The Panther's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance (12 page)

Cardel reached up to the radio on his shoulder and turned away from Josie, as if she wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation. “Auben, we took out King Ronald and his lackeys. It looks like the Lions are out of the den now. We’ve got the she-wolf and the Panther here. Awaiting orders.”

He relaxed after he sent his message, looking at the far walls of the room and showing a surprising amount of trust by leaving his back exposed to her. The man named Dutch, however, was watching both Kheem and Josie. Hopping down from the stage, she rushed to Kheem, making sure that he was fine. Beaten and bruised even more, he stood strong and tall, not willing to show any sign of weakness in front of these Hunters. She admired him and was proud of him.

How was he supposed to take both of them? But, somehow he was willing to take the chance and he did what he needed to. He took the fight to both of them and stood tall. With a deep breath, she hugged him, exhaling as she felt the warmth of his body against hers.

“God, I love you,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief that they were still alive. They were running out of luck, but what they had still was enough to keep her hopeful.

“I love you too,” Kheem whispered, his eyes still on the enemies that were in the room with them.

She knew that he was tense and nervous, but she wasn’t afraid of them. They weren’t going to kill them and they weren’t going to turn on them after saving them from King Ronald and Jamar. She had no idea what they would have done if they hadn’t shown up. If they hadn’t been tracking Josie, they would be dead right now. They would be gone and little Ony would be in the hands of King Ronald. That was more than she could stomach. She was grateful, indebted even.

“Cardel, lock them in,” Auben’s voice came over the radio on Dutch and Cardel’s shoulders. “I don’t want to see their faces again.”

“Yes, sir,” Cardel replied and turned around. He looked them over carefully before stepping toward them, Dutch still had his gun lowered but in their general direction. “You two have caused more than enough trouble. We’re done babysitting you and it’s time to get both of you out of here. All right? I want you both locked in here before things get out of control.

Understand me? If I see either of you on the field again or being held hostage or at the center of any nonsense that is going on, I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger and end either of you. In fact, I would probably be doing this entire island a favor if I just put the two of you miserable sods out to pasture right now. But, you’re lucky the boss is a bit of a romantic.”

“Cardel, come on,” a woman’s voice called over the radio. Cardel took a step back from them and turned around once more. Josie wondered what that was all about.

“I’m here, Riana,” Cardel answered.

“We’ve found the bastards,” Riana informed him. “Both of them are holed up inside of a stripper bar. We’re setting up a perimeter and getting ready to attack. You got thirty minutes to get your ass over here with Dutch.”

“Got it,” Cardel turned and looked at Dutch, “we’re on our way.”

“Next time,” Dutch informed them with a sinister voice, clearly not as pleased as Cardel was that they weren’t killing the she-wolf and the panther.

Josie watched as Dutch walked backwards a bit before turning with Cardel and slipping out of the resort. How they were getting around the place with such enormous weapons was beyond Josie. How could they keep everyone from panicking and freaking out at the sight of them?

The moment the doors closed, Josie wondered who was going to come clean up King Ronald, Jamar, and Jonathan. Who was in charge now? The whole island was about to witness a massive thinning of the Shifter population and that probably meant there was going to be even more fighting. How many others were going to die before someone was elected leader of this place? Two members of the Council were dead, soon two Clans were going to be dead, and that was going to be just the beginning of the madness.

Kheem took a step toward the door and looked over his shoulder at Josie. His face was full of conflict and it scared her to see him so torn looking, so distraught and confused. His eyes were brimming with warring emotions and she couldn’t help but want to know what it was that was going through his head right now. What was happening that she didn’t know about?

“We’ve got a problem,” Kheem said to her.

When this was going to end, she wondered.

* * *

“I’m going to need you to go over that one more time,” Josie sat down on one of the red, plush chairs of the auditorium and shook her head.

This was a nightmare. How could all of this be happening right now? She just wanted things to come to a conclusion to be done once and for all. She was ready for the fighting and the insanity to come to a conclusion so that she could just settle down with her small family and enjoy what it was that she had. She needed this. They didn’t understand how much of a nightmare they were becoming to her. She wanted to scream and pull out her hair.

“When I was being held hostage by the Hyenas,” Kheem was pacing back and forth. His eyes were full of thought and disappointment. She knew he was warring with himself about what he should do, but it was a silly thing to be battling internally. Why wouldn’t he just tell her this up front? Was he thinking it was a bluff? Was he thinking that King Ronald would be able to do something about it and before he could tell him, they’d turned on them? “I heard them talking with the Jaguars about luring the Hunters to an ambush at the Torch. They have the place rigged with explosives.”

