My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 181

Elara

The man looked disappointed. His mouth thinned into a flat, bored line, his eyes already drifting toward the exit. He’d come for something specific, a request he’d made in the dark, and the honey-skinned girl didn't fit the mold.

Aldric stepped back, the heavy, expensive fabric of his coat swishing against his boots. He looked like he was going to leave us all to rot in that processing center, and for a second, I felt a sick, twisted relief. If he left, I was just another number. I was safe in the shadows of the crowd.

Then the idiot pointed.

"What about the other one?"

The guard’s voice was too loud, too eager. He was pointing a thick, dirty finger directly at the line where I stood. I froze. I felt the breath leave my lungs, my ribs tightening like a cage.

Aldric’s eyes navigated their way through the sea of terrified faces. They scanned. They cut through the dim, dusty light of the warehouse and landed on me.

And they stayed.

He stared at me like I was a different species entirely. It wasn't the look the other men gave us—the one that calculated how many hours we could work or how many rounds we could take in a bed. It was deeper. He looked at me with a terrifying, clinical curiosity.

I felt my skin crawl, the heat of my own fear making my tunic stick to my back. I didn't understand why he was looking at me. I was covered in the same grey dust as everyone else. My hair was a matted mess, and I’d spent the last three days throwing up bile into a bucket.

I didn't look back. I couldn't. I was being dragged across the floor, my feet scuffing the dirt, my eyes locked on the girl who had been picked earlier. She was still standing there, her ass still exposed to the room, but she didn't look at me.

She just stared at the floor. She had a single parent—a father who had died in the community square trying to stop them from taking her. She’d given up long before the guard raised her skirt. I saw the empty, dead look in her eyes and felt a sudden, sharp spike of hatred for her. Why didn't she fight? Why was she just letting them do this?

Then I was in front of him.

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