Shadow Bound (Unbound)

by Rachel Vincent

  “She’s not a whore.” Frustrated, I scrubbed my face with both hands, wishing I had something to shoot, or hit, or stab, so I could pretend I was killing Jake Tower with all the enthusiasm that task deserved. “You should have seen her. She couldn’t even leave without my permission, and I think telling me that actually made her sick.”

  “Did you fuck her?”

  “Hell no! I didn’t touch her.”

  “Then you’ll come out smelling like roses. You’re the honorable man who didn’t take the bait. So pull up your big-boy pants and apologize for the misunderstanding. Explain that you didn’t realize this was supposed to be a full-service tour and you would never have made her do anything she didn’t want to do. The facts will back you up on that, since you didn’t touch her.” Aaron shrugged. “Voilà. You’re right back on schedule.”

  “On schedule to kill her sister.”

  “Well…yeah. That is what you came here to do.”

  “When exactly did you forget that Kori’s a victim in this?” I demanded.

  He rolled his eyes. “Around the time I started asking questions about her.” Aaron sighed and stared at his hands for a moment, then made eye contact. “After I dropped you off this afternoon, I called a few of my local contacts and asked them what they knew about Korinne Daniels, other than the fact that she’s evidently back from the dead.”

  “And…?” I said, certain I already knew at least part of what he had to say.

  “The word from a couple of former syndicate members—guys willing to talk so long as their names never come up—is that she impressed Tower from the start. Not his most powerful Traveler, but she’s a hell of a fighter and she’s got nerves of steel. Word has it she disabled half of his household security team in a matter of minutes, just to get Tower’s attention. That got her assigned to his personal security detail pretty quickly. One of the guys says he took a special interest in her. Nothing dirty, from what I can tell—”

  “He doesn’t screw around on his wife,” I supplied.

  Aaron nodded. “But he got a kick out of seeing her take down men twice her size. He treated her like a niece, and while she was in good standing, her sister was untouchable—a personal favor from Tower.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning hands-off. Completely. No one hit her, no one screwed her. No one so much as breathed too close to Kenley Daniels, like she was made of glass. It was like that for years. But then something went wrong.”

  “She fell,” I whispered, hearing Kori say the words in my head. Aaron frowned at me in question, but I just waved him on. “What happened?”

  “None of my sources were still active in the syndicate recently enough to tell me that, so I had to go digging on the other side of the river.” Aaron grinned. “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks. Now spill.”

  “I found a loose tongue—one of Cavazos’s men—who claimed that a couple of months ago, Ruben Cavazos led a small team right into the heart of Tower’s territory. They broke into his fucking house, in the middle of the night. I haven’t been able to verify that with any secondary source—makes sense that Tower would have covered up an embarrassment that big—but the timing lines up.”

  “You think Kori had something to do with the break-in?”

  Aaron shrugged. “She was still working security at the time, and within days of when Cavazos’s man says this happened, she disappeared. I mean, gone. No one saw her. No one heard from her. I got ahold of her sister’s cell record—I’d tell you how, but then I’d have to kill you—and it looks like she was panicking. She called their brother several times a week, and she also called this chick who works for Cavazos, of all people. So I looked her up. Turns out this other chick—Olivia Warren—went to high school with your girl Kori.”

  Olivia… Could this be the Olivia that Kenley bound Kori to when they were kids?

  “Which gives Kori a connection to Tower’s biggest enemy,” I said, thinking aloud.

  “Right. So what I’m thinking is that—intentional or not—Kori had something to do with Cavazos and his team getting into Tower’s house. And if I’m right about that, it’s a miracle she’s still alive.”

  But I could still see her face when I closed my eyes. “I don’t think she’s feeling very miraculous.”

  Aaron shrugged. “Well, I’m sure she’d feel better if she was free from Tower. And she will be, if you do what you came here to do.” Because killing Kenley would break Kori’s binding to Tower. “We’ll call that the bright side.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Yeah, but I’m also a fucking genius with a Wi-Fi connection and a keyboard.”

  I stood, pacing to burn off angry energy. “She’s messed up. I mean, she’s really messed up, and I think the only reason she’s still alive is because her sister needs her. If I kill Kenley, what does Kori have to live for?” I stopped pacing to look at him. “I can’t do that to her.”

