Page 52 of Claiming Sarah

I was preparing to lose everything.

After a bath, I dressed in the clothes laid out for me, and in all truth, they were quite fine. A silk suit so darkly green that it was almost black. Proper leather shoes, appropriate to the suit. The mirror told me it was a perfect fit, but nothing about this felt right.

What game is Rex playing at?

Someone knocked on my door, signaling it was time for supper. I followed my escort, a quiet man, to the dining hall. Rex’s home was dark and ostentatious, with tapestries and weapons displayed along the candled walls. Terians were as wealthy as my family, but they did not like Rex. He had brought shame to them. So why would they afford him such a lavish deathstyle?

My head was filled with questions, none more important than the location of my two companions. As I turned to walk through the doorway to the dining room, a grin bolted across my face at the sight of them. Relief filled me from head to toe,considering I hadn’t seen Jac since he’d been sent off to the arena, or Sarah since she’d left for the concession stand. They both looked healthy and unharmed, thank the gods.

“Sarah, Jac!” I ran to them, kissing each before I sat next to Jac, after he gestured for me to take the empty seat there. “Where have you been?”

Sarah smiled at me, and there was no fear or anger in her eyes. Whatever her time with Rex, it had not been entirely unpleasant. “Rex generously took me to his tower box for the fights, where I was treated to some very good booze and massages and food. Had I not been completely terrified for Jac, it would have been fun.”

But Jac’s eyes were haunted. “As you saw, I was in a horrific fight. Then I was taken to Rex. And a drunken Sarah.”

“I’m not drunk!” she said with a drunken giggle.

Oh hell. Well, at least she wasn’t scared, like in all my nightmarish thoughts.“Did Rex…did he do anything to you? Either of you?”

“No,” Sarah said with a cheerful smile.

“Plenty,” Jac said in a low, terse voice.

“Of course I’ve done plenty to you, Jac. I would hate for you to be bored,” Rex flirted as he entered the dining area.

I had forgotten the inherently intimate purr in his voice. Handsome as ever, even in death. His black suit was perfection, much like the rest of him.

Rex met my gaze and grinned as he took the chair at the head of the table. “Deacon, so good of you to come.”

Not that I had a real choice in the matter, bastard.But aloud, I said, “Where they go, I will follow.”

“Yes, that much is obvious,” he drawled. “I would have thought you would never willingly enter my home, my boy, so I had to do something to tempt you here.”

He opened a bone bottle and poured the dark amber liquid into a bone-stemmed glass. Then his servants poured us the same liquor into regular glasses.

It was then that I looked around the room. Enormous and decorated to match the rest of the manor, and dark as well, save for the roaring fireplace behind Rex. The rectangular table had seating for twenty, with Rex at the head of it, of course. We were seated in a line at his right hand, with Sarah closest to him.

Rex raised his glass in a toast and waited for us to do the same. We joined him, and with his eyes on me, he said, “To the truth. May it ever bring freedom.”

He is going to spill my secret. Son of a dreck, I hate him. Just do it already and put me out of my misery!

But I forced a smile and replied, “To the truth,” with the others before we drank.

His rich navy eyes were black in the low light as they bore into my skull, until he finally turned his attention to my consort. “So, Sarah, why don’t you tell your companions how much you flirted with me when we first met.”

She giggled and blushed, completely at ease with one of the most dangerous men I knew. “I was not flirting, Rex. That was all you.”

“I suppose it was, wasn’t it?” he said in a sly tone.

“Why flirt with a united woman?” Jac asked, openly glaring at our nemesis.

Rex shrugged unabashedly. “The better to assess the strength of her union. Plus, her delightful little body and that face…” He inhaled swiftly, smiling mischievously at Sarah. “How could I not?”

Jac’s hand tightened around his dinner knife. He knew it would do nothing against Rex—it was not made of bone—but his knuckles went white, all the same. “Perhaps decorum should have stopped you?”

Rex laughed heartily and lightly touched Sarah’s arm. To my surprise, she shivered as though she had felt it.

And she had liked it.What the hell has he already done to her?

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