I have lived for hundreds of years and killed countless men and listened to the final rattle of their lungs as the life drained from their eyes.

And yet here I am, forced to watch a mortal TV show about baking cakes.

It’s insufferable.

Rain is close at my side, tucked into the crook of my arm. We’re in our borrowed room at Rhys’s house in Last Vale, but despite not owning this space, Rain’s scent is everywhere, claiming it nonetheless.

I find my attention wandering from the TV to her.

Her hand is splayed over my bare stomach and every now and then, her fingers trail over the valleys between ab muscles and it makes my cock twitch.

There is energy building in my gut that wants to be spent.

How long is this show?

Never in my life have I sat for a prolonged period of time watching mortals stir ingredients together.

“What’s your favorite meal to make?” my dieva asks as she looks up at me.

I tighten my hold around her. She can never be close enough to me.

I can never have enough of her.

“I don’t make meals,” I tell her.

She pulls away from me, aghast and I immediately regret saying as much.

Get back here, my face says.

But she’s never been obedient and she’s not about to start.

“Hold on,” she says. “You’ve never made food? Like…in the kitchen? How is that possible?”

“I once skinned a deer in the field and roasted it over an open fire. Does that count?”

“What?” Her voice is shrill, her dismay adorable. “No, that doesn’t count. And why would you do that when you have a palace?”

“We were at war with Verona. I had to feed my men.”

She softens. She likes it when given proof of my decency, ignoring the fact that feeding my men was imperative if I wanted them to die for me.

“What about at the palace? You’ve never cooked in the kitchen?”

I think back over the drudgery of centuries of living in one place. “To be honest,” I say, “I don’t think I’ve ever stepped foot inside the kitchen.”

Her mouth drops open. I have a thought to shove my cock in it. Her mouth is fucking nirvana. I never would have thought two lips wrapped around my cock could drive me so fucking mad, but Dieva has proven me wrong on more than one account, including this one.

Everything she does drives me mad.

She can just look at me and I’m fucking famished for her.

“How the hell do you live in a place for hundreds of years and never step foot inside one of its rooms?” she asks me.

“There are dozens of rooms in the palace I’ve never stepped foot inside. It’s a big palace.”

Her brows come together. “How big?”

“Over seventy thousand square feet.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yes.”

“That’s like…bigger than Norton Harbor probably.”

“No, it’s not.”

She closes her eyes, ignoring me, and brings her hand to her face. “I’m going to get lost there. Fuck. I’m going to need a GPS just to navigate my new home. I clearly didn’t think this through and—”

“Come here.” I yank her into me. She comes easily. “I will be by your side.”

“You can’t always, though. You have an entire world to order around with your brooding gorgeous face.”

“Then when I’m not by your side, you will do fine on your own. You’re a goddess. You continue to forget that part.”

She looks up at me, long lashes hitting the underside of her furrowed brow. “It’s just a lot, you know?”

“Yes. I know.”

“Can’t we just stay here on this couch forever and binge watch GBBO?”

I scowl at her. “Please for the love of all the gods, no.”

“You secretly like it. Look at how delicious those brandy snaps look!”

One of the mortals is filling a golden-brown casing with thick, white cream and I’m suddenly no longer watching the TV but thinking of my dieva’s pussy instead.

Now that we’re connected, she senses where my thoughts have turned and she disappears from my grip, reappearing across the room.

“As if I couldn’t catch you,” I tell her.

“You promised me we’d watch GBBO!”

“And we did, so my promise has been fulfilled. Now give me what’s mine.”

She laughs and the sound glitters in her eyes. “And what’s that?”

“That pussy.”

She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and nothing below it save for a thin triangle of lace that covers her front, but bears her ass. When she raises her arms above her head in a teasing little dance and the shirt lifts, I have the sudden urge to crack her across the ass for torturing me.

“Come and get it then,” she finally says.

I’ve never been an impatient man, but fuck if I don’t want to lurch across the room to her.

“Maybe I’ll make you wait,” I say and she pouts, but there’s still fire in her eyes.

She’s so happy. I can feel it thrumming through our connection and her happiness makes me feel…

Happy too.

I’ve never felt this way and it’s almost too big to name with a word that only contains five letters.

When I came to this world searching for the animus, I never would have expected to find a woman that brought me to my knees.

She’s all mine now and sometimes it frightens me how badly I want to bend to her.

She is my sun and my moon, just like the myth. My bright goddess.

I will always be her dark god, hungry for her.

The difference between me and the Father God of myth is that I will never devour her light.

I don’t want to be in the dark without her.

Slowly, I rise to my feet and I sense the tension rippling between us through the connection. She can pretend to be hard to get, but I know better. There is nothing my dieva can hide from me now.

The pressure builds in my gut and my cock hardens and her gaze strays to it, an appreciative little smile curling her mouth up.

She paces away, walking backward.

I stay in step with her.

The connection thrums again, a wick that is ready to burn.

I’m hard enough to cause her pain now. Oh how she’ll scream my name.

But first…

First I will make her tremble.

I close the distance between us and she yelps when I catch her. The air is ribboned with her desire and I take in a deep breath of it.

Sweet like sin.

I toss her on the bed, strip her of what little clothing she has on and allow myself two seconds to appreciate the sight of her in the waning daylight. The rise of her breasts, her nipples tightening in the cooler air. The curve of her hips, the V leading to her wet pussy.

“Fuck me with that hard cock,” she tells me.

“I don’t take orders from you, dieva.”

She writhes on the sheets. “Please?”

“Try again.”

“Please, my king?”

Fuck if that doesn’t gut me every time.

“I’ll fuck you when I’m good and ready,” I tell her, because I have to at least pretend to have some control. I hook my hands around her thighs, dragging her down the length of the bed. “First I want to taste that pussy.”

She brightens, eyes flaring golden.

Then I descend into the heat between her legs.

Fuck, she is a divine delight.

I flatten my tongue over her and she mewls above me, thighs quivering.

Power beats in the air as her pleasure grows. It lifts the hair at the back of my neck.

There is power in sharing power with her. I don’t know why I was so terrified of it.

Maybe the truth was, I was terrified of her and the way she made me feel.

But no more.

I lap up her sweetness with my tongue and take my time at her clit as I slide two fingers inside of her. She clenches around me, then tangles her hand in my hair.

Her desire for me makes my cock ache.

Oh how I love her.

I fucking love her, my bright goddess.

“Wrath,” she says around a moan, her breathing quickening. “I’m close.”

“How do you want to come?” I ask looking at her between the valley of her thighs.

Her eyes burn amber. “With you inside of me.”

I won’t deny her.

I never will.

I rise to my knees, push in between her legs. My cock throbs just thinking about the tightness of her pussy wrapped around it.

I lower myself over top of her and she hooks her legs around my waist, lining herself up. Her eagerness makes me impatient.

“Fuck me,” she says.

The connection burns like fire.

“As my queen wishes,” I tell her and then sink inside of her.

We ride through the pleasure together and she holds on to me, panting and moaning, and I hold on to her, forever and an eternity.

My bright goddess.

My dieva.

My queen.