The Lycan Villainess

Celeste was living a relatively mundane life up until the day she (literally) died of embarrassment and woke up as a character in the object of her humiliation; one of the many werewolf romance novels she loved so much. And as the lycan villainess no less! In a world full of controlling male protagonists who hate her guts, she must work to save both herself and her favorite characters from their fated demise. Will her new identity's past sins prevent her from changing the future, or will an entirely new story unfold? ------ Chapter 1 Celeste was literally dying of embarrassment. The irony wasn’t lost on her as she fell to her knees in the middle of that fateful work meeting, her eyes tearing up as she clutched at her aching heart. It was so painful, somehow she just knew that this had to be the end. Her last day on Earth had begun like any other. She had woken up at the sound of her alarm beeping incessantly at her as if she had personally offended it by hitting snooze five minutes prior. Jumping up, Celeste slammed her hand down on the chirping clock. When it silenced she cleared the sleep from her eyes and felt around the bedside table until she found her glasses. Slipping them on, she read the time 6:05am. Another day, another dollar, she thought to herself in a singsong voice as she pulled on a simple dress and trudged out of her bedroom to go make some coffee. She would need at least two cups after sleeping for barely four hours. Chronically underslept, Celeste had once again stayed up late the night prior indulging in her favorite guilty pleasure; reading paranormal romance novels. As a thirty-year-old working professional, she didn’t think it was exactly appropriate, but Celeste didn’t care. When the cogs in her brain were so constantly overused, nothing could make her happier than letting her brain turn to mush consuming yet another predictable romance plot. She had started out as a teenager with vampire romance novels. Unsurprising, really. Eventually she progressed to fanfiction of those same novels. After reading nearly everything she could find online written about her favorite books, she had ventured through the discovery pages of the w*******l websites. And there she had fallen in love. True, long-lasting love. Fifteen years later she still scrolled through those discovery pages daily looking for her next selection. Lately her favorite tag to browse was 'werewolf mate.' Last night she had finished My Lycan Mate, a quick read with an overbearing male lead and lovable side characters. Her favorite was the Lycan King’s gamma, William. He was the brother of the main villainess, frustratingly named Celeste as well. She knew the author was going for a moon-adjacent name, but she still felt resentful reading about her namesake causing so many problems for her dreamboat of a brother. Celeste knew he wouldn’t get the girl, in fact she wasn’t even sure he counted as a male lead. But William was so sweet to the female lead after she was mated to the overbearing king that Celeste couldn’t help but root for him instead. When the author sacrificed him in the first battle scene to raise the novel’s stakes, Celeste nearly threw her phone at the wall. How could such a kind, smart, funny character get the short end of the stick over the asshole king? Celeste had always been a remarkable woman. She considered herself kind, smart, and funny as well. Unfortunately none of that had really mattered, which was perhaps why she related so deeply to William. She noted her many trophies displayed in the hallway of her parents’ house as she plodded down the hallway towards the kitchen. Despite earning a blackbelt in karate, winning a mathlete competition in elementary school, placing first in the local chess tournament, being the captain of her college’s fencing team– she counted off each award as she passed by– even despite graduating summa c*m laude with dual degrees in math and business, she had never achieved anything remarkable. In the end, when the time for promotions rolled around at her work the raises and bonuses all went to other more attractive, less kind corporate drones than herself. Thus, despite her many accolades, she was thirty years into life and still lived with her parents. When Celeste finally slung a cardigan over her shoulders and dragged herself out of the door, a third to-go cup of coffee gripped tightly in hand, her shoulders ached. I really should try to get more sleep if I don’t want to get sick, she thought. Then, when she got into her car and it wouldn’t start despite toggling the key back and forth like a madwoman she thought, maybe I’d be better off if I did get sick after all. But there was a big staff meeting she had to present in this morning so she shoved her negative thoughts away, sent a quick text to her dad asking if he could help her jump the battery tonight, and called a cab. Forty minutes later she was jogging through the lobby of her company. Well, not her company, just the company where she worked. For a moment Celeste lost herself in a daydream where she was the CEO, rolling in money and men until the bright ding of the elevators brought her back to reality. Scrambling inside the open doors she selected the button for her floor and prayed no one else would get on the elevator. Usually the elevator was her co-workers’ preferred location to corner her and ask for favors, and she really wasn’t in the mood today. The pain from her shoulders had migrated to her arms and neck and it was all she could do to not flee home and spend the day reading her beloved webnovels from the comfort of her bed. Finally, the doors began to close until a hand shot out to stop them. Celeste nearly groaned, but when Henry’s smiling face peaked around the re-opening door she forgot her anger. Henry is such a good worker, Celeste thought to herself. And by that she meant that he didn’t pick on her since he was from a different department and was very attractive. Very attractive. She had developed something of a crush on him since he started in accounting a few months ago. In fact, she had envisioned William to look like him when she read My Lycan Mate since they both had sandy blond hair and dazzling blue eyes. Admittedly, she had a weakness for pretty faces, but didn’t everyone? After all, wasn’t her lack thereof a factor in her not receiving a promotion? That and her propensity to spinelessly agree to favors that her coworkers then took credit for, but one of those was easier to shirk blame from. “Good morning, Celene!” Henry smiled. That’s right, he didn’t know her name. And after calling her Celene for two months since they’d first met at a work function, she rather thought she’d missed the window to correct him. “Good morning,” Celeste mumbled in reply, “what floor are you heading to?” She scrambled towards the panel of buttons to press his, but he had already begun reaching to press it himself. Their respective actions led