Page 40 of There's No Place Like Oz

At the end of the hall, the guards opened a door and threw me into another dark room. I stumbled in, and by luck alone, I caught my footing before making a complete fool of myself.

Steady on my feet now, I lifted my gaze to the center of the room. And slowly I processed the display before me.

A simple alter of stone sat prominently atop a pentagram-like pattern that glowed with a gentle sapphire light. The same pattern reflected on the ceiling, casting a cool light back down onto the slab. It illuminated the features of the man who was resting on that table, naked and unconscious, and the woman who was squatting over him, working a needle and thread through the large incision that rounded his chest and shoulders.

She was a gothic Lolita bondage princess in black and blue and traces of blood red, with a pout that would make a baby doll jealous, and punk rock highlights that gave her an edge. She was perched over him, stitching him together with thread that appeared like a translucent rope of magic, while perfectly balanced on a towering pair of ten inch heels. Her attention remained transfixed on her subject, while she hummed a simple and childlike melody. The blood on her hooked needle caught in the light of the pentagram every time she lifted her arm high to tug the thread taut, then she returned to his flesh to plunge metal into muscle again.

When she reached the end of the incision, she banished her tools with a twist of her wrist, and she placed a hand on her victim’s chest.

“Won’t you be beautiful for me, Freddy?” Her voice was soft and sweet.

With a tap of her fingers, the pentagrams glowed brighter, completely filling the room with their cold light. The body beneath her shook and spasmed, while her eyes never left her handiwork. The room warmed, and then it turned frigid. I hugged my arms to try to still my own shivering, when the light completely overwhelmed this small stone space.

Then it was dim and dark again. The woman stood upright now, a heel on each side of his waist, and the man convulsed between her feet. He jerked and choked a wet, gurgling cough, and his body started to transform. Dark brown fur sprang from his arms and legs and chest. Bones broke audibly, while his muscles tensed and doubled—no tripled—in size. From the stitch up, the fur was more orange, broken up only by tiger stripes that decorated his neck. The transformation was violent and slow. When it was done, there on the alter, strapped to a table beneath a gothic queen, was a beast with the body of a bear and the head of a tiger, clawing at the stone, growling at the ceiling, and moving like a creature discovering how to use its limbs for the first time.

“You’re perfect.” She cooed over him. “A work of art.” With a lift of her heel, she hopped down from the altar, and she placed a hand on her monster’s heart. She ruffled the fur, and those pouty lips twisted in a smile. That was when she at long last met my gaze. “What do you think, Dorothy? Isn’t he just adorable?”

I froze in place, though I couldn’t say if it was because of fear or magic. It went without needing to be said that this must have been Gwen, the infamous Wicked Witch herself.

“How do you know my name?” A silly question, but I needed to form some sort of words.

“How?” She looked up at the ceiling. “Why, my kitty cat has told me a lot about you. Of course I wanted to know the name of hismate.” Her voice was high pitched and sweet, while her walk conveyed the energy of a no nonsense femme domme. She approached slowly, then she lifted my chin with her finger. Dark blue eyes examined me as if appraising my worth. “I’m guessing he’s toldyoueven more aboutme, though.”

“Only lies, I’m sure.” I attempted to laugh, but my acting skills weren’t winning any Oscars right now.

Gwen chuckled, more genuinely amused, as she had no reason to fear me. She was well aware of her power in the current situation. “I’d be curious to know what praises he sings me in private, but I have a feeling he’s missing all the best parts of the story.” She released my chin, then she waved for me to follow her. She directed me to the slab, where the half bear, half tiger creature had slowed his convulsing. Now it just breathed erratically. “Do you know much about alchemy, Dorothy?”

I shook my head, and that made her smile. I had a feeling she was hoping for the chance to make a speech, and it was probably best I obliged her.

“It’s the art of equivalent exchange.” Gwen paced around the table until she was at the beast’s head, then she placed a hand on each edge and leaned over it. Her substantial bust threatened to spill from her corset. “Much like laws of conservation of mass, where energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed, Alchemy is a sort of magic that takes that principle to the next level.”

I dared not touch the animal on the altar. I swallowed and attempted to keep my nerves down. “So is this alchemy?”

“Mmmhmm.” She smirked at his strained breathing. “You’re from the human world, correct?”

