Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  They turned and went on their way.

  Zac relaxed a bit.

  I rubbed his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll live.” He rebuttoned his shirt cuffs and muttered, “Thanks.”

  “We need to get out of here before everyone thinks they can feed on you.”

  “You look paler than normal. Maybe you should feed too.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Unfortunately, the growl in my voice gave me away. My nose twitched. My ears throbbed with slurps, gulps, growls, and tongues lapping up blood. And screams. Delicious screams, half pleasure, mostly pain. Prey succumbing to predators. I’m a predator…

  “He’s right, Wren. You need to eat.” Ashe looked around as though a blood buffet might magically appear in front of us.

  “I thought we were finding a mole. Have you found anyone yet?”

  “No, it’s too crowded,” Charles whispered. “We won’t be able to choose someone until the party’s over. By then, my facial recognition app should give us a good lead.”

  “We can’t wait that long,” Ashe said. “I’ll go find a DBD. There’s got to be a decent one around here.”

  “No,” Zac said. “The less interaction Wren has with them, the better. And who knows what diseases or drugs they have in their systems.” He unbuttoned his collar and went to a bench on the opposite side of the hall. Tall potted plants with dead, brown leaves stood on each side of it, partially blocking the view. “Come on. You can eat from me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Charles said, “how do we know you’re not—”

  “Not what? Poisoned? Listen, asshole, I just let two vampires bite me, and without me, you’d all be piles of goo right about now. Come on, Wren, either drink or don’t. We don’t have time to stand around arguing about it. You’re about to go berserk in this madhouse.”

  My hunger wouldn’t let me argue about it any longer. I sat down beside him as he bared his neck and leaned his head to one side.

  “Come on, Charles, let’s open up that app and see if we’re getting any good results while Wren eats,” Ashe said.

  They both flicked their gazes between me and Zac. A shared moment of jealousy? Sure, Zac was fuckable, but I didn’t feel the insatiable need I had with Ashe and Charles. Right now, Zac meant dinner.

  I waited for Ashe and Charles to move along on their search for someone to infiltrate Ravana’s inner circle, then scooted closer to him. I put a hand on his chest while I watched his carotid artery pulse beneath his skin. The man was built like a rock, but I still didn’t want to risk taking too much of his blood.

  “Are you sure about this? I can drink from your wrist,” I whispered.

  “The neck will fill you up faster. So, just do it before I change my mind. We need you to keep your strength up and stay focused so we can complete this mission.”

  “Sure. The mission.” I drew close to his skin and smelled his cologne mixed with salty sweat. “You sure it’s not anything else?”

  “What else would it be?”

  “Nothing, I guess. I just feel like I owe you something.”

  His gaze dipped to my lips and then back up, his pupils dilating, and his tongue flicked out over his bottom lip. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  A glance below his belt revealed that he was feeling more than just duty at the moment.

  One thing my mother had told me – bites to the neck could be quite painful unless the prey were sufficiently distracted. I licked his neck. He drew in a shaky breath. My fangs extended. Maybe I could ease my literal hunger while calming my need for Charles to fuck my brains out.

  “Unbutton your pants,” I whispered.

  “What? No way. Your mates will kill me.”

  “No, they won’t. And it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s a distraction, that’s all. A neck bite is serious. I know you’re all Mr. Tough Guy, but you won’t like it.”

  “Okay, fine, whatever.” He unfastened his belt and pants and parted the fly.

  I kept my lips pressed to his neck and applied gentle suction as my hand reached into his boxers and closed around his dick. It was rock hard, an impressive girth as I knew it would be, and felt amazingly warm against my cool skin. I stroked him. His pulse raced under my lips, his breaths turned ragged, his chest rose and fell faster as I sped up.

  When I felt his hips start bucking along to the tempo, I bit into his neck. He didn’t even flinch. His artery pumped hot, fresh blood into my mouth. I swallowed hungrily as I jerked him off faster. His groans of pleasure reverberated on my lips. A few more strokes, and his cock became impossibly hard. I groaned and drank, smiling as slick pre-come soon erupted into a flowing orgasm that drenched my hand and broke him out in hot sweat.

