Blood Bound

by Rachel Vincent

  “Nothing!” Cam threw the copious, gauzy material back and grabbed my left ankle, then pulled my leg out straight so that I slid onto my back, my stenciled secret bared once again. “That is not nothing! That is hypocrisy, and lies, and fucking betrayal. Are you spying for him? Or recruiting? Is that what this is?”

  I tried to pull my leg free and when he wouldn’t let go, I kicked him square in the chest with my other foot. Cam fell back against the arm of the couch, grunting in pain and surprise. I rolled onto the floor on my knees, gasping at the pain in my arm, and was on my feet in an instant, backing across the room. “Don’t you ever touch me like that again. Not ever.” I used the anger burning bright inside me to dry up tears I couldn’t let fall. “I may have to take that from him, but I don’t have to take it from you.” And if Cam didn’t think I could defend myself, he hadn’t been watching me closely enough. If I weren’t contractually prohibited from seriously injuring Ruben Cavazos, I’d have ripped his balls off and fed them to him a year ago.

  Cam stood, his expression a tangle of horror and remorse. And anger. “I didn’t… I would never…”

  “I know.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, fighting for calm. Cam wasn’t the enemy. He would never even try to hurt me. In fact, he’d kill to protect me. But lying on a couch, on my back, forced to bare my mark… It all felt too familiar. And I’d never wanted so badly to take back a single minute of my life. Not the moment I’d bound myself to Kori, Anne and Elle. Not the moment I’d left Cam. And not the moment I’d signed with Cavazos. Hell, taking that one back would make things sooo much worse than they were now….

  Which was only one of the reasons I’d never wanted Cam to see that mark.

  “Cedo nulli…” He laughed harshly, and I wanted to die, just a little bit. “What is that, a joke? ‘I yield to no one.’ It’s bullshit!” he roared. “You yield to the fucking enemy!”

  “It’s not bullshit, and it’s not a joke. It’s a goal.” I took a deep breath, grasping for calm. “I’m sorry, Cam, but this is really none of your business. So you need to just let it go.”

  “None of my business?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I got my first glimpse of what he must look like when Tower used him as muscle. He was solid and broad. A brick wall. Or maybe more of hammer. Either way, I couldn’t imagine anyone messing with him, armed or not. But I had no choice.

  “Yes. It doesn’t have anything to do with Anne or her family, or with…us.” At least, us as we’d been a few minutes earlier. Us, as I wanted us to be.

  “You sure considered my marks your business this afternoon.”

  “Yours are standard syndicate marks, binding you to obey Tower’s every word,” I said through clenched teeth, trying to decide whether I even owed him an explanation. After all, I’d never actually said I didn’t work for Cavazos, had I? And I wasn’t bound to the syndicate—not the way Cam was bound to Tower’s, anyway. “My situation is completely different.”

  But he wasn’t buying it. “How exactly is you having a mark different from me having a mark?”

  “It’s different because I hate every minute of it. Every single second. I feel like I’ve rolled around in the mud and it’s oozed into my nose and ears, and other places I can’t even reach, and I’ll never get clean. I feel filthy. I fight the binding with every breath I take. But you’ve been bound to Tower for six years and until today, I bet you never even thought about trying to get out of it. Hell, you reenlisted and took an early promotion! That’s the difference, Cam.”

  “That’s not a difference—it’s like looking in a mirror. You think I want to be bound to Tower? Or to anyone else? Believe it or not, I don’t like marching in their little rows, following orders like a tin soldier. But I don’t have any choice, and from where I’m standing the only difference between your situation and mine is that at least I’m serving on my feet.”

  I felt my cheeks flame and fought to turn humiliation into anger, because then at least I’d be in control of my own emotions, if nothing else. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t what it looks like….”

  Cam stood, all puffed up with fury, but I could see the fear and pain in his eyes. He was hiding behind anger, just like me. “Well, that’s good, because it looks like that’s Ruben Cavazos’s live mark on your thigh!”