  “So you’re just going to let Steven and Meghan die?” he demanded. But I could see what he wasn’t saying—that he couldn’t let that happen. If I didn’t kill Kenley, he would try. Which would get him killed. Then I’d have all three of their deaths on my head.

  “Hell no, I’m not going to let them die. But there has to be another way.”

  “A way other than killing Kenley?” Aaron frowned. “If she’s half as powerful as word on the street says she is, there’s no other way, short of getting her to break her own bindings.”

  “Can she do that?” I frowned at him. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that possibility before?

  “Is she physically capable?” Aaron shrugged, looking up at me from his chair. “In theory, yes. Is she allowed?” He shook his head firmly. “No way in hell. The first thing Tower would have prohibited her from doing is breaking her own bindings. That clause may only include the bindings she sealed for him specifically, but that depends on whether or not she insisted on tightening the language from the broad, basic phrasing.” Which, according to Kori, she had not.

  “Okay, so she’s probably not allowed. What if she tried anyway? People breach sealed contracts all the time, right?”

  “Yeah. There’d be resistance pain, but how strong that is depends on how strong the seal on her contract is, and whether or not she swore on her life not to breach it. If she just swore and signed, she’ll be in pain—probably a lot of pain—but it’ll eventually end. But if she swore on her life, then breaches the contract, she’ll die.”

  Great. That was no better than shooting her myself.

  “But, Ian, the consequences aren’t the problem here. The real hurdle is convincing her to break her own seal. Seals are held intact by will of the Binder. You can’t just hold a gun to her head and tell her to withdraw her will from the binding. She has to want to break the seal. And if you can’t get within shooting distance of her, what makes you think you can get close enough to explain what you want and convince her to want it, too? Steven doesn’t have forever, you know. Meghan can’t hold out much longer.”

  I exhaled slowly, my brain racing. This should have been a no-brainer. My brother and his girlfriend—my best friend’s sister, whom I’d known her whole life—or a woman I’d known less than thirty-two hours. I couldn’t let Steven die, but every time I thought about killing to protect him, I saw Kori in my head. Pale hair, petite build and pixieish features alternately reflecting fierce determination and haunted pain. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to make her smile. I wanted to protect her.

  I wanted her not to die a prolonged, agonized death, screaming my name in fury, hating me until her last breath.

  I sank onto the couch again and met his gaze over the coffee table. “One more day,” I said. “Can Meghan hold on for one more day?”

  Aaron looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What is it about this girl? You’ve only known her for a day.”

  “You’d understand if you met her. She needs my help.”

  He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slow
ly. “She doesn’t need you. She doesn’t even want you—you said that yourself. And even if she did, she’s not worth it. She’s a killer!”

  “If she’s killed, Tower made her do it.”

  His frown deepened. “And you think being bound to follow orders absolves her of any guilt?”

  I exhaled slowly, trying to swallow a sudden surge of guilt and anger when what I really wanted to do was unleash it on him. “I’ve killed under orders, Aaron.”

  “You were a soldier.”

  “That doesn’t make it right. I’m no more innocent than she is, so if you think hating Kori will make it easier for you to kill her sister to save yours, you may as well hate me, too. She had nothing to do with what happened to Steven.” But we both knew I had, even if inadvertently.

  “You’ve lost perspective,” Aaron said, and he sounded sad.

  He was right. Being near Kori was like standing on an iron plate holding a compass. I couldn’t tell which way was north. I couldn’t tell what was right. I only knew that I couldn’t kill her sister, and just knowing one plan was impossible made the other look more doable. “One more day, Aaron.”

  He frowned. “Ian, I’m not going to let my sister die.”

  “I know. Just ask her for one more day.”

  Aaron hesitated. He stared at me. And finally he sighed. “I’ll ask her. But if you haven’t broken the binding by this time tomorrow, I’ll do it myself.”

  “It won’t come to that,” I insisted. But I couldn’t tell if he believed me.

  Hell, I couldn’t tell if I believed myself.

  Fifteen

  Kori

  I shadow-walked into my bedroom and didn’t even have to stretch to reach the light switch, possibly the only advantage to living in very cramped quarters. I had Kenley’s ruined sandals off before I even reached the door and I pulled her blouse over my head as I left the room.

  The bathroom was two steps to the right of my room, but the door was closed and a line of light glowed beneath it, so I tossed the shirt through my sister’s open bedroom doorway and ducked into my room for a T-shirt, then stomped through the living room as I pulled it over my head. In the kitchen, I opened the cabinet over the microwave and stared at a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka.

