Kieran (Tales of the Shareem) (9 page)

Felice decided it had been a bad idea to come here. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll just go back to his apartment and wait for him.”

Yet another Shareem stepped behind her, hemming her in. This one also had dark hair, and he wore leather coveralls open to his waist. He scowled at Felice as much as the first one did. Felice had the feeling of being surrounded by predators. They still weren’t sure what to do with her, but getting closer to pouncing.

“How long ago did he leave?” the third Shareem asked her.

“Don’t let them scare you, sweetheart,” the one called Aiden said. “Level threes aren’t happy unless they’re telling everyone what to do.” He lost his smile. “The thing is, Kieran was supposed to meet us here. We thought he’d lost track of time having sex, but if he’s not with you . . .”

“Then it’s not good,” the one called Calder said. “In fact, this could be very, very bad.”

Chapter Seven

Kieran crouched inside the tiny cargo hold and silently willed the idiots who’d trapped him here to go away.

Check out the ships again,
Rees had said.
Make friends with their workers, their captains.
Find out who regularly runs the largest freighters and where they go. Keep it casual. Looking up cargo runs on a computer tells me a lot, but I need to get the feel of the people.

So, why didn’t he send Aiden, who was friendly with everyone? Or Justin, who’d been off world and might know what kind of crew to look for? Or someone like Judith, who could beguile any man standing?

Rees always had about seventeen plans running in his head at the same time, and Kieran checking out the ships was probably only one of those plans.

Whatever.

Kieran had returned to the dockyards after he’d carried Felice to bed, determined to get Rees his intel so he’d leave Kieran alone for a while. He wanted time to explore more possibilities with Felice.

If the patrollers caught Kieran down here again, they’d arrest him, and this time, they likely wouldn’t let him go. He could only make up so many excuses.

He’d tried to be silent and blend into the shadows. Damn Rees. How Rees thought someone as big as Kieran could
blend
, he didn’t know.

He’d been doing all right, though, looking over a cargo ship that had a nice big hold and not much inside it. The crew had been lounging in the area in front of the ship, eating and drinking things they’d bought from a vendor. Kieran had approached, but they’d glared at him, so Kieran had played stupid and wandered away.

The ship was a good-sized one. Almost perfect. But it would do no good if Kieran couldn’t figure out what they carried and where they were going. Or if the captain would be willing to transport them. The crew definitely hadn’t looked friendly, but they might become so once they learned how much they’d be paid.

The back of the ship had been open, and Kieran had slipped on board for a closer look. While he’d been scoping it out, four of the crew members had moved to the rear of the transport. Instead of coming inside, they’d settled on the open ramp to drink.

Shit.
Kieran stayed in the shadows, motionless, putting the patience and stoicism cut into him at DNAmo to use.

He would much rather be home with Felice. Kieran had decided to let her rest—she’d been through a lot, and would need strength for what was to come. He’d give her the full level-three experience, he’d already decided, and then she could leave if she chose.

In the back of his mind, Kieran knew he wanted to give Felice the entire experience because it would keep her with him for days.

He didn’t want to say good-bye to her. That day would come—it always did. For now, he’d push the good-byes comfortably into the future.

But Kieran would never get back to Felice if these men didn’t go to bed. He let out a quiet sigh and settled in to wait.

This plan went well, until one of the men decided to sprint up into the ship to fetch another bottle of ale cooling near the hydro jets. That man happened to turn his head and spot Kieran.

“What the fuck?” The words came crackling over the translator chip in his coveralls. Weird to hear it from the chip and from his mouth at the same time, in two different languages, but the phrase sounded amazingly the same in both.

The man drew a weapon—a knife, because only patrollers were allowed to carry projectile weapons on Bor Narga. Crews of docked ships had to lock away their guns and the like until they left atmosphere.

The knife was good sized, but one man with a knife Kieran could handle. The other six who came up behind the first, also pulling knives, might be trickier.

Kieran’s first instinct, bred into him since day one, was to control the situation by any means necessary. That might entail talking around them or using his Dom skills to make them obey. Being level three didn’t only mean being dominant about sex.

“Stop!” he commanded. His voice rang across the cargo bay, echoing off the metal walls.

The men, conditioned to obey orders, did.

“You call this ship secure?” Kieran growled at them. “I snuck on here easy as anything. Not the kind of transport we want to hire.”

“You a patroller?” the first man asked.

“I told you what I was,” Kieran returned. “Someone who wants to hire a ship. But not this one. Have a good night.”

He strode past them, as though completely unworried about the steel blades that could reach out and slice him open. The crew let Kieran make it all the way to the bottom of the ramp before they worked out that he was bullshitting them.

“What the hell are you doing?” the lead man bellowed to the others. “Don’t let him get to the patrollers!” A few more men got behind Kieran while the others surged to him down the ramp.

Kieran faced them, unafraid. “I told you, I wasn’t a patroller.”
And for all the gods’ sakes, don’t summon them.

“Then you’re a rival,” the lead man said. “He’s seen too much. Gut him.”

“Shit,” Kieran said clearly.

Fight or run, that was the choice, and
run
was blocked by the four men behind him.

“My lady will be pissed off if you cut me up too bad,” Kieran said, still sounding unworried. “I promised her a long night.”

“Your lady will have to suck it.”

“She’ll have nothing to suck if you whack it off.”

A couple of the men paused, as though they wanted to laugh. The leader didn’t smile. “Teach him a lesson, boys.”

“Aw, fuck this,” Kieran said, and swung his big fist into the nearest man.

