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

that could crush bones the way a rilander snapped trees … easily. She knew its name—had disliked the creatures from the moment she had first seen a picture of one when she was a youngling. A sandiota.

Siray only spared the briefest glance out the corner of her eye to note the creature Baindan was now facing off against. An oreto—a four-legged creature with an almost skeletal thinness and that stood just as tall as she. With a neck that was ridiculously thick with coiled muscle compared to its slim body, the oreto had a curving head with two long and very sharp horns. And one of them was dripping blood. Her blood. Although the creature might have looked like a herbivore at first glance, it most certainly was not.

As Baindan carefully dodged the oreto’s stabbing horns and snarled back viciously at the thin-legged creature, Siray’s yeibon mind went white with fury. The other two had started this. They were doing exactly what the Faction wanted—allowing themselves to be used as pawns.

Obviously willing to kill their own to survive, Siray guessed the pair had decided to use the commotion still playing out above to cover their attack.

A pause in the sandiota’s movements made Siray turn all of her attention back to it, right before it made the decision to ignore her completely and go for Baindan.

With the barest hint of a rasp, a scream of fury and panic erupted from Siray’s large throat, and she put her head down and charged.

Baindan, who took her scream for the warning it was, whirled away from the oreto and, spying the sandiota stalking towards him, launched himself at it instead, teeth bared as he ducked its snapping limbs, his nimble form better equipped to deal with the creature than Siray. Which left the oreto to her.

So Siray threw everything she had into her charge, some inherent instinct in her form recognising the predator sizing her up and urging her to increase her speed even as she adjusted her angle of attack. And although her charge brought her larger bulk swiftly down upon the oreto, in the moment before she connected, it turned and lowered its head, and their horns came together in a great crash, locking against one another.

Siray braced her body as the oreto pushed back against her, trying to force her to give ground. This type of fighting was something she had never experienced before, but it didn’t matter—her yeibon instincts were taking over. Yet Siray was careful to let them only rule her to a point, and she maintained enough awareness of herself that she remembered who and what she really was at all times. Enough to pull back from the yeibon mind if she had to.

Her opponent’s strength surged against hers again, but while the oreto had the more powerful neck, she had the dominant body strength. And the fiery anger that was a deep-rooted part of a red yeibon.

Digging her front and back legs into the soil, Siray shoved her own head forwards in an attempt to make the oreto retreat. Being a male, the oreto could apply a lot of strength, but unlike Siray’s yeibon form, that power was nearly all focused at the one point—in the oreto’s muscular neck. And when that neck could take no more of the strain, there was nothing to back it up.

The oreto’s hooves slid, just a little, in the dirt of the pit, Siray feeling more than seeing the slight shift in the wavering light.

She pushed harder against the male’s horns, every muscle straining as she bore down with all her strength. Then she ducked her head lower still, trying to work her horns around the other’s and gouge at his face and neck. Yet when the creature twisted its neck to the side with one shockingly powerful move, Siray rapidly learned that oretos’ necks were thick and strong for a reason.

With their horns locked together as the oreto continued to turn its own head bit by bit, Siray could not break away, and she found her own head and neck rotating due to the superior strength of the other. As she felt her own neck begin to shift into an unnatural angle, her feet slowly slipping out from under her, Siray had no choice but to let her body roll with the force, or risk her neck being snapped. But even as her shoulder crashed into the hard ground, the flesh bruising, Siray saw her chance. The oreto had disengaged its horns from hers, having successfully thrown her to the ground, and was rearing up in an expression of victory.

A mistake.

Rolling back onto her legs and lunging forwards, her legs just barely underneath her, Siray more fell than leapt towards the exposed underside of the oreto’s chest and belly, but the weight of her heavier body was enough.

Enough to carry her close enough to her foe so that, as she fell forwards, she was able to slash her head to the right, her sharp horns slicing through the air and tearing into the soft skin of the oreto’s underside.

The predator let loose a terrible cry, one that started out in anger but ended on a high note of pain, and its hooves crashed down on Siray’s shoulders, just missing her head as its legs became weak with pain. As the oreto pushed against her with its legs, forcing her back, her horns came free of its stomach, and warm blood flowed over Siray’s head, coating her horns and face. Siray ignored the burning in her torn shoulder and the blows from where the oreto’s hooves had landed, and she backed up herself—the oreto was mortally injured, evident by the amount of blood she could see and smell, and there was another enemy to deal with.

Quickly twisting her head, she spied Baindan and the sandiota battling it out at the other end of the pit. Baindan was snarling and baring his teeth at the sandiota, his jaws snapping as he ducked