Braden (16 page)

The patroller studied the handheld again. “Says here your inoculations
are coming due in a few days. Why haven’t you gotten them?”

Braden tapped the line on the handheld. “Because I still
have a few days. I’ll go to a medic on my due date. I always get there on
time.” As much as he hated the shots, the thought of termination didn’t thrill
him either.

“You’ll go today,” the patroller said. “Now, in fact.”

“I’m busy today.”

The patroller pulled out her stun weapon. Stun guns didn’t
do permanent damage, but they hurt like hell and gave their victims a serious
hangover.

“We’ll go together,” the patroller said.

Braden gave her a look of mock-surprise. “What, you aren’t
afraid to be alone with me?”

She gestured with the stun gun. “Move.”

Aiden was facing the bar, leaning on it, pretending not to
listen, but Braden sensed his waves of fury. Aiden, the level-one Shareem who
went through life with a smile, was angry.

Braden was too, but he was more used to anger than Aiden
was. Braden had lived his entire life angry, from the moment he’d understood,
at age five, what he was and why he’d been made. He loved women and liked his
friends, but Braden knew that his own life wasn’t his. Never would be.

Without a word to Aiden and Judith, he let the patroller
direct him out the door.

The nearest medic, fortunately, was Katarina d’Arnal. Months
ago, she’d left her cushy house in the Serestine Quarter to move to Pas City
and minister to the downtrodden. The downtrodden included Shareem.

Most Shareem now went to Katarina for their six-month even
if they had to travel from the edges of the city to do it, because they liked
and trusted her. Even Calder hovering over her like a worried giant didn’t keep
them away.

Braden sauntered into the clinic, leaned on the front
counter and smiled at the young woman behind it. She, used to Shareem by now,
simply made a note on her terminal and called Katarina.

Katarina, bless her, wouldn’t let the patroller follow
Braden into the back. The patroller looked irritated but didn’t argue. Katarina
was a highborn woman, even if she’d blackened her reputation by living with a
Shareem, and highborn was highborn. The patroller could arrest Braden on any
pretext, but if she wanted to keep her job and make it to her next promotion,
she’d obey Katarina.

Calder was nowhere in sight when Braden ducked into the exam
room. Braden hated exam rooms, which were filled with machines and beeping
things, clinical steel and gray walls.

Katarina tried to keep the place cheerful with
bright-colored curtains and by wearing a pretty tunic. She was a lovely sight
as usual, but she couldn’t quite cure Braden’s misgivings about inoculations.
At DNAmo, he was never sure exactly what would be
in
the shots, and he’d
woken either to excruciating pain or in some bizarre situation every time.

Katarina closed the door. Calder came out of hiding, quietly
emerging from a dressing room in his customary black leather tunic and
leggings.

A few scars remained on his rebuilt face, but they gave him
character, in contrast to the smooth perfection of Aiden’s face. Aiden could
look beautiful and vacant, like a model for the perfect Shareem—until he opened
his mouth. Then his smartass attitude poured out, ruining the picture of the
flawless sex god. Calder would never be mistaken for anything less than someone
you didn’t want to mess with.

“Hey, rules is rules,” Braden tried to joke. “One human, one
Shareem. That means she’s mine this morning, Calder.”

Calder didn’t bother answering. He planted his ass on the
edge of a table and folded his arms.

Katarina slanted Calder a warm smile, loving his highhanded
protectiveness. “It will make a threesome a bit tricky.”

“That’s why Brianne is already up on the hill arguing with
her granny,” Braden said. “She can’t be with both Aiden and Ky under these new
conditions. She’d have to trade off, and how would they decide who went first?
Draw straws? Roll dice? Damn, I’d love to see that fight.”

Braden spoke rapidly, his heart rate off the charts, his
body heating in his nervousness. Katarina smiled at his attempt at humor as she
lined up her instruments.

Instruments. Gods, Braden hated instruments.

“If you’ll just disrobe,” she said.

Usually Braden would turn this into a game, refusing to use
the dressing room and shocking her by dropping his clothes all at once. Maybe
wriggling his butt at her to make her laugh.

