Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  “It’s…” She tilted her head at it. “It’s not really what I expected? I didn’t think my mom was a bone chandelier type of gal.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always liked it, which makes me a bone chandelier type of gal, I guess.”

  She grinned and placed the music box on the large coffee table. “I like it too. Definitely an attention grabber.”

  “No one’s here.” Yoga trotted down the stairs, which were located opposite the kitchen. He crossed over and sat on the couch, a massive, rustic thing that looked like it had been carved right out of a tree. Dust plumed from underneath him, making him sputter, and he jumped back up again. “God, never mind. I’m going to find a bed.”

  "That's what you get for breathing," I told him on my way to the refrigerator.

  "How many bedrooms in this place?" he called.

  I opened the fridge. Not much in the way of food or blood. Unless we got supplies, it looked like we wouldn't be staying here long. "Four upstairs, not including the loft, and one master down here."

  Ashe came down the stairs. “No sign of life or otherwise here.” He crossed to Wren by the coffee table and pulled her to him for a kiss. "Too much orgy for me, I'm afraid. If you need me for anything, I'll be dead upstairs."

  Wren nodded, and once he’d gone back upstairs, she strode to the sliding glass door near the kitchen, which looked toward the back of the cabin. I watched her, studying her graceful movements, her facial expressions. I was getting better at reading her. She had a flow to her like music, always on and tuned in to her surroundings.

  "Is there a boat for the river here?" she asked as she slid the thick burgundy curtain aside.

  "There's a boathouse out back, but I'm not sure how good of shape the boats are in."

  "I've always liked being out on the water, how calming it is. Until you get to the rapids, that is." Without warning or so much as a blink, she peeled her ripped dress off and started kicking off her heels. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “About hiding all your clothes somewhere so you’ll never find them? Yes. Yes, I am.” Staring at her curves on full display, I slipped my hand into my pocket and snapped her picture with my smiley face button I still wore. Hey, no one ever said I wasn’t a pervert.

  She stood there naked, her pale skin stark against the night behind her, and gazed over her rose-tattooed shoulder at me. "Race you to the river." The dare curled her lips into a devious smile, tightening my entire body, and then she darted out the sliding glass door.

  Well, shit. That wasn’t what I’d been thinking at all. Running was hardly ever worth the effort when I could just stand still and wait for something better to come by.

  But this was Wren.

  I raced after her, chucking my clothes as I went. She was already halfway to the river, her long legs pumping, her perfect ass jiggling. I ran harder and made a sound like a chainsaw just to give her a little fright. Also because I'm an asshole who's seen one too many movies about the horrors of skinny dipping.

  Wren threw her head back and laughed as she neared the river's edge. "I'll save you from any psychopaths around here." She toed the water and then waded in.

  "Is it shrivel-dick temperature?" I came up behind her, now just as naked as she was.

  She eyed me over her shoulder, the water flirting with her breasts, and the sweep of her gaze caught on my obvious erection. "I don't think you have anything to worry about."

  Chuckling, I stepped in behind her. It was cold as fuck, but it felt good. Cleansing.

  Wren dipped her head under and then resurfaced, droplets clinging to her lips and eyelashes. She grinned as she began to tread water. "You're staring."

  "I blame you for that." The moonlight did things to her face, magical things, and I couldn’t look away.

  "You're not half bad yourself," she purred, swimming closer. She smiled a little, seeming to consider something. "What's your favorite childhood memory about your dad?"

  "Is it already that time of night for daddy-issue therapy?"

  "No, I just think I would’ve liked your dad. He seemed loyal to my mom, and you. A really good guy."

  I nodded. "He was, a lot better than what I turned out to be. Favorite memory… Right, so, once I found some matches, and to keep anyone else from doing anything stupid with them, I thought I had better use them up myself. I lit a whole mountain on fire with them."

  An adorable frown puckered her lips. "I said favorite memory, Charles. Favorite, not worst."

