Let Me Win You (Seven Horny Sins #2)

Chapter 5

5

Nicole

A light breeze stroked my bare leg, filling the air with the sweet scent of jasmine and green tea. Birds chirped close by. Then something soft brushed by my thigh.

I squinted in the daylight, glancing down my leg. A large butterfly sat on my knee, gently moving its white-and-green wings. A gossamer bed curtain moved in the breeze. The butterfly rose in the air and fluttered away.

Rolling to my back, I stared at the bamboo bed canopy with the white curtains.

My hotel bed had no bamboo and no curtains.

No butterflies either.

I sat up with a jolt of alarm.

Where was I?

The four-poster bed stood in an open space with no walls. A huge grass-woven rug covered the wooden floor. Thick pillars supported a roof of long bamboo poles and large dark-green leaves that looked like giant lily pads.

The air moved freely through the open space under the roof, swaying the light bed curtains. Colorful birds flew by outside. Two white butterflies fluttered in a dance around one of the support pillars, which I now realized was a tree trunk of an uncut, still living tree. The whole place was surrounded by trees. Their vivid green canopies swaying just outside of the rug-covered floor.

“This isn’t my hotel,” I muttered, tossing back the bed covers.

I was wearing a short, white camisole that was not mine. And there was a calla lily in my hair just above my ear.

“What the hell?” I screeched, tossing the flower away as if it were a spider.

What had happened to me?

It all seemed too real, too weird, and too unsettling to be just a dream.

Jumping from the bed, I ran to the edge of the floor to look out. I was on the second level of the structure of open floors and suspended walkways that connected them. It looked like a fun, sprawling vacation house with lots of open spaces, billowing curtains, and green leaf canopies. Except that I was far from being in a fun vacation mood.

How did I get here?

The last I remembered, I was warm and comfy, snuggling into Invi’s chest under the covers in my hotel room while falling asleep.

Had I been kidnapped?

If so, who kidnapped me? Invi?

A sharp pinch of disappointment shot through my chest. Did I trust too easily? Again? Only this time, the consequences seemed to be even more dire than just a broken heart.

But why would he do this to me? And how could I have read him so wrong?

Maybe it wasn’t him who took me. Maybe he was a victim too?

There was no one else on this floor with me. No one to ask my questions.

I scanned the area around the strange house. It was surrounded by a lush, green forest that extended as far as I could see in three directions. On the fourth side, the forest gave way to fields and valleys, with a bubbly creek running nearby. And beyond the fields, I spotted a line of buildings.

It looked like a town. Which meant there’d be people, and I could get help and hopefully some answers.

Instead of stairs or a ladder, I found a spiral ramp to get down to the ground floor that opened to a grassy area by a tall willow tree with a table under it. The table was set with dishes for two, but there were no people either on the patio or anywhere else as far as I could see. Just a few wild ducks floated peacefully in the calmer part of the creek with fragrant patches of blooming calla lilies on each side of the water.

A narrow path behind the willow tree followed the creek toward the fields. I hoped it’d lead me all the way to the town.

Barefoot and wearing only the flimsy camisole, I contemplated whether I should first search the giant tree house for some shoes and clothes.

A splashing came from downstream, then a man appeared from behind the willow tree, moving smoothly through the water that reached him up to his waist.

The man looked eerily similar to Invi. Except that not only his eyes were emerald, his entire body was green. He shimmered and appeared almost transparent, including the long hair streaming behind his back and…a pair of long horns spiraling up from his head.

Horns?

Shock seized my limbs.

I staggered backwards as he slid closer through the creek as if propelled by some invisible engine under the water.

The only normal thing about this man was the wicker basket covered with a red-and-white checkered cloth that hung casually from the crook of his elbow. Real and solid, without a speck of shimmer, the basket looked largely out of place with that creature.

The bizarre green man didn’t appear to notice me, humming something under his breath. As he reached the patio with the table, I realized how large he actually was, probably at least twice my height. He moved toward the area with the table. The water dropped past his hips and lower on his way out of the creek, revealing…nothing. He had no dick, no thighs, or feet. Instead, his hips smoothly extended into a long, never-ending tail that snaked out of the water and coiled on the grass under the willow tree.

I gasped, choked by horror.

And now, the monster saw me.

“Nicole?” he exclaimed in surprise.

I screamed and ran.

I bolted in the opposite direction from him, without paying attention to where I was going. Panic spurred me out of the forest and through the fields.

“Nicole!” the monster shouted behind me in a deep rumbling voice that sounded a little like Invi’s, if Invi were to yell in a cave during an earthquake.

I ran faster, pumping my arms and gasping for air. My chest burned with effort. My right side pinched with pain. My boobs hurt, bouncing without a bra. I was not a runner, but horror gave me unexpected endurance and strength.

The grass in the field rustled behind me.

That booming voice sounded closer, “Nicole, darling, please…”

I glanced over my shoulder to see the monster gaining on me. His tail snaked behind him, propelling him forward with an astonishing speed.

I screamed in terror, pushing my legs to run faster.

A pair of strong hands suddenly plucked me from the tall grass, lifting me off the ground. And I came face to face with a woman.

