Page 133 of The Gods Forbid

And, of course, it was so realistic, it made me want to stare at it for hours.

I only had a few minutes though. Forcing myself to rip my eyes from the painting, I moved around the room. I felt pulled to certain pieces, my fingers tingling with building power as I got close.

The far corner of the room caught my attention in particular, a solid tug in my abdomen yanking me that way.

“Searching for yourself, love?” I jumped back, whipping towards the door.

Sebastian was leaning lazily against the door frame, the moonlight casting a glow around his form. He was smiling like a wolf who’d just stumbled upon easy prey.

Before I could get any sort of explanation out, he took a step inside the studio. “You don’t have to look far, my little muse. But I believe the ones you’re looking for are back there.”

Right where I’d been headed.

I wasn’t sure my lungs were working right. “Sebastian, I can expl—”

“I’m not interested in an explanation,” Sebastian said, his eyes so intense, they felt like his hands—hands I’d never really felt—digging into my skin. “Go look at it.”

My hand curled on the frame of the one I’d been holding out of the way, letting the whitening of my knuckles answer for me.

“Go on,” Sebastian said, jerking his chin to the far corner. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or not, but I was certainly in no position to bargain.

Swallowing thickly, I reset the painting and walked over to the back corner. There was a large tarp over multiple paintings.

“Right there,” Sebastian said, his voice slipping across my skin like moonlit water. I bent, lifting the corner of the tarp and throwing it back.

The first thing I saw was my face. Well, half my face. Looking over my shoulder, surrounded by sunlight and a beautiful landscape.

I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth.

For some reason that surely had to do with the insanity Sebastian churned in me, I turned to him and said, “I didn’t mean to.”

Sebastian stepped into the studio, and I suddenly had the distinct feeling that I was being cornered, though my instincts didn’t tell me to run. As he walked he shook his head slightly, “No, no, Persephone. You did something bad. Admit it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice hoarse. I didn’t meant to intrude, and now I was standing in front of a painting of my face.

Sebastian tsked, and the sound hit my skin like arrows. “I wasn’t looking for an apology. You can invade my privacy whenever you like.”

“That’s not what I was doing,” I protested, even though it sounded like a lie.

Sebastian was looming over me now, hands folded behind his back. “Then what were you doing?”

“I—” I began, then Sebastian immediately cut me off.

“C’mon, love,” he prodded, his hand coming up to trace my face. “Be honest.”

“I wanted to know if you’d ever painted me.” I couldn’t fill in the rest of that explanation. That I needed to know if he considered me something he would want to paint.

“You can see that I have,” he said, his lip curling with a slight smile as he looked behind me, at the paintings that apparently were of me. “Doing the bad thing pays off sometimes.”

I shook my head on instinct. “Hardly ever.”

“Hmm,” Sebastian hummed, and a small bit of my sanity slipped away. “I don’t think so.”

I breathed in, doing nothing but getting a whiff of his cologne. I was starting to feel really shaky. “You are really very frustrating.”

“Good,” Sebastian said with a smile.

“That’s not a good thing.”