Page 39 of Loaned to the Leonid Knight

“Yes, if we are successful. If we’re not, Miss Cordovair gets to try for six cycles.”

“Yes, but you don’t have to stay there the whole time. I have so much to do with Memhet out bride-hunting all over the galaxy. I was hoping you could finish quickly and return.”

Gideon shook his head. It occurred to him that in all of his years of servitude, he had simply contented himself with a job well done, of keeping a fairly high-ranking position as far as secretaries and servants go. He had assumed that would always be his career, a faithful family retainer.

And that was all Farhet saw him as. It was almost as if the wealthy Leonid believed that he could send Gideon out to solvea problem with the expectation that he would blindly return to him. That was just what he did. His role. His only purpose—to serve the Imazi Pride.

“I won’t be returning, sir, unless it is to collect my things. I would rather have them sent here. TheComet Stalkeris heading to the Lynxian System, with rendezvous throughout other areas of the galaxy. I’ve decided to settle there. I can give you my coordinates for you to have my things sent on.”

“But... but the cub? Won’t you bring him to me?”

“Sir, I imagine you should be here to greet your own child when he or she enters the world.”

“She? She!”

Gideon blinked. “What?”

“I don’t want a Queen. I mean, I know we desperately need Queens, but a Queen will never run the Imazi Pride. One of the litter must be a son.”

“Human Queens do not have litters, sir. You know this. The information is very clear. Twins have slightly increased odds of occurring, but most will be single births. On board the ship, there have been five couples that have given birth, and many more on Lynx-Nineteen. Most are single births.”

“Boys or girls?”

Gideon slapped his view screen on and enjoyed the momentary look of fright on his employer’s face at his shirtless, mussed form.I look savage. And satisfied.“I don’t know. It does not matter. What will you do if it is a girl?”

“Well, I— I.. That is unimportant, honestly. It hasn’t happened yet. You look horrible, Gideon. Worse than usual. No wonder the human Queen doesn’t want to mate with you.”

“No wonder she didn’t want to mate with you, Farhet. You recoiled from her physical appearance. If you had looked past it, you would have seen she is charming, clever, sweet, and kind.”

“Only little Knights worry about a Queen’s kindness and sweetness. She showed you pity, and you think it is something wonderful on her part? Ha!” Farhet scoffed. “She was all over me, too. That is why I rejected her advances. It was unseemly and disgusting to feel her naked skin pressing all over me.”

Gideon swallowed down a hiss. That wasn’t true. Couldn’t be true. “Did you imagine she would be fully clothed and ten feet away while you mated with her, sir?” he asked, keeping his calm as Farhet became ever more rattled.

“How dare you speak to me like that! I—”

“You will do nothing, sir, because you can’t. There is no other chance for you to procure a human surrogate at this time, and even if you could, you wouldn’t bed them. Another surrogate male will not be tolerated. It was a bait and switch on your human Queen, and she had every right to reject me, or any others you were allowed to send—and Dr. Marcus has made it clear that you wouldn’t be allowed. Sasha likes me. Chose me. If she didn’t, you would be out of luck, and your brother would soon become the King of the Pride. You need me, and it displeases you. Your need has allowed me to free myself.”

Farhet scowled for a moment, and then his arrogant features relaxed.

Gideon knew from a decade of working with the older Leonid that this never meant anything good for a rival in a business acquisition or a political sparring match.

“You’re right, Gideon. You are free. You are free to go off and live on a dusty little planet with the vast wealth I will give you once that human Queen falls pregnant. You will be free to never think of me again, but your child will be well off. He will have riches and success you could never have. You say I need you? I think in reality, you have always needed me, and we can see that it will continue into the next generation. I have things to attend to. Go and take care of your obligations.”

The call ended, and Gideon was left shaking. Shaken at the thought of what Farhet had just said, and shaken at the thought that if he no longer wanted to go through with this, but Sasha did... then he would have to share her with another.

She doesn’t want another. But she cannot live on broken contracts. Could three years of my salary and just one cycle of this program be enough for us to start somewhere? I couldn’t invest much in property development. The orchards, gone. Goats, vanished.

Sasha... Would Sasha be gone, too? Would she feel as though she had to fulfill her obligation to the program, because it is such noble work?

What kind of a King would I ever be if I put my own desires above that of helping my population rebuild?

“I’M SORRY I’M LATE.” Sasha watched Dr. Marcus review the hemoanalyzer results, smile, and take a vial of the booster serum off the counter.

“Ideally, we should try to keep it to close to the same time every day. I’m glad you saw my message, so I didn’t have to come and wake you up. I don’t want to pry, but you and Gideon seem to be enjoying one another’s company.”

“We are.” Sasha blushed and held out her arm for the needle.

The injection was short and painless, and Dr. Marcus beamed at her. “You know, ahem,” he coughed, “watching you and Farhet, meeting Farhet, is vastly different than watching you and Gideon. I’m not a young King, and I hate to admit when I’ve made a mistake, but I think I might have.”