My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 109

Lyra

The voice didn't belong to Nadia. It didn't belong to me. It came from the metallic object resting directly behind my hip.

Nadia froze. She pulled her mouth away from me and yanked her fingers out of my body. She stood up quickly, wiping her wet mouth with the back of her hand, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with absolute terror.

The sudden loss of friction felt like a bucket of ice water over my head. I scrambled backward on the desk, pulling my knees up to my bare chest.

I looked over my shoulder. It was a heavy brass communication box. It ran on specialized recording crystals, designed to capture and playback long-distance audio messages from allied courts. When I pushed my hips back, I had knocked the large iron playback lever on the side downward.

"It's me," the female voice from the brass box continued. The audio was slightly grainy, carrying the faint static of the crystal, but the desperation in the tone was perfectly clear. "You need to answer me. You promised you would send the gold once it was done. You are ignoring my couriers."

I stared at the brass box. My heart hammered violently against my ribs, loud enough to hear. The alcohol haze evaporated in a split second, completely destroyed by the sudden, terrifying intrusion.

"Wait," I whispered, reaching out a shaking hand to push the lever back up and shut the damn thing off.

"What the fuck is that?" Nadia asked, panic bleeding sharply into her voice. "Is your father cheating on the Queen? Is that his mistress?"

I hesitated. My fingers hovered just an inch above the iron lever.

A loud click echoed from the machine as the internal mechanism shifted to the next recorded message on the crystal.

"Please, Aldric," the same female voice pleaded. This time, the voice was openly crying. The sound was ragged, wet, and pathetic. "Talk to me. I did everything you asked. I kept Sera out of the Luna spot."

My hand completely froze in the air. The oxygen vanished from my lungs.

Nadia stepped closer to the desk, all the blood completely draining out of her face.

"I put the drops in her tea every single morning just like you told me," the voice sobbed through the brass speaker. "She didn't get pregnant. Kane left her for me because he thought she was barren. I ruined her for you. I forced her to go back to Valdris Just as you wanted. Where’s what you promised? Talk to me!”

The recording ended with a sharp, heavy mechanical click.

The brass box went entirely silent.

I sat completely naked on my father's desk, my entire body turning to solid ice.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't blink. I just stared at the brass box sitting next to a stack of trade reports. I didn't recognize the voice. I had no idea who the crying woman was, but the words she said echoed in my skull like a ringing bell.

Kane left her for me because he thought she was barren.

"Who the fuck is that?" I whispered, my voice trembling.

Nadia was staring at the brass box, her hands covering her mouth. Her dark eyes were wide with a horrifying, sickening realization.

"Lyra," Nadia said. Her voice shook so badly she could barely get the word out. "Sera told me exactly what happened at the ceremony. She told me Kane didn't just reject her. He gave the Luna title to another woman."

She scrambled across the floor, grabbing my discarded trousers and throwing them at my chest.

I jumped off the mahogany desk. I hastily shoved my legs into the pants and pulled them up over my hips, my hands shaking so badly I could barely grip the fabric. I grabbed my shirt off the floor and pulled it over my head.

Nadia looked at the heavy crystal bottle of liquor sitting near the edge of the desk. She reached out to grab it, intending to put it back in the cabinet, but her hand bumped it sideways.

The bottle rolled toward the edge.

"Leave it!" Nadia hissed, abandoning the bottle and running toward the small, hidden servant's door built directly into the bookshelves on the far wall.

I shook my head. "Hell no."

I lunged forward. I grabbed the heavy crystal bottle right before it rolled off the edge and shattered onto the rug. I gripped the neck of the bottle tight in my fist.

The brass handle of the main study doors began to turn.

I sprinted across the room. I shoved Nadia through the narrow servant's door, stepped through behind her, and pulled the wooden panel completely shut just as the main doors swung wide open.

We stood in the pitch-black servant's corridor, pressing our backs flat against the cold stone wall, listening to my father's heavy boots walk into the study.

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