My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 167

Irina

Yvara started dragging him out toward the corridor. He didn't look at the door. He kept his head turned, his eyes fixed on me until he hit the threshold.

Then, the realization finally hit him.

"Irina!" he started to beg. His voice was a thin, high-pitched thread at first. "Irina, don't let them take me! Please! You can't let them do this!"

“Irina! Fuck! Don’t let them take me away!”

He continued shouting my name, his voice growing louder and more frantic as Yvara dragged him further down the hall. I listened to the sound of his terror until it was pulled out of earshot, leaving the room in a heavy, ringing silence.

What was he expecting me to do for him in my current situation?

I let out a long, ragged sigh.

"That was intense," I whispered.

The room was empty now, except for the three of us. Fenris stood like a statue in the center of the floor. Sera was looking down at her hands, looking sad, looking small. And I was just sitting there, dying in a chair.

I sighed again, looking away from Sera.

Fenris moved forward, trying to talk to Sera, his hand reaching for her arm. She shook him off, her shoulders hunched.

"Sera," Fenris spoke up, his voice low. "Listen to me."

She shook him off again, her hands beginning to tremble. "Everything is a mess, Fenris! This is all wrong. This was not what we discussed!"

I tilted my head, ignoring the spike of pain in my side. I looked at her, a dry, wheezing laugh catching in my throat.

"You discussed this?" I asked.

Sera didn't even look my way. She just kept pacing the small space near the bed, her words coming out in a frantic rush.

Immediately, the door swung open. Mina came running in, her face flushed with the effort of the sprint. She wasn't alone. She was dragging someone behind her—a man carrying a heavy leather bag.

The healer.

He walked into the room and didn't look at the shredded gowns or the feathers. He didn't look at the blood on the floor. He walked straight to Fenris and gave a quick, respectful bow.

"Alpha," he said. Then he turned to Sera. "Luna."

He dropped to his knees beside my chair, opening his bag and pulling out rolls of clean linen and jars of sharp-smelling salves.

I looked at his face. I recognized him. This was the same healer who had been in the cellar when they killed the chief. The one who had watched me mold the clay. Of course they were using the same person for their dirty business. In a keep this size, you only ever trust the ones who are already covered in the same blood as you.

The healer reached for the knife, and I closed my eyes, waiting for the final, vibrating scream of the steel.

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