Page 48 of There's No Place Like Oz

I hesitated, only out of awkwardness and second hand embarrassment, then I came up with Gwen’s strap-on dildo for the Wizard to… uh… evaluate. “This was the source of the Wicked Witch of the West’s power.” I said, trying not to be as immature as my internal monologue wanted to be.

The phantom cat nodded with acknowledgement. “You’ve done well.” He said. “That is, indeed, Gwen’s cursed artifact.”Not gonna ask how he knew that. “You’ve proven yourself a worthy warrior. Keep this prize with you and channel its power, for you may need it for the coming trials. Once you return to me with the remaining artifacts, I can grant you your freedoms.”

“Wait what—” With that, we were once again hauled out of the audience chamber and tossed into the streets without any sort of prize or respect. I pursed my lips in irritation.

Leon frowned. “I guess I’ll have to continue without my Lion form for a little longer.”

“Ugh, this is so unfair.” I huffed. “We went through all that and walked away with nothing.”

“Don’t look at it that way. I was able to witness justice against the person who’d hurt me the worst. By comparison, this is a small inconvenience.” With a reassuring pat on the shoulder, Leon added. “I’ve gone this long without my ability to shift, and it hasn’t slowed me down. A couple more weeks won’t kill me.”

I appreciated the sentiment. There was no point in wasting time with idle wishes anyway, and it made me feel less guilty that we hadn’t used the shoes to free Crowe yet, either. So I nodded to Leon, then I turned to my companions and shared a wide smile. “Well, who wants to go next?”

Chapter 37

Mixed feelings. A torrential and wild mix that couldn’t be easily reduced to a simple soliloquy, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Crowe was the only one I could share them with anyway, and with the way he’d been unusually distant and quiet since the encounter with his witch’s sister, he likely already understood what kind of conflicts that were swirling around in my head.

In our misguided and traumatized brains, we all still had some vague affection for our witches at one point in time. And while all that remained was bitterness, animosity, and unbridled hatred, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t unnerved by the prospect of seeing Sasha again. At times, I considered that I would rather remain silent forever than climb this mountain, but it wouldn’t be fair to the others to deny them freedom for fear of facing my demon.

I shook my head at my own reservations.How emotional of me.But then, as I spent more and more time with Crowe as my closest friend—a title he would scoff at—was it any surprise that I had an unreasonable affinity for psychopaths? I was born in a clan who had normalized human sacrifice and cannibalizing our kin, after all. Sasha seemed tame by comparison.Croweseemed tame by comparison.

So many thoughts that drifted through my head as I walked the Orange Brick Road to the South. Here, the ordinarily lush greenery of Oz quickly fell off into yucca trees, sage brush, and a variety of cacti. Grass and mud gave way to deep red clay before fading to the tanned dunes of the Southern desert. The road, however, was meticulously maintained, with perfectly even cut stone, flush cement work, and smooth finishing.

Sasha took great pride in her aesthetic. While rain was rare in this region, she still made a point to constantly survey her infrastructure for cracks that might reflect poorly on her. Image was everything to the Sadistic Bitch of the South.

Witchof the South, I meant.Only not really.

I’d warned the others as much as Crowe allowed before we left the Emerald City, and we were adequately packed with food and fluids for the mortals. The lion had been in good spirits despite still wearing his curse on his shoulders, though the disappointment of our last meeting with the Wizard didn’t give me much hope. At best, I could get my mask removed on this quest, but I wouldn’t get my tongue back. I couldn’t help but think we were little more than errand boys, doing the Wizard’s bidding, rather than earning any sort of prize. It was a discussion I’d like to have with Dorothy one day if I could.

“You know you can always just fuck her if you want to talk to her so badly.”Crowe interrupted my thoughts through our silent channel. Though he was right, the crass way he’d said it knocked me off guard.

I asked with a rise of my eyebrows.

That got under his skin. I could tell by the forced nonchalance he employed when he shot back with“I just want to see her scream when she feels the first piercing on your cock.”

I taunted him again. His denial of his affinity for Dorothy made him such an easy target. I’d not yet raised the point of how distraught he was when she’d been captured in the West, but it was fine ammo for later.

Crowe flattened his lips in a rather perturbed looking line.“On second thought, I’m not sure I want you to be able to talk to anyone else…”

I shook my head with an internal chuckle, when Dorothy turned to face us. Her new heels clacked into place when she spun around. “Can you tell us a bit about this witch?” She asked. A question for me, but her attention was on Crowe instead. I did mildly resent that part of the arrangement. But as much as I wanted to be able to communicate with Dorothy directly, I didn’t feel confident she could survive a night in my bed. Killing one witch on accident, and another while channeling her mate, was well and good, but it certainly didn’t make her hardened or tough. She was still such a terribly delicate little flower. The type who would cry and break if you tied her up, put a knife to her neck, and threatened to slit her throat if she so much as breathed too heavily while you fucked her.

I cleared my throat to dismiss the memory. In my youth, such a thing was exciting, but that was a very different point in my life. The idea of keeping disconnected body parts in jars for later pleasure now appalled me instead of getting me hard.

Cultural differences and all.

Crowe said nothing, but I could tell by his micro-expressions that he’d picked up on far more of those thoughts than I’d meant to share. Instead, he was kind enough to translate something much less savage. “She likes blades and buckles and blood, and her dildos aren’t made of silicone. But unlike Gwen, her intent is more to kill than to create.”As nice as anyone could have phrased it, really.

“I see.” Dorothy processed that with an unfortunate amount of understanding. I supposed that with all she’d seen now, that was par for the course. “What are the chances we’ll be attacked by her cronies when we stop to rest?”

Crowe looked to me then looked to her. “Damn near zero. No one likes that bitch.”

If I could have snorted in pure amusement, that did it for me. Accurate. Where Gwen had enslaved and brainwashed beast men, Sasha’s sex toys didn’t typically survive long enough to be beaten into loyalty. The only reasonImade it this long was because I’d shown such unbreakable promise early on that she granted me everlasting life. Yes, Crowe was a fine translator.

“Then would it be reasonable if we started doing our traveling at night for this one?” Dorothy fanned herself with her hand under the brutal desert sun. Sweat was blooming from every pore, while the sunlight reflected off the shine of her soft but drenched skin.

“Soft skin, huh?”Crowe invaded my thoughts again. This time I was the one whose expression flattened in annoyance.

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