Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  He howled in pain but tried to keep hold of my hair. I jerked myself from his grasp, leaving him clutching my wig. He fell back on his butt, helplessly staring down at the fake hair and the blood spurting from his flayed member. Doreen threw a fireball at me. I snatched up her cat with my uninjured arm and used it as a shield.

  Like all familiars, this one repelled the spell. It bounced right back into Doreen, throwing her into the kitchen in a ball of screaming fire. With all the Aqua Net on her hair, it ignited like a gas-soaked torch.

  I dropped the cat and rushed to Hawk as her spell holding him to the wall dissipated. He fell onto all fours, but I helped him up.

  “Come on!” I started dragging him along with me. But he stopped just long enough to pick up the couch and grab the poodle. He tucked it under his arm like a football as we zoomed out the door and to the car. He quickly yet gently deposited the dog in the passenger’s seat while I started to get in the driver’s seat.

  “No, I’m driving,” he said.

  We had no time for an argument, even though I normally refused to let anyone but me drive Birdie. I scooted in beside the dog on the passenger’s side, holding my arm against my chest to keep the pain at bay.

  I’d left Birdie running, so Hawk threw her in gear and closed the driver’s door as he punched the gas and sped away. Behind us, a single headlight and a loud engine came to life.

  “Shit, it’s him!” I watched in the rearview mirror as Disaster gained on us on his Harley.

  As we sped through an intersection, Vincent and the others in the SUV came flying from our right and barely made the turn without clipping Birdie’s bumper. They headed straight for Disaster. He made a U-turn and almost skidded out of control but managed to right himself before speeding off in the opposite direction.

  The bright red brake lights on the SUV lit up. Then the vehicle backed into a driveway and sped back onto the street to close the distance between us. We’d have to go back to the bunker. Surely Disaster would know better than to follow us.

  “Wren, I’m… Fuck!” Hawk slammed his fist on the dashboard. “I’ll fucking kill him. I swear to you, I’ll kill the bastard and watch him choke on what’s left of his own dick.”

  “Just drive, okay?” Then it all hit me. How I’d been nearly raped in front of Hawk. How close I’d been to losing him and everyone I’d come to love. The only way I could take down Ravana or any of her mates would be to find my fifth mate. I honestly didn’t know if I even had it in me to keep going after tonight.

  And then the fucking tears followed.

  Chapter Eight

  Hawk

  I vibrated with nothing but rage and anguish, a volatile mix that kept erupting every time I relived the bullets flying toward Wren. Every time Disaster's little prick crept toward her mouth in my mind. No one should ever be forced onto their knees and threatened to give sexual favors in exchange for someone else's life. Violent thoughts ripped through my head, but I kept them sort of in check with the poodle under one arm and Duke under the other as I paced the kitchen.

  "Hawk." Ashe waved a hand in front of my face as I was about to pass him for the four hundredth time. He was leaning against the sink in the bunker’s kitchen, his blond hair spiked because he kept stabbing his fingers through it. "Tell us about your contact at the bar who told you where to go for the license."

  "It's not him," I said, wearing my path along the tiles once again. "Kinky didn't double-cross us."

  At the table, Charles sputtered on his latest draw of cheap whiskey, straight from the bottle. His eyes were bloodshot, and he occasionally swayed in his chair. "Kinky? Seriously? A name like that is asking for bribes and payoffs, no asking needed."

  I stopped and stared at him. "I know my contacts. It wasn't him."

  "Then who?" Next to him, Marlowe loaded and unloaded several guns laid out in front of him, the sharp clicks drowning out the nervous tapping of Ashe's fingers on the sink.

  None of us were taking what had happened, and what had nearly happened, to Wren all that well. One thing was for sure, though—the men in this kitchen’s number one concern was Wren. At all times. They were completely loyal, and I was starting to see why. Because Wren was a force, stronger, smarter, and braver than probably anyone else truly knew.

  Now, though, she was broken. She was resting in her bedroom after taking some pain pills given by one of Marlowe’s doctor friends he’d called in. The bone in her arm had been snapped clean in half.

