Page 37 of There's No Place Like Oz

I grinned at the sight. So cute it was sickening. “Oh just wait, it gets worse.”

And it got worse. So much worse. Fallen logs and streams were manageable, but even I wasn’t prepared for the fifteen foot wide chasm that cut across the road. Blue bricks were scattered about the rocks below, while the cliffs dipped down a solid two hundred feet, disappearing beneath a rushing river that split the earth.

I stared down into the impassable canyon in disappointment. It was hard to say whether this was due to poor management or if it was a strategic decision. I would put neither past her. But then, unless she knew someone might be coming for her, why would she have seen a need for this much effort?

A bolt of lightning lit up the dark mountains, and the expected thundering boom followed shortly thereafter. I turned to my companions. “It’s getting late, and we can’t go much further today. Let’s make camp, and we can figure out our plan going forward.”

I caught Dorothy’s vision lingering on that storm up ahead, and I saw this as a good opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of this mate bond. Sinking into the flurry of her racing mind, I couldn’t hear her explicit thoughts, but I could feel the way they piqued her stress. Her fear and her nerves sunk into me, and only my own courage was enough to prevent them from overtaking my psyche. Was a monsoon a trigger for her? That seemed such a mild thing to instill such a reaction. “The storms never leave the mountains. You’ll be safe here.” I said. She jumped at the realization that I’d noticed.

“Oh, I wasn’t worried.” She lied, and I felt that too. I’m sure Tobias noticed as well, though he had a good read on her even without the magic of shifter ritual.

“Well,I’ma bit afraid of storms, so I thought I’d mention it.” I also lied, but the solidarity put her at ease. I knew she could sense I was only telling half-truths, but the gesture was more powerful for her than the reality. As a shifter, we didn’t need the ability to communicate words across the bond when our feelings were so vivid. It would be a treat when I got to introduce her to my favorite perks of that arrangement.

The usual hustle of setting up camp ensued, with makeshift tents and wood gathering and water procurement. We’d stocked up on more nutritious food in the Emerald City, so dinner was a pleasant affair of meat and vegetables. I didn’t have to pretend to enjoy apples anymore, nor did I have to sneak out after everyone was asleep to hunt, which freed up my time for if I might need to protect the camp alongside Crowe and Talos tonight. We’d not encountered beasts yet, but the chances of a dangerous encounter were much higher in these woods. I was far from the only shifter species in the West.

Once Dorothy and Tobias settled into bed, and the feast of sensations—ranging from warmth to cuddling to safety to orgasm—subsided from the mate bond, I settled against a tree and stared listlessly into the darkness. It was calm tonight, save the occasional rumble of lightning strikes. The winds didn’t howl down here in the trees, and the crickets were…

Wait, where were the crickets?This should have been prime toad and newt territory. Not to mention the owl shifters who feasted on all three. Their gentle hoots were the true music of the woods.

A sick feeling settled in my gut. I scrambled to my feet and approached Crowe and Talos, who both seemed unusually on edge.

“Crowe—” I began, only to have him lift a hand to silence me. His body was tense, while his gaze was darting through the trees. Talos responded by taking a single step, pivoting behind his comrade so they were back to back. The perfect sync of warriors.

I sniffed the air, searching for that first hint of danger. Nothing. Were their senses sharper than mine?

Of course they were. Fucking Gwen.My beast instincts were barely a shadow of what they once were.

Crowe rotated his wrist, then with a brutal chop, he broke his own forearm so the bone was jutting through the skin in a sharp, splintered point. He drew his own radius from his flesh, and he twirled it in his free hand as a weapon. He didn’t so much as wince.

Of all the things I’d witnessed in Oz, I’d never seen anything like him. That moment of absolute shock was the one thing I couldn’t afford, however.

I caught the scent of apes only a split second before I watched Crowe plunge the weapon of his own body through the chest of a large winged monkey. He skewered the beast, and the shifter immediately returned to human form as he lost his soul to the scarecrow’s violent dance.

Talos followed suit in his own way, using his chiseled muscles to brutalize the flying monsters under his fists. For the first time, I watched the both of them fighting with intent to kill, and it was near impossible to rip my attention away from the spectacle of blood and bone and flesh.

But that was hardly the most significant surprise of this assault. No, what truly had me stunned were the beasts themselves. They weren’t just ape shifters. They were winged monkeys.Owlwinged monkeys.

Chimeras.

Fuck. What kind of experiments has Gwen been running since I escaped?

“Pay attention!” Crowe hissed, while he grappled a wiry haired, feathered hybrid. He sliced clean across its neck with the edge of his bone blade, and I took that as my cue to get to work.

I extended my claws and joined the fray, scratching and slicing and biting at the demons. But they just kept coming. If I was at my full strength and could shift, it wouldn’t have mattered, but today I was being reminded exactly how steep the toll of the witch’s curse truly was.

Two chimeras struck me at once, and I was barely able to get my claws into one of them before I was being snatched backwards into the sky. “Let go, fucker!” I bit into his arm, but drawing blood did little to slow it down. Nearly too high in the air to safely escape, I made a last ditch effort. I reached behind my head until I managed to get my claws into his neck, then I ripped forward, severing his jugular on both sides.

His hold loosened as his muscles gave in to death, and under the rain of his blood, I managed to break my fall on a nearby tree branch. I hopped down from one branch to the next to rejoin my companions, but the fight had only escalated.

Crowe was now fending off three chimeras at once, while it was everything Talos could do to keep the things from grabbing him. I ran to their aid, but before I could reach them, a violent ping of terror struck through my heart.

Fuck fuck fuck!

“Dorothy!” I sprinted for the tent, only to see both of my mortal teammates getting whisked into the sky. Tobias thrashed, but he didn’t have my claws to free himself with. Dorothy sobbed, squirming without hope. There was nothingherhuman body could do, cursed or not.

“Help! Leon!” The fear and hopelessness in Dorothy’s cry gutted me, and the emotions rippling through the bond near paralyzed me. My gaze darted around the trees, mapping out the quickest route upward, then I sprinted for the first tree trunk and started bolting up the branches. I spread my claws, and I leaped at the winged ape holding Dorothy, daggers primed and ready to swipe.

And but inches away from success, my breath was slammed from my lungs as another ape caught me midair. His thick, hairy biceps hoisted me upward, immediately too high to survive a fall. I’d not even gotten to take another swing at him before he had my neck in a headlock, and I was out completely.

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