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

as he’s got a protector, Kathan can give the word and the protector will kill him. He’s being a stupid teenager.”

I turned my head and gave Colt an exaggerated once-over. “You should see the view from eighty, kid.”

“I’m older than I look,” he said.

“Yeah?” I laughed. “By how much?”

Colt was quiet for a second. Then he hit below the belt, just like Shannon always did.

“Tough was her favorite,” he said. “You know he was.”

That was before I installed the electronic security system. The key snapped off in the lock.

“Look, vamp, I get that you hated Dad and all us kids, too, but if you loved Mom—if you ever even liked her—”

I spun around and slapped him. With the key ring still in my hand, I smacked Colt across the face so hard that the broken head of the key cut his cheek.

Colt hadn’t reacted. The way he had stared made me feel as if he was measuring me somehow. After a few seconds, he left. But he came back the next day, then the next, and the next. He was persistent. Exhausting. Too damn smart for his own good. He knew he’d picked the right vampire to chip away at.

I finished rinsing off the sidewalk, then re-kinked the hose and flicked my cigarette butt into the gutter.

Tough was right. His plan was stupid and it could only end one way.

The last two Whitneys—one destroyed beyond all recognition and the other one rotting in Hell. Kathan would probably throw Mikal a parade.

Tough

 

For some reason, I’d had it in my head that Mikal would have trouble fitting through our front door. I guess I pictured her wings as bigger than they were. But she stepped into the living room, no problem, with Colt following her like a good dog. When she saw me chained up, kneeling on the floor, she grinned and reached down to push my lip up. I snapped at her, but she jerked her fingers back before I ripped one off.

“A vampire?” she said. “People really don’t give you enough credit, Tough.”

If you like this, you’re going to love my next trick, I thought.

I looked over at Colt. Today he had on that dog collar, his tore up Lucky shirt, and an old pair of jeans. Dressed for the most part like he used to, but even when he looked me in the eyes, there wasn’t any sort of sign he recognized me.

Mikal caught me staring at him.

“I promised Colt if he was a good dog today, I would throw him a bone later,” she said. “He’s been begging me, but we’ve been so busy working on obedience training that we haven’t had any time to play.”

I snapped at her again, growling so she wouldn’t hear me bend the padlock shackle in the opposite direction. Every time I bent it, it gave a little bit easier.

Mikal laughed and did the room-jump thing. With the vamp senses, I could tell that she didn’t really disappear and appear somewhere else, she just moved too fast for humans to see. She stopped by the TV stand and up-ended it. Jax sucked in a breath when the TV and his games went flying. Mikal snapped off one of the TV stand’s legs.

“Colt,” Mikal said in a voice like a dog trainer. She threw him the TV stand leg. He caught it one-handed, with the jagged end down like a professional vamp hunter’s stake. Mikal pointed at me. “Kill.”

Time slowed down as the vamp speed kicked in. I jerked the padlock shackle. It broke. The chains rolled off.

The Tracker looked like he was pulling his revolver in super-slow motion. I hoped to hell Jax’s magic trick worked.

Colt cocked the stake back and jumped, throwing his weight behind it so it would crack my breastbone. To me, it looked like he was moving in regular slow motion. I snatched the log chain up off the floor and whipped the end at Colt’s hand. The stake went flying and the chain snapped two of his finger bones.

The breaks didn’t even slow Colt down. He made a fist and tried to knock my teeth out.

I swung the chain again. This time it slapped around his wrist. I yanked him off balance.

Colt still didn’t go down.

I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him onto his back so hard the house shook.

His eyes rolled back, but he didn’t black out.

I ripped through my shirt and dug into my stomach with my fingernails. Laid across his nose and mouth. Colt started choking. He had to breathe and every breath sucked down vamp venom. It was probably a lot like being water-boarded with pepper spray. He tried to fight me, but I clamped one of his arms between my knees and jerked the chain tight around the other.

There was a big, pulsing vein in his bicep. I tore it wide open with my teeth and started drinking as much as I could get down.

Mikal screamed—a sound like massive amp feedback—and I braced myself for the stake.

But there was this crackle.

Then Harper screamed, “Jax!”

I looked up just in time to see Mikal slam Jax into the wall, her fingers wrapped around his neck.

“Little boy,” Mikal growled. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with magic?”

Jax’s sneakers banged and scraped against the wall. He was trying to push himself up. His face turned purple, mouth moving like he was trying to say something. He grabbed Mikal’s wrist, but couldn’t pry her hand away from his throat.

I pushed up off of Colt and sprinted, ready to tackle Mikal, but she dropped Jax and swung around before I made it that far.

Getting gut-checked by Mikal was like getting plowed down by a semi running eighty. We smashed into the opposite