Braden Read Online Free PDF Page A

you my world if you want me to, sweetheart. But
not with you in those robes.”
    Elisa looked down at herself. Her fashionable robes both
blocked the harsh Bor Nargan sun and proclaimed her status and rank.
    Braden put his lips to her ear, his breath making her hot
all over. “Take them off.”
    “What?”
    “You don’t need sun protection at night. Besides, if a woman
in celibate robes is running around with a Shareem, people will talk. They
might tell the patrollers I abducted you.”
    An amused twinkle lit his eyes, but Elisa sensed his
tension. He was right to worry—Shareem didn’t have many rights. The slightest
transgression could mean incarceration, interrogation, termination.
    Elisa unfastened the fabric lock at the back of her neck and
drew the robes off over her head. She wore a sleeveless silk sheath underneath,
body-hugging but not too tight, comfortable in the night air.
    Braden’s eyes went bluer as he looked her over. “Nice.”
    Elisa tried to fold her robes, but the train was swaying
like crazy as they barreled into the inner city. Braden took the robes and
folded them in competent hands, hiding the symbols that proclaimed her
celibate. He held the robes on his lap, not giving them back to her.
    The train halted at its last stop in a series of hard jerks.
People muttered and snarled as they grabbed onto handholds, their belongings
falling to the floor. A child sat down hard and started to cry.
    “No smooth stops for the slum dwellers.” Braden stood up as
the doors opened, and helped Elisa to her feet with a firm hand. “Not when
assholes run the trains.”
    Braden kept hold of Elisa’s hand as he steered her out of
the station and into a different world.
    The sights, sounds and smells of Pas City smacked Elisa with
the force of a sandstorm. Grills belched pungent cooking smoke, coupled with
the smell of spices and vegetables. Street vendors called out to passersby,
selling everything from robot parts to flowers to sticky pastries. It was after
midnight, but with the days so hot and sun-shielding expensive, this place came
alive at night.
    Most of the women wore coveralls instead of robes, and their
men worked right alongside them. This last surprised Elisa, but she realized
that few women in this part of town could afford the luxury of a kept husband.
The men here sold the merchandise or worked the grills, their wives talking to
customers and tucking away credit strips. The equality of it was strange but
somehow appealing.
    No one looked twice at Braden, but these people would have
grown used to Shareem. Shareem weren’t allowed to live in any other part of the
city.
    Braden led Elisa though the mazelike and colorful streets,
sending greetings to those who called out to him. Elisa’s quick mind soaked it
up, this odd and wonderful place not an hour away from where she’d spent her
entire life.
    “Where are we going?” She had to raise her voice to be
heard.
    Braden sent her a smile that nearly melted her. “A goodly
tavern I know. Thought you might like to stay in public for now.”
    He turned down a narrow street that teemed with people and
ducked under faded awnings into a bar.
    The place was dim and cool but full of noise. The floor just
inside the door held grit from the last sandstorm, but the rest of the bar
looked clean.
    There were other Shareem in here. Elisa counted three as
Braden led her across the room to a table in the corner.
    One Shareem was blond and had been face-sculpted—a beautiful
man, a work of art. He was smiling at a woman standing next to him, and as
Elisa watched, his large hand slid to cover the woman’s buttocks. She looked up
and shot him a warm and happy smile.
    On the woman’s other side stood a dark-haired brute of a man
with broad shoulders and darker blue eyes. To Elisa’s amazement, he too slid
his hand to the woman’s buttocks, and she switched the smile to him .
When the dark-haired Shareem encountered the blond’s hand on her backside,