Shadow Bound (Unbound) (16 page)

“How is that even possible?” Ian frowned, and there was something new behind his eyes. It looked like…fear. But surely that was just the dim lighting playing tricks. He wasn’t scared of signing with Jake, so why on earth would he be scared of my little sister?

“I don’t know. She hadn’t had any training. My best guess is that the purity of her intent was off the charts. She
really
wanted us to be friends forever.” Another shrug. “She thought of them as her friends, too.”

“And did that work? Are you still close to the other three?” Ian looked fascinated, but I couldn’t miss the tight line of his jaw and the way his hand still clutched his glass.

“The binding worked flawlessly. The intent failed miserably.” And all of us had suffered from both.

“So you don’t talk to them anymore?”

I shrugged. “Noelle’s dead. Olivia and Anne…well, it’s not safe for us to see each other,” I said, and Ian frowned, like he wanted to argue. Like he might want to convince me that nothing was more important than our human connections—a concept my grandmother had drilled into me from the day my parents died. But I didn’t need to hear that from him. “Bindings never favor those being bound, Ian. Ever. Even most married couples who are totally, sloppily in love when they say the words will one day resent the binding that ties them together.”

His brows rose. “You don’t believe in love?”

“Of course I believe in love,” I admitted, and his eyes widened in surprise. “But I also believe that binding yourself to someone is the quickest, most efficient way to kill that love. Love should stand on its own feet, with no force or obligation.”

“So, you’d never sign a sealed marriage contract?”

“Hell no. Binding yourself to someone else is like literally tying yourself to them. Eventually the ropes start chafing and you can’t move without pain and the constant reminder that even if you wanted to leave, you couldn’t. When love has to be defined by an inability to leave, it isn’t really love. Real love is staying with someone because you want to be there, not because you have no other choice. Anything else is just lust, or obsession, or something less innocent.”

The waitress set our third drinks on the table, and I asked for the check and two glasses of water. But Ian was still frowning, still thinking through my discourse on love. “Is Tower bound to his wife?”

“Not in the way that you’re thinking.” He wasn’t obligated to stay with her, and the opposite was also true. “And she’s not bound to the syndicate, either. She’s his wife, not his employee.”

“And you like that about him?”

“No.” There was nothing I liked about Jake Tower, except the fact that he’d kept Kenley safe, even if he had his own reasons for doing that. “But I respect it.”

Ian nodded faster, like he understood. “But you don’t respect his business—the political influence that is his bread and butter?”

“Names and blood are his bread and butter. Which sounds kind of disgusting, when you put it that way. But he doesn’t limit himself to politics. He works with casting directors, record labels, and all kinds of the rich and soulless who’ll do and pay anything to slant the odds in their favor. He also has a growing reputation with patent holders and inventors in the technical sector. You wouldn’t believe how much money there is to be made in new tech. And how reluctant the designers are to give up their rights to their own inventions.”

“Bastards. Where’s their team spirit?” Ian’s eyes sparkled in good humor for the first time since he’d seen Jake’s pet project.

“Always thinking of themselves,” I said, grasping at an opportunity to lighten the mood, because anything was better than the way he’d been looking at me earlier. “There’s no
I
in intellectual property.”

“So, where does Tower get these names and blood samples? I assume he doesn’t just go jabbing strangers with needles.”

“Don’t assume anything.” I drained the last of my drink and thanked the waitress when she set two glasses of water on the table. When she was gone, he watched me, waiting for me to continue. “Let’s just say there’s a nurse’s uniform hanging in my closet, and it’s not for Halloween.”

“Stealth phlebotomy. Illegal, immoral and incredibly dangerous. But also devilishly clever. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t my idea, and I’m not proud of it. There are a million other ways to do it, though. Shadow-walk into one of the older courthouses, where they still keep physical copies of birth and marriage certificates. Steal someone’s wallet. Break into the bloodmobile while everyone’s gone to lunch.”

“And you don’t feel guilty about that? About taking blood meant to save someone’s life?”

I shrugged, hoping he couldn’t read the thoughts behind my next words. “Guilt is one of those concepts that has no practical application.” And the truth was that the blood I took did save someone’s life. It kept Jake—not to mention my own body—from killing me for disobeying orders.

“So, what would I be doing, specifically. What did the last Blinder do?”

“Not as much as you’ll be able to do, that’s for sure.”

“Because I’m stronger?” He looked vaguely uncomfortable as he spoke, like he wasn’t used to honking his own horn.

“That and because you’re…um…” I made a vague gesture at his face, reluctant both to admit the truth and to understand that reluctance.

“I’m…um…left-handed?” Ian grinned. “A democrat? A nonsmoker?”

I huffed in irritation. He was going to make me say it. “Because you don’t smell like cheese, jiggle when you walk, or snort with every other breath because you refuse to get your sinuses flushed out. Also, you’re not…horribly offensive to the eyes.” I mumbled the last part, hoping he wouldn’t hear, yet wouldn’t ask me to repeat.

