Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

too much. Lucas was gone, the storm was ending, and soon she

and her mother would be on the first ferry off island.

?Helen,? Daphne called from behind her. ?You?re wearing your

own face. You have to be consistent or we?ll be discovered.?

Helen turned around and concentrated on projecting the image

of the cute brunette she and her mother had decided Helen would

become when they ran away.

?Much better,? Daphne said with a pleased nod. ?I still can?t believe

you never stumbled on to this power by yourself.?

Helen didn?t have an answer for that. She was too disturbed by

her newfound power and her newfound mother to decide whether

she was being complimented or insulted. She walked over to the

vanity in the bedroom to look at the stranger in the mirror. The

cestus could make her look like any woman in the world, but she?d

only had a few hours to practice with it. Her mother had promised

to teach her how to become any age, any race, any gender in the future,

but although she?d kept her disguise simple for now, she was

still unrecognizable, as long as she remembered to keep up the

illusion.

?You don?t have to keep your half of the cestus as the heart necklace,

you know,? her mother told her, standing behind Helen and

looking at her in the glass.

?Yeah, I know. I figured out how to do that much on my own, at

least,? Helen answered in the stranger?s voice.

Helen?s necklace was the actual girdle of Aphrodite, the protective

half that made her impervious to weapons. Daphne?s half was

the adornments of Aphrodite, and although she couldn?t stop a

blade or a bomb with her skin like Helen could, what she could do

was potentially more frightening. Daphne was irresistible to

whomever she decided to charm.