  “Okay, that part’s what it looks like, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means. I’m not in the skin trade. This is nothing like what happened to Van. And I’m not spying on you, nor am I trying to recruit you. You and Anne came to me, remember?”

  “Olivia, Tower’s men shot me, just so I’d need their help, then be in their debt. I know how this works. I know what the syndicate—either syndicate—will do to get whoever they want. And I know what a mark on the thigh means. If he’s not turning you out, he’s keeping you in.” His voice cracked on the last words, and my heart felt as if it was cracking along with his, one excruciating inch at a time. “You’re his personal whore, just like Nick said.”

  “No, I am not.” Pain and anger coiled so tightly inside me that I could no longer tell the difference between them. “And don’t you ever say tat to me again.” I stomped across the room toward him and propped one bare foot on the coffee table, then pulled Van’s skirt up so he could see the mark again. “Take a closer look,” I demanded, but his gaze never left mine, his eyes shiny with unspent, angry tears. “Look at it!” I shouted, and finally he did. One quick glance.

  “It’s not red, Cam,” I pointed out. “I’m not his whore, or anyone else’s. In fact, that mark is like a fucking chastity force field. Thanks to our contract, he can’t go past it without my permission. Which he has never had, nor will ever have.”

  Cam exhaled, his relief almost palpable. Then he frowned. “If you’re not…sleeping with him, why the hell is his mark on your thigh?”

  “Because if you give him an inch, he’ll take the whole damn planet. Cavazos wanted the mark on my arm, but I told him I wouldn’t wear it where anyone else could see it. His compromise was that he got to pick the unseen location—and ink the tattoo himself. I consider myself lucky it’s not on my ass.”

  Cam blinked, and the momentary confusion cleared. “He’s a Binder?”

  I nodded slowly and lowered my leg. “He’s not very good with a verbal or written seal—though his staff is top-notch—but he’s a damn strong flesh Binder. Didn’t you ever wonder what his Skill is?”

  Cam shrugged. “I just assumed that was privileged information. Tower would kill anyone who leaked details about what he can and can’t do. Not that any of us could actually blab, thanks to the binding.”

  Hmm. Maybe that was in Cavazos’s boilerplate, too. Good thing my contract was custom…

  “Flesh binding is how he got his start,” I said. “In his twenties, a couple of years before the revelation, he conned a few of his friends and cousins into signing unfavorable bonds of loyalty to him, and he inked the marks into their flesh himself. And the syndicate grew from there. He takes a cut of everything, and he still does some of the marks himself. His organization is older than Tower’s, you know.” According to Cavazos, his was one of the oldest Skilled syndicates in the country, and I’d found no reason not to believe that.

  I sank onto the edge of the coffee table and Cam sat on the couch in front of me. “So what do you do for him?” But he still looked as if he didn’t really want the answer.

  “I don’t do anything for him on a regular basis. This is a one-shot deal. He needs someone found and once I fulfill my part of the deal, the mark goes dead, and I’m done with him. No extensions. No noncompete clauses. Nothing complicated.”

  “If it’s so simple, why the binding? Why didn’t he just hire you, like everyone else?”

  “The contract is simple, but he’s not. Ruben likes to own things. Specifically, people. Especially women. I needed to win this particular job, and he knew it, which gave him the upper hand. He wouldn’t hire me without a binding.”

&n
bsp; “But you negotiated, right? You must have, to get out of the standard clauses.”

  “Yeah. Under the terms we bot agreed to, he can’t tell anyone I’m bound to him, or what I’m doing for him.” That one turned out to be a mistake on my part, because it meant he couldn’t tell Meika what his business with me really was, leaving her free to draw the obvious conclusions.

  “But he can’t…touch you?”

  Shit. This was the part I really didn’t want Cam to know. “He gets to…um…” I closed my eyes, trying to remember the exact wording. “‘Physically express either his pleasure or displeasure with my performance.’”

