Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  A strange light display fell from in front of a steel door, and shortly after, the door banged open. At the same time, a loud crack sounded behind me. A familiar face charged through the door, one twisted in an angry scowl and dressed in tight leather. Disaster. His angry gaze landed over my shoulder, and he stopped short, his mouth dropping in surprise.

  Something pierced between my shoulder blades from behind. Something sharp like a stake, something downright lethal if it had been a little more to the left. I released Talia with a pained yell and whirled around, letting her fall slumped to the ground.

  Wren. She'd staked me. Why would she turn me and then kill me? I stared at her long and hard, unable to make sense of what was happening. She stepped back, her hard gaze ticking between me and Disaster, already armed with another long shard of wood she must’ve found from the debris on the floor.

  He advanced in a blur toward Wren, and as he did, he speared his fingers through Talia’s hair and dragged her back to the door to block it.

  He glanced at me with an evil smirk. Three deep claw marks on his cheek fused together within a second. “This what you’re after, newbie?”

  I lunged toward Talia, my thirst drowning everything else out.

  "Don't, Zac," Wren shouted.

  I stopped short at the panic in her tone.

  "I won't miss again,” she said. “Focus on the sound of my voice and listen to me. Leave Talia alone."

  "What's with the stake in his back, bitch?” the guy demanded. “You turned him and then changed your mind? That's fucked up."

  "Stay out of this, Disaster," she shot back.

  “Nah, I can’t do that.” He moved his hand to his crotch and and stroked himself through his leather pants. “All I want is to get inside.”

  A low growl vibrated through me. I reached behind me, tore the stake from my back, and gripped it in a tight fist. I could end him right now.

  "You need to get it through that thick, pretty head of yours that the queen's position is already taken." Something was bulging his waistband hidden underneath his shirt, and when he dropped Talia by his feet, his free hand crept toward it.

  A gun, probably. No way in hell I’d let him reach it.

  "I'm well aware it was taken,” Wren snapped. “Which is why I'm taking it back."

  Disaster shrugged, still stroking, still creeping one hand toward his gun. "It won't end well for you if you do."

  She arched an eyebrow. "Keep threatening me and see how that ends."

  From the other end of the tunnel, gravel crunched underneath many tires, and brakes squealed to a stop right outside the door. Whatever it was blocked all moonlight through the window, so it must’ve been huge.

  "There they are. The cavalry.” He made a mad grab for his gun.

  I collided with him at full speed, my stake raised, and threw him, but I didn’t know my own strength. With a loud “oof,” he flew through the air and slammed into an open cold locker. It closed on him as he fell inside, and Wren blurred over, wedging a piece of rebar between three locker handles, then twisting it like a bread tie to lock him up tight. He shouted and kicked from within as I lunged toward Talia, a feral growl peeling back my lips.

  Wren jumped in front of me. "Zac, stop. Concentrate on controlling the thirst. It's hard, but you can't let it consume you. Think of anything else. Anything at all, and while you do, take a short walk over there”—she pointed back the way we’d come—“so I can heal Talia’s bites and get us out of here before whoever just got here makes things even shittier."

  I curled my hands into fists. My shoulders heaved like I was breathing, but really my body was warring with itself. In the back of my mind, I knew we had to get out of here, but I was so goddamn thirsty. I licked my lips for any stray drops I might've missed. There was nothing, and it was killing me.

  "Zac. We have to go. Fight it for a little longer."

  She was right, but my throat felt scorched, my stomach already painfully empty despite the blood I'd drunk. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to ignore everything but the sound of doors slamming outside and voices shouting orders. Wren couldn't lose because of me. I forced myself to take several steps away, the movements stiff and jerky like I was still very dead.

  "Thank you," she breathed. A moment later, she said, "Are you good, Talia? Because we're about to have company."

  "Zac bit me." She narrowed her eyes at me.

  I tilted my head to one side and held her gaze as ridiculous thoughts surfaced. Would she turn me into a toad? What would a vampire toad be like?

