Chapter Thirteen
“ M erton Barry is not at his staff quarters or his station at work. He put pieces together after the calls we made,” Talos showed Nessa a communication the next afternoon.
Nessa stayed in her seat, moving gingerly as she bounced baby Chase on her knee. “I figured he wasn’t going to stick around. When I was able to get my contract back without a hold-up and it looked pristine, I knew he had to have been locked out of his access to contracts and records.”
“Why do you want your contract back?” Wendy asked, holding up several yards of soft, light material.
“I thought I’d look for a job here. In the Felix Orbus Galaxy, I mean,” Nessa said carefully.
“You should look here,” Wendy urged. “Kamau would be so happy. Wouldn’t he, honey?” She looked at Talos.
The big, gruff Tigerite coughed into his paw. “He is very fond of you, Miss Nessa. I do not doubt that he would make you welcome here. We all would.”
“Yes, I’m surprised he actually left your side today,” Wendy teased. “He’s been attached to you from the second he saw you.”
He was attached, all right. Literally. Nessa’s insides squeezed, and her muscles collapsed, raw and exhausted. Two nights in a row of intense “mating.” There was nothing like it and really no other word for it. This wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just making love. Last night, when he had taken her from behind, claws in her ass, teeth nipping her neck... It was primal. Feral.
“I want more,” she muttered. “I mean—yeah! More time on the Comet Stalke r would be amazing! I’d love to find work here, but you already have a tech for your ESM.”
“Well... Kamau has been bending our ears about that.”
Nessa swiveled sharply, wishing she hadn’t.
Kamau, Rupex, and Marcus were standing in the doorway of the nursery, beaming.
“I just pitched my idea about turning the unused bay into a mechaformed and terraformed area. Hydroponic gardens. Animal pens. Even a few small fruit trees could fit. And with a large amount of human-friendly food on board and the advent of hybrid Felid and human cubs... This time next year, Marcus may be helping other couples on board.” Kamau came to stand beside her.
“We’ll certainly know more after my little talk at Bastet Mercy, coming up in a few days,” Marcus sighed, running a tired paw through his mane.
“Marcus has asked if Skyla can become his full-time medical assistant with Dax as her nursing assistant,” Rupex was looking at her now, a small smile playing on his lips. “My brother-in-law would be very cross with me if I took one of his engine techs, especially since we may soon have visiting shuttles flying in every cycle.”
Nessa clutched the drowsing cub to her chest. The warm, snuggly feel of him made her heart do a complicated dance in her chest. Career? Or family? Could she even dare to think it... both?
On Sapien-Three, you rarely got to choose, and having both was nearly unheard of.
“An engine systems tech job?” Nessa whispered.
“It’s very hard to find applicants in the Felid System who know how to work on Sapien shuttles, but Kamau told me he knows of someone,” Rupex’s smile stretched. “Would you possibly consider the job? I looked at your former salary, and we would have to triple it to be commensurate with the Felid credit exchange rate. In addition, you would be entitled to your own quarters—any free room on A or B Deck.”
“If... If I were to share quarters, could I... Is my family able to travel with me?” Nessa asked, rising on shaky legs. Kamau instantly took the baby from her—and her heart stopped its complex dance and nearly exploded.
That could be my husband. The father of my child. My little boy could be watching Mama work on big engines one day and helping his daddy in the kitchen the next.
“I want this job more than anything. Because of the people, not just the job itself. But my father—”
“If she goes back to the Sapien System, Merton Barry and those thugs could be after her,” Kamau yelped. “Rupex, her father could be in danger!”
“Did I say no?” The Leonid captain snapped. “Your father is, of course, welcome to share your quarters.”
“Or he could have his own if she were to share with someone,” Kamau said, trying and failing to look innocent.
“Oh, I suppose he could.”
