Page 48 of Possessed By the Leonid King

She is a good addition to our pride.

Layla turned to look over her shoulder, catching his eye and holding it.

His heart pounded, and he could practically hear her soft, seductive voice in his ear, repeating her earlier question. “I think you deserve a special thank you. Is there something... you’d like?”

I want to make love. To try the romancing end of mating. Soft lights, soft beds, sweet words.

Would she laugh at me for such a suggestion?

There was only one way to find out. First, he’d go and lay the groundwork. “Marcus, Layla! I am going to attend to some things I shouldn’t put off.”

“Want help?” Layla shouted back.

“Don’t touch the lab!” Marcus warned.

“I’ll manage. Amuse yourselves.”

“IT DIDN’T WORK.” LAYLA blushed and looked at the sea instead of the graying Leonid beside her. She figured if his predatory nose was as good as Ru’s, Marcus would have smelled blood on her.

“That might be my fault,” Marcus said, patting her bare knee with a quick swipe of his paw. “Human cycles respond better to medical intervention during certain times. I have been looking back at some older fertility manuals I found in the Online Medical Preservationist Archive. Knowing the first day of your menstrual cycle can help you time your mating better. And now that I know, I can also time your boosters better. It might help. It might not. All we can do is—”

“Layla!” Rupex’s voice was a harsh snap. “Come inside. There’s a communication for you. A live one.”

Layla hopped off the rock she’d been sunning herself on. “Me? I... I don’t have anyone who—” Her eyes lit up. “Is it Wendy?”

But how would she have found me? It’s ridiculous to hope.

Rupex confirmed her fears. “It isn’t a human. The call isn’t from Sapien-Three or any of the Sapien planets. It’s a call from Lynx-Nineteen. They’ve received word that their ‘shipment’ wasn’t coming and they can’t get hold of the man who brokered your contract. They want to make you an offer.”

Layla’s legs turned to stone. She seemed to sink in the sand, only realizing that she was swaying when Marcus hoisted her upright. “Wh-what?”

“They are threatening to send enforcement officers here to search my ship and arrest me for theft.”

“But—I thought everything was straightened out?”

“In terms of a refund, yes. In terms of finding out about their ‘property,’ no. I told you, Lynxians are primal, backwater, barely-evolved...” Rupex struggled for a word.

“Beasts?” Marcus supplied helpfully.

“Beasts! Uncivilized.”

“What the hell kind of offer did they make?” Layla hissed as she reached her furry lover, leaning on him as soon as he was within reach. His broad chest under her cheek calmed her. Her heart calmed and her stomach settled—a little.

“They haven’t made it to me. Come. They are waiting.”

“Ru. They can’t—they can’t take me from you, can they? Our contract is in place.” Would he let them buy her contract for a higher price? Like she hoped to do with her friends to free them from their contracts with the labs?

Honor was one thing. Friendship was nice. But for all of her life—survival and a bigger pile of credits had always won out.

Rupex growled, a sound so deep and gravelly that she felt it reverberating in her own body. “No one can take you from me.”

His words comforted her—and left her reeling back into the past, a night when she’d been twelve and the others had all been nine or ten, and they’d huddled in her arms, under the thin sheet on her bed in a makeshift fort, while a thunderstorm rocked the city and blew out the lights.

Will we be blown away, Layla?

One of the few trees outside crashed into their window, but it didn’t shatter, just cracked.

Nothing can take you from me.

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