“No!” I scream. “Don’t, Bastien, don’t! Please! I need that!”
“I needed you,” he spits at me. Then he shoves the wallet in his pocket and leaves.
I curl up on the bed and sob. I ache inside, a fiery tunnel of pain pulsing up my backside. I feel needy and vulnerable after my orgasm. I want someone to hug me and comfort me and tell me I’m a good girl, but I’m all alone. And I’m freaked out by what he told me about Landon, who I thought was a man I could trust completely. I know that’s exactly why Bastien did that, spilling secrets he had no right to know about. Getting in my head.
Finally I climb off the bed and drag myself to the shower. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. I can never sleep on the bed again—not without thinking of Bastien and how I betrayed Landon.
Chapter Fifteen
Bastien
The air smells like blood and moldy hay. Two men are sprawled at my feet, their life fluids leaking on to a dirty barn floor. I’m an hour outside of Philadelphia, on a decrepit property I’ve owned for a while now, purchased by one of my shell companies. As soon as I decided to move to Pennsylvania, I started buying up different types of properties I thought might be useful.
Someone tried to break into my hotel room last night, at three a.m. I crouched against the wall waiting for them, gun in hand, but unfortunately, they were scared off by a drunken hotel guest who was staggering in from God knows where. That makes me sad, because I really wanted to meet the man and get to know him a little better before I cut his tongue out and stuffed it down his throat.
I suspect it was Troy or Benedict who sent him, though. So I left my hotel room this morning and went for a drive, to lure my assassins into following me.
I’d already mapped out the route perfectly, and I vanished down a hidden side road on my new property and watched as the car following me went over the stop stick strip I’d laid out.
I shot both men who climbed out of the car with tranquilizer darts, and when they collapsed, I dragged them into the barn and cuffed them. Then I took turns torturing them. I had a package of skinning knives that I bought just for them, and I baptized the knives in blood. The men started screaming their secrets far too quickly, so after I got everything I needed from them, I just cut them for the sheer joy of it.
This…this is amazing. I’ll never tire of the sight of watching a man’s flesh open up, of the sounds he makes as he’s dying. I can feel his life force flowing into mine. It nourishes me in a way that food never could.
The men were working for Troy—they told me through split, bloody lips. Troy and Benedict are gunning for each other. They’re each hiding out in their own house until the day of the challenge. They also told me they weren’t behind the attack on me, and they didn’t kill Robert, so it must have been Benedict.
They told me how many men work for Troy, and where he’s hiding out until the day of the challenge. And they also told me Benedict has a man on the inside, someone fairly high up, but he doesn’t know who. My money would be on Paxton, the bitter little whiner.
One of the men has stopped breathing. I guess he doesn’t want to play anymore. I grab his body and heave him into the incinerator in the back of the barn. I return to the other man, who is moaning, blood bubbling from his mouth. I can’t spend much more time with him, because backup might be arriving soon. A pity. I really wanted to hunt him, watch him running through the fields, weeping as I stalked him. I crave it. It’s such a sick and specific urge, but I no longer hate myself for it. I understand now that it’s a peculiar psychopathy passed down from one generation to the next in our family.
I don’t glory in it the way Augustus does. I don’t take it as a sign that we’re exalted above other men. I just accept it. I was born this way. I will work to find a way to satisfy my urges and not get caught by the authorities. My parents pounded conventional morality into my head, and I can’t escape it completely, so I will probably not snatch random people off the street. Instead, I’ll follow the path of the Franklin family, and hunt criminals and those who cross me.
The surviving assassin makes a gurgling sound, and blood runs from his mouth, dribbling down his chin. “Please,” he snivels. “I’ll work for you.”
“But you failed to kill me, and you failed to keep your employer’s secrets, which means you’d be a piss-poor employee.” I smile at him as I grab his feet and start dragging him toward the incinerator.
“I don’t want to die!” he whines.
