Sever the Crown: Vampire Reverse Harem Complete Series

by Mysti Parker

  It was messy. It was vicious. But this was war. Soon, the place looked like a massacre of both our Knights and theirs.

  Behind the safety of another pillar, the triplets hurled more fireballs at their mother, and she fired back but also kept flinging those red glittery lights at Wren.

  Out of the corner of my eye, across the throne room, Hawk slammed down on his back. What the hell? There was no one—

  Something coiled around my ankles and took out the ground from underneath me. I searched for something to shoot at, but there was nothing. Nothing but frigid air that scraped up the back of my neck and set my fangs on edge.

  Whatever held us dragged Hawk and I upside down up opposite walls through the sunbeams. My hood fell from my head, and the sun boiled my skin everywhere it hit. It all happened so fast, it barely registered, but somehow I kept a grasp on my guns. The grip on my ankle tightened and ground my bones together, climbing up my body in a twist of black smoke.

  Phil. Marlowe’s demon dad. I writhed against the smoky tentacle that tightened around me, but I was already weakened from the spiders’ venom earlier. Hawk too. That’s why we’d been targeted by Phil.

  Fuck.

  I kept shooting, but dangling upside down messed with my equilibrium and spun the room in circles. Hawk did better than I did, but not by much.

  “Phil!” Marlowe shouted from the direction of the throne. “Show yourself!”

  A long, low creak sounded from behind the throne, and then the entire wall unhinged at the top and slowly peeled away. Sunlight streamed through, but a shadowy eclipse hovered above. Phil stared down with red demon eyes from inside shapeless black smoke. Ashe got Wren out of Phil’s sights and dodged toward a pillar. Phil’s shadow tentacles curled over the leaning wall and crumbled it down to rubble in an instant. Sunlight now drenched half the throne room. The unlucky Knights who’d lost their cloaks began to burn. Smoke rolled off them as they fought until they ended up in gray piles of ashes.

  A massive fireball flew from Marlowe toward his demon dad. It slammed into him, parted his black smoke form, and slurped up its tentacles. Including the ones that held Hawk and me. We dropped and landed on the blood-soaked floor. Pain exploded through my body, but I had no time to focus on it. A black-cloaked Knight was almost upon me, his trigger finger tightening, so I shot him first and surged to my feet.

  Behind me, Phil in his human form flew out, his black leathery wings spread wide. He flung himself at Marlowe and crashed into him, and they rolled across the floor and then up into the air in a violent flurry of fists and wings and demon fire.

  "Hey, stranger," someone shouted from right next to me.

  It was Vivian Bravo, dressed in a white cloak that framed her blonde curls, and dragging the Knight I’d just shot toward her with a giant grin on her face. She expertly ripped off his armor, splattered him into goo with her gun, then surged forward.

  “You’re welcome!” she called.

  “Thanks!”

  More glittery red light exploded, and I thought I heard someone scream from behind me.

  "Wren?" I shouted, turning.

  Thick smoke from Marlowe and Phil’s demon fires plus the ashes from sun-scorched vampires choked the air, and I could only make out outlines, not actual people. Which would make killing the right ones more difficult. I glanced upward, searching for Marlowe and Phil. If I could help take Phil out, Marlowe could check on Wren much faster than I could make it there since he had wings. But I couldn’t get a good shot at the demon, not with the smoke and with them rolling through the air with their fists flying and their wings protecting them.

  Then finally I could. I could tell it was Phil because his eyes glowed a brighter red. He reeled back for another punch, and I aimed just beyond his fist to his head. I fired. His chin snapped back, and he swiveled those demonic eyes my way. A downright terrifying roar thundered out of him, one that scraped a sharp chill down my spine.

  He flung Marlowe down. Hard. Marlowe lay on the rubble floor, unmoving. The energy in my tattoo flared and then faded some.

  “Marlowe!” I yelled, but there was too much chaos for me to even hear myself.

  Phil separated into smoke, but I could still feel his eyes digging into my skull. Before I could so much as blink, he whipped out another tentacle, wrapped me up tight, slammed me against the wall, and dragged me up it. Too late. I was fucking too late to stop it, and now my arms were bound.

