The Panther's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance by Angela Foxxe Read Free Book Online Page B

sacred treaty that we have made with the Hunters of Warco. Should word get back to them, they will storm this island with an army of fundamentalists who would refuse to hear logic or reason in your words. They will kill you and they will do so without mercy or regret. You have threatened everything and everyone on this island with your actions.”
    “No one has to know,” Josie assured him. “King Ronald, I beg of you to forgive me for my actions, but my child is everything to me. Onyeko is pure and sweet. He has done nothing to offend you and does not deserve your wrath. But, the Hunters do not need to know.”
    “You act as if this is my secret to keep and to share,” King Ronald declared. “Do you not know that there are enemies among your fellow Clans? Do you not know there are those among you who would gladly see you fall and your child with you?”
    “The Jaguar Clan has never been my friend,” Jose told him. “But they’re as stupid as they are arrogant. They won’t find anything about Kheem and I so long as we all stick to the same story. There's nothing they can do to trace the child to anyone other than myself.”
    “The Jaguar Clan is tenacious,” Jonathan chimed in for the first time, his voice thick with his South African roots. He looked at Josie with a disappointed gaze that seemed to find frustration in the naiveté that she was revealing to them. “But the Jaguar Clan is foolish, yes. They are, however, the least of your concerns.
    Wars have plagued the Shifter Clans for generations and now it is a time where we must replenish our numbers. There are armies on every continent that would pay top dollar for a Shifter child to raise as their own and to fuel their ranks. The Hyena Clan, for all of our warnings and reprimands, keeps working closely with foreign interests. They will attempt to take this child if it is revealed to be a Shifter and they will try to use it to leverage a position somewhere other than on Tarobi. They want off this island as soon as possible.”
    She hadn’t thought much about the Hyena Clan since she’d been on Tarobi. It was true that they were slimy, shifty characters who only really cared about themselves. They liked their profit and they liked the power of having dirt on the other Clans. If there was one thing that the Hyena Clan excelled at, it was being criminal.
    They ran the black market on the island and they were constantly sending things to other Clans looking to help overthrow the Lion Clan or anyone else overseas. They wanted to be powerful, even if that meant leaving the safety of Tarobi behind. Of course she should have thought about them.
    “You did not think of the peril that's surrounding you and your child,” King Ronald said with a stern, disappointed voice. “However, I fear that your actions will not only affect yourself, but will come back to haunt the rest of us. That is why I have agreed with the rest of the Lion Clan to protect you and offer you the peace that our Clan may provide to you.”
    “Thank you,” Kheem spoke up with a grin on his face.
    He looked as relieved as Josie felt, but she knew that it wasn’t going to be easy. There was going to be a price and it probably wasn’t going to be good for either of them. She looked at King Ronald who was reflecting that opinion in the expression on his face as he turned his wrathful gaze toward Kheem for the first time this entire meeting.
    “However,” he said with a darkness in his voice that Josie felt intimidated by. “There are going to be costs associated with the compromising of my honor and my integrity to protect you. You are asking me to do something I would never do under regular circumstances. I would never lie to my people, nor would I ever misdirect them, but here I stand at an impasse.”
    There was something about this that made Josie feel like King Ronald was exaggerating a bit to leverage what he could ask from them. The fact that when she arrived on Tarobi with nothing