  “Done?” Ashe’s voice caught me off guard. He sounded more bored than shocked.

  I lifted my head, pressing the fingers of my free hand into Zac’s artery while I slid my hand out from his pants.

  Charles stood beside Ashe. He looked anything but bored. His gaze was locked on my hand emerging from Zac’s crotch.

  Ashe pulled a napkin from his pocket and handed it to me.

  Zac did up his pants quickly, his eyes averted from my mates.

  “Uh, thanks?” I said, unsure what Charles and Ashe might do if they thought Zac was now a threat to their claims on me. Zac’s blood, however, was already supercharging me. I felt stronger by the second. But talk about hella awkward. Was this what it was like having your parents walk in on you making out with a boyfriend?

  I wiped my hand with the paper towel. Then I bit my wrist and rubbed some of my blood over Zac’s neck wounds. They closed up quickly.

  “Okay, then…” Charles said, pulling his gaze from me to a gaggle of vampires and half-drained humans spilling into the hall from a nearby room. Among them were Siegfried and Roy. Their eyes were red, glossy, bulging like wild animals who’d been riled up with a cattle prod.

  Roy pointed at Zac. “That one – I want to drain him dry and suck on his greasy bones.”

  “Not before I fuck him!” a female vampire exclaimed, rubbing her hands together with glee.

  “That’s our cue to go,” Charles said. “Follow me.”

  We hurried down the hallway in the opposite direction, past the tapestry that hid my mother’s throne room, and through a door that led into what you might call a conservatory. A domed glass ceiling towered above. Dead, dry vines clung to chipped painted trellises and rusty wire frames. Stone benches covered with leaves sat along the paths. In the center, a tall statue of a woman commanded attention. Her arms were lifted to the heavens, and she held a large bronze sun in both hands. It was as if she was providing the light that our kind couldn’t partake in. Was it supposed to represent my mother? Whatever it represented, it gave the place a spooky, yet peaceful vibe. I could almost imagine myself roaming these paths, finding out-of-the-way nooks and crannies, a game of hide-and-seek…

  A little farther in, however, that atmosphere was shattered. Bodies writhed in a blood-feasting orgy on the other side of the statue. Perhaps thanks to Zac’s blood, it was repulsive to me. Not the act itself, but the audacity of these cultists to ruin what was surely meant to be a quiet place of reflection and happiness for my mother and her family.

  “Come on, chère,” Charles whispered, gently holding to my arm as he ushered me past the unfazed dogpile.

  “Stop the Cajun crap,” I said, shaking him off.

  “What, you don’t like it?”

  “No.” Okay, so that was a lie. It was actually kind of sexy and revived the desire to rip his clothes off and satiate my need for him.

  He must have caught on. Charles flicked his tongue over his lips and gave my butt a quick, firm squeeze. “Whatever you say, chère. I’m ever at your service.”

  We headed for a door that led outside, but a vampire guard holding a rifle stepped out from behind a rose trellis that formed an arch above the path and blocked the exit. “Marks?”

  “I’m sorry?” Ashe asked.

 
“Show me your marks, and you can go.”

  “We’re really exhausted from all the festivities. Just let us pass,” Charles said, going for the door handle.

  The guard cocked the rifle and shook his head. “No marks, no pass.”

  “Look, we’re kind of new to all this,” Zac said. “May I ask what marks you’re referring to?”

  A malicious grin stretched the guard’s lips into a thin line. “If you have to ask, then you got no business being here.”

  He pressed a button on his watch. A wailing siren went off, along with flashing strobe lights. Screams and angry roars went up throughout the house.

  Shit. I knew this had all felt too easy. Well, fuck that. With lightning speed, I broke off a piece of the wooden rose trellis and stabbed it into his chest. He managed to fire off a shot that broke some of the glass dome above before he melted into a gooey puddle. Shards of glass rained down onto the orgy pile, sending them screaming for cover back into the house.

