My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 450

Lyra

— Earlier that evening. Valdris. —

I stared at Nadia's face, searching for anything in her eyes. A flicker of understanding. Anger. Surprise. Something.

Nothing came. I had no idea what to say. Not a single word.

"I don't know," I muttered finally. Idiot. It was barely a deflection. Barely an answer at all.

I felt Odile's eyes on the back of my neck. I wanted her to leave but that wasn't going to happen. There was no graceful way to tell her to get out and I wasn't feeling particularly graceful.

I looked down at the wad of soggy paper towels in my hands. "I just can't have Sera calling and asking about you. Not right now. Okay?"

I was just talking. Grasping at dead ends. There was no right now. There was no good time.

Nadia just looked at me. I breathed in sharply, waiting for her to unload. To let me have it. But she didn't. She just went quiet. Hard eyes and silence. I would rather she had shouted at me.

I dropped the wet towels and sat back on my heels and dried my hands on my trousers. "I'm sorry," I mumbled.

I did not know what I was sorry for. Not giving her a real answer. Lying to my sister. Not knowing how to fix any of it. All of it.

The room was still. I could hear Odile's breath going quietly through her nose. The brandy sloshed in my stomach and I needed to lie down. I uncurled stiffly off the floor and staggered to the bed. Odile shuffled aside to make room for me.

I fell back against the pillows and closed my eyes. I heard Nadia's weight shift on the floor. She did not get up.

The silence stretched out.

"Are you going to tell me what that was about?" she said.

I had no answer for her. I lay there with my head spinning in the dark.

"I was trying to protect you," I mumbled.

The words came out weak and hollow. They sounded like a lie because half of one was missing out of the middle of them.

Nadia was quiet a long moment. Then, "From what?"

I said nothing.

"From Sera?" She sounded genuinely thrown by it. "Sera is not a threat to me, Lyra. You know that. We care about each other."

I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at her. She was still sitting on the floor in the spilled brandy with her dark hair wild around her face, watching me, waiting for an answer I could not give her.

"The fuck is going on with you and your sister?" she asked, her voice low and tight.

I closed my eyes again and tried to drown her out with the pounding in my skull.

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