Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  The memory wobbled and faded as Vivian screamed again.

  “Oh, shut up already!” I yelled as I jumped to my feet, then loomed over her.

  She crouched, covering her head. “Don’t hurt me! Seriously!”

  “For fuck’s sake, if I wanted to hurt you, I’d have already done it. Now shut up so we can think. Charles, you seem to know a little about what all this shit’s about. Care to share with the rest of the class?”

  “Witches,” he said matter-of-factly. “Specifically, one witch and three warlocks. Witches are usually more powerful, so it makes sense that there’d be a three to one ratio.”

  “Witches,” I repeated. Yet another thing I’d been woefully ignorant about.

  I turned to Zac. He usually knew more than he let on too. But he just shrugged. “I don’t know much about them. Not my department.”

  “So now we have fucking witches after us as well as Ravana’s vampire and redneck minions?”

  “It would seem that way, yes,” Charles said.

  Poor Ashe still hadn’t woken up. No wonder, having been struck twice. I knelt beside him and stroked his forehead. He was still alive, but I hated that he had suffered so much on my account. I sat beside him and put his head on my lap. At least if he woke up in here, he’d see my face first.

  Vivian started bawling. “Witches? I can’t even. Seriously. Just let me go. Please.”

  I glared at her. “You know what, honey? I’d love to let you go. But in case you didn’t notice, we’re all in this shit creek together without a paddle. Unless you can offer us some useful information, I’d suggest you shut the fuck up.”

  She went silent, her bottom lip sticking out pitifully.

  Ashe finally stirred. Heavy-lidded eyes stared up at me, followed by a slow smile. “Hey, beautiful.”

  “Hey yourself. You okay?” I held his shackled hands with mine.

  He squeezed my fingers. “I think so. Though I really hope my dick didn’t get fried.”

  I laughed. “Me too.”

  “Fried chicken would be really good right now,” Zac mused.

  “Yoga, I don’t know if fried dicks taste like chicken, but you could try it,” Charles said, winking at him.

  “Fuck off.”

  Well, at least some things hadn’t changed.

  Zac patted his pants and shirt. “Great. They took everything.”

  “So, who is this witch and these warlocks?” I asked Charles. “She seemed, I don’t know, less of a bitch than my aunt and her minions, as if she really didn’t want to hurt us.”

  “It’s possible they’re working with someone else,” Charles said with a shrug.

  “Who?”

  “As long as they’re not on Ravana’s side, I don’t really care. But Wren, there’s something you should know.”

  “What now?”

  “This truck—it was built for a sudden escape.”

  “For who?” I knew the answer as soon as the words left my mouth.

  “Your mom, her mates…and her knights.”

  I processed that for a couple seconds before I connected it to the memory I’d just experienced. “You were there that night? And your dad?”

  “Yeah. I honestly never thought I’d see the inside of this truck again.”

  “Where did we go?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I woke up in a cousin’s house and never saw my dad again.” He averted his eyes, blinking rapidly.

  My chest ached for him. We’d both had some truly shitty times in our childhoods. Reaching out with my shackled hands, I held his face and kissed him tenderly. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

  “It’s not your fault. I wish I had known you were still alive. I’d have come for you. I swear I would have.”

  “I know.” To show him, I kissed him again. “I love you for that.”

  Just then, the constant buzz on my symbol grew a little stronger. I lifted my arm and pulled my leather jacket sleeve up with my teeth. Sure enough, a faint blue light pulsed from a third spindle on the symbol.

  I blinked, my jaw dropping open. “No fucking way.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Charles

  It wasn't every day I got zapped by witches. Gotta say, I wasn't a fan. My head pounded, my whole body felt itchy, and there was this weird taste in my mouth like I’d gargled paint. No idea how I knew that.

  More importantly, I felt like breaking out of this van and taking my chances on the concrete speeding under the tires.

  "No fucking way," Wren said, staring at her wrist in shock.

