Take Me Once, I'll Bleed You Twice novel Chapter 33

Take Me Once, I’ll Bleed You Twice

Chapter 33

The locks on the other shackles were almost identical to the one around his neck, except the notches were spaced differently around the edges of the depression. That meant they were important. But why? Were they suppose to mean something, or were they just assigned random notches and the person who’d ordered the shackles was simply given a booklet with the right combinations?

Puzzles were suppose to be a fun challenge but Beatrice wasn’t having any fun. There wasn’t any time for her to test each theory that

came to mind.

Her eyes moved to the words that had been engraved onto the shackles themselves. They weren’t written in English, which meant it might

as well be gibberish. “… I can’t read any of these.”

“It’s Latin.” Riaghaire spoke for the first time since her return. He raised both his arms, as if to show off the shackles. “Each hold a

from an ancient text meant to exorcise evil.”

“What does it translate to? Do you know? Wait, can you even speak it without bursting into flames?”

“So long as it is not in Latin, I may speak whatever scriptures I please,” he explained. “This one,” he pointed to his neck, “reads… May heaven’s light be thy guide.” For each phrase after he pointed to a wrist or ankle. “May darkness ne’er be thy home. Begone, on evil Tempt not thee with thy lies. By God’s light be bound.”

“Poetic,” Beatrice muttered. “I’m guessing you tried to take these off at least once, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Only once. They… I do not have the power to fully heal after touching them.”

That wasn’t a surprise. He didn’t have an unlimited supply of blood, and his body was constantly fighting against whatever the silver and scriptures were doing to him. From what she could see, the skin under the shackles was raw, almost like the top layer had been scrapped

away.

Beatrice plopped herself down on the floor, sitting so close to the vampire that her knees touched the side of his leg. If she hadn’t been so focused on the shackle around Riaghaire’s arm, she might have noticed the look of confusion pass over his face before it vanished.

Her fingers traced along the edges of the notched dial, wondering what purpose they possessed. Was it a combination lock? If so, how many variations would there be for her to go through?

She peered closer at the dial, nose almost touching the metal before she could make out the tiny letters etched into each notch. Letters, not numbers. And they looked familiar.

It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

With a determined look, she leaned back and turned the dial until the notch with the first letter of the first word in the verse lined up with the topmost one on the depression’s edge.

Nothing happened. Hmmm. So it wasn’t that simple.

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18:53 Tue, Jun 16

Chapter 33

She ran her finger over the dial again only to realize, it didn’t just spin in place but could be pushed to the edges of the depression and moved around. “Okay… okay…” she muttered under her breath as she tried her first theory again, only this time pushing the notches together so they fit like a puzzle piece.

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She lined up the first letter of the second word and fit it into the next notch almost a third of the circle away from the first. The amount of notches in the depression’s edges were equal to the number of words engraved into the shackle. Basic logic puzzles were often made with cyphers, such as using the first letter of each word as an important clue. Just because werewolves were fantasy creatures didn’t mean they were smarter than the average human. Why would they use complex locking mechanisms on something that, when worn, the bearer wouldn’t be able to attempt solving without great harm to themselves?

They were also eighty years old; she was pretty sure locks created at that time would be nowhere near as complex or sophisticated as what could be made nowadays.

When she finished with the last notch, a click sounded and the shackle popped open. Startled, Beatrice sat frozen for a second, une believe it had been that easy. She carefully removed it and was disgusted to find that the inside was covered with dozens of tin spikes. each about the size of a thumbtack. So, not only was there silver and scriptures, they’d added an extra feature to really help Riaghaire enjoy every moment.

Fucking. Assholes.

Beatrice conveniently forgot that this particular vampire had killed plenty of werewolves before being caught and this was in response to his murder spree. But no one deserved to be tortured, even serial killers. It made those doing the torture no better than the guilty party. Bunch of fucking hypocrites.

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