Chapter 6
Sebastian
The day had come.
Time for me to see whatever brand of fucked up torture Persy had in store for me now that my fate was entirely in her hands, rather than shoved in a cell by her brother.
“Good morning,” she said, waking me with her sweet voice right after dawn, already standing inside the cell.
I’d all but threatened her life yesterday with a dark promise to make her life as hellish as she was planning to make mine. I acted out of blind rage, cutting her perfect skin with those old iron bars, making her delicate features contort with pain and a broken sound escape from her throat.
And yet she was standing here, hands folded in front of her, waking me kindly.
For the love of Zeus.
“Back alone?” I asked, pushing up to a seated position. “Your boyfriend is really that dumb?”
I’d known Nikolas most of my life. We were the same age and before he abdicated, we were a part of the new generation of gods together. I didn’t have friends, but some might have called him one.
I felt nothing but pure hatred, with a dash of resentment, towards him now.
Persy cocked her head at me, eyebrows lifting in the center. “What makes you think he’s my boyfriend?”
He was a right fucking idiot if he wasn’t. I had no intention of spending any more time on that topic than I already had, and so I simply stayed silent.
“Well,” Persy said, walking towards me in two quick strides, forcing me to watch her long legs brush up against fabric of her skirt. I would have sooner consented to another bout of starvation than to that image of her striding towards a bed with confidence. “Technically, the four weeks is up this evening, but I think it will be fine if we consider it over now.”
I let out a short breath of laughter, running my hand through my hair. “How generous.”
Persy’s eyes quickly tracked the movement, then smiled. She always smiled, but I chose to believe she’d done it as a reaction to me. There wasn’t a remorseful bone in my body, and there would be no apology for choosing that path.
“I have a feeling you will regret saying that after today,” Persy said. I hated that most about her—other than her fucking perfect face. She refused to engage with sarcasm.
“Yeah, love, why’s that?”
Oh, I didn’t even care what she had in mind anymore. She liked being called love. There was a little twitch of the right corner of her mouth, that looked like it took effort to prevent from curling up into a full-blown smile.
“—and I understand that you might not agree, but I think it’s the best for the situation,” Persy finished.
“Fine,” I said, covering up the fact that I’d missed the entire first part of her explanation. Whatever she had planned, I knew I’d hate it regardless.
Persy smiled, full and beautiful. “Alright, if you’d just follow me.”
I followed her like a dog after its owner, trying to conceal how fucking relieved I was to be getting out of this damn cell. The second my foot hit the ground right outside the cell, I knew that I should run.
It was the smart thing to do, prey on Persy’s obvious optimism and ill-placed trust and try to take a portal right out of this fucking place. But I was learning that along with that pesky trust and optimism, came a quiet intelligence that surely would have prepared for me to try to escape.
It was only that, and not the way that Persy’s hair brushed against her lower back, that had me following her out of the dark, damp section of Prometheus and out into the open air.
And the second I stepped out into the dim light, I felt my chest pang with missing power. I was used to sun blasting me in the face, and the sun felt distant and obscure here.
That wouldn’t do.
I basked in as much light as I could get here for a second, letting the warmth seep into my skin and make me feel an inch closer to life. Something slithered through my middle. If I was forced to give it a name, it would be relief.
When the relief settled, it opened up room for a thought to cross my mind. A promise, really, to do what Persy asked so that I never ended up back in a cell like that again.
But that would be far too close to remorse, to guilt. So I chased the thought away, clearing my vision.
Only to find Persy smiling at me.
What the fuck?
“What?” I barked, harsher than I’d intended.
Persy didn’t so much as flinch at my tone. “You look happy in the sun.”
“You call this a sun?” I returned, jerking my chin towards the horizon. As part of Prometheus’s magic, the sun looked farther away that it did elsewhere on our planet, almost half the size and strength. Fucking awful place.
I didn’t know how Persy did it. The sun matched the brightness of her personality, and there was little of that here.
Persy laughed, a quick little titter that was lower than I’d expected. It didn’t matter what I’d expected anymore, now I knew what her laugh sounded like.
“I think you like it,” she said, holding her ground with a smile. Her specialty, it seemed.
I changed the subject instead of lying to her. “Please,” I said, gesturing her forward. “Lead me to the rest of my torture.”
Persy turned on her heel, flicking her hair over her shoulder. I was finding her shampoo and destroying it. Nothing had any right to smell that good.
I followed her through a series of garden pathways, all covered in flowers and rare fauna I was sure only survived in this specific climate. Through an open square that seemed to be the center of Prometheus, filled with residents and staff alike.
