1. Peaks and Valleys
ONE
THEO
My cock disappears between her lips as she sucks me to the back of her throat. Charity’s moans mix with mine when I slip past the tight ring of muscle at the back of her mouth. She holds me there for a moment before pulling away to take a breath. My hands run across every part of her I can reach, pushing stray hairs from her sweat-slicked forehead before wrapping her hair around my fist.
“You take me so well, Viper.”
She hums in appreciation, the vibrations spreading across my nerves like fireworks. Fingers dig into my hips as she bobs her head, taking me all the way to the back of her throat with each pass.
“I’m gonna come,” I warn, running my thumb along her swollen bottom lip. “You want me to come down your pretty little throat, sweet girl?”
Her fingers dig into my hips, pulling them forward as she sinks down my cock again. It isn’t long before my orgasm is sparked by the feel of her swallowing around the tip of my cock.
“So good, Viper.” I drop to the ground, pulling her lips to mine in a bruising kiss. “So, fucking good for me.”
Charity moves easily when I press her back, kissing a line down the center of her body. Her back arches when I sink my teeth around one nipple, and I smother a wicked grin against her skin before trailing my mouth the rest of the way down. My face presses between spread thighs, one arm snaking around to slide my fingers against her clit. She makes a noise I don’t quite hear with her legs clamped on either side of my head. Frustration eats at me as I double my efforts, wishing I could hear the sounds she makes when she’s coming on my face.
Another muffled moan filters toward my ears as I press two fingers into Charity’s dripping cunt. I run my tongue along her swollen clit, pulling my head free of her thighs.
Charity opens her mouth, but the noise is as distant as before. Desperately, I crawl up her body as a soft buzzing sound fills the air between us. Frowning, I press closer, trying to hear her moans over the increasing volume of the vibrations. When I realize the sound is coming from her mouth, everything shatters, startling me into consciousness.
It was a dream.
It’s always a fucking dream.
Grabbing for the vibrating phone before it rattles off the side of the nightstand, I slide my thumb along the screen as my eyes sweep the room.
The afternoon sun is fighting through the crack between the curtains, sending shafts of light across the barren room. I’ve lived here for six years, but it could have been six weeks for the amount of personal effects dotted around the space. If my brother still lived here, he would give me so much shit about not making the house a “home”. Matthew hasn’t been around much since our mother died, but I don’t blame him for that. If all I had left tying me to this life was one useless brother, I would cut him out, too.
Merrick MacAlister is already talking when I get the phone to my ear, but his barked order is clear as day.
“Get to Callum’s. Now.”
Half an hour later, I’m pulling through the front gates of Callum’s new home in Bray Creek. I creep up the driveway, unsure what awaits me at the other end. A breath hisses from my lungs when I see three of the five MacAlister Brothers standing in front of what can only be described as carnage.
Callum’s house is ruined, the entire front riddled with bullet holes, but that isn’t what catches my eye. It’s the bodies. There are bodies everywhere; in the bushes, along the porch, strewn across the driveway. I even spot one in a tree as I pass beneath it.
Grant, Merrick, and Lachlan all turn at the sound of my approach, but they quickly resume their conversation when they see me. Getting out of the car, I hear Grant mention “widening the search”, and Lachlan starts talking about a cabin in the woods behind the house. It’s clear someone is missing, but I can’t be sure who.
“How can I help?”
Three sets of eyes turn in my direction, but it’s Grant who answers my question. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s in control of the situation. As the oldest MacAlister Brother, it’s his job to lead. “I’m not sure yet. We need to figure out–”
“We found them!”
A voice comes from deep in the woods off the left side of the house a moment before Maddock MacAlister steps out of the trees. He looks larger than normal, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s because his tattoo-covered arms are holding a small child to his chest. The girl’s dark hair marks her as a MacAlister, and I know it’s his daughter, Miles.
Maddock is halfway across the yard when something moves in the trees behind him. Callum is holding his daughter to his chest and pulling Rosalind behind him. There’s a wild look in his eyes, and his knuckles are white from how hard he’s gripping Rosalind’s hand.
The moment Maddock reaches us, Merrick steps to his side, pushing the hair off Miles’ face to make sure she’s alright before he turns angry eyes on his twin. “You need stitches.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
I have to agree with Merrick on this one; Maddock is not fine. I can see blood soaking his shirt and dripping down the front of his pants. Merrick says something else, but it’s too quiet to hear over the sound of Callum stomping toward us across the gravel drive. Once they’re within arm’s reach, Callum quickly kisses his daughter’s head, mumbling something in her ear before passing her to his youngest brother. Lachlan pulls Violet into his arms, quietly shushing her muffled cries.
My eyes track Callum as he rounds on Rosalind, his shoulders tense with something I can’t name as he crashes their mouths together in a painful looking kiss. He seems to be whispering words against her lips, his hands fluttering frantically against her cheeks and hair as if pleading with her to stay there with him, to be there with him. The sincerity of his emotion is difficult to watch, and I turn my attention back to the twins, who are still arguing over Maddock’s wound.
“I’m not putting her down.”
“Yes, you fucking are, or you’ll die, and she’ll be left with no parents at all,” Merrick snaps, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Is that what you want?”
