Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  Zac had said he’d take care of the special vampire cell signal to prevent videos and pictures of the concert and my not-Vivian Bravo face.

  Charles gripped my butt cheeks and growled as I licked his earlobe.

  Ashe cleared his throat. “All’s clear now. You can stop playing tonsil hockey.”

  “Sorry.” I pulled away from Charles, but he gave my ass one good squeeze before letting me go.

  Zac opened the car door. We stepped aside as he emerged in a security guard uniform and a bushy mustache and goatee that hid his chin dimple.

  “Let me guess, you’re going as one of the Village People,” Charles said, laughing.

  “Fuck you. I have a job to do.” Zac shrugged into a navy-blue jacket and zipped it to cover the guns he had strapped at his sides.

  “Take it easy, Yoga. We’re all on the same team.”

  The security guard in the golf cart came around again.

  “Are we?” Zac glared at Charles, then turned to me and handed me a watch. “Put this on.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Charles demanded.

  Zac ignored him. What was that all about? I chalked it up to tensions being high. I couldn’t afford to let doubt get in the way now.

  I fastened the watch on my wrist. It was digital with a big square screen. He handed Ashe and Charles one too. Then he took three wireless earpieces from his pocket and passed those out.

  “These are smart watches. Work just like a phone. You can speak quietly. The earpiece will pick it up and transmit it through the watch to all the other earpieces. You can also text on the watch if you need to be silent. Right now, they’re set on walkie-talkie mode so we’re all on the same channel. Ashe, Charles, you know what to do.”

  The golf cart pulled up, and Zac got in beside the other guard. They sped off. Zac and his human partners would provide extra security now that the bomb threat seemed to be nonexistent. Meanwhile, Ashe, Charles, and I had a singer to find.

  My watch buzzed. I clicked the text from Zac. It contained a map of the facility. He had gone over it in the car on the way, but it was nice to have it there for quick reference. The guys also studied their watches, so they must have gotten the map too.

  Then another text from Zac: Stay alive.

  “Good advice,” Ashe said, pulling his beanie down over his earpiece.

  Yet another text followed: All entrances guarded. East entrance by bus is least guarded.

  That was our cue to go. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt over my head and double-checked my look in the passenger side mirror. Fake beauty mark in place at the right corner of my mouth. Check. Aviator sunglasses with pink mirrored lenses. Check. Sparkly nails. Check. Now if I could just get her voice right. I’d listened to some of her YouTube interviews and songs. She had a slight lisp in her speaking voice, which was annoyingly high-pitched. I thought her singing voice sounded like a dying cat, too, but whatever.

  We zipped over to Ms. Bravo’s bus, parked near the arena, keeping it between us and the armed guard who stood by the entrance labeled No Admittance.

  “We’re here at the door,” I said softly, unsure whether Zac had heard me.

  But his voice came through on my earpiece. “Go for it.”

  We stumbled around the bus, laughing, my arms looped through Ashe and Charles’s arms.

  The guard took a step toward us, one hand up. “Hey, you have to use the main entrance.”

  I glanced at his name tag. “Reggie, come on, seriously?” She said “seriously” a lot in her interviews. “Do you seriously not know who I am?”

  “Uh…” He blinked at me then regarded Ashe and Charles. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Bravo. But I don’t know these guys. If they’re not on the authorized list, I’m not supposed to let them in.”

  “Look, I am seriously stressing about this concert. I had them on the bus with me, but it’s too cramped in there. I’m taking them to my dressing room. They’re rentals, if you know what I mean. It won’t take long. I’ll have my assistant escort them out.”

  He stared at Ashe, who gave a nod in return. “Yo, ‘sup?”

  “She’s a good fuck, yo,” Charles added.

  “You know what? I think I’ll escort you to your dressing room myself,” the guard said, his gaze flicking between us.

  Damn. This could either be a good or bad thing, depending on luck. But we couldn’t let him see me and Ms. Bravo together, that was for certain.