  "I'm getting to that part.” I dipped my head under and then came back up even closer to her. “My dad was pissed as was expected. He smacked me pretty good and didn't talk to me for a week."

  "Fav-o-rite." Wren wrapped her arms around my shoulders, her body floating up against mine. “I mean, if that’s your favorite, I’d hate to hear your worst.”

  Her touch sparked my developing addiction, and I stepped into her, feeling her. I slid my fingers over her hip bones, loving the way she was looking up at me—with trust. With interest, too, about the part of my life I never shared with anyone.

  "When he finally started talking to me again, he acted completely normal, like what I had done was finally in the past,” I said. “We picked up and moved on like always. That's my favorite memory."

  "He forgave you," she said, smiling up at me.

  "Yeah." My voice came out rough. It always did when it had to work through the ball of emotions I felt at his loss.

  "I have to be honest with you.” Wren smoothed some of the wet hair off of my face, touching my jaw then my cheek, the feel of her like a lightning bolt. “You're starting to grow on me."

  “Well, I guess I should be honest with you too.”

  “About what?”

  I kissed her then, slower than I wanted, but deep enough to taste her thoroughly. She melted into it with fiery heat, seeming to wrap her whole body around mine. Still holding her to me, our mouths exploring, I pushed her back to the river’s edge because I needed to see all of her. Water rained down off our bodies as we stepped out, and then I knelt in front of my queen.

  “Charles…” Her fingers raked through my hair as she looked down on me, the moon at her back.

  Without a word, I took her hips in my hands and moved between them to spread her apart. She moaned at the first flick of my tongue on her clit and curled her fingers at the back of my head even tighter. I worshipped her, tasted her until her hips thrust against my face and her moans turned to cries.

  Then, with her orgasm still trembling through her, I picked her up and laid her on the sandy beach underneath me. She glowed with moonlight and her smile as she arched up to kiss me, and I paused for a second to stare. So damn beautiful, it almost hurt.

  With one thrust, I buried myself inside her. I groaned into her lips, losing myself completely. Her skin slid against mine, her soft curves fitting just right in my wandering hands. Fucking amazing.

  I broke our kiss and swept my mouth down her chest toward the nipple I’d made even harder with my thumb.

  “Fuck yes,” she whispered when I took it into my mouth.

  My tattoo flared hot and then pulsed even hotter, building and building. A powerful buzz trailed up and down my spine. My balls tingled. I pumped into her faster, deeper, until I matched the tattoo’s tempo.

  Wren dragged me back to her mouth and clung to me, making desperate sounds at the back of her throat. Then she tilted her head back so the moon lit her eyes into silver orbs. Her mouth opened in a silent cry, and she came violently. Her pussy clenched around me, and then I came, too, my orgasm barreling out of me with a loud bellow. She held on to me tightly, both of us trembling.

  When we’d both come back down from our highs, Wren smiled up at me. “I think I lost consciousness there for a second.”

  Chuckling, I dipped my head for another kiss. I hadn’t yet pulled out and still moved inside of her because she felt too fucking good. Eventually I did, though, and helped her to her feet before we made our way bac
k to the cabin, with me retrieving my hastily shed clothing along the way. I was already hard by the time we got there, so while we were still outside, Wren wrapped her hand around my cock, and I shoved her up against the wall and fucked her again.

  The things I’d do for my queen.

  Still naked and covered in sand, we stepped into the cabin. Wren trotted in front of me toward the staircase on the left, her smooth, firm ass like a homing beacon.

  On her way, she looked over her shoulder and gave me a devilish grin. "I'll go pick out a bedroom. Preferably one with a big shower."

  "Wicked, wicked woman," I said, following behind. But I was watching her and not where I was going, and my knee hit the edge of the heavy-ass coffee table. Pain flared, but before I could tell the coffee table to fuck off, the music box on the edge was already falling.

  I had a moment of panic. Several actually, all of them freezing me to the spot before I could dive to save it. The box’s bottom corner hit the hardwood floor first with a sickening crack, and then bounced and spun. Pieces flew from it and hailed around my bare feet. I stared at the broken mess, wishing I didn't feel each shard of it digging into my chest, surprised by how deep they went.

