Chapter 73: Winslow or Gotteigen?

T/W: explicit description of violence

Noah’s POV

The masked man who was seconds away from violating me is shaking in the corner of the room.

I can’t even lift my head to see what’s going on, but the person who came to warn him is also shaking.

Run, Noah. Run for your life.

But knowing that I can’t run in this condition, I try to crawl away.

I reach my hand out to drag my body, but someone else lifts my body off the floor and I growl as best as I can.

"Don’t...don’t touch me..." I say, fighting blindly while the person grabs my chin, forcing me to stay still as he does something strange to me.

Is he wiping me with his own handkerchief?

Tears flood my eyes as it dawns on me that these abusers would like to see their victims clean.

I growl again, baring my teeth, and still trying to fight him off even though I’m losing my breath.

"My husband...my husband will kill you" I say and the person stops struggling with me.

His cold and oddly small hand strokes my hair off my face.

"Don’t touch me!" I snap.

My sight is blurry but it doesn’t stop me from opening my mouth to take a bite at the monster touching me.

"I’m your husband, Angel" the person says and the fight leave my body.

Please be real. Please be real. Don’t be a fragment of my imagination. I can’t take it if Elias is not really here.

"Elias?" I ask, blinking the tears away to see his face.

It’s him.

It’s not an hallucination.

Elias is here for me. I can see his thick and furrowed brows, his straight nose, his clean-shaven jaw and his deep brown eyes.

His usual dead eyes are stormy. Those dark orbs feel like quiet madness that are disguised as normal human eyes.

"Elias" I say his name again with my heavy tongue, and he takes his eyes off mine, breaking our eye contact as he wipes the disgusting fluids off my face.

His lips are pressed together in a straight line and it makes me hate myself. He calls me Angel, would he see me the same after this?

"You gave me...you let me go" I stutter and he completes wiping my face with his handkerchief.

I can smell his pheromones on the filthy fabric and the cold scent of him makes me relax a bit.

"You let me go" I repeat myself.

"We’ll talk about that later" he says curtly. He takes off his jacket and wraps it around my naked body.

Goddess.

I’m naked, covered in cum, and lying in vomit.

I’m so disgusting.

"What did he do to you?" he points to the man who’s still shaking against the wall like he’s waiting to be told what to do.

"Nothing...he just...masturbated on my face" I say, throat closing up at with how dirty I feel about it.

"Did he touch you?" Elias asks and I look at his face again.

Maybe it’s because Freya was giving me away for not being a virgin, but why am I scared Elias would give me away for being touched by someone else?

"Answer, Noah. I need your answers" Elias says and I shake my head with difficulty. Tears stream down my face as I sob and Elias nods.

"I’ll let you go for a few seconds" he whispers and I shake my head again.

"No" I whimper.

"Fuck...Angel, this might be the only time I will ever appreciate you shaking your head at me" Elias murmurs, stroking my cheek gently.

"Don’t let me go" I say, reaching to grab onto any part of him, but he puts my hand down.

"Wait for me" he orders and goes to my masked buyer and the guard.

They exchange words but I don’t hear them over my omega’s loud whining. My omega is prowling and begging for the alpha’s attention inside me.

Elias and the man keep talking and in less than three minutes two gunshots ring out.

A body hits the floor, then another one follows.

From the sound of it, it’s as if the second body fell into the blood of the first dead body, but I don’t look.

I’m too scared of what I’ll see.

My limbs feel less heavy, but they still don’t feel like mine. They feel fake and different.

"Come here" Elias’s cold voice says, sending my heart into a state of fluttering.

It’s really the wrong place, situation and time, but my heart is fluttering for him.

The alpha has added new details to himself. There’s the blood of my buyer in his hair, on the corner of his mouth, and on his neck.

He carries and takes me out of the room. His arms are firm around me, and my nose is automatically seeking out his scent.

Death should scare me, but I’m not scared. I’m easing into him.

Elias stops outside the hallway and I lift my head slightly to peek at what he’s looking at.

It’s the men who asked Freya for permission to force me.

"Let’s go, Elias. Please" I whisper, holding him tighter in fear, but he doesn’t move.

"Which one of them touched you?" he asks me and shame colors my cheeks red. Three different men have tried raping me in less than three hours. I’m so disgusting.

"Noah" Elias calls my name, snapping me out of my guilty and I sniffle.

"B-both" I say with a voice that’s growing weaker and Elias nods.

"I’ll put you down for a few seconds" he says and helps me lean against the wall. I don’t take my eyes off him as he approaches them.

"Elias" I call his name to make him rethink the decision, but he doesn’t look at me. Those men are bigger than him. They could hurt him badly and...

Oh my goddess...

Elias’s screwdriver is swallowed up by the soft skin of the first guard’s neck, and I watch with horror as blood spruts out like it’s coming from a broken pipe.

They’re bigger than Elias, but Elias is deadlier than they are.

The other one watches his friend fall to the floor and fight for his life. When he snaps out of the shock, he gives Elias a hard punch to the jaw.

"Elias!" I shout my husband’s name and my voice comes out smaller than it should.

"You touched what’s mine" Elias says in a calm voice, retrieving the screwdriver from the dying man’s neck.

"You touched..." Elias’s words end with a second punch and he stares blankly at attacker before stabbing the bloodied screwdriver into the guard’s eye.

Completely horrified, I turn my head to the side.

The wet sound of screwdriver being pulled out reaches me and I shut my ears too. It’s too much for me. My stomach is churning and I don’t think I have the energy to throw up again.

A few minutes of grunting and begging later, Elias returns to me.

And apart from the blood sliding down the side of his face, he still looks disturbingly calm and composed as he picks me up.

He takes me outside of the building and I finally breathe in.

"Somebody help!" I hear Freya’s scream and I hide my face again in his neck.

Elias must have hurt her before coming for me. I don’t want to look at her. She’s making my heart hurts.

"Help! There’s a psychopath here! Help" she continues to scream.

"What do you want Noah?" Elias asks me.

"I just want to go home" I say quietly.

Winslow? Gottingen? Where Elias is? Which home am I talking about? I’m not sure.

"You’ll go home. You’ll be going wherever I take you" he says as he opens the passengers side of his running car and places me in it.

I just don’t want him to leave me again.

I grab him by the hair and he stares at me with a look that doesn’t look or feel like anger.

The look is more like approval, but I might be wrong since I’m still healing from Freya’s poisoning and the effect it has on me.

Oh...the poisoning...

Did Elias ever suspect that I was pregnant with his baby too?

"Eli..." I say, voice cracking before I can complete the name, and he tilts his head to study me.

"I’m not pregnant" I whisper as I break into a sob.

He doesn’t say a word. He just takes my hand off his hair and slams the door shut.

My heart dies in my chest and I fold my legs up, wrapping my arms around myself. He doesn’t like when his obsession is damaged by someone who isn’t him.

I guess this is where we say goodbye...again.