  “That’s really not necessary,” I said in a sickeningly sweet voice. “Seriously.”

  “No, it’s my pleasure.” He opened the door and gestured for us to go in. Inside was a large corridor with an elevator on one end and stairs on the other. He headed for the elevator and pushed the up button. “I’m a really big fan. Could I get your autograph?”

  “Catch me after the show. Seriously.”

  “Sure.” The elevator opened, and we followed him in. He pressed the button for the third floor, and the doors closed behind us.

  I didn’t notice him tripping any alarms, but that’s not hard to do. He could have secretly been in communication with someone like we were doing. It had been easy to get inside. Too easy. What if the doors opened to an ambush? Shit, this was a stupid idea.

  Zac’s voice came over the earpiece. “No explosives found in the basement level. Moving to main floor. The queen and her entourage have arrived. They’re in a private box on the third level. If you get Ms. Bravo alone, make the switch as quickly and quietly as possible..”

  I obviously couldn’t answer him now, but Ashe pretended to be checking his watch and replied: “Roger.”

  Ashe and Charles stood rigid on either side and slightly in front of me. The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened to an empty hallway. One side was lined with windows that showed the twinkling lights of Nashville in the distance.

  The guard stepped out and turned right. We started following him, but then I recalled the map of the arena that I’d memorized.

  “No, that’s the wrong way. The dressing room is down there.” I pointed the opposite way. Either he was testing us or had just forgotten where the dressing room was.

  “Oh, silly me,” he said with a stiff chuckle.

  With an uneasy prickle winding down my spine, we started the other way down the hall.

  He walked behind us for a little while and then stopped. “You know, you’re right about the dressing room, but the problem is, that dressing room is being renovated to remove asbestos. I don’t know why vampires would need to worry about asbestos, but that’s not the point.”

  Charles, Ashe, and I stopped and slowly turned around.

  “The point is, you should know very well where the temporary dressing room is. I just escorted you there an hour ago.” He bent his head and pressed a button on his collar microphone. “She’s here. Third floor dressing area.”

  Charles didn’t hesitate. He pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and clicked it. A whisker-thin dart shot into the guard’s neck. He went down like a sack of potatoes. More Fangaway, I assumed.

  “What’s going on?” Zac said through the earpiece.

  “Cover’s blown,” I said, watching as Charles dragged the guy into a closed concession booth and dropped him there.

  “Come on,” Ashe said. He grabbed my hand, and we ran the direction the guard had started going when we got off the elevator.

  A few doors down, two guards stepped outside a door that had a gold star taped to it. They already had their guns drawn. Charles popped off two more darts. They both went down. Charles removed the darts, and then we left them there and stormed into the room.

  A woman who looked like a slightly better version of my disguise spun around from her seat at a dressing table. Two human drag queen assistants were with her. They rushed me, one with a pair of scissors, and another with a curling iron. I knocked the scissors out of the first one’s hand and delivered a swift punch to his forehead. He flew backward and hit the wall, then slid down, out cold. Then I high-kicked t
he other one right in his five-o-clock-shadowed jaw. He fell into a rack of clothes and onto the floor in a pile of sequined fabric.

  “Happy, Ashe? I didn’t kill anyone yet,” I said, grinning.

  “We don’t know that for sure, but…yay?” He shrugged.

  “Seriously?” Ms. Bravo shrieked. “Guards!”

  “Your guards are taking a break, and so can you.” Charles fired another dart into her, and she slumped in the chair.

  I caught her before she slid out.

  Footsteps pounded down the hallway. There was only one thing we could do. I just hoped for all our sakes that it would work.

  Seriously.

  Chapter Twelve

  Charles

  "Quick." Wren grabbed a small jar off the dressing room table. "Lay Vivian out on the floor with her head pointed toward the door and then hide."

  The footsteps outside in the hallway drew closer. More guards, probably.

  Ashe moved to the slumped-over Vivian Bravo in the chair. "What's this we’re doing?"

  "Just do it," Wren hissed, and shoveled some thick white cream out of the jar.

