My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 238

Sera

"I'm sorry, what?"

The laugh that came out of me was a jagged, ugly thing that hit the damp stone walls of the cellar and flatlined. My hand was still trapped in Madra's grip, her fingers like dry, cold bird talons digging into the skin of my wrist. I didn't pull back. I leaned in until I could see the yellowed film over her eyes.

"The brine is getting to your head, Madra," I said, my voice dropping to a harsh scrape. "I'm barren. My father made that clear years ago. My previous mate confirmed it for three years with every month my body failed to do its job. I am an Omega who couldn't even provide a single heir to a backwater pack. So don't stand there and tell me jokes."

Madra didn't flinch. She didn't even blink. She held my stare with a terrifying, clinical stillness.

"I do not tell jokes, Luna. I deal in the meat and the blood. And your blood is singing a different tune than the one you were told."

She tightened her grip. The ache in my wrist was a sharp, localized throb.

"I can feel a foreign seed in you," she continued, her voice a low, rhythmic rasp. "It is small. A speck. But it has a pulse. And it carries the scent of a rival. It is thick. Aggressive. It is currently fighting for space against the mark on your neck."

I yanked my arm back. This time, the motion was violent enough that she had to let go. I stumbled away from the copper bath, my boots scuffing through the grime on the floor. I hit the stone wall, the cold masonry biting through the wool of my tunic.

I couldn't draw a full breath. My chest was a cage.

If I were pregnant now—now, after the rejection, after the Blood Vows, after I’d finally started to believe I belonged to the North—the universe wasn't just being cruel. It was mocking me.

"You're wrong," I hissed. My stomach did a slow, nauseous roll. The memory of the ale and the raw elk heart from the ceremony came back, a bitter, copper taste in the back of my throat. "I’m just tired Madra. I should rest."

"Exhaustion does not change the scent of a woman’s marrow, Sera Volkov," Madra said. She turned back to the bath, her hands disappearing into her sleeves. "I have spent a century watching Alphas mark their territory. I know the smell of a rival's heir. It is a sour thing. A violation. And you are carrying it right under your husband’s nose."

I looked at Torin.

He was still in the brine. His eyes were wide, tracking the conversation. He couldn't speak, his jaw strapped shut, but the pupil of his left eye was vibrating with a frantic, wet intelligence. He heard it. He knew. The man who had been my father's advisor, the man who had watched me wilt in the South, was now the only witness to the fact that I was carrying the one thing that could dismantle the throne I’d just bled to secure.

"You will not speak of this," I said. I walked back toward the bath, my steps heavy and deliberate. I reached out and grabbed Madra’s shoulder, forcing her to turn and face me. "Not to the Alpha. Not to Yvara. Not to a single soul in this keep."

Madra’s eyes searched mine. She saw the ice there.

"My loyalty is to the health of the pack, Luna," she said quietly.

"The health of this pack depends on the stability of that throne," I countered, my fingers digging into her robe. "If the Alpha thinks I deceived him, the council will use it to tear him down. Bram will lose his face. The North will burn. Is that the health you're looking for?"

Madra stayed silent. She looked at Torin, then back at me. Slowly, she inclined her head.

"The brine needs refreshing," she said, her voice returning to that clinical, detached rasp. "Go. Join your husband. The elders are waiting."

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