Awake: Book One of the Happy Never After series

by Milada Morrigan

I am the monster they warn children about.

For a century, I have guarded her sleep—rewriting forbidden magic, bathing her in ritual, staining my claws with blood to keep her breathing. I did not take her to cage her. I took her to save her. But devotion curdles when fate interferes. The bond between us tightens with every passing year, demanding more than vigilance, more than restraint. If I wake her, I may lose her forever. If I don’t, she will die. Either way, I will burn.



I am the princess they seek to save.

I remember everything—the dark, his hands, his voice, the dragon who claimed me while I slept. They say I was cursed. They say I was spared. Now fire coils beneath my skin, desire tangles with rage, and the bond between us refuses to be denied. No prince will save me. No ending will be gentle. Whatever I choose next will be mine—and the monster who loves me may not survive it.

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons

158 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 2, 2026

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sleeping Beauty reimagined

A refreshing take on the tale of Sleeping Beauty. Heed the trigger warnings. If you can get through the first half of the book, the second half is gold. It’s the first book I’ve read lately which had me pumping my fist in the air. Some of the internal monologues of Adelaide were laugh out loud hilarious.

[Haley Crane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Phew. This was in DESPERATE need of editing. Many, many lines are out of context or out of order, misspellings, things that made no sense and SO. MUCH. REPETITION. A good 30% of this could have been cut out and not affected the plot. This reads like a rough draft. Also this is dual POV if you can consider it that, because the princess’s chapters are just repeats of the dragons chapters with her thoughts imposed. They generally serve no purpose to move the plot forward. At all. Look, I can get behind good monster smut. But I thought the princess would at least be awake for the majority of the book considering the title is AWAKE. Spoiler- she isn’t. She’s asleep and being continually raped by the dragon and suffering from major Stockholm syndrome (or is she? IYKYK) in her sleep paralysis state. There’a very little to even build a relationship between the two main characters. The highlight of their time together is him bathing her, brushing her hair, and raping her at increasingly frequent intervals. When she is finally awake, she gets taken by a prince with major mommy issues where she magically learns how to fight by watching guards training just to make her way back to the dragon to “kill him”. And the cherry on top is pregnancy in the epilogue. This was my first read of 2026 and hopefully it goes up from here… this does however give me hope that I can be published so we’ll see how that goes!

[Niamhyyy12 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

Sleeping beauty but instead of the prince she gets the dragon 😋

I really enjoyed this book, it was hot, fast paced and enjoyable few hours
lowkey sad that I don’t have a dragon myself 😢
-will be definitely looking for the next in the series;)

[Jamie Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.75⭐️😞
Me no likey.....

Soooo, I went into this thinking it would be right up my alley. I usually enjoy darker monster romances and I’m not someone who shies away from non-con themes in fiction.
But unfortunately, this one just didn’t work for me.
The premise is definitely dark . a dragon kidnaps a princess and places her into a century-long sleep where she remains conscious the entire time , and I expected something disturbing but layered. Instead, the non-con elements felt more grotesque than emotional or story-driven, and after a while they became repetitive and leaned heavily into being filthy for filths sake rather than plot or character development.
The language also felt ....off...
example...
"𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰, 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞, 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭... 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐥𝐮𝐭. 𝐌𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞. 𝐌𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐭𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈'𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬."

This type of language from the ML to the FL just feels icky ( not kink shaming for anyone into the degradation, but i just didnt like this.... she's completely paralysed and he has NO IDEA if she is into this)

I kept waiting for more depth, world-building, or progression, but the story felt very one-note. There wasn’t much of a plot beyond the initial setup, and the dynamic eventually veers into a heavy Stockholm-syndrome-style shift that didn’t feel earned to me.
That said, if you’re looking for an extremely dark, boundary-pushing monster romance that fully commits to its premise, this might work for you. For me, though, I needed more story and emotional substance to balance the darkness.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a lot of non-con so check your trigger warnings, but it's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty and the original fairy tale also had a lot of non-con.

I loved this book. A princess is stolen by a dragon and or under a sleeping curse for a hundred years. The dragon spends a hundred years having sex with her, reading to her, bathing her and caring for her, but the magic is slowly killing them both so he has no choice but to wake her up. She's spent a hundred years being cherished, but with absolutely no choices. She wakes up and is "saved" by the prince to discover that as a princess she never had any choices available to her but back in the human world she's not cherished like she was.

