Free Python's Embrace (Bitten Point Book 3) by Eve Langlais Page B

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.

Chapter 12
    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,