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

the other. She squeezed her eyes shut, the image, the very thought, making her ill. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered to him. ‘I did this.’ She felt her fingers go numb in his. ‘I did this to us. I put us here.’

Baindan slowly backed her up to the wall behind her, and Siray felt the cold soil and rock dig into her back as his body leaned against hers. The hard-packed dirt at her back and the warmth of his body helped her recover a little from the shock that had spread through her.

Siray could feel the hard muscles of Baindan’s torso as he pressed against the length of her, and Baindan dropped Siray’s hands, raising his to cup her face instead. ‘This is not your fault,’ he whispered back. ‘You alone had the courage to do what the rest of us were too afraid to.’

She opened her eyes. Baindan’s face hovered before hers, his eyes filling most of her view. ‘I condemned us to this,’ she stated before giving a short, derisive laugh. ‘For an instant after I woke, I thought that we were fortunate that they hadn’t killed us outright.’ She shook her head, her eyes going hard. ‘But this is far worse than death.’

Baindan was looking at her now, his eyes considering her face, as if he was reading something new in the anguish there. She watched as his eyes opened a little wider, his expression growing more disbelieving each moment … and she realised he knew what she had been about to say earlier.

Then his lips were swooping in to capture hers, his hands and arms dropping to encircle her waist.

Siray responded instantly, her mouth moving against his as she tasted him, her entire body purring at his touch.

But she couldn’t finish that sentence she had started to say. Couldn’t say the words that would instantly formalise the bond between them.

Not in this place, when their future was so uncertain now.

But she could enjoy this moment, just for now, regardless of what was to come.

Baindan’s body was responding to her eagerness, his broad chest pushing against hers as he wrapped one hand around the back of her neck, the other tangling in her hair, which had finally come loose from its tie.

‘Siray. My Siray,’ he murmured against her lips before placing kisses over her dirt-streaked cheek, across her jaw, and down the line of her neck.

Siray closed her eyes, the intense pleasure generated from his kisses and the sharp pain at what they both now stood to lose coursing through her, and she expressed this by focusing her attention on Baindan’s own neck, working upwards, to his ear and then back along his jaw …

When their lips met again, it was a long moment before their mouths drifted apart once more.

Siray opened her eyes quickly as a thought occurred to her. ‘Baindan,’ she whispered even more quietly. ‘You can get away. You can Change and fly away from here.’ Her heart grew lighter, even if, at the same time, a part of her felt sick at the thought of being parted from him. Nevertheless, Baindan could escape. He could live. And then she would only have to take one life to save herself.

But Baindan shook his head. ‘I’ve already considered it. Even if I could pass safely over the walls here without being pierced by arrows, I’d still have to outrun any of the guards who could also Change into a winged form.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s too risky. And even if that was an option, I’d never leave you.’

Although Siray’s heart sank at his rational analysis of her suggestion, the devotion she heard in Baindan’s words made her launch herself at him, and this time she was the fire, burning for more of him as she wrapped her arms tight around his neck and pressed the lines of her body to his.

Baindan kissed her back, his hold on her unyielding, as if no one could take her from him.

After a long moment, they finally broke apart, both of them gasping for air, the expression on Baindan’s face making Siray think he was exercising a lot of willpower in that moment to stop himself from grabbing her up again.

He seemed to settle for brushing a tangled lock of her long red hair off her shoulder, giving a quiet but sad chuckle. ‘Why is it that we never seem to catch a break?’

Siray gave him a bitter smile. ‘Maybe the Mother despises us?’

Baindan shook his head, reaching up to stroke her cheek. ‘Never. She wouldn’t have shown me the way to you so many times if that were true.’ He moved close enough so that he could rest his forehead against hers, and whispered, ‘And she will help us find a way out of this.’

Siray wasn’t sure if she believed that last part or not, but she nodded anyway, at least willing to hope it could be true. And though she still yearned to speak the formal words of commitment to him, the walls of the pit looming around them were a stark reminder of the potential end awaiting them both.

So Siray just rested her head on Baindan’s shoulder and let the words burn silently within her.

***

They both stayed on edge as evening drew on, keeping an eye on the other captive as he regained consciousness and began slinking back and forth along the far wall, snatching glances at them occasionally.

Siray knew it was his fear of Baindan that made him keep checking on where they were, though she also didn’t doubt that he might try to attack them during the night, given that all three of them were aware that only one of them could emerge from that hole.

Faced with a threat in the pit and the potential of new threats being, literally, dropped on them from above, Siray and Baindan once more adopted the habits they had developed while they had been on the run from the Faction, one of them watching