Tendai lunged at Josie and caught her. Josie wasn’t ready for that kind of an attack and was thrown to the ground, crashing into a rose bush that defiantly scraped and clawed at her, making her scream out as she felt the branches snap and the shards digging into her with the claws of the thorns digging at her. Tendai laughed wickedly at the sound of Josie crying out in pain as the two crashed to the grass and rolled, trying their hardest to hurt the other.
Landing on top, Tendai pulled up and swung as hard as she could, battering at Josie. Not willing to let herself be a punching bag for her nemesis, Josie held up her arms and blocked her face, taking the brunt of the beating in her forearms as she tried to think of what she could do. Rocking her body side to side, Josie tried her hardest to throw Tendai off her, but it wasn’t working. Tendai clamped her fingers down onto Josie’s arms and dug her fingernails into Josie’s skin. She screamed in pain as Tendai started to pry apart her arms and reveal Josie’s face.
“I’m going to claw out those pretty little eyes of yours,” Tendai laughed with all the malice and venom she had inside of her putrid, foul body.
Josie shut her up by swinging her head forward and smashing her forehead into Tendai’s nose, breaking it with a single hit. Tendai’s fingers released Josie’s arms and cupped her battered face as Josie drove her fist into Tendai’s ribs and knocked the woman off her. Scrambling to her feet, Josie glanced over at Kheem who seemed to be holding his own against Kibwe, but she didn’t trust it to last that long. Kheem could hardly run and Kibwe had a look that said he was just playing with Kheem right then. She wouldn’t leave him to suffer at the hands of that monster. She was going to bring down Tendai and then kill Kibwe.
Kibwe’s fist made impact with Kheem’s face and sent Josie’s lover stumbling backwards. No, change of plans. She was going to deal with Kibwe first. No one hit her man and got to walk away from it.
Rushing as quickly as she could toward Kibwe, her feet were caught and she went down hard on top of Dutch’s body. She could hear Tendai laughing at the sight as she rolled and saw the hag pushing herself up and coming for Josie. She had a look in her eyes that showed nothing short of bloodlust. She was coming to end this. There was no playing around in Tendai’s eyes. She wanted to kill Josie now and she was going to savor it. Reaching blindly, Josie tried to find something, anything to protect herself with.
Her fingers wrapped around something and she pulled it to her chest as Tendai stood up, her head tilted as she laughed, her whole body shaking as she cackled like a mad old woman. Whether she saw the shotgun in Josie’s hands or not would remain a mystery forever as Josie pumped it and expelled the spent shell. When she squeezed the trigger, the shotgun bucked and nearly flew out of her hands, but it did the job. When Josie looked back at where Tendai had been standing, she was no longer there.
Instead, Tendai was on the ground, slowly kicking with one foot, as if she were trying to spin her body around on the ground. Her arms were limp at her sides and Josie couldn’t see Tendai’s head over her stomach since her back was arched so strangely. It looked like her body was possessed by something. Eventually, Tendai stopped moving all together. Her twitching foot and kicking leg came to a restful position and she stopped wheezing. It didn’t take long, just long enough for Josie to stand up and survey the damage she had caused.
It was grotesque and hard to look at, but in the end, it was the corpse of a woman who had tried to kill her and had implied a desire in doing so plenty of times before in their interactions. Josie looked at Tendai, watching her for a brief second before she turned and saw that Kheem was losing his fight.
Kheem was on the losing end of this fight with Kibwe and that meant that he was going end up dead if Josie didn’t act quickly. She grabbed the shotgun and headed as quickly as she could toward Kibwe. It was hard to get her footing, but she made her way toward him, through the wafting curtains of smoke that stung her eyes.
She rushed Kibwe and tried to get a shot at him as he held Kheem by the collar of his shirt and pummeled him in the ribs and stomach again and again. When Kibwe tossed Kheem to the ground, she saw Kibwe was pretty well beaten. Kheem had gotten some pretty good blows in on the fight. It was enough to make her feel proud to call him her man.
“Hey, asshole,” she shouted at him, pumping the shotgun and expelling another shell as he looked toward her. The expression on his face was priceless as he looked at her and she had all the power in her hands. Kheem rolled his head and looked at her, thrown across the corpse of Cardel as he stared at his woman’s impressive display.
“Wait a moment,” Kibwe said, taking a step away from Kheem, getting better footing as he stood in front of the shotgun barrel pointed at him. “You’re going to kill me with a Hunter’s weapon? Is that how it’s going to be, Josie? Is that all you think of our kind? You just think that we’re meat to be put down?”
“You’re the one who tried to kill s us, Kibwe,” Josie reminded him. “Besides, your sister seemed to take it pretty well.”
“You’re a bitch,” Kibwe growled at her. It was as if he understood then that there was no escaping this fate. He stood up straight and looked at her with a stiff lip and a defiant look in his eyes. Josie knew that look. She had seen it in Wahir’s eyes when he was getting closer to the end. “Fine,” He said, lowering his hands. “Let’s get this over with then.”
“So be it,” Josie said, squeezing the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“Ha!” Kibwe roared, lunging at her with a ferocious look in his eyes.