  I needed Marlowe to end Phil. Marlowe lay in my sights, facedown with his arms above his head. An idea struck, one I was sure he would hate if he’d had a say in the matter. If he had any say ever again since he could very well be dead.

  I still had my guns, so I steadied one hand at its weird angle, twisting my wrist against Phil’s tentacle until the joint screamed in agony. Gritting my teeth, I squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet sliced through Marlowe’s fingertips, spraying blood, and he jerked. He brought his head up and stared at his hand, and I felt his pain register bright and fierce in my tattoo.

  “Marlowe!” I shouted. “Get me down.”

  He gazed upward and then dragged himself to his feet, clutching his hand to his chest. His red eyes looked unfocused, like he’d gotten his bell rung pretty good. He stumbled as he looked behind him and then peered up at me again, raising one finger. Wait, he was telling me.

  Fucking perfect.

  His wings spread wide, he took to the air toward where Wren had been. I couldn’t see her, though, or anything other than the sunlight sparkling over the blood-drenched floor.

  The place was a bloodbath. Some of Ravana’s Knights were running out the door. Hot on their heels were Wren’s. We were winning. Hope flared briefly, but this was far from over.

  Doreen’s cackle sounded from somewhere, higher-pitched than normal and tinged with panic. In one of the corners by the door, I thought I glimpsed her face penned in behind a wall of fire. Three silhouettes stood on the other side of it.

  “Give it up, Mother,” Talia said as the wall of fire dissipated. “You’re out of magic.”

  Theodore kept his hands raised, with mini lightning bolts flashing between them. “We’ll give you one last chance - witch prison or death. It’s your choice.”

  An orange cat trotted up to Doreen. She snatched it up. “Ha! Just try it. This familiar will block anything you throw at it.”

  And then I realized I knew that cat. He had a habit of showing up unexpectedly.

  Thaddeus grinned. “Go for it, Archie.”

  As soon as Doreen looked down at the cat, his mouth stretched open impossibly wide like a black hole. She screamed as he sucked her up head first. As soon as her feet disappeared into his mouth, he dropped gracefully to the ground and started washing his face.

  I blinked, trying to process what had just happened, but all I could come up with was: Ding dong, the witch is dead. Fucking hallelujah.

  The triplets brushed off their hands and hurried over to Wren.

  “Go check on the rest of my Knights, please,” Wren said. “We’ve got this.”

  With a firm nod, Talia and her brothers ran from the room.

  “Phil!” Marlowe yelled from midair in the center of the room with Wren’s scepter sword behind his back. “We’ve decided to add certain benefits to your Vegas vacation trip.”

  “So now you’re ready to make a deal?” Phil blinked into existence in front of him in his human form, and his hold on me vanished. Again.

  Damn it. I hurtled toward the ground—and almost missed what happened next because of round two of agonized pain crippled my body from the hard fall.

  With his good hand, Marlowe swooped down and shoved the sword straight through Phil. The demon’s eyes bugged, and he slumped toward Marlowe. But Marlowe jerked away, and Phil dropped.

  “Go to hell!” Marlowe shouted after him.

  A hellfire pit opened beneath Phil, its red-orange flames welcoming him home before it sealed back up again.

  Silence, so much of it that it roa
red. It tickled my awareness as I lay there on the floor. It brushed against my fingertips. I blinked, turned my head, blinked again. Then snatched my hand away from a Satan’s Sister spider. With my hand out of the way, though, it skittered right toward my face. I rolled out of the way and then hauled myself to my feet, my skin crawling away from my bones. The bloody floor swarmed with them, especially near the back of the room, red on red so it was hard to see them. That must’ve been what Doreen’s sparkly red spells had been—summoning more Satan’s Sister spiders.

  “Game’s up, Ravana,” Wren shouted from the center of the room. “Your Knights are dead or ran off. You have nothing left, so give me the crown.”

  Another portal appeared, and a few of Queen Eleanor’s Knights jumped out of it. They ran from the throne room as Eleanor called after them, “Drag her ass out of hiding!”

