Page 114 of The Gods Forbid

And I hated it.

Sebastian had a fucking muse that he’d neglected to tell me about.

It was hard to tell at first, but once you saw it, it was inescapable.

You could see the slope of her shoulder, commonly mistaken as the shadowed curve of a waterfall. You could see her profile, credited as a jutting cliff face rather than features.

It was a painting that had taken him a year to complete and took up an entire wall of the most revered museum in the world and it was a portrait of someone else.

Why hadn’t he mentioned her? Where was she?

You didn’t just leave someone you painted with this much reverence, like they were this ethereal being that could only be captured in abstract swaths of color, painting their essence and spirit more than anything else.

“Sebastian,” I said, careful not to show the utter rage in my tone. Not when Penn had his face as close to the painting as was acceptable, staring in awe at the detail in the greenery. “Who is that?”

He stiffened immediately, his body going rigid. I could have sworn I could feel the heat leave his hand. I stepped around to face him, using that as an excuse to drop his hand.

I didn’t want to lose the connection, but I also wasn’t about to hold his hand while he told me about the woman in that painting. Fuck that, that sounded like torture.

He looked down at me, searching my face for something. He wouldn’t find anything, not when I was clamping down on my anger with all my might. “What makes you think there’s a woman in the painting?”

“I never specified that it was a woman,” I pointed out, voice thin. He’d just admitted that I was right.

Sebastian sighed deeply, looking over my shoulder at the painting. His eyes softened, which made my jaw clench down hard. There was no denying it now. I was painfully, irrevocably jealous.

He’d spent so much time openly mourning Penelope, who had never had anything other than fiery red hair, that I hadn’t considered there was someone else in his past. Besides, there was too much reverence in that painting. That was a lover, not a sibling.

“You’re right, love. That painting is of a woman.” I hated that he called me love while talking about someone else. “You’re the first to get me to admit that it is, though others have guessed.”

Oh, great, so it was clear to others that Sebastian’s most beloved work was about this mystery woman. There was a scoff building in my throat, but I managed to shift it into a humming sound at the last minute. “Who is she?” I asked as carefully as I could. “You haven’t mentioned her.”

Sebastian blinked down at me, like he was seeing me for the first time. “You assume that woman is real? She could just as well be a figment of my imagination. Hell, even a vision from the Oracle.”

I made myself shrug. “You’re talented, Sebastian, but that is clearly a portrait. I don’t think you imagined her.”

Sebastian laughed incredulously. “How wrong you are about that one.”

I blinked at him in confusion, my jealousy muddling my thoughts and stealing my ability to critically think. Just when another question was building in my throat, Penn ran up to us. “Can you tell me the story behind it?” he asked Sebastian.

“Of course,” Sebastian said, before returning his attention to me. It became clear then that while he’d answer Penn, he was speaking to me. “That is what I imagine it would look like to stare through the sun. I would burn up if I got that close in reality, so I painted a woman, instead. Sunlight Incarnate.”

“Is she based off anyone?” Penn asked, stealing the thoughts from my mind. It was all I could do not to beg Sebastian to answer honestly.

He was going to, it seemed. He stared straight at me as he answered, “Yes.”

Right at that moment, a powerful surge of jealousy swelled in my stomach, threatening to steal my breath. It was timed with clouds outside breaking apart, letting the sun stream down through the large windows and hit us in the center of the gallery.

Hit me, more specifically. I had to raise my hand to cover my eyes, though my hair was still picking up a great deal of the light and shining back in my face. The almost unnatural white-blonde color had made me insecure as a child, when I’d only ever wanted to see someone else with the same features to relate to them.

Now, I loved it. Though a part of me wanted to know who this other woman was that seemed to inspire Sebastian to paint the same color. Sebastian’s eyes had dropped to where my hair was pulled in front of my shoulders, picking up the light.

Penn’s sudden gasp drew both our attention, watching as he pointed at me, his finger settled right at the point where the sun was hitting my hair. His eyes drifted back to the painting and to me again, as if to compare the two.

Wait, that couldn’t mean…

“Sebastian Apollo, I know you did not sneak in here without saying hello to me,” a voice interrupted, quite rudely I might add. I was still reeling from the force of my jealousy, so much so I’d decided it was a good idea to point blank ask Sebastian for the name of the woman who inspired him.

Sebastian’s eyes held onto mine for one more moment, something close to a plea in them. Or maybe a dare?