"Ohh! Your Majesty! Please!"
The moaning was more than enough to jolt me out of my half-asleep state. I snapped my spine straight and stared ahead like I hadn't been three seconds away from dozing off on my feet.
Every time I thought it was over, they started up again. Wild animals had more restraint. Through the silk screen I could make out tangled shadows writhing together like mating snakes, and my face turned so red it could have been used as a lantern.
So how did I end up here, standing guard outside a king's bed like a very tired piece of furniture?
Simple. I died.
Yes, died! Dead!
Just one month ago I was a twenty-three-year-old woman on her way to the library, minding my own business, when a speeding car decided my life was optional. And when I opened my eyes again, I was inside an otome game I had once played, with the vaguest of vague memories of the plot.
Who sent that car? It was no doubt my step-mother..
She never could stand that my late father left a big chunk of his wealth to me instead of to her and her precious son. Never mind that the money was mine to begin with. My mother was the one who poured her work and her savings into his startup back when it was nothing but an idea. And that driver will probably walk away with a slap on the wrist while my stepmother sips tea at my funeral, dabbing her eyes with a silk handkerchief.
And there's nothing I can do about it. I'm in another world now, in another body, with no road back. Any hope of revenge died with me, and honestly, that's the part that makes me want to scream into a pillow.
So I did the next best thing. I cursed her. Loudly, creatively, and daily. I cursed the driver too. And then I cursed the heavens, for good measure, since they were the ones who dropped me into this mess.
Because, dear heavens, look at me!
I didn't even get a chance to catch my breath and process my situation. I could only go along with the flow, and the flow has nearly killed me more than ten times this month! And every single time, it was because of the man currently enjoying his blissful spring night behind that door.
King Reis of the Mersad Kingdom. The biggest villain in the entire game.
I remembered him well, mostly because I had spent my whole playthrough steering away from any route that might lead to him. I had always chosen the sweet prince instead. I had chosen the safe ending. I had avoided this man like a plague.
And now I was his attendant.
His male attendant.
I, who was once the envy of wealthy heiresses for my beauty and my brains, had become somebody's night-shift servant with an extra appendage. In my frustration, I kicked the pillar beside me, and immediately regretted it.
"Ow," I whispered to no one. Just my luck.
Do you know what other people get when they transmigrate? They become the heroine. Or at least the glamorous villainess. They also keep their gender and receive some magical boon to make up for it. Me? I got the role of a disposable extra with nothing to boast about, except the extra appendage I never once asked for.
I still remember the first morning. I reached down to scratch an itch, found something that most definitely should not have been there, and screamed loud enough to wake half the servants' quarters. Then I had to pretend I had simply stubbed my toe.
Nobody warned me it would be so present. It has opinions. It has moods. It does not care that I am a dignified young lady of refinement who has never once needed to think about how to use such a thing. My only consolation was that I no longer had a monthly cycle to worry about, and I could now pee standing up which were not at all impressive.
And that's it. That's the "cheat" I received from the heavens. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't struck me down for all the cursing.
"Your Majesty, I-I can't! No more!"
The concubine's cry pulled me back to the present. Poor woman. She sounded like she was negotiating for her life.
"Just a little longer."
That grunt made my eyes roll so far back I nearly saw my own brain. This brute knew how to do exactly three things: eat, drink, and this. It was the same routine every night. They'd be at it for hours, then the woman faints from exhaustion, and he still wouldn't be satisfied. And because someone had to be on hand in case His Majesty needed anything, that someone was me. I only got to sleep during the day, when the other attendant, who was my senior, took over.
Which explained the dark circles under my eyes. Do you know how hard it is to look elegant with those?
Well, the old me, the body's original owner, had apparently been well trained for this. Loyal, quiet, invisible. I had inherited the job along with the body, and the only rules I'd made for myself were simple:
Do not draw attention. Do not make rash decisions. Do not die… again.
Simple rules. I clung to them like a drowning person who couldn't swim would cling to a plank.
I had also promised myself, somewhere in the first exhausted week, that I would figure out the rules of this palace the way I once figured out the rules of a new office during my internship period, so I wouldn't be seen as just a nepo baby. Learn who mattered. Learn who to avoid. Keep my head down until I understood the org chart well enough to stop stepping on land mines. It had worked, more or less, in my original world. I saw no reason it shouldn't work here too, assuming the land mines here were not, in fact, land mines.
Silence fell behind the closed doors. Not a pleasant silence, either. It was the kind of silence that made the back of my neck prickle.
I heard the concubine's soft, exhausted breathing. I heard the rustle of sheets. Then I heard the frustrated grumble I had become far too familiar with over the past month.
Oh no. Here it comes.
"Olivier!"
Just hearing my new name made a frown fight its way onto my face, and I forced it down before it could win. I straightened my collar, smoothed my expression into that of a loyal, mindless servant, and told myself firmly that I was not afraid.
My knees disagreed.
I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I had survived board meetings with men at least twice my age with faces that could make the devil feel sorry for their parents, and stepped into the room.