Python's Embrace (Bitten Point Book 3) (7 page)

A
ria couldn’t help
a bemused blink as Constantine laid Jeffrey—
that’s his name
—out cold.

“What did you do that for?” she snapped, perusing the unconscious body with her hands on her hips. “Now how’s he supposed to answer our questions?”

“He was going to call the cops.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to just take the phone away from him?”

“No, because I was too busy wondering why you were kissing a twerp like him.”

She gaped at him. “Are you jealous?”

His nostrils flared. “Yessss.” The word hissed from him. “But I don’t know why.”

Just like she didn’t know why his jealousy pleased her. Another aspect of the crazy attraction between them. An attraction she needed to deny—at least for the moment. “His name is Jeffrey. He’s a lab technician at Bittech.”

“You remember him?”

“A bit. We didn’t really talk much.”

“Too busy doing other things?” Constantine growled.

“No, because I’d just gotten into town that day and was doing my best to chat with everyone at the bar. Jeffrey was there with a few guys from Bittech, having some beers.”

“So how did you end up kissing?”

Given she doubted Jeffrey was her type, she hoped it wasn’t her dreaded slut side making do with whatever was close at hand. “I flirted with him. Nothing serious. I flirted and chatted with everyone there.” Or so she vaguely recalled. The bartender made a mean martini. “I got him talking about his job, and when I found out he just worked there as a lowly tech, I was going to move on. Except…”

Jeffrey saw his chance to impress a girl fleeing, so he blurted out, “I know about the secret levels.”

“What secret levels?” Constantine asked.

Aria visibly startled, not having realized she’d spoken aloud. “I don’t know. I’m just repeating the parts I remember from the memory flash. He also said, ‘there’s weird shit happening at Bittech, and I’m not just talking about the lousy cafeteria food.’”

“Wes Mercer, who works there as a guard, is convinced they’re up to no good as well, but we’ve never managed to find anything concrete. But Wes is still convinced. If there are secret levels, then that might explain Wes’s conviction that things happen out of sight.”

“Things done out of sight and secretively are usually a sign folks are up to no good
.
I recall being excited about this news. I don’t know why, though. Why would I care what they’re doing at a medical research facility?” Her nose wrinkled.

“Are you a news reporter?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. And according to Cynthia”—who had called during lunch despite being told not to—“I’m kind of vague on what I do for a job.”

“Maybe you’re a secret agent spy.”

He said it in jest, yet something about his words rang a bell. It just didn’t trigger a memory. “I wish I knew why I was so interested in Bittech.”

“It could be because they’re a medical institute for shifters. The humans think they’re researching the effects of bayou plants on human cells, but in reality, they’re supposed to be researching the shifter genome, and they also provide fertilization for infertile shifter couples. But I say supposed to because we’ve begun to suspect it’s not just research happening, but experimentation, too.”

“You think they’re the ones who jabbed me? But why? Why me?”

“Perhaps they thought you’d be an easy mark. Cynthia did mention you were orphaned. Perhaps they assumed no one would come looking for you.”

How sad that she didn’t have a family to care.
I have Cynthia and her folks.
The thought and certainty did warm her.

As Aria paced the motel room, she noted the door remained ajar. She kicked it shut lest someone walking by wonder at the strange tableaux. In order to clarify the memory, she recited it in point form aloud. “So, I met Jeffrey at the bar, where he bragged about his super access. For some reason, I needed to know more. I remember wanting into the institute, so I stole his access card.”

Much like a femme fatale on screen, Aria had lured the slightly tipsy fellow into the parking lot. Once there, she feigned a sudden passion for him that involved a lot of slobber, on his part, as he mashed his mouth against hers. Shudder.

The poor sod thought he was getting lucky. In reality, Aria groped him so she could steal his employee keycard. Once she’d switched the card to her own pocket, while keeping her lips clamped tight lest a stray tongue visit, she pushed away from Jeffrey and, with a high-pitched laugh, said, “Goodness, but that was hot. You make a girl want to forget she’s saving herself for marriage.”

While he stood there bemused, she’d hopped onto her motorcycle and sped off.

“Did you go to Bittech that night?”

Her lips twisted along with her forehead as she strove to remember anything past getting on her bike. “I don’t know. Everything after me leaving the bar is a blank.” Not entirely—she remembered also wiping her arm across her mouth to wipe Jeffrey’s slobber. “Ugh.”

