Page 47 of Paladin's Hope

The door shut behind them. Piper fretted, even though he trusted Galen’s skills. And you know damn well that Earstripe is a lot more agile than you are, and a lot less likely to get you both killed.

He tried to distract himself with more pleasant thoughts, like the bit where Galen had kissed him. Unfortunately, that led to the bit where he had blurted out, “Spongiform erectile tissue!” which was possibly the least suave thing he had ever said in his life.

It worked, though. He stopped talking about how broken he was and how wrong it was, and started kissing again. I would call that a win.

Are all paladins like this, or just this one in particular? Granted, his experience was mostly limited to a few from the White Rat, but they all seemed rather solemn and brooding. Galen wasn’t solemn and didn’t look like he was brooding, but it was pretty clear that he’d been gnawing over his own unworthiness for a long damn time.

Which was utter nonsense. So the man had a pretty severe sleep disorder, so what? He was also brave, loyal, calm in a crisis, and had a wicked sense of humor. He was the person that Earstripe had gone to when the gnole needed someone to talk to humans for him, and he’d done it while making it very clear that the gnole was still in charge. Piper couldn’t think of many of his fellow humans who would do that gracefully.

Also he kissed like he had been about to throw Piper down and ravish him right there. Possibly he would have, if the door hadn’t opened at an opportune moment. Piper swallowed, feeling himself starting to get half-hard again just at the memory.

And then he kissed me again. Like he hadn’t regretted it. Granted, that may have been adrenaline, but still…

Stop that. Think about something useful. Otherwise you’re just going to stand here being frustrated, or you’ll try to do something about it and lose track of time and they’ll open the door to find you standing here with cock in hand like a teenager.

Sleep disorders. Sleep disorders were not sexy, particularly when they lead to berserker fits. Piper didn’t know enough about berserkers to even speculate as to the connection, and it seemed like a touchy topic for Galen. Perhaps he could ask Stephen, when all this was over. Stephen was calm to the point of being morose.

The usual treatments for sleep disorders ranged from the practical, like tying the sufferer’s feet together, or having him sleep in what amounted to a drawstring sack, to the cruel, like dousing him with ice-cold water in the middle of the night if it looked as if he were about to start a disturbance. That last seemed very unwise with Galen, and not particularly useful in treating the underlying cause.

Fact is, we don’t actually know how to treat sleep problems. I know some people dose themselves with laudanum before sleep, but that just gets you a laudanum addiction on top of everything else.

No, in practical terms, Galen was stuck with his condition. But although Piper would never say it to him, it could have been a great deal worse. He didn’t sleepwalk, which might have exposed others to danger, and he hadn’t mentioned harming himself in his sleep. He just could not be safely awoken from a nightmare.

So he doesn’t share a bed with anyone. At least, not for anything other than…dammit, that’s what you were not supposed to be thinking about.

Still, it was clear that Galen was far more upset by it than anyone else. Half the lovers Piper had had—all four of them, if he was being honest, and a handful of quick encounters—had been uninterested in sharing a bed after sex. One had done so out of a kind of awkward courtesy, but he clearly didn’t prefer it, and after a night or two, Piper had made a habit of excusing himself to go home to his own bed.

For that matter, Piper wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to sleep beside another human being himself these days. He kept strange hours and he had his own pillow and his own blankets and if he wanted to get up three times in the night to use the chamberpot, he wasn’t bothering anyone.

But how do you convince a paladin of that?

Come to think of it, does he even want to be convinced?

It had been two kisses. That was all. For all Piper knew, Galen wanted one of those quick encounters and then they would go back to the city and Galen would move on to the next encounter and Piper would…would…

Throw myself into my work and feel sad, I suppose. He wouldn’t be the first attractive man looking for a notch on his bedpost and nothing more.

This dampened Piper’s ardor significantly. He had never been good at casual encounters. Every time he ended up wanting more. Which always felt desperately needy, which left him feeling even more miserable. All I want in life is to have a sexy man make passionate love to me, eat a nice meal together, and then I’ll leave to go chop up corpses. Is that really so much to ask?

Apparently it was.

Annnnd now I’m depressed. Is that better or worse than aroused? Probably worse. I should be trying to figure out how this ridiculous maze works, not moping around thinking about One Night Stands I Have Known.

He leaned his head back against the wall. Machines. Machines running an obstacle course. Machines like small clocktaurs. What do you gain by running a machine through an obstacle course?

With human soldiers, they were supposed to become better soldiers—but no military obstacle course would include endless fatal traps. Hard to improve if you’re dead. But the clocktaurs weren’t exactly alive. Though they were run by demons. Were the small machines made the same way?

No, the ancient clocktaurs had had human souls animating them. The ancients could have put a human soul into the small machines too, presumably, but why? A dying soldier might want a chance to strike at the enemy from inside an indestructible ivory body, but who would want to run through an obstacle course and end up crushed or impaled?

Maybe I’m going at this from the wrong direction. What if it’s not about improving individual machines? What if it’s some sort of design process? Does machine number one survive the room full of spikes? No? Okay, send in machine number two. Oh no, Two fell into a deep hole and can’t climb out again. Send in Three. Three gets past the spikes and the hole, but the horizontal blades got it. Send in Four—oh, Four got stuck on the spikes again. Back to the drawing board.

Of course, that still didn’t explain what was animating the machinery. The souls of someone passionately committed to machine design? Tame demons? If Galen had served the Dreaming God instead of the Saint of Steel, he might have been able to tell at a glance. And also he’d be so good-looking that he probably wouldn’t look twice at me. Though Galen’s not far off from that, truth be told… Piper remembered the width of the paladin’s shoulders, the sleek muscle under his fingertips as he stroked the man’s ribs, and swallowed hard.

And here we are again. I circle this thought like a goldfish circles a bowl.

The door opened and Galen stepped through. “Ready?” he asked.

Piper gulped. Now that the prospect was upon him, he found it much more alarming than he had when it was an abstract trial to be faced somewhere in the near future. He rubbed sweating palms on his trousers. “I suppose.”