Starcrossed

hose,” he said with an easy grin, pulling on her hand to follow him to the pool. “Outdoor showers are sort of a requirement for our family.”
    He brought her to the outdoor shower and left her there to go to the pool house to get some towels and a change of clothes. When he was completely out of sight she self-consciously stripped down in the shower area. The beautiful teak walls of the shower curved around in a spiral that screened off the important parts of her body, but her feet and the very top of her head were still visible.
    She’d taken millions of beach showers like this, but never without wearing a swimsuit. She washed as quickly as she could and was nearly finished by the time Lucas returned.
    “The T-shirt’s definitely mine, but I have no idea who the sweatpants belong to. Don’t worry about it, though. No one will care,” he said, flipping the clothes and a big beach towel over the top of the screen. Then he put a plastic shopping bag down on the ground. “That’s for your uniform and sneakers.”
    “Thanks,” Helen called out, painfully aware how little space stood between him and her naked body. It was silly, really. Everyone is naked under a few millimeters of clothes, but this felt different somehow. It felt dangerous. She watched his feet through the gap at the bottom of the screen as he began to turn away, hesitated, and then hurried off. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
    The clothes he’d left her were gigantic, but they were soft, comfortable, and they smelled like dryer sheets. She toweled off, put the borrowed outfit on, and came out of the shower area carrying her bag of dirty clothes.
    By the time she and Lucas made it into the house, Jason and Hector were sitting at the kitchen table watching Cassandra and Ariadne shower a man Helen didn’t know with affection. Lucas introduced Helen before giving his uncle a big hug.
    Pallas Delos was a large, blond man, still glowing with health and youth even though he was graying at the temples. He and Hector shared the same cautious smile and sharp eyes, but there was more of Jason’s and Ariadne’s prettiness about him than Hector’s blunt masculinity. He shook Helen’s hand politely, but his curious stare followed her long after the introduction was over and it began to make Helen feel uncomfortable. She wondered if he was just reacting to her taboo name or if he had heard unflattering things about her from someone in the family. His stare made Helen jumpy. She tried to hide herself behind Lucas.
    “Okay, everybody out. I have to get started on dinner,” Noel ordered as she entered the kitchen, waving her hands in a shooing motion. Helen found herself being pulled out the back door by Lucas.
    “It’s a good idea to stay out of my mom’s way when she gets like that or you’ll end up chopping vegetables for the next hour,” he said. He led her back outside toward the grassy lawn between the tennis courts and the pool.
    “I don’t mind helping,” Helen said, starting to head back toward the house.
    “I do,” Lucas said with a sly smile, tugging on her hand. “Besides, I thought you wanted to learn how to fly. Isn’t that what caused all the fuss earlier this afternoon?”
    Helen could tell he was upset and trying not to show it. “About that,” she began, scrunching her face up guiltily.
    “Yeah, that was bad. And it was all my fault. I should have taught you to fly as soon as we healed from our fall, but I didn’t trust . . .” he said, stopping himself and shaking his head ruefully. “Never mind. The point is, once I learned I could fly all I wanted to do was get back in the air. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. It was stupid of me to think you would wait.”
    “How old were you when you found out?” Helen asked.
    “Ten? But it took me a while to understand it,” he said as if to prepare her for something. “Scions are born with all their talents, but it takes time to discover how to use some of them. Especially if there’s no one with your particular talent to act as a mentor.”
    “Did you have one? A mentor, I mean.”
    “No. I don’t know any other Scions who can fly besides you. But I had books, and my family for support.” He pulled up and stopped to face Helen. “You never had any of that, so this might be a little harder for you.”
    “I’m good at hard, it’s easy I’ve never trusted,” she responded quickly, but he gave her a look that indicated he