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

the blood red light shining through my eyelids. I wished I couldn’t hear the yelling coming through the broken window. Colt’s voice had almost given out, but the crashing and banging hadn’t slowed down yet.

Judging by the way the shadows had moved, it was three hours ago that Tough had shoved me outside. At first I’d been mad that Tough didn’t want my help, but he was right, I couldn’t help. I hadn’t even been able to handle Colt’s episode that morning with the gun. That was nothing compared to this. This was like a full-blown explosion of everything Mikal had been damming up while Colt was her familiar.

I told myself I should’ve been grateful for the reminder that I couldn’t handle staying with Tough. Emotionally, physically, mentally—whatever the challenge, I was not up to it. I wasn’t a fighter like him or Colt or Tempie. No wonder Tough didn’t love me. How could he even take me seriously when there were girls like Harper and Scout around being all strong and militant and so freaking gorgeous?

Inside, the noise-level spiked. Glass shattered and wood cracked. Then silence.

A few minutes passed. Then Tough came out onto the porch and sat in the shade, looking down at the scorched, brown grass.

“How’s Colt?” I asked.

Tough shook his head.

“You knocked him out?”

He nodded. The bill of his John Deere hat hid his expression, but he had his elbows on his knees and he was leaning hard on them. I got up and went to the porch to sit beside him. Without even looking up, Tough scooted closer and leaned into my side. His skin was so cold.

“He’ll be okay,” I said because I wanted it to be true.

Tough pulled off his hat and let it hang from his fingertips between his legs. Then he kissed me, really softly on the shoulder, the neck, the jaw, the cheek. Every kiss was a little harder than the last. When he got to my mouth, he slid his fingers into my hair and pulled me into his lips like his life depended on it.

But his fangs bumped against my teeth and snapped me back to reality.

“Stop it, Tough.” I stood up.

He stood up, too, and grabbed for my hand, but I backed into the sunlight.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelled. “I know how this story goes. The hometown girl, the one who ‘gets you,’ the girl who’s the spitting image of her older sister who you used to love? She’s the one you pick. I’m not going to be the brokenhearted, delusional ex, wishing some cheating bastard would dump his younger girlfriend and come back to me. I’ve seen how that ends.”

Tough took a step toward me and reached out, his fingertips an inch from the sunlight.

“I don’t even like vampires,” I said, backing toward the tree line. Cowards always back away. “Maybe Kathan, Tempie, and I will see you and Scout around town.”

Tough snorted and shook his head, this awful smile on his face. He ran his hand through his hair, then pulled his hat on. Gave me a Screw You, Too, wave.

I grabbed my backpack out of his truck.

When I looked over my shoulder, Tough was sitting on the porch again. He had his head down and his fingers laced over the back of his neck like someone had kicked the last of the goodtime durr-Chevy-kid out of him.

Tough

 

After Mikal killed Mom, I thought I’d hate music forever. For years it made me sick to even think about. I would wake up with a song in my head and bawling my eyes out. Sissy would hug me and tell me that the war would be over soon and we’d be back home and everything would be okay, but I didn’t care about that. I was upset because music was everything to Mom and to me, too, but music was just a sound. It was just noise.

I stretched my leg out, then dragged my boot heel backwards through the dirt and dead grass by the porch. Made the scrape I’d been working on since Desty left deeper.

It was so quiet. The whippoorwills weren’t even singing. I needed a drink. Fifty rounds of PKR with Jax and Harper and to wake up with a hangover so bad I’d throw up everything from the last week including my shiny new fangs.

What did I expect? I’d known Desty was leaving as soon as she heard Tempie say I had screwed around on her with Scout. No, before that. As soon as I’d realized she was this good thing, I knew I couldn’t keep her or I would fuck her up so bad that she wouldn’t be good at all anymore. Mikal was right. I was a disease.

The sun was down. It had to be after eight. Colt had come back around a while ago, but he hadn’t moved or said anything since he woke up.

I would’ve given anything for some sound to break up all that fucking silence.

Before I even thought about moving, I was up and in the truck, turning the key back and cranking up the radio. The music pumping out of the speakers was worse than the quiet, though. It was just noise.

I punched the radio hard enough to break my knuckles. Then I leaned back in the seat and kicked the fucking thing until it stopped.

Some part of me—I guess the crow magic—knew that blood would help. It remembered Scout saying she could make her blood stronger for me. That part of me started the truck and headed for town.

I smacked the steering wheel. I didn’t want to fuck with the heart of a girl who’d been like my little sister forever. Just considering it proved that I was a shittier man now than I ever was when I was alive.

When I got