by eden Hudson
“We need every advantage we can get, Tough. You know that.”
You don’t play with magic.
“Because of Jax?” Scout rolled her eyes. “He didn’t know what he was messing with—”
I shook her. You don’t know what you’re messing with. What did you trade, Scout?
“Nothing.”
What was it?
“I am not going to spend the rest of my life in this prison under Warden Kathan’s thumb,” Scout said. “Whatever freedom costs, it’s worth the price. You and I both know that. We know better than anybody.”
I wanted to shake her again, slam her up against the wall, hurt her until she told me. But this picture of Colt standing over me the night he kicked me out kept running through my head. I could see the blood on his knuckles, feel the melted snow under my palms and soaking into the ass of my jeans.
It took a second, but I forced my fingers to let go of Scout. I stepped back. She grabbed my arm.
“We have to make this our fight,” she said. “If we want to win, we can’t let them dictate the rules anymore. Colt always did what was right—he always did what he was supposed to do—and now where is he?” She nodded like I had answered her. “Tough, there’s a reason he didn’t become the holy champion—and it wasn’t whatever crow bullshit Lonely’s been telling you. Colt didn’t know how to fight dirty. Guerrilla warfare? That’s nothing, Tough. Nothing compared to what you and me can unleash on those angel bastards.”
I jerked my arm away from her.
That one-eyed coyote slipped the stake back into his belt and closed the Velcro strap over it.
“That’s why she brought us here,” he said. “To negotiate the ceasefire and our involvement in the war.”
“The coyotes will follow you because of Pastor Danny,” Scout said.
I looked at the coyote. He shrugged.
“Your dad was part of my pack for a while,” he said.
Scout nodded. “And the crows—”
Lonely’s shoulders gave a half-shudder like he was shaking out his wings. “We follow the shiny ones. Always.”
Scout raised her eyebrows at me like See?
I picked the katana up from where I’d dropped it. Kind of hefted it around a little.
Foot soldiers cut in half, spilled guts, blood…
That shit-eating grin crept back onto my face.
Desty
“I need to kiss you, Modesty,” Kathan said. “That’s how I transfer my—”
“I read the articles,” I said. Fallen angels enthralled humans by depositing their essence in the human’s brain. Most preferred to do that by going in through the mouth and up through the nasal cavity.
Kathan gave me a small smile and offered his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet.
The sun was coming up. The clouds on the horizon were lit a bright orange-red. I tried to remember whether I had seen any clouds in the sky since I’d come to Halo. Not a single one came to mind. Just endless heat and relentless sunshine.
I wondered where Tough was. God, I hoped he hadn’t been with Colt when they killed him.
For a second the pain was too huge. I felt too small to contain it, like everything awful and evil in the world had forced itself inside of me. How could things like this happen? Any of it. All of it. How could we live in a world like this? How could Tempie and I be the ones expected to right a wrong this monumental?
Tempie came up beside me and hugged me to her side.
“It’s all going to be okay now,” she said. “We’re home. Back together.”
I rested my head on her shoulder. It wasn’t going to be okay, but she was right, at least we were back together. Twins weren’t meant to be alone.
A ripple seemed to go through the foot soldiers, as one by one they noticed us standing with Kathan. One or two at a time, they turned away from the bloody corpse, until all of them—twenty at least—were watching us.
Watching me. They weren’t looking at Kathan or Tempie. Just me.
That thing Possible Fatigues had said last night came back to me. As long as I was their only hope for revenge against God, I was safe from them taking revenge on me. They wouldn’t disobey Kathan’s order not to touch me.
Suddenly, Tempie’s arm around me didn’t feel comforting. It felt like a trap.
Kathan stepped closer, cutting off my only escape route. His body was almost pressed to mine. Heat radiated off of his skin and seemed to swirl in the tiny triangle of space between the three of us. Standing in the shadows of Kathan’s tar-covered wings and wrapped in a blanket of summer heat, it felt like a sweat lodge.
“Modesty?” he asked. “Are you ready?”
Tempie locked her other arm around his waist.
My heart raced. Blood rushed in my ears, dampening the sounds around me. I was hot—too hot—but goose bumps broke out across my arms and legs.
“Modesty?” Kathan asked, a little louder.
I took a breath. The black curtain that I hadn’t even realized was creeping into my vision pulled back.
“I’m ready.” I cleared my throat and tried to say it like I meant it. “I’m ready.”
“Take a deep breath and hold it,” he said.
I did.
Kathan slipped his hand over my cheek and threaded his fingers through the short hair on the nape of my neck. I braced myself, but he didn’t yank. He gently tilted my head back. His lips were searing. When his forked tongue slipped into my mouth, I winced, but didn’t pull away.
I felt the tines of his tongue trace the insides of my cheeks. The shock from the heat was wearing off and I could taste him—a bubbling, tar-black flavor that made words like suppuration, ichor, and purulence surface in my mind. His tongue touched the back of my throat and I gagged.
Kathan’s fingers tightened in my hair, holding me in place. His tongue moved upward, filling my throat as it snaked into my nasal cavity. It was too big. It burned. It hurt so much.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears welled up under my lashes. Kathan’s thumb stroked my cheek like he was telling me that I was doing well and not to panic.
