Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1) eden Hudson (best book club books txt) 📖

“Everybody thinks that’s bull, what happened with Jason,” she said. “You didn’t get in too much trouble, did you?” Her eyes dropped to the chain-link burns on the outsides of my forearms and she shook her head. “Mm. Don’t go running off again, Tough. A dick like Jason Gudehaus isn’t worth it.”

I gave her a smile for an answer because she was right. Jason wasn’t worth it, but kicking his ass until he gave me my voice back would’ve been.

“At least you’re back in time for the Armistice Celebration,” Addison said. “It’s really going to be a doozy this year.”

Yeah, hooray, I got back just in time to celebrate the day Kathan cut Dad’s head off, I thought.

Addison looked at her computer screen.

“Hey, you’ve got an appointment! I should’ve known.” She fake-smacked her forehead. “You can sit down if you want. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

I nodded and sat in one of the armchairs by the window.

Across the street, a tour group was taking pictures of each other in front of the Halo Old Town Square Armistice marker. One doofus unfolded this giant piece of paper and started doing a rubbing of the plaque.

This is to commemorate the laying down of arms and the first peaceful agreement between the races of People and Non-People in the United States of America. Fallen angels, primals, werecreatures, undead, demons, fae folk and humans alike… All are welcome in Halo.

~Plaque commissioned by Mayor Kathan Dark

The blisters on my stomach and back and arms started freaking out again, almost as hot as they’d been the night before when Kathan grabbed the chains and hauled me up eye-to-eye with him.

He’d said, “Your protectors screwed you over, so I’ll go easy on you this time, but this is your last warning. Try to leave Halo a third time and I’ll let Mikal have you. I’m getting damned tired of you Whitneys, but she’s not.”

Then he had waited, because he knew I was going to look over at Colt—at what used to be Colt—kneeling at Mikal’s feet and letting her pet him like some kind of fucking dog.

“Tough?” The Matchmaker’s voice made me jump. She held the door to her office open for me. “The mayor told me you would stop by today. Come on in.”

Addison smiled at me as I passed and I started to get one of those everyone’s-out-to-get-me feelings. I shut it down before it got out of hand. Living in Halo could really mess with your head. Especially when you let yourself think that the girl you stood up at prom a few years back would’ve been the one to call you in if you’d pulled a no-show at the meeting Kathan ordered you to go to.

“Have a seat,” the Matchmaker said, pointing to a chair in front of her desk.

This kind of felt like a job interview, so I took off my hat. She sat down and put on a pair of those thick-framed glasses some chicks wear to look smart.

“It’s not an interview and they’re prescription,” she said, without even looking at me. “I read minds, so try not to think anything overtly inappropriate or offensive while we’re together.”

Got it, I thought. Don’t think about how your jugs are about to pop out of that corporate casual shirt or how it looks like you picked that big, ugly necklace to hold them down.

“Real cute,” she said. “If I tell Kathan that I don’t think you’re making a serious effort to settle down in Halo for the long haul, you’re dead. You realize that, right?”

I just looked at her like she was stupid. There was a lot worse out there than dying.

“I know he was your big brother, Tough, but Colt murdered five people,” the Matchmaker said. “Humans. Not NPs. For the safety of everyone in Halo, Kathan had no choice but to—”

Can we cut the crap? I thought, rolling the bill of my hat in my hands. I’m here. I’m following the stupid rules. Can we just do this?

“Fine.” The Matchmaker took out a pen and a pad of blue post-its. “Let’s talk about your last placement. Were you satisfied under the Gudehaus’s protection?”

Technically.

The Matchmaker scribbled something on her post-it. She must be really far out of the loop if she didn’t get that joke.

“How did the three of you reach your protection agreement?”

I snorted. You don’t get out much, do you?

“I stay pretty busy,” she said.

Well, Jason thought he was really hot shit because he could do enough magic to be considered a mage, I thought. He married Mitzi because he wanted a trophy wife who wouldn’t get old. The dumbass never thought what it’d be like to have sex with a vampire.

“I don’t think I—”

He’s temperature sensitive. Can’t stand the cold, keep your dick out of the icebox, right?

The Matchmaker cleared her throat. “So, Jason approached you?”

I wasn’t going door-to-door. And if I had been, it wasn’t like the only reject from the family of holy-soldier badasses would be super popular in this town, anyway. Jason had just been there the first time I got dragged back to Halo from Nashville. He needed someone who could keep an erection in a woman who was room temperature at best and I needed a protector who couldn’t control me. At the time, Jason seemed like a good way for me to go.

The Matchmaker smiled a little.

“You look a lot like Ryder when you make that face,” she said.

It’s the hair and the nose and the Whitney eyes.

The Matchmaker shook her head.

“More like the attitude,” she said. “He was in my class before the war.”

Too bad for your class. I hoped the memory lane thing would hit a dead end there.

“Ryder wasn’t that bad,” the Matchmaker said, “Just preoccupied.