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

ground, the tumbling figure of a male unfolding to crash hard into the ground, making Siraay wince at the impact.

When the male had stopped rolling, Torina and one of the other males in Siraay’s rushed over to check on him.

The male was bleeding from several wounds, a couple newly inflicted by his rough landing, while his other wounds had been caused some other way … although the broken arrow shaft sticking out from one of the male’s legs was a strong indicator of how. Siraay glanced across at Drosni, the most experienced in her unit, wanting to see his reaction.

To her great surprise, the smiling, amiable male was gone, replaced with a sharp-eyed unit leader who was obviously taking quick stock of the situation.

‘Torina, fix him up as best you can.’ Drosni squatted down and gripped the male firmly by the shoulder to get his attention while the female squatted opposite him and began pulling bandages from her pack. ‘Tell me what happened.’

The male groaned in pain, his eyes closed as he squirmed on the ground, but he didn’t respond.

Siraay felt like slapping him in the face, but before she could move at all, Drosni had altered his grip.

The injured male’s eyes flew open with a loud gasp of pain, his bleary gaze moving directly to Drosni’s face. Confusion appeared in his features as the male registered the fact that it was an ally who was hurting him.

Drosni merely leaned closer. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said again.

‘Resistance,’ the male muttered. ‘Surprised us. Greater numbers than we thought. They fired on us, then attacked, and when we went down’—the male’s eyes squeezed shut, his face going pale—‘I managed to get away.’

Drosni looked rapidly at his three unit members and made a sharp gesture that Siraay didn’t know. While Torina moved faster to bandage up the soldier’s wounds, the other two males in her unit dropped their packs straightaway, pulling out their bows and lifting them to their shoulders with an arrow ready.

Siraay stood and did the same.

‘How many?’ Drosni’s voice was low, but when he didn’t get a response, he growled out again, ‘How many?’

The injured soldier groaned again. ‘Twenty, at least.’

Drosni’s gaze snapped up to meet Siraay’s, and she felt her face go numb.

Twenty. Not just a couple of spies. The intelligence had been wrong—this was no Resistance scouting party looking for intel—this was an incursion.

Drosni stood quickly and stepped closer to her. ‘Lady, we’ll need to move fast. We need to get to the chief archon before the Resistance can take him.’

‘Take him?’ She narrowed her brows as she spoke hurriedly with him. ‘You think they’ll take him alive?’

Drosni raised an eyebrow. ‘His mask is well known to them. And he knows everything about our operations. They will want to escape fast with such a prize.’

And then they would have access to all the intelligence they could ever need. When they eventually managed to break him. And although the Resistance’s methods in that area might not be as efficient or ruthless as the Xarcon’s, with time, they could do it.

Siraay envisioned just how fast the Xarcon empire could fall with the capture of Pyron, and she nodded. They needed to move now.

Drosni spun away. ‘Torina, finish what you’re doing, then prep to go.’ He squatted down once more, addressing the half-conscious male in a low voice. ‘We’re going to fight with the others. Move yourself into those bushes’—Drosni pointed to a thick burst of undergrowth that was in the eyeline of the injured soldier—‘and stay there until we come back.’

The male groaned, reaching for the leg with an arrow in it. ‘I’m bleeding out! What if I die before you come back?’

Drosni stood and smiled down at the male, but it was a cruel, ruthless smile. ‘Don’t die,’ he said simply before turning away to face his unit.

Torina and the others were ready to go.

‘Marxi,’ Drosni addressed the shorter of the two males, ‘fly ahead and get us intel.’ He turned to Torina. ‘Run behind us, and Change when you get there.’ Then he wheeled to face the last male. ‘Lifron—you’ll stay with me.’

Finally, Drosni shifted slightly more, his head inclined to Siraay. ‘And we will both try to keep up with you, lady.’

Siraay blinked. Of course. She would be able to outrun nearly all their forms. She nodded and closed her eyes in a slow blink … then she opened them.

The world around her was now sharply in focus, her hearing and sense of smell incredibly heightened. Siraay could feel adrenaline moving through her body as her mind prepared for the fight to come.

She began running.

***

Siraay’s gait was smooth as she sprinted in the direction that the injured soldier had flown from, and in which Marxi was flying now, the male from her unit having Changed into his kitespray form.

Behind her, Drosni and Lifron were also running—as a cripwof and a blirrus, respectively, the blirrus maintaining a surprising pace for something so small. The pair was already trailing Siraay by a number of lengths and falling still farther behind, their labours no match for her effortlessly swift gait. She ran on in a relatively straight line, dodging trees, leaping over small rocks, and climbing bigger ones, all so that she wouldn’t lose sight of Marxi.

It was something the sevonix was good at, Siraay realised. A solitary predator, it had to rely on its speed, intelligence, and fighting ability. Thus, her long rear legs were powerful in driving her forwards; her head was in line with her neck and spine; her tail was elongated behind her, sometimes curling for balance; while her front paws rapidly ate up the ground.

But really, the most incredible thing was the silence. While half her mind thought on what she was doing in that moment and what she might find when she reached the other group, the other half of her mental capacity was given over to the sevonix instincts, though she dared not surrender more, lest she become lost within