Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  I plopped down cross-legged on the floor by the box and lifted out one document after the other. They were all so random – receipts for oil changes, grocery deliveries, and a photocopy of an article about artificially-lit vegetable gardens. There was nothing here to offer me any guidance or answers.

  “Why couldn’t you just tell me something?” I appealed to my mother’s invisible presence as I scanned each useless item and tossed them one after another behind me until the box was empty.

  With one hand, I flipped the box over and banged it against my knee. Nothing.

  I crawled – more like hop-crawled with only one arm – a couple feet to the closet and dragged another box out. This one held an assortment of junk drawer items like loose batteries (half of which had leaked), seed packets for beans, carrots, and poppies, a postcard from San Francisco, and a bunch of other useless crap. I poured all of it on the floor and threw the box across the room.

  Next box – more of the same shit.

  “Damn you! Why did you leave me in the dark about everything?” I poured that box out and hurled it away from me.

  And another. I kept emptying boxes and throwing them around the room until it looked like a cyclone had torn through it. With the next box I threw behind me, I let out a frustrated-as-fuck scream. The box hit something.

  “Ow.”

  I jerked my head around to find Hawk standing there by the door, rubbing his eyebrow.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Why aren’t you resting?” He peered around the room, scanning the mess.

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Answers. Help. Hell, I don’t know.” I started to get up from where I knelt in the middle of the mess I’d made.

  Hawk kicked aside the junk and came over to offer his hand. I hesitated. He’d seen me on my knees not long ago, vulnerable, violated, both of us nearly helpless to stop it.

  Finally, I took his hand and let him help me to my feet.

  “Do you need more meds?” He kept hold of my hand and rubbed my knuckles with his thumb. I could feel my tattoo under the cast pulsing in time with the glowing light from his.

  “No, I don’t want any.” I gently pulled away from him and kicked my way through the scattered junk and boxes to the bed, where I perched on the edge.

  “You should take some. It’s time.”

  My frustration, already boiling, bubbled over. “No!”

  Hawk held up both hands. “Okay, okay. It’s just, I don’t want to see you…”

  “In pain?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, maybe that’s all I have.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice low. “That wasn’t your fault, what he did to you.”

  “No, I mean that…” Staring down at the mess around me, I flexed the fingers of my broken arm and winced at the resulting ache. “What if pain is what defines me? I don’t like anything that dulls my senses because then I don’t feel enough.” I sighed and bit the inside of my lip. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

  With silent, tentative steps – uncommon for such a big, lethal guy – Hawk came to sit beside me. “Without the pain, you don’t feel real. You don’t feel like you have a purpose.”

  I forced myself to meet his gaze and found an oasis of understanding in his red eyes, the pupils softly glowing with his night vision. “Yes, I guess that’s it. Pain is all I know. Does that make me sound weak?”

  He shook his head. He stroked my hair and traced a gentle path along my jawline. “Never. You’re a lot stronger than you know.”

  “Am I, Hawk? Really? If I was strong, I wouldn’t have been living on the streets my whole life, scraping by in smoky bars and eating rats for dinner. I wouldn’t be hiding out in a bunker with a broken arm and no idea what to do next.”

  His touch drove me wild with desire and anger at the same time. I stood up and paced away from him, stepping on all the papers as I did so. “And you know what? If I was as strong as everyone thinks I am, I wouldn’t be here with a bunch of guys who I should be protecting when I have no clue how to do that. If I can’t protect five mates, how am I supposed to rule over all the vampires in the Southern Clan?”

  Hawk stood and approached but kept his distance. “Even queens need help, Wren. And they don’t always know what to do either.”

  “It’s beyond not knowing what to do. I don’t know anything about being a queen. All I know how to do is sing and fight and hide and fuck.”

  “And maybe that’s all you need.”

  “I never even went to school. I may have an eighth-grade education at best.”

  “So? I dropped out of high school, even with a 3.7 GPA. You don’t need a diploma to be strong or successful.”

