My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 394

Taya

"The friendly duel is over. My father is talking to her. It's done."

"You have no right—"

"I have every right. You're my guest. You're my friend. And you're about to do something irreversible because you can't let go of a grudge against someone you cannot hurt." He held up a hand. "I'm not arguing this with you, Taya. No duel. That's where this ends."

He swallowed. Still looking at me. Waiting for me to fight him on it.

I didn't say anything.

He shook his head in disgust and turned for the door.

I don't know what happened in the space between him turning and me moving. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't deciding.

Two steps and I was inside his reach, my weight already shifting into it. I could feel the leather of my boot against my leg as I raised my foot, the pull of tendon in my calf.

His shoulder was just starting to turn. He was still looking at the door, half-turned, half-facing away. His face was still smooth, still oblivious, eyes cast toward the open hall beyond it. He never got all the way around.

I drove the heel of my boot into the side of his head, above his ear. The force of it ran up my leg, a crack that felt almost like it belonged to me. Almost, not quite. Almost like I'd been the one kicked.

His head snapped sideways with a wet crack and the rest of him went with it, his legs folding as though the string that held him up had been cut. He hit the edge of the table, hip-first, and the heavy wooden legs gave with a sharp, splintering crack.

The table folded under his weight, breaking in half, and he went down through the wreckage of it and kept going. His back hit the wall, hard enough to rattle the windows, and stopped him there.

I stood there.

Rurik was on the floor in the splintered remains of the table. He coughed, a rough, wet sound. His hands were under him, braced against the ground, and he hauled himself up slow, coughing again. His palm came away bloody and he stared at it.

I stared back. My breathing was loud in my ears. I could hear my own heartbeat. Rurik straightened against the wall, one hand pressed flat to the stone, and breathed, hard and fast and loud. He coughed blood into his open palm.

"Fuck," he said softly.

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