Page 19 of There's No Place Like Oz

I felt my way through the blackness, where I started to notice I’d lost some pace behind the others. It was likely that they had much better eyesight in these sorts of low light settings. I was the only plain, boring, ordinary human among us, and that was starting to feel like a disadvantage when the road rounded a sharp bend, and I completely lost sense of Crowe and Talos.

The snap of a twig caught in my ear, and I fixated on the direction of the sound. Not that I could see what was coming, but I swore I heard something moving, and I wanted to be ready. I opened my mouth but hesitated to speak. What was it they said you were supposed to do when you encountered a wild animal on a trail again? Was I supposed to stay quiet to not alert it, or was I supposed to make noise to scare it away? I hadn’t paid much attention to bear safety techniques when I was hiking Runyon Canyon on the regular, and in all the lessons I’d had in fishing and wood chopping in Kansas, I knew more about safety around cattle than I did around rattle snakes or wildcats.

Another barely discernable squish of mud, and I dead froze. The sounds of my companion’s steps continued, likely having not yet noticed the way my feet had stopped and my heartbeat was in my ears.

I took an unsteady step back.

“Dorothy? What’s wrong?” Tobias’ voice seemed distant as a violent thud of a hard, muscular body slammed into me from the side with all the force of being tackled by a charging bison. All the air was forcefully knocked from my lungs, and I went tumbling into a bush. The loud snapping of branches was accompanied by a whirlwind of leaves flying in the wake of impact.

My wits were nowhere to be found when my assailant had me over his shoulder and began dashing through the foliage with a near feline nimbleness, jumping and dodging trees and ferns and splashing through rivers. If my friends were giving chase, I couldn’t hear them amidst such chaos. Grass and leaves whizzed by below me.

“Help!” I kicked my feet and beat on his back with closed fists, hopelessly shouting for him to put me down but ultimately being unsuccessful. I had no idea how far he’d taken me when he at last came to a sudden stop. Darkness grew darker when I realized we had reached a cave in the trees.

He hauled me through a pitch black opening, where I was greeted by an eerie chorus of dead silence until we reached a small, crackling camp fire. Such a simple thing provided uncharacteristic warmth and comforting light in the otherwise imposing tunnel. It was then that he unceremoniously threw me face first into the mud.

I tried to scramble away, but he grabbed me by the ankle, dragged me beneath him, then wasted no time settling on top my back. My assailant pinned me with hard palm pressing my cheek more deeply into the wet and squishy ground. I thrashed best I could, but my position had me at a distinct disadvantage. The weight let up only long enough for him to flip me over and jerk my wrists over my head. He trapped them both under a single heavy hand.

His other hand covered my mouth before I had a chance to so much as scream. My friends would notice I was missing though. They would come for me. I didn’t know about Crowe or Talos, but Tobias would. Toto would never let me down. I’m sure he could follow my scent. Or at least I hoped he could.

“Don’t scream.” My attacker growled the words, low and deep. I blinked up at him, trying to dispel the traces of dirt from my eyelashes. In the warm but low light, all I could make out was that he was blond with mid length dreadlocks tied back behind his head, and his eyes were slitted by a sharp pupil in an orb of gold. A scar across his cheek rested atop a short gold beard that was barely more than stubble. He was muscular yet lean, and he was bare-chested, other than the intricately patterned tattoo that snaked down thick biceps and a defined chest. He wore furs and leathers from the waist down, and if not for the cascade of small hoop earrings adorning each ear, he’d appear entirely primitive.

A Viking, I thought.I’ve been kidnapped by a Viking.

I squirmed in his grasp, and he tightened his grip on my mouth. His fingers dug into my cheeks, while the tips of his razor sharp nails extended until they just barely broke skin.

He blinked down at me for seconds that felt like minutes, and his lips pursed as if he wasn't entirely pleased with what he was seeing.

“Wait, you’re not a munchkin.” He said with genuine surprise. He leaned in close and started sniffing along my neck. “Not a Kalidah.” I felt his tongue slide along my jugular. “And you don’t taste like a witch either.”

He removed his hand from my mouth, though he kept my wrists pinned, and he stared into me with discriminating irritation. “Well fuck, I was hoping you were a munchkin. I haven’t had a decent meal in weeks, and now I don’t even know if you’re something venomous or not.”