I nodded absently in response, so she continued. “I’ve heard a bit about your world. My cousin goes their often, and she justlovesdumping old, used-up toys over there to die, since your realm doesn’t support immortality like ours does. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so weak and easy to kill.” A statement that shouldn’t have been followed by a giggle. My heart panged knowing she was at least possibly referring to Tobias. “For example, in your world, if you cut two creatures in half and sew them back together, they would die. But here—the possibilities are endless! You can take any two beast men and come up with something so much better than the way the Devil made them.”

I bit my lip, knowing it would be pointless to ask if consent ever factored into these experiments. She was so thrilled to talk about herself, however, that it wasn’t long before she was waxing again. “Maybe that’s hard for you to understand,” she began with a pout. After a moment of pondering, she lifted her finger in an aha. “Think of it like cooking. You must have cooking in your world, yes? You take a number of ingredients that make up what you want to create, you combine them with heat, motion, energy, and a splash of love, then you come up with something new that’s so much better, even though it’s still only a sum of its parts. It’s thrilling isn’t it? Do you like cooking, Dorothy?”

I once liked cooking, up until this moment where I’ll never be able to look at it the same again…But I definitely didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I went with “I never really thought of cooking as a form of magic.”

“Oh, but it is.” Her whole face lit up as she clapped. “Here in Oz, inmykingdom, welovecooking.” With a snap of her fingers, four of her guards entered the room, and like brainwashed puppets, they began to transform. In an instant, four hulking beasts with the head of a tiger and the body of a bear stood in an orderly line, blocking the only door in or out of the room. “I’ve named these beautiful masterpieces ‘Kalidahs.’ They were my first success, and now they live throughout Oz as a new, thriving species. You’ve already met my flying monkeys—those were my…” She tapped her finger to her lips in thought. “Fifth big success, I think? I’ve achieved so much, it’s hard to keep track sometimes.”

“Were all of these Kalidahs once shifters?” I knew the answer in my gut, and I felt queasy just asking it. All I could do was imagine someone like Leon or Tobias being cut up and reassembled, and I hated the mental image.

“Yes! You’re sharp Dorothy! No wonder Leon chose you. He always did have a thing for clever women.” Her smirk made it clear she was complimenting herself more than she was complimenting me, while the bite in her voice clearly conveyed her bitterness towards Leon’s misplaced attention.

Gwen approached me again, this time she settled in behind my back. She placed her hands on my biceps and leaned over my shoulder. With the superior height she’d gained from her high, high heels, she easily towered over me. “Though it’s amazing how much of my kitty cat I can smell on you…” She spoke ever so softly into my ear. I froze as she began playing with the straps of my dress. Literally froze, as though a magical paralytic had taken me. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. “Offensive even.” Her voice lost much of its cheer when she nudged the straps down. She took her time inching the material off my chest. My breathing hitched as she exposed me to her monster on the table. Her hands rounded the outside of my breasts, then she continued down to my waist, over my hips, and at last she released my dress, letting it pool at my feet. “Is this what my pet’s mate scar looks like?” She lifted my breast, so she could examine Leon’s mark from over my shoulder.

“Or is it this one?” She slipped her hand beneath the band of my panties, and she slid down the lace until Tobias’ mark was in clear view. She rubbed the mark at the top of my inner thigh.

Gwen’s poking and prodding felt more clinical than sexual, but knowing the eyes of her guards were all on me only spiked my anxiety. She chuckled softly as she felt my pulse pounding under her touch. She examined me like a surgeon determining the best place for an incision, while the way she undressed me was a clear tactic of humiliation.

“You’re not turned on at all. Do you not find me attractive, Dorothy?” Gwen’s eyes narrowed, and her expression contorted with wickedness. “I suppose you do seem to have a thing for beasts. Maybe I should let my Kalidahs fuck that disgusting mark off you. Would you like that?” Then a playful smile. “Or maybe I’ll just see what I can create from all three of you as punishment.”

All three of us?That was the best confirmation I had that Crowe and Talos hadn’t been captured. Though I couldn’t say if they’d have any chance of reaching us in time if that was the case. Not with how rough the terrain was and how many beasts Gwen had under her employ.

Gwen lifted her attention to her guards, and she nodded to each of them. “Make some room on the table will you please? Then strap her down in his place.”

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