My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 7

Sera

"The pack needs an heir, Sera."

Kane’s voice was a ghost in my ear, vibrating with that same reasonable, clinical tone he’d used to tell me he’d been fucking Elara for a year. "I did what was necessary," he whispered in the dark.

I jerked awake.

The air didn’t smell like Blackwater’s damp pine or the palace’s suffocating roses. It smelled like wet dog, woodsmoke, and a man I didn’t know. I was lying on a hard wooden floor that bounced and rattled, wrapped in a fur so heavy it felt like a lead blanket.

For a second, I didn't know which nightmare I was in. Then the wagon hit a rut, and my shoulder slammed against the sideboards. The pain was real. I wasn't in the palace, and I wasn't in Blackwater. I was in a cage on wheels.

I remembered the cabin. I remembered Fenris Volkov filling the doorway, stripping off his armor, and the sheer, terrifying size of him. I remembered screaming until my throat felt like I’d swallowed broken glass. Then... nothing. The transition from being hoisted over his shoulder to this freezing wagon was a blur of exhaustion and shock.

My body felt like it belonged to someone else. The second mate bond had settled into a low, rhythmic hum, a vibration in my marrow that made my skin feel two sizes too small. The scar on my collarbone—the one Kane had left me with—wasn’t burning anymore. It was warm.

Pain I could deal with. I’d lived with pain for three years. But this warmth was intrusive. It felt like a hand resting on my neck, steady and unmoving.

The wagon slowed, then lurched to a halt. Outside, the world was a cacophony of heavy boots, horses snorting, and men shouting. I stayed still, listening. Their voices were different—thicker, the vowels dragged out and the consonants hitting like stones. Northern dialect.

I pushed the heavy canvas flap open an inch.

The South was green and gold. This was a graveyard of color. Everything was a shade of bruised grey or bone white. The trees weren’t lush; they were jagged black spikes, their branches looking like teeth against a sky that felt too low, too heavy. The air hit me like a physical blow, so cold it turned the moisture in my nose to ice instantly.

"Don't wander past the firelight tonight," he said. His voice sounded like gravel being ground together. "Wolves."

I looked at him, my jaw tight. "I am a wolf."

He gave me a look that suggested I’d just told him the sun was made of cheese. "Not our kind of wolf. The wild ones. They don't know what you are. They just know you're small."

He walked away before I could snap back. In the South, we were the apex. Here, I was apparently an appetizer.

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