Don't Touch My Men - Helen Scott Page 0,38

some of my horn into the wound.”

The sickly green cast to Hunter’s face made sense now, because there was no way Ellis would be able to do that to himself. He wasn’t the only one feeling sick though. My stomach turned, and suddenly, just as before, I had to turn so I could vomit out this black tar-like substance.

“It’s the dark magic purging itself from your system,” Mae said, sounding awed instead of disgusted, which was how I felt.

Hunter got up and grabbed me a glass of water, which I appreciated. After taking a few mouthfuls, I looked over at Ellis and said, “I can never thank you enough for that sacrifice.”

“You can thank me by not being such a dipshit again. You all but killed yourself. Is that what you think we want or need? Your burial rites to deal with? It’s bad enough that Mae was taken, but then you went and decided it was more noble to bleed out than to ask for help. Now we’ve got Mae back, but Grim is gone and you’re next to useless.”

“I’m sorry, Ellis. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I wanted to ask for help, but it never seemed like the right time or like it was important enough. The pain got so bad, it felt like I was this shell to house the dark magic that had infected me. I never meant to hurt myself badly enough to cause any worry, let alone almost kill myself.” My voice wavered at the end. It truly hadn’t been my intention.

“We know you didn’t,” Hunter said quietly. “It’s going to take all of us some time to move past that though.”

Silence fell between the four of us, and I missed Grim’s presence keenly. The big, gruff man made any silence seem bearable, but this one? It felt as sharp as broken glass. After a few moments, I said, “Can we talk about where Grim is and how we got Mae back?”

“He made a deal with the Horseman. I am allowed out with certain restrictions.” She paused and held up her hands, displaying her wrists, each of which had glowing blue bands of magic around them. “Grim is basically a marker. If I don’t come back, then the Horseman will most likely torture and execute him. The same if I return without his head.”

“Fuck,” I breathed.

“Right. The good thing is apparently, the way to kill the Horseman is written on his head or skull or something,” Mae said, her mouth tugging into a lopsided smile. “So at least there’s that.”

“Sure, yeah, ’cause why wouldn’t it be?” I mumbled, mainly to myself. It wasn’t that I was completely thrown by the information, but if the information I’d expected to hear had been a horse, I would no longer have been riding said horse.

Mae reached out from where she was sitting and took one of my hands in her own. Her warm skin was like a balm to my frayed mind and body.

“I’m glad you’re back. I know Grim taking your place isn’t ideal, but the man can handle himself,” I said quietly.

“I’m glad to be back, and I’m even happier that you’re alive. I know I’m going to need your help figuring out where to even start looking for the Horseman’s head.”

I sighed and nodded. Was that all I was to Mae? Just a research assistant? “We can start in the morning,” I said, suddenly exhausted.

“Only if you’re up to it,” Mae said gently.

“I’m going to go back to sleep now, so I’ll be ready in the morning,” I replied as I pushed to my feet. I braced myself on the table for a moment while my body adjusted to the new position, and when it no longer felt like the world was spinning around me, I slowly started making my way down the hall. Finally, when I closed the door to my room behind myself, I felt like I could take a deep breath.

Suddenly, everything was too much. I slid down my door until I was just slumped on the floor. Grim was gone, could be dead any second, and Mae was basically chained up with those damn bands. I knew that I would need to research the magic that was binding her just as much as the Horseman’s head.

There was so much to do, so much at stake, that I wasn’t sure how we could possibly win against the Horseman. The pain in my chest only increased as I thought through