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

He didn’t handle it all as well as Sissy did. She was always really nice to me. Even her thoughts were really kind. I couldn’t believe it when I heard she tried to send Kathan back to Hell. She seemed too sweet to—”

I tried to think the loudest heavy metal, train-wreck, porn-explosion I possibly could so I didn’t have to listen to this NP bitch talk about someone she barely knew.

The Matchmaker winced.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s stick to business. Age?”

Twenty-one.

“Employer?”

I tugged my hat back on and sucked my teeth. I’d had a band and a house gig at Rowdy’s until Jason screwed me over. I wasn’t good for much else besides music.

“Protectors aren’t looking for a charity case, Tough. With your background and no job, the best you can hope for is a siren.”

That put it in perspective real fast. Sure, the sex would be good for a while, but getting your soul sucked out in pieces…damn.

“That’s the spirit,” the Matchmaker said. “So, obviously you’re going to want a protector who can read thoughts. Other than that, what did you have in mind?”

Can we skip the part where we pretend I get a choice?

“All right, if you’re so smart,” the Matchmaker said, “Tell me who I’m supposed to pair you with.”

Somebody humiliating, probably. Not that it gets much more humiliating than being under the protection of the same Jason Gudehaus who couldn’t grasp the concept of a simple button hook play.

That got her laughing. She must’ve gone to a few football games back in the day.

“The mayor isn’t punishing you, Tough,” she said. “You know that the Armistice Celebration is next weekend. With it being the tenth anniversary, a lot of the world will be looking this way. Kathan just wants to make sure Halo maintains a collective happy face—remaining Whitneys included.”

Shouldn’t have any problem there with Mikal pulling Colt’s strings. She would paste a big ol’ smile on his face. If, for whatever reason, Kathan thought I was actually going to be a problem, he could’ve just had Mikal kill me last night. Tiffani had been the only one in town who knew I was on the way back and she wouldn’t have wasted a whole lot of time crying if I’d never showed up. Seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to keep me from screwing with a celebration I didn’t even care about.

“Look at it this way,” the Matchmaker said. “Kathan’s worked hard to make Halo a place of refuge. With Colt’s constant terrorist attacks—”

Protector. I thought it as loudly and slowly as possible.

The Matchmaker sighed. “What sort of assets can you offer in return for your protection?”

There was something I could stand to think about. I’d been living in town with Harper and Jax since I was sixteen, so I didn’t have any hunting land or cattle to offer a werething. Faeries kind of freaked me out, banging a siren was a definite no, and I wasn’t smart enough to be an info dump for the Witches’ Council like Jax.

My friend Harper has a vamp protector. That seems like a decent setup. She let Logan leech off of her a couple times a week and spent the rest of her time drinking orange juice and lifeguarding out at the lake. I could handle that. Based on experience, I could lose a lot of blood before it slowed me down.

The Matchmaker wrote something else on her post-it and underlined it, but when I tried to read it, she folded her hands so that they blocked my view.

“You’re not interested in using your…skills…from your last placement?” she asked.

I shrugged. I liked sex as much as the next guy—assuming the next guy had also spent the last month with nothing but his right hand for company—it just got a little weird banging a woman who only breathed when she thought about breathing.

The Matchmaker nodded.

“Find a job,” she said. “When you’ve got one, bring in your employer info. That’ll really open up your list of potential protectors.”

I stood up to go.

“Tough? You know there’s a fee for my services?”

I nodded. Nothing’s free in Halo.

***

I let the screen door slam shut and dropped onto the couch between Harper and Jax. Partly because it made me uncomfortable when they made out with me right beside them, and partly because—as weak as it sounds—the night before at the Dark Mansion was still crawling around in my brain and I wanted them to talk until they drowned out that image of Mikal petting Colt like her favorite fucking dog.

Jax paused his bootlegged game, set it up for two-player, and threw me a controller. Zombie-killing.

“Still free-range?” Jax asked.

“It doesn’t work that fast,” Harper said. She looked at me. “Right, Tough? It takes a little time with the Matchmaker?”

I nodded.

“But she is going to find you a protector?” Harper asked.

Jax made a fart sound. For a guy who was supposed to be a genius, he wasn’t real eloquent.

“What’s your problem?” Harper snapped.

“Having the Matchmaker put Tough’s name out there is like hanging an Eat-Me sign on him and Kathan knows it,” Jax said. “It’s a miracle a bunch of NPs didn’t chase him home. If I was one, I’d hang around outside the Matchmaker’s office and just snap ‘em up as they came out.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not an NP, and Tough’s going to be fine,” Harper said. She rubbed my shoulder and I missed a zombie.

“Nice shot,” Jax said.

I flipped him the bird, reloaded, and got the zombie with the second round.

Harper was one of those straight-up country girls with the Ford shirts and sexy tore-up jeans, so it wasn’t any wonder that she always made me a little crazy, but country boy never was Harper’s type. Gamers with photographic