Page 59 of Loaned to the Leonid Knight

“Oh, you don’t have to. He didn’t have much, he said.” Sasha felt a sudden worry in her middle. She and Gideon were largely inseparable. What should have taken maybe an hour at the very most had taken close to two, and she’d been so enchanted with the cubs and asking so many questions of Abi and Wendy that she hadn't noticed the time flying until just then.

“I would still like to help. You shouldn’t be carrying much in your condition.”

“Her condition. How old-fashioned,” Abi chuckled.

“I adore it,” Wendy squealed, hugging her husband’s arm, then kissing Chandra’s forehead as the baby Tigerite flexed her paws towards her daddy. “It makes me want to go start on baby number two.”

Talos coughed, and his tail whipped wildly behind him. Sasha smothered a giggle at his flustered stammering. “See, Talos, you’d better stay with your wife.”

“No, you’d better go help Sasha. If anything happens to her, Gideon will eviscerate you,” Abi urged.

Talos and Sasha shrugged at each other. “All right, let’s go find out what’s keeping him. I wouldn't put it past Farhet to have just tossed everything into the shuttle so Gideon would have to clean up his mess one more time,” Sasha fumed, marching away, hands on her hips.

Talos shook his head and followed. “Some people have more money than sense.”

GIDEON’S EYES OPENED, but all he could see was darkness. He could move his arms—barely. Something was tangled around him, and the space he was in was small and cramped.

His eyes slowly focused, and the predatory ability to see in low light gradually allowed him to make out yellow cords. Masses of them. Emergency tow cables for a crash-landed shuttle.

I’m in the emergency storage compartment in the rear of the shuttle.

Why?

How?

And who? Who had hit him and stuffed him in here?

“Where the hell is your ugly little Queen, Gideon? I can see she isn’t quite the catch you claimed.”

Gideon’s mouth dried out as his head kept throbbing.

Farhet’s voice.

Farhet was on this shuttle. Farhet had hit him, and he was looking for Sasha. Why?

He can’t stand to touch her. Or look at her. So why...

His mind was always sharp enough to deal with the business issues Farhet deigned too cumbersome, a mind sharp enough to deal with hundreds of issues that made the Imazi Pride run smoothly. Now, Gideon put his brain power to work.

He hit me and stuffed me in the shuttle. Why? I certainly wouldn’t work for him ever again, not after this. And why Sasha? He has to know that I wouldn’t sleep with her to produce a child for him. Even if he threatened us, it wouldn’t matter. Without the injections and protocol that only two doctors in the entire galaxy are using, there couldn’t be an heir.

Gideon’s throat closed up, and not just because there was little air in this cramped space.

The long list of people Dax and Skyla had sent Sasha’s blood test results to must have included Farhet, as he was the original partner. There were names, too many, and he hadn’t looked at them all. It was probably an innocent mistake of Dax’s, but... Butit tracked. The same day the blood test results confirmed her pregnancy was the same day that a shipping notice was received.

He wants the baby. He wants my cub for his own—he paid for it, and can’t accept that we changed our minds, that he never even slept with Sasha, that he ran from this chance.

That she is mine.

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 HOVERcart 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.