Take Me Once, I'll Bleed You Twice novel Chapter 14

Chapter 14

There was a short period of her life when she’d been to therapy and gotten into meditation. Organizing her mind was something she could do, though it’d been a while since she’d bothered life got busy, things happened, blah, blah, blah.

Closing her eyes, Beatrice took a deep breath, holding it for a count of five, then slowly exhaled. She repeated this as her mind cleared. It took a while, as stress always made it more difficult, but that didn’t stop her from working through the mental mess that’d accumulated.

Something wasn’t right in the back of her mind. It didn’t clear out with the rest of her thoughts. Whatever was there, it held emotions and something else she couldn’t quite put into words.

It felt.. alien.

That had to be the mate bond, or Hendricks‘ part of it, she told herself. Whatever was in that thing wasn’t coming from Beatrice but someone else. Who else could it be but the bastard who’d marked her without consent?

A surge of rage burned through her as she mentally grabbed the alien thing. As though it were in her hand, Beatrice closed her mental fingers around it, clenching them into a tight fist. She could feel it fighting against her grip, but one thing she knew about herself was the strength of her mental fortitude. Yes, it was mainly due to the stubborn streak her mother always said was wider than the universe, but that was beside the point.

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Opening her eyes, she was able to keep the mental clamp in place. This brought a grin to her face, glad something had gone right.

New sounds were coming from the room on the other side of the bathroom door. It sounded like Hendricks was muttering something; could he tell she was squishing whatever bond he’d forced on her? Did it hurt him? She really hoped it was giving him at least some kind of discomfort.

There was another big push against her mental clamp, as if he was trying to force his way through, but ultimately failed. It gave Beatrice a feeling of satisfaction that she could at least stop him from this one thing. Physically, he was stronger than she could ever be and there was nothing that would

change that fact; but her mind was her own and she’d be damned if she ever let anyone into it without her say so.

In response to his latest attempt to get back into her mind, she added more pressure against the bond, squeezing it even tighter, compressing it until she

could barely sense its existence.

Sweat stung her eyes from the exertion she was surprised to find how hard it was to thin the bond and she glanced over at the shower again, wondering

about her clothes a second time.

A loud knock rattled the door, causing her to jump in surprise. “What are you doing, Beatrice?”

She sneered at the door, a little proud she’d upset Mr Alpha enough to use her name without the ‘Fine‘ prefix. At the same time, she was worried he might break the door. She had no desire to deal with him, especially not face to face.

Beatrice didn’t bother giving him the satisfaction of an answer; he already knew exactly what she’d been doing. He was just angry there was nothing he

could do about it.

Another loud thump against the door had Beatrice on her feet, moving to the other side of the room. Instead of breaking in, Hendricks swore loudly and

retreated. A second later, she heard a door slam.

3:18 pm

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