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

hard that I had trouble telling what he was doing. There was a click followed by a ratcheting sound. He threw the gun and the magazine down in opposite directions. “Grace—”

Colt started to take a step toward me, then dropped to his knees and grabbed his head.

“Run, Gracie,” he yelled at the floor. “I got him.”

I stood up. Hesitated.

Colt started to get up, but he fell forward onto his hands and knees.

“Haul ass,” he yelled. “Get out! Go!”

That time I did. The world slanted under my feet and I couldn’t stop crying, but I tripped out the door and off the porch, into the dirt and scorched grass outside the cabin. Before the scrape on my shin even started to bleed, I jumped up and took off again.

Tough

 

Sometimes during the winter, Harper would turn down the heat to save money. Way down, like to the point it wouldn’t click on until the inside temp dropped to the low fifties. It’s actually pretty good for a hangover, but not for staying warm unless you’ve got someone else in bed with you. That’s what I thought was going on when I started to wake up—Harper had turned down the heat, her and Jax were keeping each other warm and I was freezing my balls off.

Then I rubbed my hands across my face and cut my lip open on my shiny new fangs. All of last night came back, including a high-def replay of the statutory feeding.

I silent-groaned. Someone needed to shoot Jason Gudehaus in his temperature-sensitive cock for stealing my voice when I really needed it to yell “shit.” But if I did yell, Harper might come ask me what was wrong and I couldn’t imagine “I got some from your little sister last night” going over too well whether I meant blood or sex or both.

Someone had thought to pull my window-sheet down so I didn’t catch on fire. Too bad. That would’ve solved a whole load of problems.

I pushed up onto my elbows and checked the clock. Almost eleven. Sounded like no one else was in the house. Jax was probably across town doing stuff for the council and Harper would be out at the lake, lifeguarding. Scout would be in school, wouldn’t she? That was where jailbait usually hung out on a Thursday morning.

I got up and grabbed a towel off the floor. It smelled like Desty. I put it up to my face and took a deep breath. Thinking there was a good chance I’d lose Desty kind of made me sick. I had to convince her to stay somehow. I had to protect her from Kathan, right? That would make a good excuse if I couldn’t come up with anything else.

Maybe when Jax got home I could ask him the rules about becoming someone’s protector. He would help me figure out a way to keep Desty safe.

I went down the hall to the bathroom, turned the shower on all the way hot and got in. If I was still a human, I probably would’ve ended up with third-degree burns the way our water heater runs. As a vamp, though, it felt like getting microwaved. Heat soaked down through my skin and muscle, not quite to my bones. I stayed in for a long time, but the hot water ran out before I cooked all the way through.

When I got out, I could hear Jax’s game music playing in the living room. I got dressed and went back to my room for some paper and a pen. That shower heat faded way too fast.

Jax was on the couch when I got downstairs—shooting werewolves, it sounded like.

“Hey.” He sounded surprised to see me, but he didn’t pause his game or anything, just looked down at his Council cell phone on the coffee table. “I figured you’d sleep through. Harper said most new vamps sleep all day.”

I shrugged.

“Maybe it has something to do with Tiffani making you,” he said, going back to his game. “She’s a total insomniac. Thus the bakery’s hours.”

That hadn’t occurred to me before. I sat on the couch beside Jax, trying not to think about how I wanted to move closer to his body heat. Being undead really screws with your masculinity.

“Want to play?” Jax asked. “I’ll switch it to Pack Mode.”

I shook my head.

“Cool.” He nodded. Switched guns to an M4 and cleared out a basement full of werewolves. “So… You’re a vamp.”

I found an empty page in my notebook and wrote, Someone was going to kill me anyway, might as well be me. You got magic?

His heart sped up and I swear I heard him start sweating harder.

“Yeah,” he said. He swallowed, but he didn’t look at me. “Yeah. I wanted to make it so Harper wouldn’t have to work for Logan. I mean, so I could protect her myself. You know?”

Jax never stuttered. We’d been best friends since kindergarten, and even then he always knew just what he was going to say before he said it. He was smart—and not awkward-smart like Desty. Smooth. I always figured that was one of the reasons Harper liked him so much.

Then he missed the target on his game and a werewolf mauled his guy.

Where did

Jax didn’t even let me finish writing before he paused his game and started talking. He should’ve waited. I was just going to give him a hard time, ask him where all his badass gaming skills went.

“You got to understand, man,” Jax said. “When you trade somebody for their magic—not that backwoods witchcraft the council uses, real magic—you have to give them what they want. And it’s never something small or easy, it’s always hard. It always hurts somebody.”

His heart was breaking land speed records now. He reached up and wiped sweat off of his forehead with