Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  Ashe fell asleep as we rode in the back seat of Birdie while Zac once again drove us to parts unknown. Ashe’s head rested against my shoulder, but tension still pulled at his eyes and mouth. Poor guy was exhausted, but worried sick about his sister and probably me too.

  I wasn’t used to worrying about anyone but myself, but my worry list was growing by the minute. How could I know for certain whether Charles was still alive? Was Ashe’s sister now in jail, dead, or worse yet, being tortured so they could get to him? What was Zac’s stake in all of this beyond daytime reconnaissance, bodyguard, and getaway driver? He had to have bills to pay or something. But who was paying him? Not me. For a queen, I had some mighty empty pockets. The little cash I had was dwindling fast from gas money alone. I’d have to get another gig soon and figure out what Zac had to gain from being part of a vampire drama.

  The thing that worried me most at that moment, however, was how to tell Ashe that I may have found my second mate. My brain must have short-circuited trying to make sense of everything. The car’s dark interior faded away into a haze of bitter cold and the smell of death.

  And I was back in the crypt on that awful night just after sunset. My stomach growled painfully. In two days of hiding, our only food had been one still-twitching, snow-dusted raccoon that had been hit on the road beside the cemetery the night before. It was so cold that its blood had turned to slush and barely quelled our hunger enough to allow us to sleep through the next day.

  But on this night, Mama and I were wrapped in the blue tarp, propped up against the wall. She was still asleep. I sat motionless, watching as a scrawny rat wandered in, nibbled at some crumbs on the floor, and crept toward me.

  As soon as it was within reach, I snatched it up, broke its neck, and bit into it, taking big, slow gulps of its hot blood. I had almost drained it when Mama stirred then opened her eyes.

  “Want some, Mama?” I showed her the rat, thinking she’d be proud of me for my first kill.

  “Did you get that all by yourself?” She sat up, smiling as she took the rat from me and brought her mouth to its neck. Then she paused, sniffing it. Her eyes widened just as pain speared my stomach. Everything came back up in violent retching. I thought my insides might come out too.

  My mother panicked. She searched around the crypt, gasped, and squatted down next to the little pile of crumbs where the rat had just been. “Oh no. No, no, no!”

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” I said between gagging. Pain and terror pulled tears from my eyes and down my cheeks, where they froze like tiny icicles on my jaw.

  “We have to find you some better food right now, okay?” She bit her wrist and offered me some of her blood. It eased my stomach enough to stave off the vomiting. Then she wrapped the tarp around me tightly. Scooping me up in her arms, she carried me to the barred door of the crypt and peeked out before easing it open. She winced as the rusty hinges squeaked into the freezing silence of the cemetery. Then, she continued through the door into the snow.

  There must have been six inches on the ground. It made a shush, shush, shush sound as she trudged through it. The moonlight twinkled across the snow, making it sparkle like a blanket of diamonds. It was so beautiful. The snow-capped gravestones cast long shadows across the ground. Blue, wispy ghosts darted between the stones, peeking out to watch the starving vampires seek their last supper.

  I waved and smiled at them. We hadn’t been there long enough for me to make any friends, like I had with Chip, but I thought we’d have plenty of time to get to know one another. I was wrong.

  My mother found a homeless man in an alley, half frozen and unconscious, but still alive, shivering beneath a few layers of cardboard and dirty blankets. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d fed from a human. She pierced his jugular with her fangs and gently pushed me down to drink. I looked up at her as my lips made contact. It was already warm and delicious, but something didn’t feel right. She was nervous, her gaze darting all around us.

  She smiled down at me. “Drink, baby. Hurry. He can’t feel it. He’s already dying, so we’re helping him be at peace.”

  Next thing I knew, I was torn from the frigid past and back in the car. Cool fingers were tracing across the skin on my arm. I screamed and bolted across the seat until my back hit the side panel, kicking at whomever had invaded the space. My boot made contact with something. It crunched. Someone cried out. The car swerved.