Everyone openly stared as we passed, looking at me with fear or hate or disdain or a mixture of a million negative emotions I’d grown long used to feeling. I smiled at those who dared to make eye contact with me. They’d best learn soon that I enjoyed fear more than I did most other emotions.
Everyone looked at Persy with respect and love and admiration. Even the people who were clearly struck by her beauty seemed to push respect in front of any desire.
The gardens mirrored each other on either side of the square, and Persy led us through another stretch of hedges and bushes. It was only then, when we were isolated from the crowd, that I realized Persy was speaking to me.
Certainly not having a conversation with me, because that would require me to actually respond to her. No, no, she was chattering on about someone we’d seen in the square, mentioning something about art that went in one ear and out the other.
I was the sorry bastard who had to listen to her calming voice assault my senses.
And when we popped out of the hedges, I stopped listening to her completely.
We’d come to the edge of Prometheus, where the landscape was nothing but rolling hills that looked like they went on forever.
The only building was a small cottage nestled into a flat part of the countryside, the walls an earthy neutral with vines climbing up the side. Behind it was a shed, which looked like a smaller version of the house.
It wasn’t until I damn near tripped over a stone that I realized we were walking on a path made of uniquely shaped rocks, like each one was handpicked.
“I picked all of these stones myself,” Persy said, her steps light as she hopped from one to the other with ease.
I had to keep my eyes on the ground. As I tried not to trip and fall on my ass, I said, “I bet you did.”
“It’s my house. I wanted an input.”
That stopped me in my fucking tracks. “What?”
Persy was standing on the front step now, framed by even more flowers and vines. It looked like Demeter threw up on her house, it was covered in so many plants. Her fingers were running over a few leaves on the post next to her. “Thankfully, one of the last things Demeter did before choosing to end her line was to charm the house so the plants stay alive. It would be too much for me to handle,” Persy said.
Could she read my fucking thoughts?
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, voice thin. She had a habit of that.
“Oh,” Persy said, standing up straight and blinking. “Sorry.” Wait. Did she think I was chastising her? Against my better judgment, I opened my mouth to say—
“Yes, this is my house,” Persy said, moving to the door. “And yours too, for the next five months.”
“No.” There was no fucking way I was living with her.
Persy smiled despite the bite in my tone. “You don’t have much of a choice, I’m afraid. I don’t want to make any of the other residents uncomfortable by having a god living in their quarters and you do have to live here for six months. So, this is the best solution. Don’t worry. I have a spare bedroom. No one has to sleep on a couch or anything.”
“Is that what you think my objection is?” I asked, deciding to just voice my thoughts instead of leaving them as internal quips. “That I’d be sleeping on a fucking couch?”
Persy shrugged one of her shoulders, momentarily drawing my attention to her collarbones. “That doesn’t sound very comfortable, especially not for an extended period of time.” She really needed to stop reminding me how long this sentence was. Five. Months. And under the same roof as her.
“The answer is still no.” This was not fucking happening. How did she not understand how insane this was.
Persy smiled, soft and a touch too close to pitying. “Like I said, you don’t have much of a choice.”
I breathed in. Then clenched my jaw. Then curled my hand into a fist. None of that seemed to do anything but make me want to snap her gorgeous little neck for coming up with this.
Clearly, her brother wasn’t the mastermind concocting all the ways to torture me until I caved and appointed an heir.
She was.
And I was two seconds away from caving just so I didn’t have to live under her roof.
“Well,” Persy said, taking my silence as concession. “Follow me.”
It took a full ten seconds for me to make my feet move and follow her over the threshold of her home. And when I did, I was immediately assaulted by a home that looked exactly like her.
Everything was bright and soft, bathed in warm neutrals but still rich with color that looked natural and cohesive. The house wasn’t large—a problem in and of itself. There was a small living room off to the left, mainly taken up by a large couch and plush chairs.
Fuck, if she had friends over I’d bury myself alive.
That room fed directly into the kitchen, where there was a small table and chairs made of the same rich wood. I glanced quickly over the kitchen, forcing myself not to pay too much attention.
Kitchens told you too much about someone. I didn’t give a damn whether Persy cooked or not. What she kept well stocked. How she took her coffee or tea.
None of that mattered.
“Right,” Persy said, her voice bright with excitement. “As you can see this is the living room and kitchen.” There was sun streaming through the windows, illuminating her figure perfectly as she moved around her space. She trailed her fingers along the coral marble on her kitchen island and I forced my eyes back up to her face.
It was no lesser evil.