I shrug. “I didn’t either. I won, you lost. This is the consequence of failure. Since you gave everything up so nicely, I’ll give you a choice. Do you want to go into the incinerator alive or dead?”
The alarm system I set up chimes and warns me there’s a car a couple of miles away. There are no houses or businesses in the area. Could be someone just passing through, could be a team sent by Troy or Benedict. I’ll have to pick up the pace.
“Please,” he tries again. “I have a wife and kids.”
“How sad for them. Quit stalling. I’ve got a fun date tonight and can’t be late. I’m counting down from five, and after that, I stuff you in and you burn alive. Five, four, three—”
“Shoot me, you motherfucker! Fuck you, fuck you!” he screams. “I hope you—”
I shoot him in the head. I never get to find out what he hopes. I watch his face dissolve into raspberry jam, then I quickly haul him off the floor and shove him into the incinerator. I slam the door shut and turn it on.
I hurry out of the barn to the private helicopter I have waiting for me, climb in, and fly off just as a car screeches onto the property. As I soar through the clear blue sky, an enormous explosion tells me that Troy’s men have triggered the bomb I rigged inside the barn.
A short time later, I set the helicopter down on the pad at the house I rented for myself a couple of months ago. It’s got excellent sight lines, and it’s a couple of hours from the city. I hum to myself as I shower. Today was a good day. I fed the beast that lived inside me, and for now it’s napping, fat and happy.
And now I get to see Camille again. I wasn’t lying when I told the man I had a fun date.
I haven’t gone near Camille in the last five days. It took all my willpower to stay away, but I’ve been waiting for my revenge for a decade, and I’m not going to rush things. I also realize I need to get my head centered. Gather my strength so I can deal with her properly.
Camille has an odd effect on me. I had planned to be crueler to her when I forced myself on her. I wanted to make the sex painful, wanted her bleeding and puking, crawling because she was in such agony she couldn’t walk. But something stopped me—some treacherous little voice in my head whispered to me that I should humiliate her by forcing her to love it instead.
I can’t deny I enjoyed making her want me. I loved how mortified she was when I dragged her out onto the balcony, her body clenched and quivering, crystalline tears leaking from her eyes. I thrilled at how she orgasmed for me no matter how desperately she fought it.
Forcing her to expose her naked body to the crowd, making her come in front of them…just thinking about it makes me hard. But I’m afraid that she’s weakening me. I think on some level I’m making excuses for myself, going easier on her than I should. This has to stop. I am stronger than this. I am stronger than any residual feelings I have for her. I am a man on a mission, and I will carry that mission out to the end. And then I’ll kill her for what she did to me.
And what will you live for when she’s gone? that traitorous voice whispers in my head as I drive, hurrying toward my sweet little Camille. If you win the challenge, you’ll win Eternal Glory, you’ll be the new ruler of the Franklin family, and you’ll have nothing to live for. Nobody you care enough about to punish.
I banish the voice. I am about to ruin her night, and I want to enjoy every second of it. She’s showing her artwork at a gallery, and it means a lot to her. Artwork started as a hobby for her, and it’s evolved into a good side gig where she can pull in some decent c
ash. Well, that was before.
I slip in through a side door and watch her as she warily scans the crowd. She’s still beautiful, but I can see I’ve been taking a toll on her. There are faint circles under her eyes. A hunted expression haunts her lovely face.
The crowd is a stuffy old-money Philadelphia crowd, and she’s dressed primly in a sparkly green evening gown with a high neckline and low hemline. The artwork is modern but tasteful. Her friend Pandora does pretty abstracts in jewel tones, and Camille’s artwork is collages of city skylines made with found objects.
I take my time, lurking in the corners, watching her, always keeping my head low. She can sense it; she glances around uneasily, searching for the source of the disturbance in the force. She gulps down two glasses of wine in quick succession.
When she goes down the hallway to the ladies’ room, I pounce and drag her into the storage room, my hand clamped over her mouth. I leave the door open and force her toward the wall.
