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

“I know you understand,” he said. “You’re pissed, but you get it. You would’ve done the same thing if Harper was your girlfriend. She shouldn’t have to be bleeding for a vamp just so she’s safe. You’d do the same thing for Desty, wouldn’t you?”

What did you do, Jax? started running through my head in a loop.

He stood up and so did I.

Then his phone started ringing. Jax lunged for it, but I was closer and faster. The screen said “Fucktard Calling.” I hit the answer icon.

“I was in the middle of a goddamn recording session, Carpenter—”

Jason. Jason Fucking Gudehaus. The phone dropped.

Inside of me, death metal screamed so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else. Jax had traded Jason Gudehaus—my voice for his magic. That explained why Jason didn’t use magic to kick my ass when I tracked him down.

Dammit, Jax, you’re supposed to be my best friend.

I took a step toward Jax. He stumbled backwards.

“I knew once I got everything together so Harper and I could leave, I could get your voice back. I was going to get it back.”

He smacked into the door and the screen popped out of its frame.

“But then you went and killed yourself and there’s no way to change a corpse—not even with magic— I tried, man, I asked everyone at the Council, but you can’t change a corpse! I did it for Harper. You loved her, too, you know what it’s like to not be able to protect the girl you love.”

Harper was right to tell Desty you can’t be weak in this town. If you do, they’ll fuck you over—and not just “they” the people who hate you and should want to fuck you over, “they” the people you trust. The people you fucking love.

Jax put both hands up and shoved them at me, but whatever the spell was, he messed it up. It just grazed my shoulder. He ripped the door open and backpedaled.

I think Jax was trying to get out in the sun so that I couldn’t get to him. Maybe he thought he could talk me down if he had more time. But all those years he’d been getting babysat by video games, I was fighting a fucking war. Then when the war ended, Ryder and Colt were still training me to be a good little holy soldier. Even over the last five years when the only exercise I got was sex, I was banging a nympho vamp six ways from Sunday two- and three-plus times a day. With a five minute head start and zero vamp speed, he still wouldn’t have beat me to the edge of the porch.

I grabbed his shoulder and chin and wrenched them in opposite directions. Not the way I’d been taught to break a neck, but the crunch and tear sounded just the same. Jax dropped, half on the porch, half hanging off in the sunlight. My head rang like a power chord and a screaming-crowd rush shot through my veins.

“Jax?” Harper’s voice cut through the kill-high. She was coming down the sidewalk, running now. Scout was behind her. “Tough, what did you do? Jax, baby?”

His heart beat one more time, then stopped.

Harper skidded on her knees in the brown grass next to the porch.

“Tough, what did you do?” She pulled him into her lap. “Call an ambulance! Get his phone and call 911!”

Scout was turning toward the house, but stress kicked in my vamp speed like crazy. Before she could take a step I was back outside with the phone, dialing.

“Rural Emergency Services. Which county are you in?”

I just killed my best friend. I stared down at his body. Sweat dried on his face, sticking his hair to his forehead in brownish-blonde spikes. Back when we were fighting with each other over Harper, I had thought I was dying from being alone. I’d tried to chalk it all up to wanting her, but most of it had been missing hanging out with Jax.

“Hello? Can you hear me? This is Rural Emergency—”

I shoved the phone at Scout.

“Hello—hi,” she said. She had to back up and cover the mouthpiece to block out Harper’s screaming. “We’re in Halo. Six-twelve Lone Jack Street. We need an ambulance—”

It wouldn’t help. Jax was dead, cooling off. Harper kissed his eyes and mouth and begged him not to leave her, but it was too late.

Shivers started rolling through my body like crazy. Jax was dead. I’d killed Jax. I hunched over and gagged until a little bit of vamp venom came up.

“The ambulance’s on the way,” Scout told Harper.

“Wait for it in the street,” Harper said.

“But—”

“Just fucking do it!”

I heard Scout go and Harper kick the old porch swing. Wood snapped. I stood up. Turned around. She had one of the broken one-bys from the swing in her fist. My vamp speed was still on, but I didn’t move, just watched Harper coming after me like a slow-motion vamp hunter.

I laced my hands together on the back of my neck, thinking about the way Jax called me a truck-fuck redneck retard when he was really wound up and how I gave him crap for being a creep gamer with flames and kanji on his shirts and a wristband so sweat wouldn’t mess up his grip on the controller.

Harper tried to stake me, but the one-by was too dull. It hit the bone over my heart and scraped off, ripped down my chest and stomach, leaving behind splinters. I saw it, but I couldn’t feel it. When Harper dropped the stake and started hitting me, I couldn’t feel that, either. There should’ve been pain, but there was nothing.

Scout stood out in the road, this sad look on her face like she knew Harper couldn’t hurt me enough. Harper screamed and hit me