If Camulus and Dionysus thought to bargain with her after they killed him, they were pathetically mistaken.
He almost smiled at the thought of them trying to reason with her. Mardi Gras night would be interesting, no doubt.
"By the way," Artemis said as she reclined naked on the bed and ran her bare foot up his spine in a long, cool caress, "your children have been very bad while you were here."
Ash stopped rubbing his wrist and looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"In direct disobedience to your orders, Zarek was out and about earlier this evening, and he and Talon got into a fight in the French Quarter."
Anger rushed through him. "What? When?"
"About two hours ago."
"Dammit, Artemis," he snarled. "Why didn't you tell me?"
She shrugged and ran her hand over her naked breasts in an effort to draw his attention to her. "I liked you where you were and I knew if I told you, you'd leave."
Ash glared at her. Her selfishness knew no bounds. Angry at her, he snapped his fingers and returned his clothes to his body. He made his hair black and grabbed his backpack up from the floor.
"I hate that hair color on you," she said petulantly, zapping his hair back to blond.
He stiffened. "Yeah, well, the only color I hate more than blond is auburn." He made his hair black again, then zapped hers to a matching shade.
Her furious shriek echoed through the temple as Ash mentally commanded himself back to New Orleans.
Sunshine felt an adrenaline rush as they approached the biker bar at 688 Ursulines Avenue. It was the best place in town to come meet friends, eat good food, and find all kinds of fun things to do.
"You didn't tell me we were going to Sanctuary."
Talon frowned. "You know about Sanctuary?"
"Honey, there's not a single woman in this town who doesn't know about Sanctuary, Land of the Bodacious Gods. Heck, me and my girlfriends want to get together and vote Mama Lo an award for her policy against hiring any man not seriously buff."
She noted the offended grimace on his face and couldn't help laughing. "Not that you're not buff. You can certainly hold your own against the Sanctuary Hotties. But face it, haven't you ever noticed that this place is like Hooters for women?"
"No. I can honestly say that I've never noticed how good-looking the men at Sanctuary are. Nor have I ever cared."
The outside of the club was a typical New Orleans building that had been constructed in 1801. The brick was a rust color and a huge sign swung over the old-fashioned saloon-type doors. It showed a full moon rising over a hill where a motorcycle was parked and proudly proclaimed this place as Sanctuary, Home of the Howlers-the Howlers being the house band for the club, and a mighty fine-looking group of men they were too.
The bar was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and was owned by the Peltier family. The owner, Mama Lo, had eleven studly sons who again warranted the woman an award for beautifying the city.
Each one of them was a prime male specimen guaranteed to make a woman pant.
Dev Peltier was at the door as they entered. A regular bouncer, he was one in a set of identical quadruplets. Sunshine had never met a woman who didn't want to take one of the quads home. For that matter, they wanted to take them all home and use them as matching bookends in the bedroom. Only it wasn't books her friends wanted to sandwich between the quadruplets.
Dev had a pair of piercingly blue eyes and long, wavy blond hair that fell to the middle of his back. The only way she knew it was Dev as opposed to one of his brothers was the bow-and-arrow tattoo on his arm.
She paused as she realized it was identical to the brand on Talon's shoulder.
"Hey, man," Dev said in that shivery-hot, deep accent that was a cross between French and Cajun as he caught sight of Talon. The two of them did a high-five shake. "Where have you been?"
"Out and about. You?"
Dev gave him a wicked grin. "Mostly in and out."
Talon laughed. "I'm not going there."
Dev looked at her and winked. "Hey, little Sunshine, why you hanging out with this loser? You lose a bet or something?"