My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 366

Fenris

"You would do the same."

"Oh, sure I would," he said, but he sounded thoughtful, not teasing. "You're right, I probably would. But then, I'm not the one with a pregnant wife and a pack that thinks I'm chasing raiding parties. I'm not the one who knows Sera's carrying someone else's child and married her anyway."

"I didn't tell the pack about the Lycans because they think it's just a party. I'm not letting them lose their heads over nothing."

"Over nothing?" Dimitri's eyebrow went up. "You think it's nothing?"

"No." I was irritated. "I know it's not nothing. But I'm not going to turn them to something I haven't figured out myself. And I'm not letting them find out about Sera's child before I tell them myself."

"Because you're planning to tell them."

"No, because I'm planning to keep them from finding out." I sounded as bitter as I felt. Dimitri reached out and pulled me into his shoulder. I went, even though I didn't want to, and his arms closed around me like a trap.

"Fenris." His voice was low against my ear. "I know you can't do nothing, I'm not asking you to. But you have a wife. She's pregnant. And you're not even going to tell her how dangerous what you're doing is?"

I leaned back from him, still within the cage of his arms. "Sera is aware perfectly well how dangerous this is."

Dimitri shook his head. "Does she?" He stared at me long enough for me to look away. "Knowing is different from understanding. You could die out here. You all could die out here."

I looked away, with no words to defend myself.

Dimitri let me go, but he didn't step back. He just stood there, close, watching my face like he was trying to read something in it I hadn't said yet.

"You've always been like this," he said, quieter now. "Since we were boys. You'd see the thing you wanted to hit and you'd already be moving before I could get a hand on your arm. I used to have to chase you down the training yard just to stop you doing something stupid." He almost smiled, but it didn't quite hold. "Who does that now, Fenris? Who stops you?"

I didn't answer. I looked past him, at the dark shape of the trees, at nothing.

"Yvara," I said finally, because it was the only name I had.

"Yvara follows you into it," Dimitri said. "She doesn't stop you. She never did."

I had nothing to say to that because it was true, and he knew it was true, and some things don't need answering twice. I pushed a hand through my hair and looked away from him, toward camp, toward the low glow of the coals through the trees.

"I should get back," I said. "Watch's changing soon."

Dimitri let out a breath that might have been a laugh. "There it is," he said. "Every time. The second it gets close to something, you find somewhere else you need to be."

His jaw tightened, but he didn't look away this time. "I heard you talking," he said, careful, like he was setting something down that might break. "Out here. Before I found you." He glanced past me, at the trees, at nothing. "Wasn't sure who to. There wasn't anyone else."

I let the silence sit there a moment. "There wasn't," I agreed.

He waited for more. I didn't give him more.

"It's nothing," I said. "I was thinking out loud."

Jace nodded, slow, like a man agreeing to something he hadn't quite bought. He shifted the coil of rope in his hands, looked down at it, then back up at me, and didn't push.

"Well." He cleared his throat. "Wind's gotten sharp since the sun went down."

"It has," I said.

We walked back together, saying nothing else. The firelight came up through the trees ahead of us, orange and low, and the sound of the camp settling reached us before we did.

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