All Chapters of My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Sera "Thank you all for coming tonight." Kane's voice carried across the ceremonial hall, strong and clear. I stood at the back, smoothing down my dress for the hundredth time. Blue, because he'd told me it brought out my eyes. I'd spent hours getting ready for this moment. Three years. Three years of waiting, and tonight he was finally going to make me Luna. The hall was packed. Every wolf in Blackwater had turned out for the ceremony. Kane stood on the platform in his formal Alpha robes, looking exactly like the man I'd fallen in love with three years ago. Tall, broad-shouldered, those blue eyes that had locked onto mine across a bonfire and changed everything. "Tonight marks an important moment for our pack," he continued. "Three years ago, I found my mate." My heart jumped. This was it. His eyes found mine across the crowd. "Sera has been by my side through some of our most challenging times. She's worked harder than anyone I know, proven her dedication over and over, shown

SeraThe Valdris palace looked exactly the same.I stood at the main entrance staring up at white stone I'd spent my childhood hating. Three years and they hadn't changed a damn thing. Same arched windows, same marble columns, same guards in their ceremonial armor.The drive here had been long. I'd caught a bus to the border territories, then hired a car for the rest. Three days of travel, three days of staring out windows trying not to think about what I was coming back to.The scar on my collarbone still burned.One of the guards recognized me. His eyes went wide."My lady, we didn't—I should alert—""Just open the door."He did.I made it three steps inside before someone screamed.My mother came running from the east corridor, skirts gathered in her hands. She wasn't elegant or composed or any of the things a Queen was supposed to be. She was just a woman who hadn't seen her daughter in three years.She hit me hard enough that I stumbled."Sera!" Her arms went around me, squeezing

SeraI grabbed the first thing my hand found—a jewelry box on my dresser—and hurled it at the wall.It exploded. Earrings and necklaces scattered across the floor, metal pinging against stone.Didn't help.I grabbed a perfume bottle. Threw it. The glass shattered, and the smell of roses filled the room so thick it made me want to vomit.My hands were shaking. I pressed them against my face, tried to breathe, but the air wouldn't come right. Too shallow. Too fast.The image kept replaying. That dining hall. My father's face. The doors opening. That man filling the entire doorway—massive shoulders, cold grey eyes, looking at me like I was livestock he'd come to inspect.And my father had just smiled. Signed the papers. Three days, he'd said.Three days and I was supposed to climb into a carriage with a stranger and disappear.I kicked the chair. It skidded across the floor and slammed into my vanity. The mirror rattled.My phone buzzed in my pocket.I yanked it out, already swiping to de

Sera"The pack needs an heir, Sera."Kane’s voice was a ghost in my ear, vibrating with that same reasonable, clinical tone he’d used to tell me he’d been fucking Elara for a year. "I did what was necessary," he whispered in the dark.I jerked awake.The air didn’t smell like Blackwater’s damp pine or the palace’s suffocating roses. It smelled like wet dog, woodsmoke, and a man I didn’t know. I was lying on a hard wooden floor that bounced and rattled, wrapped in a fur so heavy it felt like a lead blanket.For a second, I didn't know which nightmare I was in. Then the wagon hit a rut, and my shoulder slammed against the sideboards. The pain was real. I wasn't in the palace, and I wasn't in Blackwater. I was in a cage on wheels.I remembered the cabin. I remembered Fenris Volkov filling the doorway, stripping off his armor, and the sheer, terrifying size of him. I remembered screaming until my throat felt like I’d swallowed broken glass. Then... nothing. The transition from being hoist

SeraThe sound changed first.The open, biting wind of the trail died away, replaced by a deep, resonant echo. The wagon wheels stopped crunching over frozen dirt and began to strike something solid and smooth. Stone. Large, fitted blocks that sang under the horses' hooves. We were passing under an archway so thick it felt like the mountain itself was leaning down to inspect us. I caught glimpses of carvings—deep, angular patterns in the rock—but we were moving too fast to read them.This wasn’t a cave. It was a statement. Whoever built this wanted you to know, the second you crossed the threshold, that you were entering a place that didn't just survive the elements—it owned them.We emerged into a massive yard. I’d expected dark, cramped tunnels, but Ironmaw opened up like a cathedral. High above, fissures had been cut into the rock, letting in shafts of grey winter light that hit the dark stone walls. It wasn't grim. The rock had been worked, planed down and finished with a precisio