"A slow-burn dark fantasy romance." --- Mother once told me my eyes were taken at birth because I was a damnation. She was right. I spent twenty years in the dark, navigating a quiet world through sound, scent, and touch, believing my mother loved me enough to keep me safe. That she was protecting me from the world outside our cottage. Then the royal guards came. I was dragged from my home as a human tribute to the obsidian palace. The Court of Shadows. A kingdom trapped in perpetual darkness under a ruthless tyrant—King Xalvador. A demonic-born dragon king, infamous for cruel, mocking games. He demanded human maidens as ornaments. Ornaments to bear his children. Blind and entirely vulnerable, I expected to be the first killed. Then he stepped into my space, and everything changed. An invisible, agonizing tether snapped tight between us, a violent, addictive pull. The longer he stayed near, the weaker I became, as if my very life was leaking into his veins. I didn't know it then, but a generational curse had just awakened. His love would be my literal death. Draining my radiant energy until I was nothing but a hollow shell. Overnight, my survival depended on seeing through a monster's mask. While the court cowered before a terrifying dictator, my heightened senses caught what others missed. The tremor in his voice when he held me. The desperate, burning warmth beneath his cold touch. He became my terrifying protector. Holding me at a dark distance. Hiding a devastating secret about what it truly takes to keep me alive. I thought I was beginning to understand him. I thought I'd found a safe haven. Then the King's second-in-command stepped into my life. Vaelen. A proud, righteous dragon lord. A gentle voice who offered friendship, who wanted to save me from Xalvador's demonic taint. For one fragile, foolish moment, I let myself trust him. I should have known better. In a world of shadows, everyone wears a mask. Including my mate. My friend. And my mother.

The original owner of this body left me with a broken contract marriage, a ruthlessly cold husband, and an elite family who absolutely despises her.She also left me with a death sentence.When I transmigrated into the body of Sia, a toxic heiress, a glitching Transmigration System locked me in with a lethal constraint: act exactly like the hated villainess, or face instant soul elimination. I am forced to sneer, throw tantrums, and play the role of an evil wife just to keep my health bar full.I thought I could pull it off. I thought I could act my way to survival.But I overlooked a massive, cosmic error.The moment my tyrant husband, Alec, grabbed my wrist to throw me out, he heard me. Not my spoken, venomous insults, but my chaotic, weeping inner thoughts. While my face wears a haughty smirk, my mind is screaming about how devastatingly handsome he is, mentally sobbing over my survival metrics, and accidentally leaking hidden family secrets.Now, every time the System forces me to complete an evil quest, it turns into a disaster. I try my best to be a ruthless mastermind, but Alec has caught on to the game. He keeps crossing my physical boundaries, trapping me in his space entirely to drive my inner thoughts into a romantic, hyperventilating frenzy.I'm supposed to be their ruin. But my husband and his family are secretly working overtime to protect me, playing along with my "villainous" plots just to keep their secret savior alive.Just when I thought we had gamed the system, the clock begins a deadly final countdown. Only then did I realize the ultimate truth.In this house, everyone is playing a part.Including my husband.My in-laws.And my own mind.