Hostage Situation
POV: Serenye
My heart stopped. Actually stopped beating for a full second as I looked at the hostages Damian's rogues had dragged forward. Men and women, bloodied and terrified. But worse, so much worse, were the children.
Three of them. The oldest couldn't be more than eight. The youngest looked about five, a tiny thing with blonde pigtails and tear-streaked cheeks. Each one was held by a rogue who gripped them too tightly, claws extended just enough to dimple the skin of their necks without breaking it.
Yet. The little blonde girl was crying. Not the dramatic wailing of a tantrum, but the desperate, hiccupping sobs of a child who knows something terrible is happening and doesn't understand why.
"Mama," she whimpered. "I want my mama."
The rogue holding her tighten