“Enough plotting and planning. We arrive at Leonid-One in three days, and we won’t be able to dock unless all of the new human arrivals have had a Queen Fever vaccination. Nessa, I already took care of Abi and Kaylie this morning. Dax and Skyla are in the med bay waiting for you. They might have to finish up with Jade’s injection, but you should go on and head down. That’ll give Rupex and me time to bribe Jaxson and play contract shuffle.”
“Yes! Yes, I’ll go do that—and I’ll call my father. I’ll have him packed, and he can book his shuttle to Leonid-One using my MWIP bonus miles! I save them all year so we can visit one another. Oh, gosh. I hope I can convince him!” Nessa began to trot off.
Kamau handed off the cub and trotted after her. “Would it be easier to convince him if he knew he was coming to meet his son-in-law?”
Nessa smirked at him. “Maybe.”
“JADE, I’M ALL READY—OH , Nessa. Hi!”
“Hi, Dax.” Nessa smiled at the blonde young man and rolled up the sleeve of the soft yellow coveralls she wore. “Guess what? This time tomorrow, I might be in a crew uniform.”
“What? On Jaxson’s crew? That’s amazing!”
“Yep! And I just spoke to my dad. I convinced him to take a shuttle to Leonid-One’s Intergalactic Port, and we’ll meet him there next week.” Her face clouded. Her father’s senility was worsening, and the toxic air and poor access to the expensive anti-dementia treatments weren’t helping. He could afford his medication maybe half of the time. “At least, I think I convinced him. Ow!”
“Sorry, I find it best to give shots while people are distracted,” Dax smiled, plopping a sticky bandage on her arm. “Um. If you join the ESMs, there will be four of them. Unless Skyla is going to—”
Nessa smirked. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“I will just as soon as she—ooh. Oooooh no. Oh, I’m so going to be fired,” Dax stared in horror at something on the small metal tray beside him.
“So help me Jesus and Bastet, if you just poisoned me or something, I’m going to lay your ass out, little man,” Nessa looked at the empty syringe and the full one lying on a second tray.
“No! No poison. I just didn’t give you your vaccine.”
“Yes, you did. I felt the pinch!” Nessa protested.
“No, I didn’t. I mean, yes, I gave you a shot, but it was Jade’s shot.”
“Her vaccine?”
“Uh-uh. The chromosomal compatibility booster. I mean, it’ll be okay, Jade can still get her shot, the Doc has more of the serum, lots more!”
“But... But that’s the stuff you give people to make babies!”
“Right, right, but you’d have to have a lot of it, multiple doses at the right intervals. You have to be at the right place in your menstrual cycle. I learned that this month,” Dax said with a touch of pride.
“I will wipe that smile right off your fluffy blonde head!” Nessa threatened. “What’s this going to do to me?”
“You’re going to be horny!” Dax yelped. “Nothing else! Just really horny—and hot. I mean, temperature hot—for a day or two. Then it’ll stop, I promise. I’m so, so sorry.”
“You know I’m telling Marcus, right?”
“I know.” Dax nodded, face white. “Stay here. I’ll give you the vaccination now, and I won’t mess up. Ugh. The first time Doc lets me do injections, and I mess up. He even left everything out for me. I just passed the Level One CMAA exam last week. Damn it!”
“What the hell is that?”
“Certified Medical Assistant Assistant.”
Nessa wrinkled her nose.
“Yeah, I know, the name could be better.”
Nessa sighed. “Stop beating yourself up. I was distracted, and so were you. Your brain was on another planet the second you thought you might have someone else in here with you full-time. You like that Skyla chick, huh?”
“Oh, God. Yes. She’s incredible! Waaay out of my league.” Dax gave her an injection in her other arm and patted her shoulder. “All set.”
“Dang, the guys are humble around here. I like it. I’ll tell Marcus we were both distracted and excited about news and stuff. And if there’s anything else that happens besides me being a horny, overheated mess—I’m going to punch you in your pretty boy face.”
Dax nodded, backing away. “Wait, I have a pretty boy face? Like, I’m handsome?”
