Page 4 of Healing the Leonid Doctor’s Heart (Felix Orbus Galaxy #6)

“ Y ou okay, big sis?”

Abigail smiled as Kaylie slid into the recreation room next to her, the younger woman’s tiny hip bumping into hers as they sat side by side. “I’m okay, little sis. What’ve you been up to?” Abigail gave her hand a quick squeeze.

“Following Jaxson and Lycen around doing shuttle tune-ups and atmospeeder flushes. Want to play Goats and Knights?” Kaylie pointed to one of the few physical games stuck on the room’s shelves.

The rest of the entertainment seemed to be electronic in nature.

Media viewers were all over the ship, the collection of Felix Orbus Galaxy content was huge, and there was never a lack of things to do.

So how come I’m so bored? Restless?

Because now that you can move around, your brain isn’t all foggy, and you don’t need someone to help you walk ten feet, it sinks in.

After twenty-odd years of surviving and working to make money—you have nothing to do with it.

You’re a billion miles from home, and you don’t know what the point is of going back.

“Are you going to go back?” Abigail blurted out the question, and Kaylie’s smile vanished.

“I... I hope not. I’m going to see if there’s something I can do here.

There are lots of places to help, and Rupex said he’d buy my contract if there was something he thought I could do that I wanted to try.

I just have to keep following the right crew members around until I figure out what that is,” Kaylie said, twisting her fingers one second, then smoothing her shimmering black hair back the next.

“You saw where my last contract got me—drugged and packed like a romance droid bound for God-knows-who. God, the only reason they wanted me was because I have baby-making parts.”

Abigail swallowed. “You could still be a surrogate for a Felid family, Kay. It would pay well, and like you said, you have the parts for it. There are so many families desperate for help.”

Kaylie looked around the room, pale orchid cheeks turning rose pink.

“I’m not interested. I don’t think I’m emotionally ready for that—or even old enough for that.

” Her voice dropped. “And did you know that you can’t artificially inseminate female humans like you can on Sapien-Three?

I was talking to Layla and Jade about this just yesterday, when Wendy started to go into labor, and they said the surgery-assisted birth would be in a few hours?

Layla tossed it out there that she started out as Rupex’s surrogate—but then they fell in love.

Jade and Ardol had an arranged marriage—but they arranged it.

He bought her contract with the big goal of producing an heir.

Did you know his dad is like Leopardine royalty? ”

“I had no idea,” Abigail wondered if she would ever get the hang of gossip.

She hadn’t mastered it before she started at the credit exchange, and once she became a “senior” staff member, the young people didn’t want to take her into their confidence.

The other women on board were younger than her, too.

Oh, some were closer to her age, like in their mid-thirties, but no one was her age. Forty-five.

Someone “middle-aged” would be useless in the flesh trade, she supposed, even in the very honorable trade of producing a child for a family in need, a Felid with no family. No Queen.

Stop thinking about Marcus. You’re probably too old to be anyone’s surrogate, anyway. I bet families want people in their prime!

Although... An older Queen is better than no Queen at all?

Abigail left her own thoughts and returned to the conversation as Kaylie took her arm, the much younger woman tending to cling to her like a little sister—hence their nicknames.

“Abi, the male Felids don’t make sperm unless their—” she swallowed and looked around again, “penis is inside of a woman. I mean, a Queen.”

“What? They don’t?” Well. There went that offer. She could have offered Marcus something in return for saving her life. A son. A daughter. But not if...

Her face joined Kaylie’s, both of them blushing. “How do you know?”

“Layla told me! She and Rupex had to do the deed. A lot. The shots make you want to, though, but it wasn’t like it was pure lust. There was a medical reason.

The Felids have little rings of spines that swell up and lock into the female, and then the female’s fluids signal the chemical reaction to create sperm, not just seminal fluid.

From a scientific standpoint, that’s pretty cool. ”

“Agreed! But leaves out surrogacy, I guess.”

Kaylie let go of her arm and started playing with her hair, then the hem of her baggy shirt-dress. “I guess.”

“Unless you were friends with the person. Or wanted to be intimate for a purpose. Some people can do that.”

“Jade. She worked at a Pleasure Park.”

Abigail joined Kaylie in the fiddling, but for a different reason.

All that time you wasted, saving yourself for Mr. Right after Brent was Mr. Wrong. Three times in your life, three “joy rides" so unsatisfying that you actually wondered about going into a Pleasure Park and paying for an escort to teach you what pleasure could look like.

