Page 32 of The Gods Forbid

The bouquet was huge, full of bursting, colorful wildflowers that I would have said looked hand-picked if I didn’t know any better. Even though it was tempting to dedicate a great deal of thought to the flowers sitting on my counter, I had responsibilities.

I walked toward Sebastian, coming to sit down next to him on the couch. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, as I was learning how deeply observant he was, but he was picking the opposites to everything I did.

He sat in the stool I didn’t use. On the side of the couch normally reserved for resting my feet. He drank from cups I didn’t favor and mugs that normally sat in the back of my cabinet, untouched.

There was something oddly comforting about that. I’d always felt too observant. Like I noticed things that people didn’t, and if I tried to point it out, they would blink in confusion and say Oh in a way that made me feel bad for bringing it up in the first place.

In my adult life, I’d kept most of my observations to myself. It was only now, when there was someone else who saw things the way I did, that I realized how isolating it was to have to do that.

“How was your day?” I asked, hoping I hadn’t been caught up in my own thoughts for too long.

If I had, Sebastian didn’t seem to notice. Or care, maybe? “Are you asking because you’d like to know if I helped Daphne?”

“If I wanted to know that, I’d have asked. Not everything has an ulterior motive,” I said, to which Sebastian instantly locked up, his muscles going taut like a rope pulled between two opposing forces.

Oh. I tried to keep anything that would be mistaken as pity off my face, but my stomach dipped.

That must have been very lonely, viewing innocent questions as a probe to get information out of someone.

“I’ll try again,” I said, keeping my voice intentionally light. “How was your day?”

Sebastian waited several seconds to respond, though his eyes never left my face. I was getting used to it, because I was pretty sure the color on my cheeks could only be described as a light wash of pink, rather than a fiery blush.

No one ever looked at me like that. It was hard to get used to.

And that was coming from someone who’d been called everything under the sun by people in the throes of recovery and pain.

“It was fine,” he said carefully. Then something interesting happened. He kept speaking, and it almost looked like it had happened out of his control. “I didn’t know Daphne was friendly with your Niky.”

I’d ignore the bite in his tone for now. He’d have to get used to Nikolas being around. I just smiled and said, “She’s been coming to visit since the moment he got out of the initial detox.” My eyes drifted over Sebastian’s shoulder, realizing that the sun had already dipped behind the hills, leaving the sky a pastel wash of color. It reminded me of what we were going to start today.

“We can continue that conversation later, if you’d like,” I said, crossing my legs over each other. Sebastian’s eyes tracked every movement. “But before then, I wanted to run something by you.”

“You say that like I have the option to disagree with whatever you have planned,” Sebastian said, his lip curling with a grin.

I couldn’t help but smile in return. “You have a point, but I wanted you to be a part of the conversation, regardless.” Sebastian nodded, giving me leave to continue. “Besides you reinstating heirs, the goal for these six months is to get you back as Apollo. I thought the best way to do that would be for you to reconnect with each piece of your power. I have some things planned for certain aspect of your power—open to suggestions, by the way—but I figured today we’d start with light.”

I was actually excited about this one. We didn’t get much natural light in Prometheus, and no matter how strong I felt I was, it still got to me.

I’d always wondered if there was anything I could do for the other residents, because it was surely affecting them too. I’d even considered trying to split up the old cells and new facility so there would be access to better sunlight, but that was something years down the line.

“Was the paint and studio part of that?” Sebastian asked, eyebrow raised. He doubted everything, didn’t he?

“No.” My voice was honest, the only option there was. “I thought you’d want an outlet.”

Sebastian leaned forward, pulled deeper into the conversation from interest. Like a moth to a flame. “Is that what’s on the other side of the door? Your outlet?”

“Yes.” He was right. There was no other way to answer.

Sebastian’s mouth quirked.“You’re putting a lot of faith in me.”

“Be good, and maybe I’ll tell you what it is.” Be good? Really? And why did that sound so flirty?

Sebastian blessed me with a full-blown, genuine smile now, having obviously amused him. Warmth spread across my chest. I’d made him smile from something I said.

“Oh, I’ll be finding out what’s behind that door, love.” His gaze swept up and down my body in two quick passes. “C’mon, let’s see what you have in store for me.”

For a moment, I’d forgotten what it was that I had planned. Then I snapped back into focus and stood. I gathered a portal behind me, one that would bring us to where we needed to go.