Read Eland and Jeanne (Tales of the Shareem) for Free Online

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    “Rees?” Eland asked.
    “That’s me,” Rees said in a voice that was both nonchalant and amazingly confident. “Who are you , and where the hell are we?”
    ***
    “Reports are that last night a male matching the description of a Shareem was spotted in this area,” the patroller said to Jeanne. “You see anything?”
    Jeanne shook her head. “I sleep hard. I work at the docks, and we start early. I’m pretty much dead to the world in the middle of the night.”
    The patroller gave her a sharp look. She’d refused to sit down, and stood in the center of Jeanne’s small front room, giving the place a once-over. “I never said what time he was seen.”
    Jeanne shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Nights I’m not out with my friends I come home, eat, watch a vid or two, and go to bed. I didn’t hear or see anything before I went to bed, so I assume it was after.”
    The patroller listened while her gaze took in every space in Jeanne’s living room and the kitchen in its alcove. She focused on the bedroom door.
    “Mind if I search the rest of the apartment?”
    Jeanne did mind, but again, if she argued, the patroller might come back with a large search team and take the place apart. Jeanne had found no sign herself that Eland had been there, but she hadn’t done a thorough scan, like patrollers would.
    Jeanne waved her hand toward the bedroom. “Go ahead. If anyone is hiding here, I want to know about it.”
    The patroller gave her a look and headed for the door, which opened to her touch. She stepped inside the bedroom, Jeanne behind her, and pulled out a handheld.
    “What does that do?” Jeanne asked, hiding her nervousness.
    “Looks for DNA. If someone other than you has been here, we’ll know.”
    Terrific. Jeanne’s heart beat faster, and she resisted gnawing on her lip. Eland’s clothes had been gone when she’d woken. Her clothes washer had gone through two cycles, leaving her with a bunch of clean, dry towels, which she’d put away before she went to work. Eland must have used the cycle before that to wash his own clothes, all while Jeanne had been sound asleep.
    In the shower, though, in the bathroom, Eland had stroked his hard, dark cock under Jeanne’s gaze until he’d come. She remembered his seed falling to the floor, sliding down the drain. Would there be evidence of that?
    The patroller flashed the handheld around, checking its readings. She moved slowly through the bedroom and paused at the bed. Jeanne held her breath, but apparently the reader found nothing.
    When the woman went into the bathroom, Jeanne squeezed her hands together, her nails pressing into her palms.
    The handheld remained quiet as the patroller waved it over the walls, the floor, the sink, the shower, the toilet. Nothing.
    Jeanne started to let out the breath she’d been holding, realized the patroller would hear it, and felt herself turning purple to contain it. The patroller didn’t notice, her gaze fixed on her handheld.
    “Nothing,” the patroller said, sounding disappointed. “Looks like your place is Shareem-free.”
    Jeanne tried to laugh. “Will we need our apartments sprayed for them? One dose for scorpions, one for sand roaches, another for Shareem?”
    The patroller smirked. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea. What the hell were those people thinking, making creatures like them? And then letting them loose?”
    “I’d never even heard of this DNAmo place until today,” Jeanne said, following the patroller back out to the living room.
    Now that she’d cleared Jeanne of colluding with a fugitive, the patroller became chatty.
    “Yeah, they were all about making perfect people. Which is fine when you go to the Ministry of Families and have them take anything harmful out of your DNA so your kids are all right, but they made people from scratch. Making servants to work for rich people is one thing. But creating guys who do nothing but have sex? That’s gross. Highborn women will do anything to break up