  "I know,” Wren said while she helped Talia to her feet. “He feels really bad about it too. Think you can walk?"

  “Yeah.”

  Their footsteps came closer, and I kept myself a good distance from them.

  “Sounds like tanks right outside,” Talia said.

  Wren hummed in agreement. "The front door was sealed shut, but maybe with you awake, you can get it open."

  Back the way we’d come, I could see beyond the shadows of the flickering lights, smell years of rot and decay, hear the scratch of tiny claws on broken tile. Rats. Living, breathing rats.

  I bet a vampire toad could catch them with his tongue. Shit.

  Shaking the nonsensical thoughts from my head, I fought for control, needed to make sure Wren made it out of here alive. I just had to concentrate on that, not life pumping through veins in a constant, mesmerizing rhythm.

  My whole body shook with the effort and then shook for an entirely different reason. A loud boom smashed into the building above, and in the open rooms to our left, it brought down walls and ceiling in huge chunks. The debris landed and sprayed dust and dirt through the air. Those rooms were how Wren had skirted the giant hole in the hallway, and now, they were sealed shut.

  Talia sucked in a breath. "Not tanks. That was a wrecking ball."

  I dodged into the room on our right, but there was only a single door. These rooms weren’t connected.

  "Shit,” Wren said from the hallway. “Now the only way out is up."

  "And we can't go forward, not with that big hole in the floor," Talia said.

  "You can't jump that?"

  "I'm a witch, Wren, not a long-jumper. That’s like fifteen feet across."

  But there was a steel beam that had fallen from a massive hole in the ceiling in the room I’d ducked into. One end of it had wedged against the wall. It was narrow, but it could work. And it gave me something to focus on other than thirst.

  Another loud boom nearly ripped the floor from underneath my feet. I stumbled. Wren hissed a string of curses from the hallway.

  "Any spells?" she asked.

  I started to drag the beam free.

  After a moment, Talia snarled, “Fuck. Doreen must've blasted me with a knock-out magic dampener. I’m sorry."

  Another hit quaked the foundation and crumbled more of the building down on top of us. We’d be buried alive, and soon. I heaved the beam out of the side room and into the hallway, Wren and Talia making room as I maneuvered it across the pit. It just barely skimmed the other side. About ten feet below, sharp wooden stakes crowned the debris pile. A death trap if we fell. So we couldn't fall.

  "Right,” Wren said with a nod as she stepped up next to me. “Good find. I'll go first."

  "No," I rasped, taking her arm. I hardly recognized my own voice. It sounded beyond thirsty and…monstrous. "I'll secure it on the other side for you."

  More bricks and rubble crashed down around us.

  She shook her head. "But the building isn't stable, Zac. You could fall."

  Which is exactly why I would go first to secure it on the other side. “I’m going first.”

  She searched my face, probably looking for a sign that I would change my mind, but she wouldn’t find any. Finally, she nodded.

  I dropped to my knees and waited for the next wrecking ball's strike. I might have mere seconds before it hit again and shook me off like a flea on a dog. It smashed into the building again, hailing d
own debris from above in huge chunks. When the building stopped trembling, I started forward as fast as I could on my hands and knees, the beam barely wide enough.

  "Careful, Zac," Wren hissed behind me.

  The beam teetered some, and I stopped so it could right itself. I'd already gone about two-thirds of the way. Almost there.

  Something moved in the corner of my eye below. A big rat, sniffing its way around the stakes. A big, juicy rat. I had to ignore it. I only had seconds. If that. And Talia and Wren had to make it across before the building tumbled down on top of us.

  I started forward again, faster now. I could smell that rat, though, hear its tiny heart thrashing. A pained growl slipped through my gritted teeth.

  "You're almost there. Just focus on the sound of my voice, Zac, not your thirst."

  I poured on a final burst of speed and made it to the other side just as a brutal strike smashed the asylum. As soon as my feet touched solid ground, the wrecking ball burst from the wall to my left. Straight toward me.

  “Zac!” Wren shouted.