  “You don’t understand.” I stopped pacing and scrubbed my hand across my face and the bruise that was still healing from where Disaster backhanded me. It throbbed under my fingers, reminding me just how real I was despite the lingering brain fog from the pain pills.

  “I understand you feel lost, Wren. So do I. We all do. But that’s the shitty reality we’re living in thanks to your auntie.”

  “And where does that leave us? Wandering around in the dark figuratively and literally.” I kicked another box and sent it flying across the room. But when I set my foot back down, I stepped on one of the old batteries. It rolled under my weight and down I went, right onto my broken arm. Pain knifed through the break and up to my head, drawing tears from my eyes. “Fuck!”

  Perhaps Hawk felt it too. He groaned and hit his knees, then tried to help me up. “Here, take my hand.”

  “No! Just leave me alone. Why are you even here?” I managed to prop myself up and then rose to my knees, when I realized exactly why he came down to check on me. “Oh, I get it. They told you we need to go ahead and mate, right? Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, now let’s get dressed and go find number five. That’s why you’re down here.”

  “Wren, that’s not…”

  “Liar! I’m not a whore. Not yours or anyone’s!” I scooted around on my knees until I faced him. Clear as a full moonlit night, I could see the truth in his eyes. The cold, hard reality that yes, I was indeed a whore, born to be used and abused by the Southern Clan, mated to five strangers, expected to produce an heir and a spare.

  And I don’t know what came over me, but I slapped him. Hard. His head swung to one side. But he didn’t move or speak or try to get away. He just returned his gaze to mine, holding it steady, almost daring me to hit him again.

  So I did. The slap rang out through the suite.

  I raised my hand to hit him for a third time but stopped. What the fuck was I doing? It was like prodding a sleeping bear. He could end me with one solid blow from his rock-hard fist.

  “Do it,” Hawk said. “Hit me again. I can take it.”

  Crying out with what was left of my pent-up frustration, I punched him in the jaw, in the chest, in the arm. Just over and over again, like a punching bag. He never flinched. Not once. I kept hitting him until blood ran down his cheek from a cut on his eye and down his chin from a busted lip. I hit him until my knuckles bled and the tears flowed like a faucet turned on full force, and buried my head in my hands.

  Hawk stood and scooped me up off the floor, waded through the mess of my rampage, and set me back on the edge of the bed. He knelt before me, head down like a Knight pledging allegiance to his queen.

  Swiping the wet from my cheeks, I gently tipped his chin up until he looked me in the eyes. All I saw there was compassion, loyalty, strength, not one ounce of anger for what I had just done to him.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “I know.” His fingers softly curved around the back of my neck and pulled my head down.

  My lips melted into his kiss. I could taste his blood and sweat, and it peaked my desire until it ached between my legs. A pain that reminded me I was a real woman with a real need for love.

  I stood long enou
gh to let him unfasten my pants. He pulled them down, along with my panties, and tossed them aside.

  “Lay back,” he whispered.

  I did as he asked. Kneeling in front of me, Hawk spread my legs and gave me one long, slow lick all the way up the wet folds that ached for his touch. He latched onto my clit and sucked gently. The intense sensation made me close my eyes and moan like the wounded beast I was. When he slid his long, thick finger inside me, I bucked, needing more. He sucked while pumping his finger in and out, teasing out a fountain of slick wetness. For a second, I thought he was finished when he withdrew his finger, but then I felt him teasing the entrance to my ass.

  “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” he said.

  There were probably a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t have trusted him, but for this, I did. Somehow, I knew he would never hurt me when I was this vulnerable. He’d seen me at my worst and weakest and could have taken advantage of it, but he hadn’t.

  And all I wanted there in that dark, cold room was him inside me. Now. “Do it.”

  “Relax,” he soothed.

  “Okay.”

  “Have you ever?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m your first.” He slid his middle finger into my ass and his index finger into my pussy. And oh, sweet Vampire Jesus, I had never felt anything quite like it. His tongue flicked my clit while he fingered both holes. It took only a few seconds for me to come harder than I ever had before, spraying wetness everywhere.

