The Dark-Hunters (424 page)

The man turned a hungry look on the pair that made Kat’s blood run cold. It was unnatural. What’s more, there was a flash of red in his eyes that wasn’t human.

She’d never seen anything like it.

With one last sneer, he seemed to think better of attacking the mother and child before he continued on his way.

Curious about him and his intentions, Kat followed inconspicuously. If it weren’t for the daylight shining so brightly, she’d think him a Daimon trying to find a human soul to steal to elongate his life. But that wasn’t possible. Because of Apollo’s curse on their race, none of the Daimons could come out so long as the sun was shining. If they did, they burst into flames.

What was he then?

More to the point, what pantheon did he belong to? If he wasn’t human and he wasn’t Daimon, some god had created him. The question was for what purpose?

Kat reached out with her powers, but all she could sense was his human spirit and his anger as he stumbled about.

Maybe he was simply insane.…

He darted into a side street where there weren’t any people. Something in her compelled her to ignore him and continue her search for Sin.

Kat didn’t. It wasn’t in her to just let such a thing go. If the man was up to no good, she was one of the few people who could stop him. She would never be like her mother and just ignore people’s pain. Not when she could stop it.

So instead of walking on, she followed the man down the empty street. She didn’t make it far before he turned on her with a feral snarl.

This time his eyes were a flaming red that swirled around his black pupils. He opened his mouth, showing her a double row of fangs before he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her into the brick wall.

Stunned by his attack and appearance, she swung to hit him. He caught her hand, then grabbed her throat and shoved her back into the wall with a force so great, it rattled her to the marrow of her bones. Had she been human, it would have rendered her unconscious or dead.

As it was, it hurt like hell—and it seriously pissed her off.

“What are you?” she asked.

He didn’t answer as he picked her up—something that was no small feat given the fact that she was six foot four and solidly built—and tossed her into a parked car so hard she bent the hood and popped the latch on it. The windshield shattered under her as the car alarm began wailing. She could barely breathe as she tasted blood in her mouth. Pain pierced her.

She tried to move, but her arm was broken and she seemed to be stuck in the bowed, shattered windshield. His eyes churning red, the man stalked toward her.

Just as he reached her, she saw something falling from the top of the building in front of her. Nothing more than a black blur, it hit the ground so hard, it splintered the concrete.

It took her a second to realize what it was, and what it was shocked her even more than the creature attacking her.

It was Sin, dressed all in black leather. Crouched low, he rose slowly to his feet, prepared for battle. His eyes were pinned on the man in front of her.

“Gallu,” he said in a low, sinister tone. “Try picking on someone who can fight back.”

The man left her to attack him. He swung at Sin, who raised an arm to catch the blow on his silver vambrace before he delivered a staggering punch to the man’s chin. The man reeled back. Sin punched him hard in the chest, driving him back another step.

While the man wobbled from the blows, Sin pulled back his long coat to show a large dagger. The man came at Sin with his mouth open, trying to bite him. Sin dropped to the ground and swept the man’s feet out from under him. The man hit the cement hard. Sin turned and drove the knife deep between the man’s eyes.

The man screamed, writhing on the sidewalk as he flailed and kicked.

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Sin growled before he pulled the dagger out and stabbed the man again.

Kat slid off the car, cradling her broken arm, and before she could stop him, Sin decapitated the dead man and burned him right there on the sidewalk. She recoiled at the horror of it. They were in broad daylight and Sin didn’t even seem to care.

Anyone could see this.

Before she could move, Sin was in front of her, grabbing her. “Are you bit?”

He didn’t even look at her face before he started frisking her. She hissed as he touched her broken arm, but he didn’t pause in his inspection.

When he pulled up her shirt to look at her stomach, she slapped his touch away. “Get your hands off me.”

“Did he bite you?” he snarled, punctuating each word harshly.

It was then he looked up at her face and froze.

A heartbeat later, he grabbed her throat and started choking her.

CHAPTER THREE

Kat
lifted her legs and kicked him back. Sin hit the ground with a
whoof
before he flipped to his feet and came after her again.

