Dreamless (Starcrossed 2)

“’Kay,” she managed to whine. She was starting to get freaked out that her limbs weren’t responding properly.

She felt Orion wedge his hands under her prone body, felt him brace himself for one brief moment, and then she felt shafts of pain shoot from her temple to her toes.

Orion was murmuring to her as he carried her out of the cold zone and into someplace slightly warmer, but Helen had no idea what he was saying. She was too busy trying not to throw up. The whole world was tilting and reeling, and she was desperate for Orion’s jarring steps to stop. Every time he planted a foot it felt like he was stepping on her head. Finally, he crouched down, cradling her across his lap, and she heard the snap of his lighter again.

She could feel a warm glow from behind her closed eyelids as Orion lit a candle. Helen felt him brush her hair back from her temple and try his best to wrap her up inside his jacket, close to his skin. After a moment she started to feel a bit better.

“Why do I feel so sick?” she asked when her voice had grown stronger.

“Never had a concussion?” he asked in return, sounding almost amused. He squeezed her tighter in a brief hug. “It’s okay. You’re healing fast now that we’re away from the portal. You have your Scion powers back in this part of the cave, so you’ll be all better soon.”

“Good,” she said with complete faith. If Orion said she was going to be okay, Helen knew she would be. After just a few more seconds, she felt nearly back to normal and she relaxed in his arms. But as she did, she felt him stiffen.

“I have to leave you now,” he said in a gentle voice.

“Huh?” Helen said, lifting her eyes to Orion’s. He looked at her sadly.

“We’re back in the living world, Helen. They’re going to come for us.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a pitiful sobbing came from everywhere at once. Orion dropped his head with a pained look and sighed heavily. In a sudden, violent motion, he kicked over the candle next to them, putting it out. He tried to push Helen out of his lap so he could stand and throw her off him in the sudden dark.

Every muscle in Helen’s body went rigid, stopping him from bending forward and standing up. She put a firm hand against Orion’s chest, pushed him back, and threw a leg over him to pin him to the ground. A wave of rage broke over her as she squeezed his hips between her thighs.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said. Her voice was low and it cracked with hate.

“No, Helen. Don’t,” Orion pleaded, but he knew it was too late.

The Furies had Helen, and they were commanding her to kill Orion.

CHAPTER NINE

Zach drove around the island one final time just to make sure that Hector wasn’t following him, and then returned to his master’s ship. Hector might be an Outcast, but he was still funneling information to the Delos family, and Zach couldn’t afford to slip up. Automedon would do far worse than kill him if he accidentally led Hector to their base on the ship with the red sails.

Killing the engine, Zach stared at the dock that led to the graceful yacht, bobbing gently on the night swells. His palms started to sweat and his stomach fluttered at the thought of walking down that row of planks and delivering his full report to Automedon. The face-to-face report was just a formality—Zach had emailed the entire text thread to his master as soon as he had stolen it—but Automedon liked reminding his minion that every second of his day belonged to his master.

There was no way out of this for Zach. And it was all Helen’s fault. That bitch.

He had just wanted to know what she had been hiding for all those years. He had tried to talk to her about it in private, but no matter how caring he had acted, she wouldn’t let him in. If she had just paid attention to him, maybe gone out with him a few times, none of this would have happened.

Zach ended up getting all the answers he wanted—and much more that he didn’t. Automedon came from an era where the only difference between a free man and a slave was timing, and Zach was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Zach got out of his car and started down the gangplank, reminding himself that at least his master had respected him enough to be honest. He had even been given an important job. He was to spy on his former friends, especially Helen, and give his master any information he could gather about her quest in the Underworld. Dishonorable, but hey, it was a way in to this world, at least. Helen was a snob. And the Delos boys? They were all too busy buffing their pretty muscles an

d sleeping with every hot girl on the island to notice a lowly normal human like him.

Tonight he had served his master well, even though the information he had supplied was not welcome. Zach had proven that there was another surviving Rogue, and if there were two—Helen and this new guy, Orion—then there could be many, many more.

Zach wasn’t an idiot. It hadn’t taken him long to understand the politics or the ultimate prize involved. Raising Atlantis would give immortality to the Scions, and after thousands of years stuck in a stalemate with the gods, the Hundred Cousins were determined to claim their prize.

There was some debate, coming from the whiny Delos faction, about a great war starting as a result of this, but Zach’s master had explained it all to him. War would be a really bad choice for the gods. The Hundred, immortal as soon as they raised Atlantis, would outnumber the Twelve Olympians by at least eighty-eight, and everyone knew that there were more than a hundred cousins in the Hundred.

If the Olympians tried to fight, they would be forced to surrender almost immediately. Humanity would finally have gods who could really understand them, gods who had once been mortal. Maybe, for a change, people’s prayers would get answered instead of ignored.

It made perfect sense to Zach. He knew he was on the right side.

It’s just that sometimes Zach heard his master say horrible stuff, like how he wished all of humanity was either gone or turned into mindless slaves, like in an ant colony. On more than one occasion, Automedon had said that he wanted his master to “wipe the world clean.” Zach had never met his master’s master, and from what he had heard, he didn’t want to. Ever.

Stepping onto the yacht, Zach heard multiple voices belowdecks and smelled an acidic, rancid scent, like sour milk. His body recoiled from the smell of the visitors, but he told himself to ignore it. Sometimes his master didn’t smell right, either. Even though he looked mostly human on the outside, Automedon had an exoskeleton instead of skin and he didn’t breathe through his mouth, but through tiny holes hidden all over his outer surface. He didn’t smell human—more like musk mixed with dry leaves.