So Aiden found himself manacled and shackled and thrown into a ground transport before he could even finish his damned coffee.
*** *** ***
“What did you say your name was?”
“Ky,” Ky answered impatiently as the patroller in dusty leggings, a loose tunic, and scarred boots checked her handheld one more time.
“Yes, there you are.” The patroller looked proud she’d located Ky’s information from the central computer at the Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms. “And you’re looking for …”
“Aiden,” Ky said for the third time. “He was arrested in a coffee bar and I want to know why.”
“I can guess why.” The patroller pushed buttons on her handheld, moving slowly. “He’s a Shareem, isn’t he? Here it is. He was taken to the jail block in Senoda.”
“What for?”
The patroller peered at her handheld. “Sexual assault.”
Ky stared at her a stunned moment. “That’s bullshit. Shareem can’t assault a woman. We’re programmed not to.”
The patroller, a tall woman only about five inches shorter than Ky, gave him an evil look. “You’re the one who’s full of bullshit. You Shareem put women in manacles. You whip them and pretend they like it. That one called Calder chases women through a pleasure palace of some kind. I’ve heard.”
“And the ladies pay Calder a frigging fortune to let him do it. What happened, he turn you down?”
The patroller’s face turned dark red. “Shareem are menaces and should have been terminated years ago. At least this Aiden will be terminated today.”
Ky’s heart nearly stopped. “What?”
Ky and Aiden had been friends since the fall of DNAmo, the defunct factory that had set out to make the ultimate male to pleasure women. DNAmo had done the job a little too well, and the paranoid women who ruled the planet shut down DNAmo and outlawed the making of Shareem. Wouldn’t want women lusting after sex and possibly going back to the time when women had been completely submissive to men, would they?
Aiden and Ky had survived by helping each other during the chaos of the company’s shutdown, and once the decision had been made to let Shareem live, they’d continued to share lodgings.
“Why the hell is Aiden being terminated? He’s a level one.”
“So?”
Ky leaned over her, six-foot-seven-inches of black leather and powerful muscle. “You want a little bondage, you come to a level three, like me. Aiden is a level one. He’s all scented oils and massage and sensual pleasures. He can make a woman come just by feeding her strawberries.”
“Well, apparently he went a little further than strawberries.”
“Which I’m telling you is bullshit. He can’t force a woman to do anything she doesn’t want to. Not even Calder, as exotic as he gets.”
“It’s what’s in the report.” The patroller flashed the handheld at him.
This was damned stupid, and yet the government of Bor Narga could easily terminate Aiden’s life for no reason.
“Who accused him?” Ky asked.
He didn’t think she’d tell him. The patroller would bleat about confidentiality and all that shit.
“That’s what’s going to clinch this. His accuser is Brianne d’Aroth.”
Ky stopped in astonishment. Brianne was one of the many high-powered women of the ruling d’Aroth family.
The d’Aroths had been largely responsible for shutting down DNAmo and making the Shareem second-class citizens twenty years ago, and now one of their number was accusing Aiden of assault?
From what he’d seen on the digitals, Ky had thought Brianne, with her sun-streaked brown hair and large brown eyes, didn’t seem as bad as the rest of them. She was tall—all the ruling women had tall children—and her figure was what the digitals called lush and Ky called delectable. She was not in line to inherit anything, but she ran a lot of charitable projects and basically helped the ruling family look good.
She’d seemed more kindhearted than the other women in her family, and whenever Ky saw her on digitals he let himself have one or two cock-hardening fantasies about her.
Showed him how much he could trust reporters and digitals.
“What the hell is she talking about? How would Aiden even get near Brianne d’Aroth?”
“Apparently she was slumming?” the patroller said.
“Fuck this.”
Ky swung on his booted heel and strode off into the sunshine.
“Where are you going?” the patroller called after him.
To figure out what the hell is going on.
