Page 151 of The Gods Forbid

Adrian dropped his head back and begged for help from his ancestors. “Persy, would you please just make this easy on me?”

Persy grumbled something rather colorful under her breath, which made me smile even wider, and inched her way around my body. She didn’t remove her hands from me for a second of it, coming to stand in front of me and looping my arms over her shoulders so she could hold onto my wrists.

I widened my legs and flattened my hands over her abdomen, pulling her tight to me.

“You know what,” Adrian said, turning to leave. “Fuck this. You both seem fine. I’ll be back when I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“You will do no such thing,” Reyna said, catching Adrian’s wrist and yanking him back. She turned to me and Persy, sighing heavily. “We both understand the need to be close to one another right now, but could we maybe just sit down so my lovely husband doesn’t keel over?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Persy said, and I had to curl my lips to trap a smile. I knew exactly what she was about to say. “I’ll just sit on Sebastian’s lap, and I think that’s worse than what we’re doing right now.”

She was correct about that. Standing, I could tilt my pelvis back so there was an inch of space between our bodies and keep myself in check. There was no chance in hell I’d be able to do that with her sitting on my lap.

“PERSY!” Adrian yelled, sounding more like an exacerbated ten-year-old than a king and god.

Meanwhile, his wife was laughing her ass off. “Well, you two are clearly fine and healthy,” Reyna said, then reached behind Adrian to pull something out of the back pocket of his pants. “We just wanted to show you this.” She waved a newspaper in the air. “And see for ourselves whether the sun had made its way here or not.”

They could see that just fine. It was crossing five in the afternoon and the sun had just began its descent. If I had to guess—god of light and all—I’d say that Prometheus would now function like it was the height of summer at all times, with long, sun-filled days.

Persy made no move to reach for the paper, so I leaned forward with her in tow, and grabbed the paper from Reyna. I unrolled it, only catching a glimpse of the photograph on front cover, before Persy ripped it from my hands and crumpled it.

“I do believe I’m entitled to at least two weeks of peace before I’m reminded of anything related to that night,” Persy said, burrowing further into my chest.

It was fucking awful of me, but the way she was so obviously affected by the concept of my death warmed my chest. If she had been the one in that position, I would probably still be wreaking havoc, so it was at least comforting to know she was in the same boat.

Comforting wasn’t the right word for it. Because I didn’t feel at all calm and the only reasonable solution was to fuck her until both our voices were hoarse.

“We just thought we should tell you that the two of you are now rather famous,” Reyna said, coming to sit down at our kitchen counter. She chose Persy’s normal seat, and I had half the mind to tell her to move.

But Persy would think that was impolite, so I stopped myself. I might have also decided against it, my own capacity for kindness kicking in.

“We weren’t famous before?” I asked with a raised brow.

“Not like this,” Adrian grumbled, dropping his forehead to the top of Reyna’s head. I heard an obvious inhale of her hair, which upped my respect for him.

We might have been more similar than I gave us both credit for. We had been friends once. And seeing as I was intending on marrying his sister the second she let me, I supposed I could develop some degree of brotherly affection for him.

“What do you mean?” Persy asked, her grip tightening on my wrist.

Reyna smiled, clasping her hands together under her chin. “Everyone is obsessed with you two. Calling it the love story of the century, which is saying something considering…” she trailed off, gesturing at her and Adrian.

“Oh,” Persy sighed lightly, almost sounding unsure.

I bent down to speak closer to her ear. “I think this is a positive thing, love.”

Persy looked up, her eyebrows already drawn together. “You might be used to this, but I’m not.”

While I doubted Persy had ever been able to walk anywhere without being recognized, she wasn’t as public a figure as the rest of us. “Does that make you nervous?”

Persy blinked, thinking for a moment. “No, I don’t think so,” she said decidedly. “I guess I’ll be with you at anything public in the future, so that won’t be a bad thing.”

I bent down quickly, stealing a kiss.

Adrian groaned and barked a curse. He could fuck off.

Especially when Persy was sighing into the kiss, relaxing against me.

“Well,” Reyna said, long and drawn out. “Point being that everyone was quite moved by what happened on Friday. Sebastian, you look like a hero. And Persy everyone is enamored by you.”