Page 7 of Possessed By the Leonid King

“They weren’t chosen for adoption by the time they were fourteen, so they had two choices—get out of the system and find work and shelter, or hand their working papers over to the Sapien-Three Public Contract Auction. All three were bought by the labs.”

“The labs? Laboratories?”

“Right. Labs are always looking for test subjects to try new medicines, regeneration techniques, and other things. Selling your contract to the labs should be safe. It is supposed to be regulated and safe. Maybe it is.” Layla shrugged. “I tell myself it is,” she whispered, arms sliding around herself and pushing in like she was holding herself together by the sheer pressure of those thin little limbs.

Rupex studied her. He hadn’t often had the opportunity to observe humans at close range. How could the middle of her have such generous dips and curves and her arms and legs be so twiggy? Humans. A puzzle, indeed.

“They didn’t die, your friends?”

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know. I tried to tell them they could live with me, that we’d make enough money to stay together, but they didn’t believe me. Looks like they were right.” She gave him a sudden, bitter smile. “So, here’s the deal, King Rupex—”

“Captain or Rupex is fine.” He didn’t feel like a King anymore, and this woman would never be part of his pride. That was a grim reminder that this was wrong. No one but a Queen should bear his cubs.

Yet, he was still considering it.

“Rupex, the older Leonid said you needed a human for a contracted job. What kind of job? I know I’m a smartass, but I’m also a survivor and a hard worker. I’m smart, too. I can figure things out on a ship, even though I haven’t been to school. Well, not a lot of school. Seriously, if you show me just once or twice, I can do most of the basic tasks.”

Rupex slowly started walking, hoping if he kept moving, he could avoid the words that were pushing past his fangs, tickling the inside of his muzzle.

Layla followed. Her voice was soft when she spoke, so soft that only someone with excellent predatory hearing could have caught her words. “You don’t have to tell me. I can figure it out. Your civilization lost its women. I’m a woman. You need me for something only a woman can do.” Her tiny feet caught up to his massive ones which arched in their thick black boots. She wore the simple white stretchy slippers that the ship provided. They expanded or shrank to cover the feet of most beings. The tiny white ovals looked so strange next to his polished black boots that flared out to follow the shape of his long, arched feet with wide pads designed for digging in and springing off after prey.

“I do not need you.” Rupex shook his head and considered the matter closed.

The human was persistent. “Well, maybe your species needs me, huh? Is that the job you were going to offer me? A surrogate?”

LAYLA WASN’T READY to be a mother. She had proven that she couldn’t keep kids safe. Her little pseudo-family hadn’t trusted her to keep them alive and together. They’d let themselves be sold to the labs, herded into long white transports with dark glass windows rather than risk squatting in the abandoned basement apartment she’d found for them.

Why hadn’t she gone with them? At sixteen, she could have offered her contract to the labs. They were always willing to pay, especially for young, healthy adults. They were the hardest to come by because they could still get other types of work.

Had she been too afraid of dying? Too untrusting of the labs?

Whatever. She’d become harder, faster, and stronger alone.

And more prone to stupidity and numbing herself with alcohol as long as the guy paid—hence her one-way ticket from Paul.

Her blurted words were purely financial. The Leonid wanted her to carry his cubs. Fine. She could carry them if interspecies couples were anything to go by. She just couldn’t raise those cubs, and with surrogacy, she wouldn’t have to. That would be ideal. She could have the credits—top prices, too, bolstered by the Leonid-Sapien exchange rate. The kids—cubs—would be cherished, adored as new life in a galaxy that had vacancies to fill. She wouldn’t have to watch them suffer on Sapien-Three. If she worded it right, maybe she could even go home and buy a place to live and then work on buying the contracts of Dax, Wendy, and Elio. Maybe...

The big Leonid hadn’t replied to her in words. After a few tense huffs of air, his panting breaths so heavy that she felt their warm wetness on her cheek, Rupex had slammed his paw down beside the double steel doors of an elevator. The doors slid apart.

“A-Deck!” he growled, stepping inside.

She was too quick for him. “Are my quarters this way?” Layla asked. What am I doing? Why am I pushing this?

Why did I just get in a little metal box with a giant grumpy alien-lion who looks like he would like to bite my head off?

“Surrogacy is not an option. Surrogacy is medical, clinical, and the father of the child has a purely professional relationship with the mother.”

“If you pay me, that makes it professional.” Layla gave him her best, brightest smile.

The car shook with the force of his sudden enraged roar. “This isn’t a joke, human!”

“I wasn’t laughing, Leonid!” I wasn’t laughing at all. I might have peed a little...

“My medical officer has been researching a way to make human eggs compatible with Leonid sperm. It can be done. What cannot be done is artificial insemination. Our systems are compatible but different. I would have to breed you. Do you know what it is like to be bred by a Leonid? It’s not a single occurrence. I would have to possess you, over and over, day after day,” he panted, towering over her, his glowering eyes inches from her own.

Layla shook her head, jaw popping open as his massive frame covered hers. She was able to see ridge after ridge of muscle through the snug material of his uniform coat, and the muscles of his thighs stood out like ropes.

And there was something sizable between them, something proportionate to the head-sized paws pressing into the steel walls on either side of her face.

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