Aiden was his best friend. When they’d first fled DNAmo ahead of the rampaging, trigger-happy patrollers, they’d hidden out in an abandoned shack that wasn’t fit for weevils, and they’d taken turns going out scavenging food and water. They’d waited out sandstorms in the place, huddled together to keep off the worst of the dust, barely able to breathe.
Shit like that made a man your best friend, and you didn’t let him get terminated because of some bitch’s fantasy.
He strode into a train station and got on a train to go uptown, where the rich lived all clean and protected. Damn it all to hell.
Three hours later, the patrollers locked his struggling form into a cell in the Senoda jail block, generously letting him share the six-by-six space with his best friend Aiden.
Chapter Two
Incarceration
Aiden gave Ky the scowl he wore only when he was truly pissed off. “Oh, great. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Trying to get you out,” Ky said.
Aiden pointed at the transparent, foot-thick wall. “You’re supposed to be doing that out there.”
The jails on Bor Narga were the cleanest and most efficient in the system—and the most demoralizing. Each cell was backed by a white wall, and that was all the prisoner got for privacy. The other three walls were made of thick transparent plastic built to withstand several thousand tons of explosives.
Prisoners had nothing, not even a place to sit down. Food was delivered at certain hours, and a toilet lowered from the back wall when needed. Prisoners were sterilized by sonic beams once a day. Everything was scrupulously clean.
Not that prisoners remained in these cells long. This jail was a waiting area in which unlucky detainees paced while their trial was prepared. These cells were for the worst offenders, those who usually ended up terminated. Termination was quick and painless, so Ky had heard.
Aiden and Ky were the only two in the block today. There were no guards in the corridor because there was no need for guards. They couldn’t escape.
Ky folded his arms. The jailers had taken their clothes but left them with the loincloths Shareem usually wore. Ky’s was leather. The black chain on Ky’s right biceps tightened.
“I went to the house where Brianne d’Aroth lives,” he said.
Aiden’s ultra-handsome face took on a look of amazement. “What for? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. Couldn’t get past the front gate. I just wanted to know why she decided to accuse you of assault.”
“Is that who accused me?” Aiden looked amazed. “Why? I’ve never seen the woman before, except on digitals.”
“She was in the coffee bar today.”
“Ah.” His eyes softened as he recalled the incident. “So she was the female under all those veils.”
“What happened?” Ky asked impatiently.
“She smiled at me. I smiled back. Then she walked out.”
“So you never touched her.”
“I never got near her. Closest was about twenty feet.”
“That’s not how her bodyguards tell it,” Ky said. “Anyway, I got pissed off, and they arrested me too.”
“Great.”
“Yeah, I’m an asshole. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Aiden leaned against the transparent wall. He had been face-sculpted before birth, an experimental technique at DNAmo. The result was that he had a perfectly symmet
rical face, almond-shaped blue eyes, and a handsomeness that was almost blinding. Women stopped in their tracks when they saw him.
Ky had a face that could charitably be called plain, but it wasn’t his looks that made women follow him. Ky was a level three, made a little stronger, a little bigger in the body than the level ones and twos.
Ky rumbled on. “And now no one knows we’re in here, and we’ll both be terminated and swept under the rug. The Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms likes to keep Shareem problems quiet.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?” Aiden asked. “Not Judith or Braden?”
“Didn’t have the chance.”
Aiden said nothing, but Ky knew he’d blown it. Braden could have put them in touch with Rees, who had taken a rich woman to be his lifemate. Talan d’Urvey was not as powerful as Brianne d’Aroth, but she still said some pull. For a shy little lady she had a core of steel.
Ky said, “I have a feeling that after our last stunt, they won’t be lenient.”
Aiden grinned suddenly. “You mean when you auctioned me off in the street?”
Ky had stood Aiden on a block in the middle of Pas City and pretended to sell him to the highest bidder. Women had flocked to watch, causing a near riot. The patrollers had not been amused.
