My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 197

Torin

“You’re more pussy than a wolf, aren't you?”

Yvara’s voice was flat. Bored, almost. She wasn't even looking at me when she said it. She was leaning against the damp stone wall of the cell, picking at a callus on her palm with a small, jagged piece of flint.

I tried to answer. I really did. I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a pathetic, wet wheeze. My throat felt like I’d swallowed a handful of hot gravel and then spent the last three hours trying to cough it up. I’d been screaming since they dragged me down the stairs. Not even words, just raw, mindless noise until the sound died in my chest and left me with this cracked, useless pipe for a neck.

I didn’t know what to do. If I stayed quiet, she might get bored and leave. Or she might get bored and decide to start the carving early. If I spoke, I might say the wrong thing and speed the whole process up. My knees were shaking so hard they were drumming a rhythm against the stone floor.

The dungeon was a shithole. That was the only word for it. There was one tiny, slit-like window high up near the ceiling, but it didn't let in light so much as it let in the gray suggestion of it. The air was thick. It didn’t just smell bad; it felt heavy, like it was coating the inside of my lungs with grease. It smelled of old, stagnant piss and the sharp, metallic tang of blood that had long since dried into the cracks of the floor. But beneath that, there was a deeper, more sickening scent. It was the cloying, sweet rot of meat left out in the sun—wolves that had been tossed in here and forgotten until their skin turned to black soup.

I looked at a dark stain near my foot. It looked like a handprint. Or what was left of one.

“I’m… I’m a Lord of Valdris,” I managed to croak. It sounded pathetic even to me. A Lord doesn't sit in his own filth, vibrating like a struck bell.

Yvara finally looked at me. Her eyes were hard, like two chips of dirty ice. She didn’t look disgusted. Disgust would have been better. She looked like she was looking at a stool she’d stepped in and was deciding whether to wipe it off or just throw the boot away.

“A Lord,” she repeated, her voice a low rasp. “In the South, do they teach their Lords to leak from their eyes the moment things get uncomfortable?”

I swallowed, the movement sending a fresh spike of pain through my throat. I didn't understand. I didn't understand how any of this was happening. I was supposed to be the one in control. I was supposed to be the one holding the cards.

Irina!

That backstabbing, power-hungry bitch. This was her fault. Every bit of it. She’d played me like a cheap fiddle. She’d used me. I pictured her face—that smug, cold expression she wore—and I imagined wrapping my hands around her neck. I’d squeeze until her eyes popped, until that calculated silence of hers turned into the same desperate gurgling I was making now. I hoped she choked on her own ambition.

I hoped the barbarians found her and did things to her that would make this dungeon look like a palace. The stabbing wasn’t enough. She needs to suffer worse fate than I was.

But I didn't say any of that out loud. I just sat there, shivering.

“I… I don’t understand,” I stuttered. “The treaty… King Aldric… you can’t just…”

Yvara shook her head, a short, sharp movement. “The fear of death has made you stupid, Lord Torin. You keep talking about treaties and kings as if I care.”

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