Tales of the Shareem - Aiden and Ky Part 1

TALES OF THE SHAREEM.

AIDEN AND KY.

Allyson James.

Chapter One.

Encounter.

The Shareem on the other side of the coffee bar swirled his tongue over the cream at the top of his cup and pulled it into his mouth.

Brianne daAroth went weak in the knees. She sat in a cooled room under cooled robes and still she wanted to melt into a puddle on the questionably clean floor.

He dipped his tongue into the cream again, coating the tip before drawing it into his mouth. He closed his eyes to savor the taste, a little smile on his face.

Every woman in the coffee bar leaned toward him as he swallowed, the hollow at his collarbone damp with sweat. His loose robes revealed a V of strong chest and light-colored curls licking sun-kissed skin.

His mane of blond hair was gathered at the base of his neck and flowed all the way down toaprobably his backside. Too bad the table blocked her view.

Oblivious of every female growing wet between the legs for him, he licked up another dab of cream. This time a drop lingered on his lips. Smiling, he slid his tongue out to clean it up.

This should be outlawed, Brianne thought over the rapid beating of her heart. Maybe she should call the patrol.

But the Shareem wasnat actually doing anything. He was sitting alone, sipping his coffee.

The way he sipped it, that should be outlawed.

The Shareem opened his eyes and looked straight at her, deep blue eyes pinning Brianne in place.

Not that he could see much of her. Brianne had covered herself from head to foot in plain robes so no one would know who she was. Shead taken off her face veil so she could enjoy her coffee but was careful to keep her head down and not reveal her features.

The Shareem looked directly at her. All over. She might as well be sitting there stark naked.

His smile widened, as though he knew what she thought. G.o.ds, sitting stark naked in a public place while he did nothing but look at her made her feela Mmm.

Shocked. Of course. Horrified. Amazed at his audacity. She should s.h.i.+eld her face from his unwelcome scrutiny, turn her back and walk away in a huff. She should snap her fingers for one of her bodyguards to come and teach the Shareem his place.

And have him stop looking at me like that?

Forget it.

She did the boldest thing shead ever done in her life. Brianne looked straight back at the Shareem and sent him a little smile.

Contact.

Adrenaline raced through her body, hot sensation pooling at the base of her spine. The Shareem acknowledged her smile with a sly quirk of his lips. Watching her, he dipped his tongue into the cream again.

She realized with startling clarity that he was picturing lapping the cream between her legs. Shareem could do thata"make a woman think of nothing but him pleasuring her.

Iam going to die now.

With a smile on my face.

This could go no farther. Brianne should not be down in Pas City even if her bodyguards had stationed themselves casually around the back of the coffee bar. She should not be enjoying the surprisingly good coffee in the shabby bar with common workers anda"dear G.o.dsa"a Shareem.

Shead come out as she sometimes did to see how people really lived, the women and men she spent her life trying to help. It was difficult to see what they were like from inside the huge compound that was the ruling familyas home. So on a regular basis Brianne dressed like an ordinary middle-cla.s.s woman and wandered the streets, looking around, protected by a dozen discreet bodyguards in case of trouble, or worse, reporters.

Shead never expected to see one of the genetically enhanced Shareem. Shareem were more or less outlawed on Bor Narga, allowed to live if they kept themselves to themselves, if they didnat try to procreate or leave the planet, and if they subjected themselves to a barrage of inoculations every six months.

Brianne had just popped in on a whim to try the local coffee. And there he was.

Shead heard they could sense when a woman wanted one and contrive to be where she could find him. She wondered which woman in the coffee bar would be lucky enough to take him home today and felt a twinge of envy.

Her smile turned regretful. Shead go home and deal with her upcoming wedding to Dranis, who was boring and stuffy but had good DNA. Their children, who would be incubated at the Ministry of Families, would be healthy, look good on the digital feeds and have a fairly good IQa"not genius level, but enough intelligence to deal with being part of the ruling family of the planet.