“What do you mean, explosives?” Josie shook her head. This was becoming a spy movie that she had been sucked into the middle of and none of it was making any sense to her. “Where could they get their hands on explosives? It’s not like we have a booming black market here.”

“The Hyenas have contacts and everyone here was in a war in Africa,” Kheem reminded her. “They rigged drums of gasoline from the mechanic’s shop they own to blow up when they call it with a cellphone. This whole building is going to explode when they walk it to. They’re going kill all the Hunters when they go inside to get them.”

“So, they’re all going to their death,” Josie shook her head. A thought illuminated her mind and she couldn’t shake it. “Maybe they’re lying. Maybe they told you that in hopes that you’d warn them and buy them more time for whatever it is that they’re planning to do.”

“No,” Kheem shook his head. “I don’t think so. They weren’t anticipating I would be freed. When Wahir showed up and wounded them, they gave me up unwillingly, hoping that they would be able to come back for me. I’m sure they’re pissed I got away.”

“So what are we going to do?” Josie didn’t know.

She didn’t understand what their role in all of this was yet. It wasn’t like they were the most skilled or successful fighters. In fact, they were developing a notorious reputation that meant more and more people were less inclined to fear them. They were probably going to laugh when Josie and Kheem showed their faces to anyone again. That was the legacy of this whole adventure that they were carrying around.

“We need to go warn them,” Kheem said after a moment of consideration.

He weighed his words carefully and tried to find the words that made the best sense to him and the course of action that was right for them. This was the last thing that Josie wanted to hear. What Josie wanted to hear, is that they were going to stay here and let things play out. If they didn’t act though, there was one very obvious conclusion.

The Hyenas and the Jaguars were going to win. They were going to overwhelm the Hunters and they were going to kill them all. Even if they didn’t kill every last one of them, they would kill enough to render them useless and send them all back on the boat to Warco, licking their wounds. If they succeeded in driving the Hunters form the island, then there would definitely be no one left to help them. The Hyenas and the Jaguars would claim the leadership of the Council and turn on everyone.

The island would be turned into a bloodbath or they would take their tyrannical ideals elsewhere. No matter which choice they decided upon, it would begin with the death of Josie and Kheem and would end with the loss of Ony to whoever was the highest bidder.

Josie couldn’t allow that.

“Fine,” Josie said to him. “I’m sure Karen still has Ony, but if we’re going to do this, we have to survive. No matter what happens, we survive, Kheem. Do you understand? We have a child to protect.”

“I’m not dying for this stupid war,” Kheem told her with all the seriousness that he could muster. “I’m not dying for anyone. We’re going to make it through this and we’re going to have our family.”

“Good,” Josie said with a sigh of relief. She wanted to believe him and she wasn’t going to give up hope. She wanted to be with him forever and she had the fortitude to believe that they would be. They had survived all that had led up to this moment. So they would make it a little longer. There was no doubt in her mind. Taking a deep breath, she kissed him before they left.

The Final Chapter

“So what’s the plan here?” Josie asked him, walking away from the resort and looking at the road leading into town.

It was a winding road through the jungle that gave them plenty of cover, but it was still a dangerous journey she was not eager to take. There could be numerous threats in the jungle and there was no knowing if the ambush had happened already. If they were under attack right now, they could be walking up to the victors only to get killed. They needed a plan they could stick to and work with, something that didn’t end with either of them getting killed. That was going to be the trick here. That was going to be the hardest part of their planning.

“Wait for them to throw the ambush,” Kheem was limping, not looking the best as he moved toward their objective. He was limping hard and it was looking more and more painful with each passing step. “Whoever survives, we take out. It’ll be quick and it’ll be painless. We just have to make sure the Hyenas and the Jaguars don’t survive. If any one of them survives, then we’ll have to look over our shoulders for the rest of our days. I’m not interested in doing that.”

Josie laughed. “Neither am I.”

“I’m glad we’re of the same mindset,” Kheem chuckled and looked at her, his eyes full of love and admiration.

She liked it when he looked at her like that. She liked having that feeling in her stomach that his eyes gave her. It was the kind of feeling that made her think that she could take on the entire world without a moment of hesitation. She looked at Kheem and smiled back at him. She didn’t want him to ever feel like he couldn’t trust in her. She wanted him to believe that she was always there for him, because she was. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

They walked for fifteen minutes, their fingers laced together and their eyes meeting each other’s over and over again. It was one of those moments that felt like it was pulling Josie out of chaos and insanity of everything that was happening. She loved it. If she could just live in this moment forever, she would be happy. She would be happy with her entire lot in life.

