Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  But now with this tattoo, I supposed the days of a few familiar relationships were done. My life was about to get a whole lot more crowded. I’d never been a fan of crowds, but now one was rushing up to meet us.

  Grandpa’s visions were always true, and I’d never had a reason to question them. Not even now when it involved me, this tattoo, and the beautiful woman who could drag the end down on all of us as she fought for the throne.

  I lowered the gun. I was an assassin, not a cold-blooded killer. Despite the similarities, there was a difference. In my book, anyway.

  At Wren's frustrated groan, I said, “I'll put it away when they put their guns away."

  "Awesome,” she said through clenched teeth on her way to the door. “Sounds like we're going to have a pissing contest."

  I liked her mad. I liked her walking around with no pants even better. From here, I could see the curve of her ass cheeks under the hem of her shirt.

  She opened the door just as her mates blurred up behind it. The three of them burst inside with guns drawn, dragged her behind them, and then set their fury on me.

  Three against me hardly seemed fair, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. At least no Royal Knights had followed them. If Vincent showed up, then I might have a challenge taking him down since he was as big as me.

  "What the hell, man?" Charles shouted, crossing the living room toward me.

  I almost didn’t recognize him without his fedora. I'd heard of him here and there, a bottom-of-the-barrel mercenary who'd always take the higher price for his “services,” no matter what. Scum, if you asked me, and sloppy as hell.

  The one called Marlowe circled the first couch and came at me at an angle, cool under pressure, his gun hand steady. Some kind of law enforcement. I’d known that the first time I saw him, but I didn’t know where the scars on his face had come from.

  Then there was Ashe, sticking protectively to Wren’s side. All I knew about him was what I’d seen on VTV News about him and his sister.

  Charles jabbed a finger toward me, his face twisted in a snarl. "No one kidnaps Wren but me. Not cool."

  Faster than a blink, I wrenched the gun from his hand, twisting his finger still in the trigger until it cracked. He howled in pain as I dropped his gun and kicked it behind me. In the same motion, I spun him around with his back to my chest and held my gun at an angle to his heart.

  "Hawk!" Wren screamed.

  Another gun clicked behind me. Marlowe had turned his safety off and now aimed about an inch away from my back.

  “Drop your weapon,” he ordered.

  Still cool. Still calm. I had no doubt he’d shoot.

  “You first,” I said.

  “Both of you, damn it!” Wren yanked away from Ashe and marched toward us, the definition of a livid woman. Her bare feet slapped against the wooden floor as she thrust her finger in the air. “Stop acting like children right fucking now.”

  Charles erupted into laughter. Hardly the time when I had a gun pointed to his heart. Had the tattoo turned these guys insane from lust or what? The lust part I could handle. Insane didn’t sound appealing whatsoever.

  “Mind telling us,” he started and then trailed off into more laughter, “what this is?”

  He tossed something high into the air. Naturally I looked since I had no idea what it was. A grenade?

  But looking was my first mistake.

  Charles head-butted me in the face. I staggered back, blood clogging my nose. A force barreled into me from three different directions, two at my legs, one at my torso, and I went down hard on my back.

  And falling straight toward my head was the grenade. No, it was the wrong shape. That was all I registered before I brought up my gun and shot it.

  It burst apart in an explosion of cotton. What the hell?

  Wren appeared in my periphery, the cotton snowing down around her, and when she leaned over, I got the full view of two very perfect breasts under her Gators shirt.

  Second mistake.

  In a flash, she unarmed me. “I said,” she spat, “no shooting.” Then she threw the gun on the table in the kitchen where it landed with a loud clatter.

  “Hey, why did you have a beat-up catnip mouse in your pocket?” Charles asked from behind me.

  I dropped my head to the ground and groaned. That’s what I’d just shot. Duke’s favorite toy, which had been in my pocket. A two-hundred-pound man brought down, in part, by a cat toy. I might as well have had my pants down. Not a good look for a trained assassin.

  Growling, I hauled myself to my feet. My head throbbed with the sudden motion, but I wouldn’t let it show.

