Cruel Endings

Cruel Endings GINGER TALBOT Cruel Endings Copyright 2018 by Ginger Talbot This book is intended for readers 18 and older only, due to adult content. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the imagination of the author. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Contents Prologue 1. Bastien 2. Bastien 3. Bastien 4. Bastien 5. Bastien 6. Camille 7. Bastien 8. Bastien 9. Camille 10. Bastien 11. Bastien 12. Bastien 13. Camille 14. Camille 15. Camille 16. Bastien 17. Camille 18. Bastien 19. Bastien 20. Camille 21. Camille 22. Camille 23. Camille 24. Bastien 25. Bastien 26. Bastien 27. Bastien Epilogue Prologue BASTIEN Legacy: noun | leg·a·cy | ˈle-gə-sē Something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past I’m a wolf who was raised to be a sheep. I have a long, rich, complicated family history. A legacy of evil and beauty. Power and terror. The past and the truth about my nature was hidden from me because I was raised by liars. By traitors. They feared me, loved me, caged me, comforted me, tried to ruin me. But a voice from my past came calling, the only true voice I’ve ever heard, and whispered in my ear. The voice told me where I really came from. And now I’m free. Free to hunt. Free to kill, to maim, to torture, whatever amuses me. Free to claim her… Camille. My obsession. My first and only love. The princess I was born to conquer. The girl who was sworn to be mine… until she betrayed me with lies and ruined my life. Nothing’s holding me back now. I’ll bury Camille in the deepest, darkest dungeon, where only I can hear her pleas for mercy… of which there will be none. I’ll be her nightmare, her tormentor, her only solace. Others would take her from me if they could because now that I’ve claimed her, she's become a pawn in an ancient game. Let them come after her. I’ll kill them all, one by one. She’s mine. Mine to punish, mine to take apart, mine to CHAPTER 1 Bastien Ever since I was very young, I knew there was a sickness in me, something that made me dark and different. I also learned how to hide it. There’s no room for that kind of thing in my family. My parents were loving but strict and watchful. They expected a lot of us—my brothers and sisters and me—and we loved them, were in awe of them. They were gods to us. They weren’t much for spanking; a swat on the butt was about as bad as it got, and even that didn’t happen often. It was the rare look of disappointment in their eyes that hurt so much that we’d do anything to avoid it. My sisters and brothers—Emilie, Francois, Odette, and Jules—succeeded because they weren’t born with the devil inside them. They grew up happy and normal. They married and had kids. They never wanted to rape and torture anybody. Yes, that’s right. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to do very bad things to people. Not all people, mind you. Just people I disliked. The gardener who kicked my dog for digging in the flower beds. The nanny who told my little brother a ghost story and made him cry. I had very specific images in my mind of what I wanted to do— flaying them. Burning them. Making them scream and crawl. And in the end, I always killed them—in my head, anyway. Violent scenes in movies and