The Panther's Surrogate: A Paranormal Pregnancy Romance by Angela Foxxe Page A

his shadow loomed over the door and before they could figure out what it was that they were going to do, they both watched as the handle jiggled and soon the door swung wide open and the tan skinned form of Sipho stepped out, a cellphone pressed against his ear.
    “They’re not here,” he said in an annoyed voice to whomever he was talking to on the other end.
    By the time he looked up, Kheem had already pulled back his fist and was slamming it into Sipho’s nose, hard. Sipho toppled backwards into the door and fell onto the floor. Kheem didn’t waste a moment, lunging on top of Sipho, Kheem pounded his fists into the man’s face as he yelped in terror and pain. His arms and legs twitched with each strike as Josie held Ony and rocked him, turning him away so that he wouldn’t see his father beating the shit out of the man who had once again foolishly tried to kidnap him.
    As she turned, she barely caught the sight of two figures stalking toward her, coming down the small paved path that led to the dozens of bungalows. Even from the short distance in the shade of the palm trees, they were obviously coming for her. They were the kind of people who transmitted every action in the way they walked. She could tell that one was a man and the other was a woman. Josie started to walk backwards, looking over her shoulder to make sure that no one was behind her.
    “Kheem,” she called to him.
    The woman was Alizea of the Hyena Clan and she had often been seen with Kheem, trying to seduce him with her bouncy, wavy blonde hair and her alluring figure. She was from South Africa and was notorious for trying to sleep with as many alphas as she could. Her idea of being a woman was to give the man enough pleasure so that he was actually interested in being around her.
    It was disgusting and pitiful to Josie who had been the exact opposite. Next to her stood Christoph whose skin was as black as midnight and whose eyes were as bright as stars it seemed like. He was a lanky man who was used to causing trouble and ending it. He fought dirty and that was something that Josie was not ready for.
    She could hear Kheem getting up in the doorway and as she glanced at him, she watched as he rammed Sipho’s head into the wall and left the man unconscious or dead on the doorway. The moment he saw Alizea and Christoph, he rushed to Josie’s side, his knuckles bleeding, soaked in the blood of Sipho and his own. He was panting and his chest heaved as he stood next to her.
    “You run,” Kheem said to her. “I’ll hold them off. Find Wahir or anyone else who can help us. Go, now.”
    “They’ll kill you,” Josie said with an amount of certainty in her voice that frightened her. She had no doubt that Kheem knew this. They were past playing around. They were ready to do whatever they needed to in order to get what they wanted from them.
    “Hurry, now!” Kheem shouted.
    He lunged at Alizea and Christoph and in the moonlight, she watched as his clothing ripped apart in the flash of an eye before her and in its place landed y a sleek, black panther with eyes like golden moons, glaring as he peeled back his lips and roared at the two attackers. While they were still human, they were weak and he didn’t waste any time lunging at Christoph first, taking him to the ground as he landed hard on top of the man. It didn’t take long before Josie’s feet finally agreed with the importance of what Kheem had said to her.
    She turned and ran as fast as she could, heading down the path that would lead her to the outside of the Bungalow cluster. She ran past the bungalows that were silent and dark, people were either out on the town or they were at their jobs at the resort, but either way, there wasn’t a soul there to help her.
    She started to wonder if King Ronald had betrayed them. Had he decided that the betrayal that Kheem and Josie had pulled against him was too much? Did the Lion Clan decide to let nature take its course with them? All she knew was