We walk in silence for a few minutes. As soon as we entered the tree line, she ripped off her bulletproof vest and now I'm carrying it for her while she carries her gas mask. She'd rather not have any of it. She says the vest in particular makes her feel constricted. But she wears it to appease Dorian.
I keep her hand in mine and let her work through the mess of thoughts in her head. She's usually pretty confident in herself and in the power she has over us, but sometimes, and unfortunately more often lately, she manages to convince herself that she's not worth it, that she doesn't deserve it because she's only ever been a whore.
She doesn't understand how we see her. Lucas said it yesterday; she's our God. We'd give up everything for her. We fucking worship her.
I think she feels guilty for giving in to everything. Now that she has us and knows what it feels like to be loved, she hates what she became for those men. But we don't care. She was doing what she had to do to survive.
I stare down at her and she just looks like she's completely lost in her mind. Her eyes are far away and she's simply letting me lead her through the trees, barely paying attention to her surroundings.
I lean down to kiss her neck softly, "Talk to me, Elena. What's going on in your head?"
She turns to look at me and smiles, "I like how different you are with me."
I straighten up and raise a brow, "What do you mean?"
She shrugs and her wide eyes brighten a little as she stares up at me. "You're always so, I dunno... quiet, reserved... stoic?" She giggles and the sound immediately relaxes me. "I can't really explain it. But around other people you're just this intimidating presence and they're all scared of you. But with me you're..." Her face heats up and she bites down on her bottom lip, "you're... well, you're just different. You smile and laugh, and actually talk. You're so gentle and caring."
She stops and looks up at me through her lashes, "it's... nice to be the one that the Nathaniel King drops the mask for."
I curl a finger under her chin, tilting her face up and sliding my thumb along her bottom lip. "You're my girl, Elena. You're the only one I care about enough to drop the mask for. I'd never hide from you."
I pull down on her lip and her breath hitches, "Is that really what was on your mind?"
"Kind of," she says when I release her from my hold and we start walking again. "I was trying to remind myself of all the ways you guys have proven that you love me."
"Does that help you feel better when you're upset? Thinking about how much we love you?"
Her lips form a small smile and she nods, "Yes. It helps block out the other memories. And it helps when..." Her eyes well up and she swallows thickly before letting her mess of thoughts spill out, "Sometimes I worry that I suffered some kind of mental break and I'm still chained to my bed, daydreaming about Deacon whisking me away and killing Frank. I worry that I let those thoughts get carried away and this is all just happening in my head. What if I wake up one day and none of it was real? What if I wake up and he's there, just on me, just pressing into me. What if he never unchains me, what if I never escape him?"
I let her ramble and panic but then I cup her face in my hands and breath deeply, coaxing her to do the same. "It's real, Elena. We love you. We all love you so much. You'll never go through anything like that ever again. I won't let it happen." I wipe away a few of her tears and stroke her face, "You're safe, and you escaped. He's dead. Do you remember killing him?"
She nods slowly, her gorgeous eyes locked on mine.
"Think about his blood and the way it dripped from your hammer. That was real. That really happened, Elena. You fought him and you won."
"I won." She repeats the words, blinking away more of her tears.
I press my lips to hers and her eyes squeeze shut as she leans into me. I wrap my hands around her thighs and lift her into my arms, "Remember when we watched those wolves tear his body apart and fight over the pieces of him?"
She chuckles and nods, her fingertips caressing my face. "They devoured him."
"He's gone forever, Elena. And everyone who ever hurt you will be dead soon. I promise. None of them will survive this, even if we have to hunt them all down."
Her face screws up as more tears spill from her eyes, "I love you, Nate. I love you so much."
I claim her lips and she clings to me as she gets lost in the kiss. Having her in my arms makes everything feel right. She was meant to be with me, with all of us. Even if she's broken, we love all the pieces of her.
"I love you too, gorgeous. You're our God, Elena. We'll love you forever."
Her eyes widen, I think she's used to Lucas always saying that but not me, and her lips curl into a smirk. "You all worship me?"
"Of course. We'd kneel at your feet to prove it." I nip at her cheek, "We already have multiple times."
She giggles and her smile seems to come easier now, "That's true. You've all proven how devoted you are to me. It's just... difficult to believe sometimes."
"I know. But we'll keep doing everything we can to continue proving it. You're ours, Elena. I love you. Dorian loves you." I kiss her neck and drag my lips up to her ear, "Lucas loves you, Logan loves you." Her breath hitches and I bite at her earlobe, "Deacon loves you. Deacon has loved you more than anything since he first saw you. He's obsessed with you. We all are, Elena."
Her eyes are closed and her lips are curled into a smile.
"Do you believe me, gorgeous?"
"Yes," she almost moans the word and I feel the way her body shivers in my hold.
"What do you want?"