  He slowly withdrew his fingers, stood, and unfastened his pants. His cock stood hard and thick against his abdomen. “Tell me now if you don’t want this. I’m not here just to fuck. I want to pleasure my queen, make you forget there’s anything besides us right now.”

  “Yes,” I said, barely giving him time to finish his statement.

  Hawk held my knees and pushed them back and apart, then slowly eased his cock into my very willing pussy. After a few slow strokes, he withdrew and teased my ass with the head of his dick. Smiling up at him, I pulled my legs back more and pointed to the jar of Vaseline on my nightstand that the doc had said would help with any rashes from my cast. Hawk opened it, scooped out a large dollop, and stroked it along his dick, eyeing me so intensely that I squirmed. Then he grinned and gently pressed in, one slow, tantalizing millimeter at a time.

  Rubbing my clit with his thumb helped relieve the uncomfortable tightness until he had sunk fully into my ass. He withdrew slowly before sinking into me a little faster. And again, and again, a little faster each time, until he gripped the back of my legs under my knees and drove his dick into my ass in a sweet, steady rhythm that brought me to the brink.

  Then he sank two fingers deep into my pussy. I cried out as the orgasm swept over me. His fangs dropped, and he rode it out with me, roaring out his own release as mine died down. My tattoo flared hot in the cast, sending electric pulses throughout my arm and into my core.

  His tattoo lit up as bright as a struck match before it settled into a steady, pulsing light, brighter than it had been before. Hawk pulled up his pants and lay down beside me.

  He kissed me gently. “You okay?”

  “More than okay.” In fact, the pain in my arm had totally diminished. I flexed my fingers, and nothing hurt. Smiling, I sat up and removed the sling, then ripped off the cast.

  “What are you doing?” Hawk asked as he sat up and stared at me like I’d grown another head.

  “It’s fine.” I bent my elbow, rubbed the muscle, and flung my hand around. No pain, just the steady, strong pulse from my now brighter tattoo. “All healed. How’d that happen?”

  Hawk flopped back down on the bed, his arms overhead, a slightly dazed smile on his handsome face. “I’m just that good.”

  I slapped his chest, playfully that time, and lay down against him. Nestled against Hawk’s neck, I teased him with tiny bites until he chuckled. He had a nice laugh, deep and throaty, the first I’d ever heard from him. My mate now. My killer.

  He pulled me closer until I lay on top of him. Squeezing my bare ass with his big, strong hands, he frowned. “Hate to kill the mood, but time’s running out.”

  Couldn’t I ever bask in an afterglow for more than five minutes?

  I sighed. “Then we should go find Angelo. I’m going to need that feather before we go hunting for my fifth mate.”

  “You only have one miracle to use. Are you sure, Wren?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  Chapter Ten

  Hawk

  "Hawk," Kinky said, answering his phone after the first ring. He sounded shocked with an undercurrent of fear, like he was talking to a man he hoped was dead, but as smooth as any politician, he continued on like nothing was wrong. "To what do I owe the pleasure of hearing from you this fine night?"

  I gritted my teeth and rubbed at my throbbing temples. They flared with need to carve this man out of existence, but I couldn't do that just yet. I had to play it cool for a while longer.

  The five of us - Wren, her three mates, and I - sat around the table in the bunker’s kitchen leaning toward my phone which was on speaker. I didn’t know where Zac was, and right now, I didn’t care.

  "Hey, Kinky," I said, my tone surprisingly relaxed. "So I got the license from your friend last night. I still need that line of code you said you'd slip into the VDMV to make it legal. I'm going to need you to do that right now."

  "Well, it's a little la—"

  "Right now." I roughened my voice with a sharp edge, and I could almost hear the sweat dripping down over Kinky's yellow face powder.

  "Okay, but I… I know what happened to Allison. I saw it on VTV. You don't— You don't think I had anything to do with that." He gulped. "Do you?"

