Sin curled his lip. "It's hard not to look at you sprawled out on my couch. Not to mention how funny that is coming from you given what you did last night."
She grimaced at Sin as she realized she'd spoken out loud.
"Katra? Tell me what's wrong or I'm coming to check on you. It's not like you to get this riled."
Now she's concerned about me? Kat didn't know what aggravated her more, being trussed up by a Sumerian ex-god or patronized by a Greek one.
Oh wait, the trussing definitely won this one out. It ranked right up there with eye gouging.
"It's all right, Matisera," she said silently to Artemis. "I have it."
"And why is it I find that hard to believe?" Artemis popped into the room right in front of Kat, hands on hips. Dressed in a long white sheath gown, Artemis wore her vibrant red hair down so that it flowed around her body.
Kat cringed as she realized what the goddess had just done.
Sin spun around. His jaw went slack as he took in Artemis's presence and realized that Kat hadn't been lying to him. Obviously, she wasn't the goddess after all.
To her credit, Artemis didn't panic. Instead she merely eyed him as if he were a mild annoyance. "Wow, look what the cow dragged in." She cast a penetrating glare at Kat. "Why is he here?"
Sin cursed as he realized he'd just been played by both of them.
The handmaiden forgotten, he went for Artemis, but before he could reach her, the handmaiden somehow appeared before him. How the hell had she gotten out of the net? He knew firsthand that it didn't give that easily. But that wasn't here or there.
What mattered was getting his hands on Artemis.
"Calm down," Kat said, cradling her arm.
He shook his head. "Move out of my way, girl. I won't be kept from what I want."
Artemis rolled her eyes. "And what do you want? Your mewling powers back?" He lunged at her, but Kat caught him about the waist and slung him to the ground with a strength he'd never imagined a woman could have-especially considering the fact that she had a broken arm.
She landed on top of him.
Pushing her away, he growled, "I don't want to hurt you, but it doesn't mean I won't."
Kat glared at him. "Ditto."
He tried to move past her, but the woman was like Velcro. Kat attached herself to his body and kept him from reaching Artemis.
Artemis scoffed at their struggle. "Get out of the way, Katra, so I can zap him."
Sin paused as he finally calmed enough to realize something highly significant. He looked back and forth between Katra and Artemis.
And as he did so, he knew exactly how to get his upper hand back.
He pulled the long, ornate dagger out of its sheath in his boot before he grabbed Katra and held the blade to her throat. He cut a gimlet glare at Artemis. "Give me my powers back, Artemis, or I'll take your daughter's life."
Kat cringed as Sin spoke a truth that only the bravest of souls would even dare whisper. And never within Artemis's hearing range.
Kat leaned back against him, away from the knife. "Damn, boy, you have an unholy gift for pissing off people." As was evidenced by Artemis's shriek of outrage. "Why don't you tell her that dress makes her look fat while you're at it?"
He answered by pressing the blade closer to Kat's throat. "I'm not playing, Artemis."
Artemis's face turned to stone. "And neither am I."
Before Kat could even blink, the dagger left her throat. She was pulled from Sin's arms by an unseen force an instant before the knife was ripped from his hand and plunged into his chest, three times. On the third time, it was left buried to the hilt where it slowly rotated in his chest.
Sin cursed foully before he jerked it out.