  "Charles," Wren said softly. "I'm so sorry."

  "Same," I choked out. No amount of glue could save it. It was gone. Just like Queen Bronwen herself.

  Wren crossed over to me and put her hand on my arm before kneeling on the floor. Carefully, like she was scooping up a dead bird, she picked up the largest piece that had made up the bottom. As she did, a piece of paper fluttered loose from underneath it.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  Wren looked at me, a pucker between her eyebrows, as she picked the paper up. "You don't know?"

  "I didn't put it there. It must have been in the bottom…" I stopped and stared while Wren unfolded it. "A false bottom. I'd never even thought to check. I was too caught up in the music and who had given it to me, that I…"

  Wren moved closer to show me the paper, a sad smile on her lips. "She was important to you too."

  "She was a hell of a woman to a troublemaker of a kid,” I said, and then looked at what Wren showed me.

  It was a map of the Southern Clan states, something I'd seen a thousand times before. What was so special about this one that it needed to be hidden inside a music box? There were no markings on it, at least that I could see, no dotted lines leading to a buried treasure. The only thing different about it was the paper. It was thick, and the individual fibers on my fingertips were rough.

  "A map?” Wren shook her head. “Why hide a map?”

  "I don’t know," I said, taking it from her. "But it doesn't feel like just any map."

  "The map was in the music box…” Wren looked up at me, her eyes wide and gorgeous. “Maybe because they’re related…"

  I nodded. "She used to sing the box's song. The words were something like..."

  Wren closed her eyes and hummed the tune, and then I didn't have to remember the words. They were right there, waiting.

  "You’re a five-pointed star. That’s what you are. A lover, a joker, a thinker, a killer, a thriller,” I sang.

  Wren’s lips parted with something like awe. "You can sing?"

  I laughed. "I can put notes together. I'm not you, little lady."

  She stood, so suddenly that I thought she'd heard something outside that I hadn't. But she didn't have her oh-shit face on that I was already used to. "Holy shit, Charles."

  “Ah, so this is your holy-shit face.” I grinned at her. “Got it."

  “Yes, it is, because the lyrics… I always thought lover and joker and all that were one person,” she said, staring at me.

  “Five men in your harem." I narrowed my eyes, following her train of thought and then skipping ahead a little. "Five points on our tattoos. And a map." I surged to my feet and compared my points on my tattoo to the map. "You found lover boy Ashe in Brightwell. I guess that makes me the joker in Faymont, which is just slightly north and east of Brightwell. If we follow the points on the star in a clockwise direction from there, that leads us roughly to Silversage, Skillet Lick, and Timberlake.” I looked up at Wren again. “Roughly."

  A slow, beautiful grin spread across her face. "I think my mom left you instructions for me to find the rest of my harem. Somehow she knew that I would need to find them one day, and that you would be here to help me."

  "How could she know that though? I was just a kid when I knew her." If that was the case, I totally didn’t see any of this coming. Well played, Bronwen. Well played.

  "I don't know. She barely told me anything, but I think part of that was to keep me alive. But Charles, after Ashe, after you, I felt a burst of power in my tattoo, stronger each time.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “I think I need a completed harem to have enough power to defeat Ravana and take back the throne.”

  “Well, damn.” I crossed toward her, cupped her cheeks in my hands, and planted a kiss on her mouth. “Then let’s fucking go do it.” For her mom, for my dad, but mostly for Wren herself because that crown was hers.

  She nodded. “I was fueled by revenge for so long that, even when I found out about who she was, I never even thought about the crown. But now, after all this, after your music box, I think this is what my mom always wanted—for me to take the crown. I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted, but…I do. After a lot of bloody revenge, I really do."

  She'd found her purpose, just as I'd found mine—to help and protect her, even after she became Queen Wren.

