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He hesitated at the affection like he hadn’t expected it. Then he scooped his arms under my ass, and he lifted me so our mouths could meet without strain. I was a tall woman because my father was tall. I trained with men and wore armor and wielded swords, so my body was tight with muscle. But he carried me like I was a bouquet of spring flowers.

He carried me back to bed and bent me underneath him before he sank, giving a moan when he claimed me once more. “Xivin…”

We sat together in the shade of the palm tree on the beach and watched the waves meet the shore. I drank the water and enjoyed the succulent fruit while he stared out at the sea.

“You don’t want any?”

His eyes remained on the horizon, and he gave a slight shake of his head.

“I notice you never eat or drink.”

“It’s not my preference.”

“Then what do you eat?”

“I don’t.”

“Never?” I asked incredulously.

All he did was shake his head.

“Do you sleep? Every time I wake up, you’re already awake.” I noticed it every time we were together. Even when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, he was wide awake as if he’d been that way the entire time.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Sleep is for rest,” he said. “I don’t need rest.”

He was hard to the touch, had emotion in his eyes, felt as real as anyone else. But sometimes I forgot he wasn’t real. He wasn’t a mortal man like my other lovers. He wasn’t alive…or dead. “Do you miss those things?”

“It’s hard to miss something that you’ve forgotten. I don’t sleep because I don’t need it. When there’s no need, there’s no desire. I don’t feel hunger either, so I don’t crave food the way you do.”

“Then how are you so big?”

“This was my appearance when I came to the underworld.”

So, he’d been this strong as a human man. If I’d seen him walk by in the village or in the fields, my mouth would have gone dry until I had a drink. My stomach would have gnawed until I had a taste. “You look more like a soldier than a carpenter.”

“Soldiers are trained to fight, and then they stand around and wait for a provocation. But on a daily basis, I moved stone andbuilt tiles and carried game over my shoulder. I was never at rest, always working, always providing.”

“Do you miss it?”

His eyes didn’t leave the water.

“I hope that wasn’t an offensive question.”

“I don’t miss it. Not when everyone I ever loved has been dead for hundreds of years. The house I built with my bare hands is gone. Everyone I ever knew has been replaced by descendants I wouldn’t recognize in the market. I can’t say there’s much enjoyment in the underworld, but I tolerate it.”

He was the God of the Underworld when we met, but he’d become something else to me. A man with a beating heart and warm flesh. “What’s it like there?”

“I told you.”

“I mean, are there other people there? Is it just you and…the people who’ve forsaken their souls?”

His arms rested on his knees, and he dug his feet deeper into the sand. “It’s complicated. The forsaken who arrive through the funnel are made into servants…and other things. The underworld is this world but inverted and without light or life. It looks so different, you barely know they’re mirrors of each other. And yes, there are others, the Covenant and its followers.”

I hadn’t expected something so complex. “What’s the Covenant?”