Dreamless

hitting him over and over, and I wake up thinking maybe this time I have killed him. And I feel relieved. . . .”
    “Shh-shh.” Helen ran her hand across his wet hair, smoothing it down and gripping his neck, his shoulders, the bunched muscles of his back—tucking him closer to her. “I’ll fix it,” she vowed. “I swear to you, Lucas, I’ll find the Furies and stop them.”
    Lucas pulled back so he could look at Helen, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t mean to put more pressure on you. It kills me that this is all on you.”
    “I know.”
    That was it. No blame, no “pity me.” Just acceptance. Lucas stared at her, running his fingers over her perfect face.
    He loved her eyes. They were always changing, and Lucas liked to catalogue all their different colors in his mind. When she laughed, her eyes were pale amber, like honey sitting in a glass jar on a sunny window. When he kissed her, they darkened until they were the rich color of mahogany leather, but with strips of red and gold thread shot through. Right now they were turning dark—inviting him to lower his lips to hers.
    “Lucas!” his father barked. Helen and Lucas sprang apart and turned to see Castor at the top of the stairs, his face white and his body stiff. “Put a shirt on and come to my study. Helen, go home.”
    “Dad, she didn’t . . .”
    “Now!” Castor yelled. Lucas couldn’t remember ever seeing his father this angry.
    Helen fled. She squeezed past Castor with her head bowed and ran out of the house before Noel could ask what had happened.
    “Sit.”
    “It was my fault. She was worried about me,” Lucas began, his stance defiant.
    “I don’t care,” Castor said, his eyes burning into Lucas’s. “I don’t care how innocently it started. It ended with you half naked, your arms around her, and the two of you just steps away from your bed.”
    “I wasn’t going to—” Lucas couldn’t even finish that lie. He was going to kiss her, and he knew if he kissed her he would have kept going until either Helen or a cataclysm stopped him. The truth was, it didn’t really bother Lucas anymore that some uncle he never met was Helen’s father. He loved her, and that wasn’t going to change no matter how wrong everyone said it was.
    “Let me explain something to you.”
    “We’re cousins. I know,” Lucas interrupted. “Don’t you think I realize that she’s as closely related to me as Ariadne? It doesn’t feel like that.”
    “Don’t lie to yourself,” Castor said darkly. “Scions have been plagued with incest since Oedipus. And there have been others in this House who have fallen in love with their first cousins, like you and Helen have.”
    “What happened to them?” Lucas asked cautiously. He could already tell that he wasn’t going to like his father’s answer.
    “The outcome is always the same.” Castor stared intensely at Lucas. “Just like Oedipus’s daughter, Electra, the children born to related Scions always suffer our greatest curse. Insanity.”
    Lucas sat down while his mind raced, trying to find a way around this impasse. “We—we don’t have to have children.”
    There was no warning, no notice that Lucas had pushed too far. Without a sound, his father rushed him like a bull. Lucas jumped back up to his feet but didn’t know what to do next. He was twice as strong as his father, but his hands stayed passively at his sides while Castor grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back until he was pinned against the wall. Castor glared into his son’s eyes, and for a moment Lucas believed his father hated him.
    “How can you be so selfish?” Castor growled, his voice seething with disgust. “There aren’t enough Scions left for either one of you to just decide you don’t want to have kids. We’re talking about our species , Lucas!” As if to drive home his point, Castor slammed Lucas into the wall so hard it began to crumble behind him. “The Four Houses must survive and stay separate to maintain the Truce and keep the gods imprisoned on Olympus, or every mortal on this planet will suffer!”
    “I know that!” Lucas yelled. Plaster from the shattered wall rained down on them, filling the air with dust as Lucas struggled under his father’s grip. “But there are other Scions to do that! What does it matter if Helen and I don’t have children?”
    “Because Helen and her mother are the last of their line! Helen must produce an Heir to preserve the House of Atreus and