Chapter 36
Persy
Everything was telling me that Sebastian had just died in my arms.
I could see him, lying on my lap with his eyes closed.
I could feel his blood warming my thighs as it seeped out of him.
I could hear people screaming.
I could taste my tears on my tongue, more bitter than anything I’d ever eaten.
I could smell blood in the air, the iron twinge of it working it’s way up my nose.
Everything was telling me that he was dead, but my mind wouldn’t accept it.
He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.
I was supposed to have another week with him. At the very least.
He said he’d stay. He asked me to come to Delphi with him.
We couldn’t do that if he was dead.
That’s too much blood. His eyes are closed. He isn’t breathing. He’s dead.
The words slammed into my mind, as true as anything I’d ever known. As if the god of truth had spoken them directly into my ear.
That wasn’t right though. I’d heard that voice in my own head. If the god of truth had spoken them, then that meant…
I felt it, then.
Felt the sun itself start to work its way into my body, bringing art, music, truth, healing, and every other power under Apollo’s control into my limbs.
I could almost see it, the bright-white of Sebastian’s power moving from his body into my hands. I understood what he meant about my hair now. It looked identical.
That was how it was supposed to be. He had his power and my hair was a reminder of it.
I wasn’t supposed to take his power too.
The truth of it all slammed into me, bringing the power with it. It flooded me, warming my body like alcohol’s effects settling in.
“Oh, love,” I said, barely aware of the words falling from my lips. It just kept coming, his power pouring from him to me.
He’d made me his heir.
He’d made me his heir and it was the worst thing he could have done to me. That wasn’t an honor. It wasn’t a gift. If I was his heir, that meant he was dead.
I didn’t want the power. The second I rejected it, it started to burn, like sun on unprotected skin.
No, worse. It felt like I was getting burned from the inside out. The pain was so intense, a scream ripped itself from my throat before I could stop it.
My heart felt like it was tearing itself apart, each little fiber and tendon snapping as I looked down at Sebastian’s pale face and realized he’d left me.
Another scream followed closely, though this one was a word. No.
My body took over then, pushing out tears and anguished cries and anything it could think to make the pain go away. My mind felt detached, so much so that it felt bad for my body.
It didn’t know how to deal with the fact that Sebastian was dead.
“I don’t want it,” I said, louder than I’d intended. I wanted to shout it in Sebastian’s face, forcing him to come back. Maybe I was shouting.
There was pushing and shoving and a lot of commotion around me, but I couldn’t process any of it. I could hear the distant sounds of my name being called. I could see cameras flashing. I could hear thunder rumbling.
But all I could focus on was trying to get Sebastian’s power out of me and back into his body. It was his.
He deserved it. He loved it. It had no place in my hands.
“I don’t want it!” This time, it was a scream. My voice hurt from yelling, but my body felt out of control. Everything was harsher, more intense. “Take it back.”
I wasn’t sure what I was doing or if it would even work, but I pushed my hands into Sebastian’s chest, barely feeling the weak beat of his heart beneath my palms, and focused on the power he’d forced upon me.
It was light in its purest form, so bright it almost burned. And I wanted it gone. I pushed and pushed, focusing on shoving each and every bit of it that tried to cement itself into my skin away from me.
Back to Sebastian. Back to Apollo.
I’d started crying at some point, hot tears streaming down my face. There were people trying to talk to me—I knew that, too.
I didn’t listen. I didn’t care.
“Take it back,” I said again, my words breaking off on a sob that made my chest feel like it was splitting apart. I was pushing everything I had towards him, using my own power to chase away the sunlight with dark, threatening clouds.
I could feel it leaving, the gray and violets replacing the yellows and oranges. Light and medicine and art and music leaving my body and moving back into Sebastian. When I felt so drained I was sure my skin looked gray and sickly, I finally allowed myself to breathe.
To look down at Sebastian’s face, at his eyes closed and his lips parted.
And I broke. Something broke or tore or splintered apart, I was sure of it.
Whatever it was, I’d lost control of myself. My tears were coming in screams now, loud shouts where I was begging Fates knew who and pleading for someone, anyone to bring Sebastian back to me.
At some point, I’d folded myself over him, sobbing into the rock hard chest that I’d only had the chance to fall asleep on a few times. Oracle help me, that was so cruel.
