Tales of the Shareem, Volume 2 Read online

  Contents

  Calder

  - Chapter One

  - Chapter Two

  - Chapter Three

  - Chapter Four

  - Chapter Five

  - Chapter Six

  - Chapter Seven

  - Chapter Eight

  - Chapter Nine

  - Chapter Ten

  - Chapter Eleven

  - Chapter Twelve

  - Chapter Thirteen

  - Chapter Fourteen

  Braden

  - Chapter One

  - Chapter Two

  - Chapter Three

  - Chapter Four

  - Chapter Five

  - Chapter Six

  - Chapter Seven

  - Chapter Eight

  - Chapter Nine

  - Chapter Ten

  - Chapter Eleven

  - Chapter Twelve

  - Chapter Thirteen

  - Chapter Fourteen

  - Chapter Fifteen

  - Chapter Sixteen

  - Chapter Seventeen

  - Chapter Eighteen

  Justin

  - Chapter One

  - Chapter Two

  - Chapter Three

  - Chapter Four

  - Chapter Five

  - Chapter Six

  - Chapter Seven

  - Chapter Eight

  - Chapter Nine

  - Chapter Ten

  - Chapter Eleven

  - Chapter Twelve

  - Chapter Thirteen

  - Chapter Fourteen

  - Chapter Fifteen

  - Chapter Sixteen

  - Chapter Seventeen

  - Chapter Eighteen

  - Chapter Nineteen

  - Chapter Twenty

  - Chapter Twenty-One

  - Chapter Twenty-Two

  Allyson James books on Kindle

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Calder

  Tales of the Shareem

  Book 4

  Chapter One

  DNAmo compound, Bor Narga

  “I got word from the directors.” A man’s voice cut through Calder’s fog of pain. “The specimen is to be terminated.”

  The room went quiet except for the faint beep of machines. In the darkness of Calder’s brain, his screams went on and on.

  “Just what I need,” a second man said. “Directors interfering with my research.”

  “He’s got to be in excruciating pain. It will be kinder to him.”

  The second growled. “Yes, but the whole point is to see what he can stand. I can’t do that if they terminate him, now can I?”

  “Well, he’s not much of a Shareem anymore,” the first voice said. “The company won’t make any money off him like this.”

  “He can still provide valuable data on how they behave in high-stress situations. We can add it to the code for the new batch.”

  “Maybe, but if they lose money, I’ll give you three guesses whose salary it will come out of.”

  The second man sighed. “Damn it. Oh, all right, give me the hypo.”

  Calder dragged his eyes open. The pain of the tiny movement nearly killed him.

  He could see nothing but a gray haze and lumps of darker gray. He summoned all the air in his lungs and forced his lips to form words.

  “Fuck you.”

  Two dim blurs froze. “Gods,” the first one said. “He’s conscious. How can he be conscious?”

  Because I have bigger balls than you.

  “He won’t be for long.” Calder felt a touch on his arm. “You’ll be out of pain soon, Shareem. Just relax.”

  “Stop!” A female voice cut through the quiet room like a knife on glass. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The first man answered, “Obeying orders. He’s a write-off.”

  “Get away from him. Now!”

  Heels clicked swiftly across the room. Calder heard the sound of a tray falling and the crunch of a plastic hypo under a stiletto heel. He would have smiled if he could.

  “Angelica . . .” the first man began.

  “Don’t you ‘Angelica’ me. He is in this state because of you. Now get the hell out of my way so I can save his life.”

  “Why?” the second man asked. “He’s a total loss. Shareem are supposed to attract women. He’ll scare them away.”

  “He has a point,” the first scientist said. “Even if you save him, he won’t useful for anything but stress experiments.”

  “If we let people live based on their usefulness, you two would have been put down a long time ago,” the woman said crisply. “Now get out and let me work.”

  “This is our lab,” the second man said petulantly.

  “And I’m commandeering it. Go whine at the directors. It will probably take you three days to get in to see them.”

