Chapter 17
Persy
I was trying really hard not to freak out about what happened.
To be honest, I’d already forgotten about the tray of food and my ankle. I was far more concerned with the fact that Sebastian had washed my hair.
He was doing the right thing in the face of my small breakdown. I was the selfish one who stole every single second with greedy hands. I was just happy he didn’t seem to notice that it wasn’t the bath or the space that had calmed me.
It was him.
It took several minutes for me to talk myself into leaving my bedroom that morning. Sebastian had left sometime early in the morning. I didn’t tell him I knew he stayed, though at some point in the night I’d cracked my eye open and almost offered the other half of my bed to him. He was too large to spend that much time in a chair.
When I finally gathered the courage to leave my room, Sebastian was already in the kitchen, coffee mug in hand, looking exactly the same as he did every morning.
My sigh of relief racked my entire body.
“Good morning,” I said, my voice still sounding a little hoarse.
“Good morning,” Sebastian said, and it seemed like he was trying to force a smile to his face. He extended the coffee cup to me, my necklace catching the dim morning sun. I hadn’t realized that rays of sun even made it through my window this early in the morning, but I was so distracted by the way his strong wrist looked against the thin gold chain to pay it any attention. “If you would, love, please hurry up and sit down. You couldn’t have possibly chosen a worse spot in the book to pause.”
“You’ve read it,” I said, taking the cup out of his hands. I’d gotten used to bracing myself for the jolt of lightning that shot up my arm when our hands brushed. “You know what happens.”
“My memory isn’t that strong,” he said, ushering me over to a seat.
“You have a perfect memory. You could probably recite the whole thing back to me right now,” I said through a laugh.
“You flatter me.” A grin was plastered on his face in full form.
This was normal for us. I was so relieved, my limbs felt heavy and warm. We’d been growing closer, definitely forming some sort of friendship forced upon us by the proximity, but last night was … a lot.
I tried not to think too hard about how easy it was to establish a routine with him.
In the mornings, he started reading while I ate since he was always up and painting before I was. I took over after I handed him another cup of coffee.
We almost got into a physical altercation over the dishes. It started as us bickering over who would do them, but ever since touching had been brought into the equation, Sebastian looked like he was seconds away from picking me up and moving me away from the sink if I beat him to it.
When it was the other way around, I had half a mind to jump on his back until he let me do them.
Sebastian was not willing to argue with me this morning, mumbling something about my ankle under his breath. He knew damn well it was probably in a better state than it had been my entire life after he healed it, but I sat down on the couch anyway.
It was a Saturday. I could rest.
“What do you have planned today?” he asked, as he toweled his hands off, leaning against the sink.
“Nothing,” I said, with a megawatt smile on my face.
Sebastian laughed, coming over to sit on the couch with me. We read for a while, our own books this time, then he tried to teach me how to make pasta, which turned into a floury mess. Some time in the afternoon, I snuck off to my part of the studio, trying to ignore the openly curious expression on Sebastian’s face.
It wasn’t a secret, but I didn’t know why I wasn’t telling him yet. Probably the same reason I was so nervous to read aloud in front of him the first time.
It was a perfect day, really. Until we went to sleep.
I always stayed awake a little longer than he did. There was a good chance I was imagining it, but I was pretty sure I could hear his breaths steady each night.
Only this time, about an hour after we both walked into our respective rooms, a blast of heat shot through the walls.
This had happened before, the warmth in the house kicking up a bit at the same time he seemed to toss and turn in bed, but never like this.
It felt like the sun was seconds away from crashing into my house.
I was pretty sure he was having a nightmare. That was the only thing I could think of that could make his power go out of control like that.
Maybe it just took him a second to get through it, then he’d be fine. I didn’t want to barge in there and cross a—
Ow. Okay, that was too hot.
He’d helped me. Maybe I could help him.
All I knew was that I couldn’t leave him like this. I would suffer the heat if I thought he was okay, but this was unlike anything I’d ever felt from him.
His power probably didn’t even affect him, just wreaked havoc on anything around him. He could have a nightmare powerful enough to burn through an entire village and he would probably wake up without having broken a sweat.
