My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 64

Irina

The first grey light of dawn bled through the narrow window of my guest quarters. The stone walls of the room were freezing, radiating a deep, biting chill that no amount of firewood could completely chase away. I sat on a hard, backless wooden stool in front of the vanity table. The silver backing of the mirror was peeling in the bottom left corner, warping my reflection.

I stared at my own face. My skin was pale. The powder I applied yesterday was cracked and streaked down my cheeks from crying. I looked ten years older than I did when I left Valdris.

My reflection was warping in front of me, and all I kept seeing was the dirt ring. I kept seeing Sera.

I replayed the violence over and over in my head. I saw the exact moment Sera grabbed that massive northern girl’s wrist. I saw her thrust her hips up. I heard the moment she broke the bone..

But the broken bone was not the terrifying part.

The terrifying part was the girl choking, her eyes wide with terror, actively trying to surrender. She tried to say the word yield. And my daughter—my quiet, compliant daughter—did not pause. She did not show an ounce of mercy. Sera drew her arm back and drove her fist directly into the center of the girl’s face.

She hit her again. And again. And again.

I saw the blood spray across Sera’s pale cheek. I saw the girl's nose cave in. I saw the skin split open, exposing raw, red muscle underneath.

Sera did not flinch. She did not look away in disgust. The conviction on her face scared me more than the blood. There was absolute, unfiltered violence written all over her features. She wanted to destroy that girl.

I pressed my palms flat against the cold wood of the vanity table. My hands were shaking.

How did this happen? She had only been in Ironmaw for a week. A person does not learn how to butcher another human being in seven days. You do not learn that kind of cold, calculated brutality overnight.

I had to question it. Did Sera already possess the potential to hurt someone like that? Was that darkness always sitting inside her, buried beneath her polite smiles and perfect curtsies in the Blackwater palace? I carried her in my womb. I raised her. I taught her how to pour wine, how to lower her eyes, and how to survive the cruelties of men by staying low, and quiet. I never saw the monster I saw in that ring.

Or had this frozen wasteland grown the monster inside her? Did the Alpha infect her mind the moment he dragged her into his bed?

A sharp knock on the heavy oak door cut through my thoughts.

"It's me," Lord Torin’s voice said through the thick wood.

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