Before I could process any of it, Aquasteine,my mate with the blue silky hair grabbed me by the waist and hauled me over his shoulder and carried me inside. A gold chandelier with tear-shaped crystal drapes catching the light above me.
He set me on my feet. My tattered slippers hit the silkiest carpet I had ever felt beneath my feet.
"Riri, bring food for ravine," Aquasteine called out, guiding me to a grey sofa so plush my entire body sank into it like a bouncing castle.
Ravine? My name is Diane , who the hell is ravine.
"Yes, sirs," a voice replied from somewhere out of sight.
I looked around at the curved television — so unusual it stole my breath — the grey tones and gold accents throughout. These men were wealthy. Dangerously so.
"She needs a shower," Ramses announced, already crossing the room. "Are you all coming?"
"Can you put me down?" I said, as he lifts me again without asking.
Ramses and his army ignored me entirely.
Within moments I was in a black-walled bedroom — huge bed, jacuzzi bathroom, the works. Ramses set me down and reached for the hem of my ruined clothes.
"What in God's name are you doing?" I yelled.
The men exchanged glances like I was the strange one.
"I don't know any of you," I said, hearing my own voice crack like a frustrated child. "You want to take off my clothes? I don't belong here. This isn't my home."
All four of them burst out laughing at exactly the same time.
I found them attractive. That was the problem. I found them all devastatingly, inconveniently attractive — and I still couldn't just undress in front of men I barely knew.
"Oh Lord," I muttered under my breath.
Aquasteine crouched in front of me — why did he have to be so tall that even crouching he was eye level he was taller than me standing? His large fishy gaze moved over my face slowly.
"Ravine," he said quietly. "We know you're pretending. You can't fool us." A pause. " You can choose to do this the easy way or hard way. Your choice."
I'm dumbstruck no words are forming. It's like my brain has been replaced with warm pudding.
"It's better you cooperate," the man with the golden hair says. "You already have a punishment waiting."
No way. There was absolutely no way I was letting these strangers disrobe me and bathe with me. I knew it wouldn't stop there either. I crossed my arms over my chest and puffed up, trying to look formidable despite the fact that I was standing in a ruined negligee in someone else's bathroom.
"No way," I say, as arrogantly as I can manage.
I could feel my face flushing from anticipatory embarrassment. Oh Lord, please save me.
[Beep. Beep.]
[Hello, this is Zoe , your system manager. A reminder that you have been transmigrated to a beast world. To survive, you must mate with your husbands within two days or your energy will deplete completely causing a violent explosion]
Oh Lord. So I was really going to have to do this.
I could feel chills wriggling up my spine. The chill hadn't even finished moving through me when I was grabbed around the waist — the man with the blue hair, moving so fast I barely registered it. He pressed my back gently against the bathroom wall, his lips finding my neck, and I felt a shiver move through me before I could stop it. His mouth was warm. Unhurried. Like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.
I don't know exactly when he stripped me or how he lowered me into the bathtub without me protesting. One moment I was against the wall and the next I was sinking into warm soapy water, my whole body going slack against my will.
A sweet aroma curled into my nostrils.
"Sandalwood?" I said — out loud, accidentally.
"Sandalwood and lily," the man with the green hair said from somewhere behind me. "With a hint of pine."
The bathroom light dimmed. I couldn't tell who dimmed it or when — I only knew that suddenly all four of them were visible in different stages of undress and everything felt unbearably warm.
I've never particularly enjoyed this sort of thing. Not with my ex, who treated intimacy like a transaction and hated anything that wasn't entirely on his terms. But this — whatever this was — felt nothing like that.
I hated that it didn't feel like that.
Control yourself, I told myself firmly. You do not know these men. You have been here less than one day. You are not this person.
But my body, apparently, had a completely different opinion.