Lahat ng Kabanata ng My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian : Kabanata 391 - Kabanata 400

FenrisThe fire pit in the center of the hall was lit again, the flames throwing shadows on the vaulted stone above. I sat at the high table, waiting for Halvard to take his seat so the rest could fill theirs.Across the hall the long tables were being loaded up with the first courses: salted meats, steaming bread, the stink of strong cheese, jugs of ale and wine. The noise was rising fast as men and women took their places. I scanned for the familiar shapes of my guards.Halvard strode up to the high table with someone on his arm, a girl of about eighteen. Her dress was cut low, and her hair was curled loose down her back.The top of the gown was a deep red silk that made her skin look pale. She was taller than Mina, maybe taller than Sera, with breasts so large they made the silk tight across the bodice, pushing up an unhidden cleavage. The look she gave me over her father's shoulder was as direct as a spear."Volkov," Halvard said. "I'd like to introduce my daughter Sigrid. I've arr

HalvardI watched him walk away toward the stables, and I let myself feel, for exactly as long as it took him to cross the yard, something close to liking him.It didn't last longer than that. It never does, with me. Sixty years of watching young Alphas ride in convinced of their own weight has taught me not to trust the feeling while it's still warm.He hadn't touched my daughter. He'd taken the account of Redhand and Thornwood like a man already braced for the wound, no theater in it, no false grief either, just a jaw that tightened and stayed tightened. He'd asked the right questions in the right order. He hadn't once tried to convince me of anything, which in my experience is the surest sign of a man who isn't lying.All of that was true. None of it changed the other thing that was also true. Every pack from here to the coast knows the name Butcher, knows the shape of what Fenris Volkov can do with his hands when he's asked to. I had known his father as a friend for longer than I

HalvardViktor had been a good Alpha in the end, whatever his last mistakes. He'd made every pack in the North stronger by being in it. It took losing him to understand that, and by the time we understood it, Vidar had gone quiet, and the whole thing was over.Everything held, more or less, until word came that Dimitri had died too, killed on the ridge south of here. The men who rode with him came back too broken to say much of anything about what they'd seen. And with no one else standing in line for it, the Butcher became Alpha because there was no one else. I do not blame the boy for any of that. He lost a father and a brother inside two years with nothing in between to prepare him for either. But losing my sympathy for his circumstance was never the same as losing my worry about what an unhandled Butcher means for the rest of us, and I had already decided, before he ever rode through my gate, that I was going to find some way to put a hand back on that weapon whether he liked it o

TayaThe knife needed sharpening. It wasn't dull exactly, just not what it should be for tomorrow, and I had the whetstone and the time and nowhere else to put my hands, so I sat at Rurik's table working the edge and not thinking about anything in particular.I heard him before I saw him. He had a particular way of coming into a room when he was pleased with himself, slow, like he was giving you time to notice him. Usually it annoyed me. Today it made me put the knife down."What," I said.Rurik leaned in the doorframe with his arms folded, smiling at me. "Good news."I waited."I talked to my father," he said. "Vane's going to speak to the Luna. Have the whole thing called off."I looked at him.He looked back at me, smile still in place, waiting for the gratitude.I said, "Who asked you to do that."The smile shifted. Not gone, but uncertain. "Taya—""Who asked you, Rurik."He pushed off the doorframe and came into the room properly. Sighed. Ran a hand through his hair. "Someone had

TayaMy ears still rang as I stumbled into the house. The bitter chill stung my face, but it couldn't drown out Rurik's voice echoing in my head."Get out of my house, Taya," he snarled, blood flecking his teeth. His hand pressed to the gash on his temple, courtesy of my boot. I stood there in the center of the shattered table, mouth dry and useless."Sorry," I mumbled. A pathetic word. A stupid word. What did 'sorry' even mean to a broken skull? To a broken table? To broken everything?I blinked down at my hand. My fingers clenched around the hilt of my knife, the cold handle seeping into my palm. When had I grabbed this?"Damn it."I shoved the knife into my belt and stomped upstairs.I was finally home. My own house, then. My own room, my own bed, my own everything, and tomorrow morning I would go down into that ring and settle the only thing left that was actually mine to settle.Except the door was locked.I kicked at it, jarring my shoulder with the force of it, and cursed loudly