All Chapters of My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian : Chapter 231 - Chapter 240

481 Chapters

231 Not Your Problem To Fix

SeraI had told Fenris on the walk down that I wanted to end it.He had not answered. He had walked beside me with a hand at the small of my back and the torch in the other, and he had said nothing until we reached the iron door at the end of the corridor, where he stopped and looked at me and asked, "End what.""You know what.""Say it, Sera.""Torin."He did not answer that either. He reached past me and opened the door.The room was small enough that the three of us crowded it. Two grease lamps in old iron sconces. A drain in the centre of the stone floor that emptied into the keep's old kitchen channel. The copper bath against the far wall, deep enough for a man, shallow enough to keep his head out, set at an angle on a wooden rest so the water would not slosh when she lifted him. The smell was the smell I had been carrying out of this room on my skin for two weeks and could not wash off no matter how long I sat under the bathhouse waterfall after.Madra was at the bath. She turned

232 Don't Get Soft On Me Now

Sera"He is not your problem. He has not been your problem from the day he opened his mouth in your mother's company. He thought with his cock. He fucked the wrong woman. Your mother used him because that is what your mother does with men who think with their cocks, and now he is in a bath in my keep because he could not keep himself out of a bed he had no business being in. That is not on you. That is on him. And on her.""He didn't know what she was —""Sera. The first time you broke Taya's leg on the training ground, I told myself I had picked the right woman. I had not picked you yet. I had been told to. I had taken the contract. But that morning I watched you put your knee through her thigh and I thought — yes. Yes. This one. This one has it. Do you know what I wanted to say to you that night.""What.""Don't apologize."He held my eyes."I didn't say it. I thought you weren't ready to hear it. I'm saying it now. Don't apologize, Sera. Not for Taya. Not for Kael. Not for Torin. I

233 A Warning

SeraMadra cleared her throat."Luna," she said, soft. "The man will be kept."I did not answer her."He will be fed. I will make sure he is moved every two hours. I will talk to him to keep him company. Even while he’s awake, I’ll make sure he doesn’t suffer. But the work will go on the way it has been going."I sighed. Didn’t know how to react to that."Thank you, Madra."She inclined her head and went back to her sleeves.Yvara had not moved during any of it.She had come in behind Fenris and me, and had taken the position she always took in any room with the three of us — against the wall closest to the door, arms folded, watching me the whole way through the Fenris speech.She came off the wall now.She did not come to me directly. She went around the foot of the bath and stopped a step to my right, and considered Torin with the flat, careful attention she gave most things."He's right.""I know.""He didn't have to be loud about it.""He wasn't loud.""He was loud for him." A gla

234 Does The Alpha Know?

I watched Torin.The brine had moved with the small currents in the bath when the door had opened, and the surface had settled again, and what I had in front of me was a man in pieces under a layer of yellow water. The left arm was gone at the shoulder. The right arm was whole below the elbow, but the elbow itself was a flat working joint with hide grown back over the moving parts — Madra's work, slow patient layers laid down across. The chest was not the chest of a man who had been intact a month ago. There were sections of the ribcage that had been taken and the skin had been pulled across the gap and stitched to the meat under. The legs below the water were the things I did not let myself study for long. The legs were the part Madra had not been allowed to heal, because she needed to keep specific channels open for the brine to work, and what was under his waist did not have a name in any anatomy I had been taught.The face above the strap was almost whole. The face had been preser

235 Giant Mastiffs

Jace"Identification."The word came out as a short, wet bark. I stopped. I didn't reach for my wallet. A wallet is a human habit that gets you a confused stare or a knife in the throat this far north. I kept my hands visible, fingers spread, and stared at the guard. He was a wall of unwashed wool and scarred leather, his chest wide enough to block the entire pedestrian entrance. He didn't look at my face. He looked at my shirt. I was wearing a white button-down, pressed, the kind that costs more than a month of rations in a border town."Jace," I said. My voice sounded too clean in the cold air. "Blackwater Pack."The guard didn't move. He breathed in, a long, noisy pull of air that made his nostrils flare. He was looking for the scent of the East, for the damp mulch and the river-silt of my home. He found it, but then his brow pinched. He caught the top note. Bergamot and sandalwood. It was an expensive blend I’d picked up in a boutique in Atlanta three months ago. To him, I probably

