Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  “Looks like you know your cocktails.” I took a sip from the little straw. It tasted good – spicy and fresh. But I’d have to take it easy with the alcohol so it didn’t get to my head. We had a job to do.

  “I’ve known some fine tail, not so much the cocks.” He winked then grabbed a towel and wiped down the bar, leaning a bit closer. “Table over there, gray dress.”

  I nodded. Hawk kept his hand on the small of my back as we casually made our way over to a woman who sipped a glass of wine at a table in the corner. A cane leaned against the wall beside her. I recognized her scent as we joined her at the table.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said, pretending to sip my bloody Marie. The last time I saw Ravana’s body double, half of her had been flattened as the result of an arena falling on her. I guess she hadn’t fully healed, hence the cane.

  Arlene swallowed hard and glanced around nervously. “You’re not safe here.”

  “Neither are you, unless you’re playing doppelganger again.”

  She shook her head. “Calvin snuck me in. He’s working the gaming room.”

  I wracked my brain – Calvin must have been the guy Charles told me about – the guard that carried Arlene from the collapsed building after I pulled her out from the fallen balcony. She’d gone into hiding after that to avoid Ravana’s wrath.

  “But why would you risk coming?” I asked.

  “I thought you might be here, and you saved my life.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I feel like I owe you for that.”

  “Well, you don’t, and we can’t sit here all night exchanging niceties.” I could feel Hawk tensing up beside me as he scanned the room, ever watchful of potential danger. That, and he needed to make a kill soon. The headache must have been returning. I knew of at least two kills he planned to make, but if it didn’t happen quick, we could be in a heap of trouble. I reached over and took his hand, hoping that my touch would suffice until then. But Arlene needed to get to the point, or we’d have to cut our conversation short.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper we could barely hear. “The ABCs will be here any minute. If you’re going to take them out, wait until they’ve split up to eat. They’ll gorge themselves as much as possible before she gets here. They’ll be so high, they won’t know what’s happening, but it’ll wear off quickly. Alessandro will be the easiest target.”

  Damn. As much as I wanted to rip Disaster’s dick off and make him choke on it, maybe it would make the most sense to go after the weakest link.

  “Okay, where should we wait?”

  “At the bar,” Hawk said. “But we should split up. Anyone the mates see with me, they’ll assume is you.”

  We stood, but before I walked away, I turned back to Arlene. “Do you know what she’s planning?”

  “Not entirely since I’ve been in hiding. But Calvin says a lot of money has exchanged hands from investors in LED lighting, hydroponic crops, and subterranean architecture.”

  I nodded as an icy finger of dread traced down my spine. Sure sounded like someone was prepping for an apocalyptic event. If that didn’t connect Ravana to the end of the world, I didn’t know what did. But would any of tonight’s plans put a stop to it? Or had she already set the ball rolling on an unstoppable path?

  “Thank you,” I told her and followed Hawk to the bar, sidestepping an orgy that had just begun at the table where the addict DBD now lay limp and bone white, her empty eyes staring at nothing. A guard came in and picked her up, casually throwing her over his shoulder before he carried her out. The orgy spilled onto the table and smeared through the small puddles of blood she’d left behind with their writhing bodies. I couldn’t tell who was fucking who, but their wild, red-ringed eyes told me they were totally strung out on whatever the poor addict had in her system.

  We had just taken our seats at the bar – me at one end and Hawk at the other, when partygoers who had been doing the nasty downstairs began filing into the ballroom. I grimaced. Were they about to do the electric slide or pile into a huge orgy? I wouldn’t mind the latter so much if half of these guys were as good-looking as my mates.

  But instead of congregating on the dance floor, they went through a door behind the stage. I could smell a mix of excitement and fear from the humans.

  Hawk and I exchanged a look. Something was about to go down. But what? A woman broke away from the migration, then squealed and ran up to me.

  “OMG, Melody Songsmith? I am such a big fan!” It only took me a moment to realize it was the vampire woman who’d been drinking from the male DBD outside the ballroom. A drop of blood on her chin glittered in the light like a stick-on face gem.

