Don't Touch My Men - Helen Scott Page 0,75

felt the flow of the glowing white liquid as it poured from my forehead. I used my arm to wipe it before it could fill my eyes, then stared down at my horn in my hands. I turned and vomited into the grass for several long seconds before I wiped my mouth and turned to face Grim once more. I ripped his shirt free, then didn’t hesitate. I pulled the horn back and plunged it into his heart.

It felt so strange, sitting there, wiping away the blood from my horn, knowing that I could never go back again. Knowing that I gave up the most important part of myself for a legend. For hope.

Before Mae, I thought I might have been the kind of man to let Grim die. Not because I was cruel, or because I didn’t love him, but because I never would have gambled on something so unrealistic.

A cold wind blew through the empty graveyard as I watched Grim’s body, hoping for something, hoping for anything to change, but his battered body remained the same. My horn was little more than a severed limb in his chest.

I bowed my head over him and pressed my knuckles to my eyes to keep from completely losing control. I needed to go. I needed to run and help Mae and Hunter before his sacrifice was in vain, but I couldn’t seem to will myself to stand. Never before had I been so broken, so desperate, so alone.

Pulling my hands from my face, I forced myself to my feet. I fell, then rose again and staggered against a headstone. The pain was unlike anything I’d imagined. It was soul-deep, like something great and beautiful had been lost from the world forever.

A part of me wondered how many unicorns were left. Was I the last?

Then I heard someone throwing up.

My back stiffened, and I turned slowly around. Grim had turned his head slightly to hurl, but before my eyes, his wounds began to heal. His body knitted itself back together, and the swelling in his face vanished. My horn seemed to melt and spread over him, coating him in a shimmery dust.

His eyes suddenly turned to me, and widened. “Ellis, how did you…? Why did you…? No. I was okay. I could handle the deadside. You—”

“I couldn’t handle the living side without you.”

I moved back to him and fell to my knees. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into a sitting position.

“Ellis, what’s happening?”

“What?”

“Look!”

I opened my eyes and saw the shimmering silver dust was swirling around us. My throat tightened, and I felt my eyes stinging. This must be when my unicorn magic vanished from the world forever.

Then it slammed into me, and I hit the ground behind me hard, knocking the air from my lungs. I was staring up at the sky in shock, and my body seemed to hum and sing all at once.

All my pain, all my fear…

It was gone.

“Your horn…it’s back,” he said, and there was awe in his voice.

I reached up and touched it, and my voice came out ragged. “There was a legend that said a unicorn could bring back the recently dead. I’d never heard of it actually happening, but it was supposed to be the ultimate sacrifice. I never knew that it could…that it could come back.”

Grim helped me stand, and then we hugged again so tightly, it took my breath away.

He pulled back. “We’re alive. Now we need to save the world.”

I nodded, and we both looked at the building. “Mae and the others are already there, but are we too late?”

“Not yet.”

I whirled to find the strange vampire Mae had been talking to lingering in the shadows.

Grim stepped forward as if to fight him, and I grabbed his arm. “He’s…a friend of Mae’s.”

“What can I do?” he asked. “Without facing the Horseman himself.”

My thoughts slammed together. “Go after his sister, Adelle. The banshee. She’s trying to get far enough to not be heard, but she may need your help.”

He nodded and took off into the woods.

“My sister? A banshee?”

I nodded. “We have a lot to talk about. But first…” I held out the dagger to my arm and slit it, watching the blood pool out. I lift it over his cuffs.

“What the hell?” He sounded freaked out.

I grinned. “Well, you’re going to need your powers if you’re going to help us save the world.”

33

Mae

The Horseman had set himself up like a king in a castle with all his peons out