My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 102

Sera

"The Queen?" Mina"Is that idiot fucking the Queen?" Mina asked casually.

Her boots stopped completely on the cold stone. We were halfway down the dim, drafty corridor leading to the lower levels, but she just stood there staring at the side of my face. The adrenaline from hitting Torin was starting to fade out of my system. A hot, heavy throbbing was taking its place right across the knuckles of my right hand.

I stopped a few paces ahead and looked back at her. "Yes."

Mina shook her head. Her dark eyes were wide, blinking rapidly as she tried to piece the politics together. "Are you serious? Your mother is actually letting that skinny southern rat climb into her bed?"

"Keep your voice down," I warned. The corridor was empty, but sound traveled easily through the keep's open archways.

Mina clamped a hand over her mouth. She dropped it a second later, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "But King Aldric. If he finds out his wife is sleeping with his own political advisor, he will literally mount both of their heads on the Valdris gates before the sun goes down."

"He won't find out," I said. "Not from me."

Mina frowned, clearly confused by my angle. "Why not? You don’t even like her."

"Because as long as I know, and they know I know, I hold the leash," I explained. I rubbed my left thumb over my aching knuckles, wincing as a sharp sting shot up my forearm. "They need my silence. If I expose them, Father kills them. If I keep it, they have to do exactly what I tell them to do. That's heavy insurance."

Mina stared at me. A few weeks ago, she saw me as a fragile southern princess who had arrived with a numb feet. Now, she was looking at someone actively maneuvering the two most powerful Valdris figures in the fortress into a corner.

She swallowed hard, gave a slow nod, and started walking again. We moved in silence the rest of the way, the cold air biting through the oversized grey tunic I wore.

We reached the heavy wooden doors of the kitchens and pushed them open.

The heat inside was heavy. Three large stone fire pits roared in the center of the cavernous room, turning thick iron spits loaded with fresh venison and massive cuts of boar. The air was thick with the smell of roasting meat, sharp onions, and heavy woodsmoke. It was chaotic. Cooks shouted instructions over the crackle of the fires. Heavy iron cleavers bit rhythmically into scarred wooden butcher blocks.

I stepped through the doorway.

The shouting nearest to us faltered. A boy carrying a sloshing wooden bucket of water paused, nearly spilling it over his boots. A woman pulling flatbread from the clay ovens stopped moving, her wooden paddle hovering mid-air.

They weren't looking at the purple bruising fading on my cheek. They were staring at what I was wearing.

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