The world swam back into focus wrapped in layers of crimson silk and suffocating quiet.
Evan's first groggy instinct was to grope for his phone—check how far he'd gotten in Roses, that filthy web novel he'd been edging to for hours. But his fingers met only smooth, restrictive fabric. He lifted his hands and froze. A sheer white veil brushed his cheeks like a ghost's kiss.
He tore it aside.
Snow-white wedding lace clung to his chest, cinched tight at the waist, then exploded into a ridiculous froth of skirts that pooled around his bare feet on the edge of a low wooden bed. The bodice pushed his pecs up into soft, almost feminine cleavage. Delicate embroidery traced patterns over skin that looked far too smooth, too perfect.
"What the actual fuck…" His voice came out breathy, higher-pitched than it had any right to be.
He scrambled upright, heart slamming. "Why the hell am I wearing a bride's dress? I'm Evan. One hundred percent cock-swinging, pussy-chasing man!"
The last clear memory: sprawled on his shitty mattress, pants around his ankles, stroking himself furiously to Chapter 47 of Roses—the scene where the protagonist gets pinned down by three aggressive noblewomen at once, skirts hiked, mouths everywhere, begging turned into broken moans.
Then—nothing. Black. A spike of pain that felt like his brain had been split with an axe.
Now this.
Another lance of agony drilled through his skull. Evan clutched his head, gasping as a torrent of someone else's life poured in.
Evan Black. Same name. Different everything.
He'd transmigrated.
The world was Roses—almost. Same kingdoms, same villages, same simmering undercurrent of lust and power. Except the genders were flipped inside out. Here, men were the delicate prizes: expected to blush, yield, preserve their "virtue" until a woman claimed it. Women ruled houses, armies, beds. They hunted. They took. They fucked without apology.
Evan Black had been a servant in House Black—beautiful enough to start wars. The old matriarch had wanted him bent over her desk as her personal toy. Her husband, seething with cuckold rage, said no. The compromise? Force the pretty servant boy into a rushed marriage with some nobody from the village edge, getting him out of sight and out of temptation.
Elara Ashcroft.
Evan's borrowed memories supplied the rumors instantly: orphaned, short, lame in one leg, sells bread to survive. Mocked. Pitied. Unmarried at twenty-four when most women had already collected two or three husbands.
"The lame baker?" he hissed. "In a world crawling with dominant, stacked amazons, I get shackled to the town joke?"
He had to run. Now.
He lurched off the bed, skirts tangling his legs like chains. Door—locked from outside. Window—too small, and voices were already drifting in from the yard.
"Elara, you sly bitch! You actually married Evan Black? The most gorgeous man this side of the river!"
"I'm dying of jealousy. That face, that body… tonight you get to unwrap him like a present."
Laughter exploded.
Then a quieter voice—Elara's. "You're all exaggerating. I just… got lucky."
A sharper tone cut through. "Enough. It's late. My sister needs to go to the bridal chamber. Out."
Teasing catcalls faded. Footsteps receded.
Evan bolted back to the bed, sat ramrod straight, veil clutched in white-knuckled fists. His pulse thundered in his ears.
The door creaked open.
One slow, uneven step. Thump… slide. Thump… slide.
She stopped directly in front of him.
For a full, agonizing minute, neither moved.
Evan could smell her—fresh bread, faint sweat, a hint of celebratory wine. His cock—traitorous thing—twitched under the layers of silk at the sheer proximity.
Then a rough, calloused hand reached out and lifted the veil.
Breath punched out of him.
She was short—barely cleared his collarbone—but everything else was devastating. Sharp cheekbones, cold amber eyes that pinned him like a butterfly, full lips parted just enough to show the edge of white teeth. Blonde braid slung over one shoulder. The simple wedding dress hugged a body that was compact, curvy, powerful in a way that screamed restrained violence. Even the slight drag of her left leg couldn't ruin the picture.
This is the lame baker? Evan's brain short-circuited. She looks like she could snap me in half and make me thank her for it.
Elara stared back, drinking him in. Her gaze traced the soft curve of his jaw, the long lashes, the way candlelight turned his brown eyes molten. A quiet, almost pained breath escaped her.
"Am I really allowed to have someone this beautiful?" she murmured, more to herself than him.
Evan swallowed hard. "You're… Elara Ashcroft?"
"Yes." Flat. Final.
His eyes dropped—couldn't help it—to the way her left foot turned inward, the subtle hitch when she shifted weight.
Elara stiffened. The ice in her eyes cracked; insecurity flooded through.
"Yes," she said, voice brittle now. "My leg. Lame. Crippled. Exactly what the rumors promised. You must be disgusted."
Evan blinked.
Disgusted?
He was thinking: Fuck the leg. Look at that face. Those tits straining the bodice. That ass I can already imagine bouncing. I'm not mad—I'm hard.
Heat surged straight to his groin. The wedding night setup hit him all at once: candles, scattered petals, the wide bed behind him. In this world she was supposed to climb on top, pin him down, ride him until he screamed.
His cock throbbed painfully against the silk.
He waited for her to move. To push him back. To tear the dress off and take what was hers.
Instead Elara stepped back.
"Don't worry," she said quietly. "I won't touch you."
Evan's brain blue-screened. "What?"
"I know this marriage was forced on you." She wouldn't meet his eyes. "A man like you belongs in silk and gold, not a crumbling shack with a cripple who smells like dough. I won't humiliate you by forcing anything. Sleep on the bed. I'll take the floor in the next room."
She turned.
Limped out.
Door clicked shut.
Evan sat there, mouth open, cock still traitorously hard.
"…Isn't this the reverse world?" he whispered to the empty room. "Shouldn't she be on her knees choking on my dick right now?"
He staggered to the mirror.
Face: devastating. Skin like porcelain. Hair black silk. Eyes that could melt steel.
He hiked up the skirts, stared down.
"Jesus Christ." His new cock was thick, long, veined, already leaking at the tip just from the tension. "This thing could split her in half. And she walked away?"
He dropped the fabric, collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Frustration. Confusion. Arousal so intense it hurt.
"Fine," he growled under his breath. "Sleep tonight. But tomorrow? I'm making you beg for it, Elara. You don't get to look like that and walk away from this cock."
Outside, Elara sat on a rickety stool in the dim kitchen, bottle of cheap red wine already half-gone. Her cheeks burned. Her core throbbed with an ache she hadn't let herself feel in years.
Every time she closed her eyes: his stunned face when the veil lifted. Those soft lips parted. The way the candlelight made his skin glow.
Too beautiful, she thought, taking another long, shaky pull from the bottle. Too perfect for someone as broken as me.
She drank until the room spun, until the ache between her thighs became unbearable, fingers unconsciously drifting toward the hem of her dress before she caught herself and clenched her fist.
She finally slumped forward—still fully clothed—whispering his name like a curse and a prayer.
Inside the bridal chamber, Evan finally drifted off, one hand unconsciously curled over the obscene bulge still tenting the wedding dress.
Tomorrow, he promised the darkness.
Tomorrow, she would learn exactly what kind of "prize" she'd been given.