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

The screen door opened and closed twice. Then someone was running. A blanket smothered the flames. I sagged on the stakes. I probably should’ve been trying to get them out, but screw it, I was too tired.

“Okay, okay, don’t panic, guys,” Harper said. “For right now…”

I could hear her mopping up something with the blanket. Then she was rubbing it on my face and arm—everywhere I was burned. It was like morphine. The pain faded into fuzz.

Harper went back to soaking stuff up again, then she shoved the wet corner of the blanket into my mouth.

“Sorry,” she said. “I know it’s Colt’s, but blood is blood.”

I sucked it down like I was trying to drain the blanket.

After a few seconds, I tried to open my eyes. One eyelid stuck. The other ripped. Harper winced and Jax looked like he might barf. I reached for the blood-blanket. Harper handed it to me. Another couple mouthfuls and I pulled the Adam’s apple stake, then the stomach stake. The stake through my dick really freaked me out. I had to psych myself up, count to three, then rip it out.

I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to stand. Vamps can take a lot, right? But I hit the floor on my hands and knees and I’m pretty sure I was lucky to stay like that. Especially when the healing started.

It felt like maggots were chewing the damaged skin off of my body. I tried to scratch and just ended up tearing off as much of my skin as I could get ahold of. The skin I couldn’t reach peeled away and turned into dust, but it all happened too slow to stand. Splinters and bits of the old plaster and laths and nails from the wall pushed to the surface and dropped onto the floor. I’d never missed being able to scream so bad.

Seemed like it took forever before everything on me stopped moving. When it was finally done, I stood up and shook myself off. I felt like I needed to so that my body would know I was back in charge.

This time I rubbed my eyes before I opened them. That whole stuck-together thing had freaked me out and I needed to make sure I wasn’t extra crispy anymore.

“Jesus, Tough,” Harper said. She looked like she was trying not to cry. “I don’t even know what to say. Is this why? So you could—” She pointed at Colt’s body.

I nodded.

“It’s not a fair trade,” Harper said. She choked and started sobbing. “Not even close, you idiot.”

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to calm Harper down and Jax wasn’t doing anything but staring at me like I killed his best friend. Which I guess I sort of did.

Finally—and it seemed like too damn long to me—Jax snapped out of it. He put his arms around Harper and started whispering how everything was okay.

I didn’t want to deal with the body on the floor yet, didn’t even want to have to think about him, so I looked at the ceiling. Made myself hear past Harper and Jax to Desty. Her breathing had been really shallow before. What if she’d stopped while I was paying attention to everything going on down here?

One pump of her heart, a rush of blood. Then, later, another pump, with too long in between. I needed to make sure she was really okay. I took a step toward the stairs.

Don’t! Tiffani’s yell stopped me. Leave her alone.

Her heart—

It’s a side effect of the bite sedative, Tiffani said. I tried to shut her out. Stop it, Tough, I opened this connection, it’ll close when I tell it to.

I don’t want to hurt her, I said. I just want to see her.

You have to burn Colt’s body so he doesn’t come back as a zombie. He deserves to be able to move on.

That was true at least. I tried not to be a pussy, but turning around took a whole lot more willpower than I thought I had. I swallowed—another reflex, I guess—and looked down.

The vamp venom was drying on Colt’s face, even on his eyelashes. Around his mouth and nose, the bubbles had made little circle patterns. Between Harper’s blanket and Colt’s Lucky shirt, most of the blood from his arm had soaked up off the floor.

You always hear that people look peaceful when they’re dead, but Colt looked like someone had ripped out the vein in his arm and drowned him in poison. And like some bitch had been keeping him as her dog before that. He didn’t look peaceful. He looked exhausted.

I didn’t want to touch him, but I wanted that fucking collar off. The vamp speed kicked on. I went into the kitchen, came back with a knife, and started cutting.

Shit. The knife was dull. Why the hell didn’t we have any of those serrated blades? Did they really cost that much?

“You could just undo the—”

I knocked Jax’s hands out of the way and kept sawing.

“Tough,” Harper said, but she knew better than to touch me.

I tore through the last eighth-inch of the band and threw the collar across the room. Where it had been rubbing against his neck, Colt’s skin was darker, hard, and cracking. I wondered whether I could scrape that off somehow, if that would even matter.

No, it wouldn’t, because the next step was shoving a stake through his heart and setting him on fire so he didn’t come back rotting and soulless and a zombie like the Tracker.

One of the TV stand legs was on the floor next to Colt’s shoulder. Splintered, vamp venom on the bottom, burnt near the middle.

Pick it up,