  “Slow your roll, big guy,” Charles said, clutching his trigger finger. “We have a couple moves we haven’t shown you yet.”

  Marlowe still had his gun aimed at my chest. Next to him, Ashe cracked his knuckles.

  “You three took me down.” Not a question, because I didn’t want to give away that I was kind of impressed.

  “It’s all about removing your center of balance.” Charles grinned. “And catnip toys in your pocket.”

  “How did you—” I started.

  “Hm-mm,” Ashe said with a shake of his head. “He won’t reveal his pickpocketing secrets. I’ve tried.”

  Marlowe kept quiet but holstered his gun, still watching every move I made.

  I turned to Charles, his presence, his existence, like sand on my nerves. “Keep your hands out of my pockets or anywhere near my dick.”

  “Not everything’s about your dick, asshole,” he said. “I’m just trying not to have your gun pointed at my heart. Guess it worked.”

  “Please.” Wren came in from the kitchen, her mouth tight, and handed me a wet dishrag to wipe the blood from my nose. Our fingers brushed, and a spark of heat leapt from her fingertips. “I’m so impressed with how big and manly everyone here is. Truly. Now sit the fuck down, all of you. We have much to discuss.”

  “Yeah, like where are those Knights of yours?” I cracked my nose back in place and wiped the blood away, trying not to stare at the outline of her tits.

  “They’re close by if needed,” Charles said without offering anything else.

  Probably listening in, too, if I had to guess, in case Wren’s pretty boy mates couldn’t handle playing hero.

  Slowly, Marlowe, Charles, and Ashe made their way to one couch and then, to my surprise, Wren led me to the opposite couch and sat next to me. Thankfully, she didn’t cover herself with the towel again.

  "There are a few things I need to catch you guys up on," she said, glancing at me, and then at Duke trotting down the stairs from the loft.

  He hopped up on the coffee table and flicked his tail as he stared at the three mates across from me.

  Ashe pointed at him. "Is he going to just sit there and judge us the whole time?"

  "Yes," I said, but at the same time, Wren sighed, "No."

  She picked him up off the coffee table, and the traitor went totally limp in her arms as she held him close. He was usually a real asshole, though sometimes less so with me. Sometimes. I’d have to break the news to him about his poor mouse, something I really wasn’t looking forward to. While I was just an assassin, he really was a cold-blooded killer. I’d lost track of the number of mice I’d found slaughtered next to my bed. I wasn't sure whether they were an offering or a threat.

  "So," Wren said, taking the seat next to me again, "it turns out that I'm supposed to end the world."

  Ashe blinked. "Sorry, what?"

  Charles threw up his hands. “We've only been gone for an hour. How did you manage that?"

  "What do you mean, Wren?" Marlowe asked, frowning at the other two.

  “Well…” She grimaced. "Hawk's grandpa is a seer. He saw me coming, and I guess I'm bringing the apocalypse."

  "But how?” Marlowe asked. “When?"

  "One week," I said, wiping at my nose with the dishrag. "My grandpa sees people's devastations, the bad things, and this one knocked him into a coma."

>   Wren stared down at her lap where Duke had curled up. "He's never wrong, so says Hawk."

  Ashe and Charles sat back into the couch, silent for once, their faces paling more by the second.

  "But what causes it?" Marlowe asked. “You, but what specifically?”

  "My grandpa's whole world is a ticking clock as it counts down to devastation,” I said. “He knows the time more specifically than he knows why an event occurs, but he was very clear that in one week, at midnight, all time stops, and then there is nothing."

  Ashe scrubbed a hand down his face. "So anything could trigger it."

  Marlowe nodded. "This is like when we went back in time and any wrong move could change the future."

  "And literally write us out of existence," Charles said.

  “So what do we do?” Ashe asked, glancing at the clock and the city beyond.

  I followed his gaze. It was almost dawn. "I keep an eye on her."

  "You?" Charles pointed, and I realized then that I should have ripped his finger off earlier.

