Chapter 119: A Serpent In Her Room - 2
"He had broken into her room searching for answers. She intended to make sure he woke up with questions."
~ Rebel Beast
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Brittney surprisingly had a fun childhood, once upon a time. Before everything went to hell, she had been a daddy’s girl.
Her father had never particularly cared that his first child was a daughter. If anything, he’d dragged her into every hobby he probably would have shared with a son.
He had taken her fishing before she was old enough to bait her own hook, taught her how to camp and build a proper fire, and showed her how to tie knots that wouldn’t loosen under pressure.
They had gone hiking through forests, spent weekends practicing archery, learned how to follow animal tracks, and once spent an entire summer competing over who could build the better snare without actually catching anything in it.
Those had been some of the happiest years of her life. Before he divorced her mother, and married her best friend. Before the daughter he’d once proudly called his little partner somehow became an embarrassment he preferred not to acknowledge.
Brittney’s expression hardened as she picked up the thin trapping cords.
"Asshole," she muttered.
She pushed the memory aside and examined what she had. Unfortunately, these weren’t designed for restraining people. They were meant for traps, and while they could probably work in an emergency, she wasn’t stupid enough to trust them against a beast shifter.
Brittney ran a frustrated hand through her hair. She knew she’d brought a proper rope.
Turning toward the wardrobe, she pulled out one of her luggage bags and unzipped it. The clothes immediately became casualties of her search as she tossed them aside without a care.
"Come on..." she muttered, only for her finger to finally brush against something rough beneath the remaining clothes.
Brittney’s eyes brightened.
"There you are."
She pulled out three lengths of sturdy rope bundled together in a tight coil, each one looped neatly around the others and secured by a single binding knot to keep them from unraveling inside her luggage.
Now that was something she could work with. Brittney slowly turned toward the unconscious serpent and a devious smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
"Alright, snake boy," she murmured. "Let’s make sure you don’t wake up in a bad mood."
Brittney dragged a chair across the room and positioned it directly behind him before squatting beside his unconscious body. Before anything else, she needed to make sure snake boy wasn’t carrying any unpleasant surprises.
She began patting him down, carefully checking the pockets of his uniform. The first yielded a phone, which she immediately confiscated and placed on the bed. The next contained some cash and a few other personal items. Then her fingers brushed against something slim and rectangular tucked inside an inner pocket of his jacket.
Brittney pulled it out and it turned out to be a narrow leather case. Curious, she flipped it open and found several lock picks arranged neatly inside, each tool held securely in its own little slot.
Her eyebrows shot up. So that was how he’d gotten inside.
He hadn’t slipped beneath the door in snake form or crawled through some ridiculously tiny opening as she’d initially assumed. The bastard had simply picked the lock.
Brittney had to admit she was mildly impressed.
"Naughty serpent," she murmured with a grin.
She tossed the case onto her bed beside his phone. That belonged to her now.
Then the real work began.
Brittney tucked her hands beneath his arms and attempted to haul him upright.
Nothing happened.
Her brows furrowed. "Oh, come on."
She adjusted her grip and tried again, putting considerably more strength into it this time. His upper body lifted several inches before the full weight of him nearly dragged her straight back down.
"Heavens above, what the fuck do they feed you people?"
Brittney released him and stood there for a second, breathing hard as she reconsidered her approach. He didn’t look that heavy. Tall, certainly, with the lean build most serpent shifters seemed to possess, but apparently all that muscle beneath his uniform weighed considerably more than she’d expected.
Taking a deep breath, Brittney planted her feet firmly on the floor, crouched behind him and hooked both arms beneath his. This time, she used her legs rather than her back and heaved with everything she had.
The effort nearly killed her.
"Come on, you oversized worm!"
Somehow, she managed to drag him backward until his body reached the chair. With one final burst of strength, Brittney hauled him upward and practically dumped him onto the seat like an extremely expensive sack of rice.
She immediately dropped to her knees in front of him, breathing as though she’d just completed an entire marathon.
"Good God."
For several seconds, Brittney remained there recovering. Then she happened to look up.
And paused.
With his eyes closed and that calculating expression gone from his face, the serpent looked unexpectedly peaceful. He was handsome too, which was extremely inconvenient. His lashes were ridiculously thick for a man, casting faint shadows beneath his eyes, and his lips were full enough to—
Brittney blinked. What the fuck was she doing?
She shook her head with a shudder.
Absolutely not.
This was not the time to start lusting after cute serpents who broke into people’s bedrooms. Especially ones who might have entered with every intention of murdering her.
Brittney pushed herself to her feet and grabbed the rope.
"Back to business."
She stepped behind the chair and began winding the rope around his torso, securing his arms tightly against the backrest before looping it several times around both him and the chair. Years of knot-tying returned almost automatically as her fingers worked, tightening each restraint before finishing with a knot she knew wouldn’t loosen simply because someone struggled against it.
She stepped around him afterward, inspecting her work with satisfaction.
Yeah. Brittney took back what she’d said earlier.
Snake boy was definitely going to wake up in a bad mood.