Starcrossed (51 page)

Lucas just this once and be done with it; she was going to have to

give up all the different ways she could have learned to love him

every day from that day forward. The weight of all of those future

heartbreaks pressed down on Helen until she had to drop her

head, unable to look at him as she answered his question.

“Daphne calls us Rogues, and yes, there are quite a few of us,”

she said quietly. “No one knows how many, but there are at least

twenty that my mother can locate.”

“So if these kids can only belong to one House, but their parents

are from enemy Houses, one side of the family . . .”

“Is sent into a Fury rage and hunts that baby down. Daphne said

the urge to kill the newborn is almost irresistible, the same as it it

for a newly made Outcast. One of the parents has to fight their

family for their child, and it usually means that parent either dies

at the hands of their own parents or siblings or they end up having

to kill them.”

“That’s disgusting,” Lucas breathed. Helen nodded.

“It is disgusting. Babies shouldn’t be part of the blood feud. It’s

just wrong. Daphne swore to get rid of the Furies so that Rogue

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babies like me can be with both of their families, and so that no

one ever has to go through the horror of choosing between protecting

their child and fighting their own brother or sister—or parent.

In fact, she’s made it her mission in life to free the Scions from the

curse of the Furies forever.”

Lucas nodded, finally understanding. He started pacing, as if he

couldn’t remain in one posture for more than a millisecond with so

many thoughts pushing and pulling on him at the same time.

“What do we do? We can’t stay away from each other,” he said as

he stopped pacing and stared at Helen, who was still sitting

slumped on the floor.

“I know, but I can’t be near you, either,” she said, standing up

with an exhausted sigh.

Lucas groaned and covered his face. Neither could bear to look at

each other, but they reached out blindly and embraced in a tight

hug. They rocked back and forth, both of them needing comfort.

“My mother and I planned to leave today,” Helen whispered.

“Don’t leave me,” Lucas whispered back, tightening his arms

around her.

“What are we going to do?” Helen murmured desperately, knowing

he didn’t have an answer.

They stood clinging to each other in the unused room with the intermittent

rain patting the glass walls until they heard worried

voices shouting their names down the empty halls.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Helen said. She pulled away from

him and wiped her hair off her feverish forehead. “I can’t explain it

again.”

“I’ll do it,” Lucas said, instinctively reaching out for her hand,

then stopping himself and withdrawing his hand.

Hector reached the door just as Lucas opened it. His face was a

mask of anxiety and his chest was swelling with fast breaths. He

looked back and forth between their devastated faces several times

before it sank in that they were okay.

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“You two are . . . alive. That’s good,” he said with relief.

“We should get back,” Lucas said with a blank look before he

started walking stiffly down the hallway, leaving Hector with

Helen.

“Daphne told us,” Hector said directly. “I’m sorry, cousin.”

Helen nodded a few times, not trusting herself to say anything,

and started down the hallway. To her surprise, Hector caught up to

her and put an arm over her shoulder as they walked. He squeezed

her tight for a second and kissed the top of her head. As they

neared the occupied part of the house, Helen realized just how

much she was leaning on him.

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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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Chapter Eighteen

Waiting in the shadows outside the Hamilton house

was a long shot, but Creon had no other choice. He

couldn’t get within a thousand yards of the Delos

compound now that he had shown his hand and put

them on the defensive. He had been so close, so

close, but underestimating his cousin had cost him. Lucas was

stronger than he had thought. He would never make that mistake

again, but it was possible that once was all it would take to change

Creon from a savior to an embarrassment.

Now that his target was being protected by his own family, he

had few options but to wait and see if she was stupid enough to go

out on her own. He was hoping that if she went anywhere it would

be to the place she had once called home.

It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was all he had at this point. He

couldn’t go back to the yacht and face his other cousins emptyhanded.

He had to come up with something else—a lead, an opportunity,

something—before he involved any of the Hundred. No

matter how this turned out, his father could never know about his

failure outside the hotel. It was too humiliating to even think

about.

Tantalus had finally entrusted Creon with the truth, and for the

first time in over nineteen years, Creon had been allowed to hear

his father’s actual voice. He hadn’t been allowed in the same room,

or seen his father’s face, because that woman had deformed it so

monstrously it would be death to look upon him, but for the first

time in such a long time Creon had actually spoken to his father

and learned about the burden he carried.

His father praised him for being so strong and faithful over the

years. Then he told his son what had really happened in that rowboat,

how his thoughts and his will had been so grievously twisted

that he had had been led into a type of sin that had marked him

forever—marked like Medusa. Tantalus admitted his wrongs, repented

for them, and told his son that he had been trying to right

them ever since. He had sworn to remove the feminine evil of the

cestus from the world so that all men, Scion and mortal alike,

could finally control their lust. Then he had entrusted Creon with

the same sacred mission.

And Creon had failed.

Creon felt his phone vibrate in his pocket for the fifth time. He

had been ignoring it for a while and he didn’t even want to know

who was trying to contact him, but this time he caved and pulled it

out to look at the screen. It was his mother. He debated answering

for a moment, then finally relented.

“Where are you?” Mildred asked in a low voice.

“Hunting,” Creon replied vaguely, sensing his mother was being

watched, maybe even listened to. It had happened before.

“One of the traitors just called me,” she said in an urgent whisper.

