Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  “Shiiit,” Disaster yelled, and his voice had an echo to it.

  Had he fallen through the floor?

  Wren lunged into action, not returning to the hall, but sprinting to the left and through the connected rooms. Connected because half the brick wall had crumbled away. Her steps were soft, but with broken debris underfoot and a vampire tracker with excellent hearing, they probably sounded like thunder.

  In my state, I couldn’t feel emasculated being carried around, but I did feel trust. Even more than I had when she and her mates had first shown up to rescue me. It bloomed bright and warm in my chest and gave me a sliver of hope. She'd protect my life with her own without hesitation, do anything to protect me. And I would do the exact same for her. I had been for a while now, ever since I'd allowed myself to see past Sasha's loss and get to know the real Wren—the one who’d never take an innocent life.

  “I’ll gut your human and make you watch,” Disaster shouted. He was farther behind us now, sounding like he was in the room we’d just left. If he’d fallen through the floor in the hall, he’d pulled himself up. “You hear me, bitch?”

  What I wouldn’t give to shut him up permanently.

  At a doorway that led back into the hallway, Wren paused and then shot down the corridor at top speed. She could have killed him easily, but she wanted to keep Talia and me safe, get us somewhere where she could turn me into a vampire. I knew this because it was exactly what I would do. Besides, Disaster might have more goons down here than just him.

  The light at the end of the hall flickered again, and a cold breeze chilled my skin. I glimpsed two dirty bare feet standing there, surrounded by dead leaves and the bottom hem of a hospital gown, as we passed and headed right, but when I lifted my gaze, no one was there. No one should be here.

  “Thank you,” Wren muttered as she swept through a door at the end of a new hallway. “Think you can—”

  The door slammed closed behind us.

  "I appreciate it," she whispered.

  The hairs lifted on my neck as if someone were watching our backs from this side of the door. Someone was here with us, other than Disaster. And Wren was talking to them like that was an everyday thing. Didn't she tell me about some ghost boy who was her friend a long time ago? I couldn't tell which thoughts were real and which were fantasy now.

  She stopped a ways ahead and laid both Talia and me down. Moonlight filtered in from a window on the door at the other end of the long tunnel-like room we were in, and in the other direction was the door, murky shadows, and the vague shape of that watchful presence. Talia was still out cold, and I… I was fading now that the blood wasn’t rushing to my head. My consciousness was leaking out as fast as my blood. At first it had been a trickle, and now it was as though Ravana had cranked a faucet for a stronger flow.

  "I have a confession,” Wren said, her voice trembling, as she knelt next to me. “I don't actually know how to turn you into a vampire."

  I heaved a painful laugh that sounded like I was gargling blood. "I do."

  "Thank Vampire Jesus for that brain of yours." She placed her hand over my heart and bowed her head. "Hopefully we don’t need anything special?”

  I covered her hand with mine. "I just need you."

  A broken, shaky sob came from her throat as she glanced down at me with tear-filled eyes. Her chin trembled until she firmed her lips into a thin line of determination. "Tell me what to do."

  I wanted to, but my entire sense of feeling was dimming at an alarming rate. Everything wobbled as though my body still floated down the abandoned halls, without Wren, but if I made it to the end, I wouldn’t be able to tell her how to turn me.

  "Zac, please," Wren pleaded. “Stay with me.” Her mouth formed the word 'me,' but no sound came out except for a gut-wrenching crack.

  I hated the sound of her pain, but I attached myself to it for the time being so I wouldn’t pass out. Broken concrete dug into my back, a sharp anchor to the ground so I wouldn't float away from her. I blinked up at her slowly. She leaned over me, her face twisted in sorrow as she smoothed her hands over my face.

  "There are those blue eyes I love so much.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I wished I could lift my hands to wipe them away. “Keep them on me and tell me what to do."

  "Bite me...then feed me...and bury my body."

  "In concrete and broken plaster? There's not enough dirt down here. Are you sure?"