  The first man made a gesture of surrender. “All right. It’s your funeral.”

  The second was more put out. “This isn’t over, Dr. Laas.”

  “Don’t forget to close the door on your way out,” she snapped.

  Calder started to chuckle. It hurt like hell, his burned and ruined skin pulling and cracking. All the male scientists at DNAmo were intimidated by the petite genius of Dr. Angelica Laas.

  He heard the door slide closed. A cool hand touched him.

  “Calder,” she whispered. “Oh gods, what did they do to you?”

  Calder tried to form a reply. “Fucking experiments.”

  “No, don’t talk. You’ll damage the vocal cords even more. I’m going to fix you. Do you understand me? It will hurt, but I’m going to fix you. I’ll not let you die.”

  Calder touched her hand with his two good fingers. As he closed his eyes, she burst into tears.

  Great. Here I am burned and broken, and the very best DNA scientist in the galaxy is crying because she knows she can never make me whole again.

  He calmed her with his Shareem pheromones, letting them brush over her body. At least that part of him still worked.

  *** *** ***

  Twenty years later

  A soft chime sounded.

  “Time,” Calder said.

  He lifted himself off the writhing woman, his cock deflating, his body cooling rapidly.

  She clutched at him and moaned. “No. Not yet.”

  Calder backed away and faded into the shadows. The woman on the floor whimpered. “No, please. Come back. I have money. I’ll pay you twice as much. Please. I need you.”

  He didn’t answer. His breathing calming, Calder exited through a hidden door that noiselessly slid shut behind him.

  The woman would do what the others did, plead for a while, then swear at him and threaten him. Eventually she would pull on her clothes and quietly depart. He’d never see her again.

  Calder made his way through the long back hall to his own apartment, far from his lair. The lights came on in his tiny bedroom as he entered.

  In his bathroom, he stripped off, avoided looking into the mirror and stepped into the cooling stream of his water shower. Calder had a more expensive sterilizer, but he liked the feeling of water on his skin. It was especially nice after unsatisfactory encounters like the one he’d just had.

  Fucking stupid way to live. But there were few options for Shareem.

  Calder had another appointment in a half hour’s time, but not with a highborn lady who wanted to experience the Beast.

  Every six months, Shareem had to submit to an exam and get an inoculation that prevented both conception and disease. That had been the price levied on all Shareem twenty years ago for being allowed to stay alive. Any Shareem who missed his inoculation was arrested and terminated.

  Today wa
s Calder’s turn.

  Calder visited the same medic each time, in a backstreet clinic run by the Ministry of Health. Dr. Mareesh had reached her century mark and didn’t care about the genetically enhanced Shareem and their powers over women.

  She’d silently roll back Calder’s sleeve, jab the cocktail of vaccinations and contraceptives into his arm, slam her thumbprint on her handheld and dismiss him with a sour nod.

  Mareesh saw no need to strip Calder down to be scanned, for which Calder was silently grateful. His weight and height never changed, and Shareem bodies deteriorated twice as slowly as a normal human’s. The scan would say the same thing every time, so why bother?

  Calder dressed in a black leather coverall that hid every inch of skin. He pulled sun-blocking cloths around his head and face and fixed his sun goggles in place. He slid on the black gloves that hid his hands and stepped from his house into the harsh Bor Nargan sun.

  People in this neighborhood were used to seeing the six-foot-eight, black-clad giant walking through their streets. Even so, they didn’t greet him, and most turned hurriedly away when he trained those blank goggles on them.

  The clinic Calder sought was four blocks away. This was the heart of Pas City, the biggest slum of Bor Narga.

  The streets were crowded with vendors selling everything from useless robot parts to colorful sweets, from bright cloth to questionable meat on skewers. People swarmed everywhere despite the heat, Pas City always alive.

  Calder ducked under the rusted metal entrance of the clinic. This place mostly catered to junkies who could afford a quick dry out, or to women with too many children who bullied their husbands into coming in for sterilization.

