The Fae Book 3: Butcher and Raine

Chapter 23 (Butcher): She Fell Asleep

Two days. That was all we had. Two days until the moon fae had to be be put underground. Burr and I had come a long way in six days, but we still had a long way to go. My eyes sought Raine, and I relaxed a bit knowing she was there. My eyes looked for her more than I wanted to admit on these long days, but her presence reassured me.

As always, when I looked at Raine, her face was calm and encouraging, and her hand was on her baby.

Alexandre.

I said good morning to him every day when Raine trudged out of her bedroom. I made sure the prospects had chocolate croissants for her every morning and chicken pot pie every night. She knew I was doing that for her. I didn't try to hide it.

What she didn't know was that I stood outside her door every night and listened to her sing a sweet song about rainbows and pots of gold to her boy before she fell asleep. If she was that gentle and good even before he was born, Alexandre was going to have a very good mother. His father, however, was another story.

It bothered me that our boy would have only a fifty percent chance of being good because that meant he had a fifty percent chance of being like me. Whenever my mind went down that path, I tried to stop myself from thinking in those terms. I wasn't father material and the less our boy knew of me, the better off he'd be. The more chance he'd have of being good. Raine also would be better off when we went to our separate corners after the moon fae were put underground. I'd watch her from a distance, but that would be the extent of my involvement in her life, in Alexandre's life.

Those fucking thoughts needed to be put aside for the next two days so I could focus on getting the job done and resuming my real life that made sense. I checked in with the MC every night after Raine was asleep, but the brothers had everything under control so I was free to concentrate on the moon fae. Burr, Hatch and I worked fourteen hour days, and Burr and I were able to hit a penny from a hundred yards with our combined lightning bolt. Now that we had our aim down, we worked on putting Hatch up into a net of lightning -- the same thing we'd have to do with the  moon fae.

"The Sceptre's strong for a reason," Burr said to me. "We have to capture all of the moon fae with our lightning. That's a joint effort, the two of us hitting the target at the exact same moment. Then once we have them in our net, so to speak, I'll break away and you'll have to hold them on your own while I open the tree portal to the underground. If you ever wondered why you're so much stronger than other men, it's because you were created for this very purpose. I'm not even strong enough to hold them on my own. The other thing you have to do is watch for a break in the net -- that's why you were given the gift of being able to see in the dark. If the net breaks, if you can't hold it, we're fucked. We have one chance and one chance only to put them away."

"I can hold them."

"You have to hold them and move them to the portal. It'll take everything I have to keep the portal open so I can't help you. We each have our jobs and they're both vital to our success. When you move them into the portal, the last thing you have to do is maintain the net until I close the portal. You can't release them until I seal it shut."

"How long a window are we talking to get this done?"

"Seconds. That's it," Burr said. "Today, we practice wrapping up Hatch in the net until we get it. He's going to fight the hold as hard as he can, but it still won't be as hard as the moon fae will fight. They do not want to go underground, and they haven't in seven kings' reigns -- almost five hundred years -- so they want to stay above ground and they'll fight you. Us."

"I'll hold them."

"You'll have to," he said, straightforward as always. "Ready Hatch?"

Hatch nodded, more serious than I'd seen him so far. I'd fuck him up and give him a lesson in respect if he were in my MC with the attitude and mouth he had, but he and Burr were always jabbing at each other and neither one took it seriously. Bitch and fairy boy. I shook my head.