Dressed in a long, elaborate gown, she was about twice my size, with a semi-transparent body that glowed and shimmered with pink. But at least she had feet instead of a tail and no horns that I could see.

“And what do we have here?” The woman gazed at me with curiosity as the color of her dress, hair, and body slowly turned from baby-pink to dark magenta. “Where are you running, sweetie?”

“I just want to go home,” I whimpered, trying to catch my breath. “But… A green monster… A snake-man is chasing me.”

She exhaled with understanding. Her mouth pressed into a firm line of displeasure as she glanced over my head back into the field where the snake-monster must be getting closer.

“He’s neither a man nor a snake.” The woman sighed. “But yes, all my sons look and often act like real monsters. Of course, we can’t let him have you.” She placed me in the crook of her elbow before heading toward the town.

Not running, the woman moved swiftly. Her legs, much longer than mine, took us to the town seemingly in no time at all.

She carried me through a few narrow side streets, then walked up three steps to a wrap-around porch of a cute, two-story house.

It looked like a street café or a countryside restaurant with small round tables and wicker armchairs. People sat at the tables or mingled around. It would’ve been a lovely scene, had the “people” been actually people and not the mostly naked, humanoid shapes that were almost see-through and glowed with different colors.

“What is this place?” I asked quietly the pink woman, who had turned from pink to purple meanwhile.

“It’s a teahouse,” she replied casually. “My daughter, Kindness, runs it. It’s cute, isn’t it? Even if a little boring.”

She took me to a round table with four armchairs. An older woman the color of lavender occupied one of the chairs. Dressed in a white, flowing robe, she was one of the minority who wore clothes around here. She also seemed to be closer in size to me than to the pink-purple woman who’d brought me here.

“Look what I found, Charity.” The tall, purple woman sat me down into one of the armchairs at the table.

Charity stared at me with her lavender eyes that matched her long hair pulled up into a bun.

“Oh, not again,” she groaned. “Did Avar bring you here?” she asked me. “That bastard! Is he at it again?” She slammed with her fist against the crisp white tablecloth, making the dainty little teacups and saucers on the table jump and clink.

“Who’s Avar?” I asked the purple woman, who was ever so slowly turning to red now. The multi-colored creatures around me were hard enough to deal with, but this woman’s shifting lightshow was so disorienting, it was giving me a headache. “Who are you? And where the hell am I, anyway?”

The now burgundy-red woman calmly took a seat at the table, next to the lavender one.

“I’m Pandora, and this is Charity, my daughter.”

Charity looked at least twice as old as Pandora. It made no sense that she was her daughter. But nothing in this place made sense. I felt like Alice when she fell through the looking glass or into the rabbit hole. Maybe I just had to accept that everyone was crazy here, including me?

“Avar is my son, the Sin of Greed,” Pandora explained. “The one who chased you is Invi, the Sin of Envy. I have five more sons in addition to those two, and they’re all nothing but trouble.” She waved her hand in the air. “If you want advice from the mother of sins and virtues, don’t ever have children, my dear. Trust me, life is much easier without them.”

“I’m…um…” What was I supposed to say to that?

A massive emerald glowing shape appeared from around the corner of the house. The thick tail of the monster slithered between the tables and chairs on the patio, forcing a few of those present to scramble out of the way or to jump over it.

The giant snake-man spotted me in an instant and moved determinedly toward me.

I jumped to my feet, knocking back my chair.

“Stay away from me!” I shrieked.

He stopped as if hitting a wall. His features scrambled into a pained expression.

“Nic… It’s me, Invi.”

His shape shrank slowly. The horns wavered and disappeared. The tail seemed to melt, like a bright green snowbank in the summer heat, eventually splitting into two legs.

A lime-colored woman exited the house with a tea tray.

“Invi? Back already?” she asked casually. “Do you need more scones?” She blinked, spotting me. “Oh…I don’t believe we’ve met.” She put the tray on the table, adjusted the glasses perched on her nose, then offered me her hand. “I’m Kindness. Welcome to Purgatory.”

“To… Where? ” I mumbled.

My mind gave up trying to make sense of any of this. My body seems to barely hold it together. My legs shook, and I gripped the table in a desperate attempt to stay upright.

“You don’t look so good, honey.” Kindness lifted my chair then shoved it behind me. “Here. You better sit down. I’ll make you some tea.”

“She doesn’t need your tea,” said the snake-man, who now looked like a bizarre, naked, glowing version of the man I’d gone to bed with last night, which felt like in another lifetime. “I have our breakfast ready, Nicole. Please come back with me. We need to talk.”

He gathered his long, green hair and twisted it into a bun on the back of his neck. If he tried to look even more like the man I had met in the club last night, he only marginally succeeded. No matter how hard he might try, regular people didn’t glow. And they weren’t green.

“Who really are you?” I whimpered, plopping down on the chair that Kindness had so helpfully placed behind me.

“Nicole, please…” the glowing man exhaled, his chest deflating as he took a step toward me.

I jerked, ready to run again, and Kindness thrust her arm at him, as if to hold him back.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, moving her gaze from him to me. “You have a body, sweetie. You aren’t dead yet, are you? Invi? What have you done?”