  “Uh, no, that’s not me.” I sipped my bloody Marie again and turned away from her, hoping she’d get the hint.

  She did not.

  Blurring around to my other side, she got right in my face. “I’d recognize those tattoos anywhere. You know the Sundowner Bar in Silversage? I saw you there in the bathroom. I was in a stall puking my guts out. Stupid me ate a couple of hot wings on a dare. Anyway, you were in there touching up some makeup. You had your jacket off. I saw you through the cracks in the stall. Yeah, I know how it sounds, but I’m not a stalker, I swear.”

  “Please, just keep it down,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, I get it. Going incognado, right?” She gave me an exaggerated wink.

  “You mean incognito, and yes, so keep it quiet, please.”

  “Are you kidding? This party is so lame. I mean, really, you’d think they’d have better entertainment for our last big gathering. You have to sing. You just have to.” Then she peered around me to yell at the band. “Hey, y’all, it’s Melody Songsmith! Can you let her sing for us?”

  Holy shit, this little twat might have just fucked up our plans to destroy the TWATS. All because I had to be vain and show off my damn tattoos for a change. And shit, the last gathering? That meant something was indeed about to go down, and we were no closer to taking out Ravana than we were yesterday.

  I looked to Hawk, but he was glaring at the stage. I whipped around, my gaze meeting that of the harmonica player. Despite the feathered mask and the gray-haired wig and fake goatee to match, I knew those blue eyes.

  “Zac?” I whispered.

  Hawk was by my side in a millisecond. “Get lost,” he told the woman.

  “But…”

  “Shut the fuck up and get out of here.”

  “Well!” She stormed off, filing past five imposing figures who had just walked through the ballroom doorway.

  Disaster himself led the pack. He had to have heard the crazed fan screaming about Melody Songsmith. And by now, Ravana’s crew had to know that Melody was my alter ego. Disaster scanned the room. His gaze landed on Hawk, and he grinned, chewing on a toothpick that hung from his mouth.

  I started for the stage, but Hawk grabbed my elbow.

  “No, Wren!” he whispered harshly.

  “Now’s our chance. I’ll convince Zac to be part of the harem. We’ll take them all down right here, right now.”

  “Even if you could convince him, there’s no time for that. We have to abort and get out now.”

  I yanked my arm from his grasp. “We’ll make the time.”

  He took me by both my arms then and forced me to meet his gaze. “You can’t make Zac part of the harem.”

  “Why? Because you’re jealous?”

  “No, damn it!” Hawk reached into his tux jacket and pulled out a folded paper and a lighter. He flicked the flame on the lighter and held it under the paper while he glared at Zac.

  Zac’s eyes met mine for a moment. Then he looked back to Hawk and nodded. Hawk held the fire to the corner of the paper. It suddenly burst into flames, then disintegrated into a few sparks, with no ashes or anything left behind.

  I bounced my gaze between them. “What was that all about?”

  “It’s why you can’t make Zac a part of your harem.” Hawk clenched h
is jaw and hung his head for a moment before meeting my eyes again. “Because he hired me to kill you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hawk

  Wren took a step away from me as her hand fluttered to her throat. She worked her mouth to speak several times before any sound came out. "Hired you to…kill me? Zac?"

  She glanced toward him on the stage, and from behind his mask and fake goatee, his whole being drooped, likely reading the betrayal and hurt that was written on her face clear as day. Any fragile threads of trust linking her to him shattered like glass.

  Over Wren’s shoulder, Queen Ravana’s harem drew closer—aka the ABCs—led by Disaster with a toothpick in his mouth I would love to turn into a stake.

  I only had a few seconds to try to explain to Wren before they were upon us and I could do just that. "He saw you on some security footage about five years ago feeding from his wife in the back of a Whataburger in Charlotte." I paused but there was no delicate way to put this. "You killed her, Wren."

  Tears sprang to her eyes.

