Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  Annie smiled and sighed as I drank from her. It was surprisingly delicious, this hot, fresh blood. I closed my eyes, and with that, came flashes of memory. Me on the floor, rolling a ball to a child with small brown hands. She rolled it back. Nearby, my mother held a woman’s wrist to her mouth. Both of them sighed contentedly and gazed into each other’s eyes with something intense that I didn’t understand. All I knew was that it was special, and I hoped I could feel that someday.

  The memory faded as my hunger eased, but with it came the familiar ache and wetness between my legs. An intense desire. Was this what everyone felt with DBDs? I opened my eyes and met Annie’s gaze. The same desire burned there in her dilated pupils and her racing pulse, which pumped her blood faster into my mouth.

  I wouldn’t know how to process being turned on by my dinner on a good day, much less a shitty day like this one. It didn’t seem fair for me to experience anything this pleasant when my father had just died. I released Annie’s wrist and wiped my mouth with the cloth napkin Margaret had draped across my lap. She hurriedly stepped in and pressed gauze to staunch the flow on Annie’s wrist.

  “Full already?” Annie asked, her voice tinged with disappointment.

  “Yes, and I’m tired.” I remembered what Ashe had done with his DBD some time back. I bit my finger. Annie held her wrist up to me. As soon as Margaret uncovered it, I squeezed my blood onto the wound. It sizzled and sealed up Annie’s skin within a couple seconds.

  “I’ll stay here for a few days, so I’ll be ready when you need more.” Annie stood, gave a slight bow, and left with Margaret. The way she said more implied she was offering more than a meal. Had my mother taken more than meals from Annie’s mother and grandmother?

  Charles held out his hand. I took it and let him lead me back to my suite. On the way, he squeezed my hand and grinned. “It’s normal, you know.”

  “What’s normal?”

  “To feel turned on when you’re drinking from a DBD. And vice versa. It’s also normal for others to get turned on watching you.”

  From the bulge in his pants, I could see what he meant. “Do vampires do more than drink from them?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on how good the blood is and if you get along. Just like anybody else, some DBDs and vampires are assholes, so…”

  I smiled.

  He brushed his hand across my cheek. “That’s my little lady. I love to see you smile.”

  “Have you ever got it on with a DBD?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “A guy?”

  “No, not that I didn’t feel turned on a few times. I’ve never had a male DBD who was into that, though. Lucky for me, I guess. I don’t swing that way.”

  ****

  Inside the suite, I sat on the bed that once belonged to my mother. The one she’d never had the chance to occupy. This morning, it housed my third mate. Or rather, the man who was marked to be my mate - it was still uncertain whether he wanted the job, especially after everything that had happened. Would he blame me for Albert’s death? I could understand why he might.

  Because I blamed myself. Had I not been so insistent on visiting him...

  Marlowe slept peacefully, though streaks from his tears still formed white trails through the grime on the cheek that wasn’t hidden by his mask. I had Charles bring me a warm washcloth from the bathroom and cleaned off all the soot and dried blood that I could from Marlowe’s face. He had fought so well. All of my mates could fight well in their own ways. If only Ashe and Charles had been there with us…but it was useless to obsess over the “what ifs.” They could only drive you insane.

  Ask me how I know this.

  Once I’d finished wiping Marlowe’s face, I was tempted to remove the mask while he was out of it, but that would be an invasion of his privacy. He’d remove it when he was ready, when he trusted me enough, which at this rate, could be never.

  Zac cleared his throat, frowning at the torn jacket, shirt, and skin on my back. “Come on, let’s go back to the infirmary and clean you up.”

  “I’m fine. Did you find any information about Ashe?”

  He grunted and crossed his arms. “No. No trace. None of my contacts in the area have found any evidence except for some hair samples near the bridge identified in the video. I’ll look for some hair or a toothbrush here in Ashe’s room so they can compare the DNA.”

  “How did you know where to find us?”