He was born again and he was ready for vengeance. Josie stared at him and took a step back, about to scream before Kheem’s foot lifted from the ground and tripped Kibwe. He went down hard with a loud bang, hitting his head hard. Josie took another step back and got ready to swing the butt of the rifle like a club at him. But Kheem was better prepared. Grabbing a little black tennis ball off the belt of Cardel, he pulled a ring out of the side of it and stuffed it under Kibwe’s shirt before limping away. Josie followed his lead and rushed away from Kibwe who was standing up, watching Kibwe as he pushed himself up, reaching for the ball.
As he was standing up, grunting and trying to get a hold of the ball that was rolling down his back, Josie watched his body be ripped apart. The blast of the explosion was a blinding light that left Kibwe ripped into two mangled and mutilated pieces beneath a mist of crimson. When the smoking chunks of flesh landed away, Josie watched looked over at Kheem. He was standing in the middle of the garden, eyes wide as he looked at Josie in disbelief. It was something that made Josie’s heart grow larger and larger.
They had done it.
They had survived all of this madness. They were here on the other side of the battle and it looked like this was the chance that neither of them thought that they would have. There was nothing that Josie wanted more than this and yet, there was the fear of what’s next to come after all of this. Josie stared at the world around her, smoking, burning, and surrounded by the dead. This was a dark world for the beginning of their new life. It was something strange to feel, but this was the beginning.
“Are you okay?” Kheem shouted from the garden.
“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “Are you?”
“I’ve been better,” Kheem shrugged, limping toward her.
She refused to let him walk all the way and started to walk toward him, stepping over the torso of Kibwe and trying her hardest not to look down at. As she stepped over it, she looked at Kheem only and refused to look at anyone else. All she could think of was the fact that there were dead bodies all around her. All she cared about was Kheem, she had to remind herself that she was safe with him. They were here together and that was all that mattered. She had to keep positive. When she reached him, everything washed away. All she needed was Kheem.
All she needed was him.
“Let’s go get our baby,” Kheem said as he wrapped his arms around her.
*
The auditorium was abuzz with the whi
spers and the conversations of dozens of fearful and terrified people looking for an answer to the questions that were floating around the room. They weren’t questions that were bizarre or misguided. They were the kind of questions that had been rolling around Josie’s mind since they decided that it was important to stand against the Hyenas, the Jaguars, the Hunters, and even King Ronald. They were the questions that every sane Shifter had been asking themselves over and over again. They were the only questions that mattered in the end. They were the questions of survival.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kheem spoke into the microphone at the podium.
It was good to hear his voice and as she looked at him, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was bruised, beaten, and he was going to need to recover for a very long time. His face was swollen, his joints pained, and his muscles were sore. But he was standing up there, not as a member of the Clan Leaders, but as the future King of the Council.
It hadn’t taken much to get people to understand why it was important to have a leader back. A head figure was going to be the only way the Hunters would be willing to negotiate. They weren’t interested in committees and they weren’t interested in lengthy debates. That was the point of the Council. So, if they needed someone to talk to the Hunters on the behalf of the Shifters, everyone felt that it was important that the best figure among them became the leader they needed.
Kheem was that figure. Kheem was the leader all of them wanted and he was the leader that they needed. As they looked at him, standing there on the podium, it had only taken a few well-selected conversations to get everyone on board with him being named the new leader of the Council. The Lions held no grudges against them for the deaths of Jonathan, Wahir, and King Ronald.
Most of them believed the Hunters killed everyone involved in the final battle. With King Ronald dead, most of the Shifters believed it was time that the Lions give up their presence as leadership. They all unanimously agreed it was time for them to give up leadership. It was a simple, peaceful agreement.
War had come to Tarobi and it was time for all of them to find leadership that was ready for peace. Josie was ready for peace too. In fact, all of them were ready for peace. The whole island unanimously decided as well that they vie for peace with the Hunters. The island was crawling with military forces from Jamaica and they were all looking for who was responsible. In the end, after days of searching, the military came to the conclusion that those who were involved in the event were all but dealt with. Everyone claimed that the assailants were dead. It was a clean sweep. The slate was entirely fresh for them.
The meeting was called. Kheem had agreed that it was necessary and he told everyone that they needed to gather in the auditorium. After the fallout of the final battle, the Hunters needed to regroup and needed to assess the situation for themselves. They returned to Warco, whipped and beaten, they were licking their wounds. It was hard for them to reach out, but when Kheem got the message, it was time to meet them. It was time for them to get together and have the meeting that everyone was terrified of having with one another. But, Kheem wasn’t the kind of person to shy away from all of this.
Truthfully, they had survived a war with the Shifters and the Hunters a few days ago, but most of the Shifters felt like they were on the brink of another war. They felt like that for a very strong and very genuine reason, a reason that Josie was also feeling. Three Hunters survived the battle in the heart of the town and returned to Warco, injured, but still alive. Their fire was much stronger than Auben’s had been. When they returned to Warco, it wasn’t long until they sent word to the Council that their numbers were still greater than the Shifters.