Kaylie’s probably blushing because she’s so young. Maybe a virgin.

I’m blushing because if I wanted to be a late bloomer, boy, did I leave it too late!

“Canid females didn’t get sick the same way. Their heat cycles were shorter.” Kaylie got up abruptly, grabbed Goats and Knights, and set it on the table in front of the long, curving red sofas. “They don’t need surrogates.”

“Canids?” Abigail’s eyebrows arched. “Oh-ho. Jaxson?”

“Stop!” Kaylie whipped around, a finger to her lips, moving so fast that tiny electronic goats and the miniature robotic Knights went scattering across the table.

“Sorry!”

“He’s like twenty years older than me. He must be thirty!”

“That would make you ten, sweetie.”

“Okay, then he’s eleven years older than me! I’m a dumb kid to him.”

“You’re a brave, strong, beautiful woman! On Sapien-Three, you were already out on your own, weren’t you?”

“Only just. I stayed in residential care, a ward of the state. I got an extra year because I was taking one of the childcare intern programs, but I didn’t want to be part of it.

Not after I saw how useless the training was.

None of it was actually about the kids. It was just about the paperwork, the credits, the data tracking.

The only useful thing I learned was that there are contract and career matchmaking services for teens in the residential homes if you apply fast enough. No one told me that.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I bet if I ask Layla and her siblings, they didn’t know, either. If the residential directors tell kids, then they’ll use it, and that costs money. Of course, I got grabbed on my way to my first meeting, but...”

Abigail slowly started to pick up the game pieces. “No one looked for you?”

“Nope.”

“No one looked for me, either.”

“Yeah. So. I like it here better. Not just the ship, but being off of Sapien-Three. I wanna see all the different Felid systems, the Leonid System, the Tigerite System, the Sirius Federation, and the Avian Alliance. I want to see all of the different alien races that avoid us like the plague.”

“Shows they’re smart,” Abigail quipped, and they both laughed.

They set up the game in silence. As the only two without a steady job to do, a steady task to focus on, they were the only ones in the rec area.

“It must work, don’t you think? It must not matter?” Kaylie whispered, switching on her team of goats.

Abigail switched on the tiny Knights in turn, three robotic Leonids and three Leopardines. She wondered if other planets showed different characters? “What works?”

“Being with someone different than you. Jax’s wife was a Leonid Queen. That’s how he’s related to Rupex. Brother-in-laws. Rupex, Ardol, Talos, and Kamau have human wives. That’s gotta mean it can work.”

“If you’re willing to put in enough effort, you can make almost anything work. Even with someone eleven years older than you. And furry.” Abigail put the Knights on the board.

“I hope so. I think Marcus is totally into you.” Kaylie took her controller, and the tiny goats started rampaging around the board, trying to outmaneuver the miniature Felids who were supposed to capture them before they could get to the other side of the board and destroy the Knights’ gardens.

“He’s just a good man. Good friend. He’s supposed to look after me.

I was his patient. But Jaxson...” Abigail took up her controller and set her red Knight after the red goat, one eye on the sneaky blue and green animals trying to take advantage of her distraction.

“Jaxson has no reason to shepherd you everywhere, to make sure he sits next to you at every other meal, or to keep offering to show you things he thinks you’ll like on the media viewer. He likes you.”

“He’s been married. He’s been in the military. Now he’s got nieces and nephews on this ship he’s raising, a whole team to look after...”

“My point exactly. He’s wildly responsible.” Abigail made a sudden turn and swept the yellow goat off the board. “He can handle you.”

“Sneaky!” Kaylie laughed and gasped. “Maybe you’re right.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to see if he’d like to get a little cup of tea with you before bed? After this game? Or maybe he’d like to teach you a new game? I’m sure there’s something on the media viewer you haven’t played yet.”

“I don’t want to leave you. We usually spend the evenings together.”

“No. Go on. Do something spontaneous.” I might just join you.

MARCUS’ HEART BUCKED like a razorback near an electrified fence when he saw the appointment request.

Abigail Martin, medical consultation. Follow-up? No.

The woman of his dreams—literally, she kept popping up in them—needed his attention. Medical attention.

I can’t do this.

I have to do this. She trusts me.

I can ask Skyla to do this.

No, damn it, it’s Skyla’s rotation off.