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

could see contained within his grey eyes … she shuddered mentally.

He was a male who would fight for the Resistance out of some misguided belief that he was fighting for the greater good.

She wanted to turn away from that face, handsome at it was, so she didn’t have to see those naive eyes.

But her body was not her own to command in that dream, as instead of turning away, her hand rose involuntarily to touch his face.

And a voice that was both Siraay’s and not said, ‘We can’t give up. Not me, not you.’

Siraay wanted to laugh at the confidence in those words and taunt the one who spoke them. But she didn’t know how to break out of the prison that kept her quiet and restrained, a floating mind watching a dream play out through the eyes of another.

Then everything seemed to blur for an instant, and it was like the world around Siraay faded out, only to be replaced by another.

Now, she was standing on a hill, a massive mountain to her left. She felt something touch the cheek that wasn’t hers and her head turned.

Baindan was smiling at her, his hand trailing down that cheek ever so softly. ‘I promise,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t leave you.’

Siraay wanted to jerk her face away from his hand and strike that stupid smile from his face.

But instead, she felt her body step closer to Baindan.

She began to feel angry. Just how long was she going to have to put up with these pitiful memories? Her anger grew sharper the longer that hand lingered on her face, and when it seemed to reach a peak, the Baindan before her shimmered and disappeared.

To be replaced by an image of herself.

Siraay was shocked enough for a moment that she didn’t realise that she could move until she felt her mouth work as she struggled to say, ‘What is this?’

She was no longer a passenger. She could now control the body she was contained in.

The other Siray was staring at her with dislike, the scars over the female’s eyes crinkling slightly as she glared. ‘You are not real,’ the other said. ‘You are an amplification of all my base traits—but you are not me.’

Siraay smirked. ‘I am you. I’m just the stronger version of you, the one you’ve been suffocating all this time.’ Siraay’s smile flashed like a freshly honed blade as she showed her teeth. ‘But no more. This is my body now. And although you may resist, you’ll eventually tire and fade away.’ Siraay’s grin took on a feral edge as the other version of herself seemed to pale a bit at her words. ‘Only the strongest survive,’ she told her former self. ‘And I am in control.’

The mouth of the other Siray thinned, her brows lowering. ‘Not here, you’re not.’

Before Siraay could argue, her former self waved a hand, and suddenly they were both standing on the edge of an impossibly high cliff.

‘What are you doing?’ Siraay stammered quickly. The other Siray couldn’t be controlling the dream—it shouldn’t be possible.

Then her former self was standing right in front of her. She brought her mouth to Siraay’s ear to breathe two words into it.

‘Killing you.’

Then a violent shove by her former self caught Siraay in her middle, and she found herself stumbling backwards … off the edge of that cliff.

Air was rushing past her before she was even aware of what had happened, the other Siray’s face and the edge of the cliff speeding away from her.

She was falling.

And now the dream no longer seemed like a dream.

Siraay could feel the coldness of the air as it whipped past her, tendrils of her hair escaping from her braid as the wind pulled fiercely at her body, tugging her this way and that.

Siraay felt a sweat break out across her whole body as she realised that she was, in fact, going to die.

Buffeted by the wind, her body was spun in the air so that she was no longer looking back up at the cliff top, but down—at the ground hurtling towards her.

Siraay flailed her arms, trying to do anything to save herself.

But there was nothing to be done.

She slammed into the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

SIRAAY’S EYES FLUTTERED open, her relief at waking up from her nightmare quickly replaced by concern. What had awoken her? Was someone in her room?

She scanned the space quickly, her ears straining to listen as she kept her body still and relaxed, her breathing even as if she had not yet woken.

Then it came to her. The first orange rays of a new dawn were creeping into the room, dispelling the dark shadows, and although she was a brand-new person, this body was not.

It was used to being dragged from a cell, or bunk, at first light. It knew that a rigorous training routine usually followed waking, and that food came soon after.

Of course she was awake. Her body was programmed to rise and perform at this time, although the coolness of the morning made her loath to leave her bed.

Now, Siraay thought smugly to herself, I will decide what I do when.

Not that she was going to forgo her training this morning—if anything, she needed to ramp it up, knowing as she now did what was coming.

War.

She needed to be ready.

Sitting up, Siraay flicked the blankets away from her body, swinging her legs gracefully around to the floor and standing up as she stretched, naked, working the kinks from her muscles.

Funny—her body was rested, but mentally she felt … sluggish. She wondered at that as she ran her fingers reassuringly over the gem that still rested at her throat, but then she gave the equivalent of a mental shrug. Yesterday had been a long day, the first day of her awakening. Of course she was going to feel a little drained.

A strenuous morning of training would fix it.

Siraay walked across to touch the panel that made the hidden door to her closet spring open. Surely there would have