  “What the fuck?!” Zac barked, finally getting the car under control enough to slow down and pull off the road.

  When the car came to a stop, Ashe opened the door and stumbled out of the car, holding his jaw.

  “Oh shit! Ashe!” I opened the door and ran around the back of the car.

  Ashe held his other hand up to ward me off.

  “What did you do to her?” Zac’s growling accusation preceded him as he rounded the front of the car, gun drawn.

  “Ask her,” Ashe said, his words slurred. Blood dripped from between his fingers.

  I got between them. “Put the gun down, Zac, for shit’s sake. He didn’t do anything to me. It was…” Fuck, I didn’t even know what it was. A dream? A vision? A memory? “I’m sorry. Seriously.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Ashe said. “Just…give me a minute.”

  He didn’t say it, but I knew that meant stay the fuck away from me. How was I supposed to be anyone’s mate, much less a queen, if I spazzed out and broke whoever’s jaw was closest to me?

  Ashe wandered farther off the road into the woods and leaned up against a tree, rolling his neck from side to side. He was in pain, and it hurt me to the core that I’d caused it.

  “Wren?” Zac’s quiet voice behind me made me jump.

  I spun around.

  His hand hovered over his gun, one foot behind the other in a defensive stance. “Take it easy.”

  Great, he was scared of me too. I lowered my head and rested my butt on Birdie’s trunk. “Maybe don’t sneak up on me next time, especially if I’ve just spazzed out?”

  “Noted. But what happened?”

  Glancing over to where Ashe had wandered, I couldn’t see him anymore, which was either a good or bad thing. I didn’t want to go chasing after him, for fear of him thinking I was coming to finish him off. I pulled up my jacket sleeve, where the symbols glowed softly in the dark night, Ashe’s brighter than the other.

  Zac, eyeing me uneasily, slowly came closer and inspected them. “Number two? When did that happen?”

  “When I was caged in the woodshop.”

  “Him?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “Or, maybe…”

  “What?”

  He scratched the back of his neck, peering around us at the dark countryside where crickets, cicadas, and a distant dog conversed in the summer night. “Could have been one of the others.”

  “The guys on motorcycles?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, it can’t be.”

  “Ravana could have persuaded a potential mate to her side. It’s happened before.”

  “It has? When?”

  “Did you see a symbol on his arm?”

  “Yeah…I mean, no.” A sudden thought struck. “But he was rubbing and shaking his arm as though there might be something there.”

  “Maybe you injured him?”

  I walked away a few paces, doubt now trickling down my neck along with the humid air condensing on my cool skin. “He let me go. Why would he if he didn’t realize he was my mate?”

  “I don’t know. What did you say to him before that?”

  “I convinced him that I was Bronwen’s daughter. He asked me questions only she and I would know. I answered them. How would he know to ask those if he wasn’t connected to me?”

  “Someone with enough motive to get to you could have given him the information. But that was enough to change his mind?”

  “I guess so, but why, unless he’s my mate?”

  “I’ve done a little digging on Charles Ford. He’s a notorious gamble
r, womanizer, and bounty hunter. The price on your head would have paid off all his gambling debts and then some. Maybe once he knew you were the real deal, there was a better buyer he had in mind.”

  “Better than Ravana? Who else would benefit from keeping me prisoner?”

  He shrugged, but the way his eyes flicked to the side, I knew he wasn’t telling me everything.

  “So you think he’ll try to kidnap me again?”

  An owl hooted from a tree above us. It reminded me that we were never truly alone. Zac must have realized that too.

  “We need to go.”

  “But where? Listen, Detective, I’m tired of being escorted to one unknown location to another without having a clue where we’re going or why.”

  “Understood. We’ll talk in the car.”

  “No, we’ll talk now. What do you have to gain from helping me with this?”

  “It’s my job. All I can tell you now is that the FBI and SFBI are working together to find all the human-vampire connections leading to a rise in corruption and mysterious disappearances.”