  The receptionist gave Calder a nervous look when he stepped into the crowded waiting room, and immediately ushered him into the back. Didn’t need Shareem cluttering up the waiting room. Soon Calder found himself sitting on a metal table in the familiar examination room. He peeled off his goggles and one glove as he waited.

  The door opened and a young woman walked in. She wore the baggy silk tunic and colored leggings of women of the medical profession and had an opaque veil draped over her head and shoulders. A few curls of light-brown hair trickled from under the veil, and she’d pulled a fold of the silk across the lower half of her face.

  The color and pattern of the veil told the world that she was upper-class and unmarried. That she wore the veil across her face told Calder she wanted to hold herself aloof from the unwashed masses.

  Mareesh had never bothered with veils. Her seamed face and short hair had always been bare for all to see.

  “I’m Dr. d’Arnal.” The young woman gave Calder a quick glance, revealing brown eyes and thick black lashes. She set down a handheld and a plain metal box, which she opened, revealing the usual hypo. “Please undress behind the screen.”

  Calder didn’t move. “Where’s Mareesh?” His voice grated, his vocal chords never having properly healed.

  The young woman’s nervousness screamed to Calder, who could smell fear at twenty yards.

  Too bad, because what he could see over the half veil was pretty. More than pretty. Lush and sexy. Those eyelashes would feel good against his skin.

  “Dr. Mareesh retired,” the woman said. “A month ago.”

  Damn it.

  “She left me her notes,” Dr. d’Arnal went on. “I’ll get a quick scan and then inject you. I’m sure you know the routine.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but her voice shook a little.

  Calder shoved his sleeve up his arm, baring six inches of burn scars. “Give me the hypo, then I go. No scanning.”

  “But the Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms requires—”

  “Fuck the Ministry. Give me the damn hypo.”

  Uncertainty, then anger flashed through Dr. d’Arnal’s eyes. “I’m sorry, but that’s not what I was told to do.”

  “This your first time with a Shareem?”

  “Yes.”

  Calder leaned forward. He’d removed his goggles but he kept his face cloth tucked around the ruined side of his face.

  “I don’t undress,” he said, every word succinct. “I don’t get scanned. That’s the way it is. Mareesh knew.”

  Dr. d’Arnal met his gaze. She had lovely eyes, warm and flecked with gold. His Shareem imagination put her on the floor under him, those eyes hot with passion.

  “I’m not Dr. Mareesh,” she said.

  “No, you’re young and naive.” Calder grabbed the hypo out of the box and pressed it to his arm.

  She tried to snatch it then made herself stop as though fearing that grabbing it away would hurt him. Fearing to hurt a Shareem. Gods, what an innocent.

  Calder lifted the handheld, seized Dr. d’Arnal’s frozen hand, and jabbed her thumb onto the thumbprint pad. “There. Done.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I just did.”

  She gaped at him. “I could lose my job for that.”

  “Then don’t tell anyone.”

  Calder rose from the table, towering over the woman by a good foot. She’d snuggle nicely under his chin—that is, if she ever removed the stick from her butt.

  Her chest rose and fell, a shapely bosom waiting under the layers of garments. He’d love to peel back the cloths, lower his head to one of her tightening nipples, rub his tongue over the firm point.

  No.

  Calder didn’t get to have sweet fantasies with sweet women. His purpose was to fulfill rough, nasty, dirty fantasies for women who could afford it.

  Whatever they wanted for whatever amount of time they paid for, no safety words and no stopping. The women signed consent forms before they came in that said Calder could do to them anything he wanted. Anything he deemed necessary.

  “I’ll be back in six months,” he said.

  He gave Dr. d’Arnal’s curved ass a slap and walked out.

  He wasn’t allowed to touch women without their permission, but Calder liked to bend the rules when he could. And her ass was so very spankable.

  Calder heard her gasp of outrage as he went, and he permitted himself one little chuckle.