  “Which means he gets to feel you up and hit you.” Anger bled into his features and the couch groaned beneath him as he leaned back.

  “Yes, up to a point. But I get to hit back.” Also up to a point.

  “Damn it, Liv!” Cam stood and stomped across the room, a spring coiled tight and ready to burst free. “Why would you agree to that?”

  “Because he had the advantage and I needed the job.” Worse than Cam would ever know. “At the time, I thought I was being smart for insisting on limits, but it turns out I’m not as good with contract language as I thought I was.”

  “I hear some people spend years in law school studying that very thing.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t have years and I don’t know any lawyers. But I think I did pretty well, considering what I had to work with. He can’t make me sleep with him or with anyone else, and he can’t use weapons against me or do any permanent damage. Those were my deal-breakers.”

  “I’d like to break him.” Cam pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me, speaking into my hair. “I can’t stand the thought of his hands on you.”

  That made two of us. And that part would only get worse—if he knew Cam and I were together again, Ruben would get possessive and start pushing boundaries, just to demonstrate his own power. But Cam didn’t need to know that.

  “And he has to let me make a living, even while the mark is live,” I said, to redirect the conversation. “That’s why I needed a retainer from Anne. Without it, she’s not an official client, and he can call me away from this little project anytime he wants, to put me back on his.”

  “Oh.” Cam’s brows rose in an almost-grin. “If I didn’t think it’d offend you, I’d offer to pay for your time permanently, just so he’d have to let you see me.”

  I laughed, in spite of the circumstances. “As insulting—yet sweet—as that is, it only works with tracking jobs. I can track for other people, as long as they’re paying me.”

  “Funny you should say that. I just happen to have lost touch with my kindergarten teacher. And my girlfriend from fourth grade. And the obstetrician who delivered me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could keep you busy—and officially employed—for the rest of your life.”

  I laughed again, and it felt good. “You’re just stupid enough to try it, too, aren’t you?etrician w

  “I think the word you’re looking for is brilliant. I’m brilliant enough to try it. And yes, I told you I’d do whatever it takes. Knowing about your mark doesn’t change that.”

  I leaned forward and kissed him. And it felt so good, I did it again. And when he pulled me onto the couch with him, I went willingly, sparing a moment of pure gratitude for the fact that this stolen moment was even possible, in the midst of the violence and chaos defining both of our lives in general, and this job for Anne in particular.

  “How long have you been bound to him?” Cam lay on his side against the back of the couch, and I lay on my back next to him. He ran his fingers slowly up and down my left arm, just brushing the lower edge of the bandage.

  “A year and a half.”

  His hand went still on my arm. “You’ve been looking for one person for a year and a half?”

  “It’s pretty…complicated.” To say the very, very least.

  “It’s busywork, Liv,” Cam insisted, frowning down at me from inches away. “He’s playing you. Whoever you’re looking for is dead. That’s why you can’t find him. Or her.”

  I shook my head against the couch pillow, wishing we’d never have to move past that moment in time, with him pressed against me and the worst six years of my life rendered a distant memory, even if that meant having to talk about my work for Cavazos for eternity. “It’s a him. And he’s alive. Every time I try, I get just the faintest pull from his paternal middle name.”

  “You’re name-tracking? Why would you even bother?” Cam asked. Then he realized what he’d said, and how I might take it, and shook his head, backtracking with an apologetic smile. “Not that you can’t track by name. But you’re so much better with blood…”

  The story of my life…

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have a blood sample, and even if we did, it’d be too old to be of much use. All we have to go on is one middle name.”

  Cam stretched to prop himself on his elbow. “Liv, that’s crazy. I don’t know that I could find someone based only on a single middle name. How can he expect you to?”

  He expected it because I’d sworn on my liberty that I could deliver within two years. “I’ll do it. I have to.” Because I wasn’t the only one who would pay if I defaulted on my contract.