Shareem were made for sex first, and chemicals had been pumped into them as they’d developed to keep them tame and not violent. But they were also big and strong, and had spent time sparring with each other in secret at DNAmo, to keep in shape and work off steam when no sex was available.

The man Kieran hit went down under his blow, but the others decided to jump on him all at once. Kieran twisted and fought, punching and blocking, while knives cut through his thin tunic and into his flesh.

His fists made plenty of contact, but hot pain sliced him, several of the blades biting deep. He’d keep fighting, but eventually he’d lose enough blood to make him pass out, and then the men would finish him off.

The patrollers would find his body in a restricted area, but at least they wouldn’t be able to arrest him for it. Kieran imagined the disappointed looks on their faces, and gave a grim laugh.

He grew dizzy as more knives cut into him, but he kept fighting. Fighting wasn’t as fun as sex, but it was pretty good. The only thought Kieran didn’t like was that if these men killed him, he’d never see Felice again.

A whirlwind blew into the dock site. At least, Kieran thought it was a whirlwind, not being able to see much beyond the fists and knives coming at him. A freak sandstorm, maybe.

The wind turned into a woman in a plain coverall with a jeweled collar around her neck. Kieran couldn’t stop to stare in shock, but as he fought, he saw her spin her body and kick one of the fighters in the side. The man grunted in surprise, gasped for breath, and fell heavily to the deck.

Another spin, another precise kick, and another. Two more men dropped, groaning.

The remaining crew finally got it through their skulls that Felice was a threat, and turned from Kieran to face her instead, blades ready.

Two knives flew out of hands with one back kick and one front, then she delivered a rapid succession of blows to the men still standing. They never had a chance to use their knives at all.

As they started to fall, Kieran grabbed the two remaining men by the backs of their necks, shaking them with his strength until they went limp, unconscious.

Kieran heard others running toward them as he gaped at Felice, who was breathing as hard as he was, but smiling in glee.

“Holy fucking—” Kieran began, but Felice grabbed his hand.

“Let’s go before the patrollers get here.”

Good advice. Kieran stepped over bodies on his way off the ramp, and then he and Felice ran for the edge of the dockyards. Felice had the presence of mind to grab the robes she’d dropped, and she pulled them over herself, hiding the truth of her once more.

*** *** ***

Kieran slammed into his apartment, Felice still holding on to his hand.

Kieran released her so swiftly that she kept going with momentum until she landed breathlessly on the couch. While Kieran slapped the door shut in the face of Calder, who’d followed them, Felice tiredly clawed her way out of the voluminous robes and dropped them to the floor. She lay back, breathing hard, automatically drawing to mind techniques for calming her body.

Kieran crossed the room and stood over her, solid and strong, rage in his eyes.
“What the fuck was that?”

Felice coughed, her throat too dry from fighting in this stupid climate. “That was me, saving your ass.”

“
Saving
my ass?” Kieran glowered down at her. “It should be me
spanking
your ass. You were supposed to be hiding. You think those guys won’t report a woman who spins around like one of those dervishes, and drops everyone in her way?” He stopped. “How the hell did you do that?”

“Kieran, you’re bleeding.”

Felice came off the couch, her metabolism trying to return her body to normal. Was taking too long, though. If she hadn’t been exhausted by her years of manual labor, she’d already be healed and ready to go another round.

Kieran’s tunic underneath the robes Calder had shoved at him as they’d come out of the dockyards was shredded and covered with blood. Calder had growled that any patroller, no matter how stupid, would notice a Shareem covered in blood and wonder why. He’d glared until Kieran had put on the damn robes.

Now Felice peeled the tunic away from his skin. Kieran helped, but irritably. Felice took in the masses of cuts on his body, some shallow, some pretty deep—one or two should have been lethal. Kieran had been sliced nearly to ribbons, and he was only angry about it.

“Sit down,” Felice said swiftly. “You have any salve? Ointment? What kind of medicines are on this backwoods planet?”

“Too many.” Kieran took a seat on the couch. Not falling or collapsing, just sitting down as though ready to ask her to bring him an ale. “Look in the bathroom. I don’t have much, though—Shareem don’t get sick.”

Felice left him long enough to dive into the little bathroom. The lights came on obligingly, and she found a cabinet set into the wall. She had no idea what each of the jars were for, so she brought them all out with her.

Kieran laughed when she arrayed them on the table. “These are lube.” He swept one big hand across the table, shoving all but two jars aside. “And oils. For sex. Aiden mixes them for me.”

Felice refused to let herself be enticed by the thought of Kieran smoothing oil on her naked body. “What are these for then?” She touched the two remaining jars.

“Antiseptic and something to keep up energy.”

“Really? You seem pretty energetic all the time.”

“Not for me. For my women.”

“Oh.” So they could stay alert and ready for whatever he wanted to do, he meant. She pushed away her little burn of jealousy. “What do you do when you get hurt?”

Kieran shrugged. “Go to Katarina. She’s Calder’s lifemate, and a medic.”

“Calder, the Shareem you just slammed the door on.”

“Yep.”

Felice rose to her feet and started for the front door, but Kieran caught her hand in an amazingly strong grip. “I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t. Some of those cuts need to be closed up before your insides spill out. Any of them might get infected. Let me get the medic.”

Kieran growled, but he released Felice’s hand. “She pokes around too much.”

“Shit, Kieran. Fighters I’ve seen who look like you do were groaning on the floor and dead within an hour.”

Kieran let out an aggrieved breath. “All right, all right. Get Katarina. Then you’re going to tell me why you can fight.”

“Don’t women fight on Bor Narga?” Felice said on her way to the door.