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

I’m not screwing around on her again, he said.

“Tell that to your body the next time the DTs hit.”

Tough went still. Obviously, he hadn’t considered there being a next time.

“The way you die is the way you stay,” I said. “Whatever diseases or injuries you die with—you’re stuck with them. I told you that.”

Tough stared down at the steering wheel.

Scout said it was Desty’s blood that did it.

“If you’re hell-bent on telling her, I don’t think I’d open with that.”

He glared at me.

“Blood’s blood,” I said. I took another drag on the cigarette and waited while the smoke cooled in my lungs. “No human’s blood is different than any other human’s. Otherwise, vamp protectors would eat out a lot more often.”

Tough shook his head.

Scout’s was like the blood bags, like a shot of whiskey. Desty’s was like bad meth.

“Can’t be. I drank some of hers the other day.”

That got a rise.

“Keep your pants on, it was in a blood bag,” I said. “She sold me some Sunday.”

Why?

“Why do people sell anything they need? They’re out of money and desperate.”

He looked down at the steering wheel for a while. A few chauvinistic thoughts flitted through his head. Things like he’d never let her get that desperate again. Well-intentioned, but offensive, the way men around here are still conditioned to think. Women who could take care of themselves made guys like Tough uncomfortable and had to be queer. And because I used to bodyguard for Shannon and her band, I must’ve been one hell of a bull-dyke.

Tough rolled his eyes.

Yeah, body guarding is why people think you’re a bull-dyke, he said.

“This is the reason men don’t last as vamps,” I said. “Everything’s so black and white. There’s no—”

Thanks, but I didn’t sign up for the feminist rally.

Smoke clouded out when I laughed. Both Colt and Shannon used to give me the business about “Tiffani’s feminist rants.” But growing up in the fifties gives a person a whole different perspective on what people call feminism these days.

Tough wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. His mind had wandered back to his girlfriend.

Who’re you supposed to be protecting? he asked.

“You remember Brady Johnson? The guy who drove for the Red Cross?”

Good job with that, Tough said.

“Just because you’re protecting someone from other NPs doesn’t mean you can keep them from getting hit by a moron who’s texting when he should be driving.”

That’s been five years ago at least. Where do you get your blood?

“I don’t cause any trouble for the big, bad boss man, so it doesn’t matter.”

Tough gave me a wry smile. Vamp-groupies looking to get off on death like that fat Goth at the bakery the other day?

I shrugged and put out the cigarette on my palm, savoring the lingering heat before the healing began.

“You remember what you had for dinner two days ago?” I said, flipping the butt out the window.

Cold, cold heart, he said. Colt was right.

I felt the wrinkle appear between my eyebrows. “He said something about me?”

About vamps. He said it gets hard for them to feel after they’ve been dead for a while.

“Guess you’ll have to take his word for it.”

Tough gave me a look.

“No feminist rally this time.” I took another cigarette out, but when he scowled at me, I sighed. Tapped the filter on the dash. Damn kid was too much like Shannon to listen to someone who had already been there. He’d have to try chewing toothpicks and straws himself before he took up smoking to ease the mouth boredom. “No, I’m betting you won’t even make it to your first violent rejection. You got a head start on stirring up trouble. Step out of line just right and Kathan’s going to give Mikal the order to end you. So I’m going to tell you what my sire told me the day she made me.”

Tough’s eyes narrowed. The vamp senses had let him know I was a threat.

“I won’t think twice about staking you,” I said. “Male vamps are strong, but females are made for killing. Stir up trouble for me and you’re Hell-bound dead.” I put the unlit cigarette between my lips. “And if you’re too stupid for that to scare you straight, then remember the super-smeller. There’s nowhere your girlfriend can hide that I can’t find her.”

That set him off.

Put one fucking hand on Desty and—

Mitzi picked a bad time to turn the connection into a three-way.

You’re still here, Romeo? she said. I was going to ask Tiffani if she had to stake you yet.

Tough did the equivalent of slamming the phone down on his connection. Then he shoved open his door and jumped out of the truck. He grabbed his side when he hit the ground, but he didn’t look back.

Somebody’s touchy, Mitzi said, watching him through my eyes.

He just popped his feeding-cherry and he doesn’t know how to tell his girlfriend.

That’s one thing you can say for the guy—he doesn’t screw around, she said. Not even when I went on that two-week trip to Cancun. Horny as all hell when I got back, though.

Hope that kid knew to wear a condom, I said.

You haven’t been with the same snack twice this month, slut, Mitzi said. If anyone’s spreading postmortem STDs—

Shut up a second.

Tough had stopped moving a few paces from the porch. He swayed where he stood, then did a face-plant, head bouncing off of the bottom step. He didn’t get back up.

I could feel Mitzi laughing.

Holy shit, Tiffani, you made a vamp that sleeps at night!

Even I had to laugh at that.

Desty

For a while, I watched Colt talk to