Maybe someone had told him, accidentally woken up with their skin red and splotchy like it would be after spending too many hours under the summer sun. A partner or girlfriend or someone he looked to for pleasure.
Well. That wasn’t a productive line of thought.
All it made me want to do was leave him to suffer and atone for spending any amount of time with another woman. That was not only incredibly wrong to wish upon him, especially since I made it my career to avoid inflicting pain at all costs, but it was also entirely inappropriate.
I didn’t have any sort of claim on him. I would never have any sort of claim on him.
That didn’t stop me from wanting to lock him in a room and make him give me the name of every single person he’d ever been interested in and make sure they never stepped foot near him again.
Another surge of heat pushed through the walls, lashing out like a solar flare.
I was up and moving before I could even think to do it. My hand barely registered the stinging burn of the metal doorknob, practically melting under the force of his power. The second I entered his room, I was blown back by a blast of wind. I regained my footing and plowed forward, wading through his power like it was mud.
“Sebastian,” I said softly. His hands were glowing, his body flushed with heat from his neck down to where the sheets gathered around his…
He was … well, it was just that he …
He was shirtless. I’d seem a glimpse of his hard chest yesterday, but it was entirely different seeing him sprawled out and surrounded by sheets.
I blinked quickly, reminding myself why I was in here. To help him, not to ogle him.
I approached the bed slowly, careful not to startle him. If he woke up in the middle of a panicked state, for all I knew he’d shoot an arrow into my chest before he realized what he was doing.
“Sebastian,” I tried again, and the warmth in the room pulsed. Degrees lower and back again. But by the time my thighs were touching the bed, his skin was radiating enough heat to burn.
Carefully climbing onto the mattress, I inched towards him. “I’m going to touch you now,” I said, right as my hand descended on his arm.
The second I did, he pulled me into his dream with him.
One moment I was in his room, staring at his glistening, sweat-slicked chest trying to stave off inappropriate thoughts, and the next, I was living his dream with him.
I took in my surroundings as quickly as I could, because there was already screaming and loud banging that was threatening to steal my attention. I was pretty sure I was in the Apollo ancestral home.
Everything was gold and bright and expertly-crafted, a tribute to the pinnacle of arts and perfection. There was a man—Sebastian, I realized—sitting on a sprawling, plush couch, forearms rested on his thighs and head hung low.
I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it to be him. Even from the top of his head and the curve of his shoulders, I could tell that it was him as he was now. If only he’d lift his head, then I could confirm that the number of dark freckles scattered over his face and neck was as I remembered.
Two voices stole my attention, and I immediately had the urge to cower and hide. That wasn’t my normal reaction to fear, which only served to prove how horrid those voices were. The hatred in their tone, the vitriol in their words.
And directed at Sebastian, I realized.
“You are complacent,” his mother snapped, gesturing wildly with her hands. “For fuck’s sake, Sebastian. You are a disappointment to this family. We have been working toward this for years, with a line that is nothing short of perfection, until your delusional self came along. You’re really willing to fuck all that up in the name of order?!”
Sebastian’s shoulders pinched, bowing under the volume of his mother’s words. His father chimed in next, his voice so loud it sounded like a volcano exploding, taking off an entire side of a mountain with it. It felt that destructive, anyway. “I know your mother and I raised you better than this. Or maybe you were always doomed to be this … thing that refuses to have any sort of ambition whatsoever.”
“I told you I would do it,” Sebastian gritted out, his eyes staying on the floor. “Excuse me for believing it can be done without mass murder.”
His father scoffed, looking up to the ceiling and muttering a prayer for his ancestors to help him deal with his idiot son. That made my hackles rise even further. Everything they were characterizing Sebastian as was just plain wrong.
“You are weaker than I thought if you think that’s not a reasonable price to pay,” his mother shot at him, her words clearly intended to hurt.
The whites of Sebastian’s knuckles popped as his hands squeezed together in restraint. It took everything in me not to run over there, going to my knees in front of him and trying to pry his hands apart so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
“Innocent life for glory?” Sebastian quipped. “What a fair trade off.”
“As if enough innocent life hasn’t already been lost because of that horrid god,” his mother returned pointedly. Sebastian’s head snapped up, and his stare was almost molten with fury.
