My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 482

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Sera

"...and when I find you, you little bitch," the one eyed man rasped through broken teeth, "I'll make you beg before I..."

The raider's curses cut off mid-sentence. The grey wolf's head snapped up, ears pricked, hackles raised in a bristly stripe down its spine. It backed away, tail tucked tight, almost disappearing from Runa's narrow view between the gnarled oak roots.

A flicker of movement, huge and impossibly fast, crossed the orange-lit strip before her. Then a man's legs buckled, knees hitting the ground inches from her face. His spear clattered against the roots and he scrabbled at the dirt, mouth open in a silent scream.

Huge paws filled the gap between the roots, muddy claws extended. The man's hands clawed helplessly as his body was heaved backwards out of sight with a wet tearing sound.

"It's them! Rogues!" one raider cried, his voice quavering. "Rogues!" Another took up the shout, baying it frantically. "Rogues, run!"

Huddled in the burrow, Runa heard the word, a term whispered fearfully by adults when they thought children weren't listening.

The men's shouts were suddenly, brutally silenced. The silence lasted only an instant before the wet snapping of jaws and the crackle of breaking bone filled the air.

The ground convulsed beneath Runa, making her teeth rattle. She squeezed her eyes shut as clods of dirt rained down from above, stinging her skin and filling her throat with loam.

A body crashed against the oak root above, the impact jolting her. She gagged on the acrid taste of blood that seeped through the roots into her mouth.

The girl pushed her hands against the damp soil, the wet earth oozing between her fingers. Her heart hammered in her chest, threatening to break free. Now. She had to go now, before whatever was out there finished with the raiders and sniffed her out.

She clawed at the roots, heaving her slight body forward. Her head and shoulders emerged from the burrow. Runa paused, eyes shuttered against the glare of the burning village, and took a single deep breath. Torn corpses littered the blood-soaked ground. A torch guttered weakly.