While I was fairly certain I was perfectly edible, that was not something I was going to argue with right now. Instead, I decided this was a good opportunity to scream loud enough for Tobias to hear me. I opened my mouth, but a simple rise of his finger, demonstrating the way his sharp black claws extended to a killing length, was enough to scare me back into silence.

“You’ll be dead before they find you if you make a sound.” He added plainly, as if it wouldn’t bother him in the slightest to murder someone. It probably wouldn’t if he ate munchkins. While I wasn’t fond of the people from my first encounter, they still resembled humans far too closely for me to be comfortable seeing them as food.

I bit my lip as he shifted his hips on top of mine then began drawing a line down my neck. He pressed in just enough to break skin, and I watched the smallest droplets of blood bead in his black nails. I swallowed, and I whimpered, but the severe look in his eye told me not to make a sound louder than that.

“What a strange thing you are. You aren’t a shifter, and you’re much too pretty to be one ofthem.” He continued down to my bust line. He drew a line over to my shoulder, then he retracted his claws and nudged the material down.

A shifter?I wanted to ask, but I didn’t dare speak yet. Instead, I kept my eyes on his, trying not to acknowledge the heat he’d started to build inside me with this exploratory touch. I held my breath as I felt the soft material of my dress start to slide down my breasts. A slightly more forceful tug got the bust line over my firmed nipples, exposing me completely to his view.

There was no lust in that gaze though. Only… curiosity?Why is that look so disarming?

“Different.” He muttered as he cupped my breast and squeezed. My nipples were pebbled in his hand, and that seemed to only amuse him more. He kneaded me gently, rolling that sensitive peak between his coarse fingers. “You’re not cold or hard like the women I’m used to.” He traced circles around my areolas with his thumb. “So pleasant to the touch. I wonder if you’re this soft and warm on the inside too.”

My breathing hitched again on those words. I couldn’t tell if his idea of “inside” meant goring me or fucking me, but I wasn’t going to ask him to clarify.

“What exactly are you?” His tone was a purr, and I fidgeted as my body responded to his voice and caress. His movements were so unexpectedly gentle, and he seemed to have a good sense of where and how to touch me to get me hot and bothered instead of simply scared. Thoughts like that may have been the most disturbing part of this whole situation. “You can answer now.” He said, still sending small shockwaves through me as he kneaded and played with my breasts.

“I-I’m human.” I said unsteadily, while I watched him drift his hand further downward. He applied steady pressure, feeling me through my clothes. “Just a regular human trying to get through the woods. I’m not trying to intrude.” I attempted next, but my voice fell off into a practical squeak. He was exploring me, but the more he sniffed and prodded and felt his way around, the more animalistic it felt. It was like a predator determining if my flesh was worth eating. Vicious and hungry and terrifying, even if the dampness he’d started building between my legs was betraying that sentiment.

“Human, huh.” His thin lips cocked in a half smile. “I think I might like humans.” With a suddenness, his hand was back up to my neck, and he was squeezing firmly enough to keep me from calling out, yet with enough restraint that I could still breathe if I focused hard enough. “I’ve hunted in these woods for quite some time, and I’ve never encountered anything quite like you.”

I jerked in his grasp again, bowing my back against the floor and pressing my head back into the mud to try and create some amount of distance between his squeezing force and my wind pipe. He just chuckled and shook his head. I was completely overpowered. He was heavy and he was strong.

“Shhh, don’t struggle, little human. I just want to test a theory.” The grin that slipped across his lips was one of pure deviance. He lifted his hips so he was now hovering over me, and he removed the hand from my neck to slip it, instead, under my skirt.

I bit my trembling lip and closed my eyes as those exploring fingers found their way in between my legs. “You see, I’m used to women who have bodies like stone and blood like ice.” He traced my entrance, then he nudged my panties to the side. “Pleasuring them is about as enjoyable as fucking a frozen pipe.” He effortlessly slipped his first finger into me, and I didn’t want to explain why I was so incredibly wet already. I couldn’t help the gasp that sprang from my throat when he added another digit. I clenched on his finger as he sunk in to his knuckles. “Fuck, you’re hot.” He hooked his fingers just right to find my G-spot, and he kept his eyes locked on mine all the while. He watched my face, as if he was reading every shift in my expression to figure out which movements and positions rubbed the most involuntary pleasure through me.

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