by J. J. McAvoy
I froze when I felt the heat in my neck. Reaching up, I touched my skin as a drop of sweat rolled down my face.
She didn’t.
“Ahh…” I hissed at the burning. When I looked at her, she was staring right at me resting her head on her hand, an evil smile played on her lips.
“You should know better than to cross me by now, sweetheart.”
“You…fuck…in…bitch…Ahh.”
THREE
“There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.”
~Jim Butcher
DECLAN
“You did what?”
She turned back to me as she casually said, “Melody asked me to poison Liam’s mouthwash before you all came home. What did he do?”
My mouth dropped open and for some reason my mind could not process this. Wait. “You help Melody poison my brother and ask what he did wrong?”
“You and I both know Melody loves Liam more than she loves anything in this world. She’s torturing him a little bit…because again he must have fucked up. So what did he do?” She came over to me and pushed me on to the edge of the bed as she pulled off my tie. I held onto her waist.
She was right. But still. “She’s never been the poisoning type. I expected her to take a bat to his ribs or something.”
“Yes, because that’s more civil.” She giggled as she unbuttoned my shirt. I loved it when she giggled; her nosed bunched up and her brown eyes sparkled. Pulling her closer to me, I rolled us both over on to the bed.
“I missed you tonight. Everyone had their wives beside them and meanwhile, I was surrounded by bitchass cops and Ethan, who is so much like Liam, it’s kind of scary,” I said and she reached up to brush my hair.
“Someone has to hold the fort down. And besides, you survived, it didn’t you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re supposed to say you missed me too, Cora.”
“Am I? Honestly I was so busy with everyone I—”
Grabbing her wrist, I rolled on top of her and pinned her hands down. Her dark brown hair fell in waves cropped at her shoulders. Gravity pushed her breast up higher, and I kissed the top of them both.
“Declan—”
“Say you missed me,” I said above her.
“Make me, baby.”
“Gladly—” We both paused when we heard the baby monitor go off. “Damn it.”
Sighing, I got off of her, helped her up and she kissed my lips softly. “I’ll be right back.”
Nodding, she moved around me and towards Darcy’s nursery, he was only two years old and yet he was expert in cock-blocking me. Taking out the cotton bottoms she’d brought me, I changed and put my phone and wallet on the nightstand before walking into the nursery as well. Darcy was wide-awake. The grin on his face and the way his hazel greens were staring at his mother was contagious. Moving to them, I reached out for him and as he always did he stared at me before trying to grab my nose.
I kissed his light brown finger tips, “You and I are going to have to work on your timing. Daddy was about to—Ahh.” Cora punched, yes punched my side. “He can’t understand me.”
“You don’t know that.” She crossed her arms. “For all we know, Ethan is so much like Liam because you all kept talking about your work in front of him as a baby.”
“He’s like Liam because he’s like Liam. He could have been born deaf and still been the same way. He went on the job with Liam today—”
“He what? Does Melody know?”
“She does now.”
“That explains the poison,” she muttered, running her hands through Darcy’s thick curly hair. When he was first born, his hair looked almost blonde, even his skin was very light, but with each passing day, he got just a little more color to him. He was just as gorgeous as his mother, and had her smile too. Helen, our daughter, even though she was adopted, took after me. She was always breaking things and tearing them part just to see how they worked.
“I heard Helen took apart your laptop?” I asked softy trying not to smile.
She sighed, as if she couldn’t even find the words to say.
“Baby, you look exhausted, go lie down I got him.”
“But—”
“Father son bonding time. Darcy, say night-night to mommy.” I held him with one hand and pushed her towards the door with the other.
“I’m going. I’m going.” She laughed, kissing us both before leaving. When I sat down on the rocking chair with him on my chest, I couldn’t help but shake my head…what had happened to all of us?
The big bad Callahans all at the mercy of our children. It was madness…
“Excuse you” I said he when burped
…It was perfection.
However I was nervous…the longer our peace lasted, the harder it would be if something happened and something was always happening with this family.
NEAL
I was married to the most beautiful workaholic in world.
After peeking in on our kids, she all but ran back to our room and plopped down on the couch, her dress puffing up around her. She typed away on her laptop, with three different smartphones beside her. Over the years, I noticed she had a few habits. The first was her pink lips; whenever was excited or nervous, but trying to calm herself down, she would bite down on the corner of them. The second was her black hair, which she always tucked behind her ears when she wasn’t sure what do or say. The third was when she played with her engagement ring. Whenever she rolled the oval shaped diamond around her ring finger, she was trying to make herself confident. Like somehow that ring gave her the power to make it through everything.
