My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 57

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Sera

"What did you say?"

"You lost the right to dictate my behavior the exact moment you sat at that table and let Father sell me off to this pack," I said. I took a step closer to her. She flinched backward, but I didn't stop. "You watched him trade my life for a border treaty. You sent me here to die or be bred, and you didn't say a single word. So do not stand here now and preach to me about acting like a princess."

My mother’s face flushed a deep, angry red. "I am your mother."

"A mother protects her child," I countered instantly. "I had to protect myself today."

"That wasn't defending yourself!" my mother shouted. Her voice echoed off the high stone wall behind us. Several heads turned in our direction, but I didn't care. "Do not stand there and call that self-defense, Seraphina. You entered a fighting ring. You accepted a challenge from a trained killer to prove a foolish point. It didn't make any sense. You nearly died for pride."

I stopped. I clamped my jaw shut.

I looked at her.

She wasn't wrong.

The Sera from three years ago would never have stepped into this ring. The Sera from Blackwater would have hidden in her guest room. She would have apologized to Taya the moment the threat was made. She would have begged Kane to intervene. She would have offered gold, just like my mother suggested yesterday.

My mother was right. I didn't have to fight. Fenris had offered me an out in the council room. I could have taken the public flogging. I could have taken the shame.

But I stepped into the dirt. I let Taya break my nose. I forced my body to heal using an exhaustingly painful technique I barely learned yesterday. I broke another woman's arm and rearranged her face because she called me a broodmare. Because she insulted my worth in front of the pack.

I did it for pride. I did it because I was exhausted from shrinking.

"You fought to prove you belong here," my mother continued, sensing my silence. She pushed her advantage, her voice dropping into that lecturing, disappointed tone she used when I was a child. "You fought to impress him." She gestured toward Fenris again. "You threw away everything you were raised to be, just to survive a week in this horrible place. It is foolish, Sera. It is madness."

I looked down at my hands again. The blood was completely dry now. It flaked off the edges of my knuckles like red dust.

I thought about the feeling in my chest when I broke Taya's arm. I thought about the absolute, terrifying clarity I felt when I was straddling her, pinning her to the ground. I hadn't been afraid. I hadn't been helpless. For the first time in my entire life, I was holding the weapon. I was the one deciding how the story ended.

I looked back up at my mother.

"I am not the girl you raised anymore," I said.

"Sera—"

"That girl died in Blackwater," I said. My voice was completely steady. There was no tremor. No hesitation. "She died waiting for an Alpha to choose her. She died waiting for her parents to bring her home. I am never going back to being her."

"You are my daughter," she said. Tears welled up in her eyes again, spilling over her eyelashes. "I love you. I want to take you home. Torin can arrange it. We can leave tonight. We can fix this."

I stared at her. I stripped away the title of 'mother' in my mind. I just looked at the woman standing in front of me.

She was weak. She was a flawless product of the South. A place where women were traded like cattle over dinner tables and expected to smile about it. A place where preserving your image was infinitely more important than preserving your life. She wanted me to come home so I could sit quietly in a palace and pretend I hadn't been discarded. She wanted me to apologize for bleeding.

There was absolutely nothing left for me in the South.

It was a fact.

Valdris was a cage lined with velvet. Ironmaw was a cage lined with ice and iron. But here, they let me hold the key. Here, Fenris handed me a padded pole and told me to defend myself. He didn't lock me in a room for my own safety. He put me in the dirt and told me to survive.