  Then I noticed it, too, this shifting, expanding heat on my tattoo. I blinked down at mine, and Ashe did at his too. The third part of it glowed a little. We were about to gain another harem member, and soon, because the van slowed and then came to a stop.

  I hoped he wasn't a complete waste of space.

  I wasn’t completely sure, but I didn’t think we’d been driving all that long, so I guessed we were near Skillet Lick, Alabama. Right where the map in the bottom of Bronwen’s jewelry box had said we’d find the third mate.

  Silence as the five of us waited. No footsteps from outside. No doors opening.

  Vivian sniffed. "Hello?" she called loudly.

  We shushed her, and she pouted back into her corner.

  "Okay, well, fuck this." I made my way toward the rear of the truck to force the lock when the doors flew open. I reared back, expecting sunlight or another witch zap, but there were just fluorescents, bright enough to outline four shapes standing outside.

  "Stop and listen for a second," a rough male voice said. "If you can get out of the truck yourselves and not ask to get knocked out again, we'll let you."

  "I don't remember asking to get knocked out the first fucking time," I growled with a hint of fang.

  The female with the blonde ponytail shrugged, and a slight wince twitched her mouth, like maybe she felt bad about zapping us. "For what it’s worth, I find it very admirable how fiercely you protect one another. Like we said back at the cabin, all we want to do is talk."

  "And kidnap us," Wren shot back, crawling up next to me.

  "All we want to do is talk someplace safe," the woman corrected and then moved aside. "Ready when you are."

  Since I was closest to the exit, I went first. I stepped out on a huge expanse of concrete floor. We were in an airport hangar, I realized, spotting several planes in evenly spaced intervals. Ours was the only truck in here, which was stopped with its rear facing the inside of the hangar and parked in front of a huge, closed garage door of sorts. We were the only people here that I could tell.

  When all of us had clambered out, the guy who’d opened the van door undid our cuffs, which was a surprise. Then we faced off with our captors, vampires against witches. The four of them wore green SFBI fatigues, and their gazes kept going back to Wren with interest.

  "Queen Wren," the blonde ponytail started.

  I had a feeling she was the one in charge, but I couldn’t find a name on her fatigues. She looked like she was in her late twenties, but who really knew for sure with witches?

  "No.” Wren stepped forward, and the witches visibly tensed as if they expected a window to appear that she'd throw them out of. "Just Wren."

  "Wren.” Ponytail nodded and cast her eyes down briefly, a show of respect. “We're here to help. We're a special unit of the Supernatural Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Witness Protection Program."

  "A little late for protection, aren't you?" I asked, rubbing my wrists.

  "You're not an easy woman to find, Wren,” she said, completely ignoring me. “We've been searching for you for years."

  "You know Straker from the Witness Protection Program?" Yoga asked.

  The four of them shook their heads.

  "No, why?" Ponytail asked.

  Yoga smoothed his hand down his jaw. "No reason."

  Wren frowned at him and then turned to the witches again. "Well, you found me. Now what?"

  "We
want to help protect you. We know what Ravana is capable of, and we also know that when she gets her claws in you, she closes her fist fast."

  Ashe scoffed. "Yeah. We're well aware."

  "It was just a hunch, a cry in the dark really, that you might one day show up at your mom's old vacation spot.” Ponytail waved toward the other three. "Which is why we got there first."

  "You're the ones who picked the lock," I said.

  "You were there this whole time?" Wren asked.

  "Not all the time physically, no." She shared a look with the others. “We were listening in, and it took us a while to get back there because we were on another job.”

  Yoga crossed his arms and frowned so deeply that his chin dimple almost caved in his whole head. “I swept the place for bugs and didn’t find any.”

  “That’s because they were concealed with a spell,” Ponytail said.

  Yoga scuffed his boot into the concrete. “Well, shit.”

  "So you just came back to the cabin when you felt like it?” Ashe shook his head. “Or when you learned that we hadn't been taken out at the concert? Sorry, I'm just not buying what you're trying to sell. You can buy SFBI badges and combat fatigues on eBay, so I'm afraid you're going to have to keep working to convince us."