  Shattered brick bit into my skin as I dropped to the ground. Air rushed over my back as the ball whisked over me and into the opposite wall.

  “Get ready!” Wren yelled.

  Still crouched, I turned to hold the beam steady, but then I realized she wasn’t just talking to me. She’d picked Talia up and slung her over her shoulders again. She looked ready to sprint across the beam.

  Talia squeezed her eyes shut and held Wren’s leather jacket in a death grip.

  That was the faster way. But was it the smartest? We’d soon find out.

  The wrecking ball swung back, spinning fast and wobbling like it had struck something hard. At about four feet wide, it crowded out the rest of the hallway and looked like a swiftly tilting rogue planet.

  As soon as it disappeared back through the hole in the wall, Wren rose up with Talia and blurred onto the beam. Imbalanced as she was, she kept her gaze locked on mine as she crossed. I tried not to move so I could be her anchor.

  Panicked voices sounded from above us. More and more rubble rained down on our heads.

  “Come on, Wren.” I growled.

  I held the beam firm, watching her close the final few inches.

  The building was collapsing now, a crush of splintered wood and sharpened debris that could catch any one of us in the heart.

  Behind me, a herd of footsteps crashed down the stairs. Wren leaped off the beam and landed with Talia in a safe crouch. Then she sprang up and rushed to the stairs.

  “Run, Zac!” she yelled.

  I whirled around and started to follow.

  Wren’s four mates stood at the bottom of the stairs, gesturing for Wren to hurry.

  My foot kicked something as I raced toward them, and I glanced down. A skull with long black hair. I really had seen a human head in the bathroom sink earlier. The empty eye sockets pulled me up short for a second too long. It was a reminder of the death I could have chosen.

  Then the whole building caved in and buried everything.

  Chapter Seven

  Wren

  The world came crashing down on me one minute, then I was falling through the floor and into darkness. Then…sliding? I grabbed out for anything stable, but only found concrete that slid along with me. Grit scratched my eyes and coated my mouth in mineral dust. Splinters wedged themselves in my skin as I realized where I was – the body chute in the basement – right back where we started.

  When the place first opened, a motorized rail and cable system was built within the chute to discreetly remove dead TB patients from the sanitorium so the other patients wouldn’t see the bodies. Apparently, I’d fallen through and was now tumbling down it like a lump of coal.

  Only when I got to the bottom, I landed facedown.

  Something sharp tore through my thigh. I cried out as the pain finally registered. It lanced through my sciatic nerve all the way up my spine.

  Then a big slab of concrete slid out and onto my legs. Whatever had impaled my thigh held the concrete up just enough to not totally crush me. Yay? But I was pinned. Trapped like a bug on a science project board. Definitely not yay.

  I blinked to clear my eyes of the grit. Once they’d watered enough to wash the concrete dust away, I lifted my head and scanned my surroundings as much as I could. No sign of my mates or Talia.

  Clawing at the ground, I gritted my teeth and tried to pull myself out. I managed to move an inch or two. But whatever had impaled me tore through my thigh muscle. I let out the agony with a muffled scream into the crook of my elbow.

  A pile of rubble shifted a few feet away. Someone was kicking and punching their way out of it. I couldn’t see clearly through the dust cloud to tell who it was, and the only things I could smell were concrete, wood, rust, and my own blood.

  I called out past chalky dust that made my voice raspy. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  The dark silhouette of a man finally emerged from the rubble on all fours. Slowly, he stood, brushing his leather jacket off as he approached with a noticeable limp.

  Wind blew the dust cloud away enough that I recognized his face. His full-fanged grin stood out as stark white in the dark, dusty air.

  “Shit,” I whispered, hunting around me for anything I could use as a weapon.

  “Well, well, looks like the little queen done went and got herself trapped.” When he finally stood over me, he cupped himself and squeezed. “But your mouth looks like it held up fine. How about you wrap it around my cock?”

  “Try it, and you’ll wish you’d put it through a meat grinder.”

