Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  Fuck her and fuck these sheep that follow her.

  Angelo answered my thought with his own. Just kill the sheep. We’ll get their shepherd later.

  I hurled the portrait at the warlock like a giant frisbee. It sank into his ribs. He squalled like a dying cat, but his fire spell fizzled out. Angelo swept in and sliced off his head in one swipe of his flaming machete.

  Marlowe and Charles finished off a third vampire, driving stakes into him from the front and back. Three more vampires, all women, leapt from the balcony, cornering Zac.

  “Oh, looky here, they brought us some dinner,” one of them said.

  “I think we should start with his dick. I bet it’s delicious,” another one said, licking her fangs. She actually drooled.

  “Get down!” Zac holstered his gun and pointed his watch at them.

  “Oh fuck!” If I had to guess, this was a similar weapon to the one he’d used in the prison when we broke Ashe out. It was like a UV beam on crack. And it would fry all vampires in its wake. Including us.

  Marlowe and Charles blurred over to me, shielding me. Angelo must have read my thoughts. He put himself between us and Zac and spread his wings, cocooning us within the glowing feathers.

  I couldn’t see what was happening, but I heard the high-pitched whine of the laser, followed by the pew sound. The vampires shrieked but went silent a millisecond later.

  Angelo folded up his wings. The vampires’ ashes floated in the air like a gray blizzard. I brushed their dusty bits off my leather jacket, wincing at the wound in my shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” Marlowe asked, giving my hand a quick squeeze.

  I nodded. “I’m good.”

  “What do you think?” Charles asked as he shook ashes from his hair. “I don’t know about you, but seeing her kick ass makes me horny as hell.”

  “I’ll plead the fifth on that,” Marlowe said, grinning.

  “Yeah, he’s horny. It’s cool, dude. We’ll get a schedule going. I have Wednesdays.”

  “Why Wednesdays? Oh…”

  Charles laughed.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Zac said, drawing his guns.

  The lion roared again, this time from the top of the stairs. Like Angelo said, we’d plowed through the pawns, so this guy had waited his turn. His sheer size, strength, thick mane and skin would make him hard to wound, much less kill in this close range.

  Angelo whistled. Scotty breezed in through the front door. His rather amorphous cloud form solidified into a gigantic gray misty wolf. He bared his ghostly teeth and growled ferociously at the lion.

  Zac shot the beast as it leapt down on Scotty. The two shifters rolled out onto the front porch.

  “Now!” Angelo pointed his machete up the stairs.

  “Go! I’ll cover you!” Zac said, waving us on before lending more bullets to the shifter fight. There was no way he could hurt Scotty, so he fired out the front door with both guns blazing.

  We blurred up the stairs with Angelo behind us. Vivian had given us the layout of the house. They were being held in Elsie Mae’s old bedroom, two doors down on our left.

  From outside, I could hear the ongoing shifter battle—fierce growling, barking, roaring, bullets firing. I sure hoped more enemies hadn’t joined the battle and that Zac could hold his own for a while.

  No one stirred up here on the second floor, but if I had counted right, we still had one more witch to contend with. We let Angelo lead the way with his shield. The door was closed. He turned the knob, and it opened. The room looked like the one in the picture, except there was no sign of Ashe or the quadruplets.

  “Where are they?” I pushed past Angelo and yanked open the closet. Only a couple empty hangers hung there. A few shoeboxes and hair scrunchies littered the floor.

  “Wren,” Charles said as I rushed to the bathroom door and kicked it in.

  Nothing. I tore down the shower curtain. The bathtub was empty. I tore the linen closet door from its hinges. Only a few threadbare towels and a spider occupied one of the shelves. The frightened arachnid scurried under the towels.

  “Wren! They’re not here,” Marlowe said.

  “They have to be! You said they were here!” I screamed at Angelo, pushing him in the chest.

  He barely moved. In hindsight, that was a really stupid thing to do, but luckily he had more patience than I did.

