Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel)

by Rachel Vincent

  I scowled and picked up my mug. “That’s not me. I’m not clean-cut, and I don’t sound like that.”

  “Yes, you are, and you do. Stop pouting.” She tried to hide a grin by sipping from her cocoa. “And if you ‘forget’ you don’t belong in the center bedroom one more time, I’m going to have you declared legally brain dead.”

  “I’m brain dead?” I set my mug down and scowled at her, and she nodded, chuckling now.

  “Though that appears to be a selective defect. I haven’t seen you forget a single meal, yet you can’t seem to remember where you sleep at night.”

  “This, coming from the woman who tried to give a gun to Ned-the-guard, so he could relieve us of the burden of drawing regular breaths in a body free from extraneous holes.”

  “That’s not what I...” She frowned and abandoned the rest of her sentence. “Let me see this poetry.” Sera reached for the notebook, but I pulled it out of her grasp.

  “It’s not poetry,” I admitted reluctantly. I didn’t want her to be right about the brain-dead badass thing. “I’m not sure I’d even recognize poetry if I saw it, outside of Dr. Seuss.”

  She was still smiling, and I considered that a bit of a victory. “So, what is it? A journal?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You’re not writing in it.” She made a show of studying the tabletop. “I don’t see a pen. So you were just sitting here reading your own journal?” When I didn’t answer immediately, her brows furrowed. “That’s not yours, is it? You’re reading someone else’s journal. Is it Kori’s? What are you, nine?” She reached for the notebook and I tried to pull it away again, but that time I was too slow. Or maybe I didn’t believe she’d really take it.

  I was wrong, and she was fast.

  “Wait, Sera...” I held one hand out to her, then realized I had no idea what to do with it. “I feel like we’ve made serious strides in the you-not-wanting-to-castrate-me-with-a-kitchen-knife department, and I’d hate to ruin all that by having to actually take that away from you. But I will if I have to. It’s not Kori’s journal. It’s mine. It’s just...not about me.”

  “Why would you keep a journal about someone else? Are you some kind of creepy stalker?” she said, and I wasn’t sure whether or not that was a joke. She didn’t seem very sure, either. “Is that about the last woman you kidnapped and locked up?”

  “Give it back. Please.”

  When I didn’t smile and showed no sign of relenting, she hesitated for one more second, studying my eyes, probably for some hint of violent tendencies. Other than the ones she’d already seen from me. Then she set the notebook on the table and slid it toward me.

  But things were different now. Half an hour earlier, she’d trusted me enough to tell me that she’d seen her family murdered, and now that trust was gone. Suspicion swam in her eyes like tears that would never fall. Distrust was obvious in the straight line her lips had been pressed into and in the firm set of her jaw.

  I could tell her the truth, or I could lose her confidence. Which might mean losing her as a Jammer. But as reluctant as I was to admit it, the possibility of losing her Skill wasn’t what bothered me.

  What bothered me was the thought of losing her trust. Of never again seeing her laugh with me, because she couldn’t lower her guard long enough to see the humor in what I’d meant to say, when it came out all wrong. I wanted to see her smile again. I wanted to make her smile, and as soon as I’d had that thought, I had to shut it down, because somehow I’d slipped right back into the delusion that she might become interested in more than just my trigger finger.

  But she wouldn’t. Even if she thought she could, she was wrong. I knew that because I’d been in her position, unable to truly move forward with life—or give any new relationship a chance—while I was still mourning Noelle.

  Sera wasn’t here because she was beautiful, or smart, or brave. She wasn’t here because I wanted her here. Or because I wanted to help her. Or because seeing her in the morning made me smile, in spite of the fear and anger practically stagnating in our locked-tight house. Sera was with us because she could somehow help us—because Noelle had known that—and that was all.

  The sooner I got that through my baddass-next-door brain, the better off we’d both be.

  But I still couldn’t stand the thought of her hating me.

