Page 81 of Claiming Sarah

Of course he did. My fists bunched. It had been so obvious from the start. Rex was right—he had always had a taste for tormenting people.

“I should have known.”

“Yes, you should have,” he said, in almost a chastising tone. “You’re too distracted by your loves to see the bigger game at play. It’s a shame, really. The Deacon I knew was more cunning.”

“The Deacon you knew is dead,” I spat viciously.

“Yet you still remembered to cover the rear,” he added thoughtfully.

“Because it’s the obvious thing to do,” I said, staring straight ahead and refusing to give him any credit for my actions. “Not because you taught me that.”

“All of that aside, there are things I do not understand about you,NewDeacon.”

“Like what?” I snapped.

“Like why boasting about murdering me was not the first thing out of your mouth after I died.”

My stomach churned at the memory. “Why would I—”

“Because I am not your average foe,” he cut in. “I am Rex Terian, the fiercest of my deadly family. And you took me down, hard and fast. Were I you, I would have bragged about that accomplishment until my end.”

He was such a sick bastard. “You are not me.”

“Clearly,” Rex smirked. “So if bragging about my murder is not how you bedded Sarah, how then?”

I laughed sharply. “Is that what this is about? You’re still trying to figure out how to bed my consort?”

“Not entirely,” he said, his tone now goading. “I am trying to figure out how she ended up with a boring Ladrian such as yourself.”

“I am not boring,” I objected, hating that Rexcouldprovoke me.

“Look around you, Deacon,” he said, waving a hand in the air to indicate our dank surroundings. “We are in a filthy swamp. This is where you take your lady to show her a good time?”

My stomach twisted at his words. I hated how true that was. I should have taken Sarah places. Shown her the rest of Orhon or any other planet she wanted to see and showered her with gifts and jewels like an attentive lover. I had never even asked where she would like to go.Merely conscripted her into this alien life because of my own selfish needs…

“Perhaps thereisroom for someone like me in her life,” Rex went on, driving the knife deeper. “I’m sure you recall thatIknow how to show a woman a good time.”

Anger bristled through me. “You know how to show women to an early grave.”

“Women, men, whomever,” he said blithely. “That is true.”

His attitude was appalling. “How can you be so casual about such things?”

“Because I know what I am, my boy.” His tone and gaze darkened seriously. “I am many things, but most of all, I am a killer. That was what my family made me. That is what the army loved me for, and what they tried to makeyouto be. But you could never do it—”

“I killed,” I bit out, the words echoing in my ghost.

He laughed. “Indeed you did. But you were never a killer. You never learned how to enjoy it. How to crave it, need it. Your heart never ached to watch the light leave someone’s eyes.” His sigh was romantic, and his voice crackled with lust as he continued. “Your cock never hardened as the bodies fell before you.”

My guts spun like a wheel. “No. Never. After…everythingwith you, I failed out of infantry and, had my father’s standing not been taken into account, I would have been sent to prison for not measuring up. But I was sent to officer school instead.”

“No, you didn’tfailout of infantry,” Rex said firmly. “The armyfailedyou, Deacon.”

I snapped my gaze to his in confusion. “I—”

“They did. It was their job to create another killer. They didn’t. You remained soft. That is on them, not you.”

I could not fathom why he soundedkind, considering the topic. “Are you trying to make me feel better about all of that?”

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