My voice was hurting, and I was forced to replace the broken screams with quiet whispers.
“Please, please, please,” I said over and over, speaking directly over his heart. It wasn’t getting any stronger. It wasn’t getting any weaker either, but I needed Sebastian alive, not unconscious. My forehead had fallen onto my hands, which rested over his heart.
With each please, I shot a little bolt of electricity into his chest, hoping that would do something to strengthen his heartbeat.
“Persy…” Adrian said, and I felt his hand come down over my shoulder.
“No!” I cried, clinging harder to Sebastian. If I let go of him, Adrian or the Fates or someone else might try to take him away from me.
“Please,” he said, his voice breaking. “We can try to help him.”
“No one can help him,” I said, hiccuping the words through a sob. “He’s the only god of medicine. Who is supposed to heal him?!”
I turned to look at my brother then, finding his own expression anguished, his eyes glassy like raindrops on a window. He crouched down next to me, smoothing his hand over my hair.
I understood what Sebastian meant about pity now. I hated it.
I didn’t want pity. I wanted Sebastian.
“He can’t die,” I said softly, only able to confess the words to my big brother.
For a second, I thought Adrian was going to cry. “Let’s try something together, alright? Let’s both try to use a bit of electricity and see if that works.”
I could feel my eyebrows crunch together then release, unsure if that would work.
Adrian gave me a small smile, and for a moment we felt more like children of four and ten than adults. “I’ve knocked him out and brought him back before. Maybe it’ll work when I help.”
I was only able to nod and curl my hands tighter on Sebastian’s chest. Adrian’s palm landed next to mine a second later, his other arm coming around my shoulders in a comforting embrace.
Again, I didn’t want comfort. I didn’t want pity. I wanted Sebastian.
“On the count of three,” Adrian said, his voice low. He counted us off and on three, I focused all my energy on sending a spark into Sebastian’s chest. Even though it was lightning, I tried to make it as soft as possible. No one liked to be woken up with a jolt.
I held my breath, praying for it to work.
One second passed, then another.
And Sebastian’s heartbeat still felt weak. A broken, pained whimper left my throat as I crumpled over him again, fresh tears streaming down my cheeks.
“You do not get to die on my sister,” Adrian cursed from beside me. The next thing I knew, he was pulling me away from Sebastian with enough force that it ripped my hands from him but soft enough that it didn’t hurt me.
Right as I was lunging back towards him, a fresh cry building on my tongue, Adrian slammed his hand roughly into Sebastian’s chest, sending a lightning bolt strong enough into his body that the hairs on my arms rose.
Adrian dropped Sebastian back down to the floor, breathing heavily with exertion.
One second passed, then another, and this time Sebastian twitched.
I was frozen still with hope and anticipation and relief and a thousand other emotions as I watched Sebastian’s chest heave with a large breath and his eyelids flutter open.
And the second his multicolored gaze collided with mine, I lost it.
If I thought something had broken before, it was destroyed now.
My sanity was gone, replaced only by one emotion eclipsing the others.
It wasn’t one I expected. It was … anger.
Blinding, panicked, infuriating rage.
I’d never been this mad in my entire life and I didn’t know how to handle it. It was too much, sending my senses into overdrive.
Sebastian ran a hand through his hair then down his chest, blinking rapidly as he realized he was alive and okay. I watched as he processed what had happened, realized that I’d given his power back to him and that was what healed him—well, along with a sizable lightning bolt from my brother.
His gaze snapped to me, his hand already reaching out. “Love…”
“No,” I said softly, shrinking away from him. I felt like I was about to crawl out of my skin and if he touched me, I was sure I’d implode. Everything felt like too much, too harsh.
“Persephone,” Sebastian tried again, moving up to a seated position with a loud groan. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay, you fucking asshole!” The words exploded from my chest before I could stop them, my hands flailing and falling back into my lap.
Sebastian looked confused, rightfully so, and he moved toward me again. I pulled back, right through a portal, before he could touch me.
I landed on the floor of my bedroom, and I finally felt like I could take a breath. Not a good one, but a breath nonetheless. My next exhale was ragged, my eyes warm with another wave of tears.
My back hit the foot of my bed and I pushed harder against it, pulling my legs close to my chest and dropping my forehead to my knees. If I made myself smaller, maybe the rage and anger and pain in my chest would feel smaller, too.
