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  Eva Brandt and Dahlia Briar

  Caged

  Primal Obsessions

  Copyright © 2020 by Eva Brandt and Dahlia Briar

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  Cover art by Emma Griffin. Cover is for illustrative purposes only.

  First edition

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  Contents

  Caged

  1. Aimee

  2. Blaze

  3. Aimee

  4. Aimee

  5. Gunner

  6. Aimee

  7. Aimee

  8. Rock

  9. Aimee

  10. Blaze

  11. Gunner

  12. Aimee

  13. Rock

  14. Blaze

  15. Aimee

  16. Blaze

  17. Aimee

  About the Author

  Also by Eva Brandt and Dahlia Briar

  Caged

  My name is Aimee and I committed a crime. I walked onto a forbidden path—and now, that path is my cage.

  There’s no way out for a woman who knows the secret of the Pride. Monsters hide in the shadows and now, I belong to them.

  Blaze, Gunner and Rock Pride. The Alpha lions who killed my friends. They could have killed me too, devoured me whole, torn me to pieces. It would have been more merciful.

  The brand of a lion pride stains my skin. Their eyes haunt my dreams and their touch drives me crazy. I’m lost in a world that doesn’t make sense anymore. I’m human—they are not. I’m a woman. They are beasts. I am a prisoner and they are my captors. How can I want them as much as I do?

  Authors’ Note: This is a full, standalone dark romance story with no cliffhangers, and a happily-ever-after. Please be advised that it may contain situations that are triggering to some, profanity, and a lot of steam.

  One

  Aimee

  “I don’t know about this, Larry. It seems dangerous. We should just go back.”

  “Go back? No, Aimee, don’t be like that. This will be fun, you’ll see.”

  I stared at the dark forest in front of me and bit my lower lip nervously. Protected by tall fences and ‘keep out’ signs, the property had been a bit of a mystery for as long as I could remember. When I’d been in school, I’d often hear others speculate about what the forest could be hiding.

  But I was no longer a child, and I was well aware that, leaving aside the natural dangers of a forest, this was trespassing. My father wouldn’t be happy with me if I was caught breaking the law.

  My boyfriend didn’t seem to care about that. He shot me a crooked, easy-going grin, the same smile that had made me agree to go out with him. “The moon’s beautiful tonight, don’t you think? We could go swimming, sweetheart. I heard there’s a lake there. It’ll be so romantic.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to be a spoilsport, but still unsure. “I don’t know, Larry. What if the rumors are right and there’s some kind of government facility here?”

  “That just makes it more exciting,” Larry’s brother, Herman, said from behind me. He walked up to me and threw his arm around my shoulders. “Come on. Don’t be so boring.”

  “Besides,” the last member of our group, Duncan, added, “I doubt we’ll find Area 51 in the forest. I heard from my dad that it’s a commune of hippies.”

  “What?” I asked. “Really?”

  Duncan nodded, bouncing on his heels like a rabbit on crack. “They’re into the ‘one with nature’, ‘living off the earth’ kind of shit. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious.”

  If it was something like that, it wouldn’t be so bad. It might still be against the law, but a hippy wouldn’t call the police on us. And besides, the forest was huge. We might not even run into the people from the commune if we just went to the lake.

  “All right, but we’ll go in and out very quickly. I don’t care how romantic you think it is, Larry. I don’t want any trouble.”

  Larry ignored the latter part of my comment. “That’s the spirit, sweetheart. Let’s go.”

  Taking my hand, he led me to the fence. We couldn’t just jump over it, but a convenient tree solved that problem. We climbed the tree and easily made our way down.

  The moment we were on the ground, Larry shot me another quick smile. “See? Easy. If there was something dangerous here, don’t you think there would be more security than just a fence?”

  His logic chased away the last of my doubts, and together, our small group ventured into the forest. It was dark, but the light of the full moon filtered through the foliage. All of us were fit and experienced at hiking, so we had no real trouble making our way through the woods.

  It was Duncan who found the hidden path. He called out to us in a whisper, grinning excitedly. “Hey, I think we should follow this road. It has to take us closer to the hippies.”

  I eyed the path dubiously. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let’s just go to the lake. That’s enough.”

  Larry wrapped his arm around my waist and silenced me with a brief peck. “It’s fine, I told you. It’ll be interesting.”

  I wanted to remind him this was dangerous, but it was too late to turn back now and the others had already started going down the path. As my boyfriend dragged me after them, I made a mental note to have a real conversation with Larry after this was over. I wanted some excitement in my life too, but this was just asking for trouble.

  I was proven right not ten minutes after we’d found the path. The sound of a loud, animal roar echoed through the forest, making us freeze in our tracks.

  As far as I knew, there were no wolves or really dangerous creatures in our area, but that roar sounded like it had come from something big and angry. Some kind of mountain lion, maybe?