I wasn’t sure there weren”t literal waves of heat shooting out from him, as deadly as a solar flare. “You will not twist her death into something that justifies this insane grab for power.”
Though Sebastian looked like he did now, his voice kept modulating back and forth between the deep, comforting lilt I’d come to cra—come to know—and a lighter, younger version of his voice.
A memory, then.
His father scoffed, gripping Sebastian”s face roughly and making him look at him. “If you speak to your mother in that tone again, I will kill you.” He released Sebastian with enough force to make him rear back. “What your mother said is true. I see we’re going to have to teach you that lesson the hard way.”
His father gathered a portal. Before he stepped through with Sebastian’s mother in tow, he snapped, “Stay here if you know what’s good for you.”
When they disappeared, Sebastian’s face fell into his hands, a ragged breath falling from his lips. Finally alone, it allowed for his senses to kick in.
I watched him feel me from across the room, as intimate as a physical caress of his hands down my arms.
Sebastian’s head snapped up, sensing my invasion. I was expecting him to yell or to chuckle sarcastically, chastising me for crossing a line.
Instead, all the color drained from his face. His eyes went wild, almost feral with panic. Before I could blink, he was up and coming towards me, backing me into the wall.
His hands came to my face, cradling my jaw and head in his large palms. “Oh, love,” he breathed, eyebrows creasing in pain. “What did you do?”
“I—I’m sorry,” I tried, my voice breaking off. My hands came up to grip his wrists on their own accord. “I couldn’t leave you like that.”
Sebastian’s expression turned confused. “Leave me like—”
His words were cut off by the snap of a portal cracking through the room. He shoved me behind him, turning around and pinning me against the wall.
My head came to the middle of his neck, so I ducked down slightly to hide behind his broad shoulders. I could still see from the small space in between his torso and arm.
He kept his arms behind his back, holding me to him. To anyone, it would probably look like he simply had his hands clasped behind his back. No one would know he was gripping me to his back like it was the very thing keeping him alive.
His parents walked out of the portal staring at the couch. Where Sebastian had been in the real event.
The dream adapted and they turned around as if nothing happened.
Sebastian’s father signaled for someone to follow him and an older woman stepped through. She was unsteady on her feet, her body not quite able to support itself anymore.
Sebastian’s father beckoned her forward, sneering at Sebastian the entire time. “Go ahead, tell him what you told me.”
The second she opened her mouth, I recognized her. The former Lady Artemis, two generations back. Penelope’s grandmother.
Her voice came out shaky, unsure as she said, “It’s his fault, Sebastian. Penelope would still be here if it weren’t for him.”
Sebastian’s limbs locked up, hearing the words as if they were new instead of a memory likely replayed thousands of times.
“Penelope didn’t die because of him,” Sebastian said, his voice steady with conviction. He sounded so sure my brother had nothing to do with Penelope’s death. How the gods acted in the wake of my brother”s birth, forced to fight their counterpart god, with the same powers as them, but simply Roman versus Greek, was not my brother”s cross to bear.
Sebastian seemed to agree in this dream. He”d fallen so far from that point.
The former Lady Artemis shook her head, her entire body reflecting the movement like a ripple in the water. “He did, dear. You could never understand, but the stress of having a counterpart who might end your godly line was too much. Too much for my Penelope to bear.”
I could almost feel Sebastian’s heart straining under the tense muscles of his back. “Did she tell you that?” he asked carefully, like he was afraid of the answer.
Penelope’s grandmother shook her head solemnly. “It was obvious. She couldn’t take it anymore and she just…” her voice fell off on a shaky breath, one that seemed to drain all the energy she had left.
As Sebastian’s father helped her back through a portal, Sebastian dragged in heavy breaths, his fingertips burning into my skin. Once it was just his parents again, his mother walked up to him, her finger already pointed in accusation. “You refuse to help us and you curse that poor old woman—one who served faithfully as Artemis for fifty years, mind you—to die knowing that you don’t give a damn about her granddaughter’s memory. That you are willing to let that hybrid, sham of a god rule Olympus, completely uncaring that he cost Penelope her life.”