  “I don’t think he really wants you to,” Cam insisted. “He put his mark on your thigh and he’s obviously been pushing the boundaries of what he’s allowed to do to you.” He looked as if the mere thought made him want to vomit—as it did me. “He wants you to fail, so he can keep you indefinitely. He’s probably counting on you wanting to renegotiate down the road, when you realize you can’t find whatever obscure goose he’s picked for you to chase.”

  “No, that’s not it.” But damn, did I wish it was. “He’s desperate fo some legitimate news. I have to report to him every week and he always grills me about my progress first thing. It’s personal, and he’s very, very serious about this tracking. It comes before everything else.”

  “Is that where you were this morning?” he asked, and I nodded. “Then the whiskey shots in your office…?”

  “A time-honored ritual and proven coping mechanism.”

  “And I’m guessing you can’t tell me who he’s looking for?”

  “Nope. Though I’m free to tell the whole world that I’m working for him in some unnamed capacity. In fact, he wants me to.” Because he wasn’t allowed to openly discuss our connection.

  “So, I guess this mark is the source of the rumors that you’re bedding the boss….” Cam looked so relieved to have found a logical explanation that I almost hated to disappoint him.

  “Nope.” I shook my head firmly and felt the couch material snag in my hair. “I can’t figure out where those are coming from, because no one’s seen the mark.”

  “No one? You haven’t…?” He let the question fade into implication, flavored by the blatant hope in his eyes.

  I propped myself up on my good arm and faced him eye to eye. “Didn’t we already agree not to ask that question? I don’t want to know who you’ve been with since me, and you don’t want the details of my personal life, either. But none of that matters anymore, right?” I said, and he nodded hesitantly. “All I’m saying is that no one’s seen the mark.”

  I hadn’t been nude in a lit room for almost eighteen months. And I hadn’t had sex at all in nearly a year. Since word—inaccurate, of course—got out that I was working for Cavazos, everyone I might have considered going home with seemed more interested in proving or disproving the rumors. And no one would press past what they thought to be evidence of Ruben’s claim on me.

  No one I’d want, anyway. Anyone willing to cross that mark was just in it to prove he wasn’t afraid of Cavazos.

  Anyone but Cam.

  “So, what you’re saying is that no one’s seen this—” his hand slid down my stomach and over the gauze material covering my thigh “—in a very long time.”

  My breath hitched. No one had touched me like that in years. That was the touch of a m
an interested in more than a quick fix for us both. More than a story about sleeping with a woman who may or may not belong to one of the most powerful men in the country.

  “Just you…” I breathed. And Ruben. But he didn’t count. In fact, he’d never counted less.

  “I like that,” Cam whispered, sliding down next to me on the couch. “Say it again.”

  “Just you…” I murmured, reaching up with my good arm to pull him closer. His mouth brushed mine, and I lifted my head for greater contact, pulling his lip into my mouth. Tasting him.

  A thousand times I’d imagined this, blending memory and imagination to keep from thinking about what was actually happening—who was actually touching me. And now it was real. Cam was real, and this moment was real; surely the pain in my arm proved that. A gunshot wound was better than a self-inflicted pinch any day of the week, and the pain was minor compared to how good everything else felt. His hands. His lips. The rough stubble on his chin, catching in my hair when his kisses traveled over my jaw toward my ear.

  Being with him was better than I remembered. Better than I’d imagined. The moment would have been perfect, except that…

  “Wait. We can’t do this.” I put a hand on Cam’s bare chest and he stared down at me in amusement.

  “Speak for yourself. I’m ready.”

  And boy was he. But… “That’s not what I mean. We don’t have time for this right now.” We were supposed to be saving lives. Finding murderers. Making the world a better place, one mob boss at a time…

  “According to you and Noelle, one of us will be dead soon. So if you think about it like that, we don’t have time to wait.”

  “Don’t joke about death.”

  “I’m joking about sex.”

  “Cam, this isn’t funny!”