There were so many people who wanted nothing more than to find someone who truly loved them, who would truly give them everything and that was special in this world. She wanted to be with Kheem for the rest of her life and the fact was that she was actually fighting for it. She was fighting to have her relationship with him. People went their whole lives looking for that and she was the lucky one who was able to find the special match in her life.

There were plenty of people, regardless of the violence and the danger they were in, who would gladly take up the chance to be able to be with someone close enough to call their soul mate. Josie would never give up on that. She would be with Kheem forever. She knew that in the depth of her heart and it wasn’t going to change. It didn’t matter how many people she had to fight through. She was committed forever.

It was strange that the town looked exactly like it always did. There was nothing about it that would suggest to her that they were close to a battle that was going to kill dozens of people at any moment. She realized she was going to have to get over that feeling of peace and tranquility that was so heavy in the air. It was going to get very violent, very fast. Her breathing was picking up and her heart was beating faster and faster with each block they passed.

How much longer until everything went to hell? She looked at Kheem, who was as calm as the sea. There was something in the air that made her think she was the only one who knew what was about to happen. Everything was about to go crazy and no one had the faintest idea.

At least, until the explosion ripped through the air and the screaming started. Shielding her eyes, Josie felt Kheem slam into her as he took her to the ground, covering her from anything that might come raining down from the sky. She screamed, but she could hardly hear her own voice over the roar of the blast and the rush of the wind. The world was engulfed in dust, completely absorbed and blanketed by a thick color of rust.

Her eyes burned against the dust as she blinked, looking around as she pushed Kheem off her. He was hesitant to get up, terrified they were too close to the heart of the action. At least the question of whether they were too late or not was answered sufficiently. It looked like the Shifters had made their play and that the Hunters were on the run.

There were moans and screams from the direction of the blast, but it was too early for her to know who was screaming and dying and who was still alive. . Taking a step forward, she watched as shadowy figures, phantoms in the dark, rushed past her and Kheem, running for safety and sanctuary from the blast. There were people limping, coughing and staggering as they made their way to safety.

She was afraid of them, wondering if any of them were killers, looking for Kheem and her. If they were caught by the wrong people, then they were dead. There wouldn’t be a way for them to escape and there wouldn’t be any place to run. It wasn’t like she could see anything after all. It was all veiled by the thick color of rust. She made her way forward and felt her stomach lurching with each step.

“Are you okay?” Kheem asked her, shouting louder than he probably needed to, but it didn’t bother her. All she could think of was the fact that the ambush had gone off and that they were right in the middle of a war zone. It wasn’t long before the screams began to be their only source of information.

She nodded to Kheem, who took that as a yes and made sure he was the one leading the way. Stepping in front of her, he shielded his eyes from the blazing light of a burning car that had been caught in the middle of the blast. Josie could barely make out where they were amidst all the chaos and insanity. They were somewhere near the Torch, but it was still a block away. They must have rigged the car to explode as well. There was no way the blast could have reached this far out. Even with gasoline, the blast should have only gone a little out of the windows and the doors. It wouldn’t have blown up a block.

Granted, she wasn’t an expert in such things, but soon, there was something that made them all a little more nervous. The sounds of gunshots ripped through the air, loud cracks that split through the ringing in her ears that she was starting to get used to. It was an odd feeling, but she seemed to understand where the shots were coming from and the fact that they weren’t coming toward them.

Someone was shooting and it was at a target in the opposite direction. They were behind them, for now. Josie wanted to keep it that way. If the Hunters were still active, then she was completely fine with helping them, but she wasn’t interested in helping out the wrong people. How did they know they weren’t the Jaguars or the Hyenas who had given up on the honor of their kinds and wanted to start killing people with human weapons? That was something that didn’t seem too far out of the realm of possibility as far as those monsters were concerned.

“Who do you think is firing?” Josie asked Kheem, crouching down behind a taxi that had been abandoned in the middle of the chaos.

There was no police on the island and there was no one to protect the people. The resort’s security was the closest thing that there was to protection on this island. If people weren’t out of the town by now, they were most likely taking shelter in the nearby buildings that might offer the best safety. It wasn’t the smartest move, but it was better than being in the heart of the town.

There was another explosion that ripped through the air, causing both Josie and Kheem to duck and flinch at the sound. It was coming from the heart of the town, which confirmed Josie’s suspicion. They had rigged most of the town to explode if the Hunters got too close. The ambush was a whole lot bigger than Kheem had thought. If they were willing to kill all of these people just to get rid of the Hunters, it only encouraged Josie to kill the last of them.

