They moved toward the line of vendors’ booths, temporary structures that could be pulled up quickly in case of a sandstorm or patrollers with mean looks in their eyes.
Nella was soon assaulted by smells of spices, fruits, flowers, machine oil, warming plastic and metal robotic parts slowly baking under the sun. Over all this was the smell of humanity that all the technology, genetic engineering, and chemical products could never quite erase.
The assassin bot noted their approach and slid gently over to them. The people on the street seemed to ignore the bot—either they assumed it was a holo camera for a news feed or they didn’t see it hovering just above the normal line of sight.
Nella was very aware of it and strained her muscles to simply not look. Her hand in Rio’s grew slick with sweat.
The bot moved a little lower, as though assessing each of them. It passed over Rees, then Talan, then Rio and finally Nella.
Was it her imagination, or did the bot hesitate as though thinking it had found a match? Had they been programmed this time with visual recognition, even though the hood of the sun robe partially blocked her face?
Rio’s hand tightened on hers. Nella felt his pulse through his fingers, already higher than a normal human’s. She willed herself to calm, wondering whether the bot could detect fear.
The bot swung lower, as though debating. Then abruptly it popped up again and drifted away, losing interest.
Nella let out her breath, shaking all over. Rio shot her a smile, squeezing her hand reassuringly.
Rees, without changing expression, led them at a leisurely pace through the market. Nella still wanted to run, but she forced herself to walk behind him and Talan, stifling her impatience when one or both of them would stop and pretend to look at wares.
Rees bought Talan a colorful scarf, and Rio stopped to purchase a pretty braid of leather, which was meant to tie back hair. He winked at Nella and slipped it into his pocket, daring her to guess what he’d use it for.
At last, at last, they left the bazaar and stepped aboard a slow-moving hover transport that took them to the nearest city-to-city shuttle station. Talan purchased four tickets on a craft that would take them to the other side of the sand sea, and rather haughtily requested a private waiting room, as befitted her rank.
The station master, a woman, gave the Shareem a startled glance, then a slightly disdainful expression crossed her features as she looked at Talan and Nella—highborn women obviously no better than they ought to be. But she directed them to the cooled, tiled, pleasantly decorated waiting room for upper-class women, and left them alone.
They were the only four in the room. Nella sat down, heaving a relieved sigh, and loosened her robes.
“One hurdle navigated,” Rio said. “Now let’s hope Aiden and Ky distract the patrollers before they decide to investigate which Shareem have been reported taking a trip to the other side of the planet.”
“You’ve visited Rylan before,” Rees pointed out.
“Yeah. But not after I’d been fingered by patrollers as possibly trying to leave Bor Narga. And I don’t like the way the station master looked at me. They might have put out a watch for me.”
Nella slid her hand into his again. “I’ll not let them take you.”
“Huh. You might not have a choice, darling.”
Nella tugged him to her, and he sat down next to her, his thigh touching hers through the. “I’ll not let them take you,” she repeated. Then she smiled. “Trust me.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Cavern Pool
The way Aiden and Ky had decided to distract the patrollers, even though Rio didn’t hear about it until a long time later, was a thing of beauty.
The two Shareem, level one and level three, specialized in the two-on-one scenario. They’d built up a devoted following of ladies, highborn and low, who would do anything for them. These ladies, apparently, were happy to assist them in their scheme.
What Aiden decided to do was put on a collar and have Ky pretend to sell him at an impromptu auction in the middle of the street near Judith’s bar.
The ladies who liked these two men turned up in droves, eager to bid on Aiden. Judith watched from the doorway of her bar, amused. The commotion of the women and the titillating sight of the Shareem, one standing on a box wearing nothing but a collar and a loincloth, the other in leather, holding Aiden’s chain, was nothing less than sensational.
When the patrollers came to arrest the Shareem, the women began to riot. Passersby on the street joined in, enjoying the opportunity to throw things and taunt patrollers, no matter what the cause.
