The Panther's Arranged Mate

by Bonnie Burrows

  THE PANTHER'S

  ARRANGED MATE

  A PARANORMAL PREGNANCY ROMANCE

  BONNIE BURROWS

  Copyright ©2016 by Bonnie Burrows

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  Shanya Black always wondered how her friend Clara became so wealthy. When Clara revealed it was by being the surrogate mother to a shapeshifter's baby she was a little bit more than shocked.

  Clara then told Shanya that she could bring her in on the deal and make her rich beyond her wildest dreams.

  Something that Shanya was very, very interested in.

  And this was how she met muscle-bound WerePanther Storm. Drop-dead gorgeous and from a wealthy family with ancient origins.

  Now, Shanya must leave her normal life to go and be the arranged mate of a Panther.

  However, she currently has no idea that Storm's deal has an additional hidden clause and when she finds out it could change EVERYTHING....

  This is a paranormal arranged mating romance with lots of action and adventure included. Be prepared to be thrilled!

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Shanya Black woke up and ran her fingers through her coarse, curly hair. The night had not been kind to her. Nightmares stalked her dreams and she felt tired when she awoke. She threw back the threadbare covers on her small twin bed and stepped out onto the icy floor. Shuddering, Shanya made her way to the bathroom. Her roommate, Clara Brighton, was already up and talking on the phone in the living room. Bits of conversation filtered in.

  “Yeah, no, I can’t believe he did that.”

  Shanya peeled off the overnight face mask and examined her face for flaws. Her skin was dark, but due to her careful rituals, it was blemish free. The only flaw was the color. Shanya wished that her skin was lighter—or at least that there were people who were able to love her without making it clear that they were looking past her darkness—loving her in spite of her color. Her mother had been right. It was always going to be a mark against her.

  Shanya started on the rest of her beauty routine. She did her eye makeup first. Laying down shimmery gold and blending the dark smoking color from the outside edge, Shanya worked to highlight her own truly good feature: her amber eyes. With the right make up, she could make them glow. Not that anyone at her work as a customer care representative cared what her eyes looked like.

  Next, she did her face. It was hard to find concealer dark enough for her face. But she’d managed. Her supply was running out, though, and if she didn’t meet her quota for the month, she was going to have to wear something that didn’t match. It would look horrible and make her look even more freakish than ever.

  There she was, just a voice on the phone to be screamed at if the customer’s problems weren’t magically solved within seconds. It wasn’t her dream job by any stretch of the imagination but it was something. In this economy, Shanya Black considered herself lucky just to have a job.

  Looking in the mirror, Shanya frowned. There must have been moisture in the air because her hair was curly again. Normally it stayed straight for days when she straightened it. But it seemed like the hair was rebelling. That was not allowed. Her hair wasn’t nappy like some other black women, but it looked better straight. That’s what her mother always said.

  Sighing, she began to straighten her hair. It was a long process. Her thick black hair fell all the way down her back when it was perfectly straight.

  “He did not!” Clara’s voice carried in from the living room.

  Her roommate never wanted for money despite never seeming to work anymore. Sometimes Shanya wondered what she did for all that money. It wasn’t cash. Otherwise, her mother would have demanded that Shanya move out immediately—convinced that Clara was a whore, an informant, or a drug dealer. Possibly all three!

  The press and release of the hair straightener calmed Shanya. It was so easy to make her hair into something that people liked and admired. Why couldn’t she do that with the rest of her? All her boyfriends had ended up leaving her for someone lighter, someone better.

  And those were the black ones. The white boyfriends just considered her some sort of achievement. To them, she was barely a person. She couldn’t handle that.

  There weren’t even many shifters who would look twice at her.

  Steam rose from her head as she nearly finished with the rest of her black hair.

  There was a girl who had a long, severe face. She looked like that actress from Sex in the City. Cassidy had never been close with Shanya, but Shanya had taken comfort in knowing that someone else suffered like her. However, that changed when a horse shifter took a fancy to her.

  Putting in her earrings, Shanya sighed. Her mother had a fit when she heard about that. Shifters weren’t considered evil, but they tended to keep to themselves. The old stories about them stealing children and women away were just that—stories. But you couldn’t tell that to her mother. She was convinced that the worst thing a woman, a human woman, could do was stoop to marry a Shifter. Shanya didn’t think so.

  To tell the truth, she was jealous of Cassidy.