“He stole her.” Charity leaned back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. “He saw Avar getting away with stealing a living mortal and thought he could do the same. That’s what happens when no one holds them accountable. The sins do whatever the fuck they want.”

“Language, my child,” Pandora chided the old woman.

“I didn’t steal her!” the green man whom everyone called Invi bristled.

“Oh, I believe you very much did,” I argued, struggling to breathe through the tightness in my chest.

That explained it. I wasn’t going insane. He stole me and brought me here, in…whatever this crazy place was.

“Nic, no… I…” Invi ran a hand through his forest-green tresses. “We had a connection, didn’t we? You felt it too. It wasn’t just me. You said you wanted more, and I… I thought my home would be the best place to get to know each other. It’s peaceful and quiet, away from all the noise and crowds?—”

“Are you talking about your swamp?” Charity cringed.

Kindness laced her fingers in front of the ruffled apron she wore over a long dress with a lace collar. “Well, his place isn't so bad. It’s a bit wet but…”

Pandora pinched the bridge of her nose that had turned deep purple now, just like the rest of her.

“You boys really should stop doing this,” she groaned.

“Living bodies don’t belong in Purgatory,” Charity asserted sternly. “You’re risking plunging the current world order back into chaos.”

Tilting her head, Pandora twirled a strand of her hair around her finger, turning to white and then to pale yellow. “That said, chaos has its fun side?—”

“Mother.” Charity tossed her a glare, cutting her off. “You’re not helping.”

“The world needs an order.” Kindness nodded in agreement with her sister. “There are so many chaotic, unpredictable things out there already.”

“Nic,” Invi implored through the chatter of his family. “Please come with me. We started something wonderful?—”

“We didn’t start anything.” I shook my head vehemently. “You’re not the same man. You just can’t be. You… I don’t even know who you are.”

“I know I look a little different. But do looks really matter that much to you? I can take the exact shape of the body I had last night, and I’ll stay in it indefinitely if that’s what you want.” He ran a hand over his chest, and I followed it down his glowing shape, over the well-defined grid of his abs, and…down to a perfectly smooth area of his crotch. “Oh, sorry,” he muttered. “I forgot one last detail.”

With those words, the area between his legs bulged out, then formed two perfectly shaped testicles and a club-sized, emerald-green, glowing dick. It bobbed at half-mast as I stared at it in shock.

“What… What the fuck…How it’s even possible?” I gripped my throat. “What are you doing?”

My mind reeled. I felt like a pebble tossed into a creek and pushed around by the current with no direction. Nothing made sense, and I lacked the frame of reference to even attempt to organize it into any resemblance of sense or logic.

His massive glow-stick dropped down, and Invi’s expression dimmed.

“Is it not what you want? Because I can adjust it?—”

“I don't want you to adjust it,” I screeched, shoving back the chair again and jumping to my feet. “I don’t want any of this…whatever this is?” I waved my hand around me. “I need to go home. Just take me back where you took me from. Please…” I sniffled as stress and panic were about to give way to tears.

“Aww, you poor thing.” Kindness hugged my shoulders. “Look what you’re doing to her, Invi. You should be ashamed of yourself. She’s shaking.”

“She’s having a nervous breakdown,” Pandora stated coolly. “That’s the problem with having nerves. They are an extremely fragile feature of a mortal body.”

Charity rose from her seat with a defiant expression. “We can’t let him drag her back to his swamp.”

“You can stay here with me,” Kindness offered. “I always have room for a lost soul.”

“No!” Invi’s shape flashed with red. “Nic is mine. You can’t have her.”

“Just because you stole her, doesn’t make her yours,” Charity snapped. “Even Avar was able to grasp that by returning quite a few of the things he’s stolen.”

“I don’t care what Avar does.” Invi raged. “Nicole is mine!”

Bright red streaks crisscrossed the serene green of his shape. Enraged, he clearly forgot to look like the Invi from last night. He grew in size. His shoulders widened. Long spirals of horns sprouted from his head. The outline of his legs wavered, and I didn’t wait for them to turn back into the tail.

“I’m not yours!” I screamed, backing away from him. “You don’t own me.”

“Nicole, sweetheart…” He moved after me, tripping over his feet that seemed to want to merge into the tail.

“Stay away from me!” I shrieked, thrusting both hands forward, as if I could physically stop him.

“You’re terrifying her, Invi.” Kindness hugged me tighter. “Come inside, honey.” She led me toward the door to the teahouse.

“Nic, no, don’t leave!” Invi surged forward—slithering, no longer walking.

“Oh my God…” I whimpered, stumbling for the door.

“She doesn’t want you to follow her.” Charity stood in his path to me. “Stay back. Mother? What are you waiting for? Put on the wards. Now!”

“Come, come, quickly,” Kindness ushered me inside and closed the door behind us.

“Nic!” Invi raged behind the door, disturbing the stillness of the quaint house that reigned inside the walls with flowery wallpaper.

Scents of baking filled the front sitting room that had frilly curtains on the windows and white doilies on the high-backed armchairs.

“He can’t come in here.” Kindness released me from her arms. “Here, you will be safe.”