Page 2 of Deadly Panther's Fake Fiancée

They are very intently focusing their stares on me right now.

“Mom, Dad ...” he begins.

Oh shit.

“...this is Katrina.”

Their eyes go over me like a computer scan.

“My fiancé,” he finishes.

Double shit.

Mom and Dad look like a train has just plowed through their house and they’re feeling the backdraft. Their mouths drop in tandem, and their stares become laser focused.

And I waltz over to them like I have all the confidence of a certified fiancé. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet you both.” I hug each of them in turn, and they’re trapped by the moment but I can tell they’re not happy. “Isaac has told me so much about you.”

Now, they look at each other and then at Isaac as he walks over to us. There’s an unanswered question that passes among them that I know I will wonder about later, but right now I’m trying to assimilate the concept of being a newly minted fiancé.

“Mom, Dad,” he hugs his mother and father and I can see their regal bearing infusing him, “please come into the house so we can’t get you settled. I have everything ready.”

He starts walking and I move beside him and take his hand. He looks at me with such gratitude that I blush.

It’s not until we’re all seated in his living room that I glance down at my finger.

I gasp and muffle it as a slight cough.

Dear God!

The ring is stunning and even the naivest jewelry consumer would be able to see that it’s old. The jewels on it are exquisite,

What the hell is going on?

Chapter Two

Isaac

Mom and Dad are pissed off.

They’re also royalty, so they know how to keep from making it obvious. Right now, they appear perturbed to have something this big sprung on them. Katrina has no idea, of course, just how damned livid they are.

She doesn’t know about Delilah Van Patton, the woman my parents sent to the United States a year and a half ago. Delilah is the woman they intended me to marry. They can’t talk about it right now. It’s not just the awkwardness. It’s that I introduced them as my mother and father rather than as king and queen. That tells them right there that Katrina is unaware of our nature.

Our panther nature.

No, it’s not like the movie. We don’t turn into panthers when we have sex and remain panthers until we kill someone. We’re panther shifters, and even though shifters have come out to the world, panthers remain the most secretive of all the shifters. Most panthers would very much prefer that no human ever really knows about our existence.

“Really?” Katrina’s voice shows a lot of surprise, and I feel foolish for having been lost in thought and missed the context.

“Really,” My mother says cooly.

“Well, I disagree completely,” Katrina says. My heart sinks. A confrontation. “I don’t know how you could travel along the Stadtbahn and see the buildings or to look at the Church on Steinhof and think anyone but Otto Wagner deserves that title. But, of course, I’m looking at it from the perspective of an American architect so I suppose maybe if I’d grown up there, I might think differently.”

She waits, and then Dad chuckles. “You do know Austrian architecture.” My mom begrudgingly nods.

Katrina says innocently, “Was that a test? To see if…” She sighs and says, “Oh! I’m sorry. I was bragging, wasn’t I? It seemed like I was just being a big talker. Do you use that phrase?”

Damn, she’s good. “Angeber,” I say to my parents. “That’s close. Blowhard. Show-off. But I don’t think you were doing that at all. You just love buildings.”

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