“Yeah, that was fun,” Ky said. “Except we pissed off the patrollers, more so when all those women paid to get us out.”
“It was for a good cause,” Aiden said.
They’d held the auction to distract all the patrollers in the district so that their friend Rio could get himself off-planet unhindered.
“I know. I don’t think that will help us any.”
Aiden blew out his breath. “Well, it’s been a nice almost-life.”
“Hey, we’re Shareem. We’re not supposed to worry about things like this. No real feelings, right?”
Aiden didn’t smile at Ky’s attempt at humor. “We’re screwed, my friend.”
“Now that you mention it, I’d love to have screwed one last time.”
Aiden opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then thought better of it. “Yeah.”
“Remember Judith’s birthday?” Ky said, thinking of their friend who ran a bar in the heart of the city. “Just the three of us. Her on the bar.”
“Naked,” Aiden said. “All spread out for us.”
“Me pouring that sweet liqueur over her body.”
“Her getting pissed because it was her most expensive stuff.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ky chuckled. “It was tasty.”
“What I really liked,” Aiden said slowly, “was when we were licking her pussy together and our tongues got all mixed up. Me tasting her on your lips.”
Ky felt his cock start to rise. “Yeah, that wasn’t bad. Surprised me.”
“Made it twice as good.”
Ky considered. “Well, maybe not twice as good. It can’t have been that good for you kissing me.”
Aiden got an odd look on his face. Ky mused that it hadn’t been bad, feeling Aiden’s strong lips and his hot tongue flickering briefly across his. Different to feel another man’s whiskers burn his mouth, but not bad. It had turned Judith on pretty hard.
Aiden crossed the short space of cell between them. Ky looked up in surprise just as Aiden slanted his mouth across Ky’s in a bruising kiss.
*** *** ***
“What do you think of Shareem?” Brianne asked her fiancé Dranis m’Aren as they strolled in the starlit garden protected by the highest-tech force fields in existence. The brutal desert waited outside for the unwary, but under the canopy the air was still, the night bright with stars.
Dranis walked with his hands behind his back, his long coat bumping his knee-high boots. He was about ten years older than Brianne and handsome in a bland sort of way. His parents had been too careful in planning his face, so his handsomeness was somewhat vapid.
The Shareem in the coffee bar had exuded sensuality. The blond man had been face-sculpted by an artist, that was obvious. Small imperfections like one side of his mouth quirking higher than the other kept his face from being overly perfect and dull.
And his eyes. Hot blue and beautiful, they’d fixed on Brianne and she’d felt pleasured, ready for climax.
Her meditation coaches told her that unhealthy sexual yearnings should be exercised out of the body, but even after several hours of working out, Brianne’s yearnings lingered. What might have happened if she had taken the Shareem’s unspoken invitation and walked with him to her private transport?
The seats of her hover car were softest plush and just wide enough for a Shareem to lie on top of her with his warm weight …
She broke the thought, her face hot. No wonder Shareem were outlawed. They distracted a woman’s thoughts and made men like Dranis look boring and ineffectual in comparison.
Well, she’d always thought Dranis dull, but she hadn’t really cared before. Husbands were for donating DNA, nothing more. Dranis had his own life, and she had hers. Marriage was a business decision, especially in the d’Aroth family.
Wouldn’t it be fun, came the thought, if you had a Shareem all to yourself? Even for a little while?
Dranis sat down on a bench, flopping his coattails out of his way. “Shareem? I don’t think anything about them. They’re just animals, aren’t they?”
Brianne shrugged as she sat down next to him. “They look human enough to me. Two arms, two legs …” Bodies to die for, eyes that made you think things you’d never dream of thinking.
“That’s where the resemblance ends,” Dranis said. “Animals, Brianne. Created for rutting women stupid enough to be taken in by them. Which you never will be. I know your IQ.”
“Of course not,” Brianne said dryly. “I am far too intelligent.”
“Exactly.”