I didn’t have time to tell if it would work before a portal cracked in front of me. I lifted my head to see Sebastian stepping through, eyes wild and crazed.
At least he could stand.
The second his eyes landed on my curled form on the floor, he dropped to his knees in front of me, hands outstretched. I scrambled away from him, standing and fleeing to the far side of the room.
“Persephone, love, what’s wrong?” Sebastian asked, hands open in surrender. “I’m sorry you were almost hurt, but you’re okay. There will never be another threat against you for as long as I live.”
“That’s what you think I’m upset about?!” I shot back, my voice raised in a yell again. My heartbeat felt out of control, my mind overrun with emotion. And I was still crying.
Sebastian took another step towards me. I backed myself into the wall. “Love, I’m sorry, okay? That wasn’t supposed to happen. I had no idea Ariana would do something like that.”
“I don’t care!” I should have. I should care that there was a possibility, no matter how much I trusted him, that he was lying and that he hadn’t changed one bit and that he was still wrapped up in his family”s plot. But I couldn’t see past my rage. “You almost left me!”
Sebastian jerked back, his eyes bouncing over my face quickly, clearly trying to figure out if he heard me right or not. His pause only gave me leave to yell again. “You cannot just jump in front of arrows, Sebastian!”
The reminder of what just happened seemed to kick his own anger off. “You would have rather me just let you get fucking shot?”
“Yes! That would have been better than—“ My voice broke off, another fresh wave of emotion crashing over me. I could see that he was okay. He was standing in front of me, but I would never forget how it felt to watch him almost die. “You made me watch you die.”
He had died. For a moment.
My hand flew to my mouth, trapping in a sob.
Sebastian was in front of me in a second, pressing so close I could feel the heat of him along my entire body. His hand came up to my wrist, wrapping lightly against the skin and brushing his thumb over my pulse point. “I can’t apologize for that, love. Not when the alternative was seeing you get hurt.”
I shook my head, my chest bending with agony. “No. Sebastian you can’t—”
I cut myself off before I said too much. But then Sebastian just had to go ahead and cup my cheek with his large, warm palm and then it made me think of how cold his skin had felt mere minutes ago.
I wrenched my wrist out of his grip and slammed both hands into his chest. “No. No. You don’t get to do that, Sebastian!” I pushed harder, needing to do something with the fury in my chest. “I am so fucking mad at you.”
“Forgive a man for expecting a bit more gratitude after saving your life,” Sebastian said, smiling and completely unmoving despite how hard I was pushing at him.
“I’m not going to thank you for almost ruining my life!” Too much was coming out, but I didn’t have the mind to care. “If you died, Sebastian, I wouldn’t—I can’t…”
The real answer was that I didn’t think I’d survive it.
Sebastian’s jaw went hard, his hands coming up to my face and gripping it like it was his lifeline. “And what about me, Persephone? What would have happened to me if you’d died?”
“Well, I assumed you would have healed me before that happened.” And that reminded me of the other fucking stupid thing he’d done. “You had no right to make me your heir! Do you really think I would have happily taken on the role of Apollo knowing you had to die for me to get it?”
Sebastian grinned, his eyes going soft as they bore into mine. “You would have had a lot of power to look forward to.”
This time, I pushed him hard enough that he stumbled back a step. “I don’t want power, you asshole! I want you! There will never be a time where I’d chose power over the man I—”
Sebastian stilled, his body snapping taut with tension. “The man you what?” When I hesitated, his gaze darkened to an almost threatening degree. “Come on. Say it.”
Whether it was the anger or the fear or some combination of the two that made me speak, I would never know. I clenched my fists at my sides and breathed in, steeling my spine. No avoiding the truth now. “The man I love.”
Sebastian moved so fast I missed half of it. The next thing I knew he was kneeling before me and reaching for my hands. “Persy, sweet love, I’m sorry.”
My hands threaded through his hair on instinct, and he pressed a quick kiss to my stomach. “Please don’t do that again.”
Sebastian shook his head rapidly, squeezing my hands tighter. “Never. If you are feeling even half of what I felt seeing that arrow point at you, I apologize. That was torture.”
“Why was it torture?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Sebastian smiled, so full it made my stomach clench. “If it wasn’t already clear, I’m quite obsessed with you, love.” My chest went tight with hope. “I know it makes me selfish and awful, but you have to have me. I love you too much to accept any other outcome.”
