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

When it was just a step away, it’s head lowered to ram her, Siray abruptly sat backwards onto her haunches, and then dropped to her back, flattening her entire spine to the ground even as her momentum caused her body to continue sliding along on the sand.

To pass beneath the rilander.

As the massive beast’s middle sped over her, its six legs crashing down to either side, Siray raised her two front paws and unsheathed her claws, extending her forelegs up so that her talons speared into the softer flesh at the underside of the rilander’s throat—it’s only vulnerable point.

Blood splattered Siray’s fur; both her momentum and the rilander’s meant that her claws were dragged down through its flesh, one set managing to rip through a major artery there. She didn’t disengage her claws but let them continue to rake down the underside of the rilander as its length passed over her, the ground trembling beneath her back.

When bright sunlight hit her body again, Siray rolled onto her front and was up in an instant, wearily watching the rilander slow, then turn, blood marking its sprint across the sand.

Then it began to charge for her again; its speed building once more.

Siray puzzled over this for an instant—she had been sure she had dealt a significant blow.

But then her sevonix instincts made her refocus on what really mattered—continued survival. So she watched the rilander charge towards her again, trailing dark spots against the sand, and knew that she could not risk the same tactic twice.

So she didn’t.

This time, when the rilander drew close, its nose lowered even farther this time, Siray leapt up and over its head, landing on its broad back. She didn’t stay there, didn’t try to make a futile attack on the hard skin of its shoulders, but leapt off straightaway, landing at a run on the sand. She continued moving, increasing her speed, even as her shoulder burned a little from where the knife had sliced into her earlier.

She didn’t wait to face off against the rilander again but made a tight circle and sprinted straight for the remaining soldiers.

She could see that this strategy took them by surprise—but while their strength was in numbers, it was also an advantage she could exploit. As she sped towards her nearest enemy, she snarled terribly, letting her lips pull up, her nose wrinkle in a constant rise and fall, and her ears go flat, while her jaws opened wide to show every aspect of her glistening fangs.

She had their complete and utter attention now.

Which meant that none of them saw the attack Baindan and Zale launched at them from the side.

With weapons Zale had taken from the bodies of those Siray had already slain, the pair hacked into the soldiers and animals closest to them, downing two before the others even realised the existence of another threat.

And for just that one instant, all eyes shifted away from her.

So none of the remaining ten soldiers saw Siray launch herself silently through the air … and into their midst.

Confusion and terror reigned as she landed on one soldier, ripping at his face and throat before she let him fall dead to the ground. Then she was face-to-face with a cripwof, its snapping jaws missing her throat by a hair as she spun out of its reach before lunging back in again.

She knew how to handle the cripwof, both from watching Baindan fight in the form and from her instincts as a sevonix. While the cripwof fought with its fangs alone, Siray fought with both teeth and claws, giving her a distinct advantage in the struggle. And she had good need of it when the other cripwofs joined the fight.

Now, she was truly fighting for her life.

Three of them beset her, and from a distance, it must have looked like a blur of fur, teeth, and bodies as they battled, three against one.

Siray felt their sharp teeth ripping into her flesh and heard their snarls as they tackled and rammed her with their bodies, trying their best to knock her off her feet so that they might expose the underside of her throat and tear away at the life that surged there.

But she had another advantage over them. While they had to be cautious of each other, she had to be careful of no one, and so she tore and slashed at anything that moved around her. She used her speed and agility to avoid their teeth whenever possible and attacked with a vengeance whenever she saw an opening.

Long moments after Baindan and Zale had caused the original distraction, two cripwofs and four soldiers lay still or twitching in the red-splattered sand, while the third cripwof had escaped to stand by the second rilander and the black yeibon.

‘Siray!’

She heard Baindan’s voice as if from a great distance and then saw him and Zale running to her as she wavered on her feet. Her muscles, strong as they were, wouldn’t let her fall.

But neither did Siray feel like she could move any further. She could smell the blood that coated her—now mostly her own, a result of the numerous wounds she had received during the terrible fight with the cripwofs. One of her front legs would not hold her weight after one of the furry creatures, a particularly vicious female, had decided to target that leg when Siray went for the female’s companion, the cripwof’s teeth clamping down on Siray’s leg and tearing muscle from bone.

Siray turned her head to the side, knowing where her remaining enemies were but not able to account for the whereabouts of the first rilander that had attacked her.

Then her eyes spied a large mound a short distance away, and she noted the semidry pool of blood almost hidden by the muscled bulk.

So, she had dealt a killing blow after all—it had just taken time for the rilander to bleed out, large as it was.

‘Oh, Great Mother …’ Zale breathed out the