  I would take great joy in killing Disaster. My head throbbed in agreement. I needed to kill someone, and soon.

  "Why wait to attack until after you got the license?" Ashe asked.

  Charles nodded. "And why kill the guy who gave you the license first?"

  "To get rid of the witness." Marlowe’s curls shook as he snapped one gun back together and then took up another.

  "And to get rid of the middle man."

  I turned at the sound of the new voice. Zac, leaning against the doorframe like it was holding him up. He looked pale with worry lines carved deep into his face. Worry for who? Himself? Because he sure as fuck didn't care about Wren if he'd hired me to kill her. His gaze moved over us but stuck on me. Adrenaline crashed through my dead veins with the need to lunge for his throat for even thinking about hurting Wren at one point, but then what he'd said filtered in.

  "Allison was a middle man?" I ground out.

  Zac held up his phone. "I ran a trace on the number registered to him. He dialed out one time, probably as you two were driving around if the timetable of events Charles told me was accurate."

  I turned to Charles. "You shouldn't trust him."

  Charles glanced at me, the whiskey halfway to his mouth, and then ticked his gaze to Zac. "Why's that?"

  Ashe shrugged and speared his fingers through his hair again. "Zac’s been here since the beginning."

  "He's harmless." Marlowe finished loading one gun and went on to the next. "I've checked."

  Obvious paper trails, maybe, but not the contract he’d signed to hire my services. The contract that when signed by the customer magically bound us both from speaking about the terms until both parties agreed to destroy it or the job was completed. Just because I signed it didn’t mean I’d carry it out--those were part of the terms. After he’d left, I took one look at the picture of Wren he’d brought and called him to refuse the job. There were hidden scars there, a troubled past, but nothing to suggest her time here needed to end.

  And when I looked at her and not a picture… Well, I’d realized something tonight when I settled her in her bed, that when I touched her or met her gaze…my headache dulled some, the need to kill something—anything—momentarily stalled. By her beauty? Her hidden scars? I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just her. I think it had happened when we were close to fucking in Birdie too.

  Zac cleared his throat loudly, his jaw ticking as he stared me down with those human eyes of his. "The number Allison called was unregistered, but I might be able to dig a little deeper…if there’s time."

  If he had time he wanted me to give him, he meant.

  "Make yourself useful now," I told him. “But that's it."

  Charles tipped back in his chair a little, his bottle clasped to his chest, watching us both closely. "You two know each other?"

  I glared hard at Zac. "Yes."

  "No," he said at the same time.

  "I see…" Charles took another swig from the bottle.

  "I’ll make a call." Zac turned and left the kitchen.

  I'd have to trick Zac somehow in destroying our contract so I could tell Wren about him. Not now since she needed to focus on healing. But soon. Half of me wondered if maybe he had something to do with the attack tonight, but when he’d hired me, I could tell right away he wasn’t stupid. Zac knew exactly what I was capable of, which was why he’d hired me in the first place.

  Duke poked me with his longest toenail in the side, a clear indication that he was done with me. I set him up on top of the refrigera
tor where he immediately sat and glared over his domain. The poodle—which I hadn’t decided what to name yet—had settled in here pretty well but still whined sometimes, possibly for Allison. She loved to be held, so I kept her close.

  "What was your contact's name again, Hawk?" Marlowe asked, setting his guns aside in exchange for his phone.

  "Senator Kinky Friedman. We've worked together for years. I take care of his political opponents, and the deal we made last night was that the next one was on me." Since we hadn’t signed a contract yet, I was free to talk about it. Not like I ever did usually.

  "Remember when 'take care of' meant something completely different?" Ashe asked, directing the question to no one in particular.

  I shrugged. "They're politicians."

  "I get it,” he said. “But so is this Kinky guy."

  I shook my head and started up pacing again, adjusting the poodle’s weight under my arm. "Kinky and I made a deal. He's always been straight with me."

  "Well, maybe you need to think about the irony of your words for a second as they relate to this guy Kinky." Charles dug a folded paper out of his pants pocket and laid it flat on the table. "It sucks when someone we know and work with double-crosses us."

