Paladin

Chapter 17 - Part I

“For imagined sins, no doubt.”

“No, Sam, not imagined. I owe humanity a debt, for what I am and what I’ve done.”

Sometimes Braeden’s self-flagellation was exhausting, and he was missing her point. “I joined the Paladins because I have it within me to protect our country’s people. Just as you do. That’s what we are meant to do.” Sam raised her chin. “I’m sorry for many things, but I won’t apologize for being a woman. I don’t feel I should have to ask for permission to follow my heart, though I find myself begging for yours.”

“You’re asking me to lie to Tristan. To let him continue grieving for a betrothed who isn’t dead.”

“I’m asking a lot of you, I know.”

Braeden turned his back to her, his thoughts and reactions indiscernible. An eternity passed before he spoke again. “I’ll do it.”

A tentative hope, insidious weed that it was, blossomed within her. “Are you certain?”

“Aye.”

On impulse, Sam threw her arms around his back. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t do that in public,” Braeden said gruffly. “People will suspect.”

Sam dropped her arms immediately, her cheeks heating. “Sorry.” She returned to the canopied bed and fell backward onto the mattress, a hand shielding her face.

“In retrospect, I should have guessed that you were a woman. I knew there was something off about you,” Braeden said, hovering over her from the foot of the bed.

“Something off about me? What a flattering turn of phrase.”

Braeden shrugged. “My skin itches whenever I touch you. And you smell funny.”

“I smell funny?”

The right corner of his mouth quirked upwards, the sight releasing some of the tension in her heart. “Just different. You smell a good deal better than Tristan, I’ll tell you that much.”

“A high compliment,” Sam said wryly.

Braeden sat down on the bed beside her. “I hope you’re prepared with a story to tell Tristan in the morning. He had very specific expectations as to how you were going to spend the night.”

“I’ll come up with something. I always do.”

“Apparently.”

Sam winced at the bite in his tone. “I really am sorry for lying to you. I want to regain your trust. Will you forgive me some day?”

Braeden propped himself on his elbows and looked at her. “I need some time,” he said after a pregnant pause. “But I’d like for us to be friends again.”

“Me too,” said Sam. “I’d like that very much.”

*****

Sam woke in the morning with the worst headache in recent memory and a mouth so parched she tasted sand. Groggily, she forced herself  upright, stumbling as the floor lurched beneath her. Once the contents of her stomach no longer threatened upheaval, she sought out Braeden, who still slept fitfully in an armchair. He had slipped low in the chair so that his backside just barely remained in the seat and his neck bent at an unnatural angle. He looked utterly uncomfortable, though the fault was entirely his own. Sam had offered to share the bed – which could have easily accommodated four people, let alone two – but Braeden had adamantly refused, after turning an apoplectic shade of purple. She’d offered to take the chair in his stead, but he’d refused that, too.

Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his sooty lashes, and she was reluctant to rouse him. But they needed to be dressed, and more importantly, coherent, before Tristan emerged from wherever he had disappeared. Gods knew what he would think if he caught the two of them coming from the same room.

She tapped his collarbone gently. “Braeden, time to wake up.” He jerked to consciousness, his arms flailing as his hips skated forward out of the seat. “You should have slept in the bed,” she scolded.

He blinked at her blearily, his eyes bloodshot even for him. “It wouldn’t have been proper.”

Sam gritted her teeth in frustration. “Confound proper. If you start treating me like a woman, I’m done for.”

“I promised I’d help you hide your secret, didn’t I?” said Braeden, retying the bow at his waist before attacking the laces in his boots. “What does it matter how I treat you when we’re alone?”

“You’re bound to slip up, eventually. I’m still the same person – deal with me as you always have. Forget that I’m a woman.”

Braeden snorted. “Unlikely.” He gave his bootlaces a final tug and straightened. “I’ll leave first. You follow in five minutes.”

“Understood.”

When she rejoined Braeden outside the brothel’s front door, Tristan had yet to make an appearance. “Where is he?” Sam asked irritably, tears streaming down her cheeks as her pupils tried and failed to adjust to the sun’s bright rays.

Braeden pointed at a hunched over figure on the opposite side of the dirt road. The man retched violently into the pale pink hydrangea once, twice, three times before withdrawing his head from the foliage. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sank against a nearby tree. “That would be our esteemed Paladin,” said Braeden.

“He’s going to be unusually pleasant today, isn’t he?”

Braeden’s lips twitched. “Undoubtedly.  Let’s go greet your betrothed, shall we?”

“Not funny.”

Braeden ignored her, crossing the street in long, confident strides. Sam started after him at a jog but slowed her gait as trepidation took hold. She didn’t like trusting her secret to another person, even if that person was Braeden. And she still hadn’t fully worked out what to tell Tristan about his carnal gift.

But as she neared Tristan, she could see that he was in no position to listen to stories, true or fiction. His face was gray and drawn, blond hair damp against his forehead. His eyes were fixated on his flaring nostrils in a cross-eyed stare, as though he were channeling all his powers of concentration into the inhalation and exhalation of breath.

Guilt and concern superseded fear as she took in Tristan’s wan complexion.  “Are you alright?” she asked.

Tristan raised his index finger and then bolted into the hydrangea bushes, clutching his stomach as he heaved into the flowers. This last bout of vomiting must have removed some of the toxins from his blood; when he returned, his face had lost its sickly grayish cast, though he remained unusually pale. “That’s better,” he croaked, and grimaced. “Remind me never to get this inebriated ever again.”

Sam’s gaze traveled over his wrinkled tunic and grass-stained breeches. “What happened to you? Did you end up sleeping out here last night?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tristan grumbled. “In fact, I don’t want to talk at all. My tongue feels like it’s three sizes too big.”

“I’m sorry to hear—“

“No, don’t speak,” Tristan interrupted. “I don’t want to hear you talk either. Your voice is like an incessant bell inside my head.” He leaned against a tree for support. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to rest my eyes for fifteen minutes.”

“Rest your eyes?” Sam asked skeptically.

“Aye. Hush. I suggest you two do the same.”

“And then what?”

Tristan closed his eyes and slid his back down the tree trunk. "And then let’s get the hell out of Haywood.”