  He shook his head and took my wrist in a firm, yet gentle hold. “They are here. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

  A woman’s voice echoed from all around us. “Isn’t that the truth? You think he’s a perfect angel, then you discover him screwing your sister. I had a hunch you’d drag him out of that crypt to help you.”

  “Doreen. Figures.” Angelo rolled his eyes. “That was what, five hundred years ago? Let it go.”

  “Five hundred years, five days, doesn’t matter. I’m still pissed,” the voice—Doreen—said.

  “And this is why I don’t date witches,” he said, then added, “anymore, that is.”

  She materialized in a poof of purple smoke. And there she was, just sitting on the dresser, admiring her nails. Doreen looked kind of like Farrah Fawcett from the eighties, which I remembered from all the old Cosmo and Woman’s Day magazines I’d read when we hid out in libraries. She had that feathered, full blonde hair, bellbottom orange pants, matching blazer, and a bright yellow blouse.

  I shot over to her, grabbed her pointy lapels, and smashed her back into the mirror. It shattered all around us.

  “Where are they?!” I roared, almost as loud as the lion shifter.

  Instead of showing fear, Doreen cackled with laughter. “Calm down there, Batman. I never did like Christian Bale’s acting. The first one was the best. What was his name?”

  “Michael Keaton,” Charles answered.

  I glared at him.

  “What?” Charles shrugged. “She asked. I don’t like leaving questions hanging.”

  Doreen winked. “I like him. Your mom chose wisely, I think.”

  I smashed her into the mirror again. She waved a hand, and a gust of wind blew me backward into the wall.

  She slid off the dresser and rearranged her clothes. “Listen here, missy, you want your mate back? You can have him.”

  She snapped her fingers, and a big poof of yellow smoke revealed a giant crystal ball that hovered a couple feet off the floor. Inside, Ashe and the quadruplets floated like they were in amniotic fluid. The quadruplets were still, their eyes closed.

  Ashe was awake, though. He swam to the glass and put his palm against it, his eyes wide with fear and worry. I ran to him and put my palm against the glass on the other side. My chest squeezed tight with a hopeless, helpless dread. I had no idea how to get him out of there unless we could bust this thing open or make Doreen let him go. Bubbles came out of his mouth. He was trying to say something that I couldn’t understand and gestured at Charles and Marlowe as though shooing them away.

  Angelo said, “He says get Wren out of here. It’s a…” The celestial’s eyes widened as Doreen laughed and poofed out of sight. “Damn it, Doreen, this isn’t funny!”

  I ran to where she’d been and crouched, ready to grab her if she appeared again.

  Charles and Marlowe went for me, but in the blink of an eye, a black hole opened up behind me with bolts of purple and red lightning flickering inside. Doreen grabbed me by my jacket collar and jerked me into it.

  I could hear them screaming, “No!” as we twirled fast as a comet through a psychedelic tunnel of multi-colored lights. A portal? Squinting, I tried to look ahead so I could grab onto anything and land without breaking all my bones.

  My hair blew into my eyes. I brushed it out just in time to see the tower of a small castle hurtling toward me. I tucked myself into a ball and landed hard on the stone surface, then somersaulted until I hit the low wall that surrounded the tower roof.

  Dizzy and nauseated from the teleportation and hard landing, I staggered to my feet, prepared to fight whatever might be ne
ar.

  Doreen floated overhead, too high for me to jump up and grab. She laughed. “Sorry. It’s always a little rough the first time.”

  “Where am I?”

  She flipped her hair and tapped her chin. “I’m keeping you somewhere safe until I figure out what my next best move is. See, I was going to sell you to Ravana. But here’s the thing. I bet the queen of the Northern Vampire Clan would pay a lot for you. They’ve never gotten over the Southern Vampires refusing to get involved with the Civil War. What a mess.”

  “If you need money, get a loan.” Why the fuck was everyone trying to sell me? First Charles, then this bitch of a witch.

  “Oh no, I don’t need money, sweetie. I just love the drama. I mean, if I can get the north and south vampires fighting again, it might be entertaining enough to help me forget Angelo. An angel with a dick like that, you don’t find every century.”