  Disaster laughed and squatted just out of reach. “My father told me how he used to dine with Vlad the Impaler. How they’d watch the victims writhe and moan on the stakes while the two of them supped on rare venison. What’s it feel like, lying there helpless? I imagine it’s about the same as when you watched your mama writhing around as the knife cut through her neck.”

  His words sliced to the quick and pulled tears from my eyes. Damn him. I didn’t want to cry in front of anyone, least of all him. I bared my fangs and screamed while I lashed out for him with one arm. He easily dodged me, then swooped in and wrapped his hand around my throat.

  Disaster’s pus-colored eyes swept over my face. “Your mama was a fucking whore before she took the throne. Bet you didn’t know that. Hell, you could be anyone’s kid. Maybe even mine. I fucked her more times than I can count.”

  A sudden rumble sounded to our left just as a fireball whizzed over my head. Disaster barely dodged out of the way. The side of his face wasn’t so lucky. Eyes growing wide, he put a trembling hand to his charred skin as Marlowe approached with his black wings unfurled. Fire swirled in my half-demon mate’s eyes, and in his hands, he gripped a spinning ball of flames. Despite the pain and shitty situation, I got wet just seeing him like that.

  “Now you know how it feels,” Marlowe said as he threw another fireball. But this time Disaster blurred off into the night and disappeared into the woods behind the sanitorium.

  Marlowe shook the fire off his hands, folded his wings, and ran to me. He picked up the slab of concrete like it weighed nothing and tossed it aside. The movement shifted whatever was stuck in my leg and sent another wave of pain through me. I cried out through my gritted teeth.

  “Oh, honey,” Marlowe whispered. “We have to get you out of here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Rebar. It’s rusty too.”

  We didn’t have time for this. My other mates were out there, along with Talia, her brothers, and a bloodthirsty Zac. Plus, Ravana and her mates could be lurking anywhere.

  There was only one solution. “Just pull it out. It’s not like I’ll die from tetanus.”

  “But it could cause more damage. We should remove it at the infirmary.”

  “Bullshit. It’s not through the bone. Pull it out.”

  “Wren…”

  “I said pull it out!” I hated to snap at him, and it pro
bably wasn’t wise with him in his half-demon form.

  Thankfully, I still had the bluff on him.

  “Okay, okay, just hang tight.” He took hold of the rebar and firmly wrapped both hands around it. “This will hurt. I’m sorry.”

  I rested my forehead on my balled fists, squeezed my eyes shut, and gritted my teeth.

  He gave it one solid pull. And it felt like he was ripping my leg off. I screamed into the dirt. A moment later, I heard the rebar clank against some rubble. Then I was swept up into a pair of strong arms. The world spun, and everything got smaller.

  Then I realized why. We were flying. I forgot all about the pain and latched my arms around Marlowe’s neck.

  “Easy,” he groaned. “I’ve got you.”

  I loosened my grip, just a bit, but kept my face pressed into his neck. “Why are we flying? We have to find the others.”

  “This is the best way to spot them. We’ll get a bird’s-eye view. And none of Ravana’s gang can catch us up here.”

  My stomach flipped. “I can’t look.”

  “Is my queen afraid of heights?” He laughed as he made a sudden little dive then glided back up.

  I screamed then resumed my stranglehold. “Don’t do that!”

  “Sorry. I think I see someone.”

  Daring to raise my head, I peeked down and got dizzy. “Where?”

  “There. At the edge of the woods.” He nodded toward the forest below.

  I closed my eyes for a moment to center myself and then opened them, letting my night vision take over. I picked up the cool blue heat signature of a vampire. Focusing in more, I could tell it was Zac. And not ten yards away, the warm red heat from a wounded witch who didn’t know she was about to be prey.

  “Oh shit. We have to stop him.”

  “Agreed. Hang on tight.” Marlowe tucked his wings in slightly, and we dove down toward the ground, with me screaming into his neck the whole way. He spread his wings just in time to stop us colliding into the earth and gently landed on his feet in front of Talia, who was tying a tourniquet on her arm from a ripped piece of her shirt.