236 Oversized Rags

JaceI sighed. I looked toward the Northern Soldiers. Even with the crowd moving around, they were impossible to miss. They were just that tall."What are you here for, really?" the guard asked again."I told you. I'm seeing a friend in Ironmaw."The border market was a symbol of the treaty. Travelers had to pass through it. It was neutral ground, but the rules were strictly Northern."I'll let you in," the guard said, pointing a thumb toward a small, narrow gate. "But if you love yourself and you don't want trouble, you'll take heed. Ditch the clothing. Wash off that reek."I looked at the small gate. Then at the main entrance where the mastiffs stood. I wasn't an Alpha. I didn't have a crest to show, mainly because I’d told Kane I didn't want it. I wanted to come in lowkey. I wanted to find my friend first. It had been years since I’d seen her. If I showed a crest, the guards would immediately yank me to the Alpha's audience hall. I didn't want that. Not yet. I wanted to spend time w

237 Good Plan

JaceThe border market was a sensory overload. There were no neon signs here. No music playing from hidden speakers. Just the sound of five hundred voices haggling over the price of salt, the rhythmic clink of a blacksmith’s hammer, and the heavy, earthy smell of the pack. The market was neutral ground. The South provided grain and textiles. The North provided iron, pelts, and the kind of hard-grade timber that didn't rot.I adjusted the strap of my satchel. I wasn't here for timber. I was here for a bridge.Mistwood was strangling Blackwater. They’d moved in like a parasite, taxing our merchants and taking forty percent of our timber cut. Kane was a mess, drowning in the vacuum his ex had left behind. I needed a threat. I needed a whisper in the right ear to make Mistwood realize that Blackwater had friends they couldn't handle.I started walking down the central aisle. The mud was thick, sticking to the soles of my shoes. I saw a group of Northern warriors sitting on a pile of crates

238 You Will Not Speak Of This

Sera"I'm sorry, what?"The laugh that came out of me was a jagged, ugly thing that hit the damp stone walls of the cellar and flatlined. My hand was still trapped in Madra's grip, her fingers like dry, cold bird talons digging into the skin of my wrist. I didn't pull back. I leaned in until I could see the yellowed film over her eyes."The brine is getting to your head, Madra," I said, my voice dropping to a harsh scrape. "I'm barren. My father made that clear years ago. My previous mate confirmed it for three years with every month my body failed to do its job. I am an Omega who couldn't even provide a single heir to a backwater pack. So don't stand there and tell me jokes."Madra didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. She held my stare with a terrifying, clinical stillness."I do not tell jokes, Luna. I deal in the meat and the blood. And your blood is singing a different tune than the one you were told."She tightened her grip. The ache in my wrist was a sharp, localized throb."I c

239 Your Scent

Sera“The brine needs refreshing,” she said, her voice returning to that clinical, detached rasp. “Go. Join your husband. The elders are waiting.”I didn't answer. I didn't offer a smile. I turned and walked out of the room, the iron door heavy against my palm.The corridor was dim. The grease lamps flickered, throwing long, distorted shadows against the stone. I started walking, my heart hammering a rhythm that pounded against my ribs. Every step made the heavy wool of the trousers rub against my thighs. I could perceive the wetness there—not from arousal this time, but from the cold, oily sweat of a different kind of fear.I rounded the corner to the Alpha’s level.Fenris was standing at the end of the hall. He was leaning against the stone archway near the balcony, staring out at the grey morning sky. He still had the black ash on his jaw. He appeared massive, a silhouette of iron and fur that owned the very air he breathed.He heard my boots. He didn't turn around, but I saw his sh

240 I’m Pregnant

Sera“Your scent, it has changed.”"Since when?"I forced the words past a throat that felt like it had been scraped with a dry stone. I kept my face tight, pulling my brows into a frown of defensive confusion. Fenris didn't let go of my arm. He tilted his head, his nostrils flaring as he drew in another slow, methodical pull of air. His grey eyes were unblinking, the pupils dark and fixed."Since you stepped out of that room," He shook his head slightly. "And it is not the salt, Sera. I know the smell of Madra’s cellar. This... this is different."I swallowed hard. I needed to move. Every second I stood within his reach was another second for his nose to name the truth. "I told you before," I said, my voice gaining a sharper, impatient edge. "I reek of that room. The brine is a stagnant, heavy quality that sticks to the skin. I need a bath. When I am done, the smell will be gone. You’re picking up the leftover filth from that cellar."Fenris sighed, defeated. He certainly knew what h

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