My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 143

Irina

"She will do exactly what I tell her to do."

Torin paused, his hands freezing right over the gold buckle of his trousers. He looked up at me with red, watery eyes, completely unhinged by his own terror. "How?" he asked, his voice cracking horribly in the freezing air of the guest quarters. "She ordered us out, Irina. Fenris ordered us out. We have no guards, we have no political standing, and we have absolutely no leverage. We have nothing but a carriage and a guaranteed death sentence waiting for us the second we cross the southern border."

I looked down at him sitting on the edge of the bed. I could still feel the sticky, unimpressive residue of his climax between my thighs, a frustrating reminder of just how soft and useless he truly was. He was a civilized southern lord who only knew how to navigate the whispered rumors of a royal court, completely folding the second he was faced with the raw, brutal reality of the North.

He genuinely believed we had nothing. He honestly thought we were completely at the mercy of my feral daughter and her massive beast of a husband.

I turned away from him and walked over to the wooden basin resting on the vanity table. I plunged a cloth into the freezing water, wringing it out before dragging it aggressively across my neck and chest to scrub away the smell of his panicked sweat. As the icy water bit into my skin, my mind finally cleared.

Torin didn't know.

He’s been fucking me, and he knew Sera was blackmailing us with it, but he had absolutely no idea what she had actually forced me to do in the shadows of this fortress. He didn't know about the coup. He didn't know that Elder Kael was currently rotting in a hidden grave, or that the man walking around the courtyard wearing Kael’s face was just a loyal guard named Bram.

More importantly, Torin didn't know that my blood magic was the only thing holding that stolen flesh to the guard’s skull.

I stared at my own reflection in the polished bronze mirror above the basin. I was the one who cast the spell, which meant I was the absolute only one who could break it. If I dropped that illusion right in the middle of the Great Hall, revealing the murdered elder to the rest of the pack, the entire Ironmaw territory would turn on Fenris. There would be a massive civil war, and my arrogant, feral daughter would be torn to shreds by the very wolves she had just spread her legs for.

I held the secret that kept the Alpha on his throne. I held the absolute ultimate leverage, and as I watched Torin sobbing quietly on the edge of the mattress through the mirror, I made the conscious decision to keep him entirely in the dark.

If I gave this coward the secret, he would inevitably ruin it. He would panic, or worse, he would try to sell the information to King Aldric in a pathetic attempt to save his own skin. The secret was mine alone, and I was going to use it to secure my own sanctuary.

"I am not going back to Valdris," I said, throwing the wet cloth back into the basin. It slapped loudly against the wood, making Torin flinch.

He stood up, finally managing to buckle his belt with shaking fingers. "You are insane," he breathed out, shaking his head. "They will kill you, Irina. Even if you try to beg her for mercy, that barbarian will simply snap your neck to rid himself of the nuisance. I am leaving at dawn. I will take my chances running to the eastern ports."

I turned to face him, leaning my hips casually against the vanity. I looked at the man I had shared a bed with for months, the man I had risked my husband's absolute wrath for just to feel some semblance of control, and felt nothing but profound, overwhelming disgust.

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