My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 244

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Mina

The heat in the kitchen usually stayed trapped near the ceiling, thick with the smell of rendered animal fat and the sharp, stinging quality of curing salt. The head chef had been berating a runner for dropping a tray of flatbread, his voice a harsh bark that echoed off the stone walls. He didn't turn his head when I walked in. He didn't have to. Every wolf in this room knew my scent.

I had picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the large iron pot of stew. The steam hit my face, damp and heavy. The chef moved toward me. His posture shifted, the aggression in his shoulders melting into a mask of careful, practiced politeness. He tasted a drop of the broth I’d been working on.

"Perfect," he said. His voice was a level, forced drone. "You have a natural touch with the seasonings, Mina. The balance is exquisite."

I watched his eyes. He was lying. I knew the salt was too heavy. I’d been distracted when I poured it in. But he wouldn't scold me. He wouldn't risk his tongue over an ego trifle because I carried the Volkov name.

That was the disadvantage of being close to the crown in this keep. Everyone moved around me as if the floor were made of thin glass. They exaggerated my skills, ignored my mistakes, and treated me like the only reasonable person in a room full of idiots.

It was lonely. It was a domestic performance I was tired of playing.

I set the spoon down, the wood hitting the table with a dull thud. My mind drifted back to the back to Sera.

I barely recognized her. The North had corrupted the warm Southern girl I met on the first day. That girl had been cute. She’d been surprised when I cussed around her. She reminded me of my mother, of a place where the air didn't bite and the rules weren't written in blood. But Sera had fought to wash that part of herself off. She’d become a butcher. She’d orchestrated an execution and blackmailed her own mother without a single tremor in her hands.

And now she was pregnant.

A Southern Alpha’s heir was growing inside her. A piece of the South was currently taking root in the heart of the Ironmaw keep.

And guess what?

A fucked up part of me wanted that child. I wanted to see it breathe. I wanted to take care of it, to raise it the way my mother had raised me, keeping the Southern accent alive in a world of Northern growls. I wanted to make my mother proud by protecting a piece of her heritage.

The room was quiet, the only sound was the crackle of the wood in the hearth. I watched the door to the restroom. The thought of what was happening on the other side of that wood made my skin itch.