Pressure built behind my nose and eyes until something cracked—a bone or a barrier. Kathan’s tongue crept forward a few more inches, then stopped.
My lungs fought pointlessly for air. I tried to tell myself that he wouldn’t let me suffocate, but my lungs didn’t understand. They bucked and screamed for oxygen.
Then fire. Boiling tar injected directly into my skull.
At the edge of the pain, I heard strangled screaming and felt Tempie and Kathan grab my arms to stop my thrashing.
But just as suddenly as the pain started, it stopped. Kathan’s forked tongue disengaged and pulled out.
When I opened my eyes, Kathan was glaring down at me. My arms and legs had gone limp, but he and Tempie were holding me up.
“Twins born to twins,” he said. “Bred in the bone the same, born in the flesh the same.” His fingers twisted in my hair until I thought he was going to pull it out. “Temperance has the ability. It’s written in you. I can hear it in your blood. You are the other half of the Destroyer. You are the Godkiller. So what—” He jerked my head back. “—in the ever burning hell-FUCK?”
I opened my mouth. Maybe to ask what was happening, maybe to tell him to stop whipping my head around like that. But all that came out was a grunt of pain as he twisted his fingers deeper into my hair.
Kathan jammed his mouth onto mine and forced his tongue back up my throat and into my brain. I thrashed, but couldn’t break free. That flash of boiling-tar pain came again, intensified. It went on and on until I could feel the tears pouring down my cheeks.
Then it was like someone tried to suck my eyes down my throat. Kathan’s tongue ripped out of my head.
Tempie let go of me and stepped back. Through the blur of tears, I could see her staring at me, eyes wide.
Kathan lifted me off my feet and pressed his ear to the spot under my bellybutton. I twisted and tried to get free, but he didn’t
even seem to notice.
My voice finally came unstuck. “What are you doing?”
Kathan laughed. It rumbled in his chest like that deep bass note that cancels out all sound.
A shiver ran down my spine.
“Put me down,” I said. “Put me down!”
“Form up,” Kathan snapped.
The soldiers fell into ranks at the foot of the stairs.
I tried kicking my legs and hitting his arms, but I couldn’t break Kathan’s grip.
“Put me down!” I screamed.
Kathan tossed me down the stairs. My back hit first, stunning the air out of me. My elbow cracked on the corner of a step, then my forehead, then my shin, then I was at the bottom of the stairs.
“She’s of no use to us like this,” Kathan said.
I tried to push myself up, but my arms wouldn’t support me. Warm wetness trickled down my forehead and into my left eye.
The foot soldiers were grinning down at me, watching my every move.
Get up get up get up. My legs fumbled over each other.
“She’s all yours,” Kathan told the soldiers. “Do what you want with her as long as she’s alive when it’s over.”
“No.” The word came out like a gasp. “Tempie!”
She took a step toward me, but Kathan grabbed her arm and turned her toward the Dark Mansion’s huge front doors.
“No!” I scratched at the step, trying to pull myself up, trying to get to Tempie or Kathan or inside or anything. My fingernails broke and bled, but I couldn’t stop. I felt the foot soldiers surrounding me like a pack of wolves. Their boots crunched in the gravel and their wings rustled wetly as they closed in.
Halfway to the door, Kathan stopped and snapped his fingers.
“Oh, almost forgot.” He spun around and smiled down at me. “The foot soldier who destroys the Whitney fuckspawn incubating in this whore’s stomach will become my new enforcer.”
Colt
When my eyes opened again, my body had reformed. I had expected fire, but all there was in every direction was darkness. A faint glow came from my skin—maybe some remnant of that heavenly light—but I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of my face.
Screaming. I had to stop and check that it wasn’t coming from inside my head. For once, the screaming wasn’t me. And it wasn’t just screaming. It was wailing—keening, wounded-animal howls—and under that, the quieter, choked crying of souls giving up all hope.
Tiffani was in there somewhere.
I tried to listen for her voice. The thought of hearing her in pain made me sick, but at the same time I was scared I wouldn’t. I knew what it was like to hit your limit, that you could only take so much before you retreated into your head. How long had I been in Heaven? Was it long enough for her to have given up? If she had already gone quiet, I might never find her.
I felt the presence beside me before I saw It. Like the one in Heaven, but warped. It burned the wrong color—greenish-black, as if It had been corrupted by Its proximity to the Pit. Its three pairs of wings were stumped and melted, like someone had dipped them in acid. Bone shined through in places, somehow both a bright white and a deep, scummy green at the same time.
I opened my mouth to tell It that I was there to trade my soul for Tiffani’s, but It already knew. It disappeared, then reappeared in front of me, flanked by another hundred of Its kind.
“Your soul belongs to Him,” It said. “You do not own it and cannot bargain with it.”
My mind raced, grasping for a backup plan. Now would’ve been the time for the Sword of Judgment. Fucking Rian.
“Leave this place,” It said.
I shook my head. “Not without her.”
They multiplied again, a thousand of Them now—as many as had come to drag Mikal to Hell—surrounding me, closing in from all sides.