  Wren nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. "How do we know we can trust you? Why is the SFBI involved in all of this anyway? Shouldn't they be separate from the monarchy?"

  "We get our orders from the top." Ponytail shrugged. "And the top says that you need protection."

  “I believe them,” I blurted, and it was the truth. “They are who they say they are.” When several pairs of raised eyebrows aimed toward me, I continued. “Listen, I’ve been around my fair share of law enforcement, and these guys—and woman—are the real deal. See their expressions? Alert, trained. How they carry themselves. How they stand. All of it. That’s hard to fake, especially if you have other motives. They haven’t slipped up once.”

  One of the many things Dad taught me was how to read people and their intent. Like him, I was almost never wrong.

  Ponytail cracked a small smile. “It’s nice to know that all your run-ins with the law have had some advantages, Mr. Charles Ford. And given your recent history, Mr. Ashe Jensen, it makes perfect sense that you’d be distrustful of the law.”

  "Damn right," he muttered.

  "Okay,” Wren started, “some of us are short on trust, but we all have infinite amounts of questions, like who the guy at the top is pulling your strings. No offense."

  "None taken.” Ponytail turned to the guy on her right, a stocky warlock with more shoulders than I had. “Travis, can you go get him?"

  Wren’s mouth popped open. "What, top guy’s here? At an airport?"

  The guy named Travis gave a short nod to Ponytail. "Be right back."

  "Um.” Vivian stepped forward with her finger in the air. “Could you bring me an iced, half-caff, sugar-free, non-fat, A-positive venti latte with extra whipped cream and a drizzle of A-negative to balance it all out?"

  Everyone blinked at her.

  “What?” She did a one-shoulder shrug. “I’ve had a hard day.”

  A look of annoyance crossed Travis’s face before he went all stoic again. "Anyone else?"

  The rest of us shook our heads, though from the looks of our ragged crew, we could all really go for a nap.

  "SFBI… The Supes." Vivian nodded like her head wasn’t firmly attached. "You know, I had a friend once. Not really a friend, because let's be honest, she was a total space cadet. Seriously. Anyway, she wanted to be in the Supes, and she'd make silver-bullet-proof vests out of human maxi pads, new ones, like to pretend or whatever."

  Complete silence fell as everyone stared at her. Really, I was just too tired to tell her to can it at this point, but listening to her made me even more exhausted.

  "Okay, fine." She twisted her fingers through her blonde curls while she dug her heel into the ground as if she were trying to dig a hole and disappear. "It was me. I had the maxi pad silver-bullet-proof vest."

  Ashe gaped at her in horror.

  Wren grinned and bit down hard on it.

  "You want to work for the SFBI?" Yoga asked her.

  She nodded, almost to China by now. "I love singing, but it's… There's a lot about it I don't like."

  "Like your manager," I said, suddenly remembering the wallet I'd snagged from his pocket...which the feds had taken from me. Fuck. What were the chances I could get it back without these sharp-eyed witches and warlocks noticing?

  "Yeah," she admitted, and winced.

  Poor girl. She seemed too naïve for the music industry. Hell, probably everyone was for that cutthroat business.

  "So do both,” Ponytail said. “We have an opening in the records department. You could sing at small clubs on the weekends."

  "Like me." Wren smiled, but it reflected inward, a little regretful. "Or like I used to. The singing, not the SFBI-ing."

  Vivian popped up out of China like a meerkat, her curls bouncing. "Seriously?"

  “Maybe Wren could, uh…” Ashe scratched the back of his neck like he was trying to play it cool. “Maybe she could give you lessons.”

  Vivian’s eyes widened so much I was surprised they didn’t fall out, roll, and wedge into the wheels of an airplane. “Seriously?” she said to Wren. “I mean, I’ve never heard you sing, but your voice is so…”

  “Hot,” I supplied.

  Wren grinned, the kind that brightened all the dark places in my heart. “Sure. I can give you a few pointers.”