  I swallowed around the sudden knot in my throat. “Uh, I think that’s not something we should run into.”

  In the darkness of the forest, Herman’s face looked so pale it was almost white. “Yeah. I totally agree.”

  We started backtracking as quickly and silently as possible. The roar had come from pretty far away, so maybe it wasn’t too late to leave the forest.

  Luck wasn’t on our side. Another roar sounded, this time far closer to us. Terror erupted through me. There was no time for us to make our escape. “Tree!” Larry hissed. “Quickly!”

  If the creature after us was a mountain lion, the tree wouldn’t help us. But we couldn’t outrun the beast either, and I didn’t know what else to do. I followed Larry’s suggestion and took refuge in the leafiest tree I could find.

  Larry was right next to me, and Herman and Duncan were in another tree, to our right. Please, please, God, let this work. Please, don’t let it find us.

  My prayers were useless. Mere seconds after we’d settled in between the branches, an honest-to-God lion appe
ared out of the greenery.

  The creature was massive, easily over five feet high. It didn’t have a mane, so I guessed it was female. I’d seen lionesses before in zoos, and I was pretty sure they didn’t get so big. What was it doing in the middle of an American forest anyway? Had it escaped from some enclosure? Was that the big secret of the forest? Was there a secret zoo here? Did it even matter?

  The lioness stopped and sniffed the air. I bit the inside of my cheek to suppress a whimper. Sweat trickled down my back, and I could have sworn my racing pulse sounded like thunder in the silence of the forest. We should have tried to make a run for it. A lion would easily be able to notice us and drag us out of the trees. God, we’d been such idiots.

  Salvation came in the form of another lion, this time male. It appeared from the direction we’d been going in earlier, so I assumed it must have been the source of the original roar.

  The moment the lioness saw the male lion, it lost interest in our scent. With twin snarls, the two creatures lunged at each other and started to fight.

  Their bodies clashed, and they fell together to the ground, with the lion on top of his female counterpart. He was heavier and larger, so he had a clear advantage. The lioness didn’t let that deter her. She used her position to try to claw at his underbelly, attacking every part of him she could reach.

  But the lion wasn’t intimidated. His thick mane protected him from her attempts to reach his jugular and he moved far faster than any creature his size should have. He took a few blows from her claws and dodged the rest, jumping off her to avoid being gored. The lioness got up and tried to counterattack, but her opponent was already moving again. He mercilessly raked his claws over her flank, drawing a roar of agony out of the lioness.

  The wound wasn’t lethal, but it was bad enough that she was left unable to do much. She tried to attack one last time, but that didn’t help her at all. The lion pounced on her, pinning her down under his larger weight, his fangs already trailing over her throat.

  The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes, and yet, it seemed like an eternity had passed. As I watched the lioness go limp in surrender, I wondered if we were witnessing the beginning of a mating ritual. That would be useful. The lions were still very close to us, but they weren’t right next to our trees. If they got distracted, we’d have the chance to escape.

  Unfortunately, that was the moment when shit hit the fan. The body of the lioness started to ripple, melting into that of a naked woman. My breath caught at the unbelievable sight. Sure, I’d read my fair share of paranormal books, but that was only fiction. Never had I expected to witness something like this in real life.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was even worse than having to face an actual lion. If there was something most fiction authors could agree on, it was the fact that paranormal creatures liked their secrecy. There were no rumors about shape-shifters living in our forest, and I suspected that wasn’t because other people hadn’t been dumb enough to sneak in here. The intruders must have all been caught and killed.

  As I watched in silent horror, the male lion shifted into a dark-skinned, black-haired man. Unlike the lioness, he wasn’t too injured. His well-built body still bore the light traces of claw marks, but they were already closing. If he felt any pain, he didn’t show it.

  He released the lioness and got up, rolling his shoulders as if trying to chase away knots of tension. In my tree, I trembled and prayed. Leave. Take your lioness and leave. Please.

  I should have known better than to hope. The lion’s stance shifted, turning predatory again. I blinked, and he was suddenly in Duncan and Herman’s tree, practically on top of them. I hadn’t even seen him move.

  They screamed and blood splattered all over the leaves. It was chaos. I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I didn’t even dare to look.

  A single thought echoed in my head. If he had seen them, he had seen us too. There was no more time to wait and hope. We had to try to run.

  Larry had the same idea, because he jumped out of the tree and made a break for it. I did the same, dashing after him. Branches hit us in the face as we desperately ran, feeling like the whole forest was out to get us. Behind us, we could still hear the sound of Duncan and Herman’s screams. “Please! No!” Duncan cried. His voice held so much pain that I couldn’t help but look back.