  “Okay. Sera, wait,” I said, and she sat again, reluctantly, and sipped from her mug. “I’ll tell you about the journal. But you’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

  “I already think you’re crazy.” It sounded like she was joking, but her smile was still absent, so I couldn’t tell for sure.

  “I used to kind of...be with this girl. She was a Seer. And she talked in her sleep.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “My ex snored. What does that have to do with your journal?”

  I pushed my gun and half-empty mug aside to make room for the notebook on the table between us. “She was a Seer, Sera. She could see the future. Bits of it, anyway. And sometimes the things she said in her sleep were...prophesy. Or whatever you call it.”

  Her brows rose. “How do you know?”

  “Because some of them came true. So I started...um...writing them down.” I pushed the notebook toward her and when she glanced at me in question, I nodded, giving her permission to peek.

  Sera opened the front cover and stared at the name written at the top of the page. Noelle Maddox. “Is that the Noelle? Hadley’s real mother?”

  I nodded.

  “Does that mean that you’re... That Hadley is...”

  “Mine?” I said, and she nodded. “No. There has been some question about her paternity, but I’m not among the possibilities. We weren’t together when she got pregnant.”

  “So, Elle was with you and with Olivia’s boss? Cavazos?”

  “Yeah, but again, not at the same time. It’s kind of...confusing.”

  “No kidding.” Sera’s finger slid from Noelle’s name to the date written on the first line. “That was twelve years ago.”

  “Yeah. Shortly after the first time we...got together.”

  “So, you slept with a Seer? And took notes?” She flipped through the notebook, and her eyes widened. “A lot of notes. Which would imply a lot of...sleeping.”

  “Yeah.” Sometimes Elle and I had had sleepovers even when she and Kori weren’t on speaking terms.

  I drank from my mug again, trying to decide how I felt about Sera reading from Noelle’s journal. Not that she was actually reading it, unless she was some kind of super-freak speed-reader. She seemed more interested in the number of passages.

  So I tried to decide how I felt about Sera being interested in the number of Noelle’s night-mumblings I’d recorded. And maybe the frequency. Fortunately, she couldn’t judge duration or skill unless she really could read between the lines.

  “Why would you take notes?” She looked up from the notebook with her hand spread across the open page.

  “Why wouldn’t I take notes? It was like looking into the future through a telescope, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity, even if the lens was out of focus and I couldn’t actually aim it at anything.” I fingered the sharp end of the spiral notebook binding. “Since then, I’ve tried to figure some of them out, but...”

  “But it reads like nonsense?” And this time she really was reading. Skimming, at least.

  “Yeah. Until something happens, and suddenly one or two of those will make sense. In retrospect, they seem so obvious, but on the front end, it’s like reading a foreign language, without a Noelle-to-Kristopher dictionary.”

  She didn’t look up from the page. “Sounds frustrating.”

  “You have no idea.” I took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to say what needed to be said without freaking her out any more than necessary. “You’re in there, Sera.”

  “What?” She looked up from the passage she’d been reading to frown at me.

  “You’re in there.” I took the notebook from her and flipped throug
h the pages, looking for one specific line among hundreds. It was one I knew well, because it was one of few that seemed to give me instructions, rather than random snatches from a conversation I’d never actually been a part of. And finally I found it.

  I spun the notebook around on the table, my finger over the date on the entry in question. “See?”

  “‘Take the girl in the yellow scarf,’” she read. Then she looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes, her fingers hovering around her collarbone, as if she still wore that scarf. “That’s me? That’s why you kidnapped me? Because of my scarf?”

  “I didn’t kidnap you,” I insisted, and she started to argue, but I spoke over her. “Okay, technically, maybe I kidnapped you, but that’s not the point. I didn’t take you because of the scarf—that’s just how I knew who you were. I took you because you’re important.”

  “Important how?” Her voice sounded hollow. Skeptical. “Important to what? To whom?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, and she looked so disappointed I wanted to take it back. But I couldn’t claim to have all the answers. “I hope you’re supposed to help us get Kenley back, or hide us while we get her back, but I doubt even Noelle knew for sure. Either way, though, you’re important enough to have been in one of her predictions years ago. Important enough for her to tell me to take you.” And that was the crux of the matter. The part I hadn’t been able to truly vocalize until that moment.

