Chapter Seventeen #2
Gideon kept his moves soft and silent, feeling for a way out.
I have to get out before Sasha comes looking for me. The only reason he hasn’t hit me and dumped me outside in the bay is to not alert anyone that something is wrong.
I will not let him take Sasha and my child away from me.
If it is him or them—it will be him.
“WELL, HE GOT THE HOVER cart out, but it’s not loaded. Must need a second one. Where... You know what, Kamau is always stealing them to carry the goods from the agro bay up to the kitchen. Don’t lift anything, and I’ll get a hover cart,” Talos urged, turning back at the bay doors.
“I bet he had to repack all of his boxes—if there were any boxes. It wouldn’t surprise me if he just tossed everything in and shut the shuttle door.
That Farhet guy seems like the kind that would make a mess for someone else to clean up,” Sasha muttered, surging in.
“Gideon! Did he leave a huge mess? Talos and I can—mmf!”
Sasha had a split-second thrill where she thought Gideon had decided he couldn’t wait any longer to make love and had decided to be creative and surprise her in the shuttle. She almost giggled until she realized the body behind her was wider and thicker, not as tall.
The fur on the paw on her arm was golden, not black. “Farhet!” she spat, biting the paw over her mouth.
“Shush!” Farhet lifted her easily and sat her down with surprising care—before starting to strap her in to one of the cushy seats in the rear of the shuttle. “You stay still, and no harm will come to you. I just need my cub.”
“Sasha!”
Sasha’s head jerked to the side. “Gideon?” she gasped, kicking at Farhet’s ankles as he tightened the straps.
“Ignore him. Now, listen, I don’t understand how he persuaded you, but this cub is worth a million credits to me.
Hmm? That would set you up for life, and in five cycles, you’ll be off, trekking around the galaxy.
I have some contacts in other systems. The Servali System might suit you.
Anywhere but the Leonid System.” Farhet continued speaking as if nothing was happening, as if he couldn’t hear Gideon roaring and throwing something against wherever he was confined.
“I’m not leaving the Comet Stalker, and this is my baby. Not yours.”
“Technically, you can’t tell that. It might have been conceived before the surrogacy program ended.”
“It wasn’t. And it’s a girl,” Sasha said desperately, struggling to undo her straps as Farhet pressed something on the shuttle’s wall and the doors slid shut.
He froze, turning towards her. “A girl?”
“A Queen,” Sasha whispered, not caring if it was true.
“They can’t tell so early.”
“They can. You can go ask Dr. Marcus if you don’t believe me,” she insisted, working her small fingers under a buckle that was wedged so tight that only someone with Felid strength could undo it.
“Ha! Well...” Farhet seemed genuinely confused for a moment as he sat at the shuttle’s controls.
“That doesn’t matter. No one will know that for sure until four or five cycles from now.
In the meantime, all my father needs to see is that my cub is in your belly, and the line of the Imazi Pride will continue. ”
“Not your cub. Gideon’s!” Sasha hissed, pushing both thumbs down and looking around desperately.
“Ah, but he’s insurance. Gideon will be kept safely in confinement at one of my properties. You can speak to him every day—as long as you let people believe that’s my child.”
“There won’t be a child without the medical protocol that I’m on, administered here! There’s no one on Leonid-One who can do it!”
“Doesn’t matter. Once I present you at Bastet Mercy, they’ll have to use the protocol. That old, graying Leonid doctor will have to help and tell them what to do, or the cub will die, and every cub is precious here.”
“Not to you, or you wouldn’t be putting me at risk like this,” Sasha argued, determined to keep him talking, to keep him distracted, and keep the shuttle on the ground.
“You won’t be at any risk if you simply keep your mouth shut.
Besides, if you don’t cooperate—your lover can be jettisoned out on take-off.
Or at any other point of the journey, or at any point of your stay.
And if you’re thinking that he’ll save you, the same goes for him.
He’ll keep you alive, something he wants, for some odd reason, as long as he’s nice and quiet and behaves.
Five cycles will go by like nothing, I promise.
I’ll even have some human media put on the media viewer for you. ”
Sasha went silent.
He’ll kill me if Gideon fights back. And kill Gideon if I fight back.
But if we’re good... If we survive, we’ll be okay.
We’ll rebuild. But... “But there are so many problems with what you’re saying,” Sasha protested.
In the corner of her eye, she caught motion.
A tiny gap in the metal at the very back of the shuttle. Golden eyes. Dark fur.
Gideon was fighting to get free. Talos would be back in minutes and realize something was wrong when he saw the shuttle powering up.
