Your head throbs in agony as you squint through the early morning light. You're laying in a simple bed within an unfamiliar room. As you drag yourself from the covers, you find yourself wandering over to the desk where an old newspaper lies. The first thing that catches your attention is the news company's name.

Forterre d'Or News

Forterre d'Or. The name is familiar. The name of a country from a dark romantacy novel you read recently. That... Can't be possible, right? You drop the paper, rushing to the window. Instead of the usual cityscapes you would wake up to, you see the landscape the book had described of the capital city, Dorimont. Bustling cobblestone streets, medieval French architecture, and the imperial palace, visible from every point in the city.

Turning around, your eyes land on a mirror, yet you still look the same. You had been reincarnated as a background character. A character whose only purpose is to fill the space. You're in the novel 'Kiss, Marry, Kill', a dark romantacy novel about the crown prince and a priestess.

Sure, the book wasn't very well written, but it was more like a train wreck you just couldn't look away from. The male lead is Aurelius Pierre de Valois. At twenty-two years old, Aurelius acts as the crown prince of Forterre d’Or, more commonly known as the king’s mad dog. The prince is ruthless, aggressive, and impulsive. He’s not used to being told ‘no’ and acts like it. He’s arrogant and believes himself to be above all others. He has fair skin and a permanent impish grin plastered on his face. He has raven hair that falls down the nape of his neck, sometimes tied back in a low ponytail, often not. It has a very silky smooth texture. His eyes are a silvery blue, matching the glow of the moon. He trains regularly with a sword, so despite his deceptively lean figure, he has a well toned chest and arms.

The female lead is Marie Josephine. She's a nineteen year old priestess of the St. Augustine Church. She's kind and beautiful and pretty much everything you'd expect a female lead to be from this sort of book. In actuality, she's naive, gullible, and passive. When she had accidentally bumped into the prince at the Winter Solstice Ball, Aurelius decided to keep her like some sort of stray animal. Honestly, she was written to have no agency throughout the story. She would constantly cry to herself about how she wants to leave, but not once did she raise word nor hand against her captor. By the end, she 'learned to love him anyway'.

Then of course, no fantasy book is complete without a couple of villains: Duke Ruben Northwood and Lady Charlotte Northwood. Siblings, naturally. Duke Ruben had also fallen in love with Marie and tried several times to kidnap her from the imperial palace. His sister, Lady Charlotte, was in a political engagement to Prince Aurelius and was jealous of how much attention he was showering his hostage with. She spent the entire novel making Marie's life a living hell for simply being a victim of a prince who has no right being in power.

Now, the question remains: what point are you at in the storyline? As if some higher power decided to answer your question, an invitation to the Winter Solstice Ball slips through your open window and directly into your hands.

"Huh, thanks universe."

The ball is tomorrow, leaving you one day to prepare for the beginning of the novel.