Page 11 of Healing the Leonid Doctor’s Heart (Felix Orbus Galaxy #6)

“ W hat did I just do?” Abigail looked at herself in the mirror. She looked... wasted.

Claw pinpricks, little bruises of soft bites, swollen pussy lips without their thicket of curls to cover them, tender, permanently erect nipples...

Smiling. Hair looking like one side had been caught in the sliding doors of her quarters.

“What did I just do three times?” she squealed and hugged herself before slowly sliding into the shower, unable to stop beaming.

Marcus had left last night with a gentle kiss on her temple while she was drifting off, leaving her with his marks all over her, messy sheets, and rosy dreams about being his lover.

His Queen. He’d called her ‘My Queen’ more than once.

“Is that just how things go with Leonids? The human equivalent of saying ‘my man’ or ‘my woman’?” she mused aloud.

Her puzzled frown turned into a wide smile when she recalled the roar he let out when she said it back.

Not “My Queen. That would be silly. My King.”

As she dried and dressed, another day of boredom and recuperation stretched out ahead of her. Impatience prickled like a rash, steadily getting more itchy each day since she’d been able to sit up and move about on her own.

Eat food that I don’t pay for, play with the most adorable little cubs in the nursery, pop in to see how Nessa and Kamau are doing with their plans to convert one of the big bays into a garden, find Kaylie, play games, read a book, watch a show. Sleep in luxury I didn’t earn, that I’m not earning.

No one had asked her for a single credit, but if they had, she didn’t know if she would be in trouble or not. What was the cost of living in utter luxury with better food, entertainment, and amenities than she’d ever had in her life, not to mention the medical care and being rescued?

Being respected.

She thought of how Marcus touched her through the night, how they’d shared a bottle of wine and promptly returned to “practicing.” She felt utterly depraved, delighted, sated, and eager for more—and still respected.

Felids don’t need your paltry store of credits, such as they are.

The exchange rate is in their favor eighteen times over.

What they need is workers. And the job they most need filled is to make more workers.

They need women who can be surrogates. One well-paying job would be the equivalent of eighteen well-paying jobs.

Life had taught her to be detail-oriented and practical. She pulled up the media viewer menu as she sat back down on the freshly made bed. “Show me everything on surrogacy in the Felid community,” she instructed, and sat down to do her homework.

“REMEMBER WHAT YOU ASKED me last night?”

“How do you always win, even though you always pick goats and can’t steer?” Abigail sighed, closing the book she was reading on her personal computer.

Kaylie sat next to her in the lounge, curled up close, a kitten against a mother cat. “No! Not that.”

“About finding work?” Abigail’s stomach tightened. She would trust Kaylie with her life and her secrets. In reality, she would trust anyone aboard this ship with her life—they’d already saved it once, after all. Still, she didn’t want everyone to know about her plans with Marcus—in case she failed.

“Sort of. Maybe. If you don’t find work on board the ship that you really like, do you think you’ll ever go back to our galaxy? For good?” Kaylie split a cocoa cream bar in silvery, biodegradable wrapping in half and offered it to her.

Abigail didn’t answer the question. She didn’t know the answer. What if she and Marcus were unsuccessful?

And then he moved on to someone else? Someone young and beautiful, who had his cubs for him, and he worshipped her, and she watched, lonelier than ever?

Don’t answer. Avoid. “Where’d you get this?” Abigail held up the confection, nostrils twitching at the decadent scent of cocoa and sugar.

“From Ardol and Jade. They have a huge case of them in one of the freight compartments. Some of it is stuff that they’ll use when they set up their store on Lynx-Nineteen, but they gave me one for free.”

“For free.” The sweet confection lost all of its delicious notes, and she could only taste the bitterness of the cocoa. “Do you know how much these must cost?”

“A ton! I think there are only a few cocoa plantations left on Sapien-Three. Ardol told me there is a huge cocoa industry developing on some Leopardine moons and on Tigerite-Six.” Kaylie bit off another square. “Jade loves them, and Ardol is keeping her stocked. It’s one of her pregnancy cravings.”

“Mhm.” Realistically, Abigail knew Ardol loved Jade and would love her with or without a child coming their way. But it added to her value, surely? It made her worthy of all this luxury, these treats, the nice clothes... the love. The pleasure.

“You don’t like it? Give me the rest, I’ll take it. I remember getting these once when I was a kid. Some charity thing.” Kaylie closed her eyes and looked like pure joy was dancing on her tongue. “So good.”