Brianne had already had her hymen removed in a nice little celebration when shead come of age. Shead be spared the embarra.s.sment of s.e.xual encounters because Dranis had no interest in s.e.x, one of the reasons shead chosen him. Theyad give their DNA to the Ministryas lab and never share a bed.

s.e.x was for the lower cla.s.ses, and even they strove to put their basic urges behind them.

The warm look in the Shareemas eyes said, Itas not embarra.s.sing, sweetheart. Itas the best thing youall have in your life.

She gave a tiny shake of her head. Maybe another woman could indulge, and a few upper-cla.s.s women did, but not Brianne daAroth.

He understood her signal. He made the barest shrug as he leaned forward to sip more coffee, as though to say, Hey, your loss, it could have been good.

Probably it would have been very, very good.

Her heart still racing with awakened needs, she sent him another small smile, thanking him for being so utterly gorgeous to look at. His answering grin made her body temperature soar again, and a dark tingling began in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She needed to get out of there before she gave in to the temptation of him. She was already sweating.

She flung her veil over her face, slid from the stool and hurried from the coffee bar without a backward look.

As she half ran along the bazaar shaded with colored canopies she did not notice a detachment of her guard charge in the back way of the coffee bar and arrest the Shareem. Their monitors had registered Brianneas rise in adrenaline and temperature, then theyad seen her run out faster than theyad ever seen her move before.

Their orders were to arrest and confine any who dared a.s.sault their lady. When they entered the coffee bar they saw the Shareem anda"well, everyone knew what Shareem did.

So Aiden found himself manacled and shackled and thrown into a ground transport before he could even finish his d.a.m.ned coffee.

aWhat did you say your name was?a aKy,a Ky answered impatiently as the patroller in dusty leggings, a loose tunic and scarred boots checked her handheld one more time.

aYes, there you are.a The patroller looked proud shead located Kyas information from the central computer at the Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms. aAnd youare looking foraa aAiden,a Ky said for the third time. aHe was arrested in a coffee bar and I want to know why.a aI can guess why.a The patroller pushed b.u.t.tons on her handheld, moving slowly. aHeas a Shareem, isnat he? Here it is. He was taken to the jail block in Senoda.a aWhat for?a The patroller peered at her handheld. as.e.xual a.s.sault.a Ky stared at her a stunned moment. aThatas bulls.h.i.+t. Shareem canat a.s.sault a woman. Weare programmed not to.a The patroller, a tall woman only about five inches shorter than Ky, gave him an evil look. aYouare the one whoas full of bulls.h.i.+t. 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. Iave heard.a aAnd the ladies pay Calder a frigging fortune to let him do it. What happened, he turn you down?a The patrolleras face turned three shades of red. aShareem are menaces and should have been terminated years ago. At least Aiden will be terminated tomorrow.a Kyas heart nearly stopped.

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. Wouldnat want women l.u.s.ting after s.e.x and possibly going back to the time when women had been completely submissive to men, would they?

Only a few votes had kept Shareem from being terminated wholesale after DNAmo closed. Aiden and Ky had survived by helping each other during the chaos of the companyas shutdown, and once the decision had been made to let Shareem live, theyad continued to share lodgings.

aAiden didnat do anything. He canat. Heas a level one.a aMeaning?a aWhips and manacles are only used by level threes, like me.a Ky leaned over her, six-feet-seven-inches of black leather and powerful muscle. aYou want a little bondage, you come to me. Aiden is a level one. Heas all scented oils and ma.s.sage and sensual pleasures. He can make a woman come just by feeding her strawberries.a aWell, apparently he went a little farther than strawberries.a aWhich Iam telling you is bulls.h.i.+t. He canat force a woman to do anything she doesnat want to. Not even Calder, as exotic as he gets.a aItas whatas in the report.a She flashed the handheld at him.

This was d.a.m.ned stupid, and yet the government of Bor Narga could easily terminate Aidenas life because everyone feared Shareem and s.e.xuality.

aWho accused him?a Ky asked.

