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

The following spans were lost to Siraay as Chezran demonstrated the depth of his skills.

CHAPTER FIFTY

SIRAAY AWOKE IN the morning, dehydrated, her muscles aching, her clotted injury burning, and, not surprisingly, famished. But she had slept well, her night blissfully free of dreams, with her former self thankfully no longer making use of Siraay’s sleeping state to harass her.

All this Siraay knew before she opened her eyes, but she couldn’t place the causes of those feelings for a moment.

Until a deep, silky-smooth voice spoke.

‘I had the servants bring up nourishment for you, my beauty, but I can attend to your injuries first, if you like.’

Siraay’s eyes snapped open and, finding herself lying on her side, saw dark, twisted blankets on a large bed and an ornate ceiling.

The night before came flooding back to her, and smiling knowingly, Siraay raised herself up, twisting herself around to where Chezran was sitting close by on the edge of the bed, her necklace shifting slightly at her movement.

Aside from his hair being slightly unruly, and the loose black pants he now wore, the lord looked the same as he had the previous evening, the memory of which made heat rise within her.

‘Not at all,’ she told him confidently. ‘My shoulder can wait until I’m ready to deal with it.’

Chezran’s eyes were full of approval, and he turned and grabbed something dark that hung over the edge of the bed behind him. ‘This is for you.’

He shook out the material, and Siraay saw that it was a long, silky wrap of the darkest blue. She moved to the edge of the bed and carefully stood, taking stock of her injuries as she did so. Yes, her muscles certainly ached, and the knife wound in her shoulder felt pretty raw, but she smiled anyway. She had won. She was here.

Siraay rotated on the spot, allowing Chezran the opportunity to place the wrap around her shoulders. ‘Thank you, my lord.’ She went to grab the edges of the material in order to tie it around her body, but strong arms encircled hers, and it was with surprisingly gentle hands that Chezran enfolded her into the garment and tied the ends together over one hip. Then his hands lifted to centre the necklace’s jewel in the slight dip of her throat.

She angled her chin, looking down and then back over her shoulder at the beautiful wrap as it trailed behind her onto the floor, then turned back up to smile seductively at the lord.

A proud, fierce smile burned on his lips and in his eyes before he spun away and walked towards a door set into one wall.

As Siraay moved to follow, she realised what she’d failed to note last night in her distraction—that as large as this room was, it still only contained a bed, two chairs, and a rug that was spread before one wall with a large, sunken fireplace.

Siraay’s eyes glinted as she looked at it, knowing just what she would like to do in front of that fireplace, and how valuable it would be to have it during the colder nights of the final winter.

As her eyes tracked past a slim mirror on one near wall, Siraay scrutinised herself quickly. Her hair was a little mussed, which was to be expected, and while there were still faint traces of blood around her mouth from her attack on the now-dead Atalia, the biggest relief was that her makeup hadn’t smudged too badly.

When she glanced back towards Chezran, she saw he was holding open the door he had passed through and was waiting for her.

Striding swiftly across her lord’s bedroom and through the open door, her injured shoulder throbbing with each step, Siraay’s gaze took in a new room that was even larger than the first. It contained one main circular table with chairs and a few other pieces of lounging furniture in front of the expansive windows.

The table was set with a repast fit for, well, a lord, Siraay supposed. It had a variety of food you could reasonably expect at this morning span, and some that Siraay wouldn’t have expected. Yet given that the palace was so close to the sea, she figured it wasn’t all that surprising that Chezran would want fish and other seafood available to him.

Her stomach awakened at the sight, and she began to walk purposely towards the table—yet when the light in the room altered slightly, she paused in her steps, her head turning automatically to look at the source.

Shifting sunbeams poured in through the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, but Siraay’s mouth parted in awe at what she hadn’t spied before.

Through the glass, the view afforded from the room’s position in the palace showed a rough purple sea, undulating against a heavy morning sky, patches of the water grey white where clouds drifted above.

The view made Siraay feel both overwhelmed and more aware than ever of her new status.

‘It’s something, isn’t it?’

Siraay shifted and saw that Chezran was standing at the table, gesturing to a chair that he’d pulled out for her. She stirred herself to join him. ‘It is,’ she agreed, walking across to the indicted place and folding herself down gracefully into her seat, using her bare feet to draw the train of her dark wrap out of the way.

‘I admire the sea,’ Chezran said, waving a hand gently towards the glass. ‘It is ruled over by nothing, and everything makes way before it.’ Those dark eyes bored into Siraay’s, the ambition a visible hunger.

She smiled at him. ‘I see why you would feel an affinity for it.’

Chezran nodded and then waved at the offering arrayed upon the table for them. ‘After you, my lady.’

It was with great need that Siraay applied herself to the food before her.

***

Having finished their meal, Chezran had urged her to retire back to the bedroom with him, where they bathed and then proceeded to get sweaty once more, devouring each other’s bodies in the water, trying to slate