The Panther's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance (9 page)

On their way back to the bungalow, she couldn’t help but take in the evening life of the town. The bars and the clubs were already full of tourists who were hoping to get some of the supposedly authentic Caribbean lifestyle that the island offered them. Josie couldn’t help but smile at the sight. It was all a façade, a masquerade that was put on for the benefit of the people visiting this island and then leaving in a week or so.

Josie looked at Kheem who was busy taking in the sights as well, or maybe he was watching for signs of someone threatening to attack them. His eyes were alert, dancing from place to place. He had the eyes of someone who was ready for anything. She knew that Wahir had people following them, probably Jamar. As they walked, the back of her hand tenderly brushed against the back of his hand. He smiled at her and Josie couldn’t help but feel something ignite inside of her. His crooked smile, his dark eyes, and the fact that he had the physique of a god, it all made him so damn alluring to her.

Her fingers intertwined with his and he squeezed her hand tightly.

When they reached their bungalow that they had decided would be safer if Kheem stayed with them, Josie stopped before she stepped into the small hut. It was obvious why she stopped and Kheem didn’t even bother to look at her. His astute eyes had caught the problem the moment she had seen it as well. He could see that the window was open on the side of the door. This wasn’t something Josie or Kheem would be foolish enough to do. Josie stared at the window and immediately thought of what they could do to get out of this situation.

Cautiously, they approached the door and with each step they took, Josie could feel the pounding of her heart in her chest quickening and growing in intensity. Kheem approached the door first, his shadow loomed over the door and before they could figure out what it was that they were going to do, they both watched as the handle jiggled and soon the door swung wide open and the tan skinned form of Sipho stepped out, a cellphone pressed against his ear.

“They’re not here,” he said in an annoyed voice to whomever he was talking to on the other end.

By the time he looked up, Kheem had already pulled back his fist and was slamming it into Sipho’s nose, hard. Sipho toppled backwards into the door and fell onto the floor. Kheem didn’t waste a moment, lunging on top of Sipho, Kheem pounded his fists into the man’s face as he yelped in terror and pain. His arms and legs twitched with each strike as Josie held Ony and rocked him, turning him away so that he wouldn’t see his father beating the shit out of the man who had once again foolishly tried to kidnap him.

As she turned, she barely caught the sight of two figures stalking toward her, coming down the small paved path that led to the dozens of bungalows. Even from the short distance in the shade of the palm trees, they were obviously coming for her. They were the kind of people who transmitted every action in the way they walked. She could tell that one was a man and the other was a woman. Josie started to walk backwards, looking over her shoulder to make sure that no one was behind her.

“Kheem,” she called to him.

The woman was Alizea of the Hyena Clan and she had often been seen with Kheem, trying to seduce him with her bouncy, wavy blonde hair and her alluring figure. She was from South Africa and was notorious for trying to sleep with as many alphas as she could. Her idea of being a woman was to give the man enough pleasure so that he was actually interested in being around her.

It was disgusting and pitiful to Josie who had been the exact opposite. Next to her stood Christoph whose skin was as black as midnight and whose eyes were as bright as stars it seemed like. He was a lanky man who was used to causing trouble and ending it. He fought dirty and that was something that Josie was not ready for.

She could hear Kheem getting up in the doorway and as she glanced at him, she watched as he rammed Sipho’s head into the wall and left the man unconscious or dead on the doorway. The moment he saw Alizea and Christoph, he rushed to Josie’s side, his knuckles bleeding, soaked in the blood of Sipho and his own. He was panting and his chest heaved as he stood next to her.

“You run,” Kheem said to her. “I’ll hold them off. Find Wahir or anyone else who can help us. Go, now.”

“They’ll kill you,” Josie said with an amount of certainty in her voice that frightened her. She had no doubt that Kheem knew this. They were past playing around. They were ready to do whatever they needed to in order to get what they wanted from them.

“Hurry, now!” Kheem shouted.

He lunged at Alizea and Christoph and in the moonlight, she watched as his clothing ripped apart in the flash of an eye before her and in its place landed y a sleek, black panther with eyes like golden moons, glaring as he peeled back his lips and roared at the two attackers. While they were still human, they were weak and he didn’t waste any time lunging at Christoph first, taking him to the ground as he landed hard on top of the man. It didn’t take long before Josie’s feet finally agreed with the importance of what Kheem had said to her.

She turned and ran as fast as she could, heading down the path that would lead her to the outside of the Bungalow cluster. She ran past the bungalows that were silent and dark, people were either out on the town or they were at their jobs at the resort, but either way, there wasn’t a soul there to help her.

She started to wonder if King Ronald had betrayed them. Had he decided that the betrayal that Kheem and Josie had pulled against him was too much? Did the Lion Clan decide to let nature take its course with them? All she knew was that she was utterly alone right now. There were no lions watching her back and she had just abandoned Kheem.

