Free Shadow Bound (Unbound) by Rachel Vincent

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