I felt the snap. Even though Sebastian wasn’t living this memory faithfully anymore, instead using his body to shield mine, I could still feel the muscles of his old self snap hard and taut.
Committing to the conspiracy. I could see the joint of his jaw working, his teeth sawing together as he gritted out, “Never bring her up again, and I’ll do this.”
That tone was so far from the one I’d heard Sebastian use when he talked about his overthrow attempt. Now, it was confident, if not a little lazy, like it was nothing but a passing thought to lead the only coup against Jupiter or Zeus in history.
But the voice he used in this memory was … broken. Resigned. Pained.
His father had a momentary expression of relief, before it was squashed under cruel confidence. “Just try not to fuck this up,” he shot at his only son, before turning away with his wife and leaving us alone.
I wondered what he’d done in the original memory. I could practically see him running his hands down his face in frustration. Any further thought was cut off when he turned around.
That wild look was back, his eyes bouncing over every inch of my face like they didn’t know which part to focus on the most. He settled on my eyes, holding them in a grip so intense I barely felt his hands rise to my face, tilting it up to him.
He opened his mouth, surely to chastise me for intruding, but at that very moment we were pulled out of the dream, coming back to reality within the four walls of his bedroom.
I was folded over his bare chest, my cheek cemented to the burning skin of his shoulder. I scrambled up, trying to put some much needed distance between us, but Sebastian moved faster.
In a move I couldn’t dedicate any thought to figuring out how he learned, Sebastian flipped me onto my back, hovering over me. “Oh, no you don’t, love,” he said as he did it, his body eclipsing the dim moon outside.
I could take the advantage back in a second, but I did nothing. Just let Sebastian cage me in with his shoulders and the scent of his cologne. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” I half-whispered. Sebastian’s stare only grew more intense, which had its normal effect of causing me to start saying everything that came across my mind. “I was trying to help and I touched you and you just pulled me in.” I took in a deep, shuddering breath. He really hogged all the air when he was this close to me. “All that horrible stuff your parents said…” I trailed off when pain lanced across his face. His reaction was delayed, not quite able to slam a emotionless mask down on time. “It’s not true. Penelope didn’t—”
Sebastian’s hand cut me off. Not by placing it over my mouth. No, the simple scrape of his hand over my shoulder was enough to completely remove the sounds coming from my throat. He had moved his hand next to my head, giving him the leverage to lean even closer.
This was so beyond wrong. I should set a million boundaries right now. Unfortunately, my body was in control right now and it seemed I was content to snap up all the little pieces of him I could get.
He was the one on top of me. He could move if he wanted. At least that was the logic I was going with.
Sebastian’s gaze swept down my body, before speaking so low I could barely hear him. “Let’s go back to that image you were painting before. Touching. Drawing you in.”
Hope burst through my chest, so powerful I was sure it could have flattened an entire forest.
Until I saw his grin.
Oh.
He was joking.
“I’d rather not,” I murmured, trying to wiggle out from under him. The second my hips shifted, Sebastian rolled off and away from me like my touch had burned him.
He rotated his legs to the floor, collapsing his large frame to rest his forearms on his legs.
All my resolve to leave and deal with my embarrassment on my own went flying out the window. There was something so … horrible about seeing his broad shoulders fold in on themselves like this. Seeing his back curve and bow under the strain of his own anguish.
What was a little more embarrassment? I could just group it into one, continuous lapse in sanity. Maybe he’d believe I was drunk.
I crawled over to him on my knees, settling back on my haunches. Before I could think better of it, I ran my hands over his shoulders and his biceps.
His skin was still sweltering.
Heat didn’t affect me. Sure, my version of it was more cold—sharp snaps of electricity rather than the gentle warmth of the sun. But it was still heat.
Heat that made me feel all sorts of dangerous things. I told myself it was okay to touch him like this. It was meant to be comforting, something friends did. It didn’t have to mean anything.
“I’m sorry I intruded,” I said, the words landing on the top of his spine.
One of his hands lifted to secure mine to his arm. “Their hate shouldn’t be anywhere near you.”
“It shouldn’t have been near you, either,” I snapped back, my tone surprisingly harsh.