“Help!” Josie screamed, refusing to let the man that she loved die alone.

Whether it was others that came to her aid in the form of Shifters or common people, she was going to get the help they needed. She couldn’t let Kheem die alone. Screaming again and again, she watched as a few lights turned on, but as she made her way along the path, she eventually realized that it was too late.

She looked back toward their bungalow and saw that there was no one there. There were no figures and there were no shadows in the darkness. Kheem and the others were gone. “Kheem!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. “Kheem? Where are you?” She shouted again and again as Ony began to cry. His little voice wailing was enough to make her feel like a coward, alone and abandoned. How could she turn her back on him? She had been a fool.

She knew she couldn’t have just left Ony on the ground as she went to war with Alizea. She had to get him out of there. It was her duty as his mother and this was everything that they were fighting for. If she didn’t get Ony to safety and they harmed him or took him with them, then she was going to be in serious trouble. She turned back toward the bungalow and decided that whatever King Ronald had done, whether his agents were simply lax or if he had betrayed them, she was on her own. She stormed down the path, heading straight for the bungalow.

When she arrived, Sipho was getting up, whimpering in pain as he tried to stand, clutching the frame of the door and trying his hardest to keep in control of his body. He was bleeding badly, but not badly enough as Josie approached him. Holding Ony in her arm, away from Sipho, she used her other hand to grip his throat and constricted her hand as hard as she could around his wind pipe, threatening to end him right there for what he’d done.

“Where is Kheem?” She demanded from him. Sipho gurgled against her vice-like e grip and she squeezed harder against him. She wasn’t in the mood to play any games. She wanted answers and she wasn’t going to play any games with Sipho right now. If she had to kill him to make a point, she would do so gladly. “Where is he, Sipho?” She demanded.

“They took him,” Sipho choked out miserably. “They took him away. They beat him pretty badly. It looks like your boyfriend is about as tough as the rest of his clan was.”

Josie squeezed harder and felt the rage rising up inside of her. No, she couldn’t transform here. She couldn’t turn when she had Ony with her. She would have to wait until Karen or someone else had him. If she turned with him, she would definitely kill Sipho, but she might also harm Ony in the process. It was too great of a risk for her to take. No, she would just have to wait. But, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t teach Sipho a lesson on the way.

She slammed Sipho’s head in to the wall and heard a sickening crack as the drywall caved and Sipho groaned and wailed, collapsing on the floor and bleeding from a whole new spot. She didn’t feel anything for him. All she felt for him was hatred that came from the darkest part of her body. She wanted to see him suffer and she wanted to see him die. That was all she cared about right now. She wanted too much agony and so much horror for him. There was nothing that she wouldn’t do to the Jaguar Clan and the Hyena Clan now.

The truce was broken for good now. They had sparked the war and there was no going back. She was going to kill every last one of them if she had to. There was something about it that rose up inside of her blood. It was a matter of honor and pride inside of her. She was going to do whatever it took to put them in the ground. But, there was something inside of her that spoke from the logical side of her brain. It told her she probably wouldn’t be the one who was putting them down.

She was going to know soon enough whether her instincts were true or not, but she suspected that the Hunters were going to be coming after this. They had spies all across this island and they would know that someone had transformed and fought with another Shifter. With their precious humans in danger, they were going to make a presence now.

Chapter 7

Everyone knew what had happened, but no one was willing to speak up about it. There was some kind of terror and delusion that still rippled through the crowds of people that sat in the auditorium, waiting for the sentencing to fall. The Jaguar Clan was absent and their seat on the Council was vacant. Kibwe was gone and Sipho had limped away in the shadows when Jamar and the other Lions finally showed up, too late to be of any good to Josie.

She watched as they searched for any sign of Kheem or the others. They came back with nothing and now the Jaguars were completely gone. Somewhere on the island, they were hiding. The moment this meeting was over, they were going to have nowhere to hide from Josie. She would tear down every house and burn the jungle between the resort and the town if she had to. There would be nothing that hid her from the man that she loved.

But they were not the only people who were missing. The chunk of the auditorium that was usually reserved for the Hyena Clan was absent as well. They had Kheem. They had kidnapped a Shifter and they had violated the King’s law. There was no way they were going to show their faces. They had declared war and that meant that they were all going to die if they didn’t win this battle. Together, they were a significant force, but they wouldn’t be enough to stop Josie.

Josie swore she was going to find them and kill them or that the rest of this island was going to burn. She had given Ony to Karen and Karen had agreed to keep him inside all day. There was no way that the Hyena Clan or the Jaguar Clan would be stupid enough to try and take Ony from Karen. There were too many lions waiting in the shadows for them.