  Another drink wouldn’t fix anything. But it couldn’t hurt, either, and I’d thrown up everything I drank at Ian’s.

  I was trying to decide whether to bother with a glass or gulp straight from the bottle when the bathroom door creaked open and Vanessa stepped into the living room, wearing her own robe this time.

  She’d brought a robe.

  “It’s getting crowded around here.” I set the bottle down and reached for a clean glass from the dish drainer.

  “Sorry.” Vanessa shrugged and sat on the arm of the couch. “I didn’t think one extra toothbrush would make that much difference.”

  I pulled an ice tray from the freezer and dropped it on the counter to break up the cubes. Kenley always overfilled it, so they never came out easily. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” I said, dropping the first cube into my glass, “but Kenley is off-limits. Untouchable.” At least until Tower decided whether or not to kill me.

  “I did hear that.” She crossed the room and sank onto a bar stool across the counter from me, as if I didn’t scare her. But that couldn’t be right.

  “Being a girl doesn’t exempt you from that.” I dropped in another cube, then poured an inch of vodka into the glass. Then I poured another inch.

  “No, it doesn’t. What exempts me is the fact that she wants me here.”

  I stared into Van’s eyes, trying to see the truth, to believe that what I wanted for my sister was even possible in the syndicate. Trying to believe in human connection that wasn’t based on a lie or born in pain. Could a new relationship possibly take root in Jake’s world without being choked by the bitter weeds he’d planted?

  What if Vanessa was one of those weeds? I knew nothing about her, and Kenley couldn’t know much more. What if he’d sent her to get close to Kenley and earn her trust—maybe even her affection—so that after he’d killed me, he’d still have someone to threaten in order to control her.

  “What are your intentions with my sister?” I said, twisting my glass on the counter when I couldn’t read anything definite in her eyes. I thought she’d laugh. I wouldn’t have taken that question seriously in her position. But her eye contact remained steady and she answered without so much as a smile.

  “I intend to love her for as long as she’ll let me. Then a little longer than that.”

  I blinked. Then I frowned. “You love her? You don’t even know her.”

  “Love is supposed to last forever, Kori. Not take forever. But if it makes you feel any better, Kenley and I had been together almost a month before Jake locked you up.”

  I pushed aside the dark flash of memory her reminder dredged up—it hadn’t been far from the surface anyway—and focused on the middle part of her statement. Three months. They’d been together for three months, and I hadn’t known?

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her that. But here’s why I didn’t tell anyone. You know how when you’re a kid and you get a shiny new toy, you don’t want to share it for a while? You just want to keep it to yourself? It’s like that.”

  I frowned. “Are you calling my sister your toy?”

  “I’m calling our relationship shiny and new. And I’d really appreciate it if you could resist the urge to smudge it up for a while.”

  “Why would I smudge up your shiny new relationship with my sister?”

  “Because you’re worried about her. Or jealous. Or maybe both.”

  I wanted to tell Van she was full of shit, but that didn’t feel true. I was worried about Kenley. Constantly. And as much as I loved her and as willing as I was to do anything to protect her, I’d never been more jealous of anyone in my life.

  I hated myself for even thinking that, but it was true. I was jealous of the cocoon I’d wrapped around Kenley. Jealous of the decisions she’d never had to make. I was jealous of the fact that she could be with whomever she wanted, without wondering whether what she felt was real or was manufactured by a powerful man pushing her around a life-size chessboard like a pawn to be sacrificed at will.

  I was jealous of how well Kenley slept at night, free from nightmares about a darkness she couldn’t master and a sentence she couldn’t escape.

  Desperate to reclaim the numbness, I picked up my glass.

  “That won’t help,” Vanessa said, before I could take the first sip. “In fact, drinking can make the flashbacks harder to fight. Anything that impairs your concentration will.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snapped, then drained the glass, leaving only ice to clink in the bottom.

  “Yes, I do.” She exhaled slowly. “You’re not the only one, Kori.”

  “Get out.” I couldn’t talk about it. I couldn’t even think about it without feeling sick and wanting to break something. Someone. It was easier to drink until I didn’t have to think about anything.

  Vanessa didn’t get out. She didn’t even get off the bar stool. “You need to talk to someone, and you obviously don’t want to talk to your sister.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because you haven’t told her.” Van ducked to catch my gaze. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know.”