My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 123

Sera

I let out a long, shaky exhale. The relief was a physical weight dropping off my chest.

Mina stared at me, a slight, lingering giggle still hiding in her voice. "Did you suddenly hate me just then? Just because of the tiny possibility that I could be fucking your mate?"

I looked at her. Was that what that feeling was? Hate?

The immediate thought of Kane rushed into my mind. I remembered how he had proudly paraded Elara around the Blackwater pack house, fully knowing he was mated to me. He didn't think it was a big deal to bring another woman into our space. He didn't care for a single second about how I felt watching him touch her.

For one terrifying minute, when Mina casually mentioned fucking Fenris, I didn't even see her as his sister anymore. It just felt like another woman threatening to take my mate away. Just like Elara did.

Elara had threatened my place. She had taken my man. She locked it all down by getting pregnant with his heir, and that was the end of it. I remembered when she had told me to pack my things and leave. She had actually smiled and said it would be awkward for me to be moving around the house while she was showing up.

What I had just experienced with Mina wasn't northern culture shock. It was a basic, violent trauma response.

Mina reached across the bed and gently held my shoulder. "Sera," she called softly.

"Luckily for me," Mina continued, her voice devoid of any real emotion, "Viktor actually took care of my mother. I was raised in partial royalty instead of the dirt."

She tilted her head. "The Luna back then—Fenris and Dimitri’s mother—had been incredibly generous. She took care of my mother. She took care of me when I was a child. She did all of this fully knowing that my mother was the woman her husband was constantly fucking. My mother was close to the Luna, and I grew up seeing the Luna as some kind of favorite aunt."

Mina paused. Her eyes drifted away from my face, locking onto the cold stone wall opposite the bed. "It was like that until things finally started to make sense after my mother died."

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