“Ms. Daniels, unless I’ve misinterpreted that colorful description of everything I’m not, it sounds like you just paid me a compliment.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what I did.” In fact, I’d gone out of my way to make
sure
that’s not what I was doing.

“Oh, I think it is. I think you just said that I’d be better at the job than Tower’s last Blinder was because I’m not unattractive. First of all, thank you. Compliment accepted.” He bowed his head slightly, like I’d just offered to crown him king of the universe. Then, in the next second, he pasted on a frown. “Second of all, I am offended on behalf of pretty people everywhere. I’m not just a chiseled jaw and eyes you could get lost in. I am worth more than the sum of my defined biceps, sculpted pecs and a six-pack you could scrub laundry on.”

I nearly choked on an ice cube. “You have a six-pack?”

“Okay, maybe a four-pack. At
least
a carton of hard lemonade. But my point is that you have no right to judge my potential as a crime lord’s lackey by my looks alone.”

I nodded solemnly. “Don’t hate you because you’re beautiful. Got it.”

His brows rose and I knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth. “You just called me beautiful.”

“My point was that you’ll be able to blend in when you need to and stand out when you need to, and Ray Bailey couldn’t do either of those. You’ll be able to flirt your way into secure spaces, then open the door for a Traveler to bring in the rest of the crew.”

“You’re saying that Tower will exploit me for my looks?” Holt asked, and at first I thought that was another joke. It seemed too obvious a statement to be serious.

“He’ll exploit everything you are and everything you have. Your job description will read something like, ‘whatever the hell Jake Tower wants from you.’”

Someone cleared her throat next to our table, and I looked up to see the waitress standing there with nothing in her hands. “Is there anything else I can get you two?” she asked, and I realized she was hinting at the check, which meant her shift was probably over.

“No, I think we’re fine.” I set my credit card on top of the bill—the syndicate would reimburse me after I filed the receipt—and she slid both into the pocket of her black apron. Then she picked up my empty short glass and when she turned to say something to Ian, the glass she held slammed into Ian’s full glass of water. Which then slammed into mine. The water from both glasses poured over the edge of the table and onto my lap like a miniature waterfall. An
ice-cold
waterfall that splashed all the way up to my chin and soaked through my jeans so fast I may as well have been sitting on a glacier.

The waitress stared, frozen. And for a moment, I was too stunned to move.

Then that moment was over.

“Son of a motherfucking, ass-reaming, shit-eating, hell-dodging soulless bitch!” I stood too fast and my head swam, and the water poured down my pants to form freezing puddles in my boots.

Ian burst into laughter, the waitress burst into tears, and more profanity exploded from my mouth so fast I couldn’t even tell what I was saying. But the whole damn bar heard it.

“I’m so sorry!” the waitress blubbered. “Here, let me help.” She pulled off her grease-stained black apron and started wiping at my crotch until a growl rumbled up from somewhere deep inside me.

“Get. The fuck. Off me,” I said, so soft I barely heard the words. She backed away, clutching her apron in one shaking fist.

“I’m so sorry. Let me take care of the bill.” She set my credit card back on the table.

“It’s coming out of your check,” the bartender called from across the bar, and the waitress flinched.

“That’s not necessary.” Ian dropped a fifty and a twenty on the table, then grabbed my credit card and reached for my arm. But he stopped just short of touching me and held one hand out toward the back of the bar instead, gesturing for me to go first.

I stomped stiffly toward the bathroom, acutely aware that everyone was watching me. There was no sound, other than our footsteps. No silverware clanged. No ice cubes clinked. There was just me and my walk of shame.

In the back hall, Ian held the door to the tiny, one-person women’s room for me, then followed me in and bolted the door while I cursed under my breath. “It’s just a little water,” he said, pulling handfuls of brown paper towels from the dispenser next to the sink.

“It’s fucking Niagara Falls in my pants. With ice.”

“There is a backlog of crude jokes in here just begging to be cracked,” he said, tapping his own temple for emphasis. “But I want you to know that I’m holding them all back out of respect for your pain. I, too, have been the victim of an ice-water crotch deluge. There’s no way to bear it gracefully.”

“You’re fucking right about that.” And frankly, I was surprised to hear that he knew any crude jokes.

He chuckled again while I snatched the first handful of towels from him and started blotting my pants. “You can’t help it, can you?”

“Can’t help what?” I was cold. And wet. And starting to shiver, which pissed me off.

“Profanity flows through your veins like blood, doesn’t it? I bet you can’t go a single day without bursting into a string of expletives foul enough to set a nun’s habit on fire.”

“The hell I can’t,” I mumbled, and he laughed again. “I said I could. I didn’t say I
would
.”