  *** *** ***

  Katarina d’Arnal had no idea how long she stood after Calder left, her handheld to her chest and her mouth open.

  He’d touched her. The Shareem had touched a highborn woman without permission. And the way he’d touched her . . .

  Katarina felt a tingle on her backside the exact size and shape of his hand. What would it feel like to have him smooth his hand there instead?

  It was forbidden. He’d broken all the rules—not allowing himself to be scanned, grabbing the hypo and inoculating himself.

  What had she expected? A grateful Shareem, happy that she tried to help him not spread disease or father children?

  The clinic’s director, who didn’t think much of Katarina’s soft heart, had said, “If you feel sorry for slum-dwellers so much, you can have the Shareem. One’s coming in at two.” The woman had sneered at Katarina, a highborn woman volunteering to work at a backstreet clinic. Doing a Shareem check was considered a crap job.

  The Shareem’s name was Calder, the appointment roster said. The first Shareem Katarina had ever seen in the flesh.

  And what a Shareem. She’d never seen a man with such a huge body, so much power as he moved. Every part of him was gigantic.

  Every part, her cursory research on Shareem had said.

  Calder’s blue eyes, shadowed by his head cloths, had drawn her in. No—sucked her in, as though she’d become a puppet on strings the minute he’d looked at her.

  But there was something wrong with him. His bared arm had been covered with ropes of scars and mottled flesh.

  Katarina, who’d worked with victims of spacecraft crashes, recognized that he’d been burned so deeply that skin grafts hadn’t completely repaired him. The repairs had been competently done, but the flesh would never be whole.

  Calder’s voice was gravelly and broken, probably another souvenir of whatever had bu
rned him. But when he’d spoken to her, she’d sworn that just for a moment, another smooth, rich voice had whispered in her mind.

  Tell me what you want, Katarina. What you want deep inside yourself.

  Ridiculous. Katarina slammed the hypo back into the box and snapped the lid shut.

  She had everything she wanted—a career, a fine house her mother had left her in the Serestine Quarter, and plenty of friends.

  Loneliness.

  Katarina punched her handheld and swept from the room to see her next patient. Sometimes the little voices inside her needed to shut up.

  *** *** ***

  Dr. Laas flicked off her screen and chuckled. A curious young woman had been sifting through the Shareem database at the Ministry of Non-Human Life Forms, digging for information on one particular Shareem.

  Calder.

  “Baine, bring up all the information you can on one Dr. Katarina d’Arnal.”

  Dr. Laas’ computer, so ultra-superior that it had developed a complex, whirred and hummed.

  “Here she is, madam,” Baine said, his voice accented like an old Earth butler’s. “Dr. Katarina d’Arnal. The usual sort of highborn woman.”

  She wasn’t, though, Dr. Laas thought as she skimmed the information. Katarina d’Arnal had not yet married. Her mother had been prominent in Bor Narga’s social sphere, but both mother and father had been killed in an accident in a hovertrain, leaving a house and fortune to Katarina.

  After grieving, Katarina had entered medical school. When she finished, she’d volunteered in a clinic in Pas City, saying that she wanted to help the underprivileged, especially males, whose health care was too neglected.

  The young innocent. If Katarina d’Arnal wanted to do good, she could learn on someone who really needed it.

  Dr. Laas smiled, pulled her bare feet up on the sofa that was massaging her back, and told Baine to bring up a data code that was deadly secret except to those in the know.

  She keyed up the encoded application to enter Calder’s private sexual paradise and, with one finger, typed “Katarina d’Arnal.”

  Chapter Two

  “Are you sure this is right?”

  Katarina studied the sand-scoured face of the building in front of her. Her handheld told her the street vendor she needed to treat lived here, but this place looked like a disused warehouse.

  The woman who drove the cab leaned out the open window and gave Katarina an odd look. “385 Barkelo Street, ma’am. You sure this is where you want to get to? You don’t look the type.”