Finished with the conversation, Dranis looked up at the night through the clear force field. “No place like Bor Narga for stargazing, is there? Don’t know why anyone ever wants to leave.”
“Shareem aren’t allowed to leave.”
He glanced at her, surprised. “Well, no, they have to be controlled. Can’t have them roaming the galaxy ravishing everywhere they go, can we? They need to be contained.”
“Because they’re animals?”
“Because they can’t be trusted. How embarrassing for Bor Narga if we let them spread their tainted genes everywhere.”
Sudden anger washed through Brianne, and she stood up abruptly. Dranis regarded her in surprise.
“I have some work to do,” she lied, then whirled and walked quickly away.
“All right,” she heard Dranis say behind her. He couldn’t have cared less.
Brianne didn’t have any work to do, but she thought if she stayed a moment longer she would kick Dranis in his boring behind.
Animals for stupid women, that’s what Dranis thought. Complacent idiot.
Shareem were human enough. From what she’d read, they could pour pheromones over women and stir the women’s own endorphins, subtly seducing without even touching them. In the coffee shop Brianne had been ready to grope herself under her robes, sliding her fingers into her own wetness. Right there in front of everyone.
It had nothing to do with her IQ and everything to do with her being female. And alive.
Why had she decided to go into that coffee bar today? Just looking at the Shareem had ruined her concentration. She couldn’t finish any work, she snapped at everyone and she couldn’t stop fantasizing about him.
His hard body against her skin, sweat and heat sliding, his lips covering hers, tongue in her mouth.
But Brianne didn’t like sex. Did she? Sex was for commoners. For a woman base enough to rip off their clothes and kneel in front of a Shareem, to open her mouth wide for his cock.
Sweet gods.
Brianne brushed her hand over her brow, feeling hot liquid between her legs. What had that Shareem done to her?
Her communications terminal beeped softly, a welcome distraction. She br
eathed a sigh of relief and touched the screen to answer. “Yes, who is it?”
The voice of her receptionist said quietly, “Lady Talan d’Urvey, my lady.”
Talan d’Urvey was a wealthy highborn woman, quiet spoken and kind, but notorious for having paired up with a Shareem. Lady Talan lived with him openly, defying convention and almost getting herself shunned. Almost—ladies couldn’t quite bring themselves to blackball her, because Lady Talan was one of the wealthiest women on Bor Narga.
Strange that Brianne should see her first Shareem today and then get a call from Talan d’Urvey.
“Put her through,” she said.
A moment later the picture of a young woman with dark red hair and blue eyes filled her screen. A serenity lingered about Lady Talan’s face as though she’d found the secret to happiness. Or maybe that came from having sex with a man who could constantly flood her with endorphins.
Talan did not look pleased at the moment. She glared at Brianne, her face tense.
“Lady d’Urvey,” Brianne said politely, expecting to be asked a question about some charity or other they were both on the board of. “What may I do for you?”
“Lady d’Aroth, why did you have Aiden arrested?”
Brianne blinked. “I’m sorry? Who is Aiden?”
“Did you not even ask his name?” Lady Talan asked angrily. “Shareem have names you know. You could at least do them the courtesy of using them.”
Brianne sat back with a bump. “The Shareem was arrested?”
“Yes. He’s in the high-security jail at Senoda.”
Brianne stared at her, stunned. But of course. Her monitors. Her alert bodyguards monitored Brianne’s heart rate and adrenaline levels when she was out, especially when she left their sight, so they would know if anyone tried to attack her. They were trained to deal ruthlessly with an assassin.
When the Shareem had looked at Brianne and made her heart go pitter-pat, the bodyguards had assumed … And then she’d run out of there as though she had a fire under her robes, or at least between her legs.
“I didn’t know … I’ll see to it … I’ll take care of it, I assure you. Thank you for bringing the problem to my attention.”
Tales of the Shareem, Volume 1 Page 37