  "Of course not," I lied. "It was a bad neighborhood. I'm just glad no one else got hurt." I flicked my gaze to Wren, who glared at my phone while she curled her fingers into fists.

  "Oh, absolutely. So what I'll do is call my friend and then text you a screen shot when it's all legal. Shouldn't take more than two minutes. Then we should be squared away." His voice wobbled. "Right?"

  "Definitely. That would be real fine, Kinky." I ended the call, and everyone sagged into their chairs with relief.

  "That guy's a motherfucker," Charles muttered, adjusting his fedora.

  Ashe nodded as he rubbed Wren's back. "Amen."

  Wren leaned into Ashe’s massage with her back arched so her hard nipples poked into the fabric of her white tank top. She looked stunning tonight, a glow about her all the way up to the roots of her platinum hair. I’d tasted her sweet flavor, had taken one form of her virginity when I fucked her in the ass. My cock stirred in tempo with my tattoo, overpowering the hammer inside my head beating in time with the passing seconds. I wanted more of her. More relief only she seemed to be able to provide. When she touched me or looked at me, my headache all but disappeared.

  "Once we get that text and hand over Angelo's license,” she said, “that'll end the threat of me burning in eternal hellfire, so that's a plus. One crisis averted, and what, two hundred more to go?"

  "That sounds about right." Marlowe picked up the empty mug in front of her and took it to the sink. He’d been fidgety all night about the final stages of Wren’s celestial promise.

  The poodle came flying into the kitchen yelping in terror with Duke on her heels. Crazy cat had that wicked gleam in his eyes as he swiped a clawed paw at the dog’s hind legs like a cheetah hunting a gazelle.

  Wren reached down calmly and picked up the dog. Duke just strolled on by as if nothing had happened and sat down to lick his butt on the blanket I’d placed in the corner for the dog.

  “We should give this little girl a name,” she said. “There was no tag on her collar.”

  I smiled across the table at her. “You’re the queen. How about you pick a name? All I ask is that you don’t make it something too froufrou.”

  “So no Snowball or Tinkerbell?”

  “God, no.”

  “I kno
w just the name, then,” she said as she bent her head and let the poodle lick her chin. “Killer.”

  “Wildly inappropriate name. I like it,” Charles said with a grin.

  “It’ll do,” I said.

  The guys all chuckled, and I did too. Was it possible that I could actually get along with these three losers?

  Killer hopped off Wren’s lap and trotted over to her blanket where Duke was still immersed in licking his balls even though they were clean ten minutes ago. As though she’d decided to live up to her new name, Killer crept right up to Duke’s back and let out a loud bark. Duke hissed and launched straight up in the air, somehow landing atop the fridge. Killer bounded onto her blanket, made a couple of turns, and settled down for a nap. Duke turned his back to all of us, growling as he swished his tail and pouted.

  “Serves you right,” I told him.

  We settled into silence as we stared at my phone again, waiting.

  Charles, tapping two different nervous rhythms with his boots and fingers on the tabletop, glanced up at me. "Is your real name Hawk?"

  I leveled him with a hard stare. "It is to you."

  “I see.” He nodded and kept tapping.

  Ashe looked between us, sliding his fingers to Wren’s lower back. "What, you're not going to give him one of your ridiculous nicknames?"

  "The guy's a professional killer," Charles said, pointing at me. "How stupid do you think I am?"

  Ashe snorted. "On a scale of one to ten?"

  My phone buzzed, and I dove for it, swiping to the screen shot in the text. "It's done."

  "Yes." Wren shot to her feet. In just panties and a tank top, she was all legs and skin and curves, and none of us minded at fucking all. "Then let's go make a delivery to a celestial at his favorite bar."

  "Right now?” Marlowe moved to her side, his whole body rigid with nerves. “Are you—"

  "I'm fine. My arm feels great." To prove it, she flexed her tiny bicep and kissed it. "I feel great, but I'd feel a lot better if I exchanged a license for a celestial feather."