Page 65 of Claiming Sarah

“Why give them the option?” Deacon asked, his tone skeptical.

“Because they’ve never had a choice before,” I said, trying to turn both of their misgivings into a more open minded approach. “To my knowledge, the conduits were always the slaveassistants of the Mothers. They never had the opportunity to live their own lives or be their own people. That’s not right. Power does not give someone the right to put people, or in this case ghost conduits, under their thumb like that. So, I believe they should get to choose. They can work for me, or be on their own, in which case, Rex or fate or whatever will happen.”

“For some reason, she believes the good in people,” Rex grumbled. “It’s obnoxious, but I have decided to allow it for now.”

Without thinking, I smacked the back of his hand to chastise him, and he quickly jerked his arm back. “I amnotobnoxious.”

He grimaced. “No, but you have a hell of a slap.”

“How the fuck did that just happen?” Jac said, his voice raised in disbelief.

“Oh, me being able to hit Rex?” I said, trying to make light of the situation. “We’re not sure, but it seems that I can touch him, even without his permission.”

Deacon’s mouth gaped in shock. “That…that’s not possible.”

“It appears it’s possible for me.” I didn’t want to tell either of them how I figured it out—they would probably forbid me from being around Rex, if they knew he had kissed me.

“It is because you are the most powerful conduit of all, Sarah,” Rex said in a flirtatious tone. “Your position comes withall kindsof abilities, I’m sure of it.”

I smiled at him. “It does indeed.”

“I would love the chance to learn more about them—”

“I’m sure you would,” Deacon cut in with a low growl in his throat. “But we need to discuss things as a family in private. I’m sure you understand.” He abruptly stood.

Rex sat back, ignoring Deacon’s tone and concern, and shifted his gaze to my other companion. “Jac, did you have a good swim?”

“What swim?” I asked, glancing at Jac.

“How did you know about that?” he asked, all but glaring a hole through our host.

Rex shrugged nonchalantly. “I took a moment to peruse my monitors before you boys joined us.”

“That moat is a safety hazard, Rex,” Deacon snapped angrily.

“You’d know all about safety, right, my boy?”

Rex’s comment flustered Deacon, and he seemed to lose his train of thought and fell silent, which I found incredibly odd.

I glanced between the two of them, confused. “What do you mean by that, Rex?”

“I’ve known Deacon his whole life. He was always safety-conscious, even as a boy, always making sure no one spilled anything on his mother’s rugs, making the children promise not to tackle each other too hard when they played split disk, all that.”

I grinned at the adorable description of his young self, but when I glanced up at Deacon’s reddened face, he was livid.

Rex went on. “The truth is, we go back much further than the war, Sarah. In fact, our families have been friends for thousands of years. We were the original Ladrians, you see.”

I whipped my gaze back to Rex, certain I’d misunderstood him. “I don’t understand.”

“Ladrang and Terian,” Rex said the two names in almost a lyrical voice. “They took the front half of the word, we were left with the back end, so we got more letters, L-a-d from them, r-i-a-n from us.”

I looked up at Deacon in shock. His eyes were full of simmering hatred for Rex. The name thing was definitely something I should have known about before that moment, but more importantly, it was obvious there was far more to their story than just ancient history. Something had happened between the two of them, and I didn’t know—

Oh my god. Were they a couple?

That realization made so many things make sense.The animosity, the jealousy, Deacon’s freak out last night…I didn’t want to ask right then, for fear of things blowing up in my face. But I was frustrated and hurt that Deacon hadn’t told me before. I had been making a fool of myself with Rex, thinking things weren’t somehow tainted between all of us.

He should have fucking told me before now. Or Jac should have—I’m sure he knew.

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