Miscreants: Next Generation by Natalie Bennett (essential reading .txt) 📗

COPYRIGHT

MISCREANTS by Natalie Bennett

© 2021 by Natalie Bennett. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where the publisher or author specifically grant permission.

Cover Design: COVERS BY COMBS

Editing by: Pinpoint Editing

Blurb

Love is madness.

Love is anguish.

Ours was ill-fated from the beginning.

Crazier than crazy.

Sicker than sick.

Samael was the epitome of a beautiful nightmare.

Together, we were poetry. The kind that bled and wept, a mess of euphoric bliss and heartbreak.

I promised I’d be by his side until the bitter end, but after far too long I needed to be free of him.

Leaving would be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. He’d come after me, of that I was sure. Many would lose their lives, becoming casualties in our war.

When this was all said and done, our story would be whispered in darkened corners for years to come.

A tale of a wolf pursuing a lamb, but with a masochistic twist. For even lambs have teeth, and this one bites back.

Author’s Note

By this point in the Badlands, I’m not sure how necessary this note is, but if you’re new or curious about what’s ahead (or behind), please know your limitations. If you have issues reading about very dark and depraved themes with zero regard for moral boundaries, this may not be the series for you.

Miscreants is a frenemies-to-lovers standalone featuring an OTT anti-hero. You do not need to have read the prior books in the series to enjoy this one, but it does take place in an established dark erotic series with an underlying dystopian theme.

I hope you enjoy these two as much as I have!

Happy reading!

—NB

Reading Order

Badlands

Savages

Deviants

Outcasts

Heathens

Badlands: Next Generation

Degenerates

Hellions

Renegades

Miscreants

TBA

Misfits

Tyrants

Rejects

Savages-2

Outlaws

Family Tree

Romero + Calista

Adelaide

Lucifuge

Belladonna

Grimm + Arlen

Nyx

Samael

Cobra + Blue

Braxton AKA Butcher

Cameron

Lilith

Contents

COPYRIGHT

Blurb

Author’s Note

Reading Order

Family Tree

Playlist

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

PART TWO

   CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

     CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

    CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

    CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

    CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Epilogue One

Epilogue Two

MISFITS

DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

OTHER BOOKS

KEEP IN CONTACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Playlist

(Spotify)

Good On Me—Vanic

Ryan Caraveo—Nutcase

SLAVES—The Pact

Eminem—Leaving Heaven

Sadistik—Lazarus

SAINt JHN—Pray 4 Me

Ryan Caraveo—Bubbles

Palisades—Erase The Pain

Niykee Heaton—Starting Over

Sody—Maybe It Was Me

Halsey—11 Minutes

Awaken I Am—Blind Love

Witt Lowry—Your Side

SAINt JHN—Cult4Ever

Halsey—Graveyard

Lil Baby—Close Friends

RITUAL—Too Deep

Joyner Lucas—Fall Slowly

Slaves—Heavier

Billie Eilish—Everything I Wanted

Written By Wolves—Tell You The Truth

Jelly Roll—House of Cards

Yelawolf—You and Me

Gremlin—Love Me

Halsey—Be Kind

Halsey—Sorry

Dermot Kennedy—Without Fear

Ritual—Wouldn’t Be Love

5FDP—My Own Hell

Dermot Kennedy—Lost

5FDP—M.I.N.E

Gracie Abrams—I Miss You, I’m Sorry

The Pretty Reckless—Only You

Alyssa Reid—Badlands

PROLOGUE

Pray to the devil.

Devour flesh.

Kill for survival.

For thrills, too, if that’s what you’re into.

Where I come from, all of this is as ordinary as the sky being blue.

My world—the Badlands—is made up of dark fantasies and endless terrors. You must pick a brand of evil and dedicate your life to it if you want to survive.

Holding out hope that things will change is foolish. They won’t. No one is going to be arriving as a savior. Heroes don’t exist here, but there are plenty of villains to choose from.

You can befriend a clan of cannibals. Work the farms that skin people alive. Join some other faction that’s managing to thrive. It doesn’t matter, as long as you find some form of allegiance. Very few can make it on their own.

I’d heard what things had been like before power shifted, before the depraved and corrupted paved the future for a new way of living. I won’t bore you with the logistics; you’ll get to witness that firsthand.

As for me and where I fit in?

I was born a Savage and taken by another. The whole situation is complicated and chaotic, just like we are.

Like our story is.

Samael is as wicked as they come, the epitome of a beautiful nightmare.

Crazier than crazy.

Sicker than sick.

The only man I’ll ever love.

And my best friend.

He’s my fiercest protector and my greatest enemy.

I’m his peace and his torment.

Ours isn’t a tale of benevolent, tender romance. It’s bloody and ruthless. It’s pain and sorrow, at times unforgiveable and enraging. It isn’t poetic or butterfly-inducing, but it is a love story. A love story about a girl and a boy, forever tied together in a beautiful purgatory of exquisite carnage.

PART ONE

“There is no greater love than the love the wolf feels for the lamb-it-doesn’t-eat.”

Hélène Cixou

CHAPTER ONE

Four years prior

Do you know the tale of Icarus and sun? He was warned to stay away, that it was dangerous. He knew this, and yet he still chose to get close. In the end, the very thing he longed for is what cost him his life. I thought that was tragic.

Of course, the mythology behind it was probably more complex than that, but I preferred to believe he did it for a romanticized reason—like forbidden love.

Although, the ending would be sad no matter how you looked at it.

If my mom hadn’t given me a book of Greek myths, I wouldn’t have read about him.