“Why ugh?”

“Why is it that the only kiss I remember is an awful one?” As a former slut, shouldn’t she have tons of hot-kiss memories?

“We can’t have that.”

Before she could ask what he meant, Constantine drew her into his arms and kissed her.

Kissed sounded so trite, though. This melding of their lips, the electrical spark that arced, and the languorous heat invading her limbs was far more than just a kiss. It was an explosion of her senses. A knee-buckling and breathtaking foray into passion.

As his mouth caressed hers, she couldn’t help but moan and part her lips. The access led to his tongue sliding into her mouth sinuously so that it could twine with hers.

She couldn’t have said when her arms wound around his neck or when his hands cupped her ass. Hell, she wasn’t sure of her own name at that moment and not because of the amnesia. The passionate inferno licking at her nerve endings made only one thought possible.

More.

Her body pressed firmly against his, yet she still wanted closer. How would it feel to press against him, skin to skin? Clothing separated their flesh. Wretched fabric. His height impeded her as well from rubbing against him as she desired.

A mewl of frustration left her, but he understood it, or he felt the same thing because he lifted her high enough that her legs could wrap around his waist, pulling her heated core against him. How decadent, the feel of her sensitive sex rubbing and glorying in the hardness of his erection.

Her back hit the wall, and he took a turn grinding against her. Her breathing stuttered as he applied pressure with his body against the part of her that longed for his touch.

And then Constantine was gone. One moment he held her, pleasured her, brought her to the edge of longing, and the next he set her down so she leaned against the wall.

Why?

She blinked open eyes heavy with passion to note the door to the motel hung open. Sunlight streamed in and showed her completely alone.

“Shit!” Where was Jeffrey? Probably trying to stay ahead of a chasing Constantine.

Flying to the door, she peeked out in time to note Constantine’s hard pounding on the pavement had him almost within arm’s reach of a sprinting Jeffrey, who ran full-out, screaming, “Help! Help!”

Help came from the most unexpected place. From the sky swooped a lizard, or at least that was how it seemed. The body had a serpentine feel to it, even with its two arms and legs. The skin appeared green and scaly, every inch of it thick with muscle. The leathery wings spanned wider than she would have thought possible outside a fairytale with dragons.

The flying lizard dipped, clawed hands outstretched. It shrieked an ululating cry.

Jeffrey happened to peek upwards, and she saw him blanch. He stumbled as he lifted his arms to cover his head.

The clawed fingers of the flying monster clasped Jeffrey’s arms.

“Argh!” The blood-curdling scream brought a few people to peek out of doors. What must they think to see the thrashing legs of the man as he was lifted into the air by a creature that shouldn’t exist, a creature that stole their clue and taunted them with a raucous caw of triumph?

While Aria didn’t remember the beast, the sound triggered a deep shiver. And she could have sworn a voice whispered in her head,
Hide.

She ignored the suggestion as she clambered into Constantine’s truck. He jumped in a moment later and gunned the engine. “Let’s get out of here before the cops show up and ask us questions.”

“Not keen on explaining how a flying lizard stole the guy we knocked out?”

“With this many witnesses all claiming it, they’ll be hard-pressed not to listen. And that’s a problem. This brazen act is going to bring attention.”

“Not our fault.”

“It’s someone’s, though. Did you see the collar around that thing’s neck?”

She shook her head. Addled by the kiss and stunned by the creature, she’d not noticed much.

“I’ve heard of those collars before. Daryl and Cynthia said the pair of hybrids they dealt with wore some. We think they’re some kind of device to control the monsters.”

“You think someone is making those creatures do these things. But why? I mean, why kidnap Jeffrey in plain sight?”

“Perhaps because they thought he’d become a liability.”

She clasped her fingers together. “Am I a liability? Will it come after me next?”

“No.”

“You don’t know that.” She couldn’t shake a sense of trepidation.

“You’re right, I don’t, but I don’t plan to let you out of my sight, so if it does try, it’s going to have to go through me.”

The declaration warmed, even as it sent chills.
I don’t want him to get hurt.
“I’m putting you in danger.”

He took his glance from the road to shoot her a hard stare. “You’re not doing anything to me. I chose to help you. I still plan to. A little danger isn’t going to make me run away.”