The result was that every patroller in the city was called to haul in the Shareem for creating a disturbance and breaking the rules about being discreet. A transport carrying two Shareem across the sand sea was never noticed.
Aiden and Ky did get themselves arrested, but a dozen wealthy women happily paid their fines and pulled in favors within the Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms to have them released. Aiden and Ky spent a long time repaying this debt to their female friends, and enjoyed every minute of it.
*** *** ***
On the other side of the sand sea, Rio led Nella from the transport with his arm around her. As though they were doing nothing more than visiting friends, they took a small hovercraft from the tiny shuttle dock to the house that Rylan had built for his lifemate, Maia.
The landscape of Canyon Roble was different from the area around the flat capital city they’d left behind. Jagged mountains, red with iron ore, rose in blunt cliffs from the desert floor, and a river, swift and shallow, poured down the mountains to form canyons and arroyos. Pungent, twisting pines and bright wildflowers clung to the canyon walls.
To Nella, used to the lush meadows and forests of Ariel, the red canyons, dark green trees, soft blue sky and crimson and violet flowers were a palette of stark beauty.
Rylan and Maia’s home incorporated some of that beauty. It was built into a crevice in a canyon, shadowed by trees and giving a view of the burbling river and the town in the valley. Floor-to-ceiling windows, made of glass that would protect from the sun, lined every front room, rendering the landscape part of the decor.
Rylan had decorated it simply, with low couches, few tables, mat floors and one or two pieces of artwork that complemented the natural picture outside the windows. After Dr. Laas’ overly sensual compound, Nella found Rylan’s home refreshing and calm.
Rylan had a Shareem body and wheat-brown hair, and like Aiden, he’d been face-sculpted. He was not an exact copy of Aiden, however, his face being slightly heavier and more square. Also, Rylan’s own personality had been stamped onto his features. Rylan was level two, games and wicked fun, Rio had explained, which could mean anything from tickling to spanking to bondage.
Nella read more than that in Rylan, though. She saw a man who’d been through grief, but had finally found happiness with his lifemate, Maia.
Maia, the only female Shareem ever created, was a beautiful, lush woman with black hair and blue eyes. She’d been an experiment, a prototype, lost for years after DNAmo’s closure, before Rylan—who was obviously insanely in love with her—found her.
Maia greeted Talan and Nella with a slight awkwardness, although Talan tried to put her at her ease. Maia seemed perfectly comfortable with Rees and Rio, whom she hugged tightly and exchanged banter with, but seemed at a loss with the women.
She told them, later, when Rio, Rylan, and Rees had gone to see about final arrangements for the transport, that she’d never had a woman friend before.
Maia then took Talan and Nella to Rylan’s workshop on the second floor, which also had floor-to-ceiling windows, to show them the singing spheres Rylan crafted from raw mountain crystals.
“Most women don’t like to be around me,” she said shyly, touching one of the ruby-colored crystals that sat on Rylan’s work table.
“They’re jealous because you are so beautiful,” Talan said with conviction.
“It’s beca
use I’m Shareem. I can’t help releasing my pheromones, you see. Men react to it, and their women don’t like it. I don’t much like it myself.”
“Well, I know you love Rylan,” Talan said. “And he loves you. So everything is all right.”
Maia did not look convinced, but she seemed a little more cheerful as she showed them the singing spheres. “Rylan makes them,” she said proudly. “I help, but he is the true artist.”
The spheres ranged in size from a few inches in diameter to as large as a foot across. They were mainly ruby-colored or clear glass. Maia explained that when first harvested, the crystals were either blood red or opaque white, although there were a few rare, rainbow-colored ones.
The one rainbow sphere in the workshop, unfinished, danced with light, the colors meshing and changing seemingly on their own.
Maia brushed her hand over one of the finished spheres. Immediately, a shimmering musical note wafted from it, growing louder as the tone built, then softer as it dispersed in the room.
“How beautiful,” Nella breathed.
