My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 435

Fenris

I walked. The night wind cut at my face and stung the skin of my hands. It came up off the narrow channel below and carried the cold of the water with it.

The stone under my boots was slick with damp. To my right the longhouses stood along the edge of the cliff, turf roofs dark against the sky, a few threads of smoke curling from the vents. Behind me the yard still carried voices, a drunken laugh, someone shouting something and being answered.

I missed my own fire. My own keep. I missed Sera.

Through the bond I could feel her, far off at Ironmaw. She was well. Not distressed. It was enough to know it and it was not enough at all.

I wanted to be home.

I turned down a narrow way between two of the longhouses. The wind funnelled through it and whistled. Below the cliff the water moved against the rocks, a slow heavy sound with no rhythm to it.

Then I heard a footfall on stone behind me, light and unhurried, and under the cold and the salt the smell of wine.

I turned.

The figure came out of the dark at the end of the passage, tall, hair loose in the wind.

Sigrid.

She wore the same deep red silk she had worn at her father's table.

"Good evening," she said, her voice light, though there was something wary underneath it. I said nothing, only turned to face her fully.

She stopped a few paces off, looking out toward the water. "Do you come out here often?" She laughed at her own question. "I suppose you must. Long way from home for you."

"I am where I need to be."

"True enough." She drifted closer, her shoulder near mine, and studied the water a moment before she looked back at me. "You're not an easy man to read, you know that? Most men, I know within a breath what they want from me."

"Then I expect that troubles you."

"A little." She almost smiled at that, honest for a second. Then it went back to the other thing. "I know what I want, though. I've known since the feast."

"I am mated. I am not interested."

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