  “The SFBI?”

  “Like I said, we’ll talk about it later. Ashe, time to go!” Zac called toward the woods where Ashe had escaped the wrath of my boot to his face.

  Nothing moved. I felt the panic rising like sour bile into my throat. Had he run away? Been captured? I started for the woods, leaping over the ditch as bushes rustled, and Ashe emerged. I hesitated a moment, then ran to him, stopping at arm’s length. He stood still, his jaw seemingly fine. Blood stained his shirt and lingered on his neck. His eyes were full of questions, doubts, fears. And I’d put them there.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  He swallowed hard. “I know.”

  I closed the gap and wrapped my arms around his neck. He held me tight, his fingers pressing into me as though fighting the urge to push me away.

  “Are you okay?” I pulled away just enough to look at his face. Still just as gorgeous as ever.

  “I am now. It’s healing.”

  He smiled, revealing a small gap where his left fang should have been. “Oh no. Will it grow back?”

  “Maybe. I’m due for another dentist appointment anyway.”

  Zac cleared his throat. We all piled into Birdie and drove wordlessly for a little while. Ashe sat close to me, holding my hand, fingers intertwined with mine. At least he didn’t hate me. Yet.

  “We’re headed to Faymont, Mississippi,” Zac said, breaking the silence.

  “Why?” Ashe asked.

  “There’s an underground nightclub. It’s known for illegal gambling and all the usual debauchery, plus whatever vampires do in there.”

  Ashe groaned. “The Stake and Dagger.”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  Ashe pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit. We can’t take Wren in there. It’s dangerous for even us nobodies. She’ll be recognized immediately.”

  I watched Zac’s smile stretch across his face in the mirror.

  “No, she won’t,” he said. “Neither will we. Melody Songsmith needs a new gig. We’ll come along and be her roadies.”

  “Wait, what?”

  I realized I hadn’t really told Ashe about my alter ego. We still had so much to learn about each other.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll look good with black hair, I think.”

  We spent the next hundred miles talking about my singing job. Ashe, I discovered, had played the drums for a while in a garage band. Zac could actually play the harmonica. He could even carry a decent tune, as he showed us singing along to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the radio.

  “How are we going to get a gig there?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that,” Zac said. “Just rest. You’ll need a good meal and a good day’s sleep before we step foot in there.”

  We drove on, the only noise coming from a staticky country station on the radio. Unexpected tears burned my eyes as the weight of what had happened over the past few hours kicked in. But I didn’t let them fall. Even when I realized the dream that had prompted me to break my mate’s jaw wasn’t a dream at all.

  Ashe leaned in and whispered, “We’re going after your next mate, aren’t we? I saw the new symbol on your arm. I was touching it when you woke up and kicked me. Were you having a nightmare?”

  I nodded and turned toward the window, watching the dark fields whipping by, the distant yellow lights of homes full of warm bodies. Moms, dads, kids, dogs – families who had normal troubles like car payments and not making the cheerleading squad.

  “Actually, no. It was more than just a nightmare. It was a memory of that night. The night my mother died.”

  “What did you remember?”

  I bit my lip, but the truth was too bitter to keep inside anymore. “It’s my fault that she’s dead.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ashe

  “It’s not your fault.” I tried to reach for her, but she swatted my hand away, her eyes shining with tears. “Wren, you didn’t kill your mother.”

  “No, but it’s my fault she was killed.” Her voice rose, pleading for me to understand, and I was trying to.

  I’d never seen her so broken, though. Lethal and terrifying while facing the last few days, soft and pliant while pressed up against me, but never broken.

  When she’d composed herself, she continued. “I was trying to prove to her that she’d trained me well, that she could be proud of me, and I caught a rat. I was so excited to show it to her. She’d always taught me to feed myself first. ‘Take care of you,’ she’d say, and I did. But then I got sick. Mom woke up, saw the rat, and she knew…”

  I took her hand, already seeing where this was going. My stomach tightened and curled like I was there with her in the past.