Faced with no choices and only wanting to be free she finds her strength and finally gets to decide what she wants.

My favorite quotes:
“But all you’ve ever been afraid of is women who wake up. You never wanted me awake. You wanted me compliant.”

..."sometimes the monster is the hero, and the hero is the monster, and the only thing that matters is the choice you make about who you want to be."

[Shales szucs · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was so f*cked up and yet… surprisingly good, dirty, filthy, depraved, immoral… absolutely but what great book isn’t?
This book kept me hooked I had to see how the heroine would react when she FINALLY after 100 years woke up.
I like the characters for the most part I liked how obsessed the hero was with our sleeping beauty he was so sweet and absolutely deplorable, I was however a little disappointed that the hero didn’t go after her and burn the castles down the way you’d think a crazy obsessed hero would after someone stole his woman but I understood why, doesn’t mean I liked it but I understood it.
Also shout out to the writing, I mean for a smutty novella I didn’t expect much in the way of writing but Dayum this was actually pretty good, the imagery the wording the, the feelings, the plot, the spice 😏 all very good for less than 100 pages.
That being said this book is filled with triggers so read responsibly other than that hold on for a wild ride with a dragon man and a 15 INCH SHLONG ❤️

[Lila · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars, rounding up.

I came here for the dark sleeping beauty retelling. To start, I had some incorrect expectations about how exactly that would go down, but that didn’t impact my rating.

If non-consent is a trigger for you, I highly recommend skipping this book. I’ve read TONS of dark romance, but even I was icked a bit at parts throughout this (although this also did not impact my rating).

I liked the premise and the dragon/human aspect. What I struggled with though is how absolutely repetitive most of the chapters were, the clumsy set up of Stockholm Syndrome (although she couldn’t entirely make up her mind), and then the rushed epilogue (I generally love a “breeding” aspect and would have loved more information about the pregnancy. How did she find out? How did the dragon react?).

It was a quick read but not sure I would recommend.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I found the premise to be interesting but I might be bias because I love the story of Sleeping Beauty. It’s beautifully written but often repetitive to the point that I was skim reading in parts. I appreciate that given it’s a short read there’s no real depth to it but some key themes do stand out regarding choice in your own fate and future, which I enjoyed. I liked that the Princess essentially rescues herself and doesn’t forgive the Dragon but the epilogue was insightful in how they move forward as mates.

Overall, enjoyed the read and you’d love it if this is your sort of thing. Will be keeping an eye out for other works from Milada Morrigan :)

[Dominique · Rating 5 out of 5]

it gets really good in Act II!

This is a very dark retelling of Sleeping beauty. A tale of desire, obsession, and choice. I thought the first part was very crazy and obsessive (from the dragons POV). In the second act, when Adalaide awakens the story does as well. I really liked how mouthy and strong she is.

[MrsKatattack · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. There were a few editing areas that need to happen. But the main thing that hurts it is the repetition of contradictions. I understand why there are the contradictions, but many times it feels like page fodder. Definitely a Stockholm syndrome love story, but that doesn't really turn me away. Her badasserary in the 3rd act I feel was very rushed and unbelievable.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

To find such devotion...

I devoured this book, I couldn't get enough. I wish it was longer but it was so beautifully written and descriptive. I was transported, I was Adelaide, felt her fury, her pain, her resolution, her hope, her conviction. I was the dragon, felt his devotion, his love, his utter obsession so all consuming, so devastating but oh so satisfying.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this short read! loved the ending, loved the journey. first page had me HOOKED which hasnt happened to me in a long time! I devoured this book in less than a day. would absolutely LOVE more, but, I love where/how the book ended. 10/10 recommend!

[Sara Duran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check TW

I didn’t check the TW & I thought this was going to be way different. This was a Sleeping Beauty retelling, with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. It's duel POV but her's is just hearing what he said in the previous chapters.

[He11zbelles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dark retelling of Sleeping Beauty with a Dragon that’s not a Prince. This could have been better. The plot itself was original but the first half dragged and was too repetitive. The sex scenes were blah. Overall not bad but not great either.

[Charmaine Breytenbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

good story .. wanted to try something diffrent.. enjoyed it alot

[eve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Above all else I do unfortunately love a good monster romance. 💘

Fifteen inches is crazy though.