  “I was almost back in town, listening to the police scanner on the way. I heard about the fire at the church and called Charles. He said that you and Marlowe were there. I called Dr. Vincent and had him meet me with the van so we could get there before the first responders. We’re lucky the police didn’t question us. They probably thought we were trying to apprehend some of the attackers who were fleeing on motorcycle.”

  “I’m sure the fire distracted them too.”

  “I’m sorry we weren’t there in time,” Zac said. His eyes glistened before he sniffed and resumed his aloof business-as-usual expression. Maybe he had a heart, after all.

  “Me too.”

  I picked up Marlowe’s hand. He had strong hands, with a few freckles dotting his pale skin. He even had freckles on his cheeks. I could easily imagine him as an adorable little boy. How his mother could have burned him with cigarettes was beyond me. At least I’d known only love from my mother. The blue glow on his section of our shared tattoo pulsed in time with mine. Ashe’s was barely glowing. What else could I assume at this point other than that he’d been killed or was close to death?

  Charles leaned over from where he sat on the foot of the bed and stroked my cheek. “Marlowe is okay. He’s resting. I’d feel a lot better if you’d just let me have a look and see if there’s any silver embedded in you. Remember the last time you were shot? You almost bled out.”

  “I wasn’t shot. It was a motorcycle tire.”

  “Wren, just let me…”

  Placing Marlowe’s hand down gently across his stomach, I stood and walked away. “I told you I’m fine. I’m always fine. It’s everyone around me who isn’t. Everyone I love.” I swiped at the fresh tears that clung to my cheeks and eyelashes. “If you were smart, you’d get as far away from me as possible.”

  Maybe that’s what Ashe had done. He may have convinced the quadruplets to do the same. They could have all assumed false identities and scattered to the four winds.

  “Leave me alone for a while, please. I just want to shower and try to sleep.” I kept my back to them as I absently flipped through my mother’s record collection. She had jazz titles ranging all the way back to some of the greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. I’d never seen any of these. There was so much about her I didn’t know. So much I would never know now that the only person left who knew her better than I did was gone.

  The guys were silent for a moment before I heard them head for the door. Then Charles turned back and hugged me from behind, kissing my cheek with such warmth and gentleness, it pulled more tears from the corners of my eyes.

  “None of this was your fault,” he whispered. “I love you. I’d love you even without this damn tattoo. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  He and Zac left the room. I blinked the tears away and opened the lid on the old record player. Soon the haunting, bluesy melody of Billie Holiday drifted through the suite:

  We may never, never meet again

  On that bumpy road to love

  Still I'll always, always keep the memory of

  The way you hold your knife

  The way we danced till three

  The way you change my life

  No, no they can't take that away from me

  No, they can't take that away from me.

  I showered and sang along. The tears came as water stung the lacerations on my back. It was already healing. Inside, though, the wounds were beyond help. The scars ran too deep. Even if I could experience joy again, it would always be tainted with the deep pain grief had carved into my soul.<
br />
  After I toweled off, I donned a simple pair of panties and a Florida Gators T-shirt I found in my mother’s closet. I put the record on repeat play and climbed into bed beside Marlowe. Careful to not put any pressure on his bandaged wounds, I lay beside him and rested my hand on his chest. It could be the only chance I had to be this close to him. When he woke, he would probably want nothing to do with me. He’d want to remove his tattoo. And I would do that for him. I owed him that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Marlowe

  Fire engulfed me. Flames licked up my skin and scorched it black so it peeled away and revealed muscle and nerves and bone. I could both feel it and see it from afar, living it and watching it, two horrific sides of the same nightmare. I stumbled out the door of the bell tower, but instead of my masked face staring back, it was Albert's.

  It was Albert's, and that was so much worse.

  I snapped awake, my fists twisted in the sheets, my chest heaving even though I had no need to breathe. I wished it had all been a dream, but the hollowed-out feeling inside me, like someone had scooped up my heart and cracked it like a nut, proved it wasn't. His death crushed into me all over again, and I felt it all the way to my soul. It made me tired, heavy. Too heavy.

