Maybe teasing her is wrong, because I feel the sharp nip of her blunt teeth in my shoulder in retaliation. My cock jumps in excitement at the quick lash ofsweet pain. Behind my upper lip, I feel the pressure of my growing fangs.

I ache to sink them into her flesh. To taste the blood that flows through her veins. To seal the deal for her very soul in the ancient bond of a blood-vow.

“You’re such a dick,” she murmurs into my skin, entirely unaware of my thoughts. If she knew, she would flee.

I laugh, but even as I do, I can feel the same madness swirling at the edge of my mind.Need her, it whispers.Take her, it taunts.Show her she belongs to you, it urges.

I clench my teeth, my voice rough and raw with want when I ask, “Why?”

“You left me.” She tries again to roll her hips into my own. “For a whole week.”

A week?

Had it truly been so long?

“I was—unaware it had been so long.” It’s a lame excuse. Pathetic. “I was tied up.”

“You couldn’t text? I called…” Her fingers twine into the long hair that is tied at the base of my neck. She pulls the tie loose, freeing my hair before twisting it around her fingers. Steam billows. She doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes search mine. “I waited for you every night.”

“I’m sorry.” I can say nothing else. But I am sorry. I’m so sorry I left her for so long, without a word. Without protection.

The fact that I’d done so has a blade of burning regret searing me from the inside out. She could have been harmed. She could have been taken from me again.

Demeter could have found her…

She rolls her hips, and in my distraction, I let her have the contact she so desperately wants. I slide against her hot core, into the wet heat of her. We both groan. She pulls my hair, taunting the beast I desperately try to restrain, seeking more pressure.

“God, I should leave you and never look back.” Her words awaken something dark and dangerous inside me.

“You don’t get to leave me,” I growl low, my fingertips biting into the soft flesh of her ass.

“This isn’t normal.” I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or herself. “It’s not good for me.” She shudders as I thrust my cock through the wet slick of her heat. Sticky need spills over my length, and I ache to thrust inside her. Deep. Consuming all of her. She moans. “This need—it’s not—it’s not normal.”

Dropping my hands from her ass, her green eyes open wide in protest as she slides down my body. But that need that pulled me from the pits of Tartarus, from the torment I’ve practiced since ancient times, surges to the surface again with her words. It pushes me to show her that she is mine. She belongs to me.

That I am hers.

That no man can give her body the pleasure that Ican give her. That no male will ever be enough to satisfy her body, her mind, her heart and soul—likeIcan. That she was made for no male, as she was made for me.

“Hades…” Her protest is cut off as I push her into the wall of tile, again inspecting every inch of her body for burns that don’t appear. I can’t help but marvel at how she can touch me like this, and not feel the sting of the heat. The burn of the flames crafted to destroy everything—but me.

Mine.She is mine.

I crowd her body with my own, loving how small she is against me, even as I sense she holds a great power the like the Olympians have yet to see. She tips her head back, her eyes landing on me. Need spills from the emerald light that shines from the very soul her flesh contains, and my own form hums with the desperation to fulfill her every ache, every want, every desire.

To fill her womb.

A surge of longing so powerful, so potent, so massive swells within me. It spills from my tip in beads of white, painting her belly with my arousal where my throbbing tip rests. In response, she clenches her thighs, but I don’t miss the sweet scent of her own arousal. It clings to the steam that plumes around us, cocooning us in glass and tile.

My nostrils flare as I inhale, and my voice is raw and hungry as I demand, “Tell me again you shouldleave me, little goddess.” I lower my head to her neck, the pressure of my fangs behind my lip a bone-deep ache. “Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you don’t ache to feel my cock buried deep in your core. Tell me you don’t want to feel me stretch you, force you to take every inch. Tell me, little goddess, that you don’t hunger for me as I starve for you.”

Shuddering breaths leave her lungs, tasting of life as I kiss a burning path down her neck. Her chest. Along the lines of her soft abs to her core. The water from the shower has washed away the spill of my seed on her belly, but the scent of me on her remains.

I want to coat her in my scent. I want there to be no mistake to any male that crosses her path, that she is mine.

It’s a feral thought. One I’ve never entertained in all my years.

And yet I can’t deny the raw truth of that raging, vicious need.