Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

?Well, I?m glad. I?ve always worn my half as the heart, and I always

hoped you did, too,? Daphne said shyly. ?I guess you probably

think I?ve got no right to be nostalgic about you. But I am.?

Daphne fingered her heart-shaped charm and opened her mouth

to say something else, but she stopped herself and went into the

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other room to sort through her luggage for the tenth time. A part of

Helen wanted to run after her mother and say she had always

hoped her necklace was a tie between them, too. But another part

of her wanted to rip the thing off her neck and throw it in her

mother?s borrowed face.

Helen wasn?t certain how far Daphne?s power of persuasion went

just yet. It came from the cestus, so it might be that Daphne was irresistible

only in a sexual way, but Helen was painfully aware of

how quickly she had agreed to leave her home and the people she

loved. She was following a woman she couldn?t remember to a

place she had never seen, and she had made the decision to do so

in less than an hour. Helen thought through everything she had

learned, looking for some clue that she was being controlled, but as

she added up all the evidence, she knew that she didn?t need to be

brainwashed to want to run away.

After what Daphne had told her, Helen was so disgusted with

herself she would have run away, regardless.

?Are you hungry?? Daphne asked. Helen jumped away from the

window at the sound and dropped the curtain guiltily. Without

even realizing it, she had been looking for Lucas again.

?No,? she replied, unable to look up from the rug.

?Well, you?re still going to have to eat, and we should try out your

new face before we get on the ferry,? Daphne said with a grimace.

?We?re going out for breakfast before we have to travel over that