“Scream, and your family pays for it,” I snap at her. I take my hand off her mouth.
She flails wildly and manages to get in one lucky punch to the eye. When I’m in a heightened state of excitement like this, I don’t even register pain in a normal way. It’s just an endorphin rush, flushing my body with adrenaline.
I drop my hands and grin.
“Very nice. Want another one?” I throw my hands up and stand there waiting. “Come on. I’m going to rape you, destroy your life, then kill you. One free shot to the face. You know you want to.”
She shakes her head. Her emerald eyes shimmer with tears. “This isn’t fair. You’re destroying me for one mistake I made when I was practically still a child.”
Cue the violins.
She’s up against the wall. I grab her chin and squeeze hard, tipping her head up to look at me. “What we had was ageless. It was timeless. We had the purest, most beautiful connection two human beings could ever feel. And you destroyed it for all eternity.”
“No!” She’s crying now. “That can’t be true! If it was real love, it couldn’t die!”
I’m furious with her for saying that—because I believed that too, and the death of that belief chewed me up from the inside out. “It could if you killed it,” I spit at her.
The fear and misery twisting her face is turning me on. I push her dress up and move my pelvis between her legs. I’m hard and want her to feel it.
She punches my chest, raining furious blows on my rib cage. Light little love taps that send rushes of blood to my groin. “The hell with you, you psycho bastard! If one mistake could ruin everything, then it was never love!”
It was love. It was love. Only love could make me hate like this. I wouldn’t be feeling like this, consumed by blackness, eaten away by poison, if it hadn’t been love.
Suddenly she manages to knee me between the legs, and instinctively, I double over. She turns to run. My eyes are watering as I take off after her and bring her down to the ground. She lands with a painful thud. I’m on top of her, on the carpeted floor, and I roll her over so she’s looking at me.
“You’ll pay for that,” I snap at her.
She glares up at me. “You already said you’re going to torture me and murder me. How much worse could it get?”
“You have to ask me that question?” I bark out a harsh laugh. “You know me, Camille. I can do things to your friends and family that would make you cry.”
Her muscles go stiff, and she looks at me, suddenly fearless. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” Ice frosts her every word.
Reluctant admiration surges through me. Other girls would be sniveling and dribbling and losing their minds, knowing what was going to happen to them. She’s stronger than I remembered. But this isn’t how the game is played. I make the threats.
I slide her skirt up again and thrust my fingers through the crotch of her pantyhose, tearing the fabric. I stroke her, and her slit is wet for me. My cock pulses with arousal at the sweet scent of her pussy. I summon up hate from the depths of my soul. “Little lying bitch. Traitor whore. You’re going to be screaming for mercy when you die.”
I force her legs open wide with my knees, and in one swift move, slide down between her legs and rip the crotch of her hose open even wider. My hands are on her thighs, and she’s not even fighting me anymore. I smell the sweet, spicy scent of her arousal, and grin. Dipping my head, I run my tongue along the seam of her pussy, and she shudders in pleasure.
“Bastien… Please don’t make me… Oh God, yes….” Her soft voice caresses me.
“You want to come? Scream for me, baby.” I spread her dewy pink lips open and drag my tongue down her exposed wetness.
“No,” she whimpers. So I stop licking her, and stroke her with the gentlest of touches while she mewls and cries out for release.
“You know you want it, baby. Sweetheart. You love how I touch you.” My fingers are like feathers drifting across her pussy, teasing her, making her ache.
Finally, she can’t stand it anymore. She shrieks, “Yes! Make me come! Please make me come!”
And I do. I bend down and lap up her delicious juices and suck on her clit.
I close my eyes and let myself drift away, imagining that terrible day in our past never happened. Camille is still my love, and we’re on our honeymoon, and I’m making my sweetheart cry out for me… No. No, she’s getting in my head again. She is not my love. She is a Jezebel liar, and I’m only pleasuring her to punish her with what comes after.
