POV: Sera
The safe house was already burning when the walls exploded.
Shadow creatures had been pouring through the wards for the last ten minutes. Reese's fighters were holding them back, barely, but we were losing ground.
I was on my knees. Blood streaming from a gash in my side where debris had caught me. Vision blurring. The extraction had already weakened me, and now this.
"Mama!" Ember was beside me, crying, trying to heal me with tiny hands that glowed faintly.
"Baby, don't," I gasped. "Save your strength."
But she wouldn't stop. Couldn't stop. Her two-year-old mind couldn't process that her mother was dying.
Through the bond, I felt Kade racing toward us. Felt his terror. His desperation.
Hurry, I tried to send. But the thought was weak. Fragmented.
"SERA!" Reese appeared