“You’re welcome to anything in the kitchen,” she said, her voice picking up in the way that I learned meant she was about to talk without caring whether or not I was listening to her. I leaned against the door frame, crossing my arms over my chest and preparing to follow her words. “Do you cook?” I made no move to answer. “I think you cook. You look like the sort.”
I would not ask what she meant by that. “How can someone look like they cook?”
Dammit.
Persy gave me a slow, observant once over that made me clench my jaw so hard I thought I was going to crack a tooth. “You have strong hands and arms. And if you love painting, it makes sense that you would enjoy cooking, too. It’s an art form, really. I’m hopeless at it, so if you can cook, that would be great. But Kostas preps some stuff for me, so I’m sure he can for you, too.”
I’d stopped listening after she told me I had strong hands and arms. I did cook, in fact. And I would be now, if not to just to shove those hands and arms right in her face. It was nothing less than what she deserved. “I cook.”
Bad idea. Persy brightened even further, so much so that I was sure she had stolen my power over the sun. “What do you like? I’ll make sure the kitchen is stocked. Would you please consider making at least breakfast? I really feel bad asking Kostas for help but he’s the only other person I know who is even remotely capable in the kitchen is Nikolas and—”
“I’m cooking. For both of us.” Nikolas would lose a hand before I let him anywhere near that kitchen.
Persy looked two seconds away from running towards me with arms open, demanding a hug, and that was certainly not happening. “What else?”
Persy blinked quickly, remembering what she was in the middle of. “Right.” She reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, looking around like she forgot something.
“Any more of a tour?” I asked, reminding her what we were doing. I was an asshole, but I was not in the business of embarrassing people. If I had the option to subtly remind her what she was doing, I was taking it.
Persy’s honest smile returned. “The bedrooms!”
Wait no, that wasn’t—
I was following her anyway.
Bad fucking idea. Because she led me down a hallway that focused all my attention on the subtle sway of her hips as she walked. Then she stopped.
Oh, fuck no. Might as well say it. “Fuck no.”
Persy didn’t even react to the bite in my tone. “Yes. One of your younger guards—we were fairly confident he wasn’t involved in the conspiracy—helped me charm your closet so that all your things came here.”
“That’s not my problem.” It was a problem that her gesture spun something dangerously close to gratitude through my chest.
Persy stepped closer, her chin titling up just an inch. “What is, then?”
The problem was that our bedrooms shared a wall. The proximity was torturous enough but I had zero fucking intention in hearing her move around her room, having to sit through the sounds of her changing or showering or fucking forbid hear her with Nikolas.
“Little close for comfort, don’t you think, love? It would be easy for me to sneak into your room and—”
I was flat on my ass a second later. Persy was standing over me, looking down on me like I’d somehow gotten myself there instead of her doing it to me. “I wouldn’t try that.”
Lesson fucking learned. Especially when it made her stand over me like an avenging angel, her hair billowing around her like a halo. “At least help me up.”
Persy reached out a hand, but the second her bracelets caught the sunlight, I realized that her helping me up would require me to touch her. I popped up on my own, leaving her hand hanging there.
The fact that I didn’t take her hand didn’t seem to bother her and she just turned to face my room. “I won’t go in. But this is yours. Let me know if you need anything. After you get settled, I have something else to show you.”
Something was wrong with her. She was talking faster than normal and seemed to be trying to get away from me for once, instead of staying in my space until I felt about ready to pop. She scurried away into her own room, and by that I mean she took precisely two steps away from me, that was how close together we’d be living, before shutting the door quickly behind her.
I would not be concerned with her sudden shift in mood.
I finally turned and took in the space she’d given me. I went to the closet first, finding exactly what she’d promised. All of my clothes, in the exact same orientation they were at my house. Not my home—no, I didn’t have one of those. I lived in a graveyard of my parent’s influence, their legacy breathing down my neck at all times.
The only property to my name I could tolerate was a small cottage nestled in the mountains outside Delphi. Unfortunately, it looked quite similar to Persy’s house.
Other than the closet, the room was simple, with a large bed in the center with a desk and dresser lining the walls. The decorations didn’t matter—it was torture nonetheless—but I would be happy to have a full-sized bed instead of cramming my limbs into the one in that blasted cell.
The reminder of the cell carried with it the realization that I was in the same clothes I’d entered with. There was no visible blood anywhere to be found, but I could still smell the sharp tinge of iron that came from Reyna’s injuries.
I ripped the shirt over my head and shucked away my pants, reaching for the first replacements I could find in my closet. Right as I was pulling the shirt over my head, I heard what could only be described as a gargle from behind me.