He didnat think the patroller would tell him. Shead bleat about confidentiality and all that s.h.i.+t.

She smiled. aThatas whatas going to clinch this. His accuser is Brianne daAroth.a Ky stopped in astonishment. Brianne was one of the many high-powered women of the ruling daAroth family. About fifty years ago the governor and her husband had produced ten children and all those siblings had produced another five or six each, mostly female. Their family reunions looked like mob scenes on the digital news feeds.

The daAroths had been largely responsible for shutting down DNAmo and making the Shareem second-cla.s.s citizens. That had been twenty years ago, and now one of their number was accusing Aiden of a.s.sault? It was too much.

From what head seen on the digitals, Ky had thought Brianne, with her sun-streaked brown hair and large brown eyes, didnat seem as bad as the rest of them. She was talla"all the ruling women had tall childrena"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.

Shead seemed more kindhearted than the other women in her family, and whenever Ky saw her on digitals he let himself have one or two c.o.c.k-hardening fantasies about her.

Showed him how much he could trust reporters and digitals.

aWhat the h.e.l.l is she talking about? How would Aiden even get near Brianne daAroth?a aShe was slumming?a the patroller suggested with a sneer.

af.u.c.k this.a Ky swung on his booted heel and strode off into the suns.h.i.+ne.

aWhere are you going?a the patroller called after him.

To figure out what the h.e.l.l is going on, Ky kept to himself.

Aiden was his best friend. When theyad first fled DNAmo ahead of the rampaging, trigger-happy patrollers, theyad hidden out in an abandoned shack that wasnat fit for weevils, and theyad taken turns going out scavenging food and water. Theyad waited out sandstorms in the place, huddled together to keep off the worst of the dust, barely able to breathe.

s.h.i.+t like that made a man your best friend, and you didnat let him get terminated because of some b.i.t.c.has fantasy.

He strode into a train station and got on a train to go uptown, where the rich lived all clean and protected. d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l.

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 s.p.a.ce with his best friend Aiden.

Chapter Two.

Incarceration.

Aiden looked at Ky with the scowl he only wore when he was truly p.i.s.sed off. Slowly and clearly, he said, aWhat the f.u.c.k are you doing here?a aTrying to get you out.a Aiden pointed through the transparent, foot-thick wall. aYouare supposed to be doing that out there.a The jails on Bor Narga were the cleanest and most efficient in the systema"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 couldnat escape.

Ky folded his arms. The jailers had taken their clothes but left them with the loincloths Shareem usually wore. Kyas was leather. The black chain on Kyas right biceps tightened.

aI went to the house where Brianne daAroth lives,a he said.

Aidenas ultra-handsome face took on a look of amazement. aWhat for? What did you do?a aI didnat do anything. Couldnat get past the front gate. I just wanted to know why she decided to accuse you of a.s.sault.a aIs that who accused me?a Aiden looked amazed. aWhy? Iave never seen the woman before, except on digitals.a aShe was in the coffee bar today.a aAh.a His eyes softened as he recalled the incident. aSo she was the female under all those veils.a aWhat happened?a Ky asked impatiently.

aShe smiled at me. I smiled back. Then she walked out.a aSo you never touched her.a aI never got near her. Closest was about twenty feet.a aThatas not how her bodyguards tell it,a Ky said. aAnyway, I got p.i.s.sed off, and they arrested me too.a aGreat.a aYeah, Iam an a.s.shole. I wasnat thinking straight.a 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 symmetrical face, almond-shaped blue eyes and a handsomeness that was almost blinding. Women stopped in their tracks when they saw his face.

Ky had a face that could charitably be called plain, but it wasnat 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. aAnd now no one knows weare in here, and weall both be terminated and swept under the rug. The Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms likes to keep Shareem problems quiet.a aYou didnat tell anyone?a Aiden asked. aNot Judith or Braden?a aDidnat have the chance.a Aiden said nothing, but Ky knew head blown it. Braden could have put them in touch with Rees, who had taken a rich woman to be his lifemate. Talan daUrvey was not as powerful as Brianne daAroth, but she still had some pull. For a shy little lady she had a core of steel.