  I smiled and offered her my hand, the tattoo above my wrist flaring with the determination behind her eyes. "But first, bloody revenge."

  Chapter Nine

  Wren

  Not long after I declared my determination to win back the crown, the doubts started creeping in again. Not right away, but after Charles and I showered the sand off our bodies and enjoyed another amazing fuck in the shower and then again in the adjoining bedroom.

  Curled up against him as he slept, the heavy drapes closed against the encroaching sunrise, I studied his face. It seemed almost boyish and innocent, except for the tension that still dug lines in his forehead.

  He and Ashe were so different. Ashe seemed more sensitive and vulnerable when we weren’t making love, and totally confident when we had sex. Charles, on the other hand, was all swagger until we were skin on skin. He clung to me as though afraid I might evaporate at any minute. Even now in his sleep, his fingers gripped my shoulder, holding me tight.

  He’d lost so much because of my family. He, Ashe, and even Zac were putting their lives on the line for me. What if I failed them? Got them killed? All this would be for nothing.

  No, I couldn’t think that way. That kind of thinking just bred failure. My own mother had taught me that. Even when I feared we might starve after days of eating nothing but rats or nothing at all, she’d say, “Never give up, Wren. Hard times teach us to appreciate the good things even more.”

  Maybe she was right. Had I grown up in the luxury of being a princess, would I have appreciated these men who had dedicated their lives to me?

  Sleep wasn’t happening with all these thoughts floating through my head. I eased out of Charles’s grasp. He stirred and turned over, but didn’t wake up, thankfully.

  I tiptoed downstairs. Zac had left his phone on a portable charger on the coffee table. I picked it up and sat on the dusty sofa. I had sneaked a peek at his PIN once and hoped that would be enough to unlock it. I tapped 0329 and was thankfully able to access it. In the photos app, I found the pictures he’d taken of the ruined portrait of my mother with her harem…and me.

  It squeezed my undead heart to see the melted faces of my family, but I wanted to study it for anything that might offer some clue. Something that might spark a memory. All the men were wearing different clothes. The ones on either end wore matching navy-blue suits. Another wore a white suit with a bright red silk vest. One had a pair of dark blue jeans, boots, and a solid black button-up shirt wit
h a red tie. One even wore a black and red plaid kilt with a sword at his side. I couldn’t help but wonder which one of them had fathered me.

  A shuffling sound startled me. Charles came over to the couch with a blanket wrapped around himself. “Hey,” he whispered groggily. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. Just after sunrise I think.”

  “Can’t sleep?”

  “Not really.”

  He settled on the couch behind me, sliding his legs around mine, and cocooned his blanket around both of us. “What’s that?”

  “It’s the portrait in the throne room.” I tilted the phone’s screen toward him.

  He glanced quickly away. “Oh.”

  The words lingered on my tongue for a moment before I forced them out. “Tell me about them.”

  “About your mom’s harem?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shifted, wrapping me tighter in his arms. I lay back against his chest, smiling as his dick hardened against my ass.

  “I don’t remember them really well, but that one,” he said, pointing to the guy in the white suit, “his name was Buck. He was a musician. Played the violin in an orchestra. They often played at some of the parties your mom threw.”

  The flashback I’d had in the throne room of me dancing with someone flickered through my mind. Had I been dancing with him or one of the other mates?

  “Then there was Ethan.” Charles pointed to the man in jeans and a black shirt. “He was into horseracing. Owned a horse farm, bred a couple Derby winners.”

  “Isn’t that a daytime thing?”

  “Well, they had some night races with artificial lighting. He watched a lot of off-track races as I recall. But he had human managers taking care of the daytime business.”

  “How about the man in the kilt?”

  “That one?” Charles hesitated, rubbing his cheek against mine. The thick silence answered the question before he could voice it. “He was your father.”

  As much as I wanted to retreat and let that sink in, I couldn’t. I had to keep digging. The more I knew, the more power I would have to fight Ravana. “How would you know that? I mean, how would my mother have known?”