I turned, finding Persy at the door, staring at me with a slack jaw. “See something you like, love?”
Persy just blinked, and I wasn’t even sure she’d heard me. “I’m ready to show you the other thing now.”
She turned on her heel before I could respond and I followed her. I really needed to stop doing that. Regardless, she led me back through the kitchen and out to a quaint back deck that someone might describe as homey. Beyond that, there was a small shed a short walk away.
Persy was uncharacteristically silent as we walked, but I wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence. Once we reached the shed, a small replica of her own home, she pulled a key ring from her pocket and set to work pulling off one of the keys. Once she did, she handed it to me.
I looked down at her outstretched hand, regarding it like I’d never seen a key in my entire life.
“That’s for you.”
“I assumed so.”
“Then take it.”
I did, realizing too late that the key was too small for an easy pass off. I had to fold my hand over Persy’s to allow her to transfer the key into my palm. I didn’t even feel the press of metal into my skin as I was entirely too focused on the borderline painful shock that ran up my arm.
“Sorry, that’s—” Persy jerked her hand back, immediately reaching up to adjust her hair. “I don’t know why that happened.”
“I’m not bothered by a little lightning, love.” Especially from her. I’d felt the full force of her brother’s power shooting into my chest, suffered the white-hot agony as it shot through my limbs and rendered me unconscious. Hers was more mellow, like the way your limbs prickled when you slipped into hot water after standing out in the cold.
“Right.” Persy nodded, taking in a few deep breaths.
I clamped down on my jaw to prevent myself from asking what had changed in the past few minutes.
She lifted a hand to the door and opened it quickly, stepping inside and offering me a look.
The contents of that room made me want to run more than anything else I’d suffered.
“This was a waste of your resources, Persephone,” I said, my voice barely more than a rough scrape out of my throat.
“I don’t agree,” she said, her voice back to its calm, confident lilt. Alright, so sparring with me got her back to straights. Noted. “I think this is exactly what you need.”
“I haven’t picked up a paint brush in four years.” And why did I just admit that?
I was distracted, clearly. Distracted by an open room, fully stocked with canvases, easels, and more paint than I’d seen in as long as I could remember. I had to clench my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching out and grabbing a tube of paint.
“That’s no matter,” Persy said, stepping fully into the room and into yet another well-placed beam of sunlight. Fucking hell. “This is here for you if you want it. I think you should use it, but I’m not going to push you. However, I do think you should consider doing something you love. It’ll make the rest of it easier.”
I stayed in the door frame, not quite able to step fully over the threshold. “And what’s the rest of it?”
Persy smiled, before releasing a heavy breath. “Well, tomorrow you meet your doctor. And after that you and I are going to start working on an antidote.”
“Together?” I sounded more like an exacerbated child than a man of thirty-one.
Persy nodded. “Yes. I need to make sure you are doing it right. Can’t have another attempt on Reyna’s life.”
I caught my flinch at the last second. Or so I thought. Persy’s eyes tracked the pinch in my shoulders like she knew it was coming.
Oh, she had. Little devil. And now she was smiling again. “I’m sorry for my choice of words, but I needed to see your reaction.”
“It was well-played. No need to apologize.” Even I could admit that was smart.
Persy nodded, temporarily soothed. And then she turned back to the room and took it upon herself to run her perfect hands all over my supplies.
After a moment, her limbs turned jittery again. She turned towards me quickly, already wringing her hands together. “Right. So, this is yours to do with as you want, like I said. My only request is that you don’t go through that door.” She pointed at one behind her. “The key works for both, so I guess I’m trusting you to listen to me. So, again, please don’t go in there.”
All I could do was nod in agreement, because I was already trying to restrain the urge to do exactly that the second she left.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice picking up again. “Okay. Um, I have to go … work, I have to go work. I’ll be back around dinner time. Do you want me to bring food?”
This time, I shook my head. I could at least distract myself by cooking.
Persy nodded quickly, starting towards me and the door in a half-gallop, like she was trying to get out of here as quickly as possible. I moved my hand to block her right as she got to me, her stomach slamming into my arm. She looked up at me in surprise, her eyes blown wide.
I bent down, eclipsing the inches between us to make sure she heard me. “You shouldn’t trust me.”
She sighed, blinking rapidly and hiding those gray eyes from me. “I’m going to anyway.”
And with a speed I had to respect, she ducked under my arm and left me alone to confront her graciousness and deal with the fact that I’d be living under the same fucking roof as her.