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Opening the box, I swipe my finger through creamy icing before sucking it clean. I moan.

“Good?” There’s unmistakeable heat in Hades’ voice as he drops his head to murmur the word against my neck.

My blood warms. Arousal tightens my belly. There is a vision—a memory—of teeth and blood and sex.

I shiver. Hades tightens his hold on me.

Closing my box, I dare asking, “Why don’t you bite me?”

Behind me, Hades stiffens. Darkly, he asks, “What?”

“I remember, Hades. I remember before.” I pull in breath as Alastor continues deeper into the heart of the city. “I remember you biting me when we would—when we would have sex.”

There is a long moment of silence before Hades clears his throat. “My Gods’ Form demands blood for many things, Persephone.”

“Demands?”

“Yes, demands.”

“But you don’t demand it from me…”

“No.” Another pause. “Blood must be given. Offered. Willing. If it is not, it is rancid.”

“But—” I frown, remembering the first moment we were together. When he stole me from the garden of flowers in which Demeter had planted me, knowing that he would scent me. Knowing his soul would crave mine. Knowing the madness would strike him, and he would take me. “But you didn’t ask me that first time. I remember the way you bit me. The pain and then the—well, the pleasure.”

“You felt pleasure when I bit you that first time?” His surprise is hesitant.

“I—I think I did,” I admit as I sift through the memories that are so distant. So ancient. Even as they are my own, they are draped in the haze of a far away past. “It hurt but it was…I don’t know. I can’t explain.”

“Your blood should have been rancid. It should have spoiled inside my belly, but it didn’t. It never turned rancid, even in all the years that followed.”

“Why do you drink blood?” I ask. “Is it purely sexual?”

“No, it’s not usually sexual at all.”

“It isn’t?” I twist again to peer up at him.

He shakes his head. “No. Blood is how I seal deals of the soul.”

“Deals of the soul?”

“When a soul makes a deal with me, I demand it be done in blood. Blood binds both sides of the contract. It holds me and the soul who dares make a deal with me accountable.”

“What happens if they break a deal?”

“If a God breaks a deal, they will slowly drain of blood. Withering away but never dying. Their power will wane.”

“And a human?”

“If a human breaks a deal, they will die.”

I hesitate, but ask, “And if you break the deals you make?”

“I am careful in how I word my deals such that I will not break them. But if I did, the blood I consumed would turn rancid. It would become poison inside me in which I would struggle to expunge, if I could purge it at all.”

I nibble my lip in thought. “But you drank from me without making a deal.”

“My Gods’ Form craves blood, Persephone. It is a decadent,” he pauses. “Treat. The blood of a God offers a surge of power inside me. The blood of a human or nymph is more an aphrodisiac.”