Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen, Vinny.” I gave him the evil eye as I slammed back the whiskey shot someone had forgotten on the bar. The liquid fire destroyed every taste bud on my tongue, scorched the back of my throat, and ripped down my old, dead pipes. My god. That was the cheap shit. My favorite. “Ready?”

  He nodded from behind the bar, his two bodyguards standing useless beside him.

  “I’m gonna walk out of here soon, and you’ll have no problem with that.” Gripping the empty shot glass in my hand, I walked over to the stage. Wren’s fans had left her a lot of pretty pennies that gleamed underneath the multi-colored lights overhead. Pennies and twenties and everything in between. I stashed the bills, shoveled the coins into the shot glass into their new home called my pockets. Their temporary new home. This was Wren’s, and as far as I was concerned, she’d earned every last bit of it.

  The woman could sing my dick off. I didn’t know how, but I sure wished she’d try.

  “I’ll be coming back, too, and you’ll have no problem with that either,” I continued, crossing to the bar again. “You’ll add my drinks to my tab like you’ve been doing all along, you’ll wear your shit-eating grin like always, and you won’t be calling more of Queen Ravana’s minions here. If all that doesn’t work for you”—I showed a little fang—“I’ll tell your wife where you were Thursday night with photo proof.”

  Vinny shared a look with one of his bodyguards, beads of sweat breaking out over his pornstache.

  I threw the empty shot glass at the mirror behind the bar, not at Vinny but damn near close, which shattered and flew the point of that threat in every direction.

  “Sound good?” Without waiting for a reply, I got on out of there.

  Outside, Wren and her two shadows were walking toward the road, perfume, blood, sweat, and arousal trailing after her. The symbol on my wrist heated and pulsed like it was flashing runway lights toward her.

  “Message received,” I muttered.

  Wren being alive changed everything. My new tattoo changed it even more. I was still reeling from all this, probably would be for a long time, but my brain was already five steps ahead of where I needed to be.

  I crossed toward my new pickup, keeping my gaze on Wren’s backside. When I say my pickup, I mean that in the universal sense. The air, the earth, the keys I lifted from Vinny’s pocket when he thought he’d had me cornered in the bar. I started the truck and peeled out of there, aiming for as dramatic an exit as possible to sell what I was about to sell.

  Squealing to a stop next to Wren on the road, I lowered the window. “You need to go.”

  Her mouth puckered into a sexy, pouty frown. “We…are?”

  “Faster,” I said. “You need to go faster.”

  Yoga shook his punk hair out of his eyes. Had Wren called him Zac? Yoga fit him better.

  “Our cab will be here any second,” he said.

  “Vinny called for more of Queen Ravana’s minions right as I was leaving,” I lied. “That could be them.” I nodded toward a pair of oncoming headlights. Hell, for all I knew it was them.

  “No. No way.” Ashe glared at me, an angry tremble running down to his clenched fists. “I don’t trust anything out of that fucker’s mouth.”

  Wren glanced at the headlights and then at Ashe and Yoga with a wince. “Could we just have one moment where we’re not running or fighting for our lives?”

  I sighed heavily, like this was some enormous inconvenience. “Get in.”

  “Hell no,” Ashe spat.

  “You got a better idea, Ashe?” Yoga shoved him toward the pickup, the headlights almost on top of us.

  He didn’t, because they all piled into the double cab, Wren and Ashe in the front with me and Yoga in the back. It was a tight fit, the side of Wren’s thigh pressed against mine.

  I smiled, my eyes drawn to her lips which I still tasted on my own, and then lower down the column of her neck to her chest. Just a quick sweep, but long enough to flash about a dozen sexual fantasies through my head. My tattoo seemed to get behind all of them 100 percent as it shot hot pulses deep into my veins.

  Before the car with the headlights met us, I adjusted myself and pulled back onto the road with a squeal of tires.

  “Try anything funny, asshole,” Yoga said behind me, “and I’ll rip out your—”

  I stomped on the gas so he slammed back in his seat. “Relax. Strike a yoga pose or something. I have this. Remember?” I held up my wrist so he could see my tattoo. Or the outline of my wrist anyway since it was dark in the cab and he had shitty human eyesight.