  From the posts on social media, it looked like the horse shifter man—tall and regal—really loved her and found Cassidy to be attractive. Unkind people said it was because Cassidy’s face resembled that of a horse. Shanya didn’t care if that was the reason. She was just jealous that Cassidy had someone who found her attractive when Shanya had no one.

  Glancing at the mirror, her reflection was finally passable. Her make up was all the way done, save for her lips, but she would do those on the bus. First she had to eat and deal with Clara.

  When Shanya made her way out of the bathroom, dressed for a long day at work, Clara was sitting on the couch still talking on the phone. Shanya tried to ignore her roommate as she grabbed a bowl of cereal. The box was almost empty. Shit. It was looking like she’d have to meet her quota today or there simply wouldn’t be enough money. Even though Clara was perfectly happy to cover her, Shanya didn’t like being beholden to anyone.

  Clara didn’t seem to care that Shanya was in the room. She continued her loud conversation.

  “That is wild!” Clara gestured with her hand. She was painting her nails again. Unlike Shanya, Clara wasn’t pure human. When Shanya had moved in, the pale girl had mentioned it. Unlike full Shifters, Clara wasn’t very powerful. She just had a bit of cat in her. Despite what Shanya’s mother thought, Clara wasn’t that different than Shanya.

  She had regular green eyes, regular blonde hair, and
a normal face. The only difference was that Clara was ridiculously flexible and graceful. Well, that and every so often during a full moon, Shanya would have a cat instead of a roommate. That took some getting used to.

  Fortunately, Clara didn’t seem like she wanted to have a conversation with Shanya. It was amazing that Clara was even up this early. Someone had clearly found some good gossip.

  “Hey are you going to go out clubbing?”

  It took Shanya a moment to realize that Clara was looking expectantly at her.

  “No,” Shanya said. “I don’t have the time.”

  “They’re working you on the weekend?” Clara scoffed. “That sucks, hope you’re getting overtime.”

  Waiting for Clara to say something else, Shanya checked her watch. She was going to be early to catch the bus. That was always a good thing. When Clara didn’t appear to have anything else to say, Shanya left the apartment and walked to the bus stop.

  The walk to the bus stop was silent. People didn’t tease her anymore for her malformed face. That didn’t stop Shanya from tensing up at the whispers around her. The fact that her face was flat and sloped still made her self-conscious. It didn’t help that her forehead was broad and that her thick lips sat close under her nose.

  Clara kept telling her that lips like that were in style now and that women paid millions to get their lips to look like that. Shanya knew that her roommate was just trying to cheer her up. She’d made the mistake of drunkenly crying to Clara after a break up. That had been mortifying.

  On the bus ride, Shanya did her lips. There was a trick to it. Despite Clara’s insistence, Shanya’s lips weren’t all that great. Clara never got it. Sure, with the sudden rise of the Kardashians and, of course, Angelina Jolie, large thick lips were suddenly the “it” thing and women were going under the knife to get them.

  But growing up, Shanya’s thick fat lips had just led to her getting teased and called a chimp shifter. The chimp shifters at the school had protested that and ironically that was what forced the administration to do something about the bullying. That just drove home the fact that what Shanya felt wasn’t very important.

  She sighed and started to line her lips with a dark brown pencil. While there were all sorts of beauty bloggers out there going on about contouring to make your pout bigger, all Shanya cared about was making her lips look smaller. The results were noticeable. Even though Clara kept telling to her to make them look bigger, Shanya got treated better when she made them look smaller and did her makeup perfectly and kept her hair straight.

  That was worth it.

  The less she looked like herself the better Shanya was treated.

  People didn’t stare and whisper about her when she was all done up. With her pale beautiful skin, Clara wouldn’t understand and she’d never bothered to tell her roommate that. What was the point?

  A brisk walk from the bus stop to SMILE Inc. (customer service for every platform) left Shanya out of breath. She made her way past the security checks, panting, to the elevator.

  The door was just closing and Shanya reached out. She was too far away. The people inside didn’t do anything. No one reached out a hand to hold the door. The white man just stared at her—no, past her—as the door closed.

  The elevators were slow at the best of times and Shanya knew that she would either have to run up the stairs or wait at least ten minutes for the elevator to come down again. Shanya sighed again before heading up the stairs. It was a good thing she had kept up with working out and that she was wearing sneakers today.

  The division of SMILE Inc. that she worked for wasn’t on the top floor but it was high up in the building. Most of the building was a call center, with only the top few floors being devoted to the executives. Shanya had never been up to the top floors but she had heard that they were lavish and beautiful. The only time that anyone went up there was if they were being promoted or fired.

