Page 35 of Possessed By the Leonid King

Rupex blinked at her, his own mouth falling open. “You want a home on Sapien-Three with your friends. You don’t want to raise the cubs with me. I never thought... I didn’t think you’d ever consider being a Leonid’s Queen.”

Layla shrugged. “A week ago, I would have said you were right. Now? I’m wondering. Maybe it’s the hormones. The booster. Can possessive jealousy be a side effect?”

“Of feelings for your mate? Yes. Of a Queen in heat? I suppose.”

Layla groaned. “I’m mixed up. Is this a sexual chemistry thing?”

Rupex wanted to shout no, it wasn’t. It was a dark, forbidden yearning, and no, maybe he would never consider her a Leonid Queen, but he would consider her his Queen if she’d like that.

“Your silence is deafening. I’m going back to the ship. Maybe I’m already knocked up and we won’t need to keep doing this dance.” She pushed past him as he stood half-clothed in the doorway.

His strong paw snagged her elbow and pinned it to the wall, making her eyes shoot wide open. “Stop. This ‘dance’ is far from over, my Layla. If you have even a spark of interest—I’ll fan it into a flame. Once I tasted you for the second time, I wanted to possess you.” Possess her always, claim her as my mate, and keep her.

He kept silent on those thoughts, afraid to scare her off. “I don’t know if I will ever see you as a Leonid—but why should I? You are a human, and beautiful as you are. I think humans and Leonids have more in common than I first thought, than humans believe. And as for you being ‘knocked up’? That won’t end your craving for me. You’ll want your mate worse with every passing day. First, it will be like a breeding heat, and then it will be as your rock, your anchor as the cubs take your strength and your agility. I will look after you, and them, always.”

Her elbow went lax under his arm. He released Layla from his paw and sighed inside when she didn’t run away. “What if this doesn’t work? What if we can’t have kids? That’s the whole point of having me around, isn’t it?”

“It was. But we also have plenty of pleasure in trying. Marcus and other medical professionals will continue to make gains in interspecies fertility. I would be willing to extend your contract.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it is mutually desired.” Or to put it another way—until you no longer need one. Until you simply wish to stay of your own accord. Rupex saw the hunger in her eyes that had nothing to do with sexual delight. She wants me. She wants a family, always has. “I know you love Sapien-Three—”

“Ha! That’s a big fat no.”

“I know you love some of the people there,” he corrected gently. “If you wished to use your credits to build a home for the four of you elsewhere... say on Leo Falls—”

It was his turn to be pinned to the wall, the tiny human digging her soft, harmless fingers into the fur and muscle on his chest, driving him backward. “What? Seriously? But this is your place!”

“Well, yes, but you would be part of my family—the mother of my cubs. And therefore we would always be connected. If you think your human friends might like living in such an isolated place—or to travel on the Comet Stalker part of the year...” Rupex left the morsel dangling, and she pounced. She pounced on him, kissing him.

He should feel better. Layla was kissing him. Smiling. No longer angry.

But he didn’t feel completely at peace. They hadn’t sorted the root issues. Did she want him for his own sake? Or the things that he could give her? And was all of it colored by her “heat”?

Rupex wondered if she felt the same way. Uncertain of why he wanted her. If Silvia magically reappeared and he had to choose before the beautiful officer and Queen he had longed to court or this little human who confused him and wasn’t fully compatible with him or his culture—who would he choose?

“I don’t know,” he whispered to Layla’s vanishing back.

Chapter Fifteen

“There’s no spike in MGH. That’s Mammalian Growth Hormone to you non-medical types.”

Layla didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. “I’m not pregnant?”

“Can’t tell yet. It needs more time to reach detectable levels in the bloodstream, even with all of our fancy labs. The body is still the boss. And speaking of the body being the boss—there’s still the issue of humans only releasing one egg at a time. Or on rare occasions, two.”

“Marcus, stop. I do not wish Layla to take something risky and possibly illegal for her species. It’s fine if the birth is a litter of one.” Rupex stepped between the exam table and his officer.

“Wait, what about three cubs? You mentioned two to four, and three would be ideal.”

“That’s probably the most a human could safely carry given the size difference.” Marcus shrugged.

“But Ru,” Layla turned wide eyes to her Leonid lover, “you wanted more than one. There was a per-cub bonus.”

“I didn’t have all the knowledge at the time, Layla. It’s fine.”

“You two ought to just put an annual renewal amendment in the contract. Re-up every year for another cub if this first one works,” Marcus said, peering over his spectacles at his screen, speaking nonchalantly as if he were telling them to pop a pill or elevate a twisted ankle.

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