“Would you like to have it?”
“Oh.” Nella studied the sphere cradled in a wrought silver stand. “It must be very valuable. You and Rylan will want to sell it.”
Maia shook her head. “We can make more. Please, take it.” She flushed. “I’ve never had a friend before.”
Nella realized she couldn’t hurt the woman by refusing. “Thank you. It’s a wonderful gift. Though I might have to leave it here, and send for it later.”
“That’s all right. We’ll keep it for you.”
Maia smiled, and Nella sensed some of the woman’s pheromones in the air, probably because she was pleased, but they carried no sexual overtones.
Rio was nothing but sexual overtones. Nella remembered again the fullness inside her when Rio had slid into her, making love to her the only way he could. He could have hurt her, or rushed her, but he hadn’t.
He’d taught her that being with a level three was not necessarily about receiving pain. It was about accepting pleasure, and about him teaching her to surrender to it. Nella felt profound gratitude to him for that.
Maia took them all over the house, which Rylan had built with Maia in mind, putting in everything he knew she’d love. She even showed them their bedroom at the very top of the house, with a windowed wall and a large, low bed that took up most of the room.
Shareem lovers, Nella thought. They must need special cooling units to keep the air from overheating.
A few toys were strewn casually about the bedroom, a pair of manacles with a chain between them hanging from a bedpost, a long, polished dildo in a velvet-lined case on the table next the bed, and a stand full of whips in a corner. Talan blushed when she saw everything, but Maia behaved as though they were nothing out of the ordinary.
Maia wore only a thin sarong that bared most of her body, but she seemed comfortable with her nudity, just as the three Shareem males were comfortable with theirs.
Last, Maia took them all the way to the bottom of the house, underground, where a natural cavern was etched into the rock. A pool, fed by a trickle of a stream, shimmered under soft, computer-powered lanterns.
“Come and swim,” Maia said. “You must be hot from the journey.” She stripped off her sarong, tossed it to a latticed bench near the pool, and deftly dove into the water.
Nella was hot, and quite tired after the trip. She removed the robes Talan had lent her and laid them carefully across the bench. She took off the collar and the leather dress and folded them just as carefully, then slid into the water.
Maia surfaced and stood with the water lapping her breasts. “Are you using Rio?” she asked Nella.
Nella started. “Using him?”
Maia nodded as though she’d said nothing strange. “Yes, to pleasure you.”
Talan had taken off her clothes and now joined them, although she hid her body from them until she was fully in the water. This amused Nella—she’d first seen Talan stark naked on her hands and knees while Rees had been taking her from behind.
“No,” Nella said. “Not using him. I . . . he’s teaching me. That’s the only way I know how to explain it.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, Nella,” Maia said. “Women use Shareem all the time. It’s what they were made for.”
“Yes, but—” Nella struggled to explain, and she noticed that Talan watched her closely. “I’m not with him because he’s Shareem. I am with him because he’s Rio.”
Talan relaxed, as though Nella had said the right thing.
“You like him, then?” Maia said.
“Yes, very much.”
“Do you love him?” Talan asked.
The question left Nella speechless. Love him?
You do, came a voice inside her. You feel the Bond. You’ve denied it and tried to make it go away, but it’s there.
“It shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer,” Talan said, sternness in her blue eyes.
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m fond of Rio,” Talan said. “He helped me and Rees, Rees especially, when we needed it.”
“I’m fond of him too,” Maia said. “He made me laugh when we grew up together, and he helped Rylan save my life.”
“He is good at helping, then?” Nella sank to her neck in the cool, soothing water, while the other two faced her like interrogators.
“Very good at it,” Maia said. “He deserves someone to help him.”
“And you think I can?” Nella felt her panic rise. “All right, I do care for him, but he’s Shareem. That means he views me only as another woman who wants him.” Tears stung Nella’s eyes. “I am hardly unique to him, am I?”
Maia glanced at Talan. “Perhaps we’re being unfair. We want him to be happy because we know he was hurt.”
