Dreamless

lost it turned his stomach, if only because he wanted it so badly. They were inches away from crossing a dangerous line, and unless she stopped tempting him in her maddeningly innocent way, Lucas knew it would happen eventually.
    Lucas had lied to Helen. The truth was there were nights, more than just one, where he had ducked under that blue tarp covering her broken window and watched her sleep. He always felt bad after he did it, but he couldn’t seem to stop. No matter how hard he tried to stay away from her, he would eventually end up in her room and hate himself for it later. Lucas knew that one of these days he was going to be too weak to walk away, and he was going to crawl into bed with her and to do more than just hold her. That’s why he had to make sure that if that day ever came, Helen would kick him right out again.
    Lucas had tried everything else, even scaring her away, but nothing worked. Orion was their last chance. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and hoped that Orion would just do what he was good at. Lucas had asked Orion to make Helen stop loving him. Then she would never try to touch him again, never look at him again like she just had. Lucas tried to convince himself it was better if she moved on, even if that meant that she moved on to another guy. But here he stopped.
    Helen couldn’t be with Orion, either—at least not forever. That was the only thing that was keeping Lucas from losing his mind. They could never have a life together. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t . . .
    He abruptly shut off his thoughts before they could overpower him. Already the dark tendrils were swirling out of him, inking up the sky. He tried to calm down and not picture Orion and Helen together, because he could picture it—all too easily.
    Even though Lucas had never laid eyes on Orion in person, he still had a pretty good idea what he looked like. He was a descendant of Adonis—Aphrodite’s all-time favorite lover. Because Aphrodite favored this one guy above all others, the House of Rome handed down close approximations of the Adonis archetype on a regular basis, much the same way the House of Thebes repeated the Hector archetype again and again. Half the paintings and sculptures that came out of the Renaissance looked like him, because the old masters like Caravaggio, Michelangelo, and Raphael had painted and sculpted Orion’s ancestors obsessively. Florence was literally littered with images of the sons of the House of Rome.
    But it was more than just good looks that made a legend, especially in the genetically gifted Scion gene pool. There was a reason why both Casanova and Romeo, arguably the two most famous lovers in history, came out of Italy. Calling Orion a “handsome bastard,” while accurate, didn’t even begin to cover the effect he could have on a woman. The children of Aphrodite were irresistible sexually and most of them could sway people’s emotions to a certain extent, but Orion had told Lucas that his gift was much more powerful than that.
    Orion had a rare ability. He could make Helen fall out of love with Lucas with a light touch. If that wasn’t bad enough, after Helen’s feelings for Lucas were severed, Orion could control Helen’s heart so that he could have the kind of casual relationship that wouldn’t violate the Truce—no commitment, no strings, just sex. That asshole could do whatever he wanted with Helen, and there was nothing Lucas could say against it.
    The thought made Lucas want to beat the crap out of something, but instead he reminded himself that his family was probably worried about him and forced himself to head home.
    Fortunately, Orion seemed squeamish about using his talent for any reason—even self-defense. He’d been deeply offended when Lucas had suggested that he had touched Helen’s heart in the cave for a cheap thrill. And after seeing the two of them in the Underworld together, Lucas knew that Orion would never force Helen into anything. In fact, Lucas was sure he’d protect her with his life. That made him hate Orion less, which only made things harder. Lucas wanted to hate Orion, but since he couldn’t, there was no one left to hate but himself.
    Heading down the eastern coast, Lucas stayed out over the water so he didn’t have to fly too high and freeze his ass off. He’d left his jacket in his locker, but it didn’t really matter. He could think himself warm whenever he needed to. In fact, Lucas was beginning to believe he