The Fae Book 3: Butcher and Raine

Chapter 8 (Raine): Welcome Home, Honey

When I was around ten years old, I asked my mother one night why she'd never remarried after my father's death.

"Maman, I'd like a Papa. Harmony has one. Why won't you find one for me?"

Her hand had brushed my hair away from my face as she thought about the answer to my question. Maman never avoided all the questions I peppered her with, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable they might have been. My mother was a very straightforward person and she always referred to body parts with the correct names and she made her answers so very normal and matter-of-fact that I never thought twice about asking her anything that was on my mind.

Age 4: Maman, how does a baby get inside a girl?

Age 6: A boy said he had a dick today at school and I didn't. What is that?

Age 7: What makes a girl a bitch, Maman?

Age 9: One of the girls at school said her older sister has blood come out her vagina every month and she told me that will happen to me!

So this question that I hit her with at age ten about a new papa didn't even make her blink.

"Because I think I'm one of those people who only has one great love in her life. Some people get lucky and find it twice, but I cannot imagine a man who ever compares to your papa. He was everything, Raine," she said with that smile that was both happy and sad at the same time. "He was smiles and hugs and laughter and love. All very good things."

In direct opposition to what my mother had the good fortune to find in my father, I'd found a man who should never smile because it looked so terrifying, would only hug you to stab a knife in your back, had probably never laughed once in his life and had no concept of love because he had no heart. Apparently, I was not one of those girls who was in any danger of finding a man just like dear old dad. My father had been a veritable angel, and Butcher was like the spawn of Satan, if not Satan himself.

Yet as I followed Hatch as he ran to Butcher after he fell over onto his back -- at the same time Burr was racing toward him -- I kept thinking no. No, he can't be dead. The logical part of my mind knew that no one could survive a bolt of lightning ripping his chest wide open and losing all that blood, but that still didn't stop me from hoping he was alive.

What the hell, Raine? I wanted this man who had kidnapped me and kept me as a guest in his little prison to be alive? What the hell was wrong with me? I should be asking for help to drag his massive body into the bay and chumming for sharks so they could start a feeding frenzy and devour the body of the asshole. And I'd stand there cheering while they tore him apart.

What am I going to do with you, Raine?

Burr had reached him first, followed by Hatch, followed by pregnant me, with Daisy and Harmony helping Nan along as fast as she could go.

Burr crouched down beside Butcher's body and looked across him to Hatch, who was also crouched beside Butcher's body, and shook his head.

No, he can't be dead.

"Aon dearg," Burr said forcefully. He'd made it a command when he said it again. "Aon dearg."

I remembered that phrase. No red. No red. The fairies had whispered that in my head when I realized none of the fae surrounding Burr and Daisy had red wings. Yet of the thousands and thousands of fairies coming out of Butcher, every single one had red wings.

After cocking his head to the side once he'd assessed the damage to Butcher, Burr stood suddenly, holding his arms out to the side. Shaking his head no, he instead raised his arms to the sky. Bolts of lightning flashed in the sky and then came directly toward Burr, bolt after bolt, going into him, wrapping around him as he bellowed and shook with the power of the storm going into his body.