  Yoga took a step forward and raised his hand. "This is a fascinating conversation, truly, but could we get back to why we’re—?"

  “Oh.” Wren stiffened.

  Perfectly synchronized, she, Ashe, and I all stared at our wrists. Mine was heating and itching something fierce.

  Footsteps sounded, and then Travis and another vampire appeared. Dressed in a navy hoody and jeans, he looked normal, unassuming, except for the antique black-gold mask he wore over half his face. Either he was really ugly and not proud of it or on his way to audition for Phantom of the Opera. His eyes locked with Wren's immediately as he approached, and they flared wide and bright like he hadn't expected her to be so...Wren.

  She smiled because she had to feel it, too, another gear clicking into place. Another gear we needed to reclaim what was Wren's, to right the past, and to avenge everyone Ravana had killed. My dad. Wren's mom. All the others who were blinked out of existence because of one thing—greed.

  As far as I was concerned, there was nothing more honorable than doing just that. But now, standing with real purpose next to the future queen, I wondered what my dad would say right now if he saw me. Maybe that I was putting my “colossal intellectual faculties” to good use for once. He’d be proud, whether I was in the Royal Knights or part of the queen’s harem. I knew he would.

  "Wren." The man stopped in front of her and stuck his hand out for her to shake. “I'm Marlowe."

  She gripped his hand, and I could feel the current connecting them in the hot pulse of my tattoo.

  "Why am I here? Is it because of this?" She showed him her glowing symbol.

  Travis crossed behind Marlowe toward Vivian, who made grabby hands at the cup he offered her. He looked significantly shaken like it had been a horrible ordeal to order that. Or something else had rattled him… The second the drink was out of his hands, he whipped out his cell from his back pocket and walked with it over to Ponytail.

  "No, it’s not that,” Marlowe said, “and quite frankly, my similar tattoo is news to me. But we’ll have to focus on that later. You’re here because you have friends in very high places, and they want to help."

  "Who?" Wren asked.

  "Me, for one.” He looked at her for a long moment, assessing. “And...your dad."

  Wren's face hardened to cold stone. "My dad is dead."

  A dark eyebrow rose, half hidden by the mask. "I'm sure that will be news to him. He said to gi
ve you this." From his clasped hands behind him, he brought out a long golden scepter.

  So familiar that it brought back the sound of Queen Bronwen’s laugh, startling and real, like a haunted memory. That was her scepter. The one she held at court. Golden claws gripped the giant ruby at the top, and smaller rubies dripped down the length of gold like blood.

  I must’ve made some kind of sound because Wren was staring at me, her eyebrows drawn together in worry.

  “You recognize it?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  She laced her fingers through mine and turned back to Marlowe, who handed the scepter to her.

  “You’ll see your mother’s initials on the bottom,” he said. “From what your dad tells me, there are all sorts of secret hiding places for weapons and other items inside it, but your mom wasn’t fond of telling everyone her secrets. Your dad didn’t even know you were alive until recently, which was yet another secret.”

  Wren held the scepter delicately, like she could hardly believe it was real. “My dad is alive?”

  A slight hum emanated from the scepter, and then a loud click. Everyone stepped back except Ashe, Yoga, the new guy, and me. The SFBI agents widened their stances, prepared to launch themselves in any direction like a firework.

  “My voice,” she said softly. “It responded to the sound of my voice...and my touch.”

  She let my hand go to grip the scepter with both of hers, and pulled at both ends. And kept pulling until a long silver sword came free. Just looking at the lethally sharp edges made me think my eyes were bleeding. And the size of that thing… No doubt the scepter was bigger on the inside than the outside.

  “Think that’s sharp enough to sever the crown, little lady?” I asked.

  She angled the sword so it reflected the fluorescents onto the fierce determination written across her face. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  “I think you all had better see this,” Ponytail announced, and the rawness in her voice made everyone look up. She turned up the volume on Travis’s phone and brought it closer to us, her hands shaky.