At 3:17 in the morning, Camilla woke to find her seven-year-old python wrapped around her body.

One thick coil rested across her legs. Another pressed against her waist. His enormous golden head lay beside her pillow, so close that she could hear the faint movement of his breath.

“Dorato?” she whispered.

The python did not move.

Camilla reached toward the bedside lamp, but before her fingers touched the switch, Dorato slowly lifted his head.

His dark eyes fixed on her face.

For seven years, she had believed she understood every movement, every habit, and every silent expression of the magnificent creature she had raised since her sixteenth birthday.

But that night, something about his stillness unsettled her.

It wasn’t simply his size.

It was the way he watched her.

As though he were waiting for something.

She tried to slide her legs out from beneath his body.

Dorato shifted.

The heavy coil around her waist tightened just enough to make her stop breathing for a moment.