If they were smart, Josie knew they would try to bargain with her to get Kheem back alive for her child. That was a trade that she could never make and Kheem probably knew that. So, that meant Kheem was most likely ready to give his life for Josie and their child. The thought made her want to throw up. There was no way she could let the man that she loved die so horribly. She was going to fight for him. She was going to save them both. She just didn’t know how to do that yet.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” King Ronald said from his podium. “There had been a breach of the peace, just hours after I stood before all of you and said that it was vital that we work to keep the peace. The Jaguar Clan and the Hyena Clan have declared open war against all of us and have transformed in the view of the public. Though no one saw them, there is nothing we could do to keep the incident a secret. By now, the Hunters from Warco have been informed of the situation and have launched a full scale invasion of the island. There are five dozen armed Hunters here in Tarobi and they are coming here shortly with their leader to discuss what will happen.

“It is our way to hate and fear the hunters. It is our way to try and fight them with everything we have, but I must beg of you to keep the peace. Do as they say and I assure you that they will honor the peace and the cooperation that you have shown them. They will deal with those responsible and we will be rid of those who have disrespected all of us and who have turned against us.”

King Ronald beseeched them with as much passion and humility as he could muster, which must have hurt him more than any other wound that he could have experienced in his life. He was a man who loved his power and his pride more than anything else. The fact that he was going to have to bend down and kiss the rings and feet of those who would be deemed lesser of him was going to burn and sting him in more ways than Josie could possibly imagine. This was the definition of hell for King Ronald.

To see the others present in the auditorium told Josie everything that she needed to know about the situation. They were all horrified, terrified by what was coming for them. They were all innocent bystanders to something that was going to kill them if they weren’t careful. This made Josie feel a small amount of guilt. Being at the center of all of this, she couldn’t help but feel guilty. But, she wouldn’t change a thing. There was no way she was ever going to apologize for having Ony and she was never going to deny her love of Kheem.

If this was what had to happen, then she was going to make sure she went down with her pride and dignity. Holding her head up high, she looked at the trembling, fearful mass in the room and would not relent in her cause. If the Hunters wanted to kill her, then she was certain the Hyenas and the Jaguars would follow. She was the one who was innocent in all of this by her standards. Her gravest crime was loving a man and having a child with him.

When the doors to the auditorium flew open, there was a great hush among the crowd. The man that entered was exactly what Josie had expected him to be. Perhaps he was slightly more intimidating and human in his appearance, but that made it worse for her. He was unassuming. He was the figure of a man that could be anywhere and anyone. He had a silver goatee and mustache that was immaculately cared for and sharp green eyes that reminded her of a hawk.

His hair was slicked back with a jelly that made her think of lube. He walked with a polo on and a Kevlar vest over it. He was wearing camouflage pants that were tucked into his high top army boots. She didn’t doubt he had weapons on him and the gloves on his hands were what you’d expect a man hunting terrorists to wear.

He was flanked by others, numerous individuals, all of them looking much like him. They were all dressed in militant attire that would be perfect in the middle of a war zone. Regardless of whether they were men or women, they all looked like they were ready to fight a war that would end with the enemy in the grave and them celebrating over them. They were a diverse group -- men and woman from all around the globe who had come together in a common cause.

There was no doubt where Hunters came from. They were as old as the Shifters were themselves. All the way back to the beginning, past an ocean of history and the seas of obscurity in the past where no words were written on parchment or stone, there lived Shifters and Hunters. The first time a Shifter killed a woman or a man, there were those that vowed to take revenge and to protect others from such a horrid fate.

These days, Hunters came from two groups. There were those who joined the Hunters because someone died a long time ago and the skill and the cause had been passed down like a torch from father to son or father to daughter these days. The hatred lived long and the weapons were given to them from each preceding generation, defining their lives from that moment on. They were the resourceful ones who had the assets and the equipment to hunt Shifters all across the planet. They were as unrelenting as a plague and they were everywhere. But they were only a portion of the Hunters.

The other Hunters came from the survivors who were left in the wake of Shifters, forced to live in a maimed or mutilated world. Whether their souls or their psyches were damaged, their lives were forever changed by what it was that they experienced. Some lost family members, spouses, loved ones, or even children, to Shifters who had gone rogue or didn’t know what they were. It was a horrid fate and they made up the bulk of the Hunters.

They were merciless and they were never moved by the plights of the Shifters. No, they thought the only good Shifter was a dead Shifter. It was a dark life that they were thrown into and most of them had more than enough reason to embrace it.

They walked down the hallway after the leader of the Hunters. There were patches on the sleeves of his polo and on the chest of his vest that signified his rank and his title to those that understood the meaning of the badges and the bars. Josie had no idea what it meant, but she knew that he was the one that they were going to have to deal with. Josie had only heard rumors of him and she had only ever really heard myths about the man.