Nessa closed her eyes. “For a human, you’re a fucking model. I’m more into Felids these days. Well, one.”
“That’s okay. I’m into Canids. Well, one.”
“What was that?” Skyla came in with Jade, her full plume of a tail curling and her eyes shining.
“I gotta go!” Nessa scurried from the room, wondering if just one dose of the medication could actually impact her and relieved that she couldn’t get pregnant without more doses—because she was probably carrying enough evidence of last night’s lovemaking to lead to a dozen cubs.
And for the second time that day—the thought didn’t make her mad.
KAMAU RAISED ONE OF the traditional small red glasses toward the screen where his father and uncle sat. “I have news. I have waited to tell you, but I have news that is too good not to share. I have met her. An Anbessa-Bastet. She has dark, curly hair with golden brown highlights and the softest, smoothest skin, and she is a shuttle tech who has just joined my crew, Father. Uncle Keem, she loves the borde you and Father made, and—”
Raucous cries and a shaking screen that blurred the visages of the two middle-aged Servalis cut him off. “You have found a Queen! My son has a Queen! Son, there are maybe three young Queens who will be of marrying age this year and, of course, over a hundred Knights in the village. Some are even talking of marrying Canids! Or Avians!”
“There is nothing wrong with that, surely?”
“No, son, no. But they won’t be able to have children.”
“I was reading an article the other day,” Uncle Keem said, straightening his broken spectacles, “and some pioneering fellow, a Leonid, I think, had done a lot of research during the time we were confined to our own towns and cities. He had figured out that there’s something that makes us incompatible with other species that were formed through the human genetic splicing that occurred hundreds of years ago. Now, this fellow proposed that if a human would take something—a chromosomal booster, I think he called it—they could have Felid cubs. Maybe one day he’ll find the same thing works with Canids and Felids or Avians and Felids. Who knows? Kamau, why are you sitting there and preening your whiskers, you impudent young thing?”
“That is the work of Dr. Marcus you’re reading. He is the medical officer on my ship, and already there are cubs with human Queens and Leonid and Tigerite Kings. And who knows? Soon, there may be some with a Servali father—if my Queen would be willing.” Kamau smiled, face tight, as he dropped the obvious hint.
His Father did not pick it up. “You mean she is one who had to be sterilized to save her life? And there is hope for a human surrogate for you?”
“Ah, no. I mean—”
“Wait, Mau. Kamau said hair. Not fur. Hair! Kamau, is your Queen a human? Where in Bastet’s name did you meet a human in this galaxy?” Uncle Keem gasped, losing his spectacles again.
“That is a very long story that I cannot go into just now, Father, Uncle, but she is here on my ship, and... And I would like her very much to be my Queen. I believe she has no objections other than that I proposed almost on sight.”
Uncle Keem buried his face in his paws. “You are your father’s son, that much is certain.”
His father waved a paw in a cheering motion. “Well done! Snag her before the other Knights can. Now, let me help you work on your courting song. It should be long. Fourteen verses, at least, I would say, twenty if you want to be certain she will accept you.”
“Mau, you are overhelping.”
“Shut up, Keem.”
“Kamau?”
Kamau slowly turned from the untidy desk in the corner of his quarters.
A sultry, needy voice that instantly turned him to stone from the waist down was purring through the intercom.
“Nessa?”
“Is that her?” his father hissed.
“Shhh!” Uncle Keem elbowed him to silence.
“Can I come in?”
“Uh. Yes.” He looked hastily around his room. It was tidy enough, but Nessa had never come to visit him in his space. He always went to call on her, hoping to make her feel more like the honored guest she was.
Nessa walked in wearing—almost nothing.
His uncle and father made twin gasps. Keem slammed his spectacles back on, eyes huge.
“That is not a human. That is a goddess,” he muttered.
