My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 205

Aldric

The steward had sent word the moment their carriage came through the gate. Two survivors, he'd said. I'd had enough time to decide, before they walked in, that two was a more interesting number than three.

The door opened. Irina first, then the captain behind her. He pulled it shut with both hands. I set down the letter I was reading and looked at them — and then at the space behind the captain's shoulder where the door had closed.

"Where's Torin?"

It was the captain who answered. He said they'd been attacked on the return journey. Rogue wolves. Two days out from the border. Torin and the guards hadn't made it. Only the two of them came out of it.

I was quiet for a moment.

I looked at Irina. Then I tilted my head, just slightly, taking her in. She was standing with her back straight and her coat still buttoned, her hair done — she'd have fixed it before coming up, stopped somewhere to manage herself before this meeting. I'd expected that. What I hadn't finished deciding was what I made of the rest of it.

I stepped toward her. She didn't move back. I came close enough that she had to tip her chin up to hold my eyes, and I reached out and put two fingers under her jaw, not rough, just enough to hold her face where I needed it.

"Is that what happened, Irina?"

She stared at me. I watched her throat move as she swallowed. Then, slowly, she nodded.

"Yes," she said. The word came out dry, like it had been sitting in her mouth for too long.

I held her eyes for a moment. Then I stepped back and looked around the room — at the space where the rest of the delegation should have been. Just the captain, standing at attention near the door, doing a reasonable job of holding himself together.

The captain. Of all of them, the captain.

He was strong, Elias. Good instincts. Enough training to handle a rogue wolf without flinching. But a Northern rogue was a different proposition entirely — and here he was, back on his feet, report delivered, still breathing. I'd give him credit for that. Torin wouldn't have managed it. Torin was many things, but he wasn't built for something like this.

I nodded slowly.

"I see," I said.

I walked back toward my table. "You see," I said as I moved, "rogue wolves in the North are completely different animal from what you've dealt with in the south."

I opened the wardrobe. The eastern pack had sent four bottles with the last trade courier, and I'd been working through them at a pace that felt appropriate. I pulled one out, set it on the desk, and then reached in for the glass cups. Three of them.

I began to pour while I spoke.

"You already understand what a rogue wolf is. The southern forests also have them. They’re wolves that turned on first blood, human or otherwise. The hunger gets in and it stays. They can't manage it, can't stop themselves. They continue until they can't control their transformation at all, and then they're stuck in their wolf form, permanently. That animal the humans always said we were underneath."

I carried the cups over and handed one to Irina, then to the captain.

Then I took mine and had a sip.

The burn went down slow and settled somewhere in my chest, and then the smoky heat came up the back of my throat and rose properly into my head in the way that particular bottle always managed. I held it there for a moment — let it do its work — and then exhaled.

I nodded to myself in quiet satisfaction.

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