Page 66 of Claiming Sarah

More than a little pissed that I’d been left in the dark, I cleared my throat and forced myself to smile at Rex, as if his exchange with Deacon hadn’t shattered something inside of me. “Would you excuse us, Rex? I have many,manythings to discuss with my union. Privately.”

“By all means. Take all the time you need. It’s not like a group of highly trained, brilliant assassins are after you, too,” he said, his eyes dancing with humor. “Oh, wait. They are.”

I staged a laugh at his poorly executed conduit joke and stood up. “This will likely only be a few minutes. We’ll be right back.”

Turning to my companions, I snapped, “Move. Now,” before I marched out of the dining room, confident they were behind me.

CHAPTER 20

Jacaranda

Icaught the door before it slammed behind me. Sarah’s doing.What’s got her so—

“You should have told me!” she yelled, whirling around in a fury to face both of us.

Deacon responded in a cautious tone, “Told you what?”

“About you and Rex!” she said, stepping up to him and jabbing him in the chest with her finger. “I’m walking around here like an idiot, thinking I’m wrapping him aroundmyfinger, when he’s probably sitting there, thinking I’m a moron for obviously not knowing about the two of you!”

Deacon jammed his hands on his hips. “Do I need to tell you everything about every single Ladrian that I know, and who we might ever meet, Sarah? We’ll be at it for a very long time.”

“You wanna be petulant now?” Her voice rose incredulously.

His eyes narrowed on her. “I am not being petulant.”

“You’re being a damned child and you’re treating me like one!” she continued angrily. “I can handle the fact that you have a past, Deacon. Everyone has a past. I know you’re not straight—obviously—so what does it matter? So, he’s an ex you aren’t terribly proud of. Everyone has one or two of those, even me. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You should have told me.” Then she switched her glare to me. “Both of you.”

“I’min trouble now?” I asked, feeling wrongly accused. “I died today, so maybe we—”

“Youwhat?” she squeaked.

“Yeah, he did,” Deacon said, still fuming. “And my hands got mangled trying to save him, but you wouldn’t know any of that because you’re too busy flirting with Rex and yelling at me!”

Her eyes went wide, back and forth between us, and her temper simmered down. “What happened?”

“There’s some kind of beast with tentacles in the moat,” I began, trying not to throw up while I thought about what had happened. “When I got near Rex’s office to break in, it—”

“You were breaking into Rex’s office when it attacked you?” Deacon asked, interrupting me.

“Yeah. I was about to pry the window open. It’s on the first level and a couple windows down from here.”

“I’ll bet that’s why thatthingattacked you. He’s probably trained it to—”

“Jac, what happened?” Sarah frantically cut him off, worry written all over her face.

“It wrapped me up in its tentacles and dragged me into the water. I couldn’t get out…” I was dizzy just recalling what had happened, and I fell onto the bed on my back. “I remember saying goodbye to the both of you in my mind, before…” I took several deep breaths and Sarah sat on the bed next to me, stroking my leg. “I’m okay. I just…the next thing I knew, Deacon was there, breathing life into me.”

She glanced at Deacon, to where the wounds on his arms and fingers had once been, but had since healed. “What happened to your hands?”

“Coral beneath the water,” he said gruffly. “A lot of it.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why are they okay now?”

“Rex’s staff doctor,” he said, recalling the guy that had fixed us both up. “I think he used some kind of magic, not medicine—”

“Yeah, I think so too,” I said as I sat up. “The doctor feltoff. I wasn’t sure if he was going to heal you or try to kill you.”

“Same here,” he said.

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