All Chapters of My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian : Chapter 211 - Chapter 220

SeraThe door scraped open and Yvara came in dragging him.She had Torin by the collar of his tunic — what was left of it. The collar was the only thing on his upper half still in one piece. His head hung back at an angle a head was not meant to hang at. The right side of his neck, the side that had been working when he left, was open from the jaw down to where the collarbone should have been. His arm on that side was gone. Gone meaning gone. It ended somewhere above the elbow in a torn, ragged stump still wet at the edge. There was no arm on the floor behind them.I stood up from the chair too fast."Why is he —"The smell hit before the word finished. Copper, hot, with the heavy under-scent of stomach contents. I clamped my mouth shut.Fenris was at the wall. Arms crossed. He had not moved when the door opened. He was watching me, not the body."Yvara." My voice came out high. I cleared my throat. "Yvara, why is he — Fenris, what the fuck —""Sera.""Bram. We have to find Bram. The

SeraThe fur was black. Coal-black. Not dark grey that read black in low light, not deep brown that did the same. Black. Not one strand of any other color in the whole coat. You usually see something on a wolf — a streak, a salt at the muzzle, a cinnamon along a flank. There was nothing.The eyes were yellow. Not the amber-yellow of a Northern wolf in his own body. Pale yellow, with whites that were heavily bloodshot — a hot, used-up pink that did not belong on an animal in working condition. The pupils were too wide for the lamplight and did not contract when the light reached them.The lips did not sit right against the gum. They were lifted off the teeth a fraction of an inch even with the mouth closed, so a length of canine showed at all times. There was a thread of saliva at the corner of the lower jaw that I watched stretch and break and reform.The breathing was slow. Slower than seemed alive. The chest rose and fell on a count I could nearly time.Otherwise it was a wolf. A wo

Sera"I am not going to feed something that is going to feast on me on a slow day."He laughed.The sound bounced off the stone behind us. The wolves in the dark lifted their heads at the sound — the redistribution of weight, the shift of bodies on stone. The wolf at our feet did something with its tail against the floor that was the first wolf-thing I had seen it do. A slow, single thump.Yvara was already throwing the next carcass. Without raising her eyes she said: "My Luna's smart."Fenris's hand had come around me. He started me back from the gate, toward the corridor we had come down. We climbed.We were halfway up the second stair when I asked."Why don't we have rifles."He did not answer for a few steps."Old law," he said."What old law.""There has been a generational law in these lands. No human invention crosses the border. No rifles. No black powder. No engines. No clocks past a certain size. A few other things. The list is long.""Why."Two more steps."I do not know."

Lyra"She knows you miss her, Lyra. She does not need to be told."It was the answer I had been afraid of. My mother would have invented messages. She would have invented affection. She would have invented anything I wanted if Sera had asked enough for the invention to be needed. She did not invent anything tonight.I drew in a breath."Does she still seem like Sera, Mama.""What does that mean.""I don't know what it means." I had to stop. "I have been trying to picture her for five weeks. Every time I try, I see her at fifteen at the breakfast table refusing the eggs. I know that's the wrong face. I just want to know what's right."She set the cup on the side table.Her hand had a small tremor as she set it down."Why do you keep asking about Sera, Lyra."Her voice came out flatter than she meant it. I heard the moment she heard herself."Mama —""Sera is fine. Sera is — Sera. She does not need either of us anymore. She has what she wants. Can we please talk about something else."T

Lyra"It is, actually."She came off the doorframe. She did not come to me first. She went to her desk and blew out the lamp. The room was half its size after that, lit only by the small candle on the table by the bed, and I could feel the wall behind me even though I was not touching it.Then she came.She did not sit beside me. She knelt on the floor between my knees, settling there in the position she had used when we were sixteen and before we knew the names of what we were to each other. She put her hands flat on my thighs through the silk of the dress.She looked up at me."You don't have to tell me anything. We can sit. We don't have to talk."I almost broke right there.I did not. I held it. I did not know what would happen if I let it go in this room, and I did not have the energy left tonight to find out.She rose up onto her knees and took my face in both her hands and kissed me.It was the kind of kiss she used when she wanted me to stop talking for a moment. It had weight