Change of Darkness (The Change Series Book 3) by Jacinta Jade (best new books to read txt) 📕

Siraay only saw it happen because her eyes were already used to the dark, and because the dark silhouette stood out for her against the badly lit area by the door.

But for Pyron, who had walked into the only lighted area, and who was looking out on a dark room, there was no hope of seeing the powerful form that had launched itself at him.

The chief archon went down with a shocked gasp as a mass of muscle and sinew and fur hit him square in the chest, making him slide on his back a little way across the polished floor until his head bumped up against the wall.

The struggling male gasped again, and Siraay could see that he was trying to get air back into his lungs. As soon as he was able to manage a mouthful, he gasped out, ‘My lord? I don’t understand! What did—?’

A roar cut him off. Deep, loud, and truly terrifying, it held nothing back and reverberated so loudly in the large space that Siraay wanted to throw her hands up over her ears, yet they, too, seemed to be frozen at her sides.

Pyron shrunk back at the roar and wisely chose to stop struggling as the large black-and-silver predator bent its head low and stared at him hungrily.

Then Chezran Changed. He stood over his chief archon, glaring down from his full height.

Yet Siraay could see the predator that remained just under the surface of that normal form, so close to breaking through again.

‘Never,’ Chezran growled out, ‘touch my lady again.’

Pyron’s mouth dropped open further. ‘My lord, I—’

‘Quiet!’

Pyron’s mouth snapped shut, and Siraay’s eyes widened.

‘The Lady Siraay is mine. You are not to touch what is mine unless it is in defence of her life.’ Chezran leaned in closer. ‘You might have killed her today, you fool. Though I think the risk of it is actually less than both you and I might suspect. Have you forgotten what I told you? Have you forgotten the prophecy?’

Chezran’s shout reverberated off the polished surfaces of the room, but Siraay barely noticed the volume as she took in his words.

‘No, my lord, I have not forgotten,’ whispered Pyron.

‘Then explain your actions to me before I rip out your throat for disobeying me.’

The chief archon seemed to struggle wordlessly for a moment before words burst from him. ‘She is unbearable, lord. She struts about like she owns this place, like all within are pawns at her disposal. She acts like she could take on the whole of the Resistance by herself and win. She is arrogant, stubborn, over-confident, annoying …’

Pyron’s voice trailed off again as Chezran’s head tilted.

It was a subtle gesture, but Siraay read the movement for what it was. A predator wondering just how quickly it could devour the prey before it.

‘Tell me—do you need to visit the technologist wing, or do I need to reconsider your allegiance to me, Pyron?’ Chezran’s words produced a silence that was deeper and more still than before.

‘Neither, my lord,’ the prone archon managed to say in a croaky voice. ‘I only owe allegiance to you. And I will not disobey you again.’

Another tilt of the head. ‘Good. But I want you to present yourself to the head technologist tomorrow, anyway.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ came the quick answer.

Chezran angled his head away but didn’t move. ‘Deadly. Predatory. Tenacious. Aggressive.’

‘My lord?’ Pyron’s voice was clearly confused this time.

Chezran glanced back down. ‘Your description of the lady should also have covered those things. Because it is she who will help us win this war.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

SIRAAY AWOKE WITH a start the next morning, sitting up quickly and breathing heavily as she glanced around wildly.

She had dreamed that Chezran and Pyron were fighting … yet it had seemed so real.

And she had had similar dreams before. She couldn’t remember all of them, but some she could. Siraay pulled her knees up to her chest and brushed a long section of her red hair away from her face. Now that she thought about it, the voices in the dreams that she—or rather, her former self—had had sounded remarkably like Pyron’s and Chezran’s voices in her most recent dream.

She looked at the blanket gathered around her knees, not really seeing it. Was it possible to have dreams about real events? How would she know for certain?

Siraay scanned her memory of the dream last night, trying to piece it together in her mind.

Prophecy.

Chezran had spoken of a prophecy.

‘Trelar.’ Siraay spoke the name quietly. If her servant was anywhere about the room, she would hear her name.

Silence.

Siraay sighed. Oh well. The female probably wouldn’t know the answers she was after, anyway. They had, after all, technically grown up together and studied in the same cycle class. And Siraay couldn’t remember anything about a prophecy.

She needed someone who would know about this type of thing. Someone who knew many things …

Siraay smiled to herself as she realised who she could ask.

***

She got down to the training hall just as the sun was actually beginning to climb into the sky. This time, she found the room empty, which was a relief after her encounter with Pyron yesterday.

Annoyingly, she still had the shadows of bruises on her neck, despite the time she had spent before and after her meal last night lounging in front of the fire as a sevonix.

She wasn’t even sure what time she had actually gotten into her large bed for the night, but the fire had been low and the coals red hot.

Yet she was sure she must have been in her sevonix form long enough to have healed the injury.

Unless Pyron had done more damage than she’d originally thought. Siraay shrugged. She’d spend more time in her feline form today anyway, which should take care of it.

Footsteps approaching from behind made Siraay spin around, and Loce raised his hands, palms outwards.

‘Whoa, someone is keen this morning.’

Siraay relaxed slightly. Not Pyron. ‘Yeah. I’m eager to work.’

‘And I hear you’re also going out on