Today he tossed his outer robes on a hook and silently
stripped off his tunic. He felt the glance Katarina and Calder exchanged.

“You all right, Braden?” Katarina asked.

Braden turned. He was mother naked but Katarina regarded him
calmly, used to him. Braden had joined Katarina and Calder for a little play
more than once. Besides, after Calder, Braden didn’t have much that could
surprise her. She, out of all the Bor Nargan women Braden had met, had no fear
of naked flesh.

“Katarina,” Braden asked in a low voice, “what would happen
if you left out the contraceptives?”

Katarina looked up from adjusting a scanner. “Left them
out?”

“You know, gave me all the disease-killing drugs but not the
sterility things.”

“I know what you mean, Braden. I’m just wondering why you’re
asking.”

Braden shrugged. “Don’t you ever think about it? Whether you
and Calder could have kids, I mean? If you stopped giving him the sterility
drugs, how long do you think it would take you to get pregnant?”

Katarina stared at him in surprise, and Calder watched, gaze
sharp. “I’ve wondered,” he rumbled.

Katarina swung to him. “You have?”

“I’d be a rotten father, but yeah, I’ve wondered if it would
be possible.”

“Dangerous,” Braden said.

But his imagination took hold. He pictured Elisa coming to
him, smiling a secret smile and telling him she was going to have a child.
She’d likely have it moved to an incubator as all highborn women did, but even
so…

“Dangerous,” Calder agreed. “But maybe…”

He broke off before he finished. Maybe when Rees figured out
a way to get them off planet, and they found a place to settle and live,
wherever that might be, they could have families. What a wild and wonderful
idea.

“I don’t know whether it’s possible,” Katarina said quickly.
“I’ve thought about it too, but I don’t know what all they did to you
originally. I hate to say this, but it might not be possible, even if I never
shot you with a sterility drug again.”

Braden closed his mouth. Justin had proved it was possible,
but Justin’s secret was Justin’s.

“Is that what you want, Braden?” Katarina asked. “For me to
leave out the sterility part?” She touched the tube that contained the Shareem
drug cocktail.

Yes, Braden wanted that, but no, he couldn’t let Katarina do
it. She was right—Shareem might not carry viable seed anyway. Justin might be
an aberration, or maybe the researchers in Justin’s section had done a few
secret experiments.

Plus, Braden couldn’t do that to Elisa. Elisa wasn’t his.
She was having fun exploring a side of herself she’d not been able to before,
using Braden to do it. She could have chosen any Shareem to fulfill this
role—Braden just happened to be the one who’d walked into her library.

When Elisa finished learning about her sexuality, she’d say
goodbye to Braden, put her celibate’s robes back on and return to the Way of
the Sky. Finished with Shareem and that part of her life. She probably wouldn’t
even send him a Yule card.

“No,” Braden said. “Just shoot them all in me. Don’t leave
anything out.”

Katarina exchanged another glance with Calder. The two of them
would be talking about Braden as soon as he left.

“Come on,” Braden said. “Let’s get this over with.”

He stepped under the scanner and waited impatiently while
Katarina fiddled with the settings. A full scan, inside and out, and he was
done. Katarina picked up the inoculation tube.

Braden closed his eyes and held out his arm. “Don’t bother
to tell me it won’t hurt.”

“All right,” Katarina said. “I won’t bother to tell you.”

It didn’t hurt. Katarina had the touch. Even so, Braden
flinched when it all went in him, then he sat down, dizzy and angry and very
fucking tired of being Shareem.

“Do me a favor,” Braden said as he dressed again. “Call
Elisa n’Arell for me. Tell her to come to my apartment and how to get there.”
He stood up, grabbed his sun-blocking robes and breath mask while Katarina did
the surprised thing again.

“All right,” she said.

Braden swept out without explaining and went home.

* * * * *

Elisa decided to take the train down to Pas City in answer
to Braden’s summons. She wore a plain tunic and leggings under unadorned
sun-blocking robes so as not to reveal her highborn status.

She followed the directions Katarina d’Arnal gave her to
d’Enela Street. No awnings shaded this street of dingy apartment blocks, which
meant that no sandstorm shielding was in place either. That made her a little
nervous, but she reasoned that people had survived down here a long time
without it.