  “Let’s go!” I threw the impromptu stake aside, ripped the locked door from its hinges, picked up Zac, and slung him across my shoulders.

  “What the f—”

  “Shut it.” I blurred down the sidewalk, over the grass and to the car, with Ashe and Charles reaching it a millisecond before me.

  Ashe had the door open, waiting. I tossed Zac in the back seat and zipped into the driver’s seat. Charles slid into shotgun position while Ashe jumped in the back beside Zac. I started up the car and burned rubber pulling out onto the driveway.

  Ravana’s minions really should have thought before they ripped the gates from the hinges. The gate guard ran out of the guard shack and pointed a gun. Zac leaned out the window and shot him straight through the chest with a UV laser he must have sneaked in. The guard turned to a bloody heap of bones and ashes, which exploded into a thick cloud as we drove through him. His remains covered the windshield, blinding me, so I turned on the wipers and washer fluid. It cleared the view just enough for me to make the turn out onto the road.

  “Vampire Jesus,” Ashe said, gagging. “It’s everywhere.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror.

  Zac wiped vampire remains off his face and slung them out the window. “For a vampire, you’re a real pussy, Ashe. Step on it, Wren. Get on the interstate and don’t stop until we need gas.”

  We had to book it out of here fast and put enough distance between us and this place to ensure no one had a chance to follow us. Luckily, we’d gotten out of there without a full-on brawl. But we had to be more careful next time we were on Ravana’s turf. Clearly, she wasn’t letting her guard down enough for just anyone to walk in and out of her cult dens.

  Now that we were out of there, I could finally ask a few questions. “Charles, did you and Ashe kill that girl the skinny-jean twins were feasting on?”

  “No,” Charles said. “I’d rather eat from a sewer rat.”

  Zac gave me a knowing look and a wink.

  “We tried to question her, but she was too high to know her asshole from a hole in the ground. I gave her some Fangaway and tossed her in a closet. She’ll wake up long after the vamps are out of there. Hopefully she’ll wise up and get away from the cult.”

  “Maybe we can come back and question her,” Ashe suggested.

  That was nice of them to try to save her from imminent death, though she was just one of many who’d be sacrificed here. “And the pit you were talking about?”

  “That’s a real thing, unfortunately. I heard people talking about it. It’s where they dump all the ones that aren’t marked.”

  “A mass grave?” Zac asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Something the authorities should be alerted to, then?”

  Charles shrugged. “I guess you could try it, but I doubt that’ll go very far.”

  Ashe huffed a laugh. “Considering how many pockets Ravana has her fingers in, I guess it’s no surprise.”

  “Where to now?” I asked, watching the speedometer climb from seventy-five to ninety, heading north out of Faymont. I had to be careful to not get a speeding ticket. Who knew how many cops around here were on Ravana’s payroll?

  “I know a place,” Charles said. “Just on the river near Memphis.” He paused and looked at me, lips tight as though he didn’t know whether to say anything or not. “It used to be your mother’s cabin. A vacation place. Very few people knew about it, so it might actually still be intact.”

  Another place that belonged to my mother? The news wrapped its icy tendrils around my heart, but it was a feeling I’d have to get used to if I wanted to continue this quest to remove her traitor of a sister from the throne.

  The only problem? Did I really want to take my mother’s place? Or was this just an excuse to keep feeding my need for vengeance?

  Chapter Eight

  Charles

  Wren drove like a church lady out of hell, my favorite kind of lady, it turned out. She was all decked out in her Sunday school dress while handling the twisting forest roads like a pro. The dress hung from one shoulder where I'd torn it, baring the smooth flesh there, and it took all I had to keep from dragging the fabric down with my teeth. Maybe low enough to flash a nipple and then attach my lips to it.

  Fuck, I was hard.

  Wren sang along to the radio, the last notes of Nirvana’s “My Girl” floating through the car. God, I could listen to her sing every song ever made, and I’d never get tired of it. Yoga and Ashe seemed just as transfixed in the back seat.

