Shadow Bound

“Blinders are rare, and you’re the best I’ve ever seen. That makes you very valuable, and I’d bet my best knife that we’re not the only ones who’ve made you an offer?” Her sentence ended on a question, and I could only nod. “Right now, everyone’s playing nice and pulling out the best china because you’re being recruited. But if that doesn’t work, you’ll be hunted. And eventually you will be caught, and when that happens, you’ll be all out of choices. It’s a winner-takes-all kind of game.”

“I’m assuming there’s a silver lining to this cloud of doom?” The cloud that had been hanging over me since I was twelve years old, when my mother explained how the rarity and power of my Skill would shape the rest of my life. As a kid, I’d thought she was being paranoid. As an adult, I’d learned better.

“The silver lining is that at this stage in the game, you can still decide what mark you want to bear. Who you want to serve. Because you will wind up serving someone.” Kori shrugged and glanced longingly at the corked bottle of vodka. “Hell, I’m not sure how you went unnoticed as long as you did.”

Flying below the syndicates’ radar hadn’t been easy, and dipping beneath it again once this was over would no doubt be even harder.

“That’s a rather ominous bit of truth,” I said, committing to nothing.

Kori shrugged again. “It can’t be changed, so you might as well understand your options.”

“And those would be …?”

“The Tower syndicate, or some other, inferior organization.”

Or … door number three, the option she either didn’t know existed or didn’t believe possible: hide.

“And the others are inferior because …?”

“Because we have the best of everything.” She leaned closer, and I expected to smell vodka on her breath, but I couldn’t, and suddenly I wanted to kiss her, to see if I could taste it. Or maybe just to taste her.

I blinked in surprise at the thought, but Kori didn’t seem to notice. She was still talking.

“Jake wants you,” she said, staring straight into my eyes. “I mean he really fucking wants you, which gives you more power going into negotiations than most people have. You could get just about whatever you want out of him.”

Was it my imagination, or did she seem a little pleased at the idea of me taking Tower for all he was worth? More than pleased. She looked … excited. Her lips parted and her eyes shone with eagerness. She looked fierce, like the chain links on her arm could restrain her, but never truly tame her.

And as she watched me, probably waiting to see the gleam of greed that would tell her I was interested, I had a sudden, dangerous, treacherous thought. What would Tower give me, if I asked? Would he give me her?

I hated the thought as soon as I’d had it. People can’t be given as gifts. They shouldn’t be, anyway. Especially people like Kori Daniels, whose nature obviously couldn’t be suppressed, even by direct orders. Giving her to someone else would be like caging a wild bird, only to see the bright, beautiful feathers you loved fall out and fade at the bottom of the cage.

But with that one lecherous thought, and the momentary failure of my own moral compass, I suddenly understood why someone might join a syndicate. Someone who wanted or needed something badly. Something he had no chance of getting on his own.

Everyone has a price. Tower’s advantage in life was that he knew that and had no problem exploiting it.

“What is it you think I should ask for?” I turned my glass up and drank until the ice cubes bumped my lip, Scotch scorching its way down my throat, where I wished it could purge that lascivious thought from me. I couldn’t afford to want the bait dangled in front of me. “What could I possibly ask for that would make it easier to take orders?”

“An extra chain link.” She poured more Scotch into my glass, and I watched her light up with excitement over an idea I obviously didn’t understand. She was beautiful in that moment. Intense, and dangerous.

“If I don’t want the orders that come with signing on for five years, why the hell would I sign on for ten?”

“You wouldn’t.” Kori smiled and pushed the glass toward me. “You’d ask—no, you’d demand a second mark for free. A five-year commitment, with the seniority of a second-tier initiate. With two chain links, there are fewer people who can boss you around, thus fewer orders to follow.”

“Why stop there? Why not ask for three or four links?”

Kori’s expression darkened, and that spark in her eyes died. She leaned over the bar to grope for something and when she sat down again, she had a plastic jar of snack mix in one hand. “Seniority comes with responsibility. The more you ask him for, the more he’ll want from you in return.”

Things I wasn’t going to want to do, obviously.

“Two is the perfect number.” She unscrewed the lid on the snack mix and offered me the jar. “You have enough rank to avoid static from the bottom two rungs, but not enough seniority to obligate you to do … things above your pay grade.”

I took a handful of pretzels and peanuts. “Things like what?”

Kori just scrounged up a small smile and shook her head. “Even if I knew what my superiors’ duties were, I couldn’t tell you. Some things—many things—you can’t know until you bear his mark.”

I wanted to pursue the issue. I wanted to ask her if Tower had ever given her an order she didn’t want to follow. If he’d ever made her do something that made her skin crawl or rotted a bit of her soul. But picking at her emotional scabs—making her talk about things she obviously didn’t want to remember—seemed cruel. Too cruel, considering what else I had to do. I hadn’t come into Tower’s territory to be recruited by Kori Daniels.

I’d come to kill her sister.

Five

Kori

I’d said too much. I could tell from the way he was sipping his second glass of Scotch, looking at me like I was some code he’d already started to crack. Like he could rearrange the words I’d spoken until they said what he needed to hear.

Holt knew what to ask. He knew what not to ask. I wasn’t sure whether I was playing him or being played by him, and that scared the shit out of me. I had to regain the upper hand, or Kenley would pay for my failure.

“You done with that?” he asked, and I followed his focus to the bottle of Goose.

“Almost.” I uncorked the bottle and took another swig, then pushed the cork back in.

“Well, you might as well take it with you,” Jake said, and I turned so fast the room spun around me. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame like he’d been there all night. “No one else is going to want any, after your mouth’s been on the bottle.”

I wondered how much he’d seen. How much he’d heard. But I got nothing from his expression, as usual.

“The alcohol will kill any germs,” I said, but I took the bottle with me when I stood. Never let it be said that I turned down good vodka. The shit under my bed at Kenley’s would take paint off a car.

“Are you ready to rejoin the party?” Jake said, as Holt finished his drink, still seated, and evidently unhurried.

Holt set his glass down, the remaining ice cubes small enough to swallow now. “Actually I’m kind of tired from my flight. I think I’m going to call it a night.”

Jake nodded. “Kori will drive you to your hotel. But I’m sure Nina and Julia would like to say goodbye before you go.” He stepped out of the doorway to let Holt pass, and when I started to follow, Tower blocked the doorway with his arm. “Korinne will meet you at the front door.”

Holt glanced at me, then nodded and headed down the hall.

Jake closed the door behind him, and my hand clenched around the neck of the bottle I still held. “Explain,” he ordered.

“You said to do whatever it takes.”

“And recruiting Holt required Scotch from my personal liquor cabinet, in the off-limits portion of my home?”

I shrugged. “He has good taste.”

“Shall I assume the privacy helped you get to know each other?” he asked, and I nodded. “And does he like you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does he want you?”