“She told me about your failure in front of the hotel, and she

wants to change sides. She wants her men freed of the cestus. . . .”

Creon heard the crackling sound of his mother’s phone as it

brushed up against fabric, as if it had been shoved into a pocket or

under a sweater. A few seconds passed during which all Creon

could hear was the rhythmic brushing of clothes against the

mouthpiece as his mother walked somewhere else.

“Are you still there?” she finally asked when she got to relative

safety.

“Yes. Mother, what’s going on?”

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“Sssh. Just listen. The Hundred are starting to doubt you. I can’t

let them know we’re in contact,” she whispered urgently. “Where

are you? She wants to meet right now, to make a plan.”

Helen spent fifteen minutes on the phone with her dad, trying to

get him to calm down. He had been just about ready to go down to

the police station, and he demanded to know where she had been

all night. She didn’t have an answer for him. Jerry was as angry as

he had ever had been with her. He demanded that she come home

immediately. He even yelled at her, which he hadn’t done since she

was a kid. Helen wasn’t used to disobeying her father, but she

found herself telling him that she was safe and that she wasn’t

coming home just yet. She hung up on him while he was still

sputtering.

She knew she was being unfair to him, but she didn’t know what

else to do. She hadn’t decided if she was going to tell her father

about Daphne’s return and then tell him that she was leaving to

live with her, or if it was kinder to just disappear. Daphne insisted

that a clean break would be better for everyone, including Jerry,

but Helen couldn’t quite bring herself to accept that. He might be

physically safer, but emotionally he would be destroyed. Helen

went through both scenarios in her head, and neither of them felt

right. Either way her father, the person who deserved to suffer the

least, was the one who would be hurt the most. Eventually, her

brooding was interrupted by Noel, who let Helen know that Claire

and Jason were awake.

Helen went upstairs to Jason’s room and pushed the door open a

crack. Daphne was sitting on the edge of the bed next to Claire,

holding her hand and looking down at her with a fretful tenderness.

Daphne had loved Claire when she was a baby, she had explained

to Helen the night before, and she had always worried for

Claire’s safety growing up alongside a Scion. In the hotel during

the storm, Daphne had removed Helen’s curse, and she had also

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explained that she had left Claire excluded from being able to trigger

the cramps, even though it could have exposed Helen, just in

case Helen ever needed to protect Claire. Helen had thanked her

for that, although there was little else her mother told her that

night to make her grateful.

“Did you sort things out with Lucas?” Daphne asked as Helen

entered the room. Helen flinched when she heard his name, nodded

hastily, and put the attention back on Claire.

“Hey, Gig. You really freaked me out,” she said. She came over to

stand next to the bed.

“Freaked myself out,” Claire said, gesturing for her to sit down.

Then she noticed Helen’s puffy face. “Are you okay?”

“Not important,” Helen said as she perched next to her mother.

“How are you two?”

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Jason replied. “We

never went into the rubble, all we did was climb the dry hills.”

“Good,” Helen said, smiling with relief. “That’s far away from the

river.”

“I know,” Jason said, smiling back at Helen before he looked

back down at Claire. “She really is strong.”

“What river? What rubble?” Daphne interjected, glancing from

Jason to Helen, but she was overruled by Claire’s urgency.

“That was real?” she blurted out, her eyes dark and wide with

fear.

“Yes and no,” Jason said softy, briefly brushing his lips against

Claire’s forehead as he sat up painfully and gently pulled her up

with him. “It’s a real place, but we only went there in spirit.”

“But I was so hungry. So thirsty,” Claire whispered, suddenly

terrified.

She trustingly turned her face into Jason’s neck and he held her

close to him. The bond they had forged in the dry lands still tied

them to each other, and Helen had a feeling that Jason was reluctant

to let it dissolve.

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“Don’t be afraid, we only walked along the edge of it, we never

crossed the river and went in. Not even the best Healers can go all

the way in and make it out alive,” Jason said reassuringly. He met

Helen’s eyes as if to ask her to help him explain.

“The place you went is just beyond the place you go when you’re

sleeping. It’s not something you should be afraid of,” Helen said,

putting her hand on Claire’s back and trying to comfort her. “Just

think of it as an intense dream if that makes it easier, because

that’s what it feels like.”

“Nightmare is more like it,” Claire said as she pulled her face

away from Jason and got a hold of herself.

“Well, you almost died,” Helen said with a shrug. “That shouldn’t

be fun.”

“Helen?” Daphne asked, comprehension dawning on her face.

“How many times have you been to this place you’re talking

about?”

“I’ve lost count,” Helen said softly, shaking her head.

Daphne stared at her daughter with a hard look on her face.

There was a knock on the door. Matt poked his head in sheepishly.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Matt said with a slight grimace. “Hey, Claire.

You okay?”

“Come in,” Claire responded as she tried to sit up a little straighter.

She reached out to Helen, who helped brace her. “I’m glad

you’re in one piece,” she said gratefully.

“Yeah, so am I,” Matt said with relief. “But there’s still a big problem

that we need to fix. I noticed some people staring at us when

we . . . uh . . .”

“Hit Luke with your car?” Jason finished for him with a humorous

glint in his eye.

“Right. So I need to go take care of that. Before it gets out of control,”

Matt said uncomfortably. “The longer I stay here, the more

everyone will talk. If I start denying it, showing everyone that I

couldn’t have been in an accident because I’m not injured . . .”

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