Page 54 of Feline Good

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Fury was a thick, potent sludge inside her body. It filled her up until she saw red. Her men had not once come over to her since they had sat at a giant marble table with Sekhmet and that burly bastard she used as a guard, lover, fuck boy— whatever.

They shot casual glances her way, the dark, intent look in their eyes sending shivers up her spine, but not in a good way. Not in the way that she knew meant they would cherish and worship her. Instead, the lust in their eyes promised something darker, hungrier. Something primal and vicious and dangerous. Something that began with pain and ended in screams.

The man named Kyril eclipsed their stares, and Maya glared as he approached the bar. Bastard.

She hadn’t had time to get her hands around Sekhmet’s throat and steal the amulet. That bitch had somehow corralled her behind this bar, some invisible, magic barrier keeping her back here.

Planting her palms on the bar top, facing the big asshole approaching, she strangely found herself more confident, more comfortable behind the tall surface. Maya was raised in the bar, lived above the bar, worked the bar almost her whole life. She guessed it was luck that she would fight for her men behind one. As soon as she figured out how.

Kyril ordered a drink, and she complied with quick efficiency, gritting her teeth the whole time. She may have been a bartender, but she was no one’s servant, so when she slammed his glass on the counter and pushed it forward with the tip of her finger, it was with a fierce scowl that she did so.

“Your drink, sir.” She growled the last word, pouring all her venom and bitterness into the word.

In response, he offered her a tight smile before grabbing his drink, leaving something in its place as he did so.

Maya blinked, her mind refusing to comprehend the item laying in front of her. Jerking her gaze to his, she studied his face. The emotions in his eyes were all she needed to see: bitterness, hatred, and sorrow. It broke her heart a little bit, to see such sadness in the eyes of someone who was so clearly a warrior.

“I think the Goddess requires another drink, yes?”

Maya searched his gaze for any hint of a trick, and continued to stare as she filled a pint glass from the tap. Maya nodded to him as she reached across the bar and carefully took the amulet into her palm. The stone, bare of its usual golden curlicues, glimmered in the low light.

Her stare finally broke, trailed across the room to Sekhmet and the pendant hanging from her neck. A fake.

It was then she remembered that when the guys had mentioned being called here— they had said he. Not she.

Jerking her eyes back to Kyril, she saw the determination reflected his gaze and studied him intently. Sekhmet hadn’t even summoned them here.

He didn’t back down as she clenched her fingers around the jewel. The stone was hard, cold, and unyielding, until she gripped it with all her might. The slightest give cracked before the stone crumbled in her palm. The sight reminded her of soap curls crunching, how it turned to a dusty powder in her hand. Cupping the powder in her palm, she tilted her hand over the fresh beer and poured the crystal in Sekhmet’s drink.

Maya remembered exactly what this would do to Sekhmet, so once she stirred the powder until it dissolved, she passed the beer to Kyril happily. With a brief nod of his head, he wrapped his hands around the glass and left the bar.

Shock still pulsed through her veins, and hope flared bright like the sun as he crossed the room and handed Sekhmet the drink. A sweet smile curled her lips, filled with enough love to make Maya’s heart stutter.

Sekhmet’s own lover betrayed her in that instant.

Maya stared, looking for any sign of weakness as she drank the beer. It wasn’t her body language she first noticed that changed though. It was when Asher slightly turned his head in her direction, winking before he schooled his features. Hope bloomed in Maya, realizing that when she crushed the stone, it broke any hold that affected them. Her heart soared, but she kept the grin off her face.

In that moment, Maya decided payback was a bitch. And so was she.

An hour passed, then two, and Maya’s anxiety grew higher and higher as Sekhmet became more intoxicated and flirty with her men. She considered the fact that Kyril had played her, giving her a false hope only to watch her be crushed in the end.

When Sekhmet gripped Amir’s arm, she was two seconds from leaping across the bar and fighting the bitch, Goddess or no Goddess, barrier or no barrier, when Sekhmet staggered.

Hope bloomed anew as, from across the room, Maya watched her hands grip the top of a marble table before she sank hard into a chair.

“Something’s… not right.” Manicured fingers massaged her temple as her breaths became erratic. A glow emanated from Sekhmet’s body, gradually growing brighter. A tortured moan escaped from her lips as she leaned forward, her head against the table.

Then suddenly, like a light bulb bursting, the glow faded from sight, and Sekhmet sagged against the table.

Everyone in the room froze, and Maya crept out from behind the bar. Long moments passed as Sekhmet’s breath eased.

Fine, Maya will admit it. When Sekhmet suddenly jerked up, Maya jumped, the movement so unexpected it startled her.

Wrath of the Goddess and all that.

Though Maya knew the Goddess was no more.