Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1) by eden Hudson (ebook reader with highlight function .TXT) 📗

were polished and the laces looked new. Maybe I was just kidding myself because I sort of liked Tough, but it was hard to reconcile the idea of a murderer with the cocky-in-a-crowd, shy-one-on-one redneck.

Fatigues must’ve seen the disbelief on my face. He stopped walking and stared me down.

“I don’t know what Tough’s got you thinking or what you might’ve heard,” he said, “But all of the Whitneys are trouble. They want to rid the world of NPs. That’s why Tough went after that guy in Nashville—because the guy is a mage and his wife is a vampire. Tough hunted them down and tried to kill them.”

The awful thing is I wanted to believe Fatigues. Do a search for “fallen+angel+lying” sometime. Every article that comes up will say that fallen angels are so convincing because they use the truth to lie.

“Tough just doesn’t seem like—”

“He is, so drop it.” Fatigues spun around and started speed-striding again. “Mayor Dark won’t want to talk about him anyway. He’s more interested in you and Temperance.”

“Why?”

“That’s not my business.”

Fatigues stopped in front of a door and knocked twice. I didn’t hear anyone grant us entrance the way someone would if they lived in a cathedral, but the door opened. He went in.

I couldn’t move. My heart was beating so hard the tempie-tempie-tempie sound it made echoed off of my ear drums and the vibrations made me dizzy. Fatigues said something to Mayor Dark and Mayor Dark said something back. I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear anything until—

“Desty?” Tempie, the half of me that split off in utero, jumped through the doorway and tackled me into the opposite wall. She smelled like caramel apples and our house. “Kathan told me, but I couldn’t believe it! What are you doing here?”

“I followed you,” I said.

“Followed me where?”

“Everywhere. I followed you from home. We’ve got to go back—”

“Stop crying, nerd, I can barely understand you,” Tempie said.

She let go of my neck and stepped back. For a girl who’d spent the last eight months bumming around the country, having sex with guys so they would give her tattoos and money, she looked good. Probably better than I did. Her hair was long, streaked with copper highlights and she had a new nose ring with a black starburst on it. She grinned and I realized she was wearing a lacy black peignoir over a camisole that was too tasteful to have been picked out by any nineteen-year-old, much less Tempie.

“This is so awesome,” she said. “Kathan’s been—” She stopped and listened to something I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it must’ve been funny because she laughed. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a sitting room. “Come on.” Through the lace covering her back, I could see the wings she’d gotten in Santa Barbara.

Fatigues went around us on his way out. Mayor Dark stood beside a luxurious-looking sectional backed by a ten-foot Hell Window. Like yesterday morning, he was dressed in silk pajama pants as if he’d just climbed out of bed in the middle of something.

My sister. He just climbed out of bed in the middle of my sister.

I tried not to grind my teeth.

“Modesty, I’m glad to officially meet you,” he said, stepping forward.

“Mayor Dark, can—”

“Please, call me Kathan.”

Tempie let go of my hand and went to his side. He put an arm around her and that voice in my head trying to deny that this was happening started rambling. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be looking at him like that, like a knight in shining armor, like the one who made everything better. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The dizziness came back and red started creeping in at the edges of my sight.

“Forgive my lapse in manners,” Kathan said, gesturing toward a recliner matching the sectional. “Have a seat, Modesty. Someone should be bringing a snack soon.”

I more fell into the chair than sat. I was staring into the middle distance, but in my peripheral vision I saw Tempie look up at Kathan. He nodded. Permission granted, she came and knelt in front of me, adjusting until we locked eyes.

“Hey, nerd,” she said. “You’re not getting sick or something, are you?”

I shook my head. “I traded a vamp some blood so he would tell me where you were. And I guess before that, I sold—”

“Are you serious?” Tempie asked. “You didn’t let him suck straight from your vein, did you? That’s dangerous, Desty. You should know better.”

I laughed. At least I wasn’t giving it up to some fallen angel because I was mad at my daddy.

“Screw you,” Tempie snapped and I realized I’d just said all that out loud. “Kathan gives me power and unconditional love and—”

I grabbed her wrist.  “I’m your freaking twin, Tempie. I know you. It’s not poetic or romantic or whatever.”

“Let go of me!”

“You’re not going down in a blaze of glory,” I said. “He’s going to mess you up and cast you out—”

Tempie hit me so hard that little sparks appeared when I opened my eyes.

“Don’t you dare say one more word about Kathan,” she said.

My vision cleared. I touched the white-hot spot under my eye to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. She hit me. Tempie hit me. The world blurred again, but this time it was because I was trying not to cry.

Tempie made a disgusted sound in her throat. “Jeez, you even take a punch like a nerd.”

“Temperance.” Kathan’s voice was warm and dark like melted chocolate, but it was also an order. Tempie went running to him like a good little lapdog.

I bit my lip and glared down at the floor. Tears dripped onto my knees. I sniffed and wiped my eyes on the back of my hand, accidentally aggravating the spot where Tempie