My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 444

Mina

I considered how to answer that. Then I shook my head and shrugged and let it go.

I watched the hall instead. Kael was seated across the way with Taya beside him and a few of the other elders around them, talking, laughing now and then at something one of them said.

Then I noticed one of the chiefs nod toward the high table. Toward Sera. Not in greeting. The way men nod when they are talking about someone and want the other man to know who they mean. His face was disgusted.

"Fucking idiots," I muttered, and took an angry swig of my ale.

Vane heard it. He scoffed. "The elders?"

"Look at them." It came out with more heat in it than I meant. "It must be exhausting. Hating someone you can't get rid of."

Vane looked over at them a while. Then he nodded. "Hmm."

"You can't blame them," he said. "It is all very strange to everyone. A Southern Luna."

"I can." I turned to look at him properly. "You're handling yourself well enough, at least. You don't hate her."

He smiled at that. "I have no reason to hate the Luna. She is young. She certainly did not plan this life."

He turned his cup slowly on the table.

"And I am old. I would hate the unnecessary stress of hating somebody." He shrugged one shoulder. "I don't have that kind of time."

I sighed and tipped my cup back, drained the last of it. "Gods, I can't stand Kael."

The words came out in a rush. My tongue was too loose from the drink and I heard it happen and did not particularly care.

"He's always sneaking about like a rat in the walls. Always plotting something."

"Ah now." Vane turned his head and looked across the hall at him, at the elder and his daughter and the men around them. Kael was talking, that sour set to his face he has always had, like he has bitten something foul and cannot find anywhere to spit it.

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