Page 26 of The Gods Forbid

But I’d simply traded that hell for another form of torture.

Persy was, apparently, a rather restless sleeper. I heard every sigh that left her lips, every time she turned over in bed, every time she got up and did Fates knew what around her room before dropping back down on the mattress.

By the time the sky started to lighten behind the distant peaks of Olympus, I’d decided I was done. I hauled myself out of bed and walked out of her house with a care I refused to acknowledge. She’d been quiet for over an hour and was likely still asleep. I wasn’t being kind for making my steps silent.

Especially since she’d probably fucking thank me again.

Nope. We were avoiding that.

And because she insisted on being kind in a way that made me feel like snapping something’s neck, she’d given me the perfect place to flee and leave her to take hold of precious moments of restful sleep.

If I had to hear her toss and turn, knowing she wasn’t getting any sort of good sleep, I would start to descend into madness. That was the horrid thing with being the god of medicine. You knew exactly how something as simple as sleep could damage someone’s health.

Persy needed to sleep. She had too much on her plate to lose precious hours of rest and recovery to whatever was keeping her awake. If she kept at it like this, she’d snap or start to wither away into––further––insanity and because we were living together, I would have to be the one to see it happen.

And then I would probably have to help her.

And then she would probably thank me, her eyes growing soft with gratitude.

Fuck that.

It was a much better solution to simply leave the house.

I pushed through the doors of the studio a second later and was immediately assaulted with the smell of paint and fresh canvas, which sent an unwelcome wash of comfort through my chest.

I didn’t do comfort. When you were around things you loved, things that gave you peace, that left room for your thoughts to get away from you. For long-repressed emotions to sneak their way back in and threaten to throw up all over your carefully crafted plans.

It was only the need to escape from Persy that made this okay.

I was also intelligent enough to know that I had failed. Persy would have to literally flay my skin open to get me to admit it, but this coup was never my plan.

It was shoved upon me, and yes, I had taken it on willingly after…

I led it. I had the evidence of it inked into my body for the rest of my life. I did it because I could. Because who wouldn’t make a grab for power, using threats and manipulation to get what you wanted, if the opportunity presented itself?

But the cost of taking Adrian’s power was death.

Over the the last few months it had spiraled until one day I woke up and had the blood of hundreds on my hands.

I assumed it was my power that stopped me from just accepting that people had to die to get what I wanted. What my parents had wanted.

No rightful god of medicine could sit by and watch as people bled out for me. Succumbed to injuries I caused.

No rightful god of art could be okay with letting life get snuffed out, taking the opportunity for just a few more pieces of creativity to come into the world.

It was done.

I hauled a large canvas onto an easel and opened up one of the boxes of oil paintings carefully displayed on a large table.

A scoff scraped my throat a second later.

Apollo-brand paint.

Of course, she did.

Everything in this room was Apollo-blessed, even the pencil in my hand that was practically begging me to snap it.

Thoughtful little thing, wasn’t she?