Page 22 of The Gods Forbid

It wouldn’t be something I started doing often, seeing as it made Sebastian smile like a wolf stumbling upon a herd of deer. “Quite the opposite, love. Hard to feel human when everyone here looks at me like I could kill them with the snap of my fingers.”

I felt one of my eyebrows raise on its own accord, my eyes narrowing. “You were nice to them, I hope.”

Sebastian’s tongue poked into his cheek, which only made his jaw look sharper. “I thought we discussed that I’m not a very nice man.”

“You can treat me however you like, but I draw the line at—”

Before I could finish telling him that I wouldn’t tolerate him being rude to residents, a loud boom of thunder shook the house.

“Right, okay,” I said, rolling my shoulders back. I was just hoping Adrian’s big brother mode took the calmer route today.

Sebastian bent down, taking hold of my eyes, the move as forceful as if he’d lifted my chin with his hand. “What’s going on?”

I answered honestly because I promised I’d be honest with him, not because of the force of his gaze. “You’re going to hear some things. I wouldn’t recommend interfering.”

He stepped impossibly closer, bringing our chests flush together. Well, my chest and his upper abdomen. “Is someone about to hurt you?”

“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head quickly. “He’d never.” He might yell a little bit and ask me what I was thinking, but he would never hurt me.

“Who is he?” Sebastian asked, the words harsh like a curse.

The he in question made his presence clear moments later, yelling “PERSY!” in his booming god voice. The lights in the house pulsed, drawing a long groan out of Sebastian.

Adrian appeared on my doorstep a moment later. I didn’t realize I’d even left the door open. The second he saw Sebastian standing next to me, his anger went off like a volcano.

He halfway lunged over the threshold, his attention on Sebastian. “Pack your shit.”

I jumped in front of Sebastian before he could say anything that would get us both electrocuted. “He’s not going anywhere.”

Adrian’s nostrils flared, and he looked at me like I’d gone insane. I still wasn’t sure I hadn’t. “Then you’re coming with me.”

I shook my head. His god voice might have worked on everyone else in the world, but not me. “No.”

Adrian’s eyebrows slammed together, his mouth dropping open in shock. “No?”

“It’s quite a simple word, Adrian,” I returned calmly. This was how it always was when people yelled around me. Whether it was my family’s boisterous nature or a resident screaming their head off at me, I never faltered from the even disposition. I didn’t think I’d ever yelled back at someone. “This is my house. If you need it more complicated to get through your thick head, try this—I am not going to listen to you.”

He couldn’t argue with that, so he took another route. “You think Mom and Dad are going to be okay with this?”

Mom would ask me if I lost my mind and Dad would go full protective mode, but I settled on, “Probably not.”

“I assume you have no plans to listen to them, either?” Adrian asked through a disbelieving laugh. Good, he was catching on.

“If all of you are not going to listen to reason, then yes.”

Adrian’s eyes bounced in between me and the very large god standing at my back—and still pressed close enough that I could feel his chest brush my back with a breath every so often—with an expression on his face that was so baffled I had to repress a laugh. “And what logic could have possibly made you think this was a good idea?”

I took one step away from Sebastian, closer to my brother, but stayed on our side of the kitchen island. “You entrusted me to handle this, for one. I am not putting him in another cell and I am not putting him in the apartments with the residents. Would you rather me build him an entire house for himself?”

Adrian straightened. “Well, no.”

“Good,” I said, smiling with a resolute nod. “Glad you agree. Now, do you—”

“Wait, that was not me agreeing,” Adrian shot back, coming up to the kitchen island. “I’m not leaving you here with him.”

Before I could defend the situation further, Sebastian’s voice cut in, smooth and even. “It might do you well to listen to your brother, Persephone.”

It took that one sentence to launch my anger off like a rocket. I whipped around to face Sebastian, my finger rising to poke him in his uncomfortably hard chest. “You don’t get to have an opinion.”