My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 111

Lyra

"Tell the girl to step into the room," he said.

"Leave her out of this," I said. My voice came out as a pathetic, raspy whisper. I cleared my throat, trying to find some spine. "She didn't do anything. It was my idea to come in here."

"Tell her to step into the room," he said, his eyes going dead, "or she doesn't leave this wing alive."

I turned my head. I didn't want to look into the dark. "Nadia. Come out."

Nadia shuffled out of the passage. She kept her chin pinned to her chest. She stood slightly behind my left shoulder, making herself as small as physically possible.

My father looked at her. He didn't dismiss her this time. He evaluated her face, his eyes narrowing slightly as he placed her. A slow, deeply condescending sigh slipped through his teeth. He rested his hands flat on the desk.

"Nadia," my father murmured. He tested the name on his tongue like it tasted faintly of dirt. "The scribe's daughter."

Nadia trembled. She gripped the back of my shirt.

"You know, Lyra," my father said, keeping his cold eyes entirely on Nadia. "I am starting to believe this girl's bloodline is cursed with a chronic inability to understand its own station. It is a tragedy, really."

I frowned, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What are you talking about?"

My father tilted his head, his expression shifting into a mask of genuine, sickening pity.

"A few weeks ago," my father recounted smoothly, "when Sera threw her little tantrum and tried to run away before the Ironmaw caravan arrived. Someone smuggled her out the servant's gate. Someone packed her a bag and lied to the perimeter guards. Do you remember that, Nadia?"

Nadia let out a wet, broken gasp. She shrank further behind my shoulder.

Of course I remembered.

"I recalibrated her trajectory," my father corrected me.

I stared at him. The clinical, sterile words made my skin crawl.

"Sera was wasting her life in Blackwater," my father continued. He spoke like a tutor lecturing a child. "She was trailing after a weak, indecisive Alpha who strung her along. She forgot her duty to her bloodline. I needed a Valdris bride to seal the Ironmaw treaty. Sera was the only viable option."

"You could have ordered her home!" I yelled. The sound of my own voice startled me. It echoed sharply off the high ceiling.

"She would have fought me," my father replied smoothly, completely unfazed by my outburst. "She was stubborn. If I dragged her back to Valdris against her will, she would have arrived in the North as a hostile prisoner. Volkov would have smelled her defiance. He would have rejected the match. I needed her to come home defeated. I needed her to realize the South held nothing for her. I needed her broken, so she would accept the northern ice without a fight."

The breath shuddered out of my lungs.

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