  Charles jumped out from behind the bar with a tray filled with bloody Maries to slow the harem’s progress.

  "I remember… I-I remember her, but Hawk." Wren grabbed my tux lapels, swallowing hard, her expression desperate. "She was dying already, gasping for air because someone had stabbed her multiple times. There was no way she would have survived long enough to make it to the hospital. I was out hunting one of my targets. I had tracked him to that area. His stink was all over her. There was no purse or ID anywhere on her, so I assumed he’d attacked and robbed her. She was in so much pain. But…I did it quickly so she wouldn't have to suffer." Her voice cracked at the end, her face full of agony and shame.

  I hated to see her like this, and I hadn’t known for sure Zac would be here so we could break our contract. Lucky guess, if you could call it lucky. I’d come prepared just in case. Her chin wobbled as she fought back her emotions, and I brushed my thumb across it to help give her strength.

  "You need to tell him that," I told her. If there was time.

  “But why is he here? Is he…?” Realization widened her eyes behind the mask.

  Thought I couldn’t be sure, I reluctantly nodded. It was the only thing that made sense, after his odd disappearance and sudden reappearance here in disguise. He meant to take out the vampires who had been responsible for his wife’s death tonight.

  All of them.

  Zac came toward us from the stage, his sharp, heartbroken blue eyes on her. She stared right back, equally torn apart. I didn’t know if that relationship could be repaired, whether it was worth repairing, but we were running out of time. I could hear it ticking away, each second a blow to my skull that hurt worse than the last. The headache was already coming back, even though I’d just killed that crazy witch not even an hour ago.

  The ABCs stopped ten feet from us, fanning out behind Disaster like bowling pins. Each of them wore tuxes, but they were in various states of undress. My tattoo prickled at their nearness. I had to take one of them out and fast, before the headache rendered me useless. I had to protect Wren, no matter what.

  Charles hovered nearby, a wall of tension. Same with Zac on our other side.

  Disaster took the toothpick from his mouth and licked his lips as his gaze roamed over Wren’s backside. "Well, well, well. I’d recognize that ass anywhere. You’ve got some balls coming here.”

  Wren dragged her gaze away from Zac and met mine, and in that split second, she’d composed herself and hardened herself into something impenetrable and all Wren. Fierce, determined, terrifying. A true queen if I ever knew one.

  She swung around to face him and the rest of the ABCs. “Speaking of balls, how’s your dick doing?”

  He flashed a grin, as oily-looking as his slicked-back hair. “Wouldn’t you like to know. “He grabbed the crotch of his tux pants. “Want to see it and find out? Remind you what a real dick looks like?”

  “I wasn’t impressed the first time,”—she showed a little fang—“which was why I made it my last.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You wish. Care to introduce me to your friends?”

  “Not really.”

  “Alessandro,” the guy to Disaster’s immediate right said, rolling the R like a purr. “La sirena encuentra el éxito aquí.”

  He was supposedly the queen’s favorite, and either dumb as a post or high or both. My Spanish was rusty, but pretty sure he’d just said something about a mermaid finding success here. What a poser.

  Wren pointed to the mate next to him. “And you?”

  “Bartholomew.” He rubbed his stomach and farted.

  The others moved away from him, rolling their eyes and groaning.

  Disaster shoved him away, his face twisted in disgust. “Stop feeding from vegans, you stupid fuck.”

  “I’m watching my cholesterol.”

  “Smart man,” Wren deadpanned. She turned to Disaster’s left and nodded at a guy who kept drumming his fingertips against his bloody Marie and wriggling his eyebrows. “How about you?”

  “Yes, yes, Cordero, my dear. You wish to deliver a payment to Belvedere Mortuary? Why don’t you come down into my basement…?” His eyes widened on Wren, and his mouth popped open in an O.

  “Um…” Wren shared a confused glance with me before turning back to him. “Are you ok—?”

  “And, scene.” Cordero dipped down into a stiff bow and then straightened again. “That’s the pivotal scene from Belvedere Mortuary, the play I wrote, directed, and starred in. Critics are hailing my performance as the most memorable they’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m sure it’s a real Broadway contender,” Wren said.