  Ashe rolled his eyes. "Oh, does it, Charles? Really? Did you know this when you double-crossed me?"

  "Of course I did," Charles said, turning to look behind him at Ashe. "Just because the money's greener on the other side doesn't mean I don't have a conscience. Which might explain why I'm on the same side as you now."

  Ashe gave a brief nod and then looked away, his eyes growing distant and dark with grief. I knew about his sister's death, of course, and when she'd contacted me years ago through secret channels to see how much I charged, I cut my usual rate in half. I could feel her hurt reaching across the miles and hammering against my skull. She still had to save up, but when she had the exact amount, her relief became mine too. I was sorry she'd died so horribly.

  Charles unfolded his paper on the table and bent over it. "Because Ravana has all five of her mates, what if we skip to the end and go in search of Wren's fifth mate? With every guy she adds to her harem, she gets stronger. I know I'm not the only guy who's noticed the power in her punches and her stamina in bed lately."

  I stopped. The three of us stared at him.

  "Dude." Ashe blinked hard. "She punches you in bed?"

  Charles burst out laughing, the sound startling the poodle. I scratched her behind the ears and smiled, and she reached up and licked my hand.

  "No,” Charles said. “That came out wrong. The practice punches in the gym when we're sparring with the Knights and then also her stamina in bed."

  Ashe chuckled. Marlowe frowned at his phone as he scrolled down a page. Duke flicked his tail, sending a cloud of dust bunnies off the refrigerator. I paced, but since the heaviness in the room had been lifted some, I went at a less manic speed.

  Charles pointed at the paper spread in front of him. "I figure the fifth mate is in or near Timberlake."

  I crossed toward him. "How do you know that? This isn’t even a map. It’s our symbol."

  "It's actually both,” he said. “Wren and I found this hidden inside a music box that Bronwen gave me when I was a kid. She'd sing me the lyrics to the music box in her throne room when I was upset about something. The lyrics go ‘You’re a five pointed star—a lover, a joker, a thinker, a killer, a thriller…’"

  “Us.” I stroked the poodle’s fur, lost in thought. That was incredible. How could Bronwen have possibly kn— Oh. Because she’d chosen us herself as her daughter’s mates. I’d never met her before, though, so if she somehow knew I was a killer like in her lyrics, how could she have thought I would make a perfect match for Wren? Wouldn’t I be the last thing a mother would want for her daughter?

  "Fuck." Marlowe leaped to his feet a second before his phone burst into flames.

  Ashe cranked on the water in the sink behind him. "Marlowe! Here!"

  Marlowe threw the fiery phone into the sink, and the water doused it. Smoke wound up to the ceiling while Ashe turned the water off, and both he and Charles went right back to what they’d been doing—tapping nervously and drinking. Like this sort of thing happened every day.

  I stared at Marlowe with my mouth open.

  "It's a thing that happens sometimes." He waved it off and sank back into his chair with his head in his hands.

  Very few things pulled me up short anymore. I was used to weird and unpredictable with my line of work and Grandpa's visions. A phone spontaneously combusting could hardly be just “a thing that happens sometimes."

  I peeked at the still smoldering phone. “Either that’s a cheap-ass defective battery, or you got some serious supernatural shit going on with you.”

  “It’s not important,” Marlowe continued. “Look, I found—”

  "It was Kinky who Allison called." Zac appeared in the doorway again and turned an accusatory glare at me.

  Marlowe sat up and nodded. "It's him. Kinky has a list of political donors. I saw it on my phone just now. Someone who goes by the name of DeadWren contributed the maximum political donation just yesterday."

  Yesterday was when I’d called Kinky to set up the meeting at the bar. I set the poodle gently down on the floor then turned my back and scrubbed my hand down my face, seeing red. Seeing Kinky's blood drain out of him like the pig he is.

  "Shit," Ashe said behind me. "DeadWren sounds like another one of Ravana's crystal-clear messages to me."

  "We made a deal," I growled. "He knows exactly what will happen if he breaks that deal."