“Do you ever feel... Do you ever feel as though we ought to go back? That we don’t deserve to be here?”

Kaylie’s eyes popped open. “I’ll pay them for the candy, Abi!”

“No, no. All of this. It’s too much. It’s too wonderful .”

“You seem to forget that I was supposed to be smuggled to a Pantherite who probably just wanted to use me like a fuck puppet, pardon my very bad language.” Kaylie put down the bar, a look of disgust on her face.

“Maybe I would have been dead on arrival. Maybe I would have been living in some Felid’s dungeon. ”

“Kaylie, Kaylie. Shh. Don’t, darling.” Abigail hurried to wrap her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders.

“I wasn’t even stolen for that purpose, but I could have ended up there.

And now we’re here. And doesn’t that make it all the worse, somehow?

Not being able to do anything truly valuable for our friends? Living off of them?”

“They know we didn’t have much choice, Abi! As for too wonderful—Felids and humans conspired to drug us, stick us in a dilapidated shuttle that would most likely have burned up on hitting any planetary atmosphere, and if it didn’t...”

“No, I know. It’s not our fault. The situation was terrible, and we only survived because of Nessa’s quick thinking to piggyback our shuttle’s coordinates onto the supply capsule coming here, so we docked and didn’t end up done to a crisp.”

“So what’s got you in your head so deep that you ruin cocoa cream bars for me?” Kaylie demanded.

Abigail sighed. “Everyone is generous. We help out in our way, but I don’t think they’d mind if we didn’t, as long as we were polite.

It’s like... We’re respected and revered in a way that I’ve never experienced on Sapien-Three.

It’s not a dream come true, it’s bigger.

I would never have dared to dream such—” Marcus’ face loomed at her, buried between her thighs, memories of last night dancing in her head, “such pleasures. But there’s so little I can do to repay these people or help them when they’ve taken such good care of us. ”

Kaylie cocked her head. “I see right through you, Big Sis.”

“You do?” Abigail didn’t know whether to laugh with relief or cower back, afraid of someone saying her desperate desires out loud, her craving for Marcus, her pathetic “excuse” to be near him—even if it was justified.

“You’re thinking about me and Jax. No. I can’t be with him, Abi.

Not even if I should do it out of some sense of loyalty or obligation, or something.

It’s not that I wouldn’t; it’s that,” Kaylie put the bar down, her eyes following, head hanging, “I don’t think he would want me.

He’s got Alana’s picture on his toolbox.

He talks about her every day. When I hung out down there the other day, I watched him smiling at it, eyes so sad and so happy all at once.

God. That’s true love. He’ll always be in love with her. ”

“But—” Abigail’s protest died. Yes. That’s true love. She thought back to Marcus’ quarters. There were pictures of Kaya in several places. Marcus talked about his late wife with such love.

Marcus will always love Kaya.

But last night... Last night, my body believed he loved me, that’s for certain.

Maybe that’s all he was enjoying—my body.

“He has needs,” Abigail said, more to herself than to Kaylie. She was sure Jaxson did, too. She was sure all beings did. Was last night about Marcus meeting her needs to make her more amenable to the physical acts required by surrogacy? Was he just seeing to his own lusts?

Kaylie shrugged. “I’m sure he does, and maybe if I were someone else, someone bolder and older, like Jade or even Layla, maybe I wouldn’t care if it was just a quick fling, a physical thing.

.. But what if that’s all it is, and he ends things right after we.

..” Kaylie suddenly seized the bar of candy and bit into it with savage force.

She continued with her mouth full, “What if he marries again? Skyla or Lycen? They’ve been in the military together, you know.

And they’re so... tall. And gorgeous. And Canid. ”

“That doesn’t matter. Alana wasn’t Canid.”

“None of it matters. I’m not brave enough to be with a person, any person, unless I’m sure it’s going to last. Couldn’t stand living next to him and watching someone I lo— If I let myself get involved, and then we broke up, it would be so messy.

The whole ship could suffer. No, keeping things friendly and nothing more is the most unselfish thing I could do.

I think.” Kaylie tossed the candy back down.

“Damn it, this tasted so good a minute ago.”

“I’m sorry, darling, that’s all my fault.” Abigail rubbed the young woman’s arm, shaking her head. “You said you wouldn’t try things unless you’re sure they’ll last. Kay, how in the world would a thing last if it didn’t even begin?”

“This is going to sound rude, but, Abi, how the hell would you know? You’re twice my age and you’ve never ‘started’ things, have you?”