Goddess (Starcrossed)

everyone—except for Lucas. She scanned the scene around her, looking for him.
    Helen saw Hector ordering people to get busy, directing them to dismantle the camp and lead the dazed mortals away from the multitude of strange bodies on the beach before they woke up from Hypnos’ influence. She saw Pallas and Daedalus trying to explain themselves to Castor, who listened to them in stony silence. She saw Jason and Ariadne rushing to aid as many of the most seriously injured as they could. She even saw Orion and Cassandra. They had broken away from the group and were speaking softy to each other. But no Lucas.
    Helen revolved around in a circle, her heart sinking as she searched for him. She found him a few paces behind her, waiting patiently for her to discover him there.
    “My turn?” he asked with a small smile. Helen nodded, thinking how strange it was that he and Poseidon looked exactly alike, but Poseidon made her skin crawl, while Lucas made it tingle.
    “I think it’s our turn,” she said, walking into his arms.
    “Finally,” he breathed, and kissed her without guilt or shame or any worry about what it meant for the future. He kissed her out in the open, in front of everyone, and for once there was nothing to hide and no reason for either one of them to stop.
    It was like they were kissing for the first time.

EPILOGUE
    T he Patriots won, so Helen’s dad was in a great mood all night. Kate made Lucas and Helen eat way too much at dinner, insisting that since Christmas was three days away, there was no point in trying to eat healthy until after New Year’s, anyway. Kate hadn’t officially moved in yet, but she was there nearly every day. Jerry and Kate were waiting until after the wedding in May to officially live together. For Helen, it was the perfect Sunday night “dinner with the boyfriend” she thought she’d never have. They even argued a bit about politics.
    They stayed up late, just hanging out. Helen and Lucas didn’t have school the next morning—not because the high school was still going through major reconstruction (which it was) but because they were on winter break. Despite the fact the high school had been half knocked over, the students had been taking their regular classes, dodging rubble, and wearing their jackets in the freezing-cold classrooms without missing too many days because Whalers are stubborn like that. The drama club had even started rehearsing A Midsummer Night’s Dream again even though they had to do it out in the subzero cold and not-at-all-summery parking lot because the auditorium didn’t exist anymore. The show must go on. Hergie would have been proud.
    There was still a lot of confusion over what had happened. For the past month and a half, everyone on Nantucket had gone around scratching their heads about the “tidal wave” that had ripped up the beach, killed twelve unfortunate people, and injured many more, so soon after the Halloween riots. It was the only topic of conversation at the News Store and at Kate’s Cakes. Every time a customer asked Helen what she remembered about that day, she’d say she was too far inland to actually see the wave, and she was glad for it. Then she’d hustle off to get them more coffee.
    Some people remembered the Kraken, but they were slowly being talked out of the so-called hallucinations. When someone got belligerent about what they saw, the Delos family would make sure that Andy got together with them for a little “talk.” Her powers as a siren came in handy when it came to making sure no one panicked and gave a story to the reporters who had started hanging around Nantucket. Helen had tasked Hypnos with rehabilitating the worst cases—hypnotizing them into re-remembering the whole thing as something else. It worked for the most part, but there would always be stories about the giant squid that had attacked Nantucket Island. A new myth had been born, and Helen wondered if this was how most of them had gotten their start.
    Like Hypnos, the other small gods were eager to get on Helen’s good side. They’d bet wrong when they’d sided with Olympus and now they were doing whatever she asked to make it up to her—starting by cleaning up the mess that the battle had left behind and helping to sell the tidal-wave cover story. Helen couldn’t give those twelve people their lives back; she was just happy that the mortal casualties had been so low.
    The Scions hadn’t been so lucky. Every House had suffered severe