My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 456

Lyra

I cracked open an eye, wincing against the sliver of sunlight that slipped through a gap in the curtains. My head pounded, my mouth felt like sandpaper, and every inch of my body ached. I rolled onto my side and lifted the phone off the table beside the bed.

The screen swam into focus. Missed calls. Three of them, from a number I did not know, all of them a little after eleven last night.

I stared at it for a long time, waiting for my mind to tell me something useful about it. Nothing came. I had never seen the number before and it meant nothing to me, and I did not have the energy to sit there working at it.

I set the phone face down on the blanket and let my arm drop.

The ceiling of my room was pale in the morning light, the same beams I had been looking at my whole life. I lay there and looked at them and let it all come back to me, because there was no stopping it.

The thick dark air had pressed around us, heavy and still. Neither Odile nor I said a word. I had no words left in me to give.

"I think I'm going to go home," I said quietly. I did not turn to look at her, just kept my eyes straight ahead on the black trees. I saw her nod at the edge of my vision. "Yeah," she said.

We went silent again. The only sound was the crickets and the occasional creak of a branch somewhere out in the dark.

I could not blame Nadia for any of it. Her words had cut deep and every one of them was true, and I had known it from the moment she said them.

Nadia is a pure being. She had never once done anything to hurt me. Selfless to a fault, and it was a thing I loved in her and worried about in equal measure, because it meant she would give anything away and not count the cost.

She had never spoken to me the way she spoke to me tonight. Not once in all the time I had known her.

I could tell myself it was projection. That the hate in her eyes was really meant for my father and I was only the nearest thing to hand. But I had seen it. I had stood close enough to see it properly and there was nothing borrowed in it. Pure, unfiltered hate, aimed at me.

It broke my heart.

Everything was falling apart. Nadia had broken up with me, and now she hated me as well.

"I'm not sure you should be alone," Odile said, her words slow and deliberate. "I could stay with you if you want. If you need the company."

I shook my head. "I'll be fine." The words sounded hollow, even to me.

Odile nodded slowly, then looked away, her gaze drifting out over the dark grounds. "If you're sure..."

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