When Sonya cracked open her eyes, the first thing she saw was pink.
Not a soft, delicate blush. Not cherry blossom pink. No—this was anime protagonist pink.
It was loud, shiny, and currently attached to her own scalp.
She sat up with the grace of a dying walrus, only to be assaulted by the weight of two very large, very unfamiliar… assets.
"What in the busty Barbie hell—?"
She froze. Her voice wasn't hers. It was silkier. British-er. Noblewoman adjacent.
Then it hit her.
Not the truck—she'd already been hit by that. No, this was the other thing. The memories.
Sonya Craig. NYU student. Killed tragically and ironically while crossing the street in Japan on spring break. Struck down by the great Isekai harbinger himself: Truck-kun.
She scrambled out of bed—luxurious, four-poster, canopied with lace—and bolted to the mirror. The face that stared back had skin like porcelain, lips like rose petals, and massive blue eyes framed by thick lashes. She looked like she'd been airbrushed by angels.
"I'm inside the novel…?" She whispered. Questioning reality.
The Tragedy of Veronica's Thorns.
A D-tier webnovel she rage-read during finals week. Trashy. Overdramatic. Reverse harem. And the villainess? The pink-haired nightmare who died slipping on tea and impaling her face on a cursed tiara at a royal ball?
That was her now.
Lady Sonya Westwood.
"Oh HELL no!" She shouted. "This titty princess dies in chapter five!"
She panted and hysterical, until she notice a knock.
"My lady?" A soft, nervous maid's voice. "Your father requests your presence in the dueling garden."
Father...? As in...
Duke Cassian Westwood?
THE Duke Cassian Westwood?
The Empire's most feared swordmaster. War hero. Single father. Built like a Calvin Klein billboard. Known for two things: being hot and incinerating anyone who even looked at his daughter wrong.
Sonya sucked in a breath. "Alright. New mission. Don't die. Don't seduce anyone. Don't slip on tea."
She marched out the door. Immediately tripped on the hem of her silk nightgown.
But goddamnit!
I really am inside a dimensional fucking world!
"Off to a great start."
**
The dueling garden was not, as one might assume, a charming patch of roses with a polite fencing setup.
It was a war zone disguised as a botanical exhibit. Topiary griffins. Fountains shaped like decapitated dragons. And in the center, her father.
Duke Cassian Westwood stood like a man forged from brooding and blacksmithing. Silver-threaded coat. Sword longer than her college loans. He turned to her, arms crossed, expression stern.
"You're late."
Sonya blinked.
He was even hotter in person.
"You're… Duke Westwood?" She asked, a little breathlessly.
"I am your father," he replied slowly, narrowing his ice-blue eyes. "Did you hit your head again?"
"Truck," she mumbled. "I mean—tripped. On a…dream."
The Duke stared at her like she was a particularly confusing battle plan.
"Well," he said, "we begin your training. You nearly incinerated the manor's west wing yesterday… sneezing."
"It was allergy season," she defended.
"You summoned a fire elemental."
"Pollen is powerful."
Like I freakin' remember whatever the fuck that happened yesterday, urgh!
**
By the end of the session, Sonya had:
- Blown up three animated training dummies,
- Magically paralyzed her instructor for correcting her posture,
- Accidentally summoned a baby griffin (currently nesting in her hair),
- And declared, "I am not dying to tea and fashion accessories, thank you very much."
She plopped down on a marble bench, sipping magically reheated tea with shaking hands.
"Okay," she muttered. "Step one: survive. Step two: avoid the plot. Step three: never go near tiaras again."
Then a servant approached with a letter.
"From His Highness, Crown Prince Klaus Ashford," the boy announced.
Sonya opened it. It was… a poem.
Roses are red,
My sword arm is true,
You set the garden on fire,
And now I dream of you.
She stared at it. Blinked. Folded it neatly.
"Great," she said aloud. "I broke the plot already."
A second letter arrived five minutes later.
This one smelled faintly of sulfur.
"From Duke Ethan Vanderwoodsen of the North," said the courier, shivering.
Inside was a single line, written in elegant, sharp script:
I want to bite your soul.
– E.V.
Sonya dropped it like it was on fire.
"Fantastic. The demon duke is horny."
A third letter arrived.
Commander Ethan Blackthorne's elegant handwriting filled the card:
Do you duel?
There was a lipstick mark on the edge.
Her lipstick.
Her hand went to her mouth.