  “Maybe you should have had a contract instead,” Zac said, glaring at me as he tapped his phone on his stupid chin dimple.

  I bit down hard on my tongue. Between the two of us, I was hardly the guilty party here.

  "Money's a helluva motivator,” Charles said. “So is power. Maybe Ravana gave him money with a promise for more power."

  The witch and warlock siblings filed into the kitchen. They looked almost as troubled as the rest of us.

  “How we can help?” the warlock named Travis - I think - asked. The brothers looked so much alike, it was hard to keep them straight.

  “Why are you all so loyal to a bunch of vampires - and him?” I asked, nodding toward Zac.

  “We’ve worked with Marlowe for a long time. We trust his judgment,” the witch answered.

  She was tall and blonde with curves in all the right places. A few days ago, I might have been all over that. But not now. I couldn’t see myself being with anyone but Wren.

  “And Wren’s a good person, that’s why,” Travis added. “And so are Zac and the rest of you. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  "There's more." Marlowe took a loud swallow of Charles's whiskey as he swiped the screen on his phone. "Kinky is having a fundraising event for political donors six days from now. Sounds high-class. Ravana could be there."

  “I do love a good party.” Travis snapped his fingers. With a puff of sparkly green smoke, he and Zac suddenly had a shot of whiskey in their hands.

  Startled, Zac almost dropped his. I’d have laughed if he did. He and Travis clinked their glasses together and downed the shots.

  "Six days?” Charles asked. “I'm all about facing off with the queen, but Wren needs to find her fifth mate to power up one more level. Otherwise, it could be more than Wren's bones cracking. Plus, she still has a ton of healing to do. Both emotional and physical."

  "Charles is right," Ashe said. "Wren needs rest more than anything."

  “Even vampire healing needs time to fix a bone that’s been snapped in half,” Marlowe agreed. “I’m not sure six days is enough for that or to plan a proper strategy to get her into the fundraising event and confront Ravana.”

  "Listen," I hissed, whirling around to face them. "You're all forgetting one very important detail. The world ends in six days because of Wren. Her next several decisions are critical, but they are hers to make. She knows the stakes better than
anyone, and she’ll do what needs to be done. Now, with that said, I'm going to Kinky's party."

  Ashe crossed his arms and stared at me from across the kitchen. "To take care of him."

  I balled my hands into fists and squeezed until my knuckles popped. "I won't be gentle."

  He nodded. "Good."

  Chapter Nine

  Wren

  There’s a reason I shy away from pills, alcohol, and illicit substances. Sure, they help numb pain, both physical and emotional, but they also dull my mind. When everything else is beaten to a pulp, my mind is the only thing I can count on. To figure out my next move, to plan an attack or an escape, depending on the situation.

  My arm was healing steadily, held inert within a cast and sling. The pills kept the pain at bay and made my eyelids heavy, but I lay there in the dark, wide awake. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Disaster looming over me, ready to do whatever it took to show me how small and insignificant I was compared to him and his queen.

  I got up and started for the door but paused with my hand on the knob. No, I couldn’t face my mates again. Not yet. The image of them gathered around me, full of rage and helplessness, was runner-up to the image of Disaster’s dick in my face. They would protect me with their lives, but they still looked to me for guidance.

  Guidance – from a woman who knew nothing about royalty or politics or leadership.

  But if I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t face my mates, I’d have to do something to occupy myself so I didn’t lose it completely. Perhaps I could see if there were any other secrets to be found in my mother’s old things. Last time, I found a cryptic note that read, “He knows.”

  Whatever the fuck that meant.

  Besides the one box of old books, records, and other items I’d gone through, I hadn’t had the time nor inclination to search through anything else. There were lots more in her big walk-in closet since this suite in the underground bunker had been designed to house her and her mates for months on end if needed.

  Keeping the lights off, I relied on my night vision and dragged another box from the closet with my uninjured arm. Inside lay a haphazard assortment of documents, dull pencils, and a pen that had leaked ink in a Rorschach pattern that resembled a dog or a Sumo wrestler, depending on how I looked at it.