Don't Touch My Men - Helen Scott Page 0,37

I tried to push to my feet. I knew the guys must have found me, because I wasn’t wearing a shirt anymore, which meant they’d seen the hack job I’d done on myself. Oh, they were going to be mad, I just knew it.

Maybe if Mae was really home though, then they’d be too distracted to be pissed at me.

Since when did I start thinking of this as Mae’s home? I mean, I knew we’d had that moment where we all admitted we wanted to date her, myself included, but since then, the whole world had gone to shit and most of us had barely even been in the house except to sleep. Part of me wondered if we could even survive this, simply based on what we had been seeing in the world. Everything was so messed up, and the Horseman was definitely a force to be reckoned with, even with Mae’s ever evolving magic.

After I’d managed to stay standing for more than a few minutes, I took a few steps to my dresser and grabbed a shirt, one of my old button-downs, so I didn’t have to try and get it over my head. Even just the movement of getting my arms in felt like I was stretching my skin beyond its limits and that it would tear any second. I had to grit my teeth and stretch as much as I could to get the second sleeve on.

When I was done, it felt like I’d run a marathon. I was practically panting from the exertion. Doing up all the buttons afterward was too much, so I only did a few, just enough so that the shirt held together and partially obscured the horror show that was my chest.

Looking down at the wound, I could see that it did look better, but there was a weird cloudy patch on my skin, as though someone had spilled white paint on me but hadn’t wiped it all away. I wasn’t sure what it was, but the guys would know, that much I was certain of. The only way for me to find out was to find them though, so I slowly staggered toward my door and out of my room.

The sounds of fucking had stopped a while ago, when I’d passed back out, but now I could hear soft voices, one of which was definitely Mae’s, coming from the living room area. I braced myself against the wall with one hand and made my way toward the sound.

“Fucking hell, Alastair,” Hunter grumbled as soon as he saw me. The fae was up on his feet and helping me walk the rest of the way before I could even respond.

Finally, after I slumped down in one of the chairs around the kitchen table, I said, “Nice to see you too, Hunt.”

My eyes swung to the others, and I found Ellis watching me with a look on his face that was a mixture of sadness and hope. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know why he was looking at me like that, so I looked over at Mae instead. Her hair seemed brighter and richer than I remembered, and her blue eyes more like a sapphire sky. My breath practically caught in my chest just at the sight of her.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think she was beautiful before, but now there was this…extra shine to her. I wanted to run my fingers through her hair, to trace the edge of her ruby lips with my tongue, to have her look at me the same way she looked at the others. I wanted that lust directed at me, but I wasn’t sure it ever would be, especially considering how I’d mutilated myself.

“Want to tell us what you were thinking?” Ellis asked, sounding cold and distant.

Hell hath no fury like a unicorn scorned.

“I thought I could handle it, sorry,” I said spreading my hands in front of me on the table.

“You’re still not fully healed though?” Mae asked.

“No, though I don’t know what happened after I passed out, so I’m sure that my brothers by choice had something to do with keeping me alive.”

“You could say that,” Hunter replied, looking a little green and sickly, which I’d never seen on him before.

“You were bleeding out, and the dark magic had infected you,” Ellis said, pausing as he seemed to prepare himself for whatever it was he had to say. “So the only way for us to save you was to shave off