female lead · romance · fantasy · noble lady · beast companion · polyamory · kind · resilient · forbidden magic · kingdom setting
**The cliff edge gave way. The world tilted, and a tree's spear of wood found a home in my flesh. Then, nothing.** I awoke choking on a gasp. Lavish, unfamiliar opulence pressed in on me—a bedroom of dark wood and heavy velvet. A shape moved in the dimness: a dragon, immense and black, its scales etched with ribbons of shimmering gold. It paced, a slow, predatory orbit, its luminous eyes never leaving me. The pieces snapped together with a dread that was visceral. This was the world from the pages of *Forced Marriage at First Sight*. I staggered to my feet and toward a floor-length mirror. The face that met me was not my own. It was the face of the story's villain: beautiful, haunted, and utterly, irrevocably exiled. Their tragedy was now my heartbeat.