Goddess (Starcrossed)

Helen’s arm and shaking it as if to wake her. “Luke traded himself.”
    “Impossible!” Daphne shrieked, startling them all with her vehemence. “Hades doesn’t let anyone trade themselves for another. I tried a dozen times.”
    “Luke didn’t trade himself for me,” Hector gasped, his eyes rolling into his head with the effort to stay conscious.
    “Shhh, don’t,” Noel said, coming forward to put a soothing hand on Hector’s shoulder. “Jason. Knock him out before he kills himself again.”
    “He traded himself for Hades ,” Hector said over Noel. He pulled on Helen’s arm until her face was inches away from his. “Lucas took Hades’ place as the lord of the dead.”

FIFTEEN
    H elen knew her mother was saying something repeatedly, but it took a moment for her overwhelmed mind to actually understand it.
    “It was supposed to be Orion,” Daphne kept muttering to herself. When she locked eyes with Helen, like she was trying to explain herself, it looked like she was about to crack. “I mean—Orion is Hades. They look exactly the same, don’t they? Orion is the only one besides you who can go to the Underworld. He’s an Earthshaker and can ‘reduce all mortal cities to rubble’ so I thought he was the Tyrant—we all did. We all thought the Tyrant was supposed to replace Hades. All the signs were there. It was always supposed to be Orion.”
    As if summoned by Daphne’s repetition of his name, Orion appeared at the kitchen door with Cassandra at his side.
    “Castor,” Orion said striding in hurriedly. “The gods demand we produce Lucas, or Tantalus will send his army against us. And the Myrmidons want to kill Helen with or without Matt to lead them. I know you’re in mourning—we all are—but I need you at the front lines.”
    “He’s alive!” Cassandra shouted before her father could answer, and ran to Hector.
    “Stay back, Cass,” Jason said in warning as his hands glowed blue. “Let me work on him.”
    “How?” Orion asked, his eyes glued to Hector’s chest as it swelled with obvious breaths. “His heart was cut in two. He was dead.”
    “A trade,” Noel answered. She was so torn between feeling happy that Hector was alive and destroyed by what Lucas had done that she couldn’t finish.
    “Lucas agreed to take Hades’ place in the Underworld in order to bring Hector back,” Andy finished for her.
    “Why?” Cassandra asked, her face pleading. “Does he think we love him any less than we love Hector?”
    Orion looked at Helen. “He did it because he thinks we’re together. Lucas thinks we . . .”
    “I know,” Helen whispered, trying desperately to figure a way out of it. “I have to descend and tell him it’s not true.”
    “Helen. I’m so sorry,” Daphne said, her eyes wide with panic. “You have to believe me. If I knew it was going to be Lucas, I would have left you two alone. You have to explain that to Lucas—make him understand that it wasn’t that I didn’t like him. Please.”
    “What are you talking about?” Helen asked, a sinking sensation in her stomach. “Mother, what did you do?”
    “That’s why I lied,” she said quickly and quietly, like she was trying to speed past it. “If Orion was going to become the new lord of the dead, why wouldn’t he want to restore life to his one true love’s father?”
    “What?” Helen said, baffled.
    “A dozen times now I’ve nearly died. Every time I’ve gone down to the River Styx, I’ve begged Hades, but why should he listen to me? My only hope was the prophecy that said a Scion would come to replace him,” she said, a desperate light in her eyes. “Who else could it have been but Orion? Orion is Hades’ twin!” She looked around at everyone pleadingly.
    “And if I did replace Hades?” Orion asked, a horrified look on his face.
    “You’d still have to agree to give me what I want, and even though you care for me, there was no guarantee. I had to ask myself, what would make me do anything? Love, obviously. If you fell in love with a girl, and that girl thought she had lost her father, why wouldn’t you restore her father to life for her?”
    Helen shivered, like someone had walked over her grave.
    “She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with Lucas,” Daphne said, turning on Helen and pointing an irrationally accusing finger at her. “You were supposed to meet Orion first and fall in love with him. It would have been perfect. You would have Orion and I would have Ajax and no