Talan thought about their last meeting, and her face heated, but she was in too much of a rush to worry about it.
“Rio,” she said. “Can I talk to you?”
He grinned. “Any time, babe.” He locked his arm around her and led her to a table in the corner. Judith, with a smile of welcome, brought them drinks.
Rio grinned at Talan and leaned to her. “Please tell me you want me to fuck your ass again.”
“No. Although . . . “ Talan twisted her glass on the table “ . . .that was nice.”
“It was more than nice. But what did you want to ask me?”
“Whether you knew a Shareem called Brandt. A level one.”
Rio lifted his brows. “I know him. Not well.”
“Do you know where he lives? I want to talk with him.”
He looked more perplexed. “Why do you want a level one after you’ve had a three?”
“Because I want to ask him a question,” Talan said. “If you know where I can find him, please tell me.”
Rio drank his ale then closed his hand over hers. “I’ll do better than that, sweetie. I’ll take you there.”
*** *** ***
Rio led Talan to an apartment that was not far from the bar. They walked, Talan telling the bodyguards to take the litter and go to a nearby rest station to wait for her. They didn’t like leaving her, but Talan’s word was their command.
The day was hot, the sun scorching overhead, the wind dry and scalding. Talan’s sun-protective clothes with their cooling system helped, but she was still sweating by the time they reached a somewhat faceless white building.
A little courtyard in the center, unprotected by shields, provided tiny relief from the heat. The courtyard held a fountain and greenery that someone obviously cared for.
Brandt lived in the apartment at the back of a breezeway. Rio rang the buzzer and the door opened right away.
“Rio?” A tall man with Shareem-blue eyes looked at them from the doorway. He had chestnut brown hair and his face bore the sculpted handsomeness of the Shareem. He was a little older than Rio, but not by much.
“What brings you here?” he asked Rio. He was curious, not unfriendly.
“My lady does,” Rio said. He put his arm around Talan. “She wants to ask you something.”
Brandt gestured them inside. “Come in out of the heat. What can I do for you, my lady?”
Rio ushered Talan through the doorway, the door thankfully closing against the blazing sun.
Talan brushed the sand from her robes. “Actually, I wanted to ask . . .”
A lady had come through a door to the inner rooms. She was a pretty woman in her forties, dressed in a sleeveless tunic, with her brown hair, which bore only a thread or two of gray, pinned up in a casual twist. She looked at Talan, and her brows rose in curiosity.
“Lady Ursula?” Talan asked.
The lady smiled. “I used to be called that. Who are you?”
“My name is Lady Talan d’Urvey. I am Lady Petronella d’Naris’ adopted daughter.”
Her look turned astonished. “You are Lady Pet’s daughter? My, how time flies. I saw you once at a charity ball. You were a tiny girl, so adorable.” Lady Ursula smiled again, a kind smile. “What brings you here, Lady Talan?”
“This.” Talan pulled a disk from her robes. “It’s your diary. I found it when I was researching.”
Lady Ursula took the book and gazed at it, her eyes going soft “My diary. Oh, my. I forgot all about this.”
“What is it?” Brandt asked in his Shareem-deep voice.
“I wrote everything down about how I met you.” Lady Ursula’s cheeks grew pink. “And the few weeks after I met you.”
Brandt looked interested. Rio grinned. “Ooo, I’d like to read that.”
“No,” Talan, Brandt, and Lady Ursula said at the same time.
Rio held up his hands. “Fine. Everyone gets to have fun but me.”
“The diary ended, but . . . “ Talan looked from Lady Ursula to Brandt. “Your story didn’t end, did it?”
Brandt slid his arm around Lady Ursula’s waist, and she snuggled back against him. “No. It didn’t,” she said.
“You stayed with him,” Talan said. “Well, obviously.”
Brandt pressed a kiss to Lady Ursula’s hair. “Lucky for me.”
“I loved him,” Lady Ursula said. “When I realized that, I packed my things, said good-bye to Lady Ursula d’Mato and social acceptance and came here to beg Brandt to let me stay with him.”
