Page 4 of Possessed By the Leonid King

“What’s what?” Marcus avoided his eyes.

“Your tail is fluttering. Don’t tell me. The mutation has been confirmed to be Queen Fever?”

“Oh. No. I haven’t heard one way or the other. It’ll probably be a day before they send a new bulletin. No, it’s about the cargo. The girl.”

“Girl? A cub!”

“No, no. A woman. A young lady named Layla. She wasn’t intending to go to Lynx-Nineteen.”

“I hope not. They’d eat her. That’s an almost entirely primal backwater.”

“She was sold. As in, someone sold her. She didn’t negotiate her contract.”

Ru’s mane bristled out and his claws unsheathed in rage. “What? What!?”

“Calm down.”

“I will not! You volunteered to take over the cargo assignments while I was down with the post-vaccination reaction! I leave you in charge for two days and you take on a trafficked human? Manes and tails, Marcus! We’re going to be permanently grounded for this!”

“I picked the cargo up from a vessel that wasn’t going to the outer reaches of the Felix Orbus. I didn’t know she wasn’t moving of her own volition, Rupex. She was asleep, which is standard for most humans on a galaxy jump. Nothing twigged my suspicions, and I hope you won’t pretend she would have aroused yours, either. You’ve been on autopilot since—”

“Quiet. That’s an order.”

Silence filled the deck. They both knew what Marcus would have said. Rupex had been on autopilot, functioning automatically since he lost his sisters and the Queens of the Comet Stalker. He took on skeleton crews and long-haul freights that would keep him on his ship for as long as possible. Planets within the Felix Orbus Galaxy seemed permanently touched by death and sadness, with a dearth of cubs and Queens, and many citizens (especially on the smaller and more distant planets) were claiming they should either remain in isolation or revert to feral states to cope with the new reality.

“The stars feel familiar.” Rupex double-checked the navigation settings and the alerts before stalking away.

“Ru... We’re not going to rebuild without change. Do you want to stay stuck in the past, where we were helpless? Or do something to fix it?”

Rupex had to get away from Marcus before he clawed him. He could feel the dagger-like tips of his claws passing through the soft sheath of his paws. There was no fixing this.

But maybe the older Leonid has a point.

Somehow, someway, he would have to move forward. The Comet Stalker could jump galaxies, but it couldn’t travel back in time.

Chapter Three

Layla felt smug. And worried. And irritated. Whatever that emotional blend was, she wanted to patent it and sell it.

Instead, she was going to sell herself to some alien cat-man.

The idea of selling her services, whether it was having sex or cleaning a bunker didn’t bother Layla. Growing up poor on Sapien-Three meant that you were always looking for any way to make cash. That was one reason she hadn’t struggled too hard when she woke up in the hold of some strange vessel. Part of her had been relieved when she realized the accommodations were clean and the food was good and plentiful. Another part of her, while still worried, had been curious about what kind of contract she’d been sold into. A contract meant money, or at least food and shelter.

She hadn’t known until she’d explored the media viewer and the limited number of books that she was on a Felix Orbus craft. Most people from the Sapien planets preferred to stick close to their three human-friendly rocks. Those who did leave didn’t usually go to the Felix Orbus planets. Layla wasn’t sure why. But in the last handful of years, ever since she’d been forced to start looking out for herself, she hadn’t met anyone who’d been to that galaxy. The smug feeling was the most comfortable, so Layla tried to hold onto it while she paced in her little room.

Ha. Leonids, Servalis, Lynxians, and Tigerites were so aloof. So stand-offish. They wouldn’t dream of coming to the Sapien planets. They weren’t at any of the Galactic Games that she could remember.

But here I am, taking up space, and we’re weeks away from wherever we’re supposed to land, and what does the big horny lion-man want to do?

She didn’t know.

Curiosity came back. Maybe he just wants a good belly rub?

It wasn’t that interspecies dating wasn’t a thing—it just wasn’t her thing. On Sapien-Three, interspecies couples were rare and were usually just there for refueling. She could count on one hand the number of interspecies couples she’d met personally.

He doesn’t want to be a couple. He’s probably bored and doesn’t have a sex droid. The first one pays for my passage and the rest he can pay for with cold, hard credits.

How much should she charge?

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