  Until I’d found Sera—until I’d seen her scarf and known exactly what to do—I’d never been truly sure that Noelle’s messages were meant for me. I’d always kind of thought, in the back of my mind, that I was just the random bastard lucky enough to be in bed with her when she started talking in her sleep. But Sera was proof to the contrary.

  Noelle had told me to take her—the girl with the yellow scarf. That prophesy was meant for me. Only for me. None of her other potential bed partners—and I wasn’t naive enough to think there hadn’t been several—was anywhere near Sera the day she had her yellow scarf on and needed to be removed from a dangerous situation.

  Those predictions were intended for my ears. I was meant to act on them.

  Yet I’d been failing in that respect for years. How many people had been hurt or killed because I was too stupid to interpret the prophesies?

  Suddenly the guilt I’d been living with for years, on the theoretical assumption that I could do some good with Noelle’s prophesies, felt like the weight of the world. Now that I knew for sure that I’d failed.

  “Why would she tell you to take me?” Sera asked. “It’s not like you were truly rescuing me—no one was shooting at me until you showed up. This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Neither does you being in my...Noelle’s journal, yet there you are.” I pointed to the passage again. “And now here you are. Maybe we were meant to meet, exactly like this. Maybe you’re supposed to help us get Kenley back, then hide us while she finishes her work. Maybe I’m supposed to help you avenge your family’s murder. Hell, maybe we’re supposed to adopt a pair of spotted dogs and raise a hundred and one of them, then save them from a homicidal fur lover. I have no idea what Noelle wanted us to do, but I know that I’m going to do it, whatever it is. And I’m going to kill the bastard who killed your family. I swear on my favorite gun.” I pushed the .45 toward her in demonstration, but she only frowned at it.

  “So, I was never a hostage? You weren’t going to trade me for Kenley?”

  “Of course not. I’m not a bad guy, Sera. I don’t hurt innocent people, I don’t find civilian casualties acceptable, and I’m much less reluctant than my sister is to deliver a mercy killing. Which, for the record, I never even considered for you. I didn’t bring you here to scare you, or lock you up, or hurt you in any way.”

  “No. You took me because some ex-lover told you to.” Her words felt like a warning. Like a siren spinning up in preparation to blast at full volume. But I couldn’t quite see the danger through the fog.

  “Well...yeah.”

  “Why did you kiss me, Kris?”

  “I...” I stumbled, caught off guard. There were so many reasons—more of them than I wanted to admit, even to myself. But they were all selfish. Not one of them was fair to her.

  “Was that in your book? Did Noelle tell you to kiss me?” She was angry now, and suddenly I could see the approaching storm. She thought I was still taking my cues from a dead woman’s dreams. That I’d kissed her not because I’d wanted to, but because I’d thought I was supposed to.

  “No. That was my own mistake, and I’m not going to blame it on Elle.”

  “Mistake?” Sera recoiled as though I’d slapped her, and I realized I’d fucked up. Again. Surely I was close to setting a record.

  “No.” I shook my head and reached for her hand beneath the table. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “So it wasn’t a mistake?”

  I exhaled slowly, trying to focus my thoughts. “I honestly don’t know.” In fact, I’d never been so conflicted in my life. “If it was a mistake, it was a wonderful mistake. But it wasn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry.”

  She frowned, confused. “It was a surprise, but that doesn’t make it unfair.”

  “It was unfair because you’re grieving, Sera. I didn’t mean to take advantage of that. I don’t want to take advantage. I shouldn’t have—”

  “What if it was fair for me?” She squeezed my hand. “What if I want you to take advantage?”

  “I’m not sure what that means.” My brain couldn’t process what she was saying, but my body was fully on board.

