My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 406

Nadia

Father's face was expressionless as he stared back at her, blood welling at the corner of his mouth where Mama's ring had broken the skin.

Neither of them spoke for a beat too long. Then Mama turned and strode out of the kitchen, her skirts swishing around her legs.

"Mom," I said. Small.

She didn't turn back. "I've tried," she said, her voice flat, already halfway down the hall. "And I am done trying."

I followed her and found the sound of rustling fabric behind their bedroom door. Mama was already packing a bag, pulling clothes from the wardrobe without bothering to fold them.

"What are you..." I stopped, taking in what I was seeing. "What are you doing?"

She paused, a woolen tunic halfway into the bag. Then she turned to look at me, her eyes red rimmed. "I cannot do this anymore, Nani. I have tried to hold this family together since the night we came home from that cell, and I cannot do it another day."

"You can't say that," I protested. "You..."

"Nani," she said sharply, cutting me off. Her hands were twisting in the fabric of the tunic. "You're too young to understand what's actually happening in this house."

I heard Father's voice behind me. "That's enough, Wren. Leave her out of this."

He stepped past me into the room as he said it, close enough that I caught the smell of blood still fresh on his lip.

Mama didn't argue the point. She just looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable in it. Then she turned back to Father.

I watched her go still as he spoke, heard his defensiveness in the words. I didn't need him to defend me. I'd been the reason we'd ended up in that cell in the first place, had known it deep in my bones since the night it happened. I'd thought I'd been so clever, helping Sera escape the way I had, but I hadn't even considered what the consequences would be. And now I stood there watching my parents tear each other apart, my heart like a stone in my chest.

"I'm tired of this, Edran," Mama said, and this time her voice broke. "If you're so tired too, you should let me go back to my father's house, where things are better, and let you handle your own house."

Father's mouth quirked. "You want to go back to your father's house? You want to go back to being his daughter? I can't imagine that's the life you want."

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