  The car had already passed us by, but another one came into my rearview, driving a little too fast.

  “Where are you taking us?” Wren asked.

  “Well, you said you needed a shower.” I looked at her and grinned. “I remember that very clearly.”

  Ashe groaned. “Answer the goddamn question. Where, Charles?”

  “Back to my place,” I said. “This time with less kidnapping.”

  “Yeah.” Wren’s eyes narrowed. “About that.”

  “Look, I speak in dollar signs and cheap whiskey. The queen put a price on your pretty head, better than Ashe was trying to pay me for spying on his own sister, so what was I supposed to do? Ignore it?”

  “Yes,” my passengers said all at once.

  “Well, little did I know this was going to happen,” I said, holding up my wrist again.

  “You knew what it was beforehand?” Ashe asked.

  “Can someone crack another window?” Yoga opened his. “The guy wasn’t lying about the cheap whiskey. It smells like a desperate hooker in here.”

  “Ashe, you going to let him talk about you like that?” I asked.

  Ashe leaned around Wren. “Fuck off, Charlie.”

  A slow hiss escaped through my teeth as I gripped the wheel tighter, almost swerving to the side of the road again and demanding he get out. But the car behind us was coming up fast.

  “Okay, whoa.” Wren pushed Ashe back to his side of the truck. “If we go back to your place, what’s to say more of that biker gang won’t show up too?”

  “You saw my place from the inside of a cage in my woodshop, little lady,” I said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

  “How do you know about the tattoo on your wrist?” Ashe asked. “Who told you?”

  “I didn’t know I had one, but I’d seen them before. My dad was part of the Royal Knights for Queen Bronwen, and—”

  “You knew my mom?” Wren demanded.

  I adjusted the air conditioning in the truck, only so I wouldn’t have to look at her while I told a half truth. “Only through my dad.” Now wasn’t the time for the rest of that conversation. “He wasn’t part of her harem, though, just a part of her Royal Knights.”

  “I thought the harem were the queen’s guards. Queens need knights too?” she asked.

  “The more the merrier, right? But not for fucking. The harem takes care of that part.” I stepped on the gas a little harder with another glance at the rearview. They were gaining. Fast. “The knights… Well, they just knight.”

  “All those men around my mom—her harem and her knights—and she still died.” She looked at me with an accusation in her eyes. “Where’s your dad?”

  “Dead.” Even after all these years, that was a bitter pill to swallow. More so to say, but not because I was ashamed. He’d been one of the last of the Royal Knights cut down, serving to protect Queen Bronwen until the very end. It had been a shock to have my superhero dad yanked out of my life like that when he should’ve seen it coming. He’d seen everything coming, had been known as an expert at reading people, at redirecting where they put their attention so he could disarm them without them even knowing, all to serve and protect the queen. My sleight of hand tricks had all come from watching him.

  Wren bit down hard on her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have implied that your dad—”

  “It’s fine,” I said and pointed at my tattoo.
“Because look. Even though pretty boy Ashe hates my guts, I’m part of the inner circle now.”

  We really needed to lose the car behind us. It was riding our asses now.

  “He’s not the only one who hates your guts,” Yoga said behind me and slapped my shoulder like he thought he was tough shit.

  I jerked the steering wheel toward a gravel road to the right just to watch him windmill across the back seat. And yeah, to get rid of the car on our asses. I flicked off my headlights and plowed through the dark with nothing but vampire vision. “Might want to put your seat belt on back there. This dirt road is a doozy.”

  “Motherfucker,” Yoga muttered and followed it with a loud click of his belt.

  Wren looked back at him, her forehead creased with worry. “Behave. He’s human.”

  “There’s no fun in behaving.” I caught her eye and winked.

  She tried not to smile as she shook her head and faced forward again, her knees parting to rub her leg against mine even more.

  A growl rumbled deep in my throat, but I kept my focus on what lay ahead and behind. So far, we were alone on this road. Time to keep it that way so I could finish putting my plans within plans within plans into motion.

