Oath Bound (An Unbound Novel) by Rachel Vincent Page A

want to deal with Cavazos. Stay out of the west side unless you want to deal with Tower—which you evidently do.” His disgusted expression told me exactly how dumb he thought that decision was, and I bristled beneath his judgment. “And when someone asks to see your arm, you show them your damn arm, so they know whether or not they’re allowed to fuck with you. They won’t all be as nice about it as I’ve been.”
    “You call this nice?” I snapped.
    He stared at me for a second, apparently gauging the sincerity of my question, while his grandmother shook her head slowly at the table. My naïveté was evidently confounding.
    “This is the kid-glove treatment,” Kris said. “There are people out there who would have cut your clothes off the first time you refused.”
    “My shirt,” I corrected, and he shook his head.
    “The left arm is the most common place people are marked, but it’s not the only place.”
    Chills raced up my spine, then down into my hands, which began to shake. I glanced at his grandmother for confirmation, and she nodded solemnly.
    Kris’s gaze narrowed on me again, and he seemed to be studying me from a new perspective. “What the hell are you doing here, Sera? Girls like you don’t belong in the city.”
    “No one belongs here,” Gran said, and I let her answer stand for me.
    “Now, I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to turn around and pull your left arm out of your shirt and show it to me. You can keep everything else covered, but your left arm is non-negotiable. Got it?”
    “How am I supposed to prove I’m not marked anywhere else? I’m not taking anything off.”
    “No need.” Gran chuckled into her coffee, and I couldn’t believe the change in her from a few minutes earlier. “A whore would never be so hard to undress.”
    “Whore?” I blinked at Kris in incomprehension.
    “Cavazos marks his prostitutes with a red ring on the inner thigh.” He chuckled a little at my shocked expression. “Don’t worry. I’ve never met anyone less likely to bear a red mark in my life.”
    I wasn’t sure whether or not that was a compliment.
    “I’m going to let go and back up, and you’re going to show me your arm. Ready?”
    “If I do, you’ll open the front door?”
    He frowned. “No, but showing me your arm will put you one step closer to that. Here goes...”
    He let go of my right hand and removed his left arm from my shoulders. Then he backed up several steps, still watching me.
    My heart thumped in my ears as I turned slowly, reluctant to put him at my back, even with his grandmother in the room. My focus raked the counter next to the fridge in search of a weapon. But there was nothing within easy reach.
    I would have shown him my arm, if that would have gotten me released. But since it wouldn’t, I couldn’t see the point in capitulating. In letting him think I could be pushed around.
    Instead of pulling my arm free from my sleeve, I spun and launched myself at Kris. I rammed him in the chest with my shoulder, just like my dad had taught me when I was twelve.
    Air burst from his lungs and he stumbled backward into the table, which slid across the floor and into the far wall without even spilling his grandmother’s coffee.
    Gran cackled as he tried to stand, holding his spine where it had hit the table, and I ran for freedom. I had both hands wrapped around the window frame when he grabbed my arms from behind.
    I lost my balance when he jerked my arms behind me and would have fallen headfirst out the window if he hadn’t hauled me back in, pinning my wrists in one of his hands.
    “Let go!” I twisted and kicked backward, but a second later something cold and hard wrapped around my wrists. A soft zipping sound froze me in place, and the plastic around my wrists got tighter. “Are you serious? A zip tie?” Why would he even have those if he wasn’t planning to take a hostage?
    He spun me around to face him again, anger drawn in every line of his face,