The Fae Book 3: Butcher and Raine

Chapter 5 (Raine): Bring Him To Me

***TW for discussion of abortion****

Burr's gaze locked on me when I told him I was in trouble and needed his help, but looking in his eyes was difficult now because they were so unusual...and exactly like Butcher's.

Exactly.

"Fitz is just about out, so I'll go put him down and come right back so we can talk," Burr said to us softly, shooting Daisy a look that communicated more than I could understand. I couldn't really understand much at the moment since I felt like I was about to shatter, which made me feel even less in control because that wasn't me. I didn't shatter. I did the shattering.

And Daisy. Oh, let's hear it for friends who know you so well you don't have to say a word for them to understand that you're about to unravel. Grabbing my hand, she pulled me toward the couch and we both sat, Daisy taking both of my hands in hers and holding on to them tightly.

I've got you, she was saying. You're safe now.

Burr came back into the room and sat on the floor next to Daisy, his big hand going to her thigh, the other resting on top of his bent leg. As always when I was around them, I felt my heart thump when I noticed the way he looked at my best friend. It was a look I wanted my husband to give me someday, a look of complete adoration and infatuation. A look that told anyone who was watching just how deeply he loved this woman.

All I had was a man who looked at me with a complete lack of expression...unless you counted the homicidal glint in his eye.

"Tell us what's going on," Burr demanded.

And he looked at me with those silver fucking eyes, and I let go in a torrent of words and emotions.

"So I thought he was asking me out on a date finally after we'd been hooking up for the last three months but he wasn't. He was kidnapping me and he tied me to a chair and then he ran a knife over my skin and demanded I tell him things I knew nothing about, so I had to tell him I was pregnant and it was his baby so he wouldn't kill me. Then he did an ultrasound on me and blood tests because he thinks I'm a slut who doesn't even know who the father of my baby is. He locked me in a jail cell and I was cold and someone gave me a blanket The next morning he had three people tied up in the cement room and they were telling lies about me. They've been using my studio as some sort of drug clearinghouse but he let me go and told me not to call the police and to stay at my apartment because he was coming by for a talk when he got the blood test results. But then I swear I heard a little voice in my head tell me to go to Oberon, which is weird because I've never called you that in my life and here I am, and my baby's going to have a complete psychopath for a father."

Then, because that wasn't enough of a display to prove how not myself I was, I finally shattered and the shards came out of my eyes as tears.

"It's OK, you're OK," Daisy soothed me over and over as I cried it out. "We've got you. You're safe, Raine. You're safe. Oberon will take care of this guy so he can't ever bother you again. But you're safe."

Daisy let go of my hands to pull me to her and wrap her arms around me, letting me get it all out. When I finally began to slow down, Daisy said, "Oberon, go get her a drink, please."

"Water, please," I managed. "Just water."

When he returned with my drink, I pushed back from Daisy and took a sip.

"I'm sorry," I said to them, looking at my water glass. "I'm sorry to come here and dump all of this on you, but I didn't know what to do and then that voice..."

"You came to the right place," Daisy assured me. "If you were told to go to Oberon...you should always take their advice."

"I thought it just meant I'd lost it. And whose advice?"