My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 383

Sera

"I'm calling her Wren."

"Wren," Mina said, slow, like she was trying to feel the weight of it in her mouth. She looked down at the rogue, then back at me, and shook her head. "I'd have picked something better."

I scoffed. "What?"

She went quiet a moment, thinking. "Amara," she said finally.

I laughed before I could stop myself. "That's too Southern."

Mina's eyebrows went up. "What? Did you just decide you hate the south now?"

"No." I looked down at the rogue, still curled into my side. "It's not that. She's Northern. Not from anywhere south of here. It has to be a name from around here, not one of ours."

Mina sighed, long and put-upon. "Definitely not Wren, then." She said it again, testing it, and made a face like it had gone sour in her mouth. "Pick something else."

Bram had gone quiet through the whole exchange, standing near the door like he wasn't sure he was still welcome in the conversation. When the two of us finally ran out of words, he asked, careful, "Is that the mad woman from the yard? The one everyone's talking about?"

I looked up at him, then down at the rogue, and found myself smiling before I answered. "Yeah."

Bram looked more confused, not less. He stared at her a moment, then at me. "What is she doing here? Why is she—" He stopped himself. "I'm confused," he said finally, like that was the safest thing he could admit to.

"I'd advise you leave it that way," Mina said.

I scoffed.

Bram looked between the two of us a while longer, and something in his face settled, decided the question wasn't worth pushing. He let it go.

"You were going to say something," I said, looking to Bram.

He blinked at me, blank for a second, like he'd genuinely lost the thread of it somewhere in the last few minutes.

"You were going to say something," I said again. "Finish it."

He hesitated, like the moment for saying it easily had already come and gone and now he had to force the door back open by hand. "There's something you should know. I only just learned it myself." He glanced at Mina again, briefly, then decided it didn't matter who heard it. "Kael has a brother."

The room went silent.

"A brother," I repeated.

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