“This is more than a little danger.”

“What can I say? I do everything big.” He tossed her a wink.

She bit back a smile. “So I’m beginning to see. Where to now?”

“I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day. We’re going home. Princess needs me.”

Princess wasn’t the only one.

A
s Constantine pulled
into the crushed gravel drive in front of his house, he noticed not only his mother’s car, but his brother’s, too. Odd because Caleb usually worked during the day. What had brought him out for a visit?

Exiting his truck, Constantine had no sooner slammed the door shut when his mother, her rotund figure still dressed in her scrub outfit that she wore for her work at the seniors’ residence, came flying out of the house.

“I killed it!”

“Killed what?” he asked as he rounded the hood of his truck to give Aria a hand, except she didn’t need one, having already nimbly jumped to the ground.

“I killed a monster. Come see. He’s in the yard.”

Grabbing Aria’s hand, Constantine followed his mother’s excited wobble around the house until they entered the backyard.

An alien scent assailed him. Reptile, with a hint of wrong. Sickness, with a sweet, rotted tinge. And death in the form of blood, a giant puddle of it under a winged creature, but not the same one they’d seen at the motel.

This one was smaller. Much smaller. The slight frame was covered in downy gray fur, no scales, yet the reptile scent pervaded.

“What is that thing?” Constantine asked as he approached his brother, who knelt by the corpse.

Princess took that moment to let out an excited yip and left her post beside the body to fly at him in a sideways gait that looked awkward but adorable.

Letting go of Aria’s hand, he swept his dog into his arms. “How’s my little princess?” he asked, giving her wiggly body a nice scratch.

Yip
. He snuggled her to his face, his affection for his dog not something he hid.

“I’d mock you and your bonding moment, but I have to say your dog is growing on me,” Caleb announced. “She’s a damned good watch dog and the reason why Ma even knew this thing was here.”

“Was my little princess a brave puppy?” he cooed, and she almost expired of happiness.

“More than brave,” his mother replied. “I let Princess out when I got home from work. Next thing I know, she’s barking like mad, and I look out to see this
thing
”—a moue of distaste aimed at it—“trying to catch our valiant guard dog. So I grabbed the shotgun and took it down.”

Indeed she had taken it down with a fist-sized hole through its upper body. His mother didn’t mess around when it came to ammo for her weapon. As she explained, “If I gotta protect myself from something big and stupid enough to mess with me, then I am making sure it ain’t getting back up.”

“Who’s a good girl? Who is she?” Constantine sang as he tickled his dog under her chin.

Wiggle. Waggle. Princess loved the praise. Aria, however, seemed less than impressed with his dog’s impressive skills. She rolled her eyes before walking toward the carcass. He gave her credit for not flinching or throwing up. The thing sat on the bottom rung of the pretty scale. Limbs somewhat misshapen, its face a freakish meld of human and a few things, it seemed. Monkey and something else. The fingers were tipped in claws, much like the hooks of a rapier-type bird.

“It kind of looks like a flying monkey,” Aria remarked as she tilted her head to the side to contemplate it. “You know, like the one in that
Wizard of Oz
movie.”

“Again, you remember an old classic but not your life?” Constantine couldn’t help but tease.

She grinned. “What can I say? I’m being selective about what I recall. Weird thing, I’m having trouble with my memories from about a half-hour ago.” And, yes, she did wink.

It threw him for a loop.
Is she implying she wants another kiss to remember?

“I’ve never seen anything like this thing before,” Caleb remarked. “Whatever it is, I’m going to wager it’s not natural. See its wings?” His brother stretched one out, the membrane unfolding and stretching taut. The wing appeared covered in leather skin, not feathers or fur. “The wings are just like those of that dino creature we killed a while back. The one that took Luke.”

A scary time. The fear they’d all gone through when the little boy was kidnapped by the monster wasn’t something Constantine wanted to relive. Thankfully, his nephew had emerged unscathed and the culprit was dead. However, they’d celebrated too quickly, given the abomination wasn’t alone.

“Similar and yet not. As I recall, that thing had scales, not fur, and it was at least twice the size of this one.”

“That’s because I think this one is a child. A teen, actually.”

At Aria’s soft-spoken words, all eyes turned to her.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“Because I’ve seen it before.”