  I nodded. While I'd been following Wren’s trail before I made myself known to her, I’d hid downwind on a shipping dock. I witnessed a vampire burying his human DBD/lover underneath a pile of ropes on an old boat. A few minutes later, he'd risen as a new vampire with blood-red eyes. I didn't stick around long after that.

  "Okay." With a quick nod, her fangs elongated. "I'll make it quick. I promise."

  “I know."

  She pressed a kiss to my pulse, and even the touch of her lips didn't trigger my heart to beat faster. I was dying, and she'd kill me to save my life. Her fangs pierced skin, two pinches at first, and then it progressed into burning razors sinking deeper as she latched on.

  A swirl of colors erupted around me in stark detail—the green graffiti on the wall above my head announcing FUCK RAVANA, Wren's platinum hair, the blood coating my white dress shirt. Then they began to fade. Everything faded except for the sound of Wren's swallows as she fed from me.

  I should've told her…

  My body jerked as if fighting off death involuntarily. Had I passed out again? I should've told her not to drink too much and drain me dry. Completely drained humans couldn't come back since it was a mix of original and vampire blood that changed people into vampires.

  "Wren…" I tried to say, but my mouth didn't even move.

  She didn't stop.

  I wanted to signal or tap out, but my body had stopped listening and obeying.

  I was dying, but she could very well kill me first.

  Chapter Five

  Wren

  Zac’s blood tasted as good as it had the first time I fed from him. So good. But I had to focus on the goal. I’d drain him, then feed him, then find somewhere to bury him here in this dark morgue. The only light came from a flashing fluorescent light fixture overhead that had a strobe light effect. It made me feel dizzy and disoriented.

  How was there any power in this abandoned building? It had to be coming from the witches or something.

  A hand wrapped around my wrist. Still latched on to Zac, I raised my eyes, expecting to find another ghostly resident – one intent on saving the living from the undead.

  But it was Talia, propped up on her elbow where she had reached across Zac to grab my wrist. And she was shaking her head.

  I stopped swallowing.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  I didn’t have time to explain to her that this was what I needed to do to turn Zac into a vampire. I jerked my arm away from her grip and squeezed my eyes shut to block out the flashing light.

  “Stop, you’ll kill him,” she insisted.

  Wasn’t that the point? I’d kill him, then bring him back to life…

  “You can’t totally drain him.”

  Oh shit. I let go and sat up, wiping the blood from my lips with the back of my hand. “What do you mean?”

  Was it too late? Had I gone too far? Zac wasn’t breathing, just staring vacantly at the crumbling ceiling. Someone pounded on the other side of the closed steel door.

  “I know you’re in there!” Disaster called in a sinister sing-song voice.

  I stared at Talia in horror as Zac’s blood curdled in my stomach. I’d fucked it all up.

  Talia raised a trembling hand and zapped the light fixture with a spell that stopped the flashing. One problem down. Five thousand ninety-nine to go.

  She then placed two fingers on what was left of Zac’s neck. “I don’t feel a pulse. Bite your wrist and feed him now. Hurry.”

  No pulse meant dead, didn’t it? “It’s too late!”

  “Just do it
!”

  I sank my fangs into my wrist, barely registering the pain, and held it over Zac’s mouth. My dark blood dripped down his chin and cheek. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His lips didn’t latch on.

  “Zac,” I whispered, shaking him gently with my other hand. “Drink, please!”

  The dark essence of the spirit that resided here in the morgue somehow held the door closed as Disaster slammed himself into it over and over.

  And every second, he sounded more furious. “Fucking cunt! I’ll fuck you and kill you right here if you don’t open this door!”

  A head with red glowing eyes manifested in the shadowy figure and stared at us. Her disembodied voice floated past us like a frigid breeze. “Can’t…hold…much…longer…”

  Talia blinked up at the ghost as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “It’s inhuman. A demonic.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me.” I didn’t know why this spirit was helping us, but I’d seen these before. Human spirits who became dark from hatred, revenge, loss, and anger. They often manifested as a demonic to scare anyone who dared bother them. But none of that mattered now.