  I glanced down and met a pair of yellow eyes peering up at me. Wren had wrapped herself around me underneath the covers in a protective cocoon of soft skin and the strawberry scent of her shampoo.

  "Bad dream?" she whispered.

  I shook my head because it hadn't been. Reality was so much worse than our dreams.

  She rose up on her elbow and pulled the bandages back from my chest, rubbing her fingers lightly over the tender skin where I’d been shot. “Looks like you’re healing up well.”

  "I'm sorry, Wren," I said, my voice rough with sleep and too many raw emotions.

  She drew her brows together and then looked away as her eyes shimmered with tears. "I have no idea why you're apologizing to me. I'm the one who let him go, and if I had to do it all over again—" Her voice broke off.

  I hated to see her like this, with the same heaviness I felt. It almost hurt worse than Albert's loss, so I circled my arms around her body while she worked to compose herself again.

  "I made a selfish decision back there," she finally said as she swiped at her cheeks. "It was either him or me, and I chose me. What gave me the right to do that? Why did I think my life was more important than his?"

  I brushed her hair off her face and tilted her head on my shoulder so she'd look at me. "Because it is."

  The weight of those words landed sharp and hard, but as soon as I said them, I realized they were true. "You are important, Wren, and Albert knew that better than anyone. If you had made a different decision back there, Albert wouldn't have. He would've sacrificed everything for you to get out of there alive. Which you did."

  "But I only got to know him for a few days," she whispered. "There are thousands of things that aren't fair, but that really tops my list."

  "I know. It's not fair."

  "I should be grateful for the time I had, but like an idiot, I got my hopes up about having a parent in my life again. A family. And…fuck, I don’t know if I can do this." She buried her face in my chest, her shoulders shaking.

  I let her cry, rubbing her back, while trying to hold myself together too. I’d clicked with Albert right away, which was rare for me. We’d bonded over the card game called Golf, and he’d never once treated me as an “other” because I didn’t fit into a nice neat box. To him, it was just a part of me, like seeing Bronwen’s ghost was a part of him.

  "I think most would get their hopes up about the promise of a family,” I started. “Hell, I did, too, with Albert, and I'm not even blood related to him. That doesn't make you an idiot. Far from it. It means you have a heart."

  "And is that how you would rule?” I’d asked her in the library. “By loving everyone?"

  "Well, there's more to it than that, obviously, but with love guiding my principles, yeah," she’d answered.

  I'd seen her heart, how big it was, and how much she loved. I'd also seen her strength, both inside and out. I had completely underestimated that part of her. She could be terrifying one instant while ripping off a thug's head with barely a second thought, and then the next instant, lying in bed next to me and baring her soul, like she was now, but not irreparably shattered.

  "Remarkable," I said.

  She rested the side of her head against my shoulder again and nodded. "He was."

  "I mean you, Wren."

  She snorted. "I'm too tired to prove you wrong, so I'll just leave it at that."

  I shook my head. "You don't have to prove anything to me."

  She looked at me then with a glimmer of hope, and that was the very least I could give her. Hope.

  Maybe I was starting to come around to the idea of being a mate for the next queen, and not just because everything it entailed had completely veered me off my life's direction. Although, yes, there was that too. The dispatcher I'd called at the bell tower had been caught erasing my call from the records and had immediately been fired. I knew this because Director Briggins had texted me even though he was on vacation in Vienna. Anyway, my already small circle of those I trusted, even among the SFBI, had shrunk almost to the size of a pinpoint on a map, telling me where to go next. Toward Wren? Possibly.

  And then there was Wren herself. She smiled as I wrapped her up even closer, likely noticing the swell of my cock as she shifted her thigh. I hadn't allowed myself too much time to think about it, but her lips and tongue stroking me off in the gym had very likely ruined me for any other woman. She'd looked like the devil as she took me all the way into her mouth, and in that moment, I'd had a come-to-vampire-Jesus moment, and failed.

  Like now.

