My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 220

Lyra

"It is, actually."

She came off the doorframe. She did not come to me first. She went to her desk and blew out the lamp. The room was half its size after that, lit only by the small candle on the table by the bed, and I could feel the wall behind me even though I was not touching it.

Then she came.

She did not sit beside me. She knelt on the floor between my knees, settling there in the position she had used when we were sixteen and before we knew the names of what we were to each other. She put her hands flat on my thighs through the silk of the dress.

She looked up at me.

"You don't have to tell me anything. We can sit. We don't have to talk."

I almost broke right there.

I did not. I held it. I did not know what would happen if I let it go in this room, and I did not have the energy left tonight to find out.

She rose up onto her knees and took my face in both her hands and kissed me.

It was the kind of kiss she used when she wanted me to stop talking for a moment. It had weight in it, and patience, and the small assurance that whatever I was carrying I did not have to carry by myself in this room. She held her mouth against mine for a count of three. She pulled back a finger's width. She came back. The second kiss had less hold in it and more give, and I did not realize how tight I had been keeping my jaw until she made me let it go.

She did not pull away after.

She kept her face against mine and spoke into the corner of my mouth.

"Tell me one piece. Just one. Whatever you can."

I closed my eyes.

"She said Sera doesn't need either of us anymore."

"I am not. I am telling you what is true."

She kissed below my ear.

"Five weeks is not very long, Lyra. You have been running the math wrong tonight. You have been running it wrong for an hour. The last thing she wanted to do was too come back here when she found out the situation had gotten complicated when Aldric arrested me and my family. That’s someone who really loved you. She was willing to sacrifice her place for us."

I closed my eyes harder.

For you. Not for me.

Nadia did not know what she was saying.

* * *