The Fae Book 3: Butcher and Raine

Chapter 18 (Butcher): Wash You Clean

I followed Burr to a smaller cottage between his house and his mother and father's house. He walked behind it and into the backyard, which was filled with nothing but flowers.

He waved his hand at the garden as if a bunch of flowers were going to impress me. "The sun fae love people and they love nature. Families like mine always have gardens in honor of the fae, but almost all gardens have fairies. They're unseen, but present, tending to the flowers. It's why people feel good in their gardens -- they don't understand why, exactly, but it's because of the fae's presence. The sense of peace, of happiness, of calm...that's the fae's doing."

I'd never been in a garden before that I could remember, but I doubted I would have felt anything.

"Nocht," Burr commanded the fairies to reveal themselves, and I could see thousands of them darting among the flowers and sitting on the leaves.

"There's more fairies than usual today because they know I'm going to bring new lights to the garden."

Whatever the hell that meant.

Then he touched the tips of his fingers to his chest and swept them upward, as if he was pulling out something from his chest. Burr showed me his hand where I could see a tiny, pea-sized yellow light, barely glowing and cradled in his palm.

"When their lights are extinguished, the fae leave an echo behind, a small remnant of their life light. You saw those lights combine at Raine's and form a lightning bolt that went into my body. That bolt combined with the draíocht I hold -- the magic -- and created new lights. Now, while the sun is rising, I'm going to give those lights back to the fae this morning. They'll tend to the lights, which grow until the fairy is fully formed and ready to join all the other fae in the world. Essentially, those echoes left behind by the fae who sacrificed their lives will grow into new fairies."

Walking over to some yellow flowers, he knelt down and placed the light in his hand into the center of the flower. The light was immediately surrounded  by some of the fae, and Burr repeated the process of pulling a little light from his chest and  putting it into a flower. The minute he did, more fairies came to surround it.

"Fáilte, roimh solas nua," he said, then looked to me and translated, "Welcome, new light." He did this for the next hour until the sun was fully up, then stood.

"That was all of them."

I wasn't sure if he expected me to say something, so I didn't say anything because what the fuck was there to say to what I'd just witnessed?

"Let's go to my house to eat breakfast and then we'll get started."

This time I didn't follow him, and when he realized I hadn't, he turned back to me. "Problem? Swear I'm not going to poison you." Pause. "Yet."

"I'm not hungry."

"With the day ahead of you, you need to eat or you're going to be crying like a bitch after three hours."

Burr cocked his head, and then gave me a disgusted look. "This because of Raine? I think you can handle seeing her without getting all emotional like this."

"It's not because of her." Once again, the fae protecting him saved him from being shot in the face.

"Then what? You morally opposed to breakfast?"

I'd never been invited to eat with people before, and I didn't want to start now. I'd had meals with the brothers, my step-father and mother had been invited to people's homes and had taken me along, but no one had ever asked me specifically.

"It's fucking breakfast," Burr sneered. "Not a marriage proposal. Let's go."

He took off once again, and I followed him. Then, fuck that, I walked beside him.

Burr walked into his house and Daisy was up, feeding his son, who sat in a high chair. There was disgusting stuff smeared around his mouth, and I wondered if that was normal. Seeming not to care, Burr walked over to Daisy and kissed her on the mouth.

"Morning, Daisy-my-daisy," he said before pressing a kiss to the top of his son's dark head. 

"If you'll clean him up, I'll start breakfast," she said, not saying anything to me.

"Say good morning to my wife," Burr demanded, as if I was a child who needed to learn manners. Fuck him and his people skills.

"Good morning, Daisy-my-daisy," I said. Order me around again, asshole. "You want me to kiss her like you did, too?" I asked pointedly.

"Try it and you'll become the first Sceptre killed by his King, you keep pushing me."

Raine walked into the kitchen at that moment, her hair looking like it did after I fucked her, her rounded body covered by an oversized T-shirt, her legs and feet bare. There it was. I felt like I was coming alive in her presence.

Her eyes flicked over me and dismissed me.

"Morning, Daze," she mumbled. "Hey, Burr. Hey, little prince," she cooed at the baby last and kissed his cheek, not even caring about the food around his mouth. She grabbed a cloth and wiped his face, then she scooped him into her arms as if she'd done that hundreds of times.

"I'll go get him dressed," she announced to Daisy, who was busy at the stove.

"Oberon can do it," Daisy said. "You're going to sit down and eat."

"The two aren't mutually exclusive," Raine snapped.

"Oberon," Daisy said. And that was all she said, but Burr was very quickly taking the baby from Raine and walking away with him.

"Sit down, Raine. You had a rough night. Butcher, get her some orange juice, please."

And no shit, I got her some juice and slid it in front of her, noticing that Raine's hand was on her stomach, and she looked thoughtful.

"You got a problem?" I asked her.

"No."

"Why is your hand on your stomach, then?"

"Just a very active baby this morning."

"You want me to stop him?"

"No! I like feeling him move around and he's not kicking the hell out of me, so he's fine."

I want to feel him. My hand, as if it had a mind of its own, was reaching toward --

"Tell Burr I'll meet him out on the beach," I said suddenly, feeling the need to get out of there before I did something like touch Raine's belly with my hands that had done so much evil.

Raine can wash you clean.

Fucking hell. Now I was hearing little voices. I wanted nothing more than to go back to when life was simpler, no fucking fairies, and assign someone else to take point with Raine.

If I'd looked at my eyes in the mirror just then, I'd know that was a lie.

Half an hour later, I saw Burr and Hatch walking toward me where I leaned against the tree I'd destroyed. Raine, Daisy and Harmony weren't too far behind. When they got up to me, Burr wasted no time.

"We're going to start throwing lightning at something smaller than the tree but bigger than a penny today," Burr said. 

"And what's that?"

"We're going to aim for Hatch."