  “Speaking of humans…” I pulled the paper from my pocket that I’d taken from behind the bar and shook it out. “I found something that might point us in the direction of Queen Ravana.”

  Yoga snatched it out of my hand. “I’ve seen this.”

  “What the fuck are you playing at?” Ashe demanded. “You point us toward the queen, and we get captured. We can’t trust this guy, Wren, tattoo or not. Everything out of his mouth is a lie. He wants to turn us in for the cash, end of story.”

  “He’s a moody one, isn’t he?” I muttered.

  Wren turned to me slowly, her lips pressed tight. “You kidnapped me, screwed Ashe over by giving him a doctored photo of his sister and Devin, and now you want to help us find the queen? How do we know we can trust you?”

  “How do you know you can trust him?” I leaned over the steering wheel and gave Ashe a good, long look. “That one’s got a potions degree, and is supposedly very, very good at it. Why don’t you ask him what’s in his front left pocket?”

  Doubt flickered in Wren’s eyes as she turned away from me and faced Ashe. “What’s in your front left pocket?”

  Ashe glared at me. “How do you know what’s in my pocket?”

  “I make it a habit to know what’s in the pockets of everyone who has the same tattoo as me,” I said. “And their yoga instructors.”

  “Ashe?” Wren said, her voice harder.

  “Silver in liquid form.” He shifted his gaze to me, all sorts of angry vibes coming off of him. “Poison. I was going to use it on Devin when some shithead lied to me and told me Devin was seeing my sister again, the same shithead who’s currently driving. I made a new batch when we were at the Robinsons’ just in case.”

  “Just in case what?” She felt for the little vial in his pocket just as I had back at the bar when I knocked into his shoulder, redirecting his attention from my groping near his crotch.

  Believe me, I got no pleasure out of it. He hadn’t even had any cash to steal from his wallet. But when it had been me groping Wren, the pleasure had just about ripped through my zipper.

  She sat back and stared at Ashe, shaking her head, her jaw working but no sound coming out.

  So I filled in her questions for her. “He’s wanted in connection for two murders, one of which was your own mom. How do you know he’s really what he says he is? What if he’s planning on killing the last of the Delacroix bloodline by poisoning you, Wren?”

  "Delacroix? That was my mother's last name?"

  "I assumed you knew."

  "She never fucking told me anything!"

  “Stop,” Ashe said to me, his voice like a whip. “You’re stirring up bullshit for no reason.”

  I shrugged. “That’s like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? Guess how many murders I’ve been accused of? Guess how many vials of poison I have in my pocket? The answer’s the same on both counts. None. Which goes to show that if you don’t trust me, Wren, you probably shouldn’t trust him either.”

  She threw up her hands. “No, I do trust Ashe. He didn’t kill my mom or that Devin guy.”

  “And now, there’s video proof,” he said. “I asked my sister to take the video of two guys in my apartment planting the silver net, which cleared me of Queen Bronwen’s murder, to the police, which she did, and… She also turned herself in. I saw the news at the Stake and Dagger. She was behind Devin’s murder, hired some guy to do it.”

  Wren gasped and rested her hand on his knee. “Your sister?”

  “That sweet little thing you hired me to keep an eye on?” Wow. Didn’t see that one coming.

  “I swear to Vampire Jesus, Charles, I will end you if you ever refer to my sister as a ‘sweet young thing’ again.” The sound of Ashe’s gnashing teeth filled the cab. “Do you hear me?”

  “Sure.” I winked at him just to put an extra spin on whatever had crawled up his ass.

  Wren sighed as she turned on me again. “You are chaos’s best friend, aren’t you? We need to work together, not have you sow the seeds of discontent.”

  Ashe shook his head as he stared out the window. “No, what we need to do is dump this guy on the side of the road. He’s trash, probably has a VVD, and I’m sincerely jealous of everyone who doesn’t know him.”

  “Nah, I’m clean as a nun’s tongue,” I said. “The only vampire venereal disease I know about is the flier Yoga’s got from my pocket.”