“No, but–”
“Put her down, Maddock,” Grant’s commanding tone brooks no argument, and Maddock’s shoulder slump in defeat. “As soon as Callum pulls himself away from Rosalind, he’ll stitch you up. This is not a discussion,” Grant raises his tone over the sound of Maddock’s protest. It doesn’t matter that Maddock is Grant’s second in command; he has to fall in line as much as the rest of us. “I will not have us compromised in the coming weeks. Not after this.”
Grant gestures to the bodies around us, and my heart rate spikes when I recognize the man lying closest to my feet. I hadn’t been looking at their faces on the way in, not needing to add to the horrors playing behind my eyelids every night. But I’m looking now…
“These are our men.” I had assumed, based on the position of the bodies, that the dead men had been the ones to attack the house, but every single face I see is a MAC. “Why would our men attack you?”
The Brothers are quiet for a moment before Grant speaks, his voice heavy with the weight of what he has to admit. “These are not our men. They report to the Father.”
His words sink to the bottom of my gut–the Father’s men. If there is a clear line between the MACs following the Father and the MACs following the Brothers, then that means… “War.”
“Unfortunately,” Grant agrees, sad eyes trailing over the bodies around us. “One with many casualties, I fear.”
“What can I do?”
“You can watch the bar for me tonight,” Merrick cuts in, moving away from Maddock now that he’s finally cooperating with Callum. “Doyle will be there, but she’s too new to run things solo.”
“Of course.”
“There’s a t-shirt in my car. It’ll be tight, but it’s better than that.” He nods toward my ancient sweatshirt, covered in years of blood stains and coming apart at the seam of one shoulder.
“I’ll grab it on my way out.”
“Theo?” Grant moves a step closer to me, the look in his eye telling me he wishes he didn’t have to say the next part.
“Yes, MacAlister?”
Grant huffs an amused sound at being called the MacAlister. He hated the nickname when we were kids, but he’ll have to come around to it now. It’s his destiny. “I need you to stay out of the Father’s way. Don’t make your alliances known to anyone. If I’m right, he’ll run out of loyal subjects sooner than he thinks.”
“And he’ll start calling in debts.” Twenty years stand between me and the oath I made, but I have no doubt my name is on the Father’s list. A troubling thought pushes to the front of my mind, and I quietly clear my throat. “He won’t use her against me, will he?”
“We won’t let it get that far.” Grant’s voice is calm, steady ground in the eye of this storm. “Let me know the moment he calls you.”
“I will.”
Peaks always has a steady flow of customers, but something feels different tonight. It takes me three hours to realize what has changed. There are women everywhere—standing around every inch of the bar, huddled at each of the tables, and spread across the gaming area. I might not have noticed at all if each one hadn’t been more daring than the last as they waved me down to take their orders.
“Why aren’t any of them shoving money down your shirt?” I huff the words as I pull another twenty-dollar bill from my collar.
Lucy doesn’t even wobble as she turns on the step stool, giving me a knowing look. “Because, unfortunately, they’re not interested in what’s under my shirt.”
I grimace at that, grabbing another crate of whiskey off the floor to replace the empty one on the counter at her side. She’s been restocking the bottles for the last ten minutes, leaving me to face the vulture women alone. “I’ll give you fifty bucks to trade me jobs.”
“You’re not scared of a few women are you, big guy?” She pats me sympathetically on the shoulder, but the effect is somewhat dampened by her biting back a smile.
“Do they do this to Merrick?” My eyes sweep the bar again, counting at least ten more women smiling too brightly at me from every corner of the room.
“No,” she draws out the word, a thoughtful look in her eyes. “But he’s Merrick. He’s all,” she scowls dramatically, puffing up her shoulders in as close an approximation of Merrick’s bulky frame as a four-foot-nothing woman could. “You know?”
Nodding, I reach up to help her down from the step stool. She takes my hand with a grateful smile that reaches all the way to her soft green eyes. If my heart weren’t entirely off the table, I would be tempted to flirt with little Lucy Doyle. I don’t know how far I’d get, considering she’s about a decade younger than me and has talked about literal rainbows more than once in recent memory, but I’d give it a shot.
Not that I’m one to judge people based on their interests, rainbows or otherwise. If anyone ever found out how I fill my free time, they’d have me arrested.
Or committed.
Or both.
“You have a new admirer, big guy.” Lucy’s eyes cut to the end of the bar, a curious furrow forming along her brow. “Might be careful, though. This one looks like a biter.”
Something hot slithers up my spine at Lucy’s words, as if my body knows who will be there before I turn around. My gaze finds her instantly, my worst nightmare and only dream.
“Viper?” The decades-old nickname is barely more than a whisper because fucking Hell. Charity Lawson is here, in Forest Falls, in Peaks fucking Sports Bar, staring at me with an all-knowing smirk on her gorgeous face. Soft, honey-brown eyes narrow as she sweeps dark hair over one shoulder. It’s still jet-black and pin-straight, but it’s much longer than the last time I saw her in person, and my mind instantly fills with visions of her hair wrapped around my fist.
What the Hell is she doing here?