With the Jamaican military on the island, it would be easy to wipe out the Shifters. From everything that Kheem and Josie had discussed, they figured the Hunters probably outnumbered the remaining Shifters two to one. With shotguns and grenades, that meant that they had a distinct advantage. Unless anyone else knew how to make cars turn into bombs, it was going to be a very short and very brutal battle.
That was the point where Josie and Kheem had put Ony down for the night and had a very serious talk about giving up on all of this. It had been one of the talks that they would remember as a couple forever. It was one of the talks that would live on in infamy in their minds where they weighed the options of giving up and moving on, as compared to sticking into the fight and getting their hands dirty.
It was a hard conversation to have and it required brutal honesty. As far as Josie was concerned, it was the hardest conversation that she had ever had. But it was a good conversation to have, because after the smoke cleared and the ideals were separated from the reality of things, they came to an understanding as to where they stood as a family.
And so the meeting was called.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kheem said again, clearing his throat and trying to get the conversations to die down. Everyone looked up at him and their eyes were full of the same fear and worry that Josie and Kheem had been plagued with the night of their tough conversation.
After the events at the Torch, we know of three survivors of the Hunters who returned to Warco’s Hunting Lodge. While the Hunters are not at the strength that they once were, they still have a large number of recruits that are willing to work with them and they have the resources they need to wipe out our numbers.
If there is to be a war, I am sorry to say that it would be quick, violent, and costly. That is why I have invited the three survivors, who are now the active leadership of the Hunters, to come and have a meeting with us, so that we could form our own treaty. It is time for us to take our own destiny in our hands and start fresh. This is the hope of our future. So don’t be scared right now. Don’t be worried you’re going to die or that you’re going to be imprisoned by the Hunters. We’re here to be friends, not enemies.”
It was in that conversation they’d had with one another that Josie realized something along with Kheem. It was then that she realized that this was their home. This was the home that they had been building for themselves for a very long time. It was the truth that they had both been looking at for a very long time but didn’t have the wisdom to see it until it ran straight into them.
She looked at this fact that all of them were friends and family members that they had been building a life with together for years now. They had been making sure each and every one of the Clans was safe. It’s time for them all to realize there was nothing that was going to stop them from helping each other. Kheem was the man for the job to lead them and Josie was ready to stand together with them.
When the auditorium started to go silent, understanding that they weren’t in the danger that they thought they were, Josie knew they were standing with them. They were united and they were ready for each other to be as one against the coming dangers that might try to take over them. Whether they were looking for war or if they were willing to sue for peace, then they were going to do it together. Everything was going to be okay in the end and Josie was certain of that now more than ever. It was time to be a family again.
The figures entering into the auditorium were all as intimidating and ominous as they were the first time they entered the auditorium. For years, Josie had lived in this community, working in the resort to help people enjoy a fantastic meal and a wonderful drink before they went back to their rooms. Never once had she actually seen the Hunters after she came to Tarobi, but now, it felt like she was seeing them far too much. She hoped that this would be the last of it.
The three figures came down the aisle, drawing the looks of every Shifter in the auditorium. They watched them with worried, but brave expressions on their faces and she could tell that they were more than willing to keep that brave face on for the time being. She watched them, curious they didn’t show any emotion either. She knew that they were just as terrified.
How couldn’t they be terrified? They had watched their friends and brothers-in-arms ripped apart and blown to pieces by the Shifters. They knew ho
w dangerous Shifters were. How many Hunters ever actually got to face off against a Shifter? This had to be a historic moment for them. It had to be the scariest, most notorious moment of the Warco Hunting Lodge. There would be days when they would gather around with their fellow Hunters and share the story of how they had survived the fight.
The woman in the group, Riana, took the center of the stage and shook Kheem’s hand. She had a bandage over her eye where she had taken a chunk of shrapnel in the explosion of the Torch. She was looking good, considering the injury. When she turned and faced the Shifters, she looked like she was about to shout at all of them, yell and belittle them for their actions. But instead, she cleared her throat, as if she were nervous.
“I am Riana of the Hunters,” she said in a strong voice that just barely broke as she was saying her name. “Over the past few days, we have had the unfortunate task of going to war with the noble Shifters of Tarobi. Your island has long been at peace with our Hunters and we believed that our Treaty was stable and strong. However, it appears circumstances had changed without our understanding and the events that unfolded just a few days ago have shown us that it is time for us to take a more progressive approach with those who were not hostile or active in the events that unfolded at the heart of the Tarobi incident.
“I have been informed that the Royal Palace is going to be sold to the Four Seasons and that many of you will be transferring over with the new employment offered to you. Since you will all be transitioning, we see it as the perfect time for us to come up with a new system for dealing with one another. Rather than having a hostile relationship, we at Warco would simply like to extend our hands for peace with the Shifters of Tarobi. Rather than policing you and having our shadow loom over you, we would rather approach you as equals and see that we can work in mutual respect and appreciation with one another.
“We at the Hunting Lodge of Warco, propose that you have freedom over the surrogacy program that has currently been at the heart of the violent misunderstandings between your peoples and ours. No longer will you need the approval or the consent of the Hunters to have children. The matter will be given strictly to the Council and to the Shifters of Tarobi for your own discretion.
The Panther's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance Page 14