Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) Read online

  Year of the Tiger

  By Heather Heffner

  The right of Heather Heffner to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of 1988.

  YEAR OF THE TIGER. Text copyright © 2013 Heather Heffner. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Find out the latest news on the Changeling Sisters series at:

  http://heatherheffner.blogspot.com/

  The Changeling Sisters Series

  Year of the Wolf

  Year of the Tiger

  Year of the Dragon (Forthcoming)

  For my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Perez, who gave me a journal and told me to write.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  Part I: Wolf

  Chapter 1: Ostracized

  Chapter 2: The White Tiger

  Chapter 3: Maya

  Chapter 4: Revelations

  Chapter 5: The Unseen War

  Chapter 6: A Most Surprising Invitation

  Chapter 7: Deaf and Blind

  Chapter 8: Battle Plans

  Chapter 9: Careful, the Floors Are Wet

  Chapter 10: One Winter Afternoon

  Chapter 11: Midwinter’s Eve

  Chapter 12: The Seductress

  Chapter 13: The Last Straw

  Chapter 14: The Birthday Dinner

  Chapter 15: The Draw

  Chapter 16: The Soul of Donovan

  Chapter 17: The Mirror Room

  Chapter 18: Temple Besieged

  Chapter 19: Before I Fall Asleep

  End of Part I

  Part II: Alpha

  Chapter 20: Widows’ Revenge

  Chapter 21: Kiss

  Chapter 22: Too Soon

  Chapter 23: Third Time’s the Charm

  Chapter 24: Penance

  Chapter 25: Of Livers and Love

  Chapter 26: Prisoner

  Chapter 27: Reunited

  Chapter 28: Negotiating on Thin Ice

  Chapter 29: Prince of Sorrow

  Chapter 30: Taeyang

  Chapter 31: The Boiler Room

  Chapter 32: The Triad

  Chapter 33: The Mountain

  Chapter 34: My Best Sister

  CHAPTER 35: THE FIRST SACRIFICE

  Chapter 36: The Were War

  Chapter 37: The Dark Spirits

  Chapter 38: Lunar New Year

  Chapter 39: Battle of Brothers

  Chapter 40: The Four Stages of Life

  Chapter 41: Lady of Eve

  Chapter 42: The Alpha and the Omega

  Chapter 43: A Parting of Ways

  Epilogue: Home

  End of Part II

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Foreword

  My name is Citlalli Alvarez.

  To those of you who know me, I apologize in advance. I probably insulted your mother, or told you it would never last with Mr. Not-So-Picky-About-His-Quickies. I’m the last person to give out romantic advice, since I’m currently interested in an unavailable werewolf and all, but that doesn’t mean the words don’t come out anyway. (Rafael. His name’s Rafael. He’s tan and has tattoos. Need I say more?)

  For those of you who don’t know me, then I’ll bring you up to speed, but you’ve got to catch on quick, because the Alpha of our werewolf pack, Jaehoon, cracks down hard if I’m late to Korean class. Maya, the centuries-old Queen of Vampyres, has been stalking my family for some creepy-ass purpose. She kidnapped my eldest sister back in New Mexico before we ever knew about vampyres, Weres, and Eve, the dangerous spirit world, where all ghosts who can’t move on end up.

  We moved to Seoul, South Korea for Mami’s restaurant business, and Maya struck again. This time she’s taken my younger half-sister and best friend, Raina. She claims Raina will make the perfect bride for one of her handsome, hot-out-of-hell sons, but I know there’s something else going on. Never before has a vampyre returned to hunt the same family twice.

  Lunar New Year has almost arrived, and us werewolves, along with our Were Alliance friends from other nations (yes, werebears, weretigers, and werenagas exist, too) are running out of time to put an end to Maya before she does something irreversibly dreadful to the forty girls she’s kidnapped. Maya believes she is the queen of the spirit world. It’s time to show her who the true Lady of Eve is.

  If you’re not good with names, I’ve included a list here. See you in Eve.

