Dark Minds (Class 5 Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the door, and Cam followed his gaze.
    The Krik pushed a new prisoner into the room.
    She stumbled in a step, and then gasped audibly as she took in the holding area.
    She looked back over her shoulder, but the door was already closing and she slowly turned to face them all.
    She had been struck in the face. Her eye was swollen and there was a lump on her cheek that was turning dark.
    But while he noted that and felt a frisson of shock and anger, it was what she was that riveted him.
    She was short in comparison to the Grih, her hair a strange color between gold and light brown, her eyes as blue as any Grih's but without the dark outer rim. Her hair was pulled back from her face, tied at the nape, exposing delicate, round ears.
    The hold had gone absolutely silent. It had gone quiet when he and his team had been forced in, too, but this was different.
    She was something unknown.
    Her gaze swept the room and stopped at him. They stared at each other for a long beat. He saw shock in her eyes as she looked him over. Shock and relief.
    His focus was so fully on her, he nearly missed the quick, furtive movement to his right. He turned his head to look just as the Vanad launched himself forward, aiming straight for their new arrival.

    * * *
    T hings had taken such an unexpected turn, Imogen felt like Alice down the rabbit hole.
    It was a very merry un-birthday to her.
    The instant sense of recognition of the hold had hit her first. She didn't remember anything else about the vessel she'd been abducted in, but she remembered where she'd been kept. And this was either the same place, or one just like it.
    When she'd been taken, though, she'd been the only person there, with Cleese and a number of other macaws and animals from Earth as her companions, each in a cell with thin, transparent walls. The hold she stood in now didn't have the walls, it was just one big space, but the sense of recognition was profound.
    And this time she was no longer alone.
    The place was full of people, all alien to her except for two Krik lounging against the far wall, reminding her of hard-eyed gangsters protecting their turf.
    They were all silent as they stared at her, and her fear and distress ramped up, until she made eye contact with a huge guy to her right.
    He was taller than her by at least a foot, broad-shouldered and in some kind of uniform. But when she managed to really see him, to focus beyond her fear and anxiety, she felt as if the rabbit hole had taken another sharp turn.
    Because he looked human.
    She took a moment to savor the thought, to feel the rush of relief that she wasn't completely alone, until the details caught up with her.
    He wasn't human.
    But he was so like her it seemed even more amazing.
    His hair was dark brown, tipped with dark blond. It was short and stood straight up on his head, so he looked like a rebel rock star from the 80s. Billy Idol without the snarl.
    But it was the ears that tripped her up.
    They shouldn't, not after the Tecran, with their hawk-like eyes and beaky mouths, and the Krik with their long fangs and peach skin, but they did. Because they were elf ears.
    She was jolted by the reminder that there were wonders to her situation, as well as nightmares. That there had been moments since she'd been taken where she was conscious of beauty or some amazing technology or sight that had held her spellbound.
    It wasn't all bad.
    Until, suddenly, it was.
    Someone huge, bigger than the warrior elf in front of her, hurled himself at her from the left, and for a second she tried to work out how she hadn't seen him before. He was bald and immense, his features coarse and his skin oddly thickened. A sort of rock man, like a rough clay figurine.
    She stumbled back, knowing there was nowhere to go, and bent her knees, ready to use the only trick she had up her sleeve. As he lunged at her, she jumped, angling slightly to his right as she turned a tight somersault. When she'd been held in a place like this before,