They needed to get rid of all of them. They needed to kill them and stop them from doing anything like this again. The people of Tarobi deserved better than this. They were caught up in the middle of something they didn’t ask for. They were getting the brunt of a war they didn’t ask for. Josie hated this. It made her feel like she was part of the problem. Why had they escalated it to this point? Why had they been so cruel to the world that had been so kind and welcoming to them?

Heading toward the heart of the town, Josie saw the first figure on the ground as they get closer and closer. It was a Hunter. She looked at the body and was strangely glad to see something that was horrifying. The man was killed by a weapon that slashed him. He looked like he was killed after the bomb went off. If he was blown back by the bomb and killed by the Hyenas or the Jaguars, then that meant that the Hunters were the men using the guns in the distance. Sure, it was sad this man was dead, but at least the Shifters weren’t using guns now. That would have made things infinitely more difficult.

Soon, the bodies began to show up more and more frequently. There was dust all over everything, but the street was littered with spent shell casings and the bodies of the fallen Hunters. The trap had been expertly executed and it looked like there was no getting out of it. It looked like the Hunters were completely caught up in the middle of all of it. They weren’t escaping this one.

If the Shifters killed the Hunters, Josie wondered if there were any other Hunters left on Warco. Would there be anyone else out there to carry on the tradition of hunting down Shifters? Would they be free of the menace of Hunters for the rest of their days? Josie knew the Shifters would all turn to the Hyenas and the Jaguars if that were true. Getting out of the shadow of the Hunters was the dream of everyone living in the sanctuary of the resort. That boded ill for Josie and Kheem.

The Torch was ablaze, completely consumed in fire and there were bodies scattered all around the street. They found a scene of something bizarre. Amidst the bodies of the dead Hunters, there was the body of Dubaku and Christoph. Both looked like they had been taken down by bullets. But it was the third body of Tomas that was the strangest sight in the middle of the carnage. His face was clawed and his body was torn open by slashes that were definitely given to him by the claws of something. As far as Josie could tell, it looked like this was the work of a Jaguar that had gotten very angry.

There was a cough in the distance, hidden by the dust and the smoke that was settling in the area. Josie took a cautious step forward, making her way after Kheem, who was far more fearless in this situation than she was. He stopped for a moment, his back to Josie as he looked at the ground and stared at another corpse that had been dropped in the heat of the battle. This one was slashed and savaged as well, not by bullets, but by the claws of a very angry animal. It wasn’t hard for Josie to figure out who it was.

It was Sipho.

“What the hell happened here?” Josie asked Kheem.

“Bastards turned on us,” a cough and sputtering voice came from the side of a nearby car.

Josie had thought it was a dead body when she was approaching Sipho, where Kheem was standing. She thought it had been just another Hunter who had gone down in the middle of all the action and was lying there, beaten and vanquished by the Shifters. As she blinked against the burn of the smoke, she realized that the bullet ridden figure was actually dangerously familiar. It was Faraji.

“How did you get mixed up in all of this?” She asked him, taking a step toward him.

Faraji coughed again, spitting a long ropy string of phlegm out as he wiped his mouth with his bloody sleeve. He looked up at Josie with his one good eye remaining and she could see that he was having a hard time keeping it together. He wasn’t long for this world and that made her feel like it was actually a mercy for Faraji.

He was never a fighter and he was never the kind of person who should have been mixed up in all of this. He was just a stupid kid who wanted to get ahead without actually doing anything decent or noble with his life. He was a coward and a criminal, but he was dying like an animal in the middle of the street, his body ruined and blown to pieces.

“Got the call,” Faraji coughed again. His voice was a raspy wheeze, like one of his lungs had collapsed in on him. “They said that they needed an extra body,that we were going to kill the Hunters and take over the island for ourselves. They said that there would be no stopping us this time. I thought that they were smarter than this. Never trust a Jaguar. Never should've trusted them.” His whole body shook as he coughed three times in a row, blood running from his dirty lips.

“Jaguars turned on you?” Kheem asked, crouching down beside Faraji.

Faraji’s one good eye followed Kheem, but his head didn’t move. It was too much work for him to move his head. All he cared about was getting out of this life without gathering any more pain. Josie supposed she understood that. He’d had a rough few days. He deserved a quick exit at this point. At least he was keeping them up to date on the current events of this hellish island.

“Yeah, they turned on us,” Faraji said through a struggling voice. He winced against the pain and he didn’t even try to cover any of the bullet holes that marked his body. He was a dead man and there was nothing he could do to keep himself from dying at this point. “Bastards used us and then turned on us. Alizea made a break for it and I think a few of the Hunters were trying to get Kibwe and Tendai. There were just so many of them. I think they got freaked, just started turning on everyone and screwed everything up.”

“You could've just left us alone,” Josie said to him, not feeling very forgiving at this point.