“You know nothing of Leonid ways. Autonav coordinates... Why is there a delay? I told it to return the same day, but... Hmm.” Farhet poked at the screen, muttering to himself distractedly as if he weren’t in the middle of an abduction.
“I know that we’ve left the program. Everyone at Bastet Mercy knows you are out of the program. This isn’t your cub. How are you even going to pass it off as your own, or have it delivered? You think Dr. Marcus, Rupex, and the whole crew will just silently let you kidnap members of their Pride?”
“What Pride? You’re a human. A guest. Living cargo.” He slapped at the screen with a muttered curse.
“And you are so very, very wrong about that. You’re not fit to rule your Pride if that's what you think,” Sasha shouted, keeping one eye on Gideon’s progress.
“You little bitch! If you weren’t pregnant with the ticket to running all of the Imazi Hills District, you’d be tossed out the airlock.”
“Talos! Elio! Help!” Sasha screamed loudly as Gideon threw his whole weight against the door, hoping to cover the noise.
“You don’t need a tongue to give birth!” Farhet suddenly snarled, slamming an impatient fist on the instrument cluster.
“But she does to tell a magistrate what you’ve done,” Gideon suddenly roared, shouldering through the top half of the door, springing out through a too-small gap as metal scraped down his beautiful black fur and deep gouges appeared in his side.
Sasha screamed louder, her whole lungs in every sound, as Farhet rose, the shuttle slowly drifting into motion.
Gideon charged Farhet with pure adrenaline and rage, claws and fangs out as the startled attacker twisted to and fro, shushing Sasha, looking between the controls and back to where he’d secured Gideon.
“You’ve always underestimated me!” Gideon snarled, claws slashing and gouging into Farhet’s elegant face.
“Thought you could buy me off. Thought you could pin me down and trap me! You thought I wouldn’t beat every breath from your body to save my Queen and my cub!
” He ripped the bloodied claws across Farhet’s chest and threw him down, stomping on his neck to reach the shuttle controls.
Talos burst in, hover cart swinging, eyes wild. “What in Durga’s sacred name?” he roared.
“Help Gideon!” Sasha screamed. “Stop the shuttle!”
“Help!” wheezed Farhet.
“Gideon, don’t! Don’t kill him. Our baby needs you with us, not in some jail,” Sasha begged, finally managing to jam both thumbs into the central part of the harness, snapping half of it open.
From there, she managed to wiggle to the ground and crawl to Gideon, letting him grab her instead of focusing on destroying Farhet—even though she shared his desire to.
“You’re hurt. You’re bleeding. Come with me.” Sasha tugged his arm around her shoulders.
“He’s bleeding? I’m bleeding!” Farhet rolled to his back and gestured piteously to his ruined attire and bleeding gashes on his face. “If he had stayed where I put him, he’d have been fine! If he’d done what he was told, none of this would have happened,” Farhet moaned.
“You do not have security clearances to be on board my ship,” Talos growled, the huge Tigerite lifting the injured Leonid by his mane and glaring into his eyes.
“As security officer on the Comet Stalker, I’m placing you under arrest and putting you in the brig until we reach a planet or you’re collected by the authorities. ”
“But... But that’s my servant. He’s holding my cub hostage. He’s—”
“You should shut up,” Talos warned.
“You don’t understand! My brother has found a Servali Queen, and they’re due home soon. I need the pregnant Queen. I have credits. Millions of credits, I could—”
Talos banged Farhet face-first into the metal edge of the shuttle door, knocking him out cold.
“Oops.” Talos tossed the unconscious Leonid into the hover cart.
“Gideon, to the med bay, don’t argue. Sasha, you, too.
” Talos made sure the shuttle was indeed powered off, then raced ahead, dragging Farhet in the hover cart behind him.
He yanked his comm from his pocket and hit the emergency alert.
“Security breach, all med staff to the med bay, don’t panic, lock down the nursery, and Captain to the brig. ”
“‘Don’t panic,’ he says,” Sasha sighed— and then sank down in the seat at the shuttle controls. “You go on ahead, you’re bleeding everywhere.”
“From the closet, not from him,” Gideon spat, looking at his shoulder and side.
“Doesn’t matter. You gotta be okay. Because... Because he said... He said he was going to kill you if I didn’t give him our baby.” She let out a shuddering breath.
“He’s insane. He’s gone mad with his desire to control the Imazi Pride,” Gideon grunted and picked Sasha up, holding her on his good side. “Put your legs around my waist, love. I have you. You’re safe. I would have killed him before I let him hurt you or steal our child.”