My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 147

Torin

The men walked slowly. They were talking in low, guttural voices. As they passed the tapestry, the smell hit me. It was a suffocating wave of copper, stale alcohol, and raw musk. I peeked through a small tear in the fabric.

They were massive. Both of them were stripped to the waist, their chests covered in a sheen of sweat and smeared with fresh blood. One of them had deep, angry scratch marks running all the way down his back. They were casually dragging a heavy wooden flagon of wine between them, laughing about something I couldn't understand.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I suddenly smelled the heavy, floral scent of my own expensive lavender soap wafting up from my collar. It was the most unnatural smell in this entire fortress. I was reeking of the South. I waited for them to stop. I waited for them to catch the scent, rip the tapestry aside, and drag me out by my hair.

The footsteps kept going. They faded down the hall.

My lungs burned. I dropped my hands and gasped for air, the rough wool of the tapestry scraping my cheek. I didn't wait to catch my breath. I stepped out of the alcove and hurried down the spiral stairs, my hand sliding frantically over the freezing iron railing.

I reached the servant's level. It was darker down here. The air felt colder, closer to the outside temperature. I navigated a narrow hallway filled with empty wooden crates and flour sacks.

I pushed through a heavy wooden door and stepped onto the enclosed bridge.

The bridge connected the main keep to the lower courtyards. It was walled with stone, but large, open arched windows ran along the right side, looking directly down into the main holding pens and the open training grounds.

The drums were deafening here. They vibrated right through the soles of my boots.

I kept my head down, staring at the floorboards, but the sheer volume of the noise forced me to look up. I glanced out the arched window.

My stomach completely inverted.

The training ground was lit by massive, roaring bonfires. There were easily two hundred wolves down there, and it looked like the very depths of hell. It wasn't a celebration. It was a slaughterhouse of pure, unchecked primal violence.

I watched a man grab a woman by her hair, yank her head back, and sink his teeth directly into the junction of her neck and shoulder. I saw the dark spray of blood hit the white snow. She didn't scream in pain. She laughed, a harsh, jagged sound, and dragged her nails right down the man's chest.

Everywhere I looked, bodies were slamming together in the dirt. They were completely naked, indifferent to the freezing cold, indifferent to the blood, indifferent to the people watching them. It was a frenzy of biting, tearing, and fucking out in the open air.

I gripped the stone edge of the window sill. My knuckles turned stark white.

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