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.”
“When my children grow up, they don’t sprout claws and fangs when they throw a temper tantrum,” Auben answered coldly and the look of agreement in the eyes of all the Hunters with him boiled her blood.
That was overly simplistic and wrong. There was no reason for him to assume that Ony or every other Shifter child would just turn into a homicidal monster. No, that was ridiculous and it was insulting. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.
“I have no doubt that you’re an exceptional mother,” Auben continued, clearing his throat as he turned to King Ronald. “But there are several key steps for certain things in our treaty and procreation is one of them. Your surrogate system is in place to prevent such chaos from happening, but when we neglect it, things get out of hand quickly and violently, as you can see.”
Josie didn’t need a lecture in all of this. It was insulting he thought that she was some impotent child. She wanted to say something biting or stinging to him, a remark that would be written down and recited for ages. But she couldn’t think of anything, and worse, she thought that it was the wrong thing to do. Josie and Kheem had known that what they were doing was foolish and wrong, but they had done it anyway. There was no logic or reason to that. It was just madness on their part and this was nothing short of what they deserved. They made their bed and now they were being forced to sleep in it.
“However, I don’t want you to think I blame you,” Auben said, clear as a bell. This was something that piqued the curiosity of Josie and the rest of the Shifters here. She was certain she would be going down for this. She was certain she would be made to suffer and burn for the actions that she had taken and the role that she had played in all of this.
“No, the blame is solely on the heads of those who have chosen a path of violence and cowardice. I’m not here to execute innocent people, Ronald. I’m here to stop a war. Now, if we find these two Clans, how far are you willing to let me go?”
It was a heavy question because they weren't simple questions. Essentially, Auben was informing Ronald that he had the mighty power of God and he was ready to do some smiting, but how much smiting was acceptable for Ronald.
Josie could feel her mouth watering. All of them. Kill every last one of the bastards. Who cares if their Clans were wiped off the island, there were other Shifters out there that could turn into Hyenas and Jaguars. They would carry on the bloodlines. This branch, however, they deserved the death that was awaiting them. Josie was worried that this might seem a little callous, but she was all for it.
“All the way,” Ronald said and there was an electric tension in the air.
The goodness inside of everyone always vies for peace and forgiveness, but human nature is a tangible force in the world and its consequences are enormous. People suffer and die because of the hatred and the envy of those around them. To forgive a vile creature and to let them go on with their wicked ways seemed like the bigger crime to her than the actual killing of them. No, she would save her forgiveness for people who weren’t willing to sell a baby or kill people for ancient feuds. In the end, Josie was certain everyone else in the room felt the same way.
“I want every last one of them killed and I want the other Clans to know those who threaten the peace agreement will suffer the same fate.”
“Fair enough,” Auben stood up straight and looked to his men who were eager and ready. “Our strategy at this point is to locate them on the island and ready the assault parties with a strategy of attack. The m
oment they are located, it’ll be less than an hour before we’re ready and mobilized to take them out. In the meantime, I strongly advise every one of your Shifters to remain at home, locked up tight and willing to stay that way until you give them the all clear. Anyone who meddles or interferes is going to end up on the slab.”
“I understand,” King Ronald said with a grim nod.
“I’m glad we see eye to eye on this matter,” Auben said with a smile that was akin to something sinister and dark.
It was something that she was fearful of and hated. He liked this, no matter what kind of civilized pretense he put on and masqueraded in. He was a killer and he was a Hunter. That was all she needed to know about him. She took a deep breath and looked away from the table, trying her hardest to think of a plan that could get Kheem out of danger without getting him killed. Or getting herself killed for that matter.
“Hopefully by sunset, we’ll have them found and we’ll deal with them. Thank you for your cooperation, all of you.”
They nodded to him with a little bit of discomfort and unease, trying to keep their emotions in check as they watched Auben and the rest of his Hunters pack up and leave the conference room. They offered their silent farewells as they passed, Josie never once making eye contact with them.
The moment the door close, the tension and the pressure in the room slipped out and they all breathed a sigh of relief. It was the most luxurious release that she had ever felt. The breath of release, being alone with her kind again, it was enough for a girl to get used to. But the feeling didn’t last long. The moment the latch locked on the door, every Shifter turned and looked at King Ronald, awaiting his next order and command.
The Panther's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Page 9