“I was just calling my father and uncle, my love!” Kamau stammered as she walked closer. Her hair was undone, long and flowing. The dress she was wearing seemed to have been made by imperfect machinery. The sides were missing. The neckline plunged. The skirt had slits all the way up her thigh on each side. “Wh-what happened to the crew uniform, Nessa? Rupex said I could leave it on your bed.”
“It’s wonderful, but it’s too hot. I can’t be in anything that has sleeves. Or legs.” Nessa stuck one out long, curved leg, the thigh jiggling as her foot came to rest on the seat of his chair—directly between his legs. “Do you think you could wait to call them later, Kamau?”
“I meant—I have called them. I was on a call with them,” he said with a nervous smile, pointing to the screen.
Nessa’s sultry expression turned to suppressed horror and embarrassment. “Oh. Oh my. Hello! I’m Nessa. Kamau’s told me so much about you!”
His relatives were silent. Slack-jawed.
“He’s a wonderful person!” she added, forcing a brighter smile as she bent down to be level with the screen.
Kamau stuck a hasty paw across her chest as her breasts threatened to spill free. “Father?”
In a shaky voice, his father managed to choke out, “How nice to meet you, my dear. We were just ending the call.”
“No, we weren’t!” Uncle Keem protested. “Nessa, tell me, are many of the older human Queens unmarried where you’re from? Say... those about fifty to sixty?”
“Uncle!”
“Keem!” Mau smacked his brother on the ear, and the glasses flew off screen. “We must be going. Right now. We will talk more. Later. Much later.”
The screen went dark with a beep.
Kamau swallowed several times. He didn’t know what to say. Should he begin with, “Thank you for seducing me, you utterly ravishing goddess,” or “My uncle will never be the same”?
“I have to die now,” Nessa whimpered, sitting in his lap.
“Now that would be a shame.” Kamau shook his head, kissing her shoulder. “I love this dress. Where did it come from? I’m sure I never ordered anything like this.” Although I surely will in the future!
“Jade altered it for me. She said the design is one of Ardol’s favorites.”
“I can see why. What else is different? You smell... you smell like floribunda, borde , and sex.”
“Guess who had an accidental injection of the horny-making shot?”
“What?”
“You heard me. A couple of hours ago, I got a shot of Marcus’ miracle juice. They said just one wouldn’t do much other than ramp up my libido. I went to take a nap, and when I woke up, I felt like it was a million degrees in my room, and the only thing I could think of doing—” Nessa stood up and slowly yanked his zipper down, letting his cock spring free, “was going for a long ride in a pretty new dress. Good plan?”
“Wonderful plan, but we can hardly—oh, fuck .” Whatever Kamau had intended to say regarding specifics of the mix-up or the need for foreplay fell into a strangled moan as Nessa shed her dress in one motion and lowered herself onto his cock in the next. She sank onto him like a wet silk glove, tight pink muscles clinging to him, instantly coating him in her honey.
“What were you saying?”
“That you have wonderful plans.” Kamau buried his face between her breasts, inhaling her scent. He wrapped his arms around her, loving how her waist filled them and her hips cushioned them. “I’m a Nessa sandwich. As a chef, this is how I want to go out. Smothered by the woman I adore.”
Nessa laughed. “Stop, or I’ll get you a snorkel.”
Kamau pouted up at her, but when she flexed her muscles around him, his frown fell away. “Never mind,” he whispered. “I could look up at that beautiful face—or down at these beautiful curves—forever.”
“Is this what being in heat is like? For weeks at a time?” Nessa asked, squirming on him, sinking easily onto the top row of his spines, beginning to mesh with him before he’d even had a chance to pump himself in and out of her slick heat.
“Yes, although you’d learn to function without your mate around you at all times—as long as you got to see him for several hours a day.” His legs turned to jelly as Nessa squeezed him with new force, her soft sheath having been stretched over the recent days. The sensation rippled over him, flutters leading to a steady pulsing grip that made his cum rush to fill her. “Nessa, I won’t last like that. You’d better get off.”
