She’d been spying on them for a few days, waiting for the right moment for a surprise attack. When they went on an elite dungeon run, she knew it was a perfect opportunity for her to get the drop on them. After clearing the dungeon, they would be too tired to fight her. All she needed to do was to set up an ambush near the entrance to the dungeon and wait for the four of them to get out.

To her surprise, they’d returned way faster than she expected. Her men stepped from the foliage and surrounded the three of them as soon as they emerged from the dungeon. Melinda stayed hidden for a little longer, examining her prey. From their look, she realized that the elite dungeon must have turned out too difficult for them to clear out, so they’d had to flee. She also couldn’t help but notice that one of them, Kwan, was missing – probably having been killed in the dungeon. It was a shame. Real shame. She’d hoped to enslave all four of them.

When she emerged from her hiding spot behind thick bushes and stood among her men, she heard the big guy named Michael say quietly to his friends, “That’s her.”

Melinda couldn’t help but grin. It felt nice to be feared.

Kirk, who was the leader of their small group, looked at her, and asked, “What do you want from us?”

Melinda didn’t like the tone of his voice. If he was afraid, he was hiding it well. Ignoring him, she pointed her finger at Michael and said, “You. Come over here.”

The big guy didn’t budge. “What for?”

“Just do as I say if you want to live,” Melinda replied.

“Tell us what you want from us,” Kirk asked again.

Melinda looked at him. “You ask too many questions. But I’ll humor you this one time. I want the three of you to join my team.”

“And why would we do that?”

“You don’t have a choice. Either you join my team or you’ll die right here and now.” Melinda shifted her gaze at Michael again. “Come to me, and don’t make me say it twice.” She turned her head slightly to her men. “If the fatso doesn’t comply in two seconds, shoot him right away.”

Michael stood for a second, then began to walk toward her. Kirk called after him, “Wait.”

Without slowing down, he replied, “We don’t have a choice, Kirk. We have to do what she says.”

It was easier than Melinda had expected. And it had her worried. Very quietly so only the nearest man could hear her, she said, “Be ready.”

Michael stopped before her and asked, “So what happens now?”

Melinda began to answer, and the big hut suddenly threw a punch at her face, the brass knuckles he wore on his hand glinting in the sunlight. Unfortunately for him, Melinda was ready for something like that. She easily sidestepped his strike just as the man she’d said to be ready approached Michael from behind and banged the butt of his rifle against the back of his head. Grunting, Michael dropped to his knees, and two of her men immediately took hold of his upper arms to restrain him.

“Hey,” Kirk yelled. “Leave him alone.”

He took a step forward, and the rest of her men instantly pointed their weapons at him, causing him to stop moving.

Before Michael could recover from the blow to his head, Melinda lowered her staff, touching the sphere-capped tip to his forehead. She employed the staff’s power and saw bluish energy flow from the sphere and disappear into Michael’s head. He tried to resist, but the two men on either side held him fast. A few seconds later, it was over. Melinda nodded to her men, and they let go of him.

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“Stand up, slave,” Melinda said, and Michael got to his feet without any words. Melinda grinned. “You are mine now. Stand with the others.”

Without saying anything, Michael walked to the side and stood among the other men of hers. He turned around to face Kirk and the girl named Nina, and froze, waiting for further directions.

“What did you do to him?” Kirk demanded.

“I think she’s hypnotized him with her staff or something,” Nina said.

“It’s your turn now,” Melinda said to Kirk. “Come to me.”

“Don’t do it, Kirk,” Nina begged as she grabbed his arm with both hands.

What Melinda saw pissed her off.

“Let go of him, stupid girl,” Melinda snarled. “He’s but a man. No big deal if you lose him.”

Kirk turned his head to look at Nina. He didn’t say anything to her, but she let go of his arm. For a second or two, they just stared at each other silently. Melinda realized the two of them knew each other so well they understood one another without any words.

Before she could do anything, they both looked at her men, and Nina threw her hands forward. Immediately after that, a violent rush of wind blew toward them. It was so powerful some of her men were hurled backward. Melinda raised a protective arm against the wind, digging her heels into the earth, struggling not to lose her balance. The magically created wind stopped as suddenly as it’d started, and when Melinda pulled her arm away from her face and looked up, she saw Kirk race toward her men, drawing his sword.

Before any of them could do anything, he swung his blade at the nearest, cutting his throat. Before the man could even fall, Kirk was already piercing another one with his sword. Somebody fired a rifle, but the bullet hit the back of the man that Kirk had just stabbed through the chest. Her men realized their enemy was too close to use their ranged weapons, so they began to draw their longswords instead. One of them suddenly became a living torch as he was hit by a fireball launched by Nina.

Melinda wanted to scream in rage. That was not how she’d planned her attack to play out. In mere seconds, three of her men were dead. She’d wanted to enslave Kirk and his friends to replenish the ranks of her group, but she’d just lost even more of her men instead. With a great effort, she managed to take her emotions under control. She then cast a summoning spell, and magical tears began to split open in the air a few feet above the forest floor. Several huge hellhounds dropped from the tears, and Melinda gave them the command to attack Kirk and Nina.

Several hellhounds ran toward Nina, and the others surrounded Kirk, causing him to turn his attention to them instead of her men. When Melinda noticed some of them point their ranged weapons at him, she yelled, “No! Don’t kill him! I need both of them alive.”

Only she would have to wait for another opportunity to present itself. Kirk and Nina weren’t going to give up without a fight, and she wasn’t willing to lose even more of her men, so she was going to have to leave for now. When she came up with a plan to enslave them without putting her men’s lives at risk, she would come at Kirk and Nina again.

She glanced at the two of them. They were successfully fending off the pack of the hellhounds she’d summoned, and from the look of it, it wouldn’t be long before they took care of the evil creatures.

“Fall back,” she yelled to her men.

After casting a levitation spell, she wheeled around and flew away, her men, including Michael, following her close behind. At some point, she looked over her shoulder to see if Kirk and Nina gave chase, but the two of them were still fighting off the pack of hellhounds. While those creatures looked scary, they were pretty weak, so she was sure Kirk and Nina wouldn’t have much trouble dealing with them.

After covering about thirty yards, Melinda stopped and opened a portal home.

“Go,” she said, motioning for her men to get into the portal.

While they one by one stepped in the swirling magical clouds of the portal, she peered back into the trees she’d come from. There was still no sign of Kirk and Nina.

“The next time we meet, the two of you will be mine,” she said vehemently as the last man in line, Michael, walked into the portal.

The big man hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even glanced at her before disappearing into the portal. He was just another silent slave who would do anything she would tell him to. As long as she had her staff on her, her men would be following her orders to the letter no matter what. And she wasn’t going to let go of the staff anytime soon.

She turned and stepped into the magical portal, which would take her home. A second after that, the swirling clouds of the portal dissipated without leaving a trace.