The birds froze in the sky at the sound of the booming male voice behind her.
That was what she’d meant to do.
“Go back,” the voice echoed all around her. “Go back to your lady and tell her that what she wants cannot be gained through force.”
The bird men didn’t hesitate, weaving and wobbling through the air as they attempted to regain their balance enough to escape.
Dorothy refused to turn around. She knew that voice. She’d come here to find him and spent the day limping through the forest and cursing him for not meeting her as soon as she arrived. Yet now, when he was finally close enough to touch, she hesitated.
“Welcome, Dorothy. Welcome to Oz.”
She whirled around with a surprised laugh. “Did you actually say Oz? You’ve got to be—”
Before she could finish, he was kissing her with a pent-up passion she recognized. This was why she’d come. What she’d been longing for. He was real and solid and right in front of her. Z pulled her closer, gripping her hips in his hands. Dorothy moaned, angry at the clothes that separated them. She wanted to feel him against her, bare skin against bare skin. She wanted him inside her.
“Not to interrupt, but why is your hot neighbor here and why is he kissing you?”
Dorothy tore her mouth from Z’s, dropping her head to his shoulder to catch her breath. “It’s a long story, Em,” she panted.
When she finally lifted her head, her eyes widened as she took in the silent audience. There were so many of them and they were an…unusual looking group.
And they were looking at her like she had two heads.
“Make that long story short,” Emily insisted stubbornly, comfortably nestled in Braxim’s arms.
Dorothy noticed several other centaurs shifting toward the front of the crowd, all of them looking curiously at her sister. Oh dear.
There were also at least a hundred men who seemed to be made of pure gold, all with amber eyes and ebony hair like Z’s.
All but one.
“Kansas? Kansas!” She took off at a run, and he met her halfway, wrapping his arms around her with that happy laugh she’d missed so much.
“Dee baby, how are ya, sweetheart?” She pulled back, looking into his cornflower eyes, that shaggy blond hair that always made him look a little rakish, and beamed through her tears.
“What are you doing here?” He’d mentioned he’d be traveling, but she’d assumed he meant another country. Not another dimension.
“Well, you see, there was this storm…” He winked at her and she looked over her shoulder at Z, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. He wasn’t smiling. In fact, the way he was staring at her friend’s arms around her made him look jealous. But that didn’t make any sense. Not from a man with his sexual appetite.
“He brought him for me.”
Dorothy nearly swallowed her tongue when the velvet voice parted the crowd to reveal a golden demi-god that had to be the king. Everything about him screamed royalty. That and his powerful features and bald head made him look a little like a young Yul Brynner. Only hotter. Way, way hotter.
“Wow,” Emily sighed and Dorothy nodded in mute agreement. Wow indeed.
Kansas blushed when the man wrapped a beefy arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.
“That’s what I said as soon as I saw him,” he muttered. “Which is why once I got here, there was no way I wasn’t going to lock that down. They don’t make men like this anywhere on Earth.”
Now it was the king’s turn to blush. At least, she thought he was blushing. He was definitely turning a darker gold.
“Congratulations,” she said with a soft smile. “I’m sorry I missed the wedding.”
Kansas winced. “About that…”
She nudged him playfully. “He’s a king. You’re forgiven.”
The king in question eyed the listening crowd, his bearing regal and resolved. “Everyone get back to the safety of the base for now. Tonight we celebrate the new arrivals and the power they’ve brought to join with ours.”