  What did matter was that Zac still hadn’t moved. He wasn’t drinking. My blood was simply pooling in his mouth and running out. I’d killed him. I’d fucked up his human life and now his one chance at immortal life. I had no idea where my other mates or Knights were or if they were even still alive. I might as well just open the door and accept that we’d lost.

  I hung my head, but then a sudden rage consumed me. I’d come too far to turn back now. If I was going down, I’d go down fighting with all that I had.

  “No, damn it, you will wake up! Now!” With my free hand, I slapped Zac right in the face. The impact rang out through the room.

  Nothing happened.

  Then his eyes fluttered. They turned and locked on mine.

  His lips latched onto my wrist, and then his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed the first mouthful. A low growl emanated from his chest. The wounds in his neck slowly knitted back together until they closed. Zac raised his hands and grabbed my arm, holding on to it with his cold, pale hands as he drank deeply.

  Tears fell as I let out a sigh of relief. But then his body convulsed. He let go of my arm. His eyes rolled back in his head as a seizure rocked through him. Was this normal?

  “What do I do?” I asked Talia, who slowly pushed herself off the floor to her feet.

  “Give it just a moment,” she said.

  Boom! Another hard collision with the door, followed by a body-shaped indentation in the steel. It was then I noticed that the walls around us were made of steel, which explained why Disaster hadn’t come crashing through the wall.

  But how long would that door hold?

  Talia cautiously approached the entity, who followed her movements and growled when she came close.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Let me help.”

  The shadowy head nodded. Talia waved her hands and formed a pink shimmering shield over the door.

  She addressed the spirit again. “Can you distract him? I don’t think I can do this for long.” Then she sank to her knees, still weak from whatever Doreen had blasted her with, but still managed to hold the spell.

  The spirit turned to a loose mass of black smoke and dissipated under the crack at the bottom of the door.

  A moment later, Disaster cried out. “What the fuck? Get off me!” Then there were bangs against the walls, scuffling sounds, and footsteps pounding through debris down the hall until they faded.

  I had been so caught up in what was happening at the door that I hadn’t noticed that Zac had gone completely still. All my hopes crashed down through my slumped shoulders.

  Until Talia spoke again. “Get him in a cold locker. Quickly.” She sounded out of breath as though it took all her strength to hold herself up, much less to hold a shielding spell.

  Though I doubted any of this would work, I scooped up Zac. He was entirely limp and ice-cube cold. It had to be too late. Shouldn’t there be some sign of life or undead life?

  With my boot, I pulled open an extremely rusty cold locker, which resembled a human-sized filing cabinet drawer along the wall. Metal squealed against metal and tortured my ears. Every vampire within a five-mile radius could have heard it.

  It was a little higher than I had first judged, so I tiptoed then dumped Zac onto the platform none too gracefully. He ended up facedown.

  “Shit. Sorry.” I pushed the drawer back in and leaned my back against it as a storm of emotions jogged a memory loose.

  “Where are you, baby?”

  We had just traveled a couple hundred miles hidden away in a U-Haul trailer. As soon as it had stopped, we had run to a funeral parlor nearby and broke in through the basement door. We could only stay one night, Mama insisted, since the funeral home was still in business.

  I was fascinated with all the coffins, embalming tools, and smells. Mostly formaldehyde and bleach, but also body fluids, perfume, cigars, food, along with real and plastic flowers.

  And ghosts.

  They made Mama uneasy, but I was never afraid of them. Even the ones that showed themselves with gruesome wounds from their tragic demises. I wanted to befriend them all. I often sat and listened as spirits told me about their lives and deaths. They sometimes spoke aloud. Sometimes they spoke in my head. I didn’t know that was odd. It seemed totally normal to me.

