this isn’t my room!’

In quick succession, her body shot up violently and it dawned on her, she was suspiciously sober and in a strange room but she felt amazing as if all the years of working in an office had melted away and returned her to how she felt when they were in high school. She wasn’t allowed to enjoy the sensation for long as a strand of golden hair flowed gently in front of her eyes, like sunlight.

“When did I go BLONDE?!”