Chapter Thirteen
R aven made it to the front room and found Dax standing behind the bar, his hands wrapped around Taylynn’s upper arms, he appeared to be trying to hold her still while she fought. She pummeled his chest, growled and snarled. He heard the word no several times as he made his way to them.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid she’ll fall if I let her go. I know she doesn’t want me holding her but if she falls she’ll end up hurt worse.” The tension is Dax’s voice was clear.
Raven glanced at the floor and saw several broken bottles. That had been the glass breaking and it was also why Dax wouldn’t let her go. “Okay, let me see what I can do.” He turned his attention to Taylynn. “It’s all right, Taylynn. You’re okay.” He kept his voice soft, soothing, in an effort to calm her. He couldn’t know if it was penetrating the haze that seemed to have come over her—she seemed deep in the throes of some kind of panic attack. And while he hated seeing her go through this, he was proud that she was fighting.
Those fuckers hadn’t beaten all the spirit out of her. And he loved seeing it. “I’m going to move in behind you, little one. I’m going to get you out of here. Can you hear me, Taylynn?” She never responded, just kept fighting Dax, though her efforts were slowing a bit, and he knew she had to be getting tired. Her body was expending a lot of energy to heal, and she’d used more in her insistence on working behind the bar.
Raven glanced at Dax and was glad to see that the prospect didn’t look pissed off, but rather that he was using all his concentration to hold her. To keep her from getting hurt, and trying to limit how much damage she was doing to him, though Raven could tell from the scratches down one cheek, that she was not holding back against him. Knowing what he knew about her, Raven knew she likely wasn’t aware of where she was or what was happening. She was likely lost in memories and doing her best to keep that shit from happening to her again.
“Little one, it’s me. I’m going to pick you up. You need to stop fighting Dax. He’s not trying to hurt you. He’s doing his best to keep you from it.” Raven wasn’t convinced his constant talking was helping, he didn’t know if his words were sinking in at all, but hoped the calm, soothing tone would sink in sooner rather than later. He ignored the crunch of glass beneath his boots as he stepped up behind her, bent and scooped her into his arms. He didn’t know if it was being grabbed unexpectedly, the change of position or that the words he was still repeating had reached her but as soon as she hit his chest, all the fight seemed to leave her. He wasted no time carrying her back to his room.
“Clean up that mess,” he shouted over his shoulder, not caring who did it, as long as the work got done. “And send me Freud.” By the time he made it down the hall to the room next door to the one he’d given her when she’d first arrived, she seemed to have calmed down. Her face was buried against his chest and her breathing came out in small hasps and hiccups, but that was better than the frantic murmuring she’d been doing when he’d first reached her.
Raven used one hand to twist the knob, then shouldered the door open and carried her inside. He considered for an instant laying her on the bed and leaving but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not after the way she’d freaked out and now seemed okay with him holding her.
Instead of going to the bed, which he was afraid she wouldn’t take well since he wasn’t going to be letting her go, he went instead to the recliner and sat, still holding her cradled in his arms.
“Are you with me, little one, or are you still lost in the memories?” He kept his voice the same gentle tone he’d used while moving up behind her and picking her up. He’d known it was a risk doing that. There was a high chance her panic would only get worse. But he’d also risked that the total change of position would jar her enough to realize she wasn’t where she thought she was, that what she thought was happening wasn’t what was going on. Luckily it seemed to have worked but he had no way of knowing how she would react going forward.
“I’m here.” She pulled her face away from his chest enough to speak to him. “I’m sorry.”
“Its okay. It happens. Are you ready to tell me what happened?” He knew she needed to talk about it. Not just about today, but about all of it. She had to get it out or it wouldn’t get better. Sure, she might be able to ignore it and move on, but she would always have triggers and things that threw her back into that time. He knew, if she tried, she could move past the triggers. She could work through the trauma so that whatever had cause the incident in the other room no longer had any power over her.
She shook her head. “I hope I didn’t hurt him. It was Dax wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, little one, it was Dax and you scratched him, but I don’t think it’s anything serious.” He didn’t tell her that Dax could have stopped her from hurting him but had been more concerned that he not hurt her. Raven had seen that in his face, even in the few seconds he’d watched the two of them.
“I’ll need to tell him I’m sorry. He was nice. I don’t want to hurt him.”
“It will be all right. You’ll be able to talk to him later. Right now, Freud is going to come take a look at you and make sure you didn’t hurt yourself more, then we’ll rest a bit. I don’t know about you, but hearing you scream like that took at least ten years off my life. I want nothing more than to sit here with you in my arms and let it sink in that you’re okay.”
Some of the tension seemed to drain from her at his words. He didn’t know if it was that he wanted to sit here, holding her, that Freud was on his way, or something else entirely. It didn’t matter. What mattered was making sure she was okay.
“I need to go clean up the mess I made.”
“It’s taken care of.”
Taylynn shook her head. “I dropped those bottles. I need to go clean them up.” She tried to scramble from his lap. He caught her with an arm around her waist.
“Come back here.” He didn’t force her down, but he wasn’t letting her leave either. “I told Dax to clean it up. You were in no state and I want Freud to check you out before you do anything else. Besides, you’ve done enough for today.” He hoped she wouldn’t argue anymore. He hated telling her no, but she needed to rest. Sooner rather than later, the emotional drain of her outburst, not to mention the cost of her physical exertion, would hit. He wanted her with him when it did. He wanted to be able to be there for her when she was too tired to do anything more than lay down and, with any luck, sleep.
He’d spent the last two weeks on the other side of the wall, listening to her cry at night and only knowing that she wouldn’t want him to see her like that had kept him away. Well, that and knowing that if he tried to climb into her bed with her in the middle of the night, she’d likely freak out as badly as she had today. But if he started out with her, either holding her in the chair or stretched out on the bed, he hoped that would be better. He could only pray she would let him lay down beside her when the time came. He wasn’t going to force her to do anything and he thought she knew that but every time she flinched or shied away from him, his chest ached and he wanted to kill every Demon that had ever touched her.
He hadn’t done it. At least not yet. In his mind, they were all slated to die, it was just a matter of when and how. There were a couple who would know why, the others were destined to die just so she wouldn’t have to worry about seeing their faces and being thrown into a memory of them raping her ever again.