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

“Probably could’ve been handled better,” Ryder said, leaning against the side of the van.

I shrugged.

“I’m rusty,” I said. “You coming?”

“You’re on your own, Sunshine,” he said. “I can’t go in there.”

“Pussy. I knew you weren’t really Ryder.”

“Bullshit you did.”

I could still hear him laughing as I jogged up the back steps and into the mansion.

Down the hall of the east wing, past the kitchen and dining rooms. The place was deserted. I didn’t see another soul until I made it to the front hall where the mansion’s wings connected.

People and NPs were coming in from the guest wing on the west side and the big south entrance doors. Everyone was dressed up like they were going to some high-class soiree, even the foot soldiers.

Mikal was in the middle of it all, talking and directing traffic into the parlor. She looked deadly in that red evening dress, cut away to show her stomach and the small of her back. I knew I was supposed to be there to save Tough—Grace was distracting Kathan and her sister and we didn’t have much time before the first explosion—but Mikal, my Mikal, was so beautiful and so intense. Something else took over when I saw her.

Rian came out of Kathan’s residence wing. He spotted me and started to reach for his pistol, so I shot him twice, center mass, to slow him down. Blood sprayed. People screamed and Rian cussed and grabbed his chest.

“Stand down, Rian,” Mikal ordered. She smiled at me as if I’d just handed her a dozen roses. “Colter?”

Ants prickled in my veins and electricity buzzed through my teeth. My gun arm went slack. The screaming in my head stopped, waiting for her to say more. She took a step closer and I felt the change in distance all over my skin.

“I knew there was a reason you were my favorite,” she said.

People were talking or maybe yelling. Saying things about a psycho gunman and getting out without getting shot.

All I could do was pay attention to Mikal. Let the sight and sound of her heal the emptiness I’d felt since I lost her. She walked up to me, legs flashing through the high-cut slits on either side of her dress. She stopped less than an arm’s length away. I could’ve touched her. She had to know I was dying to, but she didn’t give me permission—punishment for all those times I’d fought her when all she wanted was a kiss.

“Take me back.” My voice sounded like it used to back when I was alone. Hoarse, as if I hadn’t said anything in a couple of weeks.

The first explosion rattled the mansion on its foundations. People were definitely screaming now. Pieces of the barracks fell on the roof like hail.

“Rian—take a unit, evacuate the civilians,” Mikal ordered. “Everyone else is on fire containment.”

The foot soldiers ran toward the back of the mansion. Rian started yelling and hustling people out the south doors. Mikal turned back to me.

“Sometimes I forget how young you are, Colt,” she said. “A diversion? Maybe from Ryder. I expected better from you.”

She was right. I could’ve done better than this pathetic, thrown-together excuse for an attack. I would’ve done better if it had been for her.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I forgive you,” she said. “But if you want to come back, you’re going to have to beg like a good dog.”

“Please, Mikal.”

“Give me your gun.”

I took it by the barrel and handed it to her.

She checked the chamber for a round. “Get on your knees.”

I did.

“You love me,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You want me to hurt you again.”

“Yes.” Anything to have her back.

I felt her hand on my hair and it was all I could do not to push into her touch. She ran her fingers across my scalp, down the back of my neck, then up around my jaw to cup my cheek.

The black noise filled my brain, but this time I didn’t try to fight it. The glowing, red web stretched out around Mikal, a network of lines that only I was crazy enough to see. Spheres hung from the lines like drops of blood.

Broken minds can see the lines.

The second explosion. This time the hail was barn. Car alarms were going crazy. Like I was somewhere outside my body, I heard myself laughing.

Mikal smiled.

“You are exactly as insane as everyone always thought, Colter. A rabid dog they all wanted put down—everyone but me.” She bent down close to my face and licked her bottom lip with her forked tongue. “You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

I nodded, praying she’d let me. Tried to swallow, but she jammed the .45 up under my jaw.

“Look me in the eyes,” Mikal said.

They were high-voltage black, too hot for fire, and even more beautiful than I remembered.

“Good dog,” she said. She pressed her lips to mine.

The barrel shifted downward and dug into my throat as Mikal squeezed the trigger.

I lunged forward, wrapped my arm around her neck. My forehead banged against hers. I felt her nose snap. She was too stunned to stop me.

The red lines twisted and followed Mikal’s body as I threw her off-balance. The bloody sphere by her hip—that was where she kept the Sword of Judgment, I remembered. I reached inside. The flames licked up my hand and wrist. It should’ve been too painful, but fire was one of the first things Mikal’s constant torture had desensitized me to. I felt around inside the sphere.

My fingertips grazed metal.

I wrapped my fingers around the blade and jerked the Sword of Judgment out of Hell.

It was awkward, off-balance, and still burning, but I shoved it up through Mikal’s ribcage until my fist was flush with her