My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 339

339 /357

Sera

I turned back to Fenris, my gaze meeting his. The pack shifted beneath him, its hooves crunching on packed snow. I watched the play of torchlight on his face, the shadows moving across his cheekbones like something alive.

"We ride to the south ridge tomorrow," Fenris said. "For those who haven't been there before, the field is treacherous. We might not all return. I won't lie to make it easier. But I will remind you of what we are."

I stared at him, my heart pounding in my throat. It was hard to keep my eyes off Mina's trembling figure pressed against the wall. She looked like a woman staring into her own grave.

Fenris kept going, his eyes flicking across the men gathered before him.

"We are Northern men, so when it comes for you, you have to meet it alone."

I felt the word "alone" like a punch to the gut. I'd heard it before. Yesterday. At the basin when Fenris was boiled alive.

"He who goes into the water goes alone."

Fenris continued, his voice steady and unwavering.

"No one will carry you. No one will turn back for you if you fall because your brother beside you would be facing death too."

The men murmured, the single word passing from one to the other. It sounded like a prayer. An oath.

"When it comes to that, you hold your ground where you stand."

"Alone!" The men's voices rose, louder now, their words echoing through the cold night air. I shivered, despite the thick furs around my shoulders.

Men like this. Men who knew the value of a life just as much as they knew of death.

"You look death in the eyes and do not waver. You do it—"

"Alone!" the men roared in unison, their voices rough and low. The sound vibrated through me, settling in my bones.

"You should crave honourable death more than you crave life. Yes?" He left the question open and then followed, "You should crave dying with honour more than you crave life!" Fenris roared on top of his voice.

"You will bring down hell onto these beasts that have violated us. And we shall do it to the death—"

"Alonee!!!" The roared, the yard going into chaos. They started to pound their chest in unison.

I watched in slow-motion as they raised their fists to their chests and struck. Once. Sharp and hard, like the crack of bone on stone.

"What are we?"

"Northern Men!!"

"I can't hear you!!"

"Northern Men!!!"

I stood in the crowd, my eyes fixed on Fenris in disbelief. There was no version of my life that would imagine Fenris was capable of hyping up an entire army. This was a man hyping up men to die for him. Fuck.