  —Citlalli

  IMPORTANT PEOPLE (in my opinion)

  Alvarez Family:

  Citlalli: Me. Turned into a werewolf against my will. My Were, Wolf, is pretty hard to control, but I don’t broadcast that bit of news around. Don’t want the pack to think I’m in danger of turning into a triad.

  Raina: My younger half-sister. Our family always gave her a hard time for being the child of an affair, and now she’s gone missing. Talk about a guilt trip. But I’ll get her back. She’s a bit shy, but she likes to lend her voice to the story now and again.

  Marisol: My lost eldest sister, now doomed to an eternity as a vampyre bride.

  Miguel: My dickhole older brother. Luckily he doesn’t read much, so I doubt he’ll ever see this.

  Daniella: My perfect older sister, who works as an English teacher at the local elementary school. She completes the Alvarez family, except for—

  Mami: Mom/Boss/Dictator. It’s complicated.

  Good Guys:

  Una: My close friend, who makes sure I don’t get hopelessly lost in Eve. Her family has been responsible for guarding the doors to Eve for centuries.

  Saja: Una’s dog, a Korean breed called a jindo.

  Old Man Zhi: A blind lantern-maker in Eve, whom I’ve greatly wronged.

  No-Name: A ghost girl who wears a red ribbon, and Maya’s former servant who guarded the Pavilion of Far-Reaching Fragrance. Luckily I convinced her to switch sides and go search for her long-lost mother, like she’d always wanted to.

  The Pack:

  Rafael: My werewolf creator and teacher. He’s been through a lot of shit, especially with the eldest vampyre prince, Khyber.

  Yu Li: Rafael’s unfortunate choice of a girlfriend, and the first frenemy I have a grudging respect for—but I’d never tell her that.

  Jaehoon: Our awesome, super-strong Alpha.

  Evil Incarnate:

  Maya: Queen of the Vampyres and current ruler of Eve. She was originally a princess obsessed with discovering the secret of immortality, a lust which transformed her into a soul-eating monster able to shift into any stage of her life: Girl, Lover, Queen, and Vampyre. My wolf pack attempted to assassinate her, but the attempt mysteriously failed. Now Maya wears a black ribbon around her neck to keep her head from falling off and steals the bodies of young girls to wear.

  Khyber: Maya’s eldest son. A long time ago, he sacrificed himself in order for his sisters to escape from Maya. He doesn’t remember that innocent boy anymore. If I thought my taste in men was dangerous, then I don’t have anything on Raina. I’m scared she might like like him, which would be bad, because he’s a deceitful, sociop
athic son-of-a-bitch. To put it lightly.

  Donovan: Maya’s third son. Worse than Khyber. He has every intention of making Raina his bride—most definitely against her will.

  Duck Young: Maya’s youngest son, turned just in the past decade. Marisol’s “husband.” I recently stole his soul, so he’s kinda pissed at me.

  Aaron, Crispin, Santiago, and Aleksandr: The rest of Maya’s lovely brood.

  Fred: A tricky nine-tailed fox. He’s managed to fool me twice before. There won’t be a third time.

  Part I: Wolf

  Chapter 1: Ostracized

  I woke up in the hospital. Again. I hoped this wasn’t becoming a habit.

  My left hand was a lump of bandages. I tried to lift it. There was a strange absence of weight where my pinkie should be, and I immediately set it down, frightened.

  “Don’t try to move it yet,” a quiet voice said from the corner. I almost didn’t recognize it as Mami’s. The whole family was here. My eldest brother Miguel sat hunched over, head in his hands, and my good friend, the spirit gatekeeper, Una, looked trapped. I could count on my remaining fingers the number of people in this room who knew about the spirit world of Eve, our fight to free my youngest sister Raina from becoming a vampyre bride, and our quest to liberate the enslaved ghosts from the self-proclaimed Vampyre Queen, Maya. Odds were everyone else would happily believe I’d lost my finger on an acid trip, not to a charismatic vampyre prince who had a touch like death.

