Paladin

Chapter 25 part II

Sharing a bed was not in the cards for Sam and Braeden, not this night. The forgotten kiss that could not be forgotten stood between them like an invisible elephant, and the pallet was scarcely large enough to fit one body, let alone three. After a brief argument, Sam took the floor, and Braeden the bed. He was the wounded one, after all, and needed rest far more than she.  She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The floor was hard and cold beneath her, and every time she shifted, a new piece of straw tickled her nose or feet or back. She wrapped a thin sheet around her, but it provided little comfort. It shouldn’t have mattered--with the marathon of events they’d had over the past few days, she should have been able to sleep standing up.

But she was too rattled to sleep. Ever since Braeden discovered who she was, she’d been off balance, unsure of how to act now that her two worlds had collided.  She didn’t know how to be Paladin trainee Sam and Lady Samantha simultaneously. Sam had thought she’d left Lady Samantha behind for good when she joined the Paladins. She didn’t want to be a lady, she wanted to be a Paladin. And Paladins had no business going around kissing other Paladins. Not for any reason.

Braeden’s voice echoed inside her head. Why? Why did she kiss him? Even when Lady Samantha was her only identity, she hadn’t been much of a romantic. She’d harbored a tendre or two over the years, but never had she acted on it. She hadn’t been the sort to pine over men or flirt or gossip with her friends about the fine turn of a man’s calves. Then again, she hadn’t had many friends to gossip with had she wanted to. From the cradle she’d been taught not to befriend the people of Haywood but to rule them. She was close with no one but her servants, and they were paid to like her.

Until Braeden.

At the thought of his name, a fresh pang shot through her chest. When she’d touched her lips to his, she’d crossed some murky line, trespassing into new territory that she wasn’t ready for, now or maybe ever. Their kiss had been wonderful and frightening and seductive, but it changed things between them irrevocably. Could a friendship survive such a kiss? They couldn’t do it again, that much was certain. For the sake of their friendship and Sam’s future with the Paladins. She’d made a choice when she’d discarded her life at Haywood for the Paladins. Lady Samantha might have loved a man, but Paladin Sam never could.

Sleep did come eventually, or it must have, for she closed her eyes in darkness and opened them again in candlelight. She blinked, pupils adjusting. Tristan’s face blurred above hers and then sharpened. “Morning,” he said.

“Urgh,” she grunted, not yet able to form coherent words. She arched her back against the hard floor, stretching, and then forced herself upright. Her eyes shifted right, to Braeden’s empty pallet. “Where is Braeden?”

“With Asa, in surgery, I suspect.”

Sam bolted to her feet. “Why didn’t anyone wake me?” She moved for the door.

Tristan grabbed her arm, halting her in her tracks. “Braeden wanted to let you sleep. He said this was something he needed to do on his own.”

“Oh,” she said. She was strangely hurt by that. It felt like a personal blow, especially after last night, like Braeden was excluding her from his life.

“He’ll be fine,” said Tristan, mistaking her somber expression for worry over Braeden’s wellbeing. She should be worried--and she was, a good deal--not fretting over some perceived slight. “It’s a quick, easy surgery. Asa said Braeden would be patched up in time for breakfast.”

“Good,” Sam said absently, surveying the destruction they had wrought to the small room. She couldn’t wait to get out of there, to put the evening behind her.