Free Year of the Tiger by Heather Heffner

weighing down upon me, but then suddenly, it was gone.
    “That’s why you need to be ready.” His voice was low and gruff. “If Khyber or Donovan were to get you like that… Just promise me you’ll be ready.”
    “I promise, Raf.”
    He didn’t comment on the nickname like he normally would have, and simply huffed off down the trail, hands jammed in his pockets. I lay on the cold, dead ground, allowing the air’s chill to prick reason into me once more. I dared hope the fight meant what I thought it did, but then hurriedly brushed the feelings away, wretched with guilt.
    It was too easy to be the other woman.
     

Chapter 11: Midwinter’s Eve
     
    I put off returning to the sleeping chambers for as long as possible, before the cold finally chased me back.
    “Well, well, well, looks like the blind mole rat finally came crawling back,” Natalya greeted me, not bothering to get up from her coveted spot in front of the mirror. The dark-haired Italian beauty had never liked me, even before she’d found out that we were both in line for Prince Donovan’s attention. She was trying on a glittering silver dress, which made her look like a shimmering moonbeam. Or a fish.
    The vampyre Amrit, Donovan’s eldest wife, nodded to me from where she was lounging in the corner, sipping wine and watching the girls undress. Our numbers had dwindled down to twenty. And out of those twenty, half didn’t bother to mask their disappointment at my return.
    “Where have you been? All snug and warm in a prince’s bed?” Jealousy darkened Natalya’s cheeks.
    I stood motionlessly in the doorway for a second. My world swayed, but then my eyes snapped open upon Colleen’s bed. It had been slept in. Slept in, by one of these whisperers who had plotted my death. Stony anger crept up my throat, painful and thick. I thought again of that awful cold that had shut me up in the shower, while my only friend bled out not feet from me. I thought of the darkness Khyber had abandoned me to, and how when I’d opened my eyes, he hadn’t been there. Citlalli hadn’t been there. It had just been me. Alone.
    Maya would never touch my Changeling Soul. As far as I was concerned, the Dark Spirits could take her and everyone else here.
    “Maybe she’s mute now,” Natalya’s silvery-gold-haired friend, Lillian, whispered to her.
    I grabbed her comb and threw it at the mirror. Glass shattered.
    “Do I have your attention now ?” The ugly words shook free from some place deep inside of me, and I couldn’t stop them. I pointed a shard of glass at the group. “Someone murdered Colleen. Someone took something very special of hers, thinking they could get away with it. And why not? The vampyres condone such behavior. Well, let me tell you this: If you’ve bought into their stories, then you deserve to be dead like them, too. Now, turn out your drawers .”
    Natalya rolled her eyes. “Put the glass down, Raina. We have the Midwinter’s Eve Festival in three hours, and some of us don’t want to look like deranged lunatics.”
    “Starting with you!” I swung the glass shard her way and made a swipe for her precious dress. Natalya raised both hands.
    “Okay. Jesus. Why would I kill Colleen? We’re not in competition for the same prince— OUCH! What the FUCK?!”
    I’d stabbed her finger. “Didn’t you say there were only three hours until the festival? Quit making pathetic excuses and turn out your drawers. NOW!”
    “Lady Amrit!” Natalya whined.
    “Hush, hush. I’ll take care of that for you,” Amrit cooed, raising Natalya’s bloodied finger to her lips and slowly running her tongue down the length of it. “Personally, I think the little do-gooder’s a lot more interesting now. Please continue your raid, Fuhrer Raina.”
    The search didn’t turn up anything, like I’d thought, but I still felt a vindictive satisfaction at watching the girls flinch out of my way. Out of my numb sea of grief rose something reckless and wild, which could