I suckle, nip, and lap at her. I devour her oozing honey until she spasms and cries out in ecstasy, soaking my face with her arousal. As I pull back, she sits up, dazed—and looks at the doorway and utters a strangled cry. I’ve never heard such despair before. God, that’s nice. That sound…I wish I could bottle it and take it home with me so I could down it like sweet nectar. I’m fucking hard as a rock.
The gallery owner, Thomas Sinclair, is standing there with Pandora by his side. That’s because I planned this out perfectly. I had Simon come to the gallery with me tonight and told him to send Mr. Sinclair and Camille’s best friend to the storage room fifteen minutes after I went in.
I stand up, grinning, as Camille frantically staggers to her feet and pulls her skirt down. Her hose are torn, her mascara smeared, and she smells like pussy.
The revulsion and rage on Mr. Sinclair’s face makes Camille burst into tears. “Oh no,” she sobs. She sounds so hopeless.
Pandora looks furious and disgusted. “How could you?” she cries out to Camille. “What is wrong with you?”
“So sorry.” I smirk at them. “I mean, she just grabbed my crotch and dragged me back here. What’s a fellow to do? I do enjoy the taste of free pussy.” And I push my way past them, licking Camille off my lips.
As I make my way toward the front door, I hear Mr. Sinclair’s outraged bellow. “Get out. Get out!” he yells at Camille.
Her perfect world, crashing down on her and burying her alive.
Chapter Sixteen
Camille
The air in the restaurant is warm and humid, but I shiver and hug myself. An icy cloak of despair wraps around me. I’m cold all the time these days. I’m at the steakhouse where Landon took me for our first date. A waitress sets down a bowl of bread in front of me, and I stare at it, struggling to suppress the nausea welling up inside me. The dull chatter of the customers throbs in my ears as I sit at a table by the window, waiting for Landon. I’ve got my back to the wall, watching the door, terrified Bastien will come strolling in at any minute.
It’s been three days since the gallery fiasco. I don’t know what’s worse—the waiting, or the fresh wounds he opens up with every visit.
I’m haunted by the memory of Pandora and Mr. Sinclair’s expressions as they stood in that doorway, looking down on me, flat on my back with my legs spread wide and my wet private parts exposed to them.
They saw everything.
Mr. Sinclair looked as if he wanted to vomit. Pandora was in tears, shaking. She went
out on a limb for me, getting me the gallery showing, and I made her look terrible. The art world is small and gossipy. I may have ruined her, which makes me want to shrivel up and die. I have to figure out a way out of this. I can’t just sit back and let him tear my life to shreds like this. I can’t let him hurt my friends and family.
I’m jumping at shadows. I expect to see him on every corner. I’m exhausted. When I’m alone, I weep spontaneously, crying until I’m hoarse.
This is exactly what he wants.
Tonight I’ll confide in Landon. I’ll probably have to warn my mother and Pandora too. I’ll tell the police, and I’ll make as much noise as I can. Bastien wouldn’t want his family dragged into this, would he? Or maybe his parents would help me if I could find a way to get hold of them directly.
I’m desperate. I’ll try anything. This is like being diagnosed with a terminal disease, except my disease is in human form, and I’m so afraid there’s no cure.
The door opens, and I sit up straighter, but it’s a group of people who are smiling and chatting happily with each other as they approach the hostess because nobody’s trying to murder them.
Where is Landon? He should have been here fifteen minutes ago. Why is he late? He’s compulsively early for everything.
“Excusez-moi, cette place, est-elle prise?” a man’s voice says, coming from my right, and I’m so exhausted and distracted that it takes me a few seconds to realize that someone just said, “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” in French.
Bastien sits down without waiting to be invited. He hands me a paper-wrapped bouquet of lavender. A cruel reminder of his family’s lavender fields, the ones we used to run through, holding hands.
Camille, Claimed Page 13