  While she slathered it all over the bottom half of her face below her Aviators, I helped Ashe with Vivian, still not quite sure where Wren was going with this. My plan had been just to catch them off guard once they barreled into the dressing room and take them out with my handy dart pen and fists. This could work, too, I supposed.

  With Vivian unconscious on the floor, Wren tossed me the jar. “Smear this all over the floor and her shoes. Hurry.”

  Roger that. The guards were seconds away.

  Ashe and I made quick work smearing the cold, globby cream all over the linoleum floor, including the bottom of Vivian’s sparkly pink slippers. Wren knelt next to Vivian with a wet towelette and wiped most of the makeup off her face so she looked completely different.

  Fucking brilliant.

  Just before the door slammed open, Ashe and I darted behind a rack of clothes on wheels with sequins, fur, and feathers on hangers. The bottom half of one of the drag queens was sticking out from under the clothes. He had impressively hairless legs, but his skirt had gotten bunched up, revealing his hairy junk. I held in a laugh and quickly looked away.

  "Oh, thank the lord you're here," Wren wailed. "I was just going to call for help. This…this...woman just took out two of my guards then barged in here and attacked me, screaming all sorts of seriously terrible things about me and threatening my life. I had just spilled my $1000 face cream all over the floor when she came in, and she must have slipped and hit her head." She started sobbing then, and if I hadn't heard Wren cry for real, I would've been fooled. Not only was she hot, smart, and had the voice of an angel, she was one hell of an actress.

  "No one else came in with her?" a rough voice demanded.

  "No, just her. Please, can you take her away or something? I have to be on stage in like twenty, and I haven't even done my warm-ups yet." She belted out several me-me-me’s, her voice too nasal and pitched in no key that should exist to vampire ears.

  The guards couldn't get out of there fast enough, taking the real Vivian with them.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Ashe bent double with laughter, carefully stepping over the sprawled-out drag queen.

  Wren shoved the clothes rack aside, a smug grin on her face. "You think they bought it?"

  Chuckling, I picked a feather boa off a hanger and looped it around Wren to pull her against me. "Yes. But if you sing like that again, I'm pretty sure you'll raise the dead."

  "Like you?" she said with a wink.

  “Yeah.” Using the end of the boa, I wiped most of the goop from her face so I could lean in to kiss her, hot and deep until she melted against me with a moan. Then I pulled back. "I'm always raised around you."

  Ashe groaned from over by the table in front of the brightly lit mirror, wiping his hands on a towel. "Really, dude? You’re a giant cheeseball with your pick-up lines.”

  I held up my hands. "Hey, I'm here, aren't I? In the inner circle? Guess those lines worked."

  Wren laughed as she plopped down in the chair. "All right, you two. Settle down." She quickly brushed on some makeup and redrew the beauty mark by her mouth, having lost it with the cream. Then she added a shiny pink color to her lips. "We have bigger things to worry about than pick-up lines. How long will your dart pen last on Vivian, Charles?"

  "A couple hours, at least,” I said. “Enough time for the concert."

  Ashe dropped a kiss on top of her head. "Enough time for you to fake it until you make it."

  "Seriously." She jumped up and chose a black lace one-piece shorts thing from the clothes rack and black thigh-high boots from the shelf underneath. Completely uninhibited, our queen undressed right in front of us. Of course, I stared. How could I not? Hell, she was a work of art, perfectly proportioned with a rose vine tattoo that circled both biceps and wound across her shoulders. I didn’t dare glance at Ashe, as I guessed his pants were just as tight as mine were in the crotch region. We’d have to get used to communal lusting.

  Once she’d dressed, her black bra and panties underneath were clearly visible.

  “You might as well be naked,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Welcome to the music industry.”

  More footsteps sounded in the hallway outside.

  “Fuck. This again?” I ground out.

  Ashe grabbed my jacket and dragged me behind the clothes rack. We almost tripped over the drag queen, whose junk was even more exposed now that we’d bumped into him.