  I tipped up her chin and brushed my lips lightly against hers, then pulled back. Her pupils grew as her lips parted for more. Tension ran between our bodies and crackled in the air, sealing us together, breaking my doubts about her even farther apart.

  "Wren."

  “Yes," she said, her voice husky.

  “I never hated you." I flicked my tongue over her lower lip. A taste. A dare to myself. A promise for her. "I'm sorry I made you feel that way."

  "Apology accepted." She smiled faintly and shifted again so her thigh stroked me. An invitation I’d be stupid to ignore. Yet, still I hesitated, afraid if I got too close, shared too much, it would all go up in flames like Albert had. Like I always did, I took solace in my mask, trusting it would keep those vulnerable parts of me hidden. For now, at least.

  Still, I was no saint.

  I groaned, aware of how well she fit against me, how wet she was underneath her panties when she rolled her hips forward into my thigh. And yes, aware of the fucking tattoo that pulsed in time with my cock and her intensifying thrusts. It was like a reminder I didn't need.

  I dragged her mouth to mine and kissed her, because we needed this. A break in our sorrow, her worry about Ashe, and her fight for the crown. My mouth on hers was rough, hungry, almost deranged. Still, I craved more.

  "You can change your mind," Wren said between kisses, between climbing on top of me, and simultaneously tearing her Florida Gators shirt off. "Even if we do this, you can still change your mind and remove the tattoo."

  To answer, I grabbed her ass and settled her above right where she needed to be, hooking her panties to the side with one finger. With that one swipe along her folds, I could tell she was more than ready. She sank down on top of me and arched her back as a loud moan filled the room. Her tight nipples stuck out, and even though I wanted to cup her breasts and cover the perfect points with my mouth, I didn't. Her whole body moved with mine as she began to ride me, and right this second, I just wanted to watch her. Feel nothing but the glide of my cock inside her.

  I slipped my finger out of her panties so it rubbed along my shaft, the combination of fabric and her tight wetness creating some amazing friction. Already, heat stirred in my b
alls and up and down my stomach. With her riding me like a literal queen, gorgeous and with her head thrown back in bliss, this wouldn't take long. Good thing we were trapped in a bunker with nothing else to do.

  I brushed my hand up the back column of her neck to lower her to my mouth and settled the other on her hip to slow her down, just a little. She smiled into my kiss, her fingers stroking my cheeks and jaw. With previous women, some had seemed bothered by my mask like it was in their way while we’d fucked. One had even tried to remove it without asking. Wren didn’t seem to care, however. It was as though the mask wasn’t even there and she saw my real face, the real me, scars and all.

  Little twitches ran through her body as she sped her pace. I groaned and dug my fingers into her hips to urge her on.

  “Marlowe,” she moaned into my mouth.

  She clamped down around my cock as a violent tremor took hold of her. Her orgasm triggered mine, and all thought scattered. I growled my release into her neck, our bodies still writhing uncontrollably. I must’ve nicked her flesh with my fangs, which came out unbidden, because several drops of her blood rolled across my lips. As I lapped them up hungrily, another shudder ripped through her again before her first orgasm had even faded.

  I claimed her mouth again and kissed her through it until we came back down from our shared high. It seemed like we never really did, even with the weight of our loss.

  Maybe because together it was easier to bear.

  ****

  Hand in hand, both of us wandered into the kitchen later that evening, our stomachs growling.

  Charles glanced up at us from his seat at the table, chugging blood instead of whiskey this time. His gaze settled on our joined hands, and a shit-eating grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “Shotgun wound’s all healed, I take it?”

  “Never better,” I said, stopping in the doorway. My ears perked to the sound of the bunker door closing.

  Wren squeezed my hand and then crossed to Charles to plant a kiss on the top of his head. She looked radiant in her Gators T-shirt and simple black shorts, and it wasn’t just an after-sex glow either. Her skin actually seemed to shimmer, and the yellow in her eyes looked sharper like she was able to pick out things the rest of us couldn’t. Supposedly the more mates she gathered, the more power she, and all of us, acquired. We’d have the chance to test that theory eventually if all went as planned.