  Most of them just wanted someone to know their story. Some told me secrets that I would write on notes to leave behind for the living to find. One elderly lady had money hidden in the backyard. Others told me the identity of their killers. It was all an exciting adventure to me back then. As I grew up and understood more of the consequences, I hoped that maybe those revelations would at least free an innocent person or help a grieving family get out of debt.

  That night, as I hid from Mama in a cold locker down in the funeral home’s morgue, I giggled as I heard her frantic cries and footsteps running back and forth.

  “Wren, it’s not funny! We can’t play hide-and-seek now! Come out, please!”

  Another voice interrupted my fun. “Youuuuu…”

  Mama gasped. I heard her back hit the outside of the cold lockers. “Who are you?”

  “Who was I, you mean?” The voice was like a whispering wind but sounded female. The air around me grew colder.

  A ghost? How exciting. It was like a scene out of A Vampire’s Christmas Carol, if there was such a thing.

  “Who were you, then?” Mama asked.

  “Your dinner.”

  “You must be mistaken. Be gone!”

  The ghost’s laugh bounced around the room from nowhere in particular. “Your sister too – you both enjoyed me that night. Don’t you remember? It was quite the party.”

  There were some noises, like Mama rummaging through her duffel bag. The smell of burning sage followed, seeping through the cracks in the locker. She often used it in our hiding places to cleanse the negative energies, she said. I didn’t understand what she meant.

  I liked the smell, but it made me sneeze.

  Mama yanked open the cold locker. She looked angrier with me than I had ever seen before. “Don’t you ever hide from me like that again! Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  As the memory faded, I wondered what it all meant. Did my mother participate in those cult parties at one time? Surely that ghost had mistaken her for someone else.

  Vibrations on my back jarred me into the present once again.

  Growls and screaming came from inside the cold locker.

  “Zac!” I spun around and grasped the cold metal handle.

  Still on her knees, Talia looked over her shoulder, her eyes widening. “Wren, wait!”

  But I had already slid open the drawer. And Zac shot out of it. He moved faster than I expected, landed in a crouch, and launched himself right into Talia. His newly formed fangs
sank into her neck.

  The shield holding the door shut fizzled out.

  What the fuck had I just created?

  Chapter Six

  Zac

  I awoke to agony. Blistering, searing agony that ripped through flesh and bone, broke me apart, and reformed me into something I immediately regretted. I screamed until my throat felt raw and my voice no longer sounded like my own.

  So much pain. It made me want to die again and stay that way. Tears streamed down my face and dribbled into my mouth. They rolled over my tongue, their saltiness bringing every taste bud to life. My screams quieted as a burning sensation gripped my throat. My mouth felt dry and parched, more now than before the tears, and the feeling coursed through my entire body.

  Thirst. Almost a living, breathing thing deep inside of me that rose up and slowly replaced the pain with something even more powerful. This couldn’t be normal, could it? Otherwise, vampires would all be mindless bloodsuckers. But the thirst was unstoppable. It took control of my senses, sharpening my hearing, my sense of smell. Someone was speaking right outside this…this cage, but underneath that, I heard the crash of blood through veins. A beating heart. I could smell it, thick and warm, and I could hear it leaking out over skin and the slightest pause as it washed over hair follicles.

  Blood.

  I screamed again and again. Yet I could feel no air in my lungs. It was as though I was suffocating. I tried to breathe and couldn’t. I banged around in my steel tomb as I looked for a way out. My thirst was a feral beast that couldn’t be controlled, and I needed a drink now.

  Suddenly the lid on top of me released. The smell of fresh blood flooded me. Tortured me. I zipped out of my cage so fast I didn't see what or who had freed me and charged straight for the source of relief.

  I knew her. The witch, Talia, but right now, I didn’t care. The sight of a few spots of blood trickling down her hairline drove me mad. My canines, sharper than I'd ever had before, lengthened. I bared them as I lunged and caught her neck. My teeth buried deep like her skin was made of butter, and then salty, tangy-sweet blood flowed between my lips. I groaned but couldn't savor the first taste because I needed more. Lots more.