Ignoring them all, Wes knelt by the monster’s corpse. “Well, this is fucking interesting,” Wes muttered as Caleb’s last joint popped back into its human shape.
“What did you find?” Renny asked, crouching down to look at what held Wes’s interest.
The other man held up the mottled arm of the dead creature. Even through the scaling and discoloration, Caleb noted the tattoo.
“Recognize it?” Caleb asked.
“No, but then again, I don’t go around cataloguing people’s tats.”
“Hold on a second,” Renny said with a frown. “I thought shifters couldn’t do tattoos, something about your skin rejecting the ink.”
“Natural-born shifters can’t have them, but someone who was turned with one already…” Wes shrugged. “Possible, I guess. I don’t know too many converts, though, so I couldn’t say for sure.”
“If this guy was intentionally changed, who did it? And what?” Even with all Caleb had seen, he’d never come across anything like it. “I’ve never heard or seen anything like it.”
“Me either. And it doesn’t smell right,” Wes mumbled, reiterating the problem Caleb had since their first encounter with the thing.
“It’s like a mishmash of stuff I know, with something else thrown into the mix.”
Wes looked up at him. “Yup. And look at this.” This time, their attention was drawn to the neck of the creature, where singed flesh formed a ring.
“What the hell would do that?”
“Makes me think of a shock collar,” Renny observed.
Which only served to deepen the mystery.
What also proved complicated? Getting them all back to dry land. Lucky for them, Wes had a weatherproof bag he’d brought along on the hunt—“A must have for all swamp predators so they don’t get caught out in the open with no underwear.” He also had a phone.
It wasn’t long before they were back on dry land, Bittech property to be exact, inside one of the docking bays, shifters of all castes called in for the search and eventual rescue gathered around the corpse of the lizard thing.
While everyone stared, eyes wide with confusion and shock, only a few whispers were uttered.
“Who was it?” No one seemed to recognize the body or the tattoo.
“What is it?” The hybrid mix was not something anyone ever recalled seeing or hearing about.
“Who did this?” The question that haunted them most of all.
Who would do such a thing? And why?
Bittech claimed no knowledge of the creature, and despite Wes’s suspicions, Caleb had seen Andrew’s face. Either the man was an excellent actor or he’d never seen the monster before. No one could fake the revulsion on his face.
Yet, the fact remained, this thing wasn’t naturally born. It had been made.
A mystery that would require solving, but not tonight. Tonight, Caleb took his family home. Not the new one with its bare rooms, but his childhood home, where he knew they would all feel safe.
Constantine, who it turned out had done his fair share of searching but in another direction of the swamp, had arrived before them. He sat on the couch, freshly showered, with his dog sleeping on his lap. Or not.
Princess opened a single eye, just a slit, and the corner of her mouth lifted. Her canine version of hello or the one he suspected of meaning, “I’ve got my eye on you.”
As Renny bathed Luke, Caleb hit the outdoor shower unit to sluice the bayou from his skin. Rinsing it, though, didn’t help him from reliving the moment in the cave when he’d thought the creature would kill Renny.
This finally brought on the shakes. He dropped to his knees as the realization he could have lost Renny and Luke truly hit him.
So close, so close to losing to that monster.
He’d known he couldn’t fight the beast as a man, and his croc knew that it wasn’t the right weapon either, but when they decided to partner together… Together they formed an incredible duo. For the first time, they’d truly shared everything—body and mind.
And he hadn’t eaten anybody. Score! Except now he was kind of hungry.
Feed me. Lots of fish in the bayou. Crunch. Crunch.
Sometimes I’m really tempted to see you made into a purse.
But their banter wasn’t acerbic in nature. Caleb finally understood his croc’s cold sense of humor, and he now knew he could trust it.
Trust himself.
To placate them both, he made himself the thickest roast beef sandwich ever using the reddest parts he could find.
Compromise, the key to living in harmony with himself.
A clean Luke was spat out from the bathroom, dressed in clean pajamas with dogs on them—sigh—and wet hair. “Watch him, would you, while I shower?”
Seemed simple enough. Caleb swung his son into his arms and carried him to his room. He tucked him in bed, worried at how quiet his boy was, but at a loss as to what to do. He pulled a book from the nightstand, something with a happy title and happy cartoon faces, but he hesitated.
He put the book aside and paced. “Your mom should be out of the shower any second now.” She would know what to do. The right thing to say. But I’m his father. I should know how to handle this.