Desires at War: Primal Shifters, #2

By Kira Shayde

Months as a POW in South Africa leaves lion shifter Fix Ainran struggling to recover, but he can't get the curvaceous Caryn Plumar out of his mind. Yet the beautiful daughter of the hyena chairman only torments the disabled former soldier with heated trysts before pulling away. No matter how much she desires Fix's touch, Caryn's obligations involve more than fighting for an independent hyena state in a land ruled by lions and fraught with war. She must sacrifice any chance of happiness and freedom by marrying within the clan to ensure her safety. Unable to stay apart, Fix and Caryn defy societal rules and risk their lives as they battle enemies, search for the truth about his captivity...and fall in love.

 

Warning: if you're not a fan of scorching hot sex scenes, this book is not for you. A "tamer" version of this story is available in Primal Shifters North America (which contains all three novellas of the Primal Shifters series but set in North America instead of South Africa).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kira Shayde
• Release date: May 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999018330

Book preview

DESIRES AT WAR

Primal Shifters, Book One

In a world where the animal predators are shapeshifters, and territorial disputes have led to war, loving outside your boundaries can get you killed.

KIRA SHAYDE

Desires at War (Primal Shifters #2)

Copyright © 2022, 2018 by Kira Shayde

Copyright © 2015 by Kira Shayde (Loose Id, LLC)

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book only. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

ISBN: 978-0-9990183-3-0

Cover Artist: Kira Shayde

Published in the United States of America

Kira Shayde https://www.kirashayde.com

This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

WARNING

This book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and is for sale to adults only, as defined by the laws in the country in which you made your purchase. Please store this book where it cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

Dedication

To my husband, the hero in my life.

Acknowledgment

I owe a debt of gratitude to my family, friends, and fellow authors for their support of my writing adventures, their willingness to read my work, and their helpful feedback. I also wish to give a big shout-out to the Kevin Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary in South Africa for drawing attention to the conservation of African lions and spotted hyenas.

DESIRES AT WAR (Primal Shifters #2)

Months as a POW in South Africa leaves lion shifter Fix Ainran struggling to recover, but he can’t get the curvaceous Caryn Plumar out of his mind. Yet the beautiful daughter of the hyena chairman only torments the disabled former soldier with heated trysts before pulling away.

No matter how much she desires Fix’s touch, Caryn’s obligations involve more than fighting for an independent hyena state in a land ruled by lions and fraught with war. She must sacrifice any chance of happiness and freedom by marrying within the clan to ensure her safety.

Unable to stay apart, Fix and Caryn defy societal rules and risk their lives as they battle enemies, search for the truth about his captivity...and fall in love.

Contents

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

About the Author

Chapter One

ACCORDING TO LEGEND, the gods warned humankind that if they insisted on behaving like animals, they would become animals, permanently. The humans didn’t listen, and their fate was sealed. They became prey. Yet the gods weren’t done. Animal predators were given their chance to rule, and the ability to shift between animal and human.

The African lion, the pinnacle of hunters in the wild, replaced man as overlord and quickly implemented a system to ensure their supremacy in the new world. The disparaged spotted hyena, often the more tenacious and successful predator on the plains, was the lion’s natural competitor. Becoming human didn’t change this. It only made it worse.

Because these shifters were animals first and human second.

LYING ON THE PHYSICAL therapy table, Fix Ainran stared at the door, hoping Zuri would be his therapist for the afternoon. That girl always made sure he laughed during even the most painful of treatments, not to mention he could lose himself in her big, dark eyes. The drool-worthy booty didn’t hurt either. At least it helped distract his mind from the fact he hadn’t walked in over a year.

A slender blonde entered the room instead. Shit. Alina, the Ice Queen. Nothing he said or did ever seemed to warm her up.

Hey, sweetheart, he drawled, attempting to thaw her composure. Even an added wink did nothing to budge her icy expression.

Without a word, she spread a towel over his lower torso. What was the point? He never got a hard-on when she massaged him. Then again, the Ice Queen would make any guy’s dick shrivel. Zuri on the other hand always seemed happy when he tented the towel. Happy for him since at least that aspect still functioned. A lot of guys with spinal-cord injuries couldn’t say the same.

Alina seemed even more clinical than usual. She didn’t bother with the deep massage to his quads, giving only a cursory rub over his legs. As his spinal injury was incomplete, he had intermittent feeling, and today her hands felt like stinging nettles on his skin.

I’ve been having some cramps in my upper thighs, so don’t forget—

I am aware of my job, she said curtly without so much as a glance at him.

Yup. Cold as ice. Compressing his lips, Fix stared at the undecorated white walls, equally devoid of expression. His thoughts began to drift, and no matter how hard he tried to suppress the memories, he found himself returning to that day. The day his life changed.

