Page 113 of The Gods Forbid

Before I could even utter a warning, Penn ran up to the portal and jumped through like he was flying off a cliff into the ocean. I stepped through after him hurriedly, worried my power would flare and leave him stranded. Sebastian was right behind me, stepping through space casually.

It seemed I’d popped us into the middle of the museum, like my body just instinctually knew the way to go, even though I’d never been to this wing before. It was one of the most heavily guarded parts of the museum, protecting sculptures and other precious artifacts.

A fact that became explicitly clear when three poor guards damn near fell over when they saw us. Penn was blissfully unaware of how close he was to being tackled, staring in awe at a sculpture that depicted a woman slowly turning into a tree.

Sebastian gave them a slight nod, silently communicating that this was okay. One of the guards split off, presumably to let others know that there were gods present, not that most didn’t walk around like humans.

“Where is it?” Penn asked, his body practically shaking with excitement.

Sebastian smiled, so honest it made my heart clench. “At the far end of this hallway,” he said, jerking his chin in the right direction. “Can’t miss it.”

Without another word, Penn took off down the hall in a near sprint, almost clipping one of the guards in the shoulder as he did. I took a step to follow, but was interrupted by Sebastian’s body.

He stepped in front of me, looking down at me with that observant gaze that warmed my skin.

“Come on,” Sebastian said, extending his hand to me. I fought the urge to blink at it like I’d never seen it before. “Penn has some legs on him. Don’t want to lose you.”

Please mean that. For more than just right now.

Pushing away that thought, and the force with which it hit me, I took his hand.

My hand slipped into his, the warmth of his skin heating mine like the summer sun. Once my hand was fully covered by his, he sighed deeply, sounding almost … relieved.

I wouldn’t—couldn’t—be the one to say that I’d felt relief too, felt that heavy exhale right in my chest.

All I could do was let him drag me down the hallway, resisting the urge to run my thumb over the back of his hand to feel the grooves in between the strong tendons there.

He was right, we had to move at a breakneck pace to keep up with Penn’s excitement, close to a full blown jog down the hallway.

I’d heard a lot about this particular painting of Sebastian’s and had seen it in a few photos, but I’d never seen it in person. I’d heard two people arguing over whether he’d used gold paint or simply created the illusion of that metallic from a combination of other colors.

Everyone seemed to walk away from it in awe of his talent, each with a different fact about the masterpiece they found interesting.

It was finally my turn to see it. And with the artist himself. Maybe he would give me something special to take away from it.

As we moved down the hallway, my gaze snagged on a few pieces that I was sure belonged to him. He had created so much in his short life, which made me realize how starved we’d been in the past couple of years.

I remembered him explaining it to one reporter as an artistic block, and telling another it took time to create pieces everyone loved, specifically citing Sunlight Incarnate. Now, I knew that he simply wasn’t painting.

It made me happier than I would ever admit that he was back to that. That I got to see him return to the house every morning with paint splattering his clothes. He’d even started rolling up his sleeves, the specks of paint dotting the thin black lines tattooed into his skin.

Right as we were nearing the end of the hallway, I heard Penn yell, “It’s so big!” from behind a wall that clearly housed the painting we’d come to visit.

Sebastian chuckled under his breath, and with our hands connected, I could have sworn the vibration traveled straight from his body into mine.

Anticipation started to build in my stomach as we made it to the rounded dome housing this special gallery, with an entire wall dedicated to displaying Sebastian’s painting. My breath was frozen in my lungs as we rounded the corner.

The second my eyes connected with the massive painting, at least twenty feet high, my heart stopped in my chest.

It was beautiful and I should have been happy about it. It was a masterpiece, a painting so large you could fall right into it, spending hours dissecting every little brush stroke and detail added. I could see why people considered this one of the most intricate, stunning paintings of all time.

But, I wasn’t seeing what everyone else had. People commonly referred to this as a scene or even a landscape, depicting the sun shining down so powerfully it was like you were staring through the rays themselves trying to see the hills and scenery behind it.

I didn’t see any of that.

I saw a portrait.

I saw a woman.