My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 18

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Sera

The flush on my face was so hot I thought it might actually leave a burn. I didn't look at Fenris, but I could feel the space he took up in the room. The dream was still stuck in my head—the sound of his name coming out of my mouth like a prayer.

"I asked if you were okay," he repeated, his voice vibrating in the quiet.

I pulled the furs up to my chin, trying to hide. "I’m fine. I just didn’t expect to wake up to someone watching me."

"I was waiting for you to wake up," he said simply, as if sitting in a woman's bedroom in the middle of the night was a perfectly normal thing to do.

I found my voice, sharpening it to hide the fact that my heart was still doing laps in my chest. "If you came here for the second act of that dinner performance, you can forget it. I’m not wearing that red trap again." I gestured toward the chair where the silk dress was probably crumpled. "You have a sick sense of humor, ordering a woman to dress like a whore just to sit at your table."

Fenris went still. He tilted his head, his eyes tracking the movement of my hands. "I didn't order you to wear anything."

"Mina said you chose it," I snapped. "She said it was your specific order."

Fenris let out a short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. He rubbed a hand over his face. "I told her to make sure you had clothes. I didn’t pick the fabric. I don't even know where she would have found something that thin in this climate."

"But…” I paused. “Then why did she lie?" I demanded. "And why do you let a maid talk to you like that? I watched her at dinner. I watched her in the yard with your warriors. She treats everyone here like they’re beneath her. I don't like her."

"What maid?" Fenris asked.

"Mina!"

"Mina isn't a maid, Sera," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "She’s my sister."

The words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I let go of the furs, my mouth hanging open slightly. Everything from the last few hours started to click into place. The way she’d scolded the warrior in the yard without a second thought. The way the warrior had actually looked sheepish and apologized to her. The way Fenris had told her to stop hovering at dinner, sounding more like a frustrated older brother than an Alpha giving an order.

"Your sister?" I whispered.

"She has a habit of being... overzealous," he said, standing up.

My throat hitched as he rose. He was massive, his head nearly reaching the rafters. He’d rolled his sleeves up, and the lamplight caught the thick cords of veins running down his forearms like wires under his skin. I couldn't help it; my heart did a frantic little flip. He stood there, hovering over the edge of the bed, just staring at me with those pale, unreadable eyes.

"My men told me you couldn't walk when you arrived," he said abruptly.

It took a second for the sentence to make sense. I blinked, looking down at where my legs were buried under the furs. "Oh. Right." I swallowed, the dryness in my throat making it hard to speak. "It's... I’m fine. Mina—um your sister—she already gave me some kind of remedy."

Fenris didn't answer. Instead, he started to go down on his knees.

He moved with a slow, heavy grace that felt like it should have been impossible for a man his size. It looked like a slow-motion film—the way he lowered himself until he was eye-level with the mattress. I sat there, paralyzed, as he reached out and took my right foot in his hand.