Page 50 of Hungry As Her Python

Single was safe.

Single was simple.

But for the first time in a long while, I wasn’t sure if safe was enough.

Everything good starts with a leap of faith.

Chapter Fourteen-Conrad

The woods were black velvet and silver moonlight, every branch and shadow a familiar part of my body.

I moved through them without a sound, without a single leaf or twig betraying my presence.

In this skin, my scales drank the night.

The cold air slid along my length as I wound silently between the trees, the rhythm of my muscles a steady, patient pulse.

Her scent was everywhere—sugar and sweet vanilla blended with hints of citrus, and that soft, unmistakable thread of magic that made my instincts sharpen and soften all at once.

I could hear her before I saw her, though not in the usual way.

She didn’t know it, but her magic sang, a quiet hum through the ground and air.

Each note was a breadcrumb leading me closer.

And there she was.

Bella.

Standing just outside the clearing now, robe loose around her, hair mussed from the wind, skin still glowing from the ritual fire.

She was laughing with her friends, but it wasn’t the same laugh she gave when no one else was watching.

That laugh—her real laugh—was for the rare moments when she let herself be unguarded.

I wanted that.

I wanted all of her.

I curled tighter into the shadows, unseen.

Her hearing might be sharp, but I was sharper.

Scales didn’t rustle.

My Python’s body barely displaced the air.

She could have been surrounded by a dozen creatures, and I still would’ve been the only one to slip past her notice.

I stayed just inside the tree line, where the flicker of the moon caught on my pattern.

Watching her hips sway when she shifted her weight.

Watching her tug her robe a little tighter, like she could guard herself against the night—and me.

She thought she could keep me at a distance, keep me locked out of whatever walls she’d built.

But I’d been waiting my whole life for her, and I had the kind of patience only a predator knew.