  “I don’t want any part in your lover’s quarrel. Where the fuck am I?”

  “It’s more like when the fuck are you. Don’t worry. I’ll be back for you. Probably.” She opened the portal again and was sucked back into it in a puff of purple smoke.

  Then she was gone.

  All I knew was that it was cold, dark, and misting rain. And the only thing around me were forests and fields and not a streetlight or any light as far as I could see. A wolf howled somewhere in the distance. An owl hooted in response. I had a feeling I wasn’t in Kansas, or New Orleans, anymore. If I had to guess, I’d say I wasn’t anywhere near home or my mates. I’d venture even farther to say I bet none of them were even born yet.

  “Well, fuck.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Marlowe

  "What the hell just happened?" I shouted, searching the space where Wren had been seconds ago.

  Ashe clawed at the inside of the crystal ball thing, bubbles rising from his mouth as he screamed soundlessly. I still had no idea how to get him or the quadruplets out. But right now, Wren was our priority.

  Angelo grunted, his hellfire machete raised over his head, but there was no one to attack except us. Then I realized the blade was caught midair inside a black crack that popped with small bolts of red and purple lightning. The green flames on his machete blew back so hard, I feared they would catch his wings on fire.

  "A portal," he said through clenched teeth. His wings shuddered, and sweat tracked down his face as the crack opened a little bit more. "Doreen created a portal back in time."

  "What?" Zac stared at him as if he'd lost his damn mind.

  We all did.

  "Why the hell did she do that?" Charles shouted.

  "Because." Angelo's machete ripped through the air, creating more and more violent lightning streaks as the black void beyond yawned wider. His arms shook with the effort. "My ex is nuts, and she obviously wants something with Wren. Probably to sell her to Ravana."

  Charles's eyes widened. "Damn. By throwing her back in time? That's it. She wins worst ex. All other exes are canceled out by her."

  "Yeah, but the selling thing sounds awfully familiar," Zac said with a hard glare at Charles.

  "How do we get her back?" I snapped.

  "Well." Angelo grunted, his machete tearing through space and time a little more. "I'm working on it."

  I started to pace next to the dresser above which the painted letters still read I’m Here/Help Me. "What about Ashe and the quadruplets?"

  "They’re fine for now. Wren’s not. I recommend you choose quickly where you’ll be in the next ten seconds." Angelo cleaved the portal open a little more, enough to fit my head and shoulders through.

  But ten seconds was too long. Every moment Wren was alone with Doreen in another time meant anything could happen. Anything. The few events in my childhood that had been pure goodness had all happened in libraries, getting lost in the infinite amount of what-ifs, and that included learning about the butterfly effect—a miniscule change in what was supposed to happen could have enormous ramifications. One wrong, accidental move from Wren and she could cease to exist in the current time. If we followed after her, the same applied to all of us.

  Angelo sliced down more so that he crouched, his whole body quaking and his eyes screwed up tight. "Go. Go now and hurry. I won't be able to hold this portal open for long. When you’re ready to come back, jiggle the machete, and I’ll cut you a new hole."

  "Okay." Charles rolled his shoulders and surged forward. "Let's go Outlander this shit."

  I blocked him and Zac, who followed on Charles's heels. "Don't touch anything while you're there. Nothing, all right?"

  Charles looked down at my hand on his chest with a raised brow and then met my gaze again. "Except Wren."

  "Except Wren." I turned, my stomach shifting with nerves. And excitement, if I was being honest. Going back in time - a secret childhood dream come true that I’d never thought was possible.

  I did a running jump, trying not to kick Angelo in the face, and felt my shoulders scrape the sides of reality before the portal swallowed me whole. A great big nothingness pressed in close and choked down my throat. Panic bunched my muscles. How would I see Wren when there was only absolute darkness? Where was I? When was I? Time was a delicate, faulty, unpredictable thing, so what if Angelo had cleaved us a new portal into somewhere, sometime, different than Wren?

