Chapter Seven
“Did you see how everyone kept looking at us during dinner?” Sasha asked.
Gideon nodded, but he was lying. He had not noticed anything in the world but Sasha.
“I guess they’re glad we’re getting along. No one liked Farhet, no offense.”
“I don’t like Farhet, so none taken,” Gideon admitted, hesitating at the door of his quarters. He didn’t want Sasha to leave his side—but he also didn’t want to continue things tonight.
If she became pregnant, he’d have to leave. He’d be done with this happy masquerade... Unless...
“Were you serious when you said you’d like to live in this galaxy?” Gideon asked.
Sasha pulled her hair up into a pile on top of her head. Waves and tendrils escaped and framed her face. If anything, it made her look more beautiful, sort of regal and seductive at the same time, drawing his eyes to her full lips and up to her cheekbones. “Is it hot in here?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” he admitted, even though he knew all of his heat was generated by internal thoughts.
“Wanna come to my room and talk where no one is staring at us like the newest media?” Sasha snickered.
She was always laughing. She was always smiling and warm. In a world of cold formality, a world that had felt so lonely over the last seven years, Gideon found himself bewitched by so much brightness and joy.
“Gideon? You okay?”
“I’m okay. Uh, yes. Yes, I would love to talk, if you don’t mind putting up with me for longer.”
“Putting up with? Dude, you’re a delight.”
“Dude. I like that. I like when you say so many things, Sasha. Your voice is always so full of life.” Gideon left the door of his quarters and moved next door to hers, staring at her small hips and tailless backside as she moved.
It made her look so different. So small.
So helpless, even, and that made a low rumble start in his middle, a protective sound that was meant to let other males know that they should stay clear.
To warn away any and all predators—but him.
Oh, he could pounce in a heartbeat if she wanted him to.
“You’re just a big sweetie. Sweetest person I’ve ever met. I’m... I’m going to miss you when this is over.”
“I know,” his words tumbled out eagerly, “I was thinking the same thing. I would... If you were going to live in this galaxy, have you given thought to where you’d like to stay?”
“Not really. I don’t know much about anything outside of Sapien-Three. I just know this is better,” Sasha gave another laugh, this one dry, and to Gideon’s horror, he found that it had the same effect.
Everything she did had the same effect. Sasha was charming and witty. Vivacious. It was like she washed off years of rigidity and deference with mere hours of friendliness, peeling off coats of armor and loneliness, exposing the soul he buried underneath orders and suits.
“If we are successful, I will have money to live elsewhere. I wish to leave the Leonid System. There are still ancient prejudices in some parts of that world, and I want to be rid of them. What is more—I don’t want to succeed too swiftly, if you will forgive me, my Queen, for saying something that sounds insulting at first—”
“You would never insult me,” Sasha soothed, her hand on his arm, fingers sinking into his fur and staying there.
“You know me well, so quickly. And that... That is why I don’t want this venture to succeed too quickly. If I am successful, I fear my employer will want me to return to him. Then I’ll... I’ll have to leave this place.” And you.
“Well, no deal. I’ll tell him I need you with me.
I heard— well, um, it might not be true in my case, but pregnant Queens need lots of male attention from their partners.
Even though I’m guessing it won’t happen with me, it’ll be something that he can’t argue with.
Anyway, you’re the best part of being on this ship,” Sasha beamed at him.
He was tempted to pull his arm away. She didn’t realize that her little touches were setting him on fire.
“On the other hand... I guess we’d better try sooner rather than later, so he doesn’t accuse you of not doing your duty. My records, which I guess he’ll have some sort of access to, would show I entered a ‘fertile window.’”
“Yes, but your comfort level is what determines our pace, not some injection or Farhet’s wishes. When I... when I am paid what I’m owed, I was thinking that I might even like to try the Lynxian System. I hear there is a big population of —”
“Felid and human couples? Hybrid cubs?” Sasha nodded. “I thought about that, too. Maybe it’s a ‘settle down, find a happily ever place.’”
“You would have a thousand suitors,” Gideon said quickly, cursing himself for the way his throat and chest tightened at the thought of losing her to another.
She isn’t mine. Never was. She was, if anyone’s, Farhet’s. She was essentially loaned to me.
“I wouldn’t necessarily like that. Although,” Sasha rubbed the back of her neck, looking distinctly uncomfortable now, “if they were here now, maybe that would be different. Oooh,” she let out a long breath and bent over, bracing her hands on the edge of the table in the corner of her quarters. “It’s really, really hot.”