  Back at the podunk town she originally worked in, everyone told her how lucky she was to be transferred to the main center in New York City. But after living here for years, Shanya Black had to admit that the City wasn’t as glamorous as everyone else made it out to be. The rats were certainly as big as everyone said they were! But if there was glamor, then Shanya had only caught glimpses of it.

  Finally, she managed to get up to the 10th floor. She was sweating by then and knew that everyone would laugh at her behind their hands. They wouldn’t mock her to her face. Out here, people were too nice for that. But she was going to hear about this.

  She wondered if she should powder her face up before she stepped out into the floor. But she couldn’t be late. Mr. Coxson already hated her and she didn’t need to give him a reason to fire her. She’d never get another job out here.

  Opening the door, Shanya stepped out on to the carpet. It wasn’t red but it was nicer than the call center she’d worked at before. The cubicles were spread out in neat rows. The backs were entirely open. That allowed the supervisors to move about the floor and check if everyone was on task. There were always people who complained about it. A small faction of workers kept muttering about bringing things up with the union. But Shanya didn’t care.

  With the floor to ceiling windows and the spacious open layout, it was beautiful. She could see the entire city laid out before her. She went over to clock in, slipping her thin card into the slot.

  “Right on time.”

  Shanya nearly jumped out of her skin.

  Mr. Coxson looked up at her. His ginger mustache twitched. He shook his head. “Another minute and you would have been late.”

  It sounded like he was disappointed. Oh, this was not good. Mr. Coxson was the director of the floor. He didn’t like Shanya much. She wasn’t sure if it was because of something that she’d done or that she was so much taller than him. Either way, he certainly had it out for her.

  Shanya put on her best customer service smile. “Shall I get to work Mr. Coxson?”

  Narrowing his eyes at her, he tugged on his mustache. “Go to your station.”

  She sailed past him. He made her nervous. A few months ago he’d replaced Mr. Jameson. Jameson had been reassigned after he’d been reported for making advances on girls. Shanya hadn’t minded. Jameson had been perfectly content to ignore her. While that meant that Shanya was unlikely to advance, it also meant that she wasn’t going to be fired.

  Sighing, she sat down in her seat and put her headset on. It was another day at work.

  “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” Shanya asked pleasantly. She’d pulled up the checklist on her monitor and was walking the customer through it.

  “Yes I have, you dumb bitch,” the man growled at her.

  “Alright, let me walk you through how to restart the program then,” Shanya said.

  “All you people are the same. Are you even experts?”

  “Of course we are,” Shanya said. She checked the other monitor screen. “Here at Archway Electronics, everyone is a tech expert.”

  The checklists and replies were invaluable. Shanya didn’t have much of a hand with technology. It wasn’t what she’d studied. But these things were usually easy. There was the checklist, then if they got all the way through that, Shanya could pass him along to the real experts. But that rarely happened. More often than not the problem was solved or the person hung up in frustration.

  “I don’t believe you,” the man said.

  “Sir?” Shanya replied, trying to sound as pleasant as possible. She’d hoped that this call would be a gold star rating but now she wasn’t so sure. It didn’t seem like it. She only had one more to go and she’d be able to make rent.

  “I don’t believe you know anything about my device,” the man said.

  Shanya looked over at the possible replies for situation and began clicking. There didn’t seem to be one. She was starting to worry.

  “That’s simply not true,” Shanya said. “We only hire the best to assist you.”

  “I want to speak to a real expert
now,” the man said.

  Shanya bit back a sigh. She was going to have to transfer him.

  “Would you like me to transfer you to a Genius Expert?” Shanya asked.

  She pulled up the number of the department on her screen. She didn’t like that she’d had to send him over there. She could have handled this. But there was nothing she could do about it.

  “Yes.”

  “Very well,” Shanya said and transferred him to the actual experts. Looking at her screen, there was already another call in the queue. This one was about a refrigerator, of all things. Shanya tried to shake off the bad energy from the last call and set about walking someone through setting up their refrigerator. That one was easy and they rated her four stars. It would keep her ratings up but it didn’t bring her any closer to the bonus that she was counting on. She needed it if she was going to afford food and rent this month.

  Determined to be positive and cheery, Shanya made it through until her “break.” It wasn’t exactly a break. In order to avoid paying benefits, SMILE Inc. had many part time employees. While Shanya did work most days, and today was one of her longest days, most people worked a few short shifts and then went to their other jobs.