Oath Bound (Unbound) - By Rachel Vincent Page 0,98

she knew I’d figured out exactly who I was and what I could take from her.

Pretense was over. The battle had just begun.

Only one of us could survive.

Fifteen

Kris

“Oh, shit...” I tried to block the dead man from Sera’s line of sight, but I could tell by her suddenly rapid breathing that she’d already seen. She tried to push past me, but I refused to move. I’d already lost Kenley by letting her rush into an unknown situation, and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Wait!” I whispered when she wouldn’t stop shoving. “It’s probably an ambush.”

“Bullshit.” Sera didn’t even bother to whisper. “They obviously knew we were coming—this was left here for us. If this were an ambush, they wouldn’t want us to know they knew we were coming.”

I had to think about that for a second; however, once I’d untangled her sentence, I couldn’t argue with it. But caution never hurts.

Kori and I fanned out for a quick search of the four other rooms emptying into the hallway, while Ian and his gun—fortunately, he’d been shot in his left shoulder—stood guard over Sera.

When we were sure the immediate area was deserted, I motioned for Ian to let her out of the men’s room. Sera shot an angry glance at me, but I was starting to get used to those. And I refused to feel guilty for trying to keep her safe. Angry-Sera was better than dead-Sera any day of the week.

Although agreeable-Sera would have been a nice change.

She knelt by Ned’s body, and when Kori and Ian took up posts on either side, I knelt with her to read the note pinned to the dead man’s bare chest.

His blood is on your hands.

“That’s Julia’s handwriting,” Kori said, and I looked up to see her staring at the note as if she’d seen a ghost. “She doesn’t usually get her hands dirty, but this time I’d bet my last drop of vodka that the bitch pinned it to him herself.”

“But how is his blood on our hands?” Sera said. “We let him live.”

Kori snorted. “That’s what got him killed.”

Sera stood and covered her face with both hands, then ran her fingers through her hair. Her hands were small. They looked softer than Kori’s and more feminine, with short rounded nails instead of bitten stubs. I wanted to touch one of them. Then she dropped them, and for a second she was looking right at me—until that seemed to make her uncomfortable and her gaze found the corpse again.

I tried not to be offended that she’d rather look at a dead man than at me.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, obviously collecting her thoughts. Trying to mentally move past the dead body. “My guess is that if your sister was ever here, she’s gone now.”

“Kenley was here.” I was sure of that. “They knew we’d figure it out, after talking to Ned, so they moved her and left him here for us to find. Unless you think Julia left us a rotting welcome gift at every warehouse we might think to search?”

Sera shook her head and I watched her, studying her intense focus. “You think Julia killed Ned because he didn’t kill us? Or because she knew it would upset you? Or because he told us they moved the blood farm to a warehouse?” It was a trick question, intended to test her growing understanding of syndicate life. The answer was: D. All of the above. Julia had killed him because she could.

“He’s dead because she doesn’t know what he told us,” Sera mumbled, rereading the note for at least the hundredth time, and I shook my head.

“Julia Tower is a Reader. The only way to keep her in the dark is to say nothing, and Ned didn’t have that option. He was bound to her.”

Sera started to argue—I could see it coming before she even opened her mouth—then seemed to think better of it. “Either way, they obviously knew we were coming. My bet is that this place is deserted.”

“Or they want us to think this place is deserted, so they can ambush us when we search it.” The warehouse was a trap. It had to be. If Julia wanted us dead—and she did—and knew we were coming—which she did—why not take advantage of the opportunity?

“Okay.” Kori glanced from Ian to me. Sera looked miffed that she wasn’t being consulted about the plan. “This hall has two exits.” The only two doors we hadn’t checked, because they were