  "Settle down. We’ll work together,” Wren insisted and bumped my knee with hers. “But I refuse to do nothing and just wait for the world to end. If we can reinstate Angelo’s license, he'll give us one of his celestial feathers, remember? At this point, any heavenly help can't hurt."

  “A feather?” I stared at her like she’d lost her damn mind. “That’s what you’re getting from this guy?”

  Wren waved off my question.

  “Better be one damn good feather,” I mumbled.

  "What if it takes longer than a week to get Angelo’s license?" Ashe asked.

  "It shouldn't," I said.

  "And in the meantime?" Marlowe asked. “We also have a witch on the loose again.”

  “Yeah, a witch with a screw loose. Dangerous combination,” Charles added. “How’d you capture her in the van, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “You’ve got secret pickpocketing skills. I’ve got secret witchnapping skills. Let’s call it even.”

  "We can’t worry about her now. I think she’s more interested in pissing off Angelo than bothering us. So we do what we've been doing.” Wren looked at each of us with fierce determination. “Survive. Protect each other. Keep our eyes peeled for Ravana so we can be on the offense for once."

  Charles leaned his elbows on his knees. "Keep our eyes on your prize."

  “And pray to Vampire Jesus that doing just that doesn’t trigger the end of the world,” Ashe said.

  Marlowe frowned and shook his head. "If anyone was going to end the world, it would be Ravana before she gave up the crown. Not you, Wren." He glanced at me. "I'm not saying your grandad was wrong, just… It makes you wonder."

  Wren shrugged. “Neither of us is going to end it. I’ll make damn sure. Plus, Hawk here is dead set on me preventing it so he can go on killing.”

  “Well, that’s just fucking great.” Charles waved his hand in the air. “It’s settled, then. The world has to keep spinning just so Hawk can keep murdering people.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “Agreed.”

  “Hey, where’s Zac?” Wren asked.

  My mind whirred as I stared at the three men’s faces and then glanced at Wren. Oh shit. They didn’t know about Zac.

  “The quadruplets came back,” Ashe said, “so Zac said he and Travis were going to catch up on the last season of Stranger Things.”

  Oh yeah, Travis, one of the warlocks who were inexplicably loyal to Wren and company. None of them knew about the human enigma known as Detective Zac Palmer. For now, though, with her future crown being crushed like tinfoil under the weight of the world, I’d seal my mouth shut. I had to because of the contract. No wonder he’d kept his head bowed, his face hidden, after the crash in the river. What a coward Zac was.

  Couldn’t even look me in the eye. And no wonder, since he’d once hired me to execute Wren.

  Chapter Five

  Wren

  The first hints of a coral-colored sunrise peeked over the horizon beyond the clock face windows. I’d had more than enough of the boys and their macho antics for one night. “It’s almost dawn. Unless you have a better option, looks like we’ll all be having a sleepover in the loft. And I could really use a shower.”

  “I got this,” Hawk said. He flipped a switch on the wall by one of the couches. The windows frosted over like a heavy steam had settled on them. “Triple paned glass. UV panel in the middle. Who says you can’t have your sunlight and enjoy it too?”

  Charles whistled. He went over to inspect the tech. I followed. The UV panel was made of hundreds of small, overlapping flaps that were so thin, when turned perpendicular to the window, you could see right past them, and when turned parallel, they formed a solid-looking surface.

  “Amazing. I could use some of these in the tree house,” Charles said. “These make my steel barricades look ancient.”

  His smile faded. When he met my gaze, I felt his sadness. A sense of loss. It wasn’t so much about missing his very cool, tech-filled tree house, but more about losing the familiarity of his old life in place of this uncertain life with me.

  “I know,” I said, taking his hand. “It hasn’t been easy for any of us.”

  He wrapped his arm around me and drew me close. Dipping his head to my lips, he kissed me and whispered, “Especially for you, chère. But I wouldn’t trade you for all the tree houses in Louisiana.”

  “Liar.” I smiled and rested my head against his chest as we watched the very blurry orange glow of dawn appear through the glass.

  “Maybe.” He winked. “But not about that.”

  Ashe came to stand beside us, touching the glass tentatively as though it might burn him. He smiled in wonder and flattened his palm on it.