He’d been sent on a solo mission to the craggy cliffs north of the borderlands, a region used only by hyenas for military training. A region so barren no one lived or hunted there...

Crouched by the cliff edge for a better view, Fix raised his binoculars yet again. Nothing but scattered rocks and dusty gravel. Not even the call of a hawk to break the silence.

He was about to leave when a hard shove against his back knocked him off-balance. Scrambling to regain his footing, he twisted around and tried to grab the rock edge, but the dirt on the cliff gave way beneath his feet. He remembered screaming as the air rushed over his face. Then blackness. He never saw who attacked him. Hell, never even heard a sound.

When he came to, face down in a gully, he thought he could handle his injuries more easily in lion form. Dead wrong. When he tried to shift, an unbelievable burn exploded across his back as if he’d been ripped in two. He screamed in agony, his head pounding, his vision flashing hard and hot. Unable to hold on to his sanity, he begged and pleaded to the gods, offering up his future firstborn son. Anything to stop the pain.

Crumpled on the rocks, half-human, half-lion, he lacked the strength to move. Minutes passed, maybe hours—time held no meaning while he drifted in and out of consciousness. Then he heard voices; one carried above the others. A voice he recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Although at that moment, he couldn’t come up with his own name.

Jostled when set on a board, he fought to remain tough and focused, although a small whimper escaped through his clenched teeth when thick canvas straps were snapped over him, and he bit back a howl when the straps were tightened.

Once again, blessed blackness overtook him.

When he awoke, a harsh light flicked back and forth between his eyes, and he groaned in protest, his head throbbing. A tube trailed from the back of his hand to a clear bag hung on a pole, and his nose wrinkled from the strident odor of disinfectant. But his initial thought of a hospital was belied by the flowery quilted bedcovers draped across his legs and the oval mirror perched above a dainty woman’s dresser, like the kind his grandmother had in her bedroom.

A guttural grunt on his right sent an instinctual rush of adrenaline through his veins. Jerking his head, Fix willed his body to follow, to no avail. His hands bunched into fists, but his legs refused to budge. A heavyset man sitting next to the bed narrowed his eyes, then rose and left the room. Fix sank back into the pillow, breathing heavily, his brain not willing to accept the severity of his injuries.

Within minutes, a string of unfamiliar faces paraded past him, and questions were asked for which he had no answers. He had no use for these surly men and their meaningless riddles.

Then she lingered at the doorway. A halo of walnut-colored curls framed a sweet, compassionate face with the warmest brown eyes he’d ever seen. His gaze drank in her generous curves emphasized by a tight tank top and jeans. Her lush softness sent blood racing to his groin.

Caryn, a gruff voice called from outside the makeshift hospital room.

A slight frown drew her eyebrows together as she turned toward the voice.

Fix’s breath hitched. She could help him. He felt it in his bones. Caryn, he whispered to her, drawing her attention.

She tilted her head. What’s your name?

The memory came to him. Fix.

Fix? Can’t say I’ve heard that name before. Her smile revealed deep dimples in her cheeks, and she leaned against the door frame.

A nickname, he replied, distracted by the tempting view offered by her low-cut neckline and the hint of hard nipples beneath.

But a strange thought drifted in the back of his mind. She was not his kind. Except he wasn’t sure what that even meant. He shrugged off the warning, not giving a fuck what kind she was. She was hot, and he couldn’t help imagining those shapely hips of hers straddled over his...

A huffing noise brought him back to the present. With a frown, the therapist adjusted his privacy towel. and he tamped down his wayward thoughts before he did more than twitch. The last thing he needed was for the Ice Queen to ask about his sexual functioning. With Zuri, he didn’t mind; they were friends. But Alina always treated him like a petri dish.

She picked up a clipboard, jotted something down, and then grabbed his athletic shorts from a chair and tossed them onto his chest. You’ll be working in the swimming pool today. Get dressed.

The therapist cast an icy blue gaze at him, an oddity among golden-eyed African lions, but he waited for her to leave the room before he pushed himself upright and dragged the shorts over his useless legs. It had been a year since he’d been knocked off a cliff and left for dead. A year since he’d been betrayed, and he still didn’t know why or by whom.

Fix couldn’t suppress the quiver in his left hand.

After his rescue from the gully below the cliffs and interrogation at the wolf chairman’s palace, he awoke a few days later in a run-down warehouse, a prisoner of war. The months he endured in captivity at the hands of brutal wolf soldiers left scars way beyond the physical.

How could he have been snatched from the palace and taken to a POW camp without a word to his father? Fix clenched his jaw. Unfortunately, he might never know the answer. He lowered himself from the massage table into his wheelchair.

Although his days as a soldier in the Defence Force and Mission Elites were over, he was nothing if not a fighter. Since his release three months earlier, his recovery had been arduous and painful. Days of progress mixed with days of frustration.

And