Elisa easily found the shop that sold exotic fruit halfway
along the street. The elderly woman on the bench outside the shop gave Elisa a
smile as she approached.

“He’s in there, love,” the woman said, pointing.

Across from the fruit shop was a rusting door pitted by
sand. No one had bothered to clean or paint the door, Elisa realized, because
the sand would just destroy it again.

Elisa approached the apartment but before she could touch
the buzzer, the door slammed open to let out a Shareem she’d never seen before.
He was as tall as Braden but had dark brown hair and blue eyes that held
sadness. His mouth curved to a grin, though, when he saw her.

“I’m clearing out,” he said. “Don’t want to break the
rules.”

He swept past her, winked at the fruit-seller and strode
away. The door remained open and Elisa tentatively walked inside.

In contrast to the battered exterior, the interior of the
apartment was clean, freshly painted and neat. The front room had chairs, a
terminal, and a digital feed monitor and small alcove kitchen in the back. To
either side of the kitchen were closed doors that likely led into bedrooms.

That was it. The apartment had no extra rooms for displaying
artwork or for meditation. There was no library, no garden room. Basic living,
a far cry from the luxury of the Serestine Quarter, even from the “simplicity”
of Elisa’s house, which was considered modest.

A bedroom door opened as the apartment’s main door closed
behind Elisa. Braden leaned on the open doorframe, arms folded, just looking at
her.

No wicked smile, no sexy words in his bad-boy voice.

“Thank you for coming,” he said.

His tone made Elisa stop and her heart beat faster.
“Katarina said it was important. She made me worry.”

Braden’s face softened a little. “I didn’t want to call you
on a monitored channel. The fewer people who know you’re down here, the
better.”

“I understand.” The worry increased.

“It’s been nice being with you, Elisa,” Braden said. “But I
think we’re done. You can put your celibate’s robes back on, or go to your
center for cleansing, or whatever it is you have to do. You don’t owe me
anything. It’s on the house.”

Chapter Fourteen

Braden hadn’t realized how hard it would be to say the
words. His mouth didn’t want to work, and his chest hurt with every breath.

But the new rules handed down today meant that patrollers
would be watching Shareem more closely than ever. It meant that being with Elisa
would get tougher, especially for her.

Patrollers monitoring Shareem meant that Rees’ project might
be compromised at any time. If the project were exposed, it meant termination
for the Shareem involved. Braden knew this and accepted it.

But what would happen to Elisa? Her connection with Braden
might be discovered —probably already had been. Would her celibate status
protect her, or would the fact that she’d decided to try out Shareem negate
that protection? At best, Elisa might lose her job, her place in the Way of the
Sky—she might even have to leave the planet, never seeing her family or friends
again.

Elisa didn’t deserve to have her entire life ruined, her
reputation scrutinized—maybe even her life endangered—because she’d decided to
have a little fun with Braden.

She’d be surprised, even angry at Braden’s dismissal, but
she’d get over it. She’d return to her meditation center and get reinstated as
a celibate, go back to working at her library and move on with her life.

Without Braden.

As it should be.

“Done?” Elisa repeated in a stunned voice. “But my
dispensation is for a month.”

Braden shrugged, putting every bit of indifference he could
into the gesture. “Doesn’t matter. You already got what you came for. It was
fun.”

The look in her eyes wasn’t the indignation or wounded pride
he expected. It was bewilderment. “You don’t want to be with me?”

The hurt in her voice nearly undid him.
Yes, I want to be
with you, nonstop and forever. Always, my librarian.

“No,” he made himself say.

He didn’t imagine the tears that sprang to Elisa’s eyes
either. He wanted to cross the room, fold her in his arms, kiss her, hold her,
tell her he didn’t mean it.

What the hell is wrong with me?
Braden and his ladies
had fun for a night, maybe for a few days, then it was over. The ladies went
back to their own lives and Braden went back to his, everyone involved enjoying
memories of the encounter.

He’d never wanted to hold and comfort a woman when it was
time to go. And his ladies had never started to cry at the thought of not
seeing him again.