  Looking at me intently, he cleared his throat. “I think Wren mentioned a shower. I could use one myself. Sand is stuck in places I’d rather not discuss.”

  “The shower’s upstairs. It’s not big, but it does the job,” Hawk said, his wine-colored eyes burning a hole straight through my T-shirt.

  Should I just fuck him and get it over with? A queen should probably play harder to get than that. But with only one week until the world ended, my harem hunting might have to be expedited.

  I peered around at the rest of them. Marlowe, Charles, and Ashe all wore expectant looks that shot nervous tension through my tattoo. Sexual tension. This was getting a little hard to navigate. But I’d just gotten Ashe back. We both needed the stress relief.

  “Well, it’s not Wednesday,” Charles said with a wink.

  I blinked at him before it finally sank in. Wednesday. Hump day. He’d jokingly said he wanted to be with me on Wednesdays. This was his way of helping me choose.

  “Ashe still smells like the nastiness from the crystal ball he was trapped in at the lake house,” Marlowe offered from his seat on the couch, casually resting one ankle on his knee, his arms spread wide across the cushioned back. “He should really clean up.”

  I smiled at Marlowe. Our mating was still so fresh, I wasn’t sure how he would handle the reality of being part of my harem. But he continued to surprise me.

  Damn if practical matters didn’t throw a wrench in my plans. “I’d love to take a shower, but I have no clean clothes, thanks to being kidnapped in just a T-shirt.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ve got you taken care of,” Charles said and jogged off downstairs.

  I had no idea where he was going, but I had learned to trust him.

  Without a word, I took Ashe’s hand and led him upstairs. A small shower with a frosted glass door took up one corner opposite the bunk beds where Hawk’s grandfather slept.

  Neatly folded towels sat on a shelf next to the shower. I slipped out of the damp Florida Gators T-shirt that was turning stiff and musty. I met Ashe’s gaze as I took off my panties.

  His pupils dilated. Desire ignited in his amber eyes, but then he blinked and grimaced. “Oh, Wren, you’re bruised all over. Maybe I should wait out here.”

  Oh hel
l no. That would be more tortuous than getting bitch slapped by the river.

  With a totally fake pout, I said, “But who’s going to wash my back? It’ll hurt if I try.”

  Ashe grinned. “Anything for my queen.”

  “Good answer.” I opened the shower and stepped in. The shower itself was built of a rough-hewn stone wall that didn’t reach the ceiling. Inside was the same type of stone, but polished smooth. The floor sloped down to a drain in the center. Ashe joined me, closing the door before he quickly undressed and tossed his clothes out over the wall.

  I turned on the faucet and stood under the huge showerhead, closing my eyes as the water’s warm flow cascaded over my head and down my body. I opened my eyes to find Ashe staring at me. We admired each other for a split second before he pushed me against the wall and kissed me wildly. His hands explored every inch of me they could reach as though trying to memorize my curves all over again.

  I joined him in his exploration, finding all those firm muscles in his chest and back. His ribs rippled under my fingers, much more prominent than before. That fucking witch had nearly starved him. His ass, however, still felt amazing.

  He palmed my breasts and broke from our kiss as he pinched my nipples, rolling them gently between his thumbs and forefingers. “Tell me what you want,” he whispered, with his hard cock pressed against my stomach.

  “Fuck me while you drink from me.”

  His fangs emerged. Red ringed his amber eyes. But then he shook his head. “No. You need it worse than I do.”

  With that, he picked me up. Back braced against the wall, I wrapped my legs around him and angled my pelvis just right to catch his dick as he thrust it inside me. My mates each felt so different. If I had to, I was sure I could pick their fucking styles out from a blind lineup. Ashe, The Lover, totally uninhibited and confident in the bedroom, yet so careful and protective at other times.

  Turning his head to one side, Ashe exposed his jugular. As soon as my fangs dropped, I buried them in his neck. He groaned but didn’t flinch. His hot, fresh blood poured down my throat. It sped through my veins and rejuvenated all my senses while his hard thrusts filled every inch of me.