I held my ground, forced myself not to squirm.
An approximation of a human smile appeared on the leader’s face.
“We were not allowed to touch you in the land of the living, Chosen One,” It said. “But here, He gives us reign. If you willingly enter the Pit, you forfeit all protection.”
I widened my stance, shifted onto the balls of my feet. My heart hammered, fully automatic. Cold washed through my limbs, followed immediately by a flood of heat.
The black noise rolled up my spine, but this time the insanity was focused. Tiffani. Lunatics threw themselves against cell doors, ripped and dug at padded walls, screamed her name into the unending blackness. Tiffani was here somewhere. She was in pain. She needed me.
No matter what happened, no matter who or what tried to stop me, I would find Tiffani. That was the plan.
I flexed my fists, then shook them out. My thumbs started ticking away at my fingers—resist or serve, resist or serve, resist—but instead of the syllables calming me down, fury swirled in my brain, growing and feeding on itself. The lines of power flickered into view, then became cloudy greenish halos surrounding each of Them, pulsing with hunger and decay.
The leader’s smile grew wider. All around us, Their bent and distorted wings extended to full span. A burning wind kicked up, drowning out the howling of tortured souls.
Rian had said I was a rabid dog that needed to be put down. Everybody in town thought I was crazy—had thought so for years—but they didn’t even know the half of it. They hadn’t seen crazy yet.
I launched myself at the smiling one.
Keep reading past the Mailing List and Reviews section for an exclusive preview of Last Battle (The Broken Bard Chronicles 3)!
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Mailing List and Reviews
Thanks for reading Lost Paladin!
Finishing a book is a rollercoaster ride of emotions—you love it, but you also can’t believe it’s over. You want to keep spending time with the characters and worlds you’ve grown to love, but what if the next book in the series isn’t available yet? How can you make sure you’re the first to know when it goes up for grabs?
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I promise I’ve got all the broken characters you’ll fall head over heels for. Just to prove it, when you sign up, I’ll send you Scar Crossed, the Prequel to the Broken Bard Chronicles for free. If you thought Honkytonk Hell and Lost Paladin were great, but wanted to know more about how the Whitney boys’ parents, a preacher and a rockstar, fell in love in the first place and where exactly Tiffani fits in, Scar Crossed is your answer.
Here’s a little taste:
“Nice of you to join the party, preacher,” the angel says. “Shannon was just saying her prayers.”
“Not him,” I whisper to God or Jesus Christ or whoever’s listening. “Please not Danny.”
But it is. He’s standing there in the frothing water, holding a fucking samurai sword like he’s ready to go all Teenage Mutant Ninja Preacher on the angel of death.
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Last Battle (The Broken Bard Chronicles 3) Preview
Tempie
My vision shrank to the steps, my twin trying to stand, trying to pull herself up. Blood trickled down the one face in the world identical to mine. I took a step toward Desty, shock thrumming through my veins. Kathan hadn’t meant to hurt her. Not really.
Kathan? I thought. What—
He grabbed my arm and turned me toward the mansion’s huge entry doors. Then I wasn’t outside anymore, but in our suite. He opened the bedroom door and shoved me inside.
I reached for him. Babe?
He didn’t answer, just shut the door. At the same time he closed himself off to me, leaving me empty an
d alone.
I swiped the closest thing I could lift and launched it. Screw shock. He was mad at me? Well, I could be mad, too. A wing-backed chair splintered against the foot of the four-poster we’d made love in so many times. I could make his anger look like a kid pouting. I could tear this world apart.
Fat. Ugly. Stupid. The worst of your family. Troublemaker. Screw-up. Whore. You caused this.
The pain was back. I’d tried to skip over it, go straight to the anger, but it was flooding in.
Desty is bleeding because of you. Your sister. Your twin. Your other half. And it’s all because she tried to help you, tried to save you. You’re not worth saving. You’re the reason Dad had to leave. He couldn’t stand to put up with your shit anymore. All those fights he couldn’t win with Mom about the way you dressed, the way you acted. You made him leave.
That coward ran! I told him what was happening with Leif, gave him the chance to be the family protector—he could’ve stopped it, but he ran off with Gianna instead.
You wanted him to save you? You couldn’t save yourself! You ruined their lives—Dad’s, Mom’s, Desty’s—and you think you’re worth saving?
“Come back, Kathan,” I begged. “Please, babe, don’t leave me here.”
I had spent so much time before I met him trying to feel nothing that the first day he enthralled me, I kept breaking down in tears. I hadn’t realized I could feel good. I’d thought the best I could do was numbness or impotent rage. That whole first day we were together, we holed up in his room while he held me. He told me that he’d already seen every part of me, every broken piece, but he loved me anyway—that he loved me because of my broken pieces. He wanted me. All that day, Kathan held me and talked to me while I cried and cried.
Of course, there was the sex, too. Before Kathan, I’d thought it was wrong, the way that boiling black ball of fury opened up inside me every time a guy touched me, that I should be feeling something different, like love or horniness. I thought I was the screwed up one. The first time we made love and I tried to shut off, Kathan stopped me.