  “Relax your muscles. The pain will kick in—”

  The pain kicked in. I tucked my head in and cried.

  “Nurse,” Mami said sharply. The woman hurried to give me another dose of pain medication.

  The door swung open, and Rafael, my werewolf pack brother, dashed in, adorable brown hair disheveled more than usual.

  “I heard she woke up,” was all he had time to get out, before Miguel jumped up and punched him in the face.

  “You asshole!” he yelled. “You said you’d look after her! Why the hell did I ever trust you with my sister’s safety? Do you know how Una and I felt, not knowing what the hell was going on—?”

  “What was going on?” Her quiet voice crept up our shoulders like sharp nails, reminding us that we were back in the normal world, where things like vampyres and Weres didn’t exist.

  “How did my daughter’s finger get cut off?” Mami reiterated, as calmly as if she were settling a disturbance at the restaurant.

  Everyone looked at me. My older sister Daniella couldn’t stop combing her fingers through my hair.

  Jesus, it was only a finger. I could have lost an arm. A leg. Or, I glanced at Rafael, my entire family.

  Even though now I understood Rafael’s endless pursuit of revenge, it made it that much harder to accept, considering who he was going up against. Eldest vampyre prince Khyber had batted us away as if we were mere puppies, and then held us down and made us smell our own failures. At least we had successfully stolen his brother Duck Young’s soul and delivered it, albeit, a bit battered, to Peomeosa Temple, where the monks could guard it.

  “I don’t remember,” I muttered in response to Mami’s question. “We all drank too much. I blacked out. I remember waking up in Una’s house, seeing blood everywhere, and that’s it.”

  Mami’s eyebrows rose so high, they disappeared into her hairline. “What do you remember?” she demanded of Una.

  “Yes. Alcohol. Lots,” said Una, who doesn’t even drink. “Sorry. My English—so poor.”

  “We went out in Seoul somewhere,” Rafael said confidently. “Erm, we got separated. Anything could have happened.”

  “So you’re the infamous Rafael Dominguez my daughter always talks about.” Mami and Miguel look about as forgiving as coondogs who had cornered a squirrel in the backyard. I knew right then that Miguel could never find out that it was Rafael who’d turned me.

  “I know foreigner friends can be scarce, Citlalli, but that doesn’t mean you should settle for washed-up adrenaline junkies.”

  “I’ll go.” Rafael raised his hands and backed out of the room. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Alvarez.”

  Una rose to follow, and Mami’s arm lashed out to stop her. “Sit down, child. I’m taking you home. Your parents and I need to have a talk. When I agreed to let my daughter go over to your house, I didn’t know it would be under a complete lack of parental supervision.”

  “Parental supervision? Mami, I’ll be eighteen in a month!” I complained. December was right around the corner.

  Mami shot me a look that could wither daisies, and I realized I was acting highly unnatural for someone who’d just lost a finger and couldn’t remember how.

  “My parents aren’t here now,” Una muttered to her feet. Una was a do-gooder. She didn’t like to be in trouble with someone who scared the shit out of her.

  “That was perfect English,” Mami countered, and Una shrank back further. “Now, hand me your phone. I need to speak with your parents.”

  She had her cornered. I tried to alert Una, but I couldn’t even lift a hand to wave a warning.

  “My parents—dead. I live by myself. Okay?”

  Mami measured Una for a moment. “Okay. You’re coming home with us.”

  “What?” There was a collective gasp.

  “No young girl is going to live by herself. Not when so many horrible things are happening.” Mami nodded briskly to herself. “You’ll share a room with Citlalli.”

  Taking Raina’s place. A lump rose in my throat. I couldn’t count the number of ways that bothered me.

  “I have a dog,” Una said in a ghost of a voice.