She pushed herself away from the car and ducked his hands, then sucked her breath in sharply as she hurt her arm—that only made her angrier. “Trust me, asshole, you don’t want a piece of me.”

His nostrils flared. “Oh yes, I do. I’ve been dreaming of strangling you for centuries.”

What the hell did he mean by that?

All of a sudden, the sound of approaching sirens rent the air. Kat turned her head to listen, but the instant she did, he grabbed her.

This time when she went for him, he moved faster than was humanly possible. One moment they were on the street and in the next everything went black.

Sin smiled evilly as Artemis collapsed into his arms. It was true he lacked the bulk of his god-strength, but his brother had made sure after Artemis had drained him that he still had enough juice to protect himself.

Even against the gods.

He couldn’t believe fate had been so kind as to throw the bitch right into his path.… Now she was his and he was going to make her pay for what she’d done to him.

Smiling at the very thought, he flashed himself to his penthouse in Las Vegas. None too gently, he dumped his prisoner on his black leather sofa before he went to his bedroom to gather a few necessary items. Holding a goddess hostage was tricky business. Once she awoke she’d be pissed and wanting blood.

His
blood.

Therefore, he’d need a few things to make sure she didn’t use her powers to rip his heart out. Opening his closet, he moved to the back and shoved his clothes to one side. Hidden behind them was his vault. The door was made of tarnished bronze and held a hand and retinal scanner. Rather impressively modern, given the fact that he was an ancient Sumerian ex-god. But one had to make adjustments when one was locked in the hell that was the modern human world.

He opened the door and moved inside, where he kept the remnants of his own temple in Ur—what few things Artemis hadn’t destroyed after she’d eliminated him. It wasn’t much, a gold urn or two and the altar tray where his worshipers had once placed offerings. He’d also kept a few statues, but most of the vault’s contents were taken from his daughter’s temples. After her death, he’d tried to save anything that bore her image, and those were carefully preserved in the glass cases around him.

But that wasn’t what had brought him here. What he sought rested in the far back corner, in a leather trunk that creaked eerily as he opened it. A sadistic smile curled his lips as he found the most important item he’d saved all these centuries.

The
diktyon
that Artemis had used to tie him in place as she sucked his powers from him. Something in its composition rendered an immortal powerless. It kept them trapped and helpless.

He could still feel the humiliation of being at her mercy.

And once the bitch had drained him, she’d dumped him in the desert still wrapped in the net.

“Thanks for being so compliant. Now to pit the rest of your pathetic pantheon against each other until they’re all gone.”
Her laughter had rung in his ears.

Like a milk-whelp, he’d been forced to call out to his family for help. His father had laughed and then turned his back … as had all the others. The only one to show him pity had been his brother, Zakar. If not for him, Sin would still be lying in the desert.

Rotting or worse.

Of course their laughter had died out soon enough. Artemis had fulfilled her promise. Almost every member of his family had been disposed of by the Greek gods. The Greeks had either absorbed their powers and replaced them or turned them against one another until none were left. That had been three thousand years ago.

Now it was time to settle the score.

Grabbing the net, he headed for the couch where he’d left Artemis “sleeping.”

She was still lying right in her spot, unconscious. Good.
You know, you could kill her right here. Right now …

The temptation was strong. But then what fun would it really be? She was unconscious. She wouldn’t feel it. Wouldn’t know it. Besides, she was a goddess. To kill her while she still had her godhood would cause a rift in the universe.

The only way to destroy gods was to dispense or absorb their powers and then kill them.

Not to mention, he wanted to see her suffer. He wanted to look her dead in the eyes when he sucked her powers out and reestablished his godhood—wanted her to know the abject humiliation and pain of being completely vulnerable.

And that he could only do if she were awake and alive.

Damn.

With that in mind, he took his time cocooning her in the webbing. Let her be held down by her own weapon. It was only fitting. If he was lucky, she’d cry like a baby and beg for a mercy he had no intention of giving her.

Oh yeah, he could hear her now.…

“Please, Sin, please let me go, I’ll do anything.”

