Take Me Once, I'll Bleed You Twice novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18

BEATRICE

Beatrice decided her main goal was to avoid Hendricks like her life depended on it but didn’t want to say so sutright. Something told her Alise wouldn’t approve and might attempt to force an unwanted reunion, if given the opportunity.

Mulling over how to avoid the asshole, Beatrice’s thoughts took an unexpected leap. She needed to find a good word that combined asshole and alpha.. Asspha? Alphass?

2

The second one brought a smirk to her face. Yes. Alphass Hendricks. It was perfection. Her wit struck again.

“So… what are you suppose to be doing, exactly?” Beatrice asked the maid, who hadn’t moved from her spot.

“I’ve been assigned as your attendant. It’s my responsibility to look after whatever you need, so long as it’s within my power.”

“I need to get to work,” Beatrice quipped, knowing full well what the answer would be before speaking.

“U–unfortunately, that is outside of my power…”

Expectations met, Beatrice switched topics instead of arguing about something the poor woman had no say in. “Tell me about the thing in the dungeon.”

Alise stared at her for a long moment, face blank. “The thing in the dungeon?”

“Yeah. What is it? Why is it there?” The maid’s eyes seemed to lose focus, causing Beatrice to snap her fingers to get Alise’s attention back to answering the question. Why had she spaced out like that? “You gonna answer the question? Or am I not allowed to know who I shared a room with.”

“Shared a room with?” She gasped, her focus now fully on Beatrice. “They would have never put you in the same room as him.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. “The dungeon might as well be one big room, partitioned into cells. Calm down. So, what is it?”

Alise froze, as if she’d already let too much slip. “He’s just a prisoner.”

“No duh. I’m asking what he is; and what did he do?”

The maid’s hesitation was apparent but Beatrice waited to see what answers the other woman would come up with. “He hunted us, killing any wolf he found.

It didn’t matter who she–wolf, pup, old, young… He’s a murderer.”

“Why?”

“…I don’t understand?”

“Why did he kill your people?”

“His kind don’t need a reason to slaughter others. It’s in their nature.”

A

“I could say the same about your kind, except with kidnapping and rape,” Beatrice muttered, knowing full well Alise would hear every word and not giving damo about it. Raising her voice, she continued, “His kind? I saw him eat a rat so… what, is he fae? Are fae even a thing? Not that she believed fae ate rats.

She just wanted confirmation that the fae existed.

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3:18 pm

Chapter 18

MA

Eae are real,” Alise nodded, looking uncomfortable. “He is a vampire.”

*So, he went on a killing spree against you,” Beatrice began, not bothering to ask a second time what they’d done to piss him off judged him based solely on what he was, anyway. Not every member of a species followed the status quo; there was always a possibility that Riaghaire was

it was obvious they

an outlier a vampire that didn’t just kill for fun. Then again, he had expressed how much he enjoyed decapitating wolves…

That wasn’t the point. He’d seemed so… different than what Beatrice had expected. Even starved, he’d been almost… human, in a way. Maybe she was humanizing him too much.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“…why?”

“Why put him in jail and not just kill him? It doesn’t make sense, keeping someone like that alive. Or, do you not believe in killing your enemies? Doesn’t seem very werewolf–y.”

“That’s…” For the first time since they met, Alise showed frustration. She worked hard to keep it under control, only speaking again once she had everything in check. “Death would be a mercy,” she explained.

So they were vindictive. Good to know. Beatrice was also vindictive, though more in the realm of petty, not cruel and unusual punishment. Keeping a starved vampire in the dungeon for decades was a bigger commitment than she’d be willing to take on.

It meant… Wait. How did they keep a vampire imprisoned, anyway?

“How do you even keep him down there? Aren’t vampires super strong or something? And can’t they turn into bats?”

Her questions caused Alise to giggle, but that had been the intention. Lower the maid’s guard and maybe, just maybe, milk a bit more information without her realizing it. Beatrice already knew turning into a bat was a myth, though she was still curious how they kept him against his will.

“The bars are laced with pure silver and he’s restrained by silver shackles engraved with religious scriptures.”

The scripture part wasn’t a surprise, but silver? Vampires didn’t like silver? “Silver? What’s that matter? Is he more of a gold vampire?” Ah, yes, playing the

complete idiot card to its fullest potential — Beatrice had unleashed her one super power,

Alise smiled, shaking her head. “Vampires are weak to pure silver, just like we are.”

Oh really? Werewolves shared that weakness? Now that was interesting information. They were holding the vampire in a cell that would doubly serve to hold one of their own. “Are you also saying you’re weak to religious scriptures?”

“What? No, of course not. Vampires are an abomination to life itself, which is why they’re weak to anything holy, like scriptures.”

“My bad. So what does silver do to them – vampires, I mean. Do they just fall over and flop around like a fish or something? Lose all their vampiric powers

and basically become human again?”

“It burns them,” she explained, reaching up to touch her neck, as though remembering an experience she’d had with the metal. “Contact with pure silver

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