Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,107

do then? Personal chauffeur? No car needed. The dark is my highway, anywhere you want to go. Or maybe you’d like a more personal kind of service?” His brows rose and his gaze raked over her with the innuendo, and I wanted to beat him until his blood stained my cuticles and soaked into Cavazos’s expensive carpet.

“Ew, no!” Sera said, and I almost laughed at Mitch’s insulted expression.

“Like I said, we’ve got her covered,” I insisted, and then they were all staring at me again, and it took me a second to realize what I’d just said. “Not like that. This isn’t that kind of...” Damn it. I snatched the bottle of whiskey from Kori and started over, while Ian made no effort to hide a grin. “I mean we’ve already got two Travelers, and Sera doesn’t need you. For anything.” I tipped the bottle up and took two swigs, hoping they’d all think it was the alcohol that made my cheeks burn.

“Succinctly put,” Ian said, and his delivery was so deadpan I almost missed the sarcasm.

“But accurate.” Kori took the bottle back and turned to Sera. “So, what do you want to do with him? And make it quick. This is a very temporary hideout.”

Sera glanced at Mitch in confusion. “What do you mean? Why do I have to do anything with him?”

My sister frowned at me, then at Ian, and I realized that Sera truly understood even less about syndicate life than I did. “It’s like teaching a chimp to play poker,” Kori mumbled, then took a swig from the bottle while Sera bristled. “You own him.” Kori wiped her lips with the back of one hand.

“I what?” If Sera’s eyes got any wider, they’d take over her whole face.

“You own him. Metaphorically.” I reached down for the leg of her chair and turned her to face me. “Mitch’s binding is like a dog’s leash. You’re holding it. Ergo, you effectively own him.”

“Mitch is a dog?”

Kori laughed and nearly choked on another mouthful of liquor. “According to a couple of his exes, yes. But the point is that you can’t just drop the leash.” She frowned, then amended. “Well, you can, but if you just walk away from him, you’re responsible for whatever damage he does, or whatever damage is done to him.”

“I don’t understand.” Sera’s foot tapped rapidly under the table, as if her nerves knew Morse code.

Kori tilted the bottle up again in my peripheral vision and I turned to grab it, then slid it across the table toward Ian. “Do something with that, will you?”

He shrugged, then took a hit for himself.

Great. If my sister had a superpower, it would be the ability to drive those around her to drink—at superspeeds.

I slid the whiskey lid across the table toward Ian, then turned to Sera. “Okay. Think about it like this—if a dog attacks someone, who do they hold responsible?”

“The owner...” Sera’s voice trailed off at the end of the word, and I could practically see comprehension surface behind her eyes. “But that’s not fair. He’s a person, not a dog.” She glanced at Mitch, who was watching our exchange with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting to see how this would play out. “He makes decisions based on thought, not instinct. He has upper-level reasoning—relatively speaking.” Mitch scowled, and Ian chuckled. “He has logic and free will!”

“But he doesn’t. Not really,” Kori insisted. “His will is yours, and if he hurts someone because you didn’t tell him not to, whether you’re legally responsible or not, I have a feeling you’ll have a hard time dealing with the guilt of not having prevented it.”

My sister’s words struck close to home, and I realized that Sera and I were in a similar position. Sort of.

“Which is why I told him not to hurt anyone,” Sera said.

“But that’s a problem all its own,” I said. “For instance, under that order, he can’t defend himself or anyone else without your say so. So if we leave him here, he’ll be dead in...what?” I glanced at Ian for a second opinion. “An hour?”

He nodded.

“Maybe less,” I added. “Julia’s extra pissy since your fortuitous arrival. Which means she’s probably trigger-happy. Metaphorically speaking.” Had Julia Tower ever even held a gun?

“Don’t assume she can’t shoot just because you’ve never seen her do it,” Ian warned. “That woman holds her cards close to her chest.”

Kori snorted. “Hell, they’re practically in her bra.”

“But my point is that if she finds him, she’ll kill