  “Rat poison,” Zac muttered from the driver’s seat.

  Wren nodded. “She said I needed better food to counter the poison, so we slinked out into the night, out from hiding, I later realized, and found a homeless man in an alley. Even though I felt better after that, something in the air didn’t feel right. Mom felt it too. Her eyes kept darting everywhere. She told me to run and hide, to play silent as the grave, she said. We’d practiced it so many times. I hid in a dumpster at the end of the alley, didn’t move a muscle, didn’t bat an eye. And then…they came.”

  I sank my eyes closed because now I understood where the blame for herself came from. Still unfounded, but understandable since she’d been so young at the time.

  “Her attackers came right out from a side door in one of the buildings as if they’d been waiting there the whole time. A whole group of them with a silver net and silver spears. They staked her everywhere but her heart fifty-seven times right in front of me, hidden from view, but I could still see everything.” She looked straight ahead and swallowed, as if seeing it all again.

  I slid my hand across the seat and touched her fingertips. “She made a choice to save you, her daughter, knowing that you were worth the risk.”

  She shook her head, her tears flowing faster. “I was stupid.”

  “You were a kid who had no way of knowing what would happen next.”

  “She might still be alive today if I’d just made one choice differently.”

  “But you didn’t.” I undid my seat belt so I could wrap her up against me, and our bodies fit perfectly while she clung to me. “Neither did she, and I bet she’d make the same choice if she had to do it again.”

  She went quiet for a long time, the deep groove between her eyebrows never relaxing, but her tears dried. I hated to see her hurt like this, had felt like each one of her tears was like a blade cutting open my heart. So, as long as she needed to be held, I would be right here.

  ****

  The three of us left a literal hole-in-the wall hotel looking nothing like we had when we arrived. Zac and I wore short, itchy wigs, colored contacts, a fang implant from my unfortunate meeting with Wren’s foot, and—ge
t this—makeup. Never in my life had I let a woman “contour” my face, “shade in” my eyebrows, or tell me that my eyelashes made her want to apply mascara to me.

  No way on the mascara. A guy had to draw the line somewhere. I had to admit, though, when I looked in the mirror, my whole face appeared to have changed shape. It was a little unnerving staring at the face of a stranger, but if I fooled myself, I figured I would fool most people.

  And Wren… She was gorgeous before, but now with her eyes painted so they had these dramatic wings and her short black wig, she reminded me of a panther, all sleek and grace and hot as fuck.

  While we rode in the back of a taxi to The Stake and Dagger, my hand on her knee, and a raging boner begging to be freed, it took every bit of restraint not to part her thighs and start humping like a rabid animal. I knew she could sense everything going through my head because the instant I saw her as Melody Songsmith, the symbol on my wrist had flared. Hers had, too, because she stopped like she’d hit a wall and stared down at it, and then up at me with a sinful grin curling her mouth.

  “Down, boy,” she’d said.

  Yeah, not any time soon.

  The taxi pulled up in front of the club, which was out in the middle of a country highway, and I wished we were anywhere else. This club, an innocent-looking one-story slab of stone, was actually a secret underground vampire bar underneath a human bar accessible by only an underground tornado shelter. The only reason I knew about it was because of my friend Jake from high school who’d overheard his uncle talking about it. We drove here once with the intent to test out our new fake IDs, but when the guy waiting in front of us didn’t know the password to get through the basement door, the bouncer killed him.

  Jake and I, properly freaked, went back to my place and played a role-playing game called Felons and Fangs like good little boys.

  Now, the human part of the club beat a steady bass I could feel through the taxi’s tires, a beacon to the gullible. Like us. We were fucking doomed. Sure, we needed money to continue running, but there were plenty of other clubs Wren could perform at. None of them were this one, which meant I was already a huge fan of all clubs not named The Stake and Dagger.