Brandt smiled. “Which I did. Gladly.”
“You’ve never regretted it, have you?” Talan asked.
“No.” Lady Ursula touched Brandt’s cheek. “Never.”
“I’m glad,” Talan said softly.
“Did Lady Petronella send you down here?” Lady Ursula asked. “To look at Shareem? She was the only one I knew of who didn’t pretend that Shareem didn’t exist. She was always an odd sort, was Lady Pet.”
Talan gave her a pained smile. “She still is an odd sort. But no, I really came to give you your diary. And discover whether you had a happy ending. I’d hoped so.”
“I did.” Ursula patted Brandt’s hand where it rested on her waist. “I highly recommend falling for a Shareem.” She glanced at Rio. “Is he the one for you?”
“No,” Talan said quickly.
“I hope not,” Brandt said.
“Hey,” Rio protested. “Standing right here.”
“No,” Talan said again. “It’s Rees.”
Brandt’s eyes widened. “Rees?”
Lady Ursula looked puzzled. “Have I met him?”
“No,” Brandt answered. “You’d remember if you had. He’s mysterious as they come, even for a Shareem. Are you sure, Lady Talan?”
“She’s sure,” Rio said. “She could have me, but no. She’s gone on Rees. Go figure.”
Lady Ursula smiled again. “Well, I hope you’ll be very happy together.”
“Thank you, Lady Ursula.” Talan pressed her hands together in front of her and made a little bow. “Please be well, sister.”
Lady Ursula returned the bow. “You follow the Way of the Star, I see. Be well yourself, sister.”
Brandt said good-bye, he and Rio exchanged good-natured insults, and Rio led Talan away. Talan caught a glimpse of Brandt pulling Lady Ursula into his arms before the door shut.
Chapter Seventeen
“Rio, please help me find Rees.”
They walked out of the courtyard, back to the main street. “I don’t know where he is, Talan,” Rio said. “When Rees doesn’t want to be found . . . “
“I thought he was helping you.” Talan glanced around and lowered her voice. “Helping you go off planet.”
“He is. But contacts are one thing, money is something else. The better my chance, the more it’s going to cost. I haven’t come up with enough yet.”
Talan looked at him, surprised. “If you need money, Rio, you can have all you want.”
“Huh?”
“As my gift to you,” Talan said. “To help you.”
Rio took on an odd expression. “Listen, babe, it was fun, but you don’t have to pay . . .”
“No, no, no.” Talan waved her hands, distracted. “I’m offering this as a friend. Not for . . . . I want you to be happy.”
“Yeah?” Rio’s face softened. “You’d do that?”
“Of course I would. But right now, we must find Rees.”
Rio let out a breath. “You really are a sweetheart. Sure thing, I’ll help. But like I said, Rees is hard to find when he doesn’t want to be found. I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks.”
Talan stopped walking, the hem of her robe dropping to the dust. “Do you think he’s gone?”
Rio shook his head. “Not from Bor Narga. Shareem can’t leave the planet. Rees does this, sometimes. I don’t know where he goes. He just goes.”
“But he comes back.”
“Eventually.”
Talan picked up her sk
irts and gave him her best Lady Talan d’Urvey look. “Then take me to his apartment. He’ll have to go back there sooner or later. I’ll wait.”
Rio looked her up and down. “You’re as crazy as he is,” he said. “But all right.”
*** *** ***
Talan waited in his apartment for two days. Rio offered to stay and keep her company, but Talan said no.
She wanted to be alone when Rees returned. Talan didn’t mind snuggling alone into Rees’s bed, burying her face in the pillow he used, showering in the water shower that cleansed his body.
She told Lady Pet what she was doing, and Lady Pet, while not cheering her on, didn’t stop her, either.
“You do what you think you must, darling. But come home soon. I love you, too.”
Talan had kissed her fingers to her foster mother and pressed them to the screen, then turned off the monitor.
By late afternoon of the third day, Talan was restless but still determined to see Rees again, to talk to him, to explain.