“Bark like a dog.”

She would, too. She’d be crying and hysterical. And he’d just laugh at her. He savored the very thought of it.

Sin paused as he secured her feet and glanced up at her face. To his deepest chagrin, he actually had to admit that she was beautiful—in a lethal, snake-like, venomous, bitch sort of way. In his murderous dreams, he’d forgotten exactly how graceful and attractive she was.

But here and now, he remembered things he’d buried three thousand years ago. He’d gone to her temple that day because she’d intrigued him. Granted, goddesses were beautiful, but Artemis had been exceptionally attractive even by their high standards. She’d told him how lonely she was. How she wanted someone who understood her. He’d stupidly considered her a kindred spirit.

And like everyone else he’d ever known, she’d turned on him. Kindred spirit nothing. She’d laughed in his face and had reduced him to a pathetic immortal.

He didn’t see anything beautiful about her now. But he did find it odd that she had blond hair instead of the vibrant red she was famous for. Maybe that was because she’d been in the human world and she was trying to pass as one of them for some reason.

Still, her body was the same. Tall, graceful, and well-built, she was put together like the goddess she was. Any man, immortal or otherwise, would kill to have access to a woman like this. And Sin remembered a time when he’d been so attracted to her that he would have done anything to make her happy.

Now all he wanted was to kill her.

“Hey, Sin?”

He paused as he saw his servant, Kish, coming into the room. Just under six feet tall, Kish appeared to be in his mid-twenties, but in reality the man was almost three thousand years old. Like Sin, he had jet-black hair and dark olive skin, only his hair, unlike Sin’s, hung just past his shoulders.

Kish froze in place as he saw the woman on the couch. “Uh, boss, whatcha doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

Kish made a face as he scratched at the area right above his left ear. “It’s looking pretty kinky. And here’s where I should remind you that kidnapping a woman in this day and age, and in this country in particular, is a federal offense.”

Sin wasn’t amused. “Yes, and in your original time period it was a capital offense that resulted in the man’s testicles being cut off before he was beheaded.”

Kish jerked at the mention of castration and cupped himself. “Yeah, and so why are you kidnapping her?”

“Who says I kidnapped her?”

“The fact she’s unconscious and tied up … fully clothed. I figure if it was really kinky and she was cooperating, she’d be awake and naked.”

Kish did have a point.

He moved forward and looked more closely at her before he glanced back to Sin. “So who is she?”

“Artemis.”

“Artemis who?”

Sin gave him a hard stare. “You know. Greek goddess bitch who stole my powers.”

Kish let out a nervous laugh. “That’s
the
goddess trussed up like a turkey on your couch. Are you insane?”

“No,” Sin said as righteous fury drove him on. “I had an advantage and I took it.”

Kish’s face turned ashen. “And when she wakes up, we’re both toast. Burnt toast. Charred toast. Whatever the hell is beyond charred, that’s us.” He moved his index finger back and forth between them to emphasize their coming doom. “She’s going to kick both our asses. And no offense, I don’t want my ass kicked by a goddess … well, Angelina Jolie in a black teddy and spiked heels notwithstanding. Angie-baby could drive those spiked heels all over me, but this…” He gestured toward Artemis. “This will get me painfully disemboweled, and that I’d like to avoid at all costs.”

Sin shook his head at the man’s hysteria. “Calm down before you wet my rug and I take a newspaper to you. She’s not going to kick our asses. This net negates her powers. It’s how she sucked me dry and left me humiliated.”

Kish cocked his head as if he wanted to believe that but wasn’t sure he should. “Are you sure about that, boss?”

“Positive. The
diktyon
was designed as a trap for gods and immortals. So long as she’s held by it, we’re fine.”

Kish was still cringing. “I don’t think ‘fine’ is the word I’d use in this situation. More like ‘screwed’ or ‘dead’ even. She’s not going to be happy about this.”

As if Sin gave a shit what she was or wasn’t happy about. “Once I have my powers back, it won’t matter. She’ll be in no position to hurt either of us.”