My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 314

Jace

"That's the one."

I counted the gold into his palm. No paper. Paper money up here is a joke you tell children, so I'd come north with the real weight of it, and I watched his eyebrows go up at how much.

"You're sure," he said.

"On her."

He turned his head and called it across to the soldier keeping the other half of the book, and a couple of them close enough to hear laughed at me, the southerner handing his money to the snow.

"He's putting it on the bleeder," one of them said, delighted.

"I heard."

The old me would've doubled it without a blink and had nothing left in the purse by spring. I count the weight of it now. The only reason I have a purse at all is the stocks my father left me, and I sold the last of those a while back, so the gold leaving my hand is gold I feel leave. I put it on the bleeder anyway. Knowing better has never once stopped me. It only makes me feel worse about it after.

The fight went how I knew it would. The body tells you, if you'll listen.

The tall one kept winning for a good while. A jab snapped the short one's head back. A cross opened the cut over her eye. An elbow split her lip wider, the blood sheeting down her chin. Still she came on. The tall one met her with two more, gave ground to reset, came back swinging.

That was the mistake. The tall one was spending everything now, frustrated, throwing with her whole back behind it, and a body can't pay out like that for long. Her hands started coming home slow. Her feet quit dancing and went flat. The short one was right there the whole time, breathing through her own blood, walking through the punishment, closing the gap a little more with every exchange.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify