Paladin

by Sally Slater

  “That’s assuming the Uriel are sane,” Sam grumbled. “So you’ll accept?”

  “I didn’t say that. I’ll have to think about it. We need to visit Luca anyway.” Tristan kneaded his temples, his face troubled. “Yet another thing to include in my note to the High Commander.”

  “What of Braeden?” she asked. “How can we go to Luca with him in his current condition?”

  Braeden glared at her, struggling to sit upright. “I’m not an invalid.”

  Tristan groaned, thunking his head against the wall. “I beg of you, let’s not start this up again. Braeden, you will do as the surgeon ordered and rest for the next few days. If, by some miracle, your wound heals sufficiently, you can come with Sam and me to Luca.”

  Braeden’s lips tightened at the edges. “And if it doesn’t?”

  “We’ll reevaluate.” Tristan reached for the doorknob. “I need to write to the High Commander before it gets any later. I’m likely to fall asleep in my ink pot as is. Sam, look after Braeden tonight.”

  Sam rolled her eyes. “Like you need to tell me.”

  Braeden snarled, although it was difficult to tell whether his frustration was directed at her or Tristan.

  Tristan chuckled, unoffended. “See you on the morrow.” He opened and shut the door behind him, leaving the room in an uncomfortable silence.

  They broke the awkward silence in unison. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” Braeden asked.

  Sam sat down on her pallet, hugging her knees to her chest. “Because you’re angry with me.” Fighting with Braeden wasn’t like fighting with Tristan—she and Tristan were always at each other’s throats, and half the time she enjoyed their bickering, not that she’d ever admit to that aloud. But Braeden was her rock; she didn’t want his anger.

  He sighed wearily and lay down on his pallet, facing the ceiling. “I’m not angry with you, Sam. I just don’t need to be coddled.”

  Sam closed her eyes and gave voice to the feeling she’d been denying. “Braeden, I’m scared for you.” The prospect of his death was far scarier than any demon she’d ever faced. Her breath hitched. When had he come to mean so much to her?

  A faint blush stained Braeden’s too-pale cheeks. “Don’t be. If you had any sense, you’d be scared of me, not for me.”

  “You don’t scare me. Your wound does.”

  Braeden craned his neck to peer down at his injured shoulder. “I have a theory about this wound.”

  She snorted lightly. “A theory?”

  Braeden slanted a glance at her. “I have theories sometimes.” He returned his gaze to his wound. “The demon bite obscured one of the glyphs in my tattoo. I think that is what is causing all of this.”

  Sam creased her forehead, not understanding. “How is that any different than what the surgeon told you? He said the wound is the source of your illness.”

  “I’m telling you, I don’t get ill. Not in the way you’re thinking of illness. I think my body may be reacting to the damage to the glyph. Like the part of me that’s locked away senses a hole in the ward and is fighting to get out. I feel . . . restless.”

  “Braeden, you can barely move.”

  He grimaced. “I’m aware of that, thank you, but it doesn’t change how I feel. Let’s just hope the damage isn’t permanent. And if it is—”

  “If it is, we’ll find a way to fix it,” Sam said firmly. “But I have a theory, too.”

  Braeden’s mouth curved up. “And what’s that?”

  “I don’t think you need your tattoo.”

  “Sam—” he said warningly.

  “Hear me out. I’m not saying you never needed it. Maybe you really did as a child, before you learned control. But now, I think it’s little more than a crutch. I think you have enough willpower to control your demon all on your own.”

  Braeden rasped a dark laugh. “Are you willing to test that theory? Because I’m not.” His lashes dipped to diamond-cut cheekbones. “You don’t know what I was like, before.”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” she said. “But I know what you’re like now. And I think in a few days, if your wound hasn’t healed, you should let the surgeon remove the infected skin.” Braeden started to protest, but she cut him short. “I won’t hound you about it again till it’s imminent. Just promise me one thing.”

  “What, Sam?”

  “Don’t you dare die on me and leave me alone with Tristan.”

  He smiled. “It’s a promise.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Sleep eluded Braeden, in spite of the bone-weary fatigue that claimed him. His lids were shut, yet he was conscious of his heart rattling against his ribcage and the pulsating fire in his shoulder. His skin felt stretched to its brink, strained and ill-fitting over his trembling body.

  Braeden turned his neck to face Sam’s pallet, careful not to move his shoulder in the process. She was curled towards him, one arm pillowing her head and the other reaching halfway across the distance between their beds. She was asleep, but her sleep was troubled, worry lines wrinkling her brow and her mouth set in a frown. For a brief moment, Braeden wondered if her worry for him was what disturbed her sleep, but he quickly banished the arrogant thought. No doubt she was just having an ordinary nightmare. He should wake her, spare her from her bad dream.

  “Sam,” he said softly. She stirred, raised her head and murmured his name, and then collapsed in a heap, asleep again. A small smile touched his lips. He ran his fingers over the upturned corners of his mouth. He must have smiled more in the short time he’d known Sam than he had in his entire lifetime before. He’d never met anyone like her, and it wasn’t only because she donned men’s clothing, or wielded a sword almost as well as Tristan. Sam was—

  Braeden’s muscles went rigid, and then jerked spasmodically as a jolt of fiery pain coursed down his spine. The acrid taste of metal filled his mouth, and he dimly thought that he must have bitten his tongue hard enough to bleed.

  His back arched off the pallet and his eyes rolled into his head. He could feel the rush of blood through his veins as his muscles swelled, his skin rippling to accommodate his engorged body. A powerful thirst consumed him, and his tongue slurped at the pooling blood at the back of his throat. He was vaguely aware that he had felt like this before, when he plunged his knife into his heart to loosen the chains that bound his demon instincts, but he held no knife now. Something had triggered the release of his beast, and he didn’t hold the trigger.

  Panic cut through the fogginess of his mind. His wound! Had it managed to break his master’s seal? If he was no longer restrained . . . and Gods, Sam was in the pallet next to him! A howl of rage and sorrow escaped him as his body seized once more and finished its transformation into the wretched monster he’d held at bay for more than a decade. His vision blurred, and then faded to black.

  CHAPTER 29

  Caught in the purgatory between dream and waking, Sam’s mind was awake, but her body was paralyzed. Try as she might, she couldn’t pry her eyelids open. Logic whispered in her ear that her paralysis was fleeting, nothing but the fading remnants of a stubborn bad dream. But while logic whispered, panic roared. Sam fought like a madwoman to move one tiny muscle.

  After what could have been minutes or hours, Sam’s eyes opened to darkness. If she squinted, she could make out vague shapes. The night was silent but for the quiet thump of her heartbeat and the sound of her uneven breathing.

  It was then that she realized that the only breathing she heard was her own.

  Oh Gods. Braeden.

  She whipped her head towards his pallet, half-expecting to find him dead. But she couldn’t find him at all. His bed was empty.

  She cursed under her breath. Where could he have possibly gone? Just hours before, he’d barely been able to move. He was deathly ill, for the Gods’ sakes. He was supposed to rest.

  Grumbling to herself, Sam swung her legs over the side of her pallet, intending to search for Braeden. She lit a candle by the bedside, filli
ng the room with a faint glow. Satisfied, she turned around and took a step forward, tripping over something solid at her feet. She heard a low, menacing rumble.

  Sam struggled to regain her balance and grasped onto biceps as large as watermelons. Two unblinking red eyes stared at her.

  Sam swallowed. “Braeden?” Crouched on all fours, he was more demon than human, bone-like spikes protruding from his rounded back. He was massive, his arms and neck as thick as tree trunks.

  She tried smiling at him. “Thank the Gods you’re all right. You scared me for a moment.” He scared her now, but she shoved that traitorous thought aside.

  Braeden said nothing, his body vibrating with tension. A strip of white flashed across his jaw as his lips peeled back into a parody of a smile, revealing gleaming fangs. He rumbled again, the gravelly sound vicious in his throat.

  This is not good, thought Sam. She searched his face for a hint of the man she knew, and came up short. All she saw in his eyes was death. “Braeden?” she whispered again, hating that she was afraid of her friend.

  Braeden shuddered violently and then leapt for her, tackling her to the ground. He snapped his teeth at her neck, narrowly missing as she shoved his heavy body off her, flipping him onto his back. He yowled, clawing to get out from under her. Clamoring back onto his hands and knees, he leapt for her again. She rolled out of the way, and he crashed full force into her pallet. The bed slammed into the wall, splintering into pieces.

  With horrifying certainty, Sam realized that Braeden meant to kill her. He was bigger than her and faster than her, and he could see better than her—but in the end, all those things didn’t matter. His greatest advantage was that she didn’t want him dead.

  The Gods had granted her one small favor: Braeden had no weapon. He was lethal with a knife and sword, and quick as a demon. But tonight he fought her only with his body. Which meant she maybe stood a chance.

  With single-minded determination, Sam sprinted over to Braeden’s undisturbed pallet. She tore off the pillows and blankets, hunting for one of his daggers. Gods knew he hid the things everywhere.

  She found a knife tucked beneath the straw mattress and pulled it out by the handle. Putting the bed between them, she held out the knife in front of her. “I’m armed now,” she warned him, her hand shaking.

  Her warning—if he could even comprehend it—did little to daunt him. He charged, his claws outstretched as he jumped over the pallet that separated them. Sam hopped sideways, and he sailed past her, snarling. His attacks weren’t hard to dodge; this beast lacked the subtlety and unpredictability—and most significantly—the intelligence that made Braeden such a deadly fighter.

  Sam could win this fight. The problem was she didn’t want to.

  She didn’t want to know what would have to happen after she won.

  Braeden lunged for her again, but this time she met him head on. He clamped her by the waist, sharp nails digging into her flesh. Before he could move in for the kill, Sam wrapped her arms around his thick torso, and squeezed, holding him upright. “Double-waist tie up,” Sam murmured, her face buried into his chest. His still-human heartbeat drummed against her ear. “Braeden, do you remember? We practiced this once, you and I.”

  He gnashed his teeth together, straining his neck for a bite of her flesh. He remembered nothing. Braeden was gone.

  She slithered her knife in between them, pressing the tip into the base of his throat. “I’ll do it,” she whispered. “I’ll do it if I have to.” She pushed the point in, parting the topmost layers of skin, blood trickling down his throat in a slow river. Braeden growled and tightened his grip on her waist in response. “Don’t make me do it, Braeden.” Her voice choked up. “Please, Gods, don’t make me do it.”

  Could she even do it? Could she kill the man who had risked his life for hers, who had kept her most closely guarded secret, who liked her in spite of it? She could have been a woman alone in a man’s world, but she wasn’t. She had Braeden, her ally, her friend. Her maybe something more. The last was a thought she’d never allowed herself, but who cared now, when his life was a knife tip away from ending by her hand?

  Fat, angry tears trickled down her cheeks. “You stupid idiot, you promised you wouldn’t leave me!” She beat her free hand against the solid wall of his chest, not caring if it made her vulnerable, not with her knife in his neck. “I know you’re in there somewhere!” she yelled. “Stop being so Gods damned stubborn and snap out of it. This isn’t you! You’re better than this, Braeden.” A sob caught in her throat, but she swallowed it down. Sam didn’t cry, not for anything. The water leaking from her eyes and dripping off her chin didn’t count. That was . . . that was . . .

  She beat his chest harder, now slick with the wetness of her tears and his blood. Rage, wild and ragged, filled her, tearing her carefully erected barriers asunder, her thoughts chaotic and unrestrained. She had seen Braeden teeter on the edge of madness before, and he had come back from it every time. Yet now that he had stepped over the line, there was no turning back? All because of a tattoo? It was ridiculous, it was outrageous, it was unfair—

  “Gods damn it!” Her voice exploded with the swell of emotion in her breast. She was going to lose him. They would never again train together, fight together, talk together. She would never again see his strange, beautiful eyes or his mouth turn upwards into his rare, lopsided grin. She treasured those rare smiles, those even rarer moments when he let down his guard and laughed with her.

  Sam wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, his arms crushing her waist and the tip of her knife sticking into his neck. She waited and waited for any excuse to let up, for the Gods themselves to intervene. But Braeden left her with no choice. His claws dug into her sides till she gasped with pain, and he angled his head, swooping down like a bird of prey.

  Sam caught him by the jaw, his bared teeth inches from her face. She squeezed the hilt of her knife. “Goodbye, Braeden,” she said, and kissed him.

  It was meant to be a farewell kiss. Tearfully, Sam pressed her mouth to Braeden’s maw. He growled low in his throat, his mouth stretched open wide as though he wanted to devour her whole. As he ground his jaw against hers, she cut her lip on his incisors, her blood trickling into their joined mouths. Braeden’s tongue snuck out to swipe at her bottom lip, lapping up the coppery liquid. Sam gasped in shock at the touch of his tongue, her mouth opening under his.

  And then he was kissing her back, violently, his lips molding over hers, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth. His hands left her waist and tangled in her hair, pulling her closer till she stood flush against him. He nipped at her lips, his nibbles just shy of painful, and then he cupped her face in his clawed hands and kissed her deeply.

  Sam’s eyes drifted closed. When she opened her eyes again, she knew what she would have to do, but till then, she would allow herself to get lost in the moment, to be with Braeden as a woman with a man, without the complications of the Paladins, secrets, or ruined tattoos. She flattened a hand against his chest, and she leaned into him, deepening their kiss.

  Braeden growled again, tasting her everywhere—her lips, her tongue, her teeth. Sam felt an answering hunger low in her belly, and her tongue entwined with his till all she could see and feel and think was Braeden. Sam had never felt like this before, the sensations overwhelming. Her breath merged with his, and they breathed as one, in short, desperate gasps. The wildness that infected Braeden spread into her, and together, they were savage beasts, clawing to get closer to one another. Braeden’s nails bit into her cheeks, and her knife sunk deeper into his neck as she dragged that hand from his chest to around his neck and then scratched down his broad back. This thing between them didn’t smolder, it burned like fallen leaves set aflame.

  “Sam.”

  The sigh of her name was so quiet that at first Sam thought she’d imagined it. But it was enough to bring her back down to earth, to remind her what needed to be done when this kiss ended. She squeezed her eyes tighter, unwilling to ope
n them to the inevitable.

  The kiss between them gentled, still urgent, but soft, almost reverent. Their lips lingered, and then pulled apart. Sam opened her eyes, ignoring the wetness that rolled down her cheeks. “Goodbye, Braeden,” she whispered again, and re-angled the knife, readying to drive it home.

  Braeden’s hand wrapped around hers. “I believe this is mine,” he said. A small, crooked smile curved his lips, and his eyes were bright with some foreign emotion.

  The knife dropped from her hands, clattering to the floor. Sam launched herself at Braeden with so much force that he stumbled backwards, taking her with him as they fell into a graceless clump.

  She grasped his face with both hands. “Braeden? Can you understand me? Are you really okay?”

  “Aye.”

  The single word was like a balm to her soul, and she gave him a quick, bruising kiss. “Thank the Gods,” she said, and then she punched him hard in the stomach. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, do you hear me? The next time, I’ll kill you, I swear it.”

  Braeden nodded towards the discarded knife. “You almost killed me just now.”

  Sam’s face crumpled, and she had to grit her teeth to fight back the tears, Gods damn her stupid emotions. “Do you think I wanted to do it? I thought you were gone. I thought you had slipped over the precipice and weren’t coming back. What should I have done?”

  “You should have killed me,” Braeden said matter-of-factly, rolling onto his side. He brushed his thumb against her cheek. “But I’m glad that you didn’t.”

  Now that she was no longer swept up in the moment, his tender gesture caught her off guard, and she flinched against his touch. Braeden dropped his hand immediately. “You kissed me,” he accused.

  Sam looked away, embarrassed. “You kissed me back.”

  “Why? Did you think it would save me?”

  Sam snorted. “I’m not some romantic fool who believes in the restorative power of a kiss. I thought I was saying goodbye.”