  Cordero narrowed his eyes and tilted his head as though he couldn’t quite tell if she was serious or not.

  She turned to the last of the great five. “By process of elimination, you must be the E of my aunt’s harem.”

  The last mate spoke up in a loud, evangelical voice, his hair nearly as red as the bloody Marie in his hand. “‘When two men are fighting, and the wife of one of them intervenes to drag her husband clear of his opponent, if she puts out her hand and catches hold of the man by his privates, you must cut off her hand and show her no mercy.’”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Erasmus is my name. And that was Deuteronomy 25:11, which is clearly appropriate for this situation, which you would know if you were familiar with the Bible.”

  “I’ll have to brush up on my reading,” Wren said, and I could tell from her tone that she thought all of them were bat-shit crazy like I did. They’d probably driven the queen to become even more malicious. Unfortunately, that also made them dangerous. Crazy plus stupid equaled unpredictable.

  Marlowe and Ashe appeared at the ballroom doorway, likely sensing trouble from their own tattoos.

  “Everyone drink up now,” Charles said, still playing the part of the bartender. “Don’t want those bloody Maries to go cold now, do we?”

  Except for Erasmus, the rest of them tipped their glasses back and then puckered their lips.

  Disaster lifted his empty glass to peer into it while he blinked hard several times. “What the hell’s…in this stuff?”

  Charles grinned. “Just a little something something.”

  I caught his gaze, and he nodded subtly. I’d bet they’d just drunk Devil’s Breath.

  “Go sit at a table,” I ordered them. “Don’t move an inch from your spots unless I tell you to.”

  They did without question. Erasmus looked at them as they did, realization dawning, then threw down his drink so it crashed to the floor. He whipped out a gun from the back of his tux pants. Before he could even begin to point it, I’d already removed my Glock from the inside of my pant leg and clicked the safety off, aiming right for his heart.

  “‘And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes,’” he shouted, his whole body trembling right down to his gun, “‘and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall l
ay my vengeance upon them.’ Ezekiel 25:17.”

  My head throbbed with the need to kill. But I studied his face and flashes of his past, and I knew I couldn’t do it.

  "Grab yourselves another drink before the real party begins!” Senator Kinky stumbled in then, his speech slurred and his head rolling slightly on his neck. His glassy eyes were unable to focus—until they landed on me.

  Then they sharpened on the gun in my hand, on the single-minded intent that lengthened my fangs and peeled my lips back. Without hesitation, I swiveled my aim toward him and fired. The silver-tipped bullet speared directly through the center of his heart, and he exploded into a gory mess all over the floor and several finely dressed guests.

  After that, I had one second to process the lightness in my head and the total lack of pain. One second to feel immense relief and serene quiet inside my skull when it had been a constant source of agony most of my life.

  One second before the place erupted in chaos. The band threw down their instruments and scrambled for the exit. The guests who remained screamed and ran towards the door behind the stage, scooping up armfuls of clothing on the way. I'd never seen an orgy end so quickly.

  "There's no need for violence, man," one guy said on his way to the stage.

  He was right. There wasn't. I hated to get my hopes up, but this complete lack of pain might just be a sign that I was through being an assassin for hire and that I would only kill for self-defense to protect my queen and her mates.

  But I couldn't let anyone else know that, now could I?

  I turned my Glock to Erasmus again, pivoting toward the back of his head. "Drop the gun.” He did as I asked. Marlowe swooped in and got it before it hit the floor. “Go sit down with the rest, asshole."

  "Do not address a member of the queen's harem that way." The cold, ruthless voice snapped through the air, and I didn't even have to look to know who it was.

  Queen Ravana herself.

  Ashe’s face turned livid as he watched her stride past, but Marlowe dodged in front of him and spoke in a low voice I couldn’t hear.

  The queen smiled sweetly at me, shaking her head. “Put the gun down, Hawk. You know you’re outmatched.”