My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 242

Sera

"I'm sorry, Mina."

"No, no, no," Mina interrupted. Her voice was soft, but the edge remained. "Don't cry. Oh, please don't do that now."

She came low again, watching me closely, as if I were a new creature she needed to understand. She pushed a stray strand of hair away from my forehead, her touch light but lacking any warmth.

"Growing up," Mina started, her voice taking on a rhythmic, storytelling quality, "the only time I ever saw blood or physical violence was on my mother." She laughed. "Sera, it wasn't a good sight. I spent my nights seeing her in that state. Every night, she was covered in it. And the one thing I always thought about—weirdly—was how I never imagined one person could produce that much blood."

Mina shook her head, her dark hair casting long shadows over her shoulders. "I never wanted to see anything like that again. Blood became the one thing I wanted to avoid." She scoffed, her lip curling. "But thanks to you, I got to watch an entire scenario where your mother got stabbed. And that shit was real, wasn't it?"

She shook her head again. "That wasn't even the point. You made me feel like we were doing something important together. Like I was really helping you keep your mother shut by manipulating the situations." She leaned closer, her eyes hard. "But you only used me to get your dirty job done. You had an entire plan I had no idea about."

Mina sighed. "I'm spiralling. I'm talking too much." She went quiet for a long moment. I stayed on the floor, listening to the silence of the keep.

"I thought we were the same," Mina finally said.

I looked away. That hit me in the marrow. It was tough. I searched for the words, my jaw tight.

"I'm very sorry, Mina," I said. "The reason I kept you out of the major plans... I didn't want you to become a target. I didn't want you carrying an unnecessary burden because of the things we were doing."

Mina rubbed her face with both hands. She shook her head, the movement dismissive. I came close then, placing my hand on her shoulder. The wool of her nightgown was thin. She didn't push me off; she strictly allowed the hand to stay there, a static point of contact.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "I'm not a monster, Mina. I strictly had to do what I did to protect Fenris."

Mina scoffed. "You can't make Fenris an excuse for becoming bad. With or without you, Fenris would remain a butcher. The fear would always be there."

"You don't understand," I said, shaking my head. "Fenris isn't diplomatic. He doesn't handle issues without someone dying. He has no patience. If I left him to it, he could easily lose the pack."

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