Page 2 of Healing the Leonid Doctor's Heart
All around him, there was rejoicing and clamoring. Marcus kept his head down, sealing, one less layer to fuse this time, now that the amniotic sac and placenta were removed. This time he worked in reverse: uterus, peritoneum, abdominal muscles, fascia, and finally skin. Thirty minutes. Not even an hour.
He finally got to look up and see what he’d delivered.
Still wet and streaked with blood, her ears folded flat to her head, the little Queen was wrapped in a blanket on Wendy’s chest. She was pale orange, like the inside of the Sapien fruit, the peach. She had dark black stripes that were thick and bold, a sign of great beauty in the Tigerite community. Her fur pattern was more black than orange. Marcus wondered if that was because Wendy had dark skin, too. He would have to find that out as time went on and more couples produced cubs, not that it mattered. No one would give a damn about a cub’s markings these days. That was one good thing about the virus, maybe. People stopped being so foolish about looks and kinds.
His wife had been a Servali. Servali and Leonid couples were almost unheard of back then. Today, they would have been welcomed, and their four Leovali cubs would have been a huge blessing in a world where deaths vastly outweighed births for six solid years. Even now, with the virus under control, the ratio wasn’t much better. So many Queens had been sterilized to save their lives. The ones “intact” were few and far between. Few births occurred each year, relative to the number of deaths that age and disease still claimed as a matter of course.
And none of those dark, dreary thoughts should fill his head. Not right now.
“She is the prettiest little Tigerite cub I’ve ever seen,” Marcus crooned, rising.
And she was.
“What are you going to name her?” Skyla asked.
“Chandra Layla,” Wendy replied at once, her eyes not leaving her daughter’s face.
“Oooh, that’s beautiful.” Dax rubbed a gentle towel over the sticky, wet fur.
Marcus moved over to the coms, tossing his gloves and gown in the trash as the service droids started cleaning up the operating bay—not that there was much to clean in these daysof highly sophisticated tools. He looked over at the smiling trio of father, mother, and baby daughter, sobered by the knowledge that an inch too low or two wide would have had dire consequences.
But none of that showed on his face as he smiled and smacked his paw down on the coms and cried, “Don’t everyone swarm the med bay at once, but Chandra Layla has arrived, twenty-three pounds, six ounces, and she’s the prettiest Tigerite cub this side of Felix Orbus.”
From outside the operating bay, he could hear the cheers of the rest of the crew—this family that had been cobbled together with humans, Felids, Canids... Three cubs on one ship? Incredible. He doubted another ship in the galaxy could boast of such a thing.
“I’m going to let you have your visitors for a little bit, but Skyla, Dax—you are under strict orders to shoo everyone out after their first peep. Family needs to rest and be together. I’m going to shower and grab something to eat. Wendy, Talos? Hungry?”
Talos strode over to him, leaving his protective perch over his wife and daughter, wringing Marucs’ paw. “Thank you,” the big Tigerite croaked out.
“Welcome, son.” Marcus managed a smile, a real, genuine smile, and then walked away.
Chapter Two
“Someone better be bleeding. A lot.” Marcus slammed the button that worked the sliding silver doors of his quarters.
Abi was there. Abigail, in her pale pink dress and her blonde and silver hair up in a ponytail, with a startled look in her blue-gray eyes.
His heart was betraying him. His memories. His professional courtesy and ethics and everything, fleeing away in a haze of sleepy confusion and conflicting thoughts and urges.
Abigail was his patient—had been his patient—a trafficked, kidnapped human that was not supposed to end up anywhere in his galaxy. She was the classic definition of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And every time she smiled, Marcus wondered if she was supposed to be in his corner of the universe after all.
You can’t wonder that. You can’t flirt with a kidnapped human Queen who will probably want to get the hell off this ship at the first opportunity.
But he forced enthusiasm into his voice and moved his arm out of the doorframe, inviting her in with a step back. “Abigail! Hi.”
“I know it’s been a big day, but I missed you at dinner. I asked Kamau if I could bring you a tray,” she said in her sweet, low voice. Throaty, but not in the way some of the famous Leopardine chanteuses forced their voices to sound throaty, as if they were about to seduce you with their purring. Abigail’s voice always made him think of deep things. Valleys. Rivers. Dark nests of blankets curled around lovers.
Been too long. Been too long since I was in someone’s valley or felt that warm river running around me. Been too long since I shared a bed—and I never will again. That’s a given at this age, with any available Queens being snapped up by the younger Knights. Not some old, broken King like me. Certainly not one like me, no big haul of credits, not vast estates to lure her with...
That’s all those fuzzy feelings are. Confusion and memories of old happiness. Move on, Marcus.
“Thank you for the dinner. You didn’t have to do that, but it was very thoughtful. Have you been to see Chandra?”
“I did! She’s adorable. I’m spending more shifts in the nursery this week. Ever since your big meeting on Leonid-One, where you revealed your findings about your... How would you word it?”
“I presented several parts of interest to the medical community at that meeting. Chromosomal compatibility serum and subsequent injections to make human Queens mimic Felid heat cycles is probably the briefest way to put it.” Marcus took the tray and set it down on the small round table for two. To Felids, it was average height. He hadn’t had one of the human Queens over to his quarters or sitting at his table before. When Abigail hesitated, he motioned for her to sit down, and he could see just how tiny she seemed in comparison, with all the Felid-sized furnishings so close around her.