Contrary to popular belief Mina was a lot gentler than she seemed. It was easy to forget sometimes when she stood next to Melody, because of how tall she stood, especially at 5 foot 6. She directed and pushed Melody all of the time, not at all like…like Olivia. Olivia did it out of jealously. She’d wanted to be Melody. Instead, Mina wanted something as close to perfection out of everyone around her.
I did my best not to compare Mina and Olivia; they were like the sun and the moon. If someone asked me to make a list of their differences, it would take hours for me to explain. The most obvious difference was that Olivia was a blonde-haired blue-eyed Irish girl and Mina was of Korean decent. Even the sides of the beds they slept on were different. But the most important difference, the only one that mattered…was how happy I was now. When I was with Olivia, I thought I was happy. I thought our marriage was fine…it was only after meeting Mina did I realize that being fine was as good as being comatose. You’re alive, but there is no way it can be seen as living.
Liam and Melody.
Declan and Coraline.
Neither of their marriages were ever fine. The loved each other with a passion that was sometime so intense, I had to look away. Nothing else in the world mattered to them more than each other. Declan was ready to give up on our family, he begged my father, just so he could be with her. When she got cancer, I’d never seen a man so ready to be devastated. He stayed at her side, picked her off the ground every time she fell with a smile on his face because he was happy she was alive to at least fall.
Liam….he was so whipped around Mel’s finger, I was sure he was permanently bent. He was the living breathing definition of the term crazy in love. He had to be crazy, what other kind of man would allow his wife to make a habit of shooting him and still comfortably hold onto her. He went to and stayed in jail in the hopes that she would come back for him. He went to war for her.
Now I was the one completely taken over.
If she were sick, I too would fight with her.
If Mina stabbed me in the heart right now, I too would still hold onto her.
I moved over to the couch and she still didn’t notice until I shut the laptop down. Her head snapped at up me, her dark brown eyes on mine when a pout formed on her lips.
“Five more minutes?” she begged.
“Nope,
” I said offering her my hand.
She sighed and I pulled her up and spun her into my arms.
“Hello.” She smiled.
“Oh now you notice me? I’ve been staring at you for at least ten minutes.”
“What? You should have said something?”
“I’m saying something now,” I replied, my hands slowly pulling down the zipper of her dress. When it dropped to the ground and she stood before me in only a lacy baby blue bra set that had bowties on the mounds of her breasts, she blushed. When we first made love, she was so shy. Over the years, she’s gotten bolder but I still loved how she turned pink for me.
“We have to get up early in the morning,” she reminded me.
“Or we could just never go to bed,” I said. I lifted her off her feet and threw her over my shoulder.
“NEAL!”
Smacking her ass, I laughed and took her to the bed.
“Yes?” I asked when I dropped her in the center and she sat up on her elbows.
“If I fall asleep in church in front of all you clans men, the amount of rumors—”
Leaning over, I kissed her quickly on the lips. “Let them talk. No matter what they say, it doesn’t change the fact that you are my side, you, Mina, are a Callahan.”
When I kissed her again, there was nothing quick or innocent about it.
***
A BLOODY KINGDOM will be released on July 14th, 2016.
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Be Ruthless
Discover More by J.J. McAvoy
Ruthless People Series
RUTHLESS PEOPLE
THE UNTOUCHABLES
AMERICAN SAVAGES
DECLAN + CORALINE (prequel novella)
A BLOODY KINGDOM - 7.14.16
Single Title New Adult Romance
BLACK RAINBOW
SUGAR BABY BEAUTIFUL
THAT THING BETWEEN ELI AND GWEN
Child Star Series
CHILD STAR: Part 1
CHILD STAR: Part 2
CHILD STAR: Part 3
CHILD STAR – full novel
About the Author
J.J. McAvoy was born in Montreal, Canada and is currently studying Humanities at Carleton University. She is the oldest of three and has loved writing for years. She is inspired by everything from Shakespearean tragedies to Pop Culture. Her first novel, Ruthless People, was a runaway bestseller.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter One
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Two
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Three
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Four
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Five
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Six
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Seven
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Eight
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Nine
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Ten
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Eleven
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Twelve
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Thirteen
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Fourteen
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Fifteen
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Sixteen
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Seventeen
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Eighteen
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Nineteen
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Twenty
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Twenty-One
Eli
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Twenty-Two
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Twenty-Four
Guinevere
Eli
Guinevere
Chapter Twenty-Five
Guinevere
Eli
Chapter Twenty-Six
Guinevere
Eli
Epilogue
Eli
Sneak Peek at A BLOODY KINGDOM
PROLOGUE
MELODY
ONE
LIAM
TWO
MELODY
LIAM
THREE
DECLAN
NEAL
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