  What if I never saw her again? The thought filled me with newfound terror, so deep I felt as though I'd been split with a machete, too, cut right through my heart.

  I had the sensation of being sucked up through a straw—or spit out. This void left me with no sense of direction. Then I crashed headfirst into something solid. My brain and teeth rattled and pain speared like a shockwave, but I found myself laughing. Two more loud thuds sounded right after mine, and I laughed harder until the tears came and ran down my mask.

  Zac groaned. "How is this funny?"

  "Dude's drunk on time travel," Charles said, blinking hard as he sat upright.

  A light mist fell that wetted the hard ground and streaked a darker color down the stone battlement wall I found myself staring at. Battlements like what you might find on top of a castle’s turret. Near the middle, a tight spiral staircase coiled downward into darkness. A wooden door hung open over it.

  A castle. Had we really gone back in time?

  I surged to my feet, the last of my laughter fading. "Let's go. Remember not to touch anything. Anything you do here could affect the future."

  "You mean like this?" With his toe, Charles drew a line in the loose rocks with an arrow on top. It pointed to the very tip of Angelo's machete blade hanging in midair. For some reason, it had lost the green fire around it, maybe purposely in case someone from the past noticed such a strange sight.

  "Yeah." I sighed and shook my head. "Exactly like that."

  "Well, you'll just have to deal. I don't want to have to look for our escape like a bunch of idiots when there are two turrets." He pointed to the other about twenty feet or so from ours. "Because something tells me we're going to be in a real hurry to get out of here. I’ll leave more breadcrumb trails, too, and you'll thank me in the future."

  "Uh-huh." I started for the steps. “If you’re still with us.”

  "Incredible." Zac circled around the machete with his jaw hanging to his knees. "An object caught between two different times. Two worlds. How is this possible?"

  "Wonder at it later,” I said. “I have books you can read about the space-time continuum when we come back."

  I was already three steps down when I heard a frantic shout. "No! Stop!" Not from inside the castle, but in the woods surrounding it. Not Wren, but male…and familiar.

  I looked out over the tops of the trees, frozen in shock. "Albert?"

  "What? Are you sure?" Zac asked.

  No, I wasn't. Not at first. But then I made out the crests on the two flags shooting up from behind the battlement walls. Green and gold in color, with an olive branch, a lion, a torch, and a cross in each of its four sections. That was Albert's family cres
t. He'd painted it and hung it in the bell tower, and I'd memorized it so well that it could have been my own family crest.

  This was his castle. He was here in the forest below. And he needed our help.

  "Albert!" I scrambled back up the stairs and leaned out over the wall above where I'd heard his voice. The forest was too thick to see through, the misty darkness seeming to thicken it even more. Heavy gray clouds rolled across the sky, making it impossible to tell what time of day it was. If it was daytime, a break in the clouds could only complicate matters. But Albert was worth the risk. I posted my arm on the closest battlement, swung my legs up and over, and dropped three floors down.

  "What the fuck!" Charles yelled from above. "Marlowe, what are you doing?"

  "What about Wren?" Zac shouted, the both of them still on the rooftop.

  I landed in a crouch, ticking my gaze back and forth through the forest. "Don't you see?” I called up to them. “If anything happens to Albert that shouldn't, it affects Wren. Us just being here might’ve already affected the future."

  "But what about the real Wren?” Charles yelled. “The Wren who’s here right now?"

  "She might be in the forest too." Or she might have gone into the castle since she had quite a lead on us. There was no way to know for sure. "We have to trust that she'll be all right for a little bit longer. I do." I surged to my feet and raced for the forest's edge. "Do you?"

  "Damn it, I hate this separation bullshit," he called after me.

  A part of me agreed. Besides, there was no way Zac could make that three-story jump without breaking his legs, at the very least, unless he decided to descend into the castle and go out the front door. But I had to see that whatever happened to Albert was supposed to happen. Of course, how would I know for sure? He’d described his life to me time and time again, but not everything.