Page 13 of The Gods Forbid

My lips quirked up in a smile. “I’d say I didn’t believe you. If the god of medicine was squeamish around blood, that would be quite the story, wouldn’t it?”

Sebastian looked at my smile. Stared at it, actually. But he didn’t return it. “It’s the blood.”

“I think it’s the pain,” I countered. Blood just seemed too unusual for the god of medicine. “That is very kind of you, thank you.”

Sebastian looked at me the way someone would if they turned their head back to you after you’d slapped them across the face. “Stop fucking thanking me.”

I shook my head, scrunching up my nose. “No, thank you.”

“Persephone,” he said, clearly exacerbated.

“Sebastian,” I returned, feeling oddly proud I’d gotten that reaction from him. “Anyway,” I said, clearing the thought. I sat down at the stool at the foot of his bed, one he hadn’t moved. “Please join me. I’m hungry.”

Not to mention I had something to talk to him about. While I waited for him to shake out of whatever stupor was keeping him still, I cleared a bit more of the blood of my finger with a quick swipe of my tongue.

Sebastian was moving a second later, sitting down at the farthest end of the bed, as always. “Kostas outdid himself today,” he said, looking down at the beautiful plate of food he’d dropped in my hands minutes ago.

I nodded in agreement, feeling my smile break even wider. It was just a name, but the fact that he remembered it was more illuminating to his character than he realized. No one truly apathetic remembered names.

There was a chance he was a master of manipulation, having no personal understanding of empathy but knowing exactly how to exploit it in others. I didn’t think that was accurate, though. When his temper flared, he seemed to be aware of it.

“He did,” I said, cutting into my food. “Do you cook?”

Sebastian answered me with silence. I was learning that meant he did. I made a mental note to make sure my kitchen was stocked with the right tools.

“I’m going to introduce you to the doctor you’ll be working with the day after tomorrow,” I said. He didn’t know it, but I would venture to guess that would be the part of his day he’d be least upset with.

“What makes you think the god of medicine requires a doctor?” Sebastian said, tearing off a piece of bread roughly.

I had to blink twice to pull my eyes from the veins on the back of his hands. “Everyone needs help. Even you.”

“And who helps you?”

I smiled again. He was still sarcastic, but was far less angry than I imagined. Progress. “My mom. My dad. Adrian. Niky.”

They were the four people I relied on the most, with Nikolas as the most recent addition. I’d probably include Reyna or Daphne or Rose on that list, but I thought the reminder might anger him.

He locked up regardless. “How blessed you are.”

“I am,” I admitted. I knew how privileged I was to have those people in my life. I was working on being more honest when they asked how I was doing. “Who is important to you?”

“No one.” He was either lying or it was true, and that made my heart crack.

I stood, needing to move to hide any latent emotion sneaking into my expression. He’d warned me about pity. I wasn’t pitying him at all. I was empathizing with him.

Something told me he thought those two were the same.

I’d spent most of my younger years feeling deeply alone, misunderstood by everyone around me and cast aside as odd after two seconds in my presence. I knew how isolating that was, and I wanted to make sure he didn't feel that way.

His support system was actually why I’d come for dinner. Well, one of the reasons, a little voice in the back of my head corrected.

“What about Luce?” I asked, turning to him. He was close to Luce, the Diana heir, when he was younger. I remembered that much. “And Penelope, she was—”

“Do not fucking talk about Penelope.”

I was too focused on finishing my sentence to heed his warning. “I was really sad to hear about her passing. She was always very kind to me.” Kinder than most, but I left that part out. “And she was—”

In a flash, Sebastian was in front of me, roughly backing me up to the cage behind me, making them clang and rattle, the sound echoing loudly. It didn’t take an expert to realize that in a matter of words, I had severely, irrevocably pissed him off.