  Hawk knelt near Wren and collected the spiders, sweeping them up with a big leaf into a glass jar he’d gotten from somewhere. The remaining Knights, Charles, Ashe, and Marlowe stood behind Wren.

  I crossed toward her. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” she said, smiling, but it had too many sharp edges for me to believe her.

  “I surrender.”

  The familiar voice came from the doorway—sad, almost defeated-sounding. So unlike Ravana that the hair on my arms bristled. Two of Eleanor’s Knights held her by the arms. She wore a black gown covered in a black hooded cloak, the ends trailing through the blood. Her face was an expressionless mask as the Knights brought her to Wren, her chin held high.

  On instinct, the five of us pressed in closer to Wren, but she elbowed past us to face off with the queen herself. She had her scepter sword in her hand again, aimed toward the ground. The two women stared at each other for a long moment, standing so still that they could’ve been looking into a mirror.

  “What’s the catch?” Wren demanded.

  “No catch,” Ravana said. “I’m surrendering the crown to you on live VTV. The people are witnesses to the battle and know you’ve won. My Knights are defeated. But you should know something first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The deal your mother made with Phil. To ensure she kept the throne, he made me barren. That was the deal.”

  Wren paled.

  Ravana shook her head with a humorless laugh. “Oh yes, and I even saved your life when Devin attempted to kill you as you slept in your crib. This was before we knew about her dealings with the demon. He hated your father and initially blamed him for his child’s death. He stood over you one morning with a wooden stake in his hand. I begged him not to kill you. Does this surprise you?”

  I had no idea whether Ravana was telling the truth or not, but it seemed that Wren was buying it. The fierce determination in her eyes wavered.

  “Let her go,” she instructed the Knights. They hesitated, but finally did as they were told.

  Ravana’s eyes widened. She glanced at both Knights then offered her hand for Wren to shake. “Do you accept my surrender, then? It’s clear that you’ve won, and I’d like to have the chance to simply be your aunt, the way it should have always been.”

  Everything inside me screamed NO. This was a trap, but I couldn’t quite figure out its shape. No way Ravana would ever willingly hand over the crown. She was taking advantage of Wren’s number one desire—to have a family. Her three surviving mates were nowhere to be found. Had they run off? Still, even if they had, Ravana would be hard to beat.

  The five of us mates shifted uneasily. Ashe looked like he wanted to lunge for Ravana’s throat. Charles, who always seemed several steps in front of everyone else, narrowed his eyes as if to see through Ravana’s words to their true meaning.

  Wren pursed her lips as she glanced down at Ravana’s hand, deliberating. Her mind worked behind those yellow eyes, and I could tell she smelled something fishy too.

  But she stuck out her hand anyway. “I accept your surrender.”

  The trap took shape as soon as they shook and sealed the deal. Several large silver nets fell from the shadowy ceiling on top of everyone but Wren and Ravana, snaring us. Not a normal silver net. This one shrink-wrapped us inside and made it impossible to move. I couldn’t even seem to squeeze the trigger on my guns.

  At the same time, a flash of steel snicked out from Ravana’s long sleeve on her free arm. She thrust it forward as she snapped Wren toward her by their clasped hands. The steel vanished—right into Wren’s chest.

  Wren gasped, her eyes wide. More of Eleanor’s Knights ran through their portal, but it was too late.

  “No!” I shouted and lunged at the net, but it wouldn’t give me an inch.

  The other mates and Knights swore and wrestled and squirmed, but none of us were going anywhere.

  I stared in horror at the blood blooming on Wren’s white cloak. She stumbled to the side, slipped backward, and fell onto the blood-slicked floor, her scepter dropping then rolling away from her.

  Into a pool of sunlight.

  Behind the throne, three black-cloaked silhouettes appeared in the sun where the wall had once been. Disaster, Alessandro, and Bartholomew. They crossed toward us, their boots crunching over several Satan’s Sister spiders.

  Hawk winced.

  “About time,” Ravana snapped at them.

  Alessandro blew her a kiss. “No puedo limpiar los taxis, mi amor.”

