Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) by Heather Heffner Read Free Book Online

Rafael kept it from me?
    “I’ll think about it.” The tremor in my voice gave me away.
    The vampyre thrust a sealed envelope at me. A white tiger stamp circled the seal. “This is your last invitation. After this, there will be no others. You must present this to your vampyres retainers in Eve, and they will bring you safely to the Court. It’s a right of passage, if you will. We await your answer within a fortnight.”
    I accepted the envelope. Suddenly, the vampyre’s hand lashed out to grab my arm. It must have been pretty freakin’ hungry to go after a Were. It gazed at my skin with undisguised longing, seriously considering whether or not to pull me back into the shadows.
    I bared my teeth and looked it dead in the eye. “No.”
    The vampyre stared up at me insolently and slowly, ever so slowly, lowered its long, gray tongue down to lick my arm.
    I grabbed its tongue and jerked it into the circle of dim sunlight. The creature wailed, steam hissing from its motley skin. I held it there for a full minute so it would get the idea.
    “Clean the maggots from your ears so you can hear properly this time,” I told it. “Don’t fuckin’ mess with me.”
    I heard the vampyre rise up like an enraged tidal wave after I turned my back, but Saja bolted forward. I spun around to see the leech cringing and Saja staring it down with canines fully exposed. I shook my head. Una knew what she was doing when she selected this jindo. Ancient protectors of the people, she’d called them?
    “Let’s go, boy.” My eyes hardened as we raced the setting sun back to the subway. “We’re not done hunting yet.”
     

Chapter 7: Deaf and Blind
     
    I woke to the seventh successive day of blindness.
    My world was as dark upon waking as it was when sleeping. If I squinted, I could see shadows sitting on ledges, bending over on chairs, stretched out on beds. Then the pain built up around my temples, and I sank back into inky blackness again.
    Maya had not only blinded me, but she’d deafened me as well. Normal conversation bubbled like the low murmur of a creek; high-pitched laughter was the twittering of birds glittering somewhere above me, echoing in and out, always unseen.
    Mute, I spent long hours by the open window, where I could feel the wind play against my face and sense the rumble of clouds passing by. One day, I felt a number of human hands caress my shoulders, and then heard an excited rush of whispers:
    –Should we do it?–
    The fingers pinched my skin with sudden violence; I could feel one pair of hands shaking. Then they pushed me.
    No! I pressed against the bottomless drop of air as if I could fashion it into a wall, and it turned into a solid barrier of wind. Rain slapped the faces of my attackers, buffeting them back. They were astonished.
    –What’s happening?–
    –Some freak event of Eve–
    –You don’t think it’s the princes, trying to protect her?–
    –Ridiculous! You don’t think, it’s…Raina?–
    My fingers squeezed the wall of wind harder. I knew it would respond to me, even if I didn’t know why. It felt like an old friend. And if I just—concentrated harder—those soft drops of rain could become ice bullets—
    I pushed too hard and my fingers broke through the wind wall. The girls rejoiced.
    –Push her now!–
    “Get away from her!”
    Colleen. Hers was the first voice I’d heard clearly in days. The fourteen-year-old Irish girl with flame-red hair was perhaps my only true friend in this hellhole. Even over, I thought grimly, Marisol, my eldest sister. I couldn’t forget how cruelly Marisol had treated Colleen when she’d found out her husband, Duck Young, had selected Colleen to be his next bride.
    A tempest of words blew through the room, but the next hands I felt were Colleen’s, pink with warmth.
    “Don’t sit near the window, Raina,” I heard her say. “Don’t you know the other brides-to-be want to get rid of the girl Khyber and Donovan are fighting over?”
    I said