She opens her eyes and they're swirling with her arousal. "I want you, Nate. I want you to make me feel good."
I back her up against a tree and attach my lips to her neck. Her head falls back and her little whimper has my cock straining painfully in my pants. "When we get home, I want you to pay attention to the way the twins and Deacon will run up to you. Watch the way their eyes are going to light up when they see you."
I unbuckle her belt and she unbuckles mine, and I let her down so I can rip off her pants before picking her back up and slamming my cock into her soaking wet cunt.
"Ahhhh!" She cries out, her scream turning into a deep moan of pleasure.
"All three of them will pull you into their arms and hold you so tightly. It's only been half a day but they're lost without you right now, Elena."
I can't tell if she's actually hearing my words or if she's just lost to the pleasure I'm giving her, but she looks like she's in complete bliss as my cock pounds into her roughly.
"It's like that for all of us. Being away from you, even for a short time, is physically painful." I lean forward to nip at her neck. I keep her pinned to the tree and fuck her hard, one hand gripping her thigh, the other stroking her clit.
"We need you to survive, Elena. We can't breathe without you. We can't fucking function without you." I kiss my way up to her jawline and trail my lips to hers. "You're everything to us. And it's fucking real. You know it is. Don't you?"
She nods, her eyes fluttering closed.
"I know it's hard, baby." My lips move against hers and her tongue darts out to taste me. "But you are worth it. You're worth it to us. You're fucking perfect, Elena. Every broken piece of you is perfect. We love it all."
"Nate!" She gasps my name and I feel a shiver make its way up my spine.
"Yes, gorgeous girl?"
Her body stills for a split second before it starts to shake and she cums with a sexy groan. "Ohhh fuuuuck!"
I watch her ride it out; her golden eyes roll to the back of her head, her lips part, and her shaking body in my hold has me cumming deep inside her.
"Fuck," I grunt, keeping her pinned between me and the tree as we both come down from our intense orgasms. I press my lips to hers and slide my tongue into her mouth, enjoying her unsteady breaths as she tries to keep up with my kiss.
After a minute I let her down and she smirks up at me, "You guys really do make me feel like a fucking God, and it's going to end up going to my head."
I chuckle and help her with her clothes, and we pick up our stuff. "Good. It's better to know that you're a God and not a whore, Elena. Because you are. You're our God. We'd bow to no one else."
She blushes as she takes my hand and we start walking back to the car, both of us looking behind us at the sound of an explosion. We can't see past the trees but smoke starts billowing above them.
"Why did Dorian want to blow up the houses?"
"Mostly just as a warning to Mathias, but also so they can't use them again."
She nods and we get back to the car and I pull her into my lap in the back seat. She was silent the rest of the walk and I'm dying to know what she's thinking about.
"I'm sorry," she says suddenly, her eyes filled with worry.
"Why?" I kiss her cheek, wondering what the hell she could be sorry for.
"Your sister is in danger. We just watched her get shot and drugged, and I made it all about me." She blinks away more tears. "This isn't the time for me to break down and feel sorry for myself. I... shit. I'm sorry, Nate."
I shake my head, "If seeing those men triggered you, then it triggered you. You're allowed to feel the way you feel. I know you love Nat and you're worried about her. But those men hurt you too. It can't have been easy for you to see them hurting her. It wasn't easy for me, but I don't know them like you do."
She leans into me, her face buried in my neck and I run my fingers through her hair. "Try to sleep, gorgeous. You got less than a few hours last night and it's going to be a long day." I feel her nod and by the time Dorian and the guys get back, she's snoring softly in my arms.
Dorian stares at her sadly when he gets in the car and strokes her hair. "How is she?"
"She's..." I trail off and he nods.
Jensen starts driving and Justin glances back from the passenger's seat, "She really went through all that shit you told us about before we took the city?"
I nod and Dorian scoffs, "She's gone through worse than you could ever imagine. I barely scratched the surface of the shit she went through. We still don't even know the full extent of it all."
His eyes narrow as he stares at her, "that's fucked up."
"Yeah, it is," Dorian sighs. "She's stronger than all of us for surviving it though."
Justin nods and Dorian pulls the container of blunts from my pocket and lights one for me while I hold Elena. The car fills with smoke as I puff on it and my thoughts stray to Nat.
Fuck. She's tough, but when it comes to Cole she's weak. They can easily break her. They can break him too. And unfortunately, as much as I hate Cole for what he did to her, I can't stop myself from caring about him just because she loves him so much.
I didn't think my father would kill her, but seeing the look in Elena's eyes makes me think that he would do worse than kill her. And watching the way those men looked at her in that video makes my fucking skin crawl. They're all going to die anyway, but if they touch her, their deaths will be slow and they'll beg her for mercy. I won't kill them, I'll just make sure that she does.