I Was The Man The Celestial Queen Had Sworn To Marry

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.

That night at the Holy Banquet, the Arrow of Desire struck both the divine prince Cassius, a descendant of Zeus, and his father, Theron. If they didn’t mate before the moon set, their divine power would implode, shattering their very essence. In my past life, I had secretly loved Cassius for ten whole years. So, when he grabbed me, his body burning up, I didn't say no. After one wild night, I was carrying his thunder-blooded child and successfully married into the divine palace. But after the wedding, he was ice-cold to me. He was convinced I had stolen the Arrow of Desire, all for the sake of marrying into divinity. Even after I gave him children, he never claimed me as his wife before the gods. He saved all his tenderness for his one true love—the holy maiden Lyra, who was forced to marry into the Sea Realm and eventually died in a storm. Later, I was branded as "jealous and wicked," scorned by all of divine kind. So when my children’s overwhelming lightning magic went out of control, no one came to help. My babies and I were consumed by that arcane tempest. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night he was shot. The young divine prince Cassius, burning with heat, reached out to me with desperate hunger. But high up on the throne... His father, Theron—the beautiful, ruthless God King who had ruled for centuries—was also losing the battle against his own searing desire. Everyone expected me to throw myself into Cassius’s arms. But this time, I gathered my skirts, strode past him, and sat right on the God King’s lap.

My father was the God-King, and he loved my mortal mother with all his heart. To help her adapt to life in the divine realm, he even infused his own blood into her, granting her eternal youth and elevating her to the rank of a goddess. Defying the unanimous opposition of all gods, he built a resplendent palace solely for her here in the divine realm, making her the happiest woman across all heavens. Yet he never loved me — his first child, born of him and my mother. As time went by, he visited my mother less and less frequently. Eventually, I passed away. Mother begged him to seek justice for me, but he only replied indifferently, "We shall have many more children." His words crushed every last glimmer of hope in her heart. Mother grew utterly disillusioned with him, and resolved to avenge me with her own hands. The God-King’s patience toward her dwindled day by day. It was as if I had been born bearing nothing but misfortune. To avenge my wrongful death, Mother cast aside everything she once held dear. When she finally turned her back and left the divine realm forever, that aloof, domineering God-King went mad. He chased after her, begging desperately for her to return.

The day my elder sister stole my fiancé from me, I did not fight back. Instead, I slipped past the maid guarding me and went straight to find my father. “She can have my fiancé. I’m marrying the Regent!” My father stared at me in shock. Everyone knew the Regent was in charge, but rumors said he could not father a child and had a nasty temper. What they did not know was that I was born under heaven’s favor—blessed with the gift of life itself. In my previous life, that blessing became my curse. My elder sister and stepmother smeared my name, claiming that my curves and easy fortune meant I had been defiled before marriage. My fiancé was disgusted and turned away from me. That was when my sister seized the chance to take my place. Even on her wedding day, my sister was not at ease. She had me dragged away like a lowly servant and sent to a brothel, ordering the madam to torture me. While I lay dying in the dark, she lived in the light, bearing children with my former fiancé and enjoying a lifetime of happiness that should have been mine. Now that I had been given another life, I refused to bow to fate again. She might have stolen my fiancé, but she could never take the blessing I was born with.

There was a river that ran through our village. According to the legend, a river god dwelled in its depths, and every month on the 15th, the village had to send a young woman to enter the water and serve him. At first, everything seemed normal. After their service to the river god, the women would return to shore, go home, and eventually marry and start families. But this year, the peace was shattered. Every woman who spent the night with the river god turned up dead, their naked bodies floating to the surface. I secretly watched as they retrieved the corpses twice. The evidence of the violation was horrific. This month, I was selected. I had been chosen to marry the river god.

To save the vampire clan, I slept with my crush, Stefan Ferrano. Stefan had always been cold and distant, but that night, his response was fiery. He ignored the fact that I was inexperienced and took me with wild, unrestrained passion. Everything unraveled when my blood servant, Stella Luciado, brought me fresh blood and Stefan found out. Like a man possessed, he tore off all my clothes and dragged me into the sunlight. “So even the vampire queen is afraid of sunlight? Do you know what sort of torture your kind are enduring right now? But no pain compares to what I felt losing my sister because of you and your kind.” For five years, he held my clan’s safety over my head. He locked me in a sunroom and found new ways every day to torment me in bed. The day I gave birth to his child, he married Stella. Stefan called my child a bastard and forced me to watch him and Stella sleep together. When Stella was unhappy, he bled me so she could bathe in my blood. He even painted with my blood and made me dance undressed in the sun. He tortured me but never let me die, using specially made drugs to keep me alive. A vampire who had offered their ancestral blood but didn't turn a human into a vampire within five years would end up dead. I had five days left to live. Finally, I didn't have to keep my secret anymore.