  “You’re a good guy. I wasn’t sure at first, but I am now, and I get that you don’t want to use me. But...people deal with grief in different ways, Kris.” She glanced down at the table, and when she met my gaze again, vulnerability shone in hers. “Haven’t you ever needed to touch someone? To be touched?”

  Panic burned deep in my chest, but something hotter smoldered even lower. She was saying all the things I’d want to hear under normal circumstances. Unburdening me of my conscience. But...

  But her eyes reflected something fragile and important. Something like a rose petal or a butterfly wing—too delicate to touch without bruising. And I had the psychological grip of an ogre. A brute’s emotional finesse. I wanted what she was offering—I wanted more than she was offering—but I’d been where she was, and I could see how vulnerable grief had made her, even if she couldn’t see it. I knew how our connection would end for her.

  In regret.

  I would want more, and she would want out.

  I pulled my hand from hers as gently as I could. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Sera. That’s not what I’m looking for.” I didn’t want to be something she regretted later. I didn’t want to be the Band-Aid she threw away when the wound healed. I wanted more than that. But she wasn’t ready for more.

  Sera’s eyes swam in pain, then when she blinked, all that was gone. She’d closed me out. But when she stood, shoving her chair back with the motion, her cheeks were scarlet.

  “Sera. I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away from me, and that ache in my chest became a constant, painful throb.

  “Don’t be sorry. I misinterpreted...things. Good night.” She didn’t even look back on her way into the living room, and I could only listen to her steps on the stairs, while I held a mug of homemade hot chocolate and grotesquely melted marshmallow Peep, trying to figure out how I’d managed to alienate the one woman in the world I actually wanted to be with. The first in six years.

  The first since Noelle.

  Damn it!

  I shoved the table, and it squealed across four feet of ancient linoleum.

  Seconds later, the living room floorboards creaked and I looked up to find Kori in the doorway. “What the hell is wrong with you?” my sister demanded. “She likes you. That couldn’t be more obvious.”

  I poked my melted Peep with one finger. “Where were you hiding?”

&
nbsp; “I wasn’t hiding. I was using Gran’s computer. Mine’s frozen again.” She pulled out the chair Sera had been sitting in and sank into it. “How was I supposed to know you’d pick tonight to demonstrate how little you’ve learned about women since your junior year of high school?”

  “It’s complicated. She’s complicated.”

  “Bullshit. Noelle was as complicated as they come, and you kept up with her for years, so why is it you can’t master one conversation with Sera?”

  “Do you have any constructive criticism, or is this just fun and games for you?”

  “This is a fucking tragedy, Kris. You like her. Why the hell would you turn her down?”

  “I turned her down because I like her.”

  “And, what, now you only sleep with girls you don’t like? Have I missed some new masochistic trend?”

  “Kori, I don’t want to be the grief-guy. That guy’s disposable. He’s not meant to outlast the mourning period. I want to be the guy that lasts, and she’s not ready for that guy yet.”

  “Are you listening to yourself?” She propped one elbow on the table and scowled at me. “Who the hell are you to decide what she’s ready for?”

  “I’ve been where she is. I took comfort from girls who had no idea they were disposable.”

  “Well, then, maybe this is karma kicking you in the nuts. But I doubt it. Sera’s not the selfish asshole you were when Elle died.”

  Sera was the furthest thing in the world from selfish, but... “She just offered me grief sex. How is that different from what I did?”

  Kori rolled her eyes and tossed pale hair over her shoulder. “She wasn’t talking about sex, you idiot. Well, not just sex. She’s lonely, Kris. She’s alone. Her entire family was murdered, and here we are flaunting a house full of siblings, and lovers, and grandmothers, and she’s still alone in the crowd. She just asked you for a human connection during the most difficult time of her life, and you slammed the damn door in her face. You fucking humiliated her. If you weren’t my brother, I’d kick you in the balls for her.”

  I stared into my cold mug, trying to reconcile what I’d thought I was saying with what Sera and Kori had obviously heard. “I didn’t mean to... It came out all wrong.”