Take Me Once, I'll Bleed You Twice novel Chapter 170

“You shouldn’t listen to that someone.

“That someone is you, Bea.”

“I’m aware. Which is why I know for a fact you shouldn’t listen to her.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Sure thing. Okay, does everyone remember the plan?”

Beatrice raised a hand as she said, “I don’t.”

Riaghaire took hold of her raised hand and gave it a small squeeze. “You are not required to do anything. Allow us to do what must be done to secure your

freedom.”

Us? Beatrice leaned into him a bit, comforted by his presence as she tried to wrap her head around the ‘us’. She had never thought he would team up with anyone – at least not willingly – to do, well, anything. It didn’t bother her, not in the least; it was just surprising. It wasn’t like him at all. Had something happened to change his mind? And what had it been? She made a mental note to ask about it later.

“All you need to worry about is keeping your mouth shut; let me do the talking,” Claire told her friend with a crooked smile. “I know it’ll be difficult, but I trust you’ll be able to do that much. Right?”

Beatrice nodded. “I guess, yeah… but…” she trailed off, frowning.

“What is wrong, gréine?”

Shaking her head, she gave Riaghaire a small smile before turning back to Claire. “Before we take care of everything, I have a really weird question for vo

“Okay…” Claire was giving her friend a confused look, as normally Beatrice just said whatever she wanted to say without preamble.

“Is there someone in your family tree with the last name Ashcliff?”

“Uh… Yeah. Why?”

Dammit. Beatrice had hoped she’d been mistaken, even though she knew that wouldn’t be the case. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, all intrusive on a subject you’ve chosen to tell me nothing about, but you’re about to get an unscheduled family reunion

Claire stared at her friend for a few seconds. “Huh?”

1

“There’s a certain pompous ass on the Council of Elders with the surname Ashcliff And, before you jump on the whole its a common last sums bandwagon, I’ve seen a photo of his I think great grandson! You could be like them She jerked her thigh at the lac tons both ag best mentioned “Twins, I mean There’s no mistaking the resemblance

31 V

“Fuck’s sake,” the blond swore with far more enthusiam than Heatre had been expecting

“…uh.”

Claire let out an aggravated noise “We don’t have time to go over this right now but the chiffnotes version is that I don’t actually allows whai 1 all pool is a huge bunch of who knows what, to the point even my patents don’t know

7:37 am PPPP

Chapter 170 –

“How do they not know? Aren’t they, y’kiftw, whatever you are, too?”

“Genetically speaking, only a single species traits can be present in an individual. Like… if you’re half witch, half far, you’ll only have access to one of their magics, not both. So even looking back at my ancestors, I can only verify what they were by what they could do. If they were mixed blood, I have no way of knowing unless one of their ancestors could do something different.”

“Claire has fae blood so she can use fae magics,” Ptyrese offered, sounding excited.

“Yes. It’s why we can share ours with her,” Lan’gny added, nodding fervently.

“Uh… Claire?”

“Just go with it for now, please? It’s too complicated to explain.”

“Okay, well, I’ll definitely be asking for an explanation later.”

“I expect nothing less. So this Elder guy I’m related to… you said he’s a pompous ass?”

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