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who’s going to regret this. I want my powers back that you stole from me. You tricked my ass and then you stripped everything from me except my life, and you damn near took that.”
    Kat went rigid as his words pricked a deeply buried memory inside her. But it was fuzzy and fleeting, and she couldn’t get a good handle on it, so she defaulted to what she remembered of the event.
    â€œYou were going to kill Artemis. She said you hated her … that you’d broken into her temple and tried to rape her and—” The words stopped as she realized the lie Artemis had told. How could a god from another pantheon have gotten into Artemis’s temple on Olympus without an invitation?
    It was something that hadn’t dawned on Kat back then. She’d been too young and too afraid that he would hurt or kill Artemis. Back then, many of the gods had been at war with one another and those who policed them had been on hiatus. There had been many threats made against Artemis and several close calls.
    But one thing would have been impossible. An outside god couldn’t enter the domain of another without invitation.
    Oh gods, it was another half-truth.…
    He screwed his face up at her. “What are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”
    â€œNo,” Kat said as a wave of guilt consumed her. “I’m not Artemis. Let me go.”
    â€œNot until I have my powers back.”
    This was getting annoying.… “And for the last time, I can’t give you what I don’t have.”
    â€œThen you’re going to stay in that net until eternity comes to pass.”
    She growled at him, “Well, that’s really intelligent, isn’t it? What are you going to do? Put drinks on me or just use me as a conversation piece whenever friends come over? And let’s not even think about what’s going to happen when I need to use the restroom, shall we? I hope you have a standing order at Sofa Express.”
    Sin wasn’t sure if he should be entertained or appalled by her outburst. He had to give her credit, though; she certainly had a way with imagery. “Well, aren’t you a wealth of sarcasm?”
    â€œOh, just wait. I haven’t even started.” She winced as she jostled her arm and pain shot through her shoulder.
    Sin felt a prick of conscience over that and he hated himself for it. Let her suffer. What was it to him? Yet the part of himself that he despised most—the part that was still compassionate—begged him to help her.
    But she was right. Her staying in that netting wasn’t going to do either one of them any good. “Look, Artemis, or, assuming this isn’t another of your lies and tricks, Kat, I have to have my powers back. It’s imperative.”
    â€œSure it is. You just want them back so that you can kill Artemis and take revenge on her.”
    â€œI’m not going to lie and say that’s not true. It is. I want her dead in a way unimaginable. But I have bigger problems right now. And you just met one of them on that backstreet in New York.”
    Kat paused as she thought back to the creature she’d been fighting. It’d been scary all right. “I assume you mean that … thing that attacked me.”
    â€œYes. The gallu demons are running rampant now and the Dimme are about to go free and I’m the only person alive who can push them back. If I don’t have my powers to fight them, the world is going to end. You remember what happened to Atlantis? This is going to make that look like fun and games.”
    â€œNo offense, old man, Atlantis was destroyed before I was born, so I don’t remember squat about it.”
    But she did know the stories of how the continent sank.
    She sat still for a moment, thinking. She knew Artemis wasn’t trustworthy. But she didn’t know if the same was true of Sin. Was he feeding her a line or was there truth to what he said? “What