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Rain spatters Ma’s face while she watches the barn catch fire, not caring that Saint's girl is trapped inside.
“You’re not serious, Ma?”
“You heard me.” Her fingers tighten around my arm until her nails bite. “She made her choice by staying here when she wasn’t welcome.”
“Saint loves her.”
“She’s a Harrington.”
“No.” I wrench free. “I won’t stand out here and watch her die.”
Ma’s expression turns a notch closer to feral. “You’d run into a burning building for a Harrington?”
“Yes, Ma. I would.”
She reaches for me again, and I shove her away before she can get a hold.
I’ve never put my hands on my mother in my life.
She staggers back a step, and for half a second, she looks at me like she doesn’t know who I am. Then her expression contorts.
“Sera—” she hisses. “Having her die in there is cleaner.”
“What the hell happened to make you so bitter?”
A shadow moves behind her eyes. Something old and hidden locked away.
“I’m protecting ya.” Her voice cracks on it. “It’s all I’ve ever done.”
When I look over at the barn, Dane is at the stable doors. Smoke pours through the gaps in the timber.
"Get the horses out.” I run over. “I’ll get Keira.”
His gaze follows mine to the flames devouring one side of the barn. "I’ll get her—"
I haven’t got a word for what Keira is to me now. Saint’s girl. Fionn’s sister. Something that makes her family twice over, and I don’t have the time to explain the second one while she’s stuck inside a burning barn.
"Get. The. Horses. Out."
For a heartbeat his eyes search mine, weighing the order against the fire climbing higher with every passing second.
Then he gives the smallest nod, pulls off his t-shirt, and dunks it in a bucket of icy water before shoving it at me.
“You’ll be in there longer. Put it over your mouth and nose.”
Dane turns on his heel and disappears into the smoke.
"Keira!" I yell. “The barn’s on fire. Let’s go. Move it out.”
When she doesn’t respond, I secure the soaked t-shirt around the lower half of my face.
Heat blasts from the doorway, stinging across my skin in blistering waves as I force myself inside.
Chapter 40
Sera
I push inside and duck beneath the smoke packed under the rafters. Ash catches in my lashes as I squint, trying to see along the central aisle. Waves of heat distorts the stalls and stresses the beams I spent half my childhood racing past.