  It was a bad idea. Since I wasn’t looking where I was going, I tripped on a root and fell forward, hitting the ground with a painful thud. A delay was the last thing I needed, but I wasn’t about to give up so easily. I shot to my feet, wincing at the slight soreness in my ankle, but knowing that if I stayed here, it would be the least of my problems.

  Larry was nowhere to be seen now. He’d left me behind. On some level, I couldn’t blame him, but still, I wished he’d at least stopped to check on me.

  Terrified tears flowing down my cheeks, I stumbled through the greenery, my heart beating a million miles a minute. This was a nightmare. It had to be. In real life, people didn’t shift into beasts. Lions didn’t live in forests that were supposed to be harmless. We must have run into the commune of hippies and gotten high. But we had to wake up now.

  Come on, Aimee, wake up. Wake up.

  My mental litany didn’t work. The only thing I could do was to keep running. My mind felt slow and sluggish, the panic making it impossible for me to think properly.

  How long had it been since I’d seen the lion? Where was Larry? I didn’t know. Everything had gone fuzzy, consumed by the terror. Duncan’s screams echoed in my ears over and over, even if I couldn’t hear them anymore. No, don’t think about it. Run. Run. Escape.

  And I tried to, God help me, I tried to. In fact, I could’ve sworn I caught a glimpse of the fence through the undergrowth, not very far from me now. If I could reach it, I’d manage to get to the car.

  I was apparently cursed, because not two seconds after I’d thought that, the sound of a gunshot echoed right in front of me.

  Right. Larry carried a gun. He must have remembered that just now. In the insanity, I’d forgotten about it too. I didn’t know what it meant and I didn’t dare to hope. A part of me screamed I should be finding another way out of here. Logic stated that, if Larry had pulled out his weapon, he’d been attacked himself.

  But my ability to think clearly had gone out the window the moment I’d seen a lioness turn into a woman. So instead, I rushed forward, into the clearing where the gunshot had come from.

  The sight that greeted my eyes almost crippled me. Larry had indeed been attacked by another lion, and this one was just as large as the one before. He had Larry trapped under his paw, and he was seconds away from eviscerating him.

  The only bright side of the situation was that Larry was still alive. His sleeve was blood-stained, and he was pale and paralyzed with fear, but he was in one piece.

  Judging by the way the lion was looking at him, that wouldn’t be the case for much longer. I had to do something. I had to help in some way.

  “No,” I whispered shakily. “Please, no.”

  The lion heard me and looked up at me. His eyes were so blue, not human, but not feline either. Another shape-shifter.

  I wanted to drop to my knees, to explain, to beg for our lives. But I never got the chance to say another word. A strong hand grabbed me from behind and an arm like a vise wrapped itself around my waist. I cried out as the dark-skinned shape-shifter—or whatever he was—pulled me closer to him, so close I could feel every muscle in his body.

  Every inch of me was screaming with the desire to struggle. I could still remember the way this man had fought the lioness. But my knees went weak and instead of trying to free myself, I ended up sort of leaning against him, unable to hold myself upright.

  His lips twisted into a cocky smirk. “Well, well,” he purred. “What do we have here? A little human sticking her nose into other people’s business. That’s not very nice, you know. Or smart. Wouldn’t you say so, Gunner?”

  With the corner of my e
ye, I caught sight of the second lion shifting into a humanoid form. “I agree,” he said, his blue eyes glinting with an unholy, cruel look. “Humans really need to know their place. And it’s not here.”

  The lion holding me chuckled, but it wasn’t a human laugh. His chest rumbled in a way that reminded me of the roar we’d heard earlier. It sounded rough and savage, and it scared me.

  I finally snapped out of my trance and, on instinct, started to fight him. I tried to bite his arm, to claw at his face, to hurt him somehow. His skin felt like hardened leather under my touch. I doubted I could have hurt him even if I’d had a knife.

  He seemed amused by my attempts, so much so that he didn’t do anything to stop me. When I tired myself out, he shot me another grin and asked, “You done? You humans never learn, do you?”

  “I could say the same about you, Blaze,” the second lion replied in my stead. “You should have learned by now to not play with your food.”

  “Oh, but why would I do that, when it’s so amusing?”

  Still laughing, the lion-shifter now identified as Blaze draped me over his shoulder and carried me back the way we’d come. Behind us, the other man—Gunner—did the same with Larry.

  The rays of the moon still danced through the leaves, cold and peaceful. Tasting dread in my mouth, I wondered if we’d live long enough to see the sun again.

  Two

  Blaze

  Well, this was unexpected.

  Tonight, I’d thought my mood was going to be sour thanks to Onyx’s annoying inability to drop the flirting, and the Gods had granted me a respite—a small group of humans to rip apart. Not even beating Onyx in our little fight would be as sweet as destroying the humans.

  I loved their terror, their screams, and the scent of their blood. I knew I was going to enjoy breaking the humans left just as much. Especially the female one.