Oath Bound. Rachel Vincent

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СКАЧАТЬ Kenni leaned back with her head against her girlfriend’s shoulder, and Van laid the cool rag over her forehead, offering wordless comfort in the face of the enormous task we’d all undertaken. A task that felt more impossible by the day.

      A binding is like a metaphorical—and metaphysical—rope, tying one person to another. Or one person to his oath. Or one person into obedience or employment. My sister Kenley was one of the most powerful Binders in the world, but she would gladly have given up her Skill, if that meant escaping the notice of syndicate leaders who wanted to “hire” her for her ability.

      The problem with syndicate employment is that it isn’t just a job, it’s an existence. Worse. It’s indentured servitude, wherein the employee is obligated to do whatever the employer requires, within the bounds of the contract they signed and sealed, usually in blood. For however long that contract lasts.

      A five-year term is the standard. Five years in syndicate service feels like an eternity.

      Kenley and Kori each served six and a half.

      Before Jake Tower died, Kenley was the most important cog in the Tower syndicate machine—the gear that kept the engine running. Tower’d had administrators, accountants, clerical staff and laborers to do the day-to-day work. He’d had muscle—like Kori—to enforce the rules. He’d even had a pool of highly specialized lawyers on-staff to write iron-clad employment contracts.

      And he’d had Kenley to seal those contracts, locking people into his service in bindings so strong that only she could break them.

      Of course, the terms of her own contract had prevented her from freeing anyone she’d bound into service, but now that she was no longer a Tower employee, she was trying to do the right thing. To free all the people she’d enslaved by breaking the bindings she’d sealed for Jake Tower, which had transferred to his sister, Julia, upon his death.

      We were all trying to help her, but the process was slow. And difficult. And dangerous, because Julia Tower didn’t want those bindings broken. Each one Kenley psychically severed robbed Julia of another employee, eroding the source of her inherited wealth and power.

      “I know this sucks, Kenni, and I hate being stuck here as much as anyone.” Kori glanced around at the house where we’d spent almost every waking moment of the past three months, hiding from Julia Tower and her henchmen. I could practically see cabin fever raging behind her eyes. “But it could be worse, right? At least there’s no resistance pain.”

      The binding enslaving Kenley to the Tower syndicate had been broken when I’d killed the Binder who’d sealed it. Okay, there may have been some doubt about whose bullet actually hit him first, but the point is that since the Binder was dead, breaking the bindings she’d sealed was no longer in violation of Kenni’s oath. Which is good, because when you resist a sealed oath, your body starts to shut down one organ at a time until you give in and keep your word.

      Or you die.

      But even without the resistance pain, breaking each binding one at a time was still long, mentally exhausting work for Kenley, even with the rest of us pitching in to identify and contact those who wanted out of their oaths to Tower and to coordinate the secure, clandestine meetings.

      The project had taken over our lives, and it was as much a survival effort on our part as an effort to liberate those who wanted freedom. As long as Julia Tower had employees bound into her service, she’d have the resources and power to eventually hunt us down and eliminate the threat we represented.

      “So, who’s next?” Ian Holt sank onto the couch next to Kori, and she leaned into him, a display of trust and affection I’d rarely seen from her. I don’t know how he got through her mile-thick outer shell, but I do know that I’ve never seen her happier. And I know that Ian helped free Kori, Kenni and Vanessa from that bastard Jake Tower, and that he’d stuck around to help us free everyone else Kenley had been forced to bind. As far as we were all concerned, Ian was part of the family, even if Kori never got around to putting a ring on his finger.

      “Um …” I checked my list again. “Rick Wallace.” I glanced at Kori. “What do we know about him?”

      She shrugged. “He’s a Silencer. Average strength. Mid-thirties. He’s also a world-class asshole who’s literally never heard ‘no’ from a woman, because he sucks the sound right out of the word every time one tries to say it. I’m not surprised he wants out from under Julia Tower, but I’m kind of surprised he’d contact us, considering how many times I’ve threatened to cut his tongue out and serve it to his latest ‘date’ on a toasted hot-dog bun.”

      Ian made a face. “That’s disgusting,”

      Kori nodded solemnly. “So is Rick Wallace.”

      “Agreed. But no one deserves to be tied to Julia Tower,” Kenley insisted, and Kori kept her mouth shut, though she obviously wanted to argue. “When and where is the meeting?”

      “Meghan’s parents’ house,” Ian said. His sister-in-law had offered to let us use the house when she and his twin brother left town.

      “Olivia’s already securing the site,” Kori added. “We’re supposed to meet her there in half an hour. If you’re sure you feel like it.”

      “I’m fine.” Kenley squared her shoulders and sat straighter. “Let’s just get it over with.”

      “Eat something first,” Vanessa insisted, and before Kenley could object, Van was halfway to the kitchen in search of food.

      I followed her, headed for the coffeepot, and my grandmother looked up from the stove when she saw me. “Kristopher, the knobs are missing.”

      “Really?” I frowned down at the stove. “That’s weird.” We’d had to take the knobs off the day before, when she lit the fire under one gas burner, but forgot to put a pot over the flame and nearly caught the whole damn house on fire.

      “What happened to them?”

      “I dunno, Gran. Maybe Liv or Cam will track them for us.” Olivia and her boyfriend were both Trackers, but he worked mainly with names, while she worked with blood.

      “Don’t get smart with me, Kristopher Daniels,” Gran snapped. “I’ll ground you till you’re twenty-five years old, and you can forget the senior prom.”

      She’d lit the candles on my thirtieth birthday cake six months earlier, and I couldn’t even remember most of my senior prom. Which is how I know I probably enjoyed the hell out of it. Or maybe that was the after-party …

      “I’m not getting smart, Gran.”

      “Well, that’s the truth …” Kori mumbled beneath her breath as she walked past on her way to the fridge, and I ignored her.

      “I’ll look into the missing knobs, I swear.”

      “Do it now. I want to make some—” Gran’s scowl morphed into an instant smile when she noticed Vanessa taking the lid off a plastic container of cookies. “You two make such a cute couple.”

      “Gran …” I started, but she slapped my arm, which was only a minor improvement over the way she used to slap the back of my head when I was twelve and the occasional—okay, frequent—profanity slipped out.

      She’d given up smacking Kori for cussing СКАЧАТЬ