"The fu—, sigh… I haven't even met them yet."
**
As the sun set and Sonya tried to bribe the griffin out of her hair with grapes, she realized something horrifying.
She wasn't avoiding the reverse harem plot.
She was stealing it.
One accidental magical flex at a time.
And this time, the villainess might just win.
Ass-first.
LATER THAT DAY
The Westwood Manor baths were not built for modesty.
They were an architectural love letter to decadence—arched ceilings, gold-veined marble floors, and absurdly sexy statues of long-forgotten gods who clearly skipped leg day in favor of pelvic thrusting.
Steam curled lazily from the enchanted hot springs, swirling around the thousand flickering candles like smoke signals for thirst.
But Sonya wasn't here to be seduced.
She was here because she smelled like incinerated training dummies and molten topiary, and because Duke Ethan Vanderwoodsen had sent her a soul-biting letter. Which was not a metaphor. He literally wanted to bite her soul. With teeth.
She needed a bath. And maybe wine. And definitely a restraining order.
Wrapped in her favorite fluffy robe, she padded barefoot into the bath chamber like a cursed Disney princess on the brink of a breakdown. Her mental checklist was simple: Don't slip. Don't sigh. Don't think about demon dukes with glowy tattoos and really big…hands.
Then the steam parted.
And out of the mist stepped… Ethan.
Very tall.
Very naked.
Very wet.
Black hair slicked back. Arcane tattoos glowing faintly down one arm like molten silver. Muscles sculpted like someone had paid for the "deluxe sin" package. Eyes glowing an unholy blue. And steam clinging to him like even the water was too flustered to leave.
Sonya's soul briefly left her body.
"OH," she said. "Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I'm going to pretend this is a stroke and reboot."
She turned sharply—promptly slipped on a traitorous bar of enchanted soap—and went down with a screech.
Ethan moved like a shadow. One arm caught her waist mid-fall, the other catching her robe.
Which promptly unraveled.
Which slipped off.
Which left her in a scandalously sheer silk slip now soaked and clinging to everything like it had read a smut novel and wanted to cosplay.
Sonya blinked up at him, trapped in his arms. "I…uh…"
Ethan looked at her like she was made of forbidden fruit and poor decisions. His eyes darkened.
"You smell divine," he said, low and slow.
"Oh no," she whispered.
"You came to your manor's private bath," he said, voice like velvet thunder, "looking like that."
"I didn't expect company," she snapped, cheeks blazing. "Least of all a six-foot demon intrusion."
He brushed a strand of damp pink hair behind her ear, fingers cold where they touched her skin—but the trail of warmth they left made her toes curl.
"Your soul," he murmured, reverent, like he was in a cathedral. "It sings to me."
"I'm from New York," she said flatly. "We're loud."
His hand slid down her back, sending a shiver through her entire body.
"You're not afraid of me."
"You're half-demon," she said breathlessly. "I've dated someone who unironically owned a katana collection."
Ethan paused.
Then he smiled.
Not nicely.
It was slow and sinful and so hot it might've been a war crime.
"I could ruin you," he said.
"You're in my bathtub," she snapped, shoving at his chest. "Deliver your Bond villain monologue somewhere else."
He leaned in. Steam curled around them like it was shipping them hard.
"Let me bite you," he whispered at her ear.
"Excuse me?!"
"Your soul. Not your flesh." He paused. "Yet."
Sonya made an unintelligible noise somewhere between outrage and arousal and shoved him again, this time with enough force to escape his orbit.
"Sir, I am two plot arcs too early for this nonsense!"
Ethan didn't chase her. He just stood there, water running in rivulets down the hard lines of his chest, staring with eyes that promised dark, delicious doom.
"I'll wait," he said.
"For what?" she asked warily, clutching her robe to her chest.
"For the day you scream my name," he retorted, voice all danger and seduction, "without trying to stab me first."
Then—because apparently he believed in maximum drama… he vanished in a puff of steam and faint pine-scented arrogance.
Sonya stood alone in the now very cursed bath, heart racing, breath short.
She looked down.
Her robe lay on the floor like it had given up on her life choices. Her enchanted slip had gone fully transparent.
From behind a golden column, her baby griffin peeked out and chirped with unfiltered judgment.
She pointed a finger at it. "Not. A. Word."
The griffin chirped again.
She sighed and sank into the bath, muttering, "I didn't ask to be hot in this timeline."