  "I think it's just showtime,” Wren whispered as she straightened her pink Aviator sunglasses. “Ready?"

  "Only if we don't blow up," I muttered.

  A quick knock and then the door opened. In barged a human woman with a clipboard who looked like she'd never been without a clipboard a day in her life. "Ms. Bravo, we're on in five. We need you backstage. The crowd is already fuming mad about the fake cancellation, so we need you extra happy tonight. Ready? Let's go."

  "Totes ready." Wren followed the woman out into the empty hallway. The conscious guards must’ve taken care of the unconscious ones.

  Ashe and I slipped from behind the rack and went, too. Ashe barely avoided the creamy mess on the floor and just about took a nosedive.

  I slapped him hard in the chest and hissed, "Act natural, would you?"

  He leveled me with a look that probably should’ve sliced off my head. "Fuck you, you psycho kidnapper."

  The clipboard woman gave us a stern glare over her shoulder. “Where are your backstage passes?”

  “They’re backstage, of course.” I threw her a grin that usually melted panties right off. Not hers, though.

  “They’re with me,” Wren assured her.

  "Listen, guys, still no indication of a bomb," Zac said through our earpieces.

  The three of us stiffened at once just from hearing the word “bomb,” but none of us lost a step as we entered a waiting elevator. It sounded as though we were in the clear. Either that, or there was still a very well-hidden bomb. It wouldn’t be hard to hide one in a place this big.

  Something told me that maybe we shouldn’t chance it. There was a fire alarm just ahead on the wall. I could pull it, get everyone to safety.

  Zac blew out a tense breath. "The arena still has the all-clear. Carry on with the plan. "

  I sagged against the elevator wall with relief as it lowered to the ground floor.

  "The bomb squad doesn’t see any reason to call off the show, Wren,” he continued. “You’re Vivian Bravo for tonight if you want to be. The cell signal there has been scrambled."

  Wren pushed her lips together into a thin line and nodded. We stepped off the elevator into the backstage area, packed with equipment, groupies, roadies, and the constant buzz of the nearby crowd.

  A human man in dark sunglasses and a suit sauntered over to Wren, a grin on his face that made even me uncomfortable. “There’s my girl.” He wrapped his arms around her a
nd held her to him too fucking tight while he gazed down her back at her ass.

  Ashe and I growled low. At least we had that in common – protecting our queen’s beautiful ass.

  “Hey…you.” She pulled away awkwardly and swept more of her blonde wig over her face.

  The guy frowned at her. “Now, don’t do that. Don’t try to hide them. You know what our contract says.”

  “Of course,” she said, like she really knew.

  “No sunglasses on stage,” he said, playing with a lock of her wig. “Remember to take them off. And smile more. Last concert, you looked like you were near tears.”

  Hmm, I wondered why. This punk had to be the real Vivian’s manager and was about as sleazy as they came.

  “People aren’t paying to see you cry, or to see you cover your perfect face,” he said. “And if they’re not paying, that’s a real problem. Give them a show tonight, sweetie. Whatever you have to do. I’ll have a limo take you to my hotel afterwards. We’ll celebrate.”

  As he strolled away, Wren visibly shook with rage. “Slime ball.”

  Ashe glared after him. “I’ll go castrate him.”

  “No.” I shook my head, seeing a much bigger problem. “Look at me being all reasonable for once and then look at the stage. What do you see?”

  "Shit.” Wren pointed at the two huge screens hanging on either side where she would be performing, now blank, but that would likely change. "Those will show close-ups of my face. Zac said he’d scrambled the cell signal, but regular cameras will work just fine, I bet."

  "Yeah. I’m on it." Searching the highest part of the stage, I backed away and pointed at Ashe. “Stay here with her.”

  The farther away I moved from her, though, the more unease grew inside me, so heavy and thick that I stumbled into the path of a migraine, also known as a squealing group of girl vampire tweens with backstage passes running toward Wren. I needed to be with her, to protect her. Even though Ashe was there, I needed to be too. She needed both of us.