Page 46 of There's No Place Like Oz

“No. I know where it is. Follow me.” He grumbled, then he led the way. We all followed him to a large bedroom that could only have belonged to the wicked Gwen herself. It was her same style of childlike toys juxtaposed with leather spiked collars. Chains and whips and dildos were displayed prominently on the shelves, while the bed was a large, comfortable California King covered in twisted stuffed animals.

Leon located a key under one of the shelves, then he opened a locked drawer with a hard hit of his fist. He reached in and tossed me the enchanted object without making even the briefest eye contact.

I caught it and held the thing in my hand, where I stared at it for several very long blinks to process that I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing.

“This is…”

“A dildo. Yes.” Leon said with a somewhat embarrassed and nervous shrug of his shoulders. My mind, however, was now racing to all sorts of places it shouldn’t.But fuck it.

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Leon… Did she ever…”

“Pleasure herself with it? Yes.” He rolled his eyes, and I shook my head. I couldn’t let this go. Ihadto know.

“No, I was going to ask if she ever… uh… used it to…”How can I say this nicely?

“What?”

“Did she ever peg you with it?”

Tobias started choking on his saliva, and Crowe straight up cackled. Talos turned away to stifle his own reaction.

Leon, however, just stared at me with his mouth agape. “Y-you mean like… did she…” The way he stammered was definitely,definitelynot a no. “Are… Are you into that?” Absolutely flabbergasted. He was completely and utterly stunned.

Tobias choked louder and more pronounced, and I glared in his general direction. My sweet little dog had maybe seen me in one too many compromising positions over the years. If I’d known he was secretly a man who I’d be inviting into my bed one day, I’d probably have been a little more careful about keeping him out of the room…

“Wait, youareinto that?!” Leon was shooting looks between the two of us with abject horror written in every line of his face.

“No, not normally—”

“NOT NORMALLY?!”

I cleared my throat. NowIwas the embarrassed one. “It was just one—” Tobias raised an eyebrow. “Okay, two—it was two times.” I shook my head. “I mean, no, I don’t know much about it or anything. It’s just that the way it’s flared…” I ran my hand down the length of it to the end that was clearly made to be affixed to a harness. A fact I probably shouldn’t explain why I recognized so easily. “I-I mean, all of the witch’s objects are something wearable, right?”That. Explain it with a reasonable, logical jump to conclusions instead of a deviant one.“I was just curious… You’re a cat, so you know how curiosity is.” I nervously chuckled, while not convincingly feigning innocence as I rubbed the back of my neck.

“I marked a woman who is going to peg me…” Leon’s tone was distant and hollow.

Tobias gave him a hard pat on the shoulder. “This is why you get to know someone before you claim them forever. Consent is fun, eh?” He turned to me. “Good job on killing the witch, Dorothy. Let’s get back to Oz and drop this off so we can head off to the next one.”

“Sounds good to me.” Crowe said while stretching his arms to the sky. Talos nodded. And I turned on my pink one-inch heels.

“Whelp, off to see the Wizard.” I said in a singsong voice.

Leon just stood there, dumbstruck. We all got a much needed laugh that day.

Chapter 36

The monkeys dropped us off back at the Emerald City, and just like last time, we were given nice rooms, and I went straight for a shower. While much of the witch’s blood had absorbed into my shoes, there was still stray spatter and ink marks all over me, and I felt cold, sticky, and gross.

I scrubbed at the dotted line over my heart with a wash cloth, not wanting to register that it was there because I was about to be butchered like livestock, and I watched as the blue ink swirled down the drain. There were so many things I still had to process.

I wasn’t a cold blooded killer, for one. I wasn’t supposed to be, and I didn’t want to be. But was what I’d done really so wrong? What was the difference between this and self-defense? The fact that she had been defenselesswhen I dealt the blow probably didn’t help my opinion of myself, but then if she hadn’t been defenseless, she would have killed me with no reservations. Repeating these things was the only way I could cope, so I just had to keep reminding myself that she deserved it.

As I cleaned the ink around my mate scar, I recalled the way Leon had poured his emotions into me, from the blood lust to the relief, and it was also prudent to note that she’d tortured thousands—if not millions—of shifters throughout her long life. No one cried when dictators fell, did they? I did a good thing. I saved and avenged countless people from oppression and torture.

If I’m a hero, why do I feel like a monster?

I sighed as I turned off the shower, then I started the bath to help myself relax. The bubbles frothed, and the scent of rosemary calmed me. I stepped into the scalding water and relaxed into its soothing embrace.

A light tapping on my door caught in my ear. Tobias, I assumed. “Come in.” I said quietly, knowing all of my companions had practical super human hearing. The door creaked and shut, then in the doorway to the bathroom stood Leon, dressed in comfortable pajama bottoms and little else.

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