Nella nodded. “Rees told me the story of Serena. Don’t worry; I would never do that to him.”
“Yes, but I’ve seen how he looks at you,” Talan said. “He won’t be happy when you go back to Ariel.”
Nella bit her lip as tears left her eyes. “Rio won’t be the only one who hurts when it’s over.”
Nella put her hand to her face and let herself cry. She wanted to go home, but the thought of leaving Rio forever, of never seeing him again, was more than she could stand.
She heard a rush of water, and then Talan and Maia were next to her. “Oh, you poor thing,” Talan said, stroking her hair. Maia enveloped Nella in her plump arms.
It felt good to let it out, all her anger at Linginian for tearing Nella from her home and terrorizing her, Nella’s fear that she’d never see her family again, her amazement on meeting Rio, her gratitude at Rio and his friends for helping her, the burning lust Rio had awoken, and her growing love for him.
Too many emotions, far too fast. Shareem weren’t supposed to have strong emotion, and for the first time, Nella wondered if that would not be a more comfortable way to exist.
“Oh, I have to like this,” Rio’s voice rang from the edge of the pool.
The three women turned to see him standing in the shadows, arms folded over his leather-clad chest, staring appreciatively at them.
“Three lovely ladies in a pool,” he said, his Shareem voice low, “and all their clothes outside it.”
Talan’s eyes widened, and she sank until only her head showed. “Where are Rees and Rylan?”
“Upstairs, waiting while I look for you.” He smiled, wicked and slow. “Their loss.”
He undressed casually, taking his time. He didn’t stop when he was down to his loincloth—he unfastened it and let it fall. He was already hard, his cock standing in a ninety-degree angle from his strong legs.
“Want to play, ladies?” he asked.
“Not without Rees,” Talan said quickly.
“If I stay without Rylan,” Maia said, still with an arm around Nella, “he’ll be angry. Rylan’s very jealous.”
Nella sensed the woman’s increasing pheromones as she thought about what Ryla
n might do. Her blue irises widened, just like Rio’s did, as she grew more aroused.
“Perhaps we should go see what Rylan and Rees are up to,” Talan suggested. She glanced meaningfully at Maia, her intention to leave Nella and Rio alone plain.
“Yes,” Maia answered, her voice a purr. “I would like to see Rylan.”
She began to swim for the edge, in a hurry to go, but probably not for the reason Talan had in mind. Maia’s thoughts seemed to have switched sharply to Rylan and only Rylan.
Maia pulled herself out of the pool, naked in front of Rio. She snatched up her sarong and absently pulled it around herself as she headed for the lift. Talan behaved slightly more self-consciously, and Rio grinned at her as she walked by, holding her robes over her dripping body.
When Talan disappeared into the lift tube, Rio raised his arms above his head and executed a perfect dive into the deep part of the pool.
Nella watched the surface of the water, trying to peer into the shadowy depths to see him swimming, but nothing moved. The water was still, and silent.
A very strong hand closed around her ankle and pulled her under. Water closed over Nella’s head, cool and soothing, then Rio lifted her in his arms.
Nella surfaced, spluttering. “You might have warned me.”
“Why? It wouldn’t have been as much fun.”
Rio’s hair, sleek and black, swept back from his wet face, emphasizing his high cheekbones and deep eyes. He grinned at her. “You should see Maia and Rylan when they come down here together. I swear the water starts to boil.”
“You’ve been with them?” Nella said.
“Well, yeah. Otherwise I wouldn’t have seen the water boil.”
“I mean sexually. As a threesome.”
He lost his perpetual smile. “Yes.”
“And with Rees and Talan.”
“They’re good friends.”
“You must have been with many people.”
“I have.” Rio slid his arms around Nella’s waist, resting his large hands on her backside. “I’m with you, now.”
“But it won’t always be so. I’ll return to Ariel, and this will be over.”
Tales of the Shareem, Volume 1 Page 32