I’m sure he expected a different reaction, but the one that left my lips was, “If you love me, then why did you do that to me?”
Sebastian paused, pulling back slightly. He looked at me with that observant expression I’d come to crave and took his sweet time staring at me and cataloging every inch of my face. His eyes moved down to my chest, still heaving and shaky with desperate pulls of air.
I tried not to squirm under the attention but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the way he looked at me, like he could see right to my very core. After a moment, he finally said, “Ah, I see.”
“What?” The word was nothing more than a breath. There was no chance for anything else when my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.
Sebastian smiled, sliding his hands up my back and pulling me closer to him. “You’re feeling too much.” He was right. There were too many emotions warring in my body. All I could do was nod in agreement, which made Sebastian’s smile widen. “I can help with that.”
My breath hitched, anticipation lancing through my stomach. “Good. It’s your fault I’m like this. You made me love you.”
A rumble sounded from Sebastian’s chest then, and my instincts were to take it as a warning. I was never good at heeding those.
I dropped to my knees with him, twisting my hands into his shirt.
“You made me love you,” I repeated, my tone bordering on angry again. I’d never felt something so consuming in my life and it knocked me so far off kilter maybe I did have a right to be mad.
Sebastian’s hand traced the perimeter of my face, before trailing down and gripping my chin in a firm hold. “I love you too much to be sorry.”
There were no words that were able to capture the force with which Sebastian kissed me, then. It was a total invasion. It was a world-consuming, mind-altering kiss that would have cemented the fact there would be no one else for me if his words hadn’t.
I matched his ferocity, the last licks of my anger and panic making my movements shaky and rushed.
“Shhh, my love,” Sebastian said in between coaxing kisses. “I’m here.”
The only response he got from me was a firm yank on his hair.
I really hoped someone wasn’t about to come knocking to make sure either of us was okay, because I really wasn’t sure if I could peel myself away from Sebastian right now.
Faster than I could blink, he flipped us around, laying me down on the floor. Before I could lift my head to ask what he was doing, Sebastian placed a gentle hand in the center of my chest and cemented me to the floor.
I couldn’t move, especially considering the fact that both of us were still in our formal clothes.
“Sebastian, take your shirt off,” I said, suddenly remembering that he was covered in blood. His own blood.
“It’s gone, love,” he said, his words hitting the plane of my lower stomach. “You don’t need to see it anymore.”
I did like seeing him in a suit, but not when it was stained with the reminder of what just happened.
“Now,” Sebastian said, placing a kiss on my lower stomach. “Let me remind you I’m here.”
Before I could ask how, Sebastian was pushing up the fabric of my dress, using the slit up the leg to get to me faster. His hands slid over my hips, tucking under the band of my underwear and twisting it off.
My heart jumped into my throat, my limbs growing heavy. This wasn’t the first time we’d done this, but I felt far more sensitive right now.
“I’m here,” Sebastian said again, and I didn’t realize how much I’d needed the reminder until he said it. My hands twisted in his hair, pulling him closer.
Sebastian chuckled against me, the vibration flooding my senses with warmth. He looked up, taking hold of my eyes so tightly I wasn’t sure I could ever look away. “I’m here,” he repeated one more time, before flattening his tongue against me.
My back bowed off the floor, my eyes wrenching shut at the sensation. He focused his tongue on my clit, and when his fingers brushed my entrance, I felt fresh tears build in my eyes.
I could barely make out the low praises he was muttering against me, carefully working me higher and higher while still drawing out the pleasure. Even he knew how close I was to release.
His other hand gripped my ass, lifting my hips higher and cementing his mouth more firmly to me. When his lips wrapped around the apex of my thighs and sucked, I was pretty sure I blacked out for a second.
My broken whimper sounded distant in my own ears, like I wasn’t fully connected to my body. The sensation only grew when Sebastian didn’t let me rest, continuing his torture even as I squirmed and writhed.
“One more,” he said against me. “Until you forget.”
Even though there was a second where I didn’t know if I could, I knew that Sebastian would eventually pull another orgasm from me. There wasn’t any doubt.
So, I gave myself over to it, focusing on the fact that he was alive and here and with me, and refused to let go of him for the rest of the night.