Sebastian looked back at me, one brow raised. “That was but a small glimpse, love. It barely affected me at the end.”
Well, that shot my anger off like a rocket. “No one gets used to that, Sebastian.”
He sighed deeply, his shoulders falling another inch. “Fine. Maybe I just grew numb.”
“How do you feel now?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes dropping for a second to where my hand seemingly glued itself to his shoulder. “Not numb,” he said, with a laugh in his voice. I didn’t mean to crack open a hole in his emotions, but he was the one who pulled me into his dream with him.
I needed to talk to him about this. He could bitch about it all he wanted, but I needed to say something. “Penelope…”
“It was never about your brother.” I pulled back in shock, my hands dropping from his shoulders. Maybe the comfort of night made this easier to talk about. Whatever the motivation, I would do whatever I could to make him comfortable.
“What was it about?” I asked. I could see Sebastian run his hands down his face, then back up through his hair.
“She wasn’t,” he stopped, his voice cracking. “She wasn’t under pressure from your brother. She used to always say that she knew Luce would be the one to win out. That Diana would trump Artemis at the end of the day. But I think it was just because she was … she was really tired. Toward the end, I think that was what won out—how exhausted she was. Your brother wasn’t involved in her death. I’ve thought about it a lot,” he said, his voice going dry. “And I think her grandmother was just confused. She was trying to rationalize what happened. I stopped trying to do that a long time ago.”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head, staring down at the floor. “My sister died. That’s the only thing I know for certain. She died by taking her own life, and it’s a better honor to her memory spending my energy preserving memories of her than trying to figure out what happened.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. Sometime while he was speaking, my hand had come back up to his shoulder. “I think she would appreciate that. She was always very kind to me.”
I wouldn’t go into the full extent of it, but Penelope had never made me feel odd or too much the way others had when I was younger. She was this moonstruck, glowing huntress who reflected everyone’s light with her own softness. I had a lot of memories of her walking around Olympus with me, speaking to me like I was her friend, rather than a kid people didn’t quite understand.
Sebastian laughed, the kind of short breath that hinted at something he knew, but I didn’t. It grated a little bit, but I had to respect the fact that I wasn’t entitled to everything he was.
I wanted to know everything about him, which was a terrifying realization, but that didn’t mean he owed me anything.
“I preserved her bow,” Sebastian said, the words leaving him like a heavy exhale.
My heart clenched painfully. To Apollo, Artemis, and Diana, their bow was the most precious thing to them, often carved from wood by their own hands when they reached adulthood. “Where is it?”
“Delphi.”
I’d never been to Delphi, but I’d heard it was beautiful. A stunning town nestled in the mountains yet just off the coast, the heart of Apollo’s power. “Where is yours?” I knew he had a crossbow, but I didn’t think that was his real bow.
“Delphi,” he repeated.
Suddenly, it became very important that he have it. I’d asked the young man who’d helped bring all of his stuff to Prometheus to take everything, which made me think his place in Rome wasn’t his real home. “We should go get it.”
Sebastian nodded, just a few slow movements that made me think that offer had been appreciated. He still looked so haunted, his form collapsed in on itself. I didn’t like seeing him like this. So … defeated.
“All those things your parents said, they aren’t true. You aren’t any of those things.” He was ambitious, but he wasn’t a power-hungry monster. I hated that his talent was twisted into something evil, something that was nothing more than a schtick to attract supporters.
Sebastian turned to me, pushing back on the bed so that he was resting against the headboard. He bent his knee, resting his elbow on the joint and rubbing his forehead with his hand. “They got me into it, but I kept it going for over five years. They’ve been dead that long.”
It was finally here, in the comfort of our home and in the middle of the night, that I finally had the courage to ask. “Why did you do it?”
Sebastian looked me dead in the eye, his multicolored gaze cutting right to my very core. “I had a chance to be the most powerful god on the planet. I saw a way—or so I thought—to do it with minimal causalities, so I did it. I did it because I could.”
“Was that what changed?” I scooted closer to him before I knew what I was doing. “The harm?”
Sebastian nodded. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice hoarse with honesty. “I designed those tattoos knowing full well that they would infect the host if they were caught. I watched as they were inked into people’s skin. I just,” he broke off as his throat worked in a thick swallow. “I just didn’t care towards the end.”
