Goddess (Starcrossed)

mortals. It was his wife, Hera, who did that.
    “And what about my nearly immortal family?” Helen asked. “Lucas, Hector, Orion, Cassandra, Jason, Claire, Andy . . . will you leave them alone, too?”
    “Yes, yes. Them too,” Zeus said with a bored wave of his hand. “Why not? They won’t want to face eternity without you, anyway. A few centuries and they’ll opt for a peaceful death.”
    “Yes,” Helen said demurely. She looked up at him through her lashes. “But you won’t curse any of them, or Ariadne, in any way, as long as I give you Everyland?”
    “By the River Styx,” he swore, and reached out to touch her cheek with his hand. “So caring about those you love. But you do understand that you face an eternity in Tartarus, don’t you?”
    “Been there,” Helen said unflinchingly. “I figure spending eternity trapped in any one place, even paradise, is the same as hell after long enough. In a thousand years, I bet even a field of wildflowers begins to feel like a festering bog.”
    “How right you are,” Zeus murmured darkly. His eyes shifted strangely, wildly, almost like he lost his grip on the here and now. “And so much time left to go.”
    “And what about the rest of Olympus? Will they retaliate against my friends and family with curses if I go for this trade?” Helen asked innocently.
    “I swear by the River Styx that the Olympians will not curse your little group,” Zeus said.
    Helen pretended to think about it. She bit her lip and wrung her hands. Finally, she nodded quickly in assent, as if to get it out of the way.
    “Hecate will not allow you to back out of this trade once you agree to it,” Zeus reminded her tentatively, gesturing to the sacred space around them, carved out of midair in orange fire.
    “I know,” Helen said, truly saddened for a moment that she had to give up her world. She could feel it inside of her. Every lake, every tree, and every pane of glass in her sweeping city was a part of her—a part of her that she had to abandon forever to her enemy to save her family. Her voice broke with real pain when she spoke. “I’ll give you Everyland.”
    “Swear it before Hecate.”
    “I swear before Hecate to give you Everyland in exchange for the safety of my friends and family.”
    Zeus smiled at her, lightning flashing across his face. “Aphrodite told me you’d do anything to protect the people you love. She said it was the quality she adored most in you. It certainly will save a lot of lives. For now.”
    Helen dropped her gaze, so he wouldn’t see eagerness and regret warring with each other in her eyes. “So how does this work? Do we go to Everyland first?”
    “Yes. When we get there you simply make a new rule that Everyland answers to me alone,” Zeus said, tucking her hair behind her ear, almost like he cared about her. “And then I’ll take you to Tartarus.”
     
    Lucas saw Helen throw the Kraken’s tentacle to the side and launch herself into the air. He was about to follow her out of sheer habit, but he saw Orion on top of a giant horseshoe crab monster, screaming Cassandra’s name. Lucas’s little sister was nearly immortal, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be captured by the Olympians and used as their Oracle until she willed herself to death.
    After seeing how she’d handled the Kraken, Lucas trusted that Helen could take care of herself and ran to help Orion get his little sister back. The monster was huge, and it had spikes sticking out of its sides and a long, swordlike appendage for a tail that it used to slash at anyone that came near. Avoiding the razor-sharp tail, Lucas ran to the front, crouched down and tried to flip it over, only to find about a dozen hairy legs that all ended in pincers under the dome of its top shell, clawing at him. He heard his sister screaming somewhere in there with all those legs.
    “Luke, hold it so it can’t get to the water!” Orion yelled, and slid down the side of the carapace.
    Lucas held the monster in place while Orion began hacking his way through the forest of appendages. They could both hear Cassandra crying Orion’s name frantically, and finally they saw her white face and tiny hand reaching up out of the suffocating bristles and grasping claws. Orion pulled Cassandra free while Lucas tipped the monster over onto its back.
    “How do you kill it?” Lucas asked, climbing on top and hacking away at the underbelly with no idea where to aim.
    “I don’t know,” Orion