  Wren turned onto another narrow dirt road winding through the thick forest, and her eyes widened. "Is that it?”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  Ahead, a three-story cabin sat on the edge of a hilly river like a postcard image come to life. Even for someone like me, who only admired beauty when it came to a fine ass like Wren’s, autumn in Tennessee made me stop and stare. The moon lit the vibrant red and yellow leaves on the hundreds of trees and shimmered across the lazy river. I could only imagine what it looked like in the sun here, and it made me a little jealous that I'd never see it, honestly. Though I supposed if I wanted to see a tree that looked like it was on fire with nature's colors, I could just light a match myself. I'd done that once. Set fire to a whole mountain. Not my proudest moment, and one that had earned me my one and only beating from my dad.

  "I had to come here once with my dad when Queen Bronwen's mansion had a plumbing issue,” I said. “Not caused by me, in case anyone was wondering."

  "We weren't," Ashe and Yoga grumbled at the same time.

  Wren pulled up in front of the cabin and cut the engine. "It's in a lot better shape than her mansion is now, at least on the outside. How often did she come here?"

  "Not often, I don't think."

  Wren nodded, a faraway look on her face as she carefully picked up the silver music box on the dash. "She was never one to make much time for herself."

  We got out of the car, the cool air rolling off the river. An owl hooted in the distance, but other than that, it was that kind of quiet you could only find in nature’s deep pockets. We were in the middle of nowhere, which was how I preferred it.

  “I don’t suppose you have a key?” Ashe asked, stepping up onto the wide porch.

  “A key? Nah.” I knelt in front of the door and fished out the lock-picking kit from my jacket. “Thank goodness I’ve never met a lock I couldn’t pick, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Ashe said, his sarcasm on full drip. “Thank goodness.”

  But it turned out I didn’t need the kit. The door wasn’t locked. It creaked open on rusty hinges, the noise like an alarm. As far as I knew, my dad had been the last one to lock it the last time we were here since he’d had a key. I’d stood next to him that night, noting his tense expression, his fists tight at his sides when he turned around, his sharp gaze roaming between the forest trees. Not at all like his usual calm, patient self.

  Something had been bothering him that day, and I'd always wondered if it had been something more serious tha
n a plumbing issue we'd come here for. Shortly after that, Queen Bronwen had run for her life with Wren, my dad and me at their side, and me stashed with a relative not long after.

  Now, though, the lock had been bashed in. I touched the splintered wood on the door, my muscles stiffening.

  “Handy skill you got there,” Yoga said, clapping me on the back as he passed me inside. “I would’ve never thought to try the doorknob.”

  “Yeah, I thought so,” I said, peering into the dark house. “Hey, do a sweep. Make sure no one’s here.”

  “Already on it,” he muttered and flicked some lights on.

  I stepped inside the cabin after Wren and Ashe. The place smelled musty and unused, like maybe no one had stepped foot here since the last time I'd come. I flicked more lights on, and realized that wasn't quite true. Several rat prints trailed across the thick film of dust on the mahogany floors toward the kitchen. No human or vampire prints though. The tension in my shoulders eased some.

  Wren bent to inspect the tracks and smiled up at Yoga. “Maybe we can trap some dinner.”

  He laughed like they shared some private joke, which I hate to admit, kinda made me jealous. These guys both knew her first, knew her more than I did. Hell, she’d even given Yoga a hand job and had barely copped a feel on me. Well, hopefully, we could remedy that soon. I couldn’t waste energy on jealousy, not with four other mates she’d eventually have at her beck and call.

  Looking around at this place helped tamp down the envy monster and brought back a lot of memories. The first floor was open and rustic-looking with modern conveniences here and there. A large stone fireplace with a TV perched above it sat next to the front door facing the couch. Crossbeams supported the vaulted ceiling, and hanging from the center was a macabre and strangely beautiful chandelier made of animal bones and red candles. I remembered clearly standing up on the couch underneath it just so I could take a closer look at the incredible detail.

  Wren stood staring at it, too, while Ashe went to go help search the place out.