I was pushing the boundaries, but I had to take this opportunity to ask what I needed. “Rose?” I said, trusting him to know what I was referring to.
His face darkened, growing haunted. “Thirty-three.”
“What?”
“That’s how many people died from that attack on her,” he said, his jaw moving then resetting. “Thirty-three lives lost because of hate I spewed into their ears about her being a murderous bitch. It wasn’t until I was standing over their bodies in her temple, realizing how fast the poison in that tattoo worked, that my heart started to beat again.”
Oh, it was beating alright. So much so, that heat and vitality pumped through his limbs and warmed his skin to a degree that haunted me in my dreams. “Sebastian, the fact that you feel remorse at all is a good thing.”
“Doesn’t bring them back,” he snapped back, his voice thin and harsh. I knew he wasn’t snapping at me. No, no he was lashing out at himself.
I nodded, smiling softly. “When you’re ready, we can see if we can organize something for their families.”
For the first time, I watched Sebastian’s heart break in his own eyes. His chin dipped down in the barest nod. “Thank you.”
My smile grew, and I heard an odd stopping sound, like a breath hitching. “I’m really sorry for barging in. I just couldn’t leave you like that.”
Sebastian’s jaw set even harder, somehow making the already razor sharp edge grow harsher. “You said that.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Do you not know?”
“Know what?”
I sighed deeply. This was uncomfortable. “You, um, you start pushing out your power when you have nightmares. It’s like a solar flare, I’d imagine.”
Sebastian shot up, leaning towards me. “What do you mean?”
I dropped my gaze to my hands. “Nothing serious. The house just gets really hot. Normally it’s not too bad, but this time it felt like you might have been hurting yourself.” It was then, looking at my hands, that I realized I’d burned my palm on the doorknob. I lifted it, showing it to him with a bashful smile. “Works a treat on metal, too.”
Sebastian’s eyes went wild, his breath coming in a near pant. “I’m ripping off that fucking door.”
I blinked quickly, shaking my head. “It’s not … you don’t have to—you were the one suffering.”
Sebastian barely acknowledged me. “Give me your hand.”
As if in a trance, I extended my hand to him. Uncaring that we hardly touched, he treated me like this was par for the course, placing one hand around my forearm, the other cradling my palm in his.
With the same wash of power that I’d felt yesterday, shooting up my leg, he healed the burn on my palm. Warmth trickled up my arm, pooling low in my stomach.
He still wasn’t wearing a shirt. That was very obvious all of the sudden.
I was in a pajama set that was barely more than a scarp of silky fabric. That also seemed important to note.
And we were sitting on a bed.
At night. In the dark.
“You really have to stop healing me,” I said, knowing he’d view it as a passing tease rather than the real meaning, that I didn’t think I could handle feeling his power like that again.
“Stop putting yourself in situations where you need to be healed,” he said back, playfulness in his tone.
I didn’t find that funny at all. “I would never have just left you. I wouldn’t do that to someone—” I cut myself off right before I added I cared about. That was the horrible realization of it all, that I’d grown to deeply care for him.
“I thought you told me you weren’t sacrificial,” Sebastian said, grinning wickedly.
“I didn’t even notice the burn, or I’d have shaken you awake to fix it. How’s that for sacrificial?” I didn’t need to add that I hadn’t felt it because I was too distracted by him, half-naked and in rumpled sheets, but that was besides the point.
Sebastian let out a low chuckle, the sound skating over my skin and drawing goosebumps in its wake. Yep, time to go. At least my hair was pulled in front of my shoulders to cover my chest.
“You should get some sleep,” I said. Sebastian nodded slowly, clearly exhausted. By the time I was standing, he’d slumped back against the headboard like his body had betrayed him and fallen asleep before he could allow it to.
Maybe in another world, where he watched me leave, I would have returned to my bedroom. But now, he was asleep.
Now, I didn’t want to leave. He’d done the same with me. There was a twin chair in the corner of the room, similar to the one in mine. So, I sat down and tucked my knees to my chest, content to watch him dream peacefully and have the confirmation, with my own eyes, that he was okay.