“The terraformed bay was excessively warm, I’m sure, to keep the vegetables and fruits growing.”
“Yeah. That could be it. Or it could be the hormones kicking in.”
“Ah. Yes. That. Well, like I said, we could easily delay trying for this cycle. I am not impatient for the physical aspect of our mission.”
“I’m glad, because there’s no way you’re going to fit, and how do Layla and Wendy have babies if their husbands are freaking tanks?” Her tone was suddenly a frustrated whine.
Gideon rushed to the sink area and pulled one of the biodegradable cloths from the cabinet beside it.
“Here, my Queen, you are feverish. It’s the hormones, I’m sure.
A-and I’m sure,” he stammered, “that those couples had many hours of loving practice. I’m sure that Talos and Rupex are good men, men who didn’t hurt their wives with any overzealous attempts to force things to fit. ”
Sasha nodded, head lolling back as Gideon pressed the cold towel to her forehead, then her neck. “You take such good care of me.”
“I am here to serve.”
“I want to serve you, too. I’m not used to having people take care of me. I was going to be a medic, you know?”
“I know. You will easily get a job in the Lynxian System. It’s not a terribly wealthy area, but there is plenty of work in mining and ranching communities.”
“You sound like you looked the place up,” Sasha chuckled, bending down, letting her long hair fall forward so she could scoop it up again, twisting it so it was off her neck.
Gideon kept dabbing the cold towel along her neck and the area of exposed shoulders he could see.
He tried not to stare at the rest of her body as she bent and twisted, a sheen of sweat breaking out on her skin.
Every time he was close to her, her sweet scent tortured him.
When he was this close, and she was shimmering with perspiration, he was almost out of his mind with the urge to lick her neck and rub the small, shapely hips, as if he could keep the scent and feel of her with him forever if her grabbed enough of it now.
But he was used to depriving himself of the things he wanted most—or having others do it for him.
His priority was never his own wants, but others, and it wasn’t out of duty that he was eager to help Sasha.
Taking care of her is all I want. She is my little Queen. At least for now.
“Should I call the doctor?”
“Let me just send him a message to make sure that this is normal. I remember back when I was a kid, when I got my seasonal anti-viral shots, I always had to stay home from school the next day. I get hit hard.”
“My poor blossom. Well, this surrogacy shouldn’t make you ill!”
“I’m not ill—just hot. And pregnancy is risky anyway. People do it all the time, but it can give you diabetes. It can make you throw up, give you terrible headaches, and cause skin breakouts.”
“And Farhet was expecting you to go through such things alone?” Gideon demanded.
Sasha laughed. “If it were him, I would want him to leave me the hell alone. You? You stay right here and be my big, comfy cuddle toy.”
His tail went wild with joy, tapping and twittering behind him, his purr bursting out loud enough to make the mithrium tree in the center of the table reverberate.
“Wh-what? What’s that?” Sasha stood up quickly, banging her head on the table’s edge. “Ow!”
“Oh, Sasha.” He patted her head awkwardly, trying not to muss the already messy pile of waves or touch the sore spot she’d just injured, even though the crown of her head was about the same size as his paw.
“I was purring. No one has ever wished to cuddle with me. Or keep me close. No one besides my parents and siblings.”
“If I weren’t so hot, I would want to sit in your lap,” she moaned, fanning herself with one hand and rubbing the tender spot on her scalp with the other. “Here, let me send Marcus a note, then I’ll get out of these clothes.”
Get out of her clothes?
Gideon’s mind went to a thousand forbidden places. “Do I leave, my Queen? Or stay to support you?”
“Oh, my God, don’t,” Sasha grabbed the towel and started running it all over the front of her neck, down past the collar of her dress, and into her cleavage.
Gideon swallowed and tried to think of something unpleasant, like the time Farhet had accused him of creating an inter-district incident by not ensuring every inch of the mithrium serving plates (including the ones not used but hanging in the kitchen) was polished before he had a council meeting.
“I will not,” he said with the utmost contrition. “Although I am not sure what I should not do, so if you would just explain that, then I will never do it again, my Queen.”
“Don’t be so adorable, and helpful, and sweet, or I’m going to fall in love with you,” Sasha groaned.
Gideon licked his lips slowly. “Oh. I... I’m not adorable. I think the only way I can bear to be less helpful is to leave your side. That doesn’t seem right.”