them on a collision course which ended with him knocking into her left shoulder, causing her to spill the remains of her coffee down her chest and onto her purse. “I’m so sorry!” Henry apologized, and he seemed genuine. His obvious regret gave Celeste the strength she needed to paste a smile on her face and insist that it was no problem at all. Luckily the coffee had only gotten on her cardigan, not her dress, and she could just take it off. At that moment the elevator doors opened to her floor and she hurried out, flashing one last strained smile at Henry and lifting her hand as if to say “really it’s alright,” as he stared worriedly after her. After such a hectic morning, she felt light-headed and short of breath by the time she made it to the restroom to assess the damage. This coupled with the still throbbing ache in her muscles put her in a downright terrible mood. But it only got worse from there. Celeste shrugged out of her coffee-stained cardigan and began using it to wipe the remaining liquid off of her purse– it was already stained anyway. At this point she noticed that more coffee had made it inside than she initially realized. Frantically, she pulled out her laptop which had been effectively marinating in the stuff and tried to turn it on. ‘Tried’ being the operative word. The screen flashed once and then returned to black, short-circuiting. “No! My presentation slides were on there! Oh no oh no oh no!” At this point she was nearly hyperventilating. She checked her watch. 7:56am, four minutes until her meeting. One of the bathroom stalls flung open and her coworker Amy waltzed over to the sink. “What’s got your panties in a twist?” she inquired with a raised eyebrow as she leaned down to wash her hands. “My laptop. It’s broken. I have a presentation. It’s in four minutes. And the slides. They were on it,” Celeste panted out. “Four minutes?” Amy replied, lathering soap in her hands, “that’s weirdly specific don’t you think.” Her tone was apathetic. Being a frequent asker of favors who could flutter her eyelashes, toss her blonde hair over her shoulder, and get just about anything she wanted, Celeste wasn’t surprised Amy could not care less about her predicament. So Celeste simply slumped against the wall and covered her face with her hands instead of replying to Amy’s idiotic observation. “Gosh, you’re so dramatic,” Amy complained, “All of the presentations are saved to the company drive anyway, you can just access it on your phone’s internet and screenshare it to the presentation room monitor.” Celeste peered out from behind her hands, shocked but with new hope. Had Amy actually done something helpful for once? Amy glanced sideways at her, narrowing her eyes. “Did you really not think of that? For someone who’s so smart your head sure lives in the clouds. That’s how I do presentations every time.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm when she called Celeste smart, but she was so grateful in that moment that she barely cared. “You’re right, thanks,” Celeste replied absently as she gathered her things back into her recently decaffeinated purse and all but fled for the meeting room. By the time she arrived she was already two minutes late. Her body ached all the more from running and she couldn’t catch her breath, but nevertheless she pulled herself together and entered the room. She flinched as her boss clicked his tongue in annoyance at her tardiness. Mumbling an apology she took her seat. After summarizing the meeting’s purpose, her boss called her up to present on their quarterly sales. Fumbling to retrieve her phone from one of the pockets inside her purse, Celeste felt horrible. She felt embarrassed in her dress with her sleeves bare, making herself a spectacle with her late entrance and general state of disorder. Her heart hurt. Why was this happening to her? She was always so accomplished growing up, why couldn’t she do anything right now that it counted? Grasping her phone she stumbled towards the meeting room monitor and flicked open the controls on her phone, selecting screen sharing mode before turning around to present. Not even a minute into the speech she memorized on how their projected numbers from the previous quarter compared to their sales results, she noticed a few of her more mean-spirited colleagues giggling in the back of the room. Her boss’s eyes were narrowed at her in anger and he was opening his mouth to interrupt her when the meeting room door flung open. Henry walked in. Why is he here? Celeste wondered. But she didn’t have to wonder for very long as he announced in her boss’s direction, “Sorry for the intrusion, sir. Mr. Allen asked me to attend at the last minute in his stead. He got caught in traffic and won’t be able to make it. I’ll just take some notes so I can catch him up when he arrives.” He quickly took a seat at the back and his eyes shifted to the screen. Seemingly he began to read the slides when his eyes grew wide. In fact, everyone’s eyes in the room seemed a bit wider than usual. The momentary distraction had prevented her boss from saying anything, but now Celeste turned up to look at the screen. She nearly fainted in horror. In her rush to begin presenting, she had entirely forgotten to bring up her slides. Instead, her phone was screensharing the last thing she’d been looking at on it; a particularly steamy scene she had flipped back to reread in My Lycan Mate before going to sleep. This cannot be happening. The pain in her heart worsened, after all, she was heartbroken. So much hard work in her life, only to have her entire work division and her office crush witness her untimely demise. This absolutely CANNOT be happening. At this point Celeste had broken into a cold sweat, the pulsating pain creeping up to her jaw. It was all she could do to gasp “I’m so sorry!” as she scrambled to get to where she had set her phone on a nearby podium and change the screen. “This is not funny Celeste,” her boss hollered, “I expect you to come to my office after this meeting to discuss this reckless prank of yours.” His words rang in her ears and she stumbled, falling short of the podium. Her heart hurt so bad and she felt tears welling in her eyes. Slumped to her knees and gripping at her aching heart, she could no longer hear her boss’s words as he continued to deride her. Even after working in her position for five years he didn’t know her well enough to know she would never do something like this as a prank. “Are you okay?” She faintly recognized Henry standing up from his seat. No. No she was not okay. She felt nauseous and her muscles pulsed with pain. Her heart felt like someone had stabbed it. She was so embarrassed it felt like she was dying. She was dying. She had to be. It was so painful, she couldn’t breathe. The last thing she remembered thinking was this has to be what death feels like before doubling over and vomiting onto the floor as the world around her collapsed into darkness.