  Mami sighed. “Of course you do. We’ll go fetch him. Citlalli, dear, the surgery went well, so you can be discharged in the morning. It’s amazing you drank enough to black out,” she added scathingly, “considering the doctors didn’t find any trace of alcohol in your blood. Now, I’m quite content to believe my daughter is that much of a light weight, but what really bothers me is that the doctors can’t make heads or tails of what might have happened to your finger. It’s like it just fell off. No messy edges or anything. Frostbite in November.”

  Finally they all left, leaving me alone in a dark room with blue shadows draping me through the window blinds. I pulled the bandaged hand closer to my heart, as if I could save the rest of myself from that strange absence eating up Citlalli, one piece at a time.

  Wolf’s cold nose nudged closer.

  Chapter 2: The White Tiger

  I stood on the palace balcony and longed to be at home with Citlalli and my sisters. I longed to be anywhere other than this twisted vampyre court in Eve, to which Queen Maya had brought me and thirty-nine other kidnapped girls. We’d been pitted against one another in a cruel competition to win the hand of one of her seven sons. If we weren’t one of the lucky seven selected to be their latest vampyre brides—the keepers of their secrets, their supply of “sustenance”—then we would never see the sunshine again.

  As I wished on stars that may no longer be, a black-winged angel crossed the face of the moon, fast descending upon the earth.

  Khyber knocked me over on the landing, rough black feathers scratching my face. I shielded my head until it was over. When I dared look up, I saw that the heavenly comet had cooled. The vampyre prince shot me a look that could shatter ice and then strode off toward the temple.

  My mind still trembled from the price agreed upon in exchange for Khyber’s betrothal gift at the ghost market. How had the Madame of Memories known about my affinity for water? Whatever she’d “taken” from me had left me more aware than ever of the moods of the weather. Now my arm hairs flicked to the direction of the changing winds. My ears were oddly attuned to the eerie stillness hanging overhead, and the strong smell of ozone burned my nostrils. There was going to be a storm tonight. But I wouldn’t tell Khyber.

  Keep your enemies in the dark.

  “What’s wrong?” I called out to Khyber. “Did Citlalli do something to upset you?” I caught my breath as his shoulde
rs stiffened. Dare I push it? “I know you never had her captive.”

  “Figured that one out, did you?” he said softly.

  “Always keep your enemies in the dark.”

  “Glad to know that you still consider me an enemy. And yes, in fact, she did do something. Something that fucks everything up.” His eyes were glittering granite framed by longish black hair. “I’d hoped she’d died in the Gyeongbok Gung fire. But wolves are notoriously difficult to kill. Almost as difficult as us.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He looked surprised. “You don’t know what your sister is?”

  “A wolf? No. She can’t be.”

  “I agree. Another vampyre bite would be much more reassuring.”

  “But what does it mean?” I suddenly thought of those horrible Dark Dogs.

  “It means she is our mortal enemy, to be killed on sight.” Khyber paused. “Or put in a kennel. We already have two of the irresistible Alvarez sisters. What’s one more?”

  “Why are we so irresistible to you?” I whispered, watching his ruby lips come closer. The other six vampyre princes were so easy to see through. Khyber’s intentions were more twisted, never fully brought to light.

  “There is a beautiful strength that sings in your souls. It is both blinding and mesmerizing. There was a heavy price to pay to become a vampyre.” He shuffled uncomfortably, and I caught a glimpse of the teenage boy locked out of the reach of time. Then the boy disappeared, and he became older, more terrifying and beautiful again. “I made a promise to your irritating half-sister. If she did not do as I wished, then I promised…I would hurt you…and still, she refused to cooperate. You can’t blame all of the decision on having a dumb dog’s mind. And now…that leaves me…with a promise to fulfill.”

  I backed up a few steps. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

  He smiled. “Come here.”

  I didn’t want to go. I was suddenly very afraid. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. Out of all of the vampyre princes, Khyber was the only one I could trust not to violate me in an unforgiveable way. Rough me up, maybe. Threaten me. But never, never— No, he wouldn’t go there. He couldn’t. I pleaded with the skies to save me, and the first few beads of rain began to fall.