Ky said, aI have a feeling that after our last stunt, they wonat be lenient.a Aiden grinned suddenly. aYou mean when you auctioned me off in the street?a 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.

aYeah, that was fun,a Ky said. aExcept we p.i.s.sed off the patrollers, more so when all those women paid to get us out.a aIt was for a good cause,a Aiden pointed out.

They had held the auction to distract all the patrollers in the district so that their friend Rio could get himself off-planet unhindered.

aI know. I donat think that will help us any.a Aiden blew out his breath. aWell, itas been a nice almost-life.a aHey, weare Shareem. Weare not supposed to worry about things like this. No real feelings, right?a Aiden did not smile at Kyas attempt at humor. aWeare screwed, my friend.a aNow that you mention it, Iad love to have screwed one last time.a Aiden opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, then thought better of it. aYeah.a aRemember Judithas birthday?a Ky said, thinking of their friend who ran a bar in the heart of the city. aJust the three of us. Her on the bar.a aNaked,a Aiden said. aAll spread out for us.a aMe pouring that sweet liqueur over her body.a aHer getting p.i.s.sed because it was her most expensive stuff.a aIam not surprised,a Ky chuckled. aIt was tasty.a aWhat I really liked,a Aiden said slowly, awas when we were licking her p.u.s.s.y together and our tongues got all mixed up. Me tasting her on your lips.a Ky felt his c.o.c.k start to rise. aYeah, that wasnat bad. Surprised me.a aMade it twice as good.a Ky considered. aWell, maybe not twice as good. It canat have been that good for you kissing me.a Aiden got an odd look on his face. Ky mused that it hadnat been bad, feeling Aidenas strong lips and his hot tongue flickering briefly across his. Different to feel another manas whiskers burn his mouth, but not bad. It had turned Judith on pretty hard.

Aiden crossed the short s.p.a.ce of cell between them. Ky looked up in surprise just as Aiden slanted his mouth across Kyas in a bruising kiss.

aWhat do you think of Shareem?a Brianne asked her fianc Dranis maAren 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 b.u.mping 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, theyad fixed on Brianne and shead felt pleasured, ready for climax.

Her meditation coaches told her that unhealthy s.e.xual yearnings should be exercised out of the body, but even after several hours of working out, Brianneas yearnings lingered. What might have happened if she had taken the Shareemas 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 lay on top of her with his warm weighta She broke off the thought, her face hot. No wonder Shareem were outlawed. They distracted a womanas thoughts and made men like Dranis look dull and ineffectual in comparison.

Well, shead always thought Dranis boring, but she hadnat 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 daAroth family.

Wouldnat it be fun, her mind taunted her, if you had a Shareem all to yourself? Even for a little while?

Dranis snorted suddenly, and she jumped. He sat down on a bench, flipping his coattails out of his way. aShareem? I donat think anything about them. Theyare just animals, arenat they?a Brianne shrugged as she sat down next to him. aThey look human enough to me. Two arms, two legsaa Bodies to die for, eyes that made you think things youad never dream of thinking.

aThatas where the resemblance ends,a Dranis said. aAnimals, Brianne. Created for rutting women stupid enough to be taken in by them. Which you never will be. I know your IQ.a aOf course not,a Brianne said dryly. aI am far too intelligent.a aExactly.a Finished with the conversation, Dranis looked up at the night through the clear force field. aNo place like Bor Narga for stargazing, is there? Donat know why anyone ever wants to leave.a aShareem arenat allowed to leave.a He glanced at her, surprised. aWell, no, they have to be controlled. Canat have them roaming the galaxy ravis.h.i.+ng everywhere they go, can we? They need to be contained.a aBecause theyare animals?a aBecause they canat be trusted. How embarra.s.sing for Bor Narga if we let them spread their tainted genes everywhere.a Sudden anger washed through her, and she stood up abruptly. Dranis regarded her in surprise.