My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 162

Irina

I knew she was behind this. She had to be. She was the one who knew I was a survivor. She was the one who hated me for it. She thought my years of smiling for Aldric, my years of working the clay in the dark, was a weakness. She didn't understand that I did it so she wouldn't end up on a spike. And now she was using these savages to dismantle me? I felt a hot, bubbling surge of hatred in my chest that was sharper than the steel in my side. I swore, right then, that if I survived this night, I would make her regret every single drop of blood I spilled on this floor. I would burn her reign to the ground before it even started.

“Where is it, Irina?” Yvara’s voice dropped into that bored register that made my skin crawl. My grandmother used to say that magic like yours is a parasite. It needs a physical host to feed on. Where is it?"

I clenched my jaw, staring at the wall. The pressure in the room was becoming physical. The heat from the hearth, the smell of my own blood, the relentless, rhythmic thumping of those godforsaken drums outside—it was all closing in on me.

“Please! Irina, just tell them!” Torin was shouting now, his voice cracking into a high-pitched shriek. He was dragging himself across the floor toward the chair, his hands fumbling for the hem of my dress. “I can’t take it! I can’t watch it anymore! Tell them where the fucking Totem is so we can go!”

“Shut up, Torin!” I screamed, the effort sending a fresh wave of agony through my ribs.

Yvara let out a dry chuckle. She walked over to Torin and nudged his mangled nose with the toe of her boot. “Listen to the man, Queen. He’s the only one in this room talking sense. Maybe Kark should just take his tongue out first? Give us some peace and quiet to finish our business.”

Torin’s eyes went wide. He started babbling, a frantic, senseless stream of pleas, his hands waving in the air like he could ward off the violence. The sound was grating. It was the sound of a man who had never known a day of real hardship in his life, and it was driving me to the brink of insanity.

Kark didn't pull the knife out. He kept it there, the metal a hot coal in my side, his other hand reaching up to grip my jaw. He squeezed so tight I felt the bone groan.

“Last chance,” Kark growled. His breath hit my face, smelling of dark ale and raw aggression. This was the man who had just been inside me, and now he was carving me open with the same remorseless focus he’d used to fuck me.

I looked at Torin. He was a ruin. A sniveling, useless southern ruin. He was the reason I was here. He was the reason I had been starving for twenty years. He was the dead weight I had been carrying since we crossed the border.

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