“I don’t want to get off,” she looked at him, a sensual pout on her lips, her hands digging into the dense, cream-colored fur on his chest. “I want you to fill me up, and I want to own this cock, coming on it again and again.”
“Own it, hmm? Just that part?” Kamau switched tactics and stopped trying to pull back to thrust, instead driving in and changing the angle at which he held her so she could take more of him.
Nessa gasped, arching back. She went limp over his arm, and he rose, pushing her shoulders and torso across his desk so he could stand over her, driving into her. His spines started to swell, trapping him inside of her, spreading her slit until the glistening skin shone almost translucent with the stretch of it. He planted his paws on either side of her waist and rocked his hips, swiveling them in a circle.
I’m going to erupt—but not until I feel Nessa come around me, finally know what it is like to breed my Queen in heat. “You didn’t answer me, my Queen. Is it all of me you own? Or just my heart? Just my cock?”
“All of you, all of you, damn it!” Nessa wailed, hips arching up, trapped and full.
He watched her face contract in a series of spasms that mirrored what was happening to his cock below—frantic tugging of strained muscles, squeezes and pulses that never seemed to hit with the same intensity twice. “My unpredictable Queen,” he grunted, losing the battle to hold off.
NESSA FELT THE TIDE of his hot cream rush in, filling her fuller than she thought possible. How was that possible? How was he in farther, deeper than ever before?
And why did she suddenly want to have heats, to breed like something wild and fertile, to feel safe and dangerous all at once?
That’s how he makes me feel. A King. Protecting his people. Providing. Not because I need him like some weak waif of a thing, but because I am strong, a Queen to stand beside him.
“I want every inch of my King,” she panted, writhing on his still hard length.
Kamau shuddered, both from the stroke of her walls against him and the stroke of her words on his hungry heart. “Nessa. My Nessa.”
“Mm. My Kamau.”
“The things you say tie my heart to yours so tightly, my Queen...”
“And why is that?” Nessa moaned, eyes falling shut. “It’s so much more than sex with you. Most guys would run a thousand miles if they found out a woman wanted them in the permanent way.”
“Then they would be the wrong men, my Queen,” Kamau leaned forward, pushing off on his toes to lay flat against her. His paws smoothed her hair back from her face, and he smiled down on her between kisses.
“And the idea of baby-making gives them night terrors.”
“Cowards.”
“They lie to you. Don’t answer your calls.”
“You will live where I live. Work where I work. I will tell you the truth, and you will see me being truthful. You will know where I am—not just because we are on the same ship but because I will tell you so you don’t worry. Because I love you already, Nessa. I want that love to grow. To double in size.” His digits slid to her breasts, kneading them as he gave her a crooked smile. “I’m a cook. I know all about taking strange ingredients that no one thinks will work and making something irresistible out of them. Like us. A warrior Queen and a Servali cook. Two different species, two different planets... We are an odd mix. At first, I thought it was too odd. Look at you...” He shook his head in consternation. “You would not want me.”
“What? What in the... Kamau! You should know by now that you’re the better catch. You’ve got the career, the connections, the credits, the safe haven, and you’re traveling the galaxy in luxury!”
“You see? We work.” He pushed against her, aiming up. The familiar, too-full sensation of intense pleasure against the underside of her clit made her squirm. Kamau licked his paw and slipped it between them, smiling as she arched off his desk, riding the wave of climax that was rushing her, too soon, too sharp, too—
“Ughhh! Fuck !” Her body felt like electric zaps were kissing their way across her pelvis. They centered on her clit as a gush of liquid marked his fur.
“We fit together,” he chuckled. “And we each think we got the better bargain.”
Nessa closed her eyes, letting sensations and words wash over her.
I was never supposed to be here.
Only maybe I was.
Because this is perfect. Too good to be true. I’m going to wake up one day and find out this was a bad dream or find a different side of him—one that I don’t like.
“You’re far away, my love.”
Don’t have to like everything about someone—to love ‘em. “Nah, Kam. I’m right here—love.”