My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 212

Sera

The door scraped open and Yvara came in dragging him.

She had Torin by the collar of his tunic — what was left of it. The collar was the only thing on his upper half still in one piece. His head hung back at an angle a head was not meant to hang at. The right side of his neck, the side that had been working when he left, was open from the jaw down to where the collarbone should have been. His arm on that side was gone. Gone meaning gone. It ended somewhere above the elbow in a torn, ragged stump still wet at the edge. There was no arm on the floor behind them.

I stood up from the chair too fast.

"Why is he —"

The smell hit before the word finished. Copper, hot, with the heavy under-scent of stomach contents. I clamped my mouth shut.

Fenris was at the wall. Arms crossed. He had not moved when the door opened. He was watching me, not the body.

"Yvara." My voice came out high. I cleared my throat. "Yvara, why is he — Fenris, what the fuck —"

"Sera."

"Bram. We have to find Bram. The face — if Torin's gone, the face — Fenris, if Torin is dead the graft is —"

"Sera."

Fenris's voice. Low.

"Look at him."

"I am looking at him —"

"Look at him."

I looked.

Yvara was holding Torin upright by the collar with one hand. Her wrist was steady. Torin was facing me. His head was tilted back, mouth open, eyes —

His left eyelid moved.

A blink. A half blink. The eye underneath was open, wet, the pupil too wide.

The throat moved. The piece of throat that hadn't been opened. There was a breath in there. I could hear it now that the rest of the room had gone quiet — a thin, wet, not-quite-whistle. Air moving through a wound.

He was alive.

"He is breathing," Yvara said.

I stared at him.

"He is breathing," she said again. "You are welcome."

I made my hands into fists and put them at my sides because they had been going up to cover my mouth and I would not let them.

"How."

"Because his heart is in his chest. The rogues didn't get to it. Hearts are tucked in. Behind ribs."

"Yvara." Fenris.

"What. She asked."

I went two steps toward Torin. The smell got worse. I had to swallow twice before I could open my mouth.

"He looks — Yvara, look at him —"

"I am looking at him."

"You weren't supposed to —"

"I know."

"You — what?"

She shrugged. Her shoulder moved. Torin's body moved with it. A long dark string of something slid out of the wound at his abdomen and hit the stone floor with a small, soft sound.

I closed my eyes.

"I gave them bad orders," Yvara said. "I will own that. I told them to take the carriage. I told them to leave the queen and one guard to walk her home. I told them to bring this one back. I did not tell them how. I assumed they would understand the difference between back and back-in-pieces. The assumption was wrong."

"Yvara." Fenris, quieter now.

"I am explaining."

"Explain less."

"She asked, Fenris."

I was aware of my hands. Hands, mouth, breath. None of them were behaving.

"Fuck."

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