  Can’t clean the taxis, my love? Oh my fucking god, get me out of here. I wriggled a hand free, but the net squeezed tighter.

  “Anyone got a Rolaid?” Bartholomew grimaced and patted his stomach.

  Disaster slow-clapped as the three of them stopped between us and Wren, his leather creaking underneath his black cloak. “Seems you have everything under control here.”

  “That I do.” Ravana chuckled maliciously as she advanced on Wren, the bloody knife in her hand. “The look on your face right now is priceless. It almost makes up for everything you’ve put me through.”

  Tears stung my eyes as I fought to free myself. This was the meaning of helplessness. There was nothing any of us could do.

  “What I…put you through?” Wren reached for the scepter sword, her bare hand immediately blistering in the sunlight. She grimaced, but her fingertips were mere inches from the scepter.

  “No one takes what is mine. You hear me? No one.” She caught Wren’s seeking arm by the wrist underneath her heel. Protected from the sun by her black cloak, she put all of her weight on that foot until Wren’s wrist cracked, a sickening sound that echoed through the room.

  Wren screamed.

  My chest caved in at the sound. This was a nightmare. I couldn’t watch Wren die, not after everything we’d been through.

  “I wish I could kill you a thousand times over.” Ravana twirled the knife in her hand so it landed in her grip with the blade aimed down. “But once will just have to do.”

  She brought the blade down.

  A burst of light exploded through the room, brighter than the sun or anything I’d ever seen, but it didn’t blind me. Once it faded, Angelo stood next to the throne, his black feathery wings spread wide. Something hovered next to him, a white wisp outlined in gold, familiar and warm.

  “Bronwen,” Marlowe whispered in awe.

  “What the fuck?” Disaster said.

  The room held perfectly still as the wisp floated closer, and I could see it now, why it looked so familiar. She was Wren but older with the same nose and mouth. Beautiful.

  Wren stared up at her, tears coursing down her face. “Mama?”

  A sad smile formed as she gazed down at her daughter lying wounded on the floor. Then her golden light flared as she looked up at Ravana, the smile instantly dissolving.

  “She could have loved you,” Bronwen said, her voice like a whisper on the wind. “She has more heart than the both of us ever had.”

  “Bronwen, I—” Ravana started, her mouth agape, but what she could possibly say? I’m sorry? It was too late for that now.

  Bronwen gazed
down at Wren again, and something passed between the two of them, a flicker of the mother-daughter bond I wasn’t privy to. Then she turned toward Angelo, who nodded.

  Then three things happened at once:

  Bronwen vanished.

  Angelo took flight straight for Ravana’s mates.

  Something flew up from Wren’s free hand, right into Ravana’s mouth.

  A split second after, Wren’s fist smashed into Ravana’s jaw. Something broke inside. Something that sounded like shattered glass.

  Ashe’s poison vial.

  Ravana surged back, clawing at her throat. Her mouth opened on a surprised O, and two streams of silver poured out mixed with blood and crushed glass.

  Ravana’s three mates scattered at the coming celestial, but they weren’t his goal. Our nets were. He ripped them off all of us and then vanished into another burst of heavenly light with a theatrical bow.

  Now free, we charged at Ravana’s mates and instantly caught them in three pairs of silver cuffs. Then we turned them so they could watch what happened to their queen.

  “You sons of bitches, let us go,” Disaster shouted.

  Hawk aimed his gun right at his heart, which shut him up fast.

  Viciousness stormed inside Wren’s eyes as she hauled herself to a sitting position while Ravana dropped to her knees. Grizzly red gouges trailed down her neck while she kept trying to tear the silver out, and noises choked out of her, a mix of pained wails and sizzling.

  Whatever poison Ashe had cooked up for her was deadlier than I’d ever imagined. He watched her closely, every inch of him trembling with dark glee. He despised killing, but he despised his sister’s murderer even more.

  Wren dragged the blade of the scepter toward her with her good hand, ignoring the sun blistering her skin as she reached for it, then stood. Wincing in pain, she crossed toward Ravana and stopped in front of her.