It wouldn’t be dignified to grab him by the tunic and babble to him what she’d decided, but to hell with dignity. Dignity meant loneliness.
On the third afternoon Talan was lounging on his sofa, reading books from Rees’s small collection, when she heard—or thought she heard—his step in the hall.
Talan dropped the book reader, crossed to the door, and opened it. No one was there, but in the corner, the lift tube was rising.
“Rees?”
Her heart beat faster. Had Rees sensed her waiting in his apartment and decided to flee? He could taste her pheromones in the air, he’d told her. He was an enhanced Shareem—maybe he could scent her even through the thick metal door.
Would Talan be fool enough to run out after him and chase him down the street? She thought maybe she would.
Talan hastened up the emergency stairs and into the foyer. It was likewise empty. She rushed out into the narrow street and frantically looked around.
The street was unusually deserted, but she swore she heard footsteps hurrying around the corner. She ran to look.
The sandstorm, predicted all morning, swept at her from the other end of the street. Before Talan could run back around the corner again, the roiling storm was upon her.
Her breather, the apparatus meant to save her life, was hanging by the door in Rees’s apartment.
Sand choked her. It tore at her robes, trying to rip them from her. Talan couldn’t see, couldn’t hear.
Talan groped for the nearest wall, reasoning she could follow it to a doorway. But as much as she searched, she couldn’t find a wall, the sand too thick to see through.
She fell to her knees, closing her eyes, desperately reaching for sanctuary.
I love you, Rees.
Talan thought the words as hard as she could. She’d never have the chance to tell him again, but Rees had showed an ability to read emotions. Maybe he’d be able to read her thoughts lingering here on this corner in the dust.
Talan crawled, her lungs burning for air. The skin on her hands and face grated away, blood stinging. She kept crawling, her sense of survival telling her that maybe, just maybe, she’d bump into a doorway before her lungs gave out.
Someone grabbed her and hauled her up from the ground. A hand pulled her head back by the hair, and a breath mask was shoved into her face.
Talan gulped air. Breath-mask air always smelled musty, but at the moment it was the sweetest perfume she’d ever encountered.
The strong hand held her steadily, and then suddenly the mask vanished.
At first Talan panicked, but then, after a second or two, the mask returned, and Talan gulped another breath of air. After she’d taken a few breaths, the mask was lifted away again.
She understood. Her rescuer was sharing his mask with her.
Talan held on to him. His body was hard and strong, and she knew he was Rees.
Her heart beat hard with joy. Rees’s arm went around her, he pressed the breath mask over her face, and pulled her with him into the sand. Talan went willingly, knowing that even with the breath mask, they had to get indoors.
A door lay only a few yards away. The breath mask was over Talan’s nose and mouth when the door opened and the two of them stumbled into the foyer of Rees’s apartment building.
Talan must have been crawling down the length of the street, not toward a building at all. She froze as she contemplated how near death she’d just come.
She lowered the breath mask, and brushed the sand from her eyes. Her hand came away with a smear of blood.
“Talan.” Rees scooped her to him, holding her hard, his body shaking.
“I was waiting for you,” she said, her voice dry from the sand. “I thought I heard you.”
“You did hear me. Gods, Talan, I never thought you’d follow me with a storm coming.”
“I forgot about the storm. I’ve been reading books. Why didn’t you come in?”
Rees smoothed her hair from her forehead. “Let’s go downstairs.”
He wouldn’t say anything further. He got them both down the lift tube then took Talan into his bathroom and turned on his water shower. With hands as gentle as only Rees could make them, he undressed Talan and got her into the shower.
He stripped down and entered the shower with her, using a cloth to clean the blood from her face and hands.
Talan started to shiver. She was cold, though the water falling over her body held a pleasant warmth.
Rees was gorgeous when wet. His hair was dark with water, and water beaded on his lashes. His skin was slick and cool. His cock had already risen, and water clung to the dark blond curls surrounding it.
“How did you know I was here?” Talan asked.
“I can sense you,” Rees said, confirming what she’d thought. “I’ve always been able to sense you.”