  “Yeah. It’s not good.” Yoga passed the paper over the seat to show Wren and Ashe. “I’ve seen that symbol before. The V with the triangle over it and a circle on top.”

  “They Who Are Truly Served,” Wren read from the paper. “What is this? I’ve seen this symbol before on the arms of the assholes I killed.”

  “It’s this master/slave cult where the vampires rule and humans are nothing but food,” Yoga said.

  “So, TWATS,” Wren said. “Fitting.”

  I nodded. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “The movement started back when your mom was queen, Wren,” Yoga continued, “and she hated it, wanted to eradicate that entire line of thinking.”

  Wren looked over her shoulder at him, her forehead creased. “And now?”

  “Queen Ravana is 100 percent behind it,” Yoga said with a sigh. “This flier is for the next meeting tomorrow night, and sometimes she goes to speak at them to rally the supporters.”

  “She might be there… Good old Aunt Ravana.” Wren’s fists curled in her lap, crumpling up the paper, and she stared out the windshield with a look that could make a grizzly shit itself. “We should go.”

  Ashe shook his head. “Not happening. Not if the queen suspects you’re alive.”

  “But if we had different disguises, we could go, get close, or as close as we can, and try to find a crack, a foothold…” Wren said.

  “To grab hold of the Queen of Nightmares herself…” In the rearview, a spark of anger flickered in Yoga’s eyes.

  “And sever her crown,” Wren said, a promise if I’d ever heard one.

  Well, damn. They took the words right out of my mouth.

  Chapter Three

  Wren

  Considering the stench from inside Charles’s truck, I had little hope that his house would smell any better. The pain in my side sure wasn’t any better. Silver shot was lodged somewhere between my lower two ribs. I’d been a real trooper this whole time, not wanting the guys to freak out about it. I hated being fussed over. Being on your own for a couple decades will do that to you.

  But then we pulled into a nearly hidden driveway that reminded me of the one that led to the prison where Ashe was held. For a moment, I thought maybe Charles had taken us back there to turn us all over and get a bigger bounty. Then I remembered we were in another state altogether. It was hard to keep track while on the ru
n.

  I stole a peek at Zac in the back seat. His night vision contacts were glowing. He winked at me, ever my watchdog. Beside me, Ashe’s tension was palpable. I rubbed his thigh. His muscles twitched in response, but soon relaxed.

  He took my hand and squeezed it gently, then whispered in my ear, “Can I have you to myself just one more night?”

  “I heard that,” Charles said. “How about we let the queen decide for herself?”

  Ashe tensed again. I interlaced my fingers with his and brought them to my lips, then kissed his knuckles until he settled down.

  “The queen needs a shower…alone,” I said. “Whatever happens after that is not up for debate until I get this disgusting redneck blood out of my hair.”

  Charles laughed. “The queen has spoken.”

  Then we all were speechless as Charles pulled up to a…

  “Treehouse?” I scooted against the dash to peer up at the wooden crossbeams that supported a hexagonal structure built into three huge oak trees. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Ashe and Zac were both glued to the windows as well, staring up at the unconventional structure in slack-jawed wonder.

  “It’s like every little boy’s dream times ten,” Zac said in awe.

  “It’s all right, I reckon.” Charles pulled around behind the trees, out of sight from the driveway. “Your shower awaits.”

  “You have plumbing in there?” I asked as we all climbed out of the truck.

  “Of course. Do you think I’m a savage or something?” He pointed at Ashe. “Don’t answer that.”

  Zac walked around the tree trunks. His night vision contacts glowed green as he inspected the arboreal abode. “No ladders. How do you get up there unless you can turn into a bat?”

  Charles shrugged. “Thought I was once when I accidentally drank from a meth head. Turns out, I’m not. Also turns out broken ankles hurt like a son of a bitch and don’t heal as fast as other vampire bones.”

  I laughed, which sent a stab of pain through my ribs. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep quiet, but Ashe picked up on my discomfort. Maybe this mystical connection between us made him more sensitive to it.