From what she knew, the man went far back with King Ronald, all the way back to Africa and the war that spread across the continent. He was a South African mercenary whose ancestors had hunted Shifters for sport. He owned and operated a successful Hunting Lodge in Africa, but eventually decided that a truce between King Ronald and his refugees would be worthwhile and maybe profitable in the end.

He relocated to Warco and the treaty was signed. Beyond that, the man was just a myth. Those myths were things Josie never wanted to hear confirmed or denied. She didn’t need to know if he’d beheaded Ronald’s father with just a machete. That kind of stuff was best left in the mysteries of the past.

She watched the man take the stage and stand before the rest of the Shifters. They were vastly outnumbered, but they weren’t afraid. That was something that alarmed Josie the most. It wasn’t just pride in knowing that there were more Hunters on the island and back at Warco that made them so bold. It was something deeper than that. It was the truth that these people were willing to die for the cause that they had taken up. That scared her. She could picture Kheem in her mind, struggling against his bonds while the Hunters stormed wherever he was being held, killing everyone in the building out of blind hatred.

The man stood next to King Ronald and extended his hand. They all watched as King Ronald took the man’s hand and shook it with respect and pleasure, or so it seemed. King Ronald stepped aside from the podium and offered it to him, extending his hand in peace for him to speak to the Shifters.

“Thank you,” the man said. “My name is Auben Christiansen. I'm the head of the Hunting Lodge in Warco and I am on this island for a single purpose that all of you are aware of. We like to keep the peace in Warco and we respect the treaty. But the truth is, that great power has been given to the Shifters and when that power is abused, the innocent are hurt. We cannot allow that. Whether there is harm committed against a human or another Shifter, we cannot risk the impending threat of a war.

We are here to contain the situation, assess the validity of King Ronald’s claim for peace, and to ensure that nothing like this happens again. I look forward to cooperating with all of you and I assure everyone in this room that if they do not try to harm us or try to hinder our investigation in any way, then you have nothing to fear from us. We are your friends here.”

King Ronald applauded the speech and soon the rest of the auditorium was clapping as well. It was a nervous, awkward applause that Josie was certain to be false. They were clapping because they didn’t want to die, not that they believed him. As Auben smiled at them and looked around at the Council, she felt his eyes settling on her for a moment and the feeling made her skin crawl.

She didn’t want him to notice her and when he looked at her, he saw everything. His eyes were like lasers piercing through everything and getting to the heart of the matter. He knew that there was more to her than just a pretty face and a lusty body. No, he saw her soul and that it was because of her actions that so much chaos and carnage had unfolded.

She was escorted by Wahir to the conference room after the dismissal of the meeting. Josie felt like she had spent more than enough time in conference rooms not fucking the man that she loved. There was a time when conference rooms meant that she would be getting a sexy adventure. Now, it was something far more devastating than and nowhere near as fun as Kheem had been.

“This is Josie Night-Hawk,” King Ronald said, introducing her as she entered the room.

Josie looked around the room and noticed that there was an even number of members of the Lion Clan and of the Hunters, every one of them standing on edge and pretending like they couldn’t sense the tension that was suffocating the room. It felt like a giant balloon had been inflated and was pushing them all against the walls as the pressure built and built, just waiting to pop.

“A red Indian,” Auben said, approaching her with his hand extended. Josie didn’t hate that term like most people expected she would. In fact, whenever she heard the term Indian, she immediately thought of the reservation in Wyoming. To her, the name Indian was one of pride. She didn’t care what the PC people wanted her to believe. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said with a kind smile and a charming South African accent.

She wasn’t sure that it was, but it was something she was willing to let go. She wasn’t about to question him, not here. There was something about him that made her feel like she was only seeing the top of the iceberg. There was more going on there and she didn’t want to waste any time getting comfortable with what lurked beneath. She shook his hand and was done with it.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Josie said nervously, but she thought she did a fairly good job at hiding it. Whether that was true or not would be determined later, she was certain of that.

“So I hear that you’ve made quite a fuss over having a child,” Auben said as he walked back to his side of the table, lording over those who stood on his side of the room like the Pope from some medieval play. Josie felt uncomfortable with the kind of power he wielded and the implications of his comment made her more nervous. “Is this true?” He asked her when he didn’t get an immediate response.

“I suppose,” Josie said.

“You suppose?” He raised an eyebrow like that was some strange comment that he couldn’t quite comprehend. “How do you figure?”

“I figure the fact that I am denied a right to have a child and that I have had a child could cause such chaos and insanity is ridiculous,” Josie said with as much courage as she could muster. This wasn’t a fight that she was going to go down in. She was going to stand firm and she was going to fight him for every inch that he wanted to take from her. This could be the end and if it was, she was going out on principles. “You never have to worry about concerns like this and I think that it’s insulting that I have to.”