“So you went away. You didn’t want to see me.”
Rees looked at her. “No, I didn’t.”
Talan’s heart felt as though there was a hole in it.
Rees wiped the blood from her face and put the cloth aside. He stood there looking at her, his wet body inches from her own.
Talan couldn’t help herself. She drew her fingers down his hard-muscled arm, bumping over the little chain that said he was Shareem.
She had no courage, but she made herself speak anyway. “I came to tell you that I love you, Rees.”
Rees shook his head. His eyes had become bluer, but he held himself from her. “You feel what I made you feel. I can make you think you’re in love.”
“I haven’t seen you for nearly three months,” Talan said. “Can your Shareem suggestions last that long?”
He shrugged, muscles working. “We had a lot of sex, Talan, in your rooms. Rio was there, too. It probably lingered.”
“That’s what you think, Mr. Shareem. I’ve been away for two months, in the middle of the desert sea, in a cloister with a dozen women. You cannot tell me that your Shareem empathy or chemicals or whatever it is can span two thousand miles and eight weeks.”
That stopped him. Rees scowled.
“You see?” she said. “You don’t know everything. When I was out there, alone, meditating, I realized how much I loved you. I love you deeply. And not just because you put a spell on me.”
“Talan—”
She folded her arms over her bare chest. “Stop talking, please. You woke me up, Rees. You made me realize what it was to live and to feel, and not just think. You made me realize I wanted love in my life, and that I wanted it with you.”
Rees put his hands on her shoulders, using his Shareem touch to loosen her. “Talan, I’m—”
“Shareem. I know. And more than Shareem. You’re the infamous R294E8S. But you know what?” Talan stood on her tiptoes and cupped his face in her hands. “You’re all of those things, but you’re not any of them either. You’re Rees. And I love Rees.”
“Baby—”
“I’m not finished. Lady Ursula gave up everything to be with her Shareem.
And she never regretted it one jot. She defied convention, and she’s happy. Lady Pet defies convention. I used to be embarrassed by her, but I’ve realized that convention can stifle and cheat you of life. I don’t want that.”
Talan kissed his parted lips, as he stood there, staring. “I want you, Rees. I want your smile and your beautiful body and the way you want me to feel good. I’d give up everything I have for that, even live in a hovel with you. What am I giving up, anyway? The chance to live a cold life with cold people who turn on you the moment you put a foot out of line? I don’t want that. When I was out in the cloister, I realized that. I want warmth, and I want you, and I want to love you, and I want—”
Rees put his hand over her mouth. “Talan, would you stop talking for three seconds?” He let out his breath. “I love you too, baby. I’ve known that for some time.”
Her eyes widened, her heart squeezing with hope. “You have?”
“Gods, yes.” He leaned to her, curving his body over hers. “Talan, I’ve loved you since the day you ran after me in the holo-room looking all cute and sweet, and asked for my DNA sample. I didn’t realize it then, but I loved you. I knew I should leave you alone, but I jumped at the chance to be with you.”
“When Lady Pet kidnapped you. I’m still sorry about that.”
“I was looking for you,” Rees said. “I would have tried some way to find you, no matter what. I knew you weren’t ready for me, that first day when I teased you. You were so damned innocent. And I’m . . . who I am. It killed me to walk away from you.”
“But you did it.”
“Yes, I did it. I didn’t take you and destroy you and leave you. R294E8S wanted me to, but I couldn’t.”
“Because you’re Rees.”
He closed his eyes. “Damn, I hate that you believe in me so much. It makes me feel all kinds of evil. I should have walked away and never let you find me again. I should walk away now.”
Talan tightened her grip on his arms. “Please don’t. I don’t want to live without you. Can you understand that?”
“Yes.” Rees swallowed, eyes opening, the blue in them heartbreaking. “I understand, because I don’t want to go on without you. I thought I could, but when I saw you get swallowed by the storm . . . Gods Talan, I thought my heart would stop.”
Tales of the Shareem, Volume 1 Page 17