The Alpha: Claiming His Enemy's Daughter-Chapter 43: THE AMOUNT OF PAIN

Cane heard the creaking sound of the door and saw Iris staring at him with a complicated expression on her pale face. She lowered her head and fiddled with her fingers, not knowing what to do.

For a moment, Cane just stared at her with a stoic expression. He still had not yet decided what he was going to do with her now that the situation became even more complicated than he intended it to be.

This gave him another headache to kill his brain cells over.

"Come here." Cane narrowed his eyes when he saw she didn’t move an inch and then remembered that she couldn’t hear him. He waved his hand to beckon her over.

Iris saw the movement from the corner of her eyes and walked toward him slowly. She was mortified when the alpha raised his hand and wrapped his fingers around her neck, as his eyes darkened to see his mark on her skin.

At this moment, Iris still did not realize about the mark on her. She thought she was bitten by the monster and the fact that she might be marked didn’t even cross her mind.

However, Cane saw it and he was not happy at all to see his mark on her. His enemy’s daughter. Gerald’s laugh kept ringing in his head, sounding like he was mocking him all over again for marking his daughter. He would roll over in his grave, laughing over how stupid he was.

"Ma- master..." Iris held his hand when his fingers tightened around her neck. He was trying to choke her and the realization made her panic, especially when she could see the hostility in his dark eyes.

With his strength, he would be able to crush her neck easily.

Iris gasped for air, but her airway was blocked and she started to claw at his hand, leaving marks there, but it healed within a second. He didn’t feel any pain from it. Not even in the slightest.

And when Iris’s face turned red and the pain became more unbearable, as she thought she would die from strangulation, Cane finally let her go.

Her legs became so weak, as she dropped to the floor, coughing fervently.

Her neck was in pain and her ears kept ringing. She gulped the air greedily to fill her empty lungs, but then she coughed even harder. Her whole body was trembling in fear.

Iris wanted to move away from him, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do so when she didn’t have strength to stand up or even carry herself away.

She flinched and whimpered when Cane hunkered down in front of her. His eyes were still emotionless, watching her in pain. He waited until Iris stopped coughing. It took a long time for her to be able to breathe normally.

Cane pinched her chin to tilt her head up, so she could see his face and read his lips, for he had a question to ask. "What were you doing in that hut?"

That was not an unpredictable question, since Iris knew that he would ask about it sooner or later, but she doubted that he would accept her answer.

"I- I heard a howl."

Cane narrowed his eyes. "You can’t hear."

Iris knew he wouldn’t believe that, because she didn’t believe it either. It had been years since the last time she heard anything, aside from her own voice in her mind.

"But, I heard it." She insisted. She didn’t know what kind of lie that she could offer. So, it would be better if she told him the truth, since Cane looked like someone who would be able to sniff a lie from miles away. "I heard a howl and followed the sound of it."

"Why?"

Iris could understand why it was hard to believe her explanation, if she were in his shoes, she wouldn’t believe herself either. Why would she follow the sound of that howl? Normally, the first instinct that came to your mind was to run away from such an unknown howl.

Howls like that must be coming from a beast and someone like her, a runt, who knew nothing about protecting herself, should seek for a shelter, not the other way around.

Iris tried to explain herself the best way she could, but she knew it was not convincing enough for Cane.

"Do you know what happened to you then?" Cane’s voice became so much darker now.

Iris nodded. "Yes..." her voice was small. It was filled with dread when the events of that night rushed to her mind once again. She still remembered how she thought she would die when the monster pounced onto her and shifted back into its human form.

"What have you seen?"

Iris swallowed, but it hurt her throat tremendously. She felt like she was eating sand that grazed her gullet.

"A... a monster, chained to the wall with silver chains and then..." She avoided his intense gaze when she spoke again. "I saw the monster shift into its human form before he bit me..."

Her whole body was trembling when she remembered that moment. That was the most terrifying moment in her life, aside from when Mason whipped her when he was drunk.

"And then? What else?" His voice was akin to glaciers.

"The monster..." Iris lowered her head, she was so afraid to say this out loud. "The monster shifted into a man and it was you..."

Iris could feel the tension building up once she let those words out. Would he hit her? Would he choke her to death like he did earlier? Would he kill her for knowing what was supposed to be a secret?

Probably Cane would have done that if he didn’t accidentally mark her. He marked her without her consent. More so, he didn’t have control over what he was doing at that time. Her scent drove the monster crazy and her touch felt like fresh water that soothed his pain and he wanted more, because the pain wrecked him and it was unbearable.

But, Cane didn’t mean for that to happen.

However, he couldn’t kill her now of all times since the bond between them started to form already. This was a lost cause for him.

"Was it you?" Iris wanted to make sure that her fear didn’t cloud her mind and she saw something that didn’t even exist.

Iris raised her head and looked at him closely, she was sure that she could see a murderous intention flashing in the back of those dark eyes, as if his beast would come forward and rip her apart. She shuddered involuntarily and dropped her head, as she stuttered.

"I- I promise I will not say anything about that night. I swear, I will not utter a single word." Iris shook her head. "I will do anything you tell me to do." Her throat was killing her and she was afraid, besides being unable to hear, she would soon be unable to speak.

The pain from his strangulation was so severe, but she was afraid to show it, since she was in a position where she couldn’t upset the alpha even more than this.

Once again, Cane put his finger under her chin and tilted her head up, so she could look at him. "Do you know what else happened that night?"

Iris was confused with the question, as she searched in her memories about that dreadful night, but she couldn’t find anything aside from what she had told him.

"I don’t know what else happened... I- I lost consciousness..." Iris was still visibly trembling, especially when Cane grabbed her hand all of a sudden and forced her to stand up, he dragged her to the other side of the room.

The grip was so tight, she was sure that he would leave bruises on her wrist, but that was the least of her concerns, because things could go so bad for her, so much more than suffering a few bruises.

But, Cane stopped and then made her stand in front of the mirror, as he pulled down her collar, which made Iris recoil out of instinct, but the alpha steadied her first and made her stand there firmly.

Cane pulled aside her curly, auburn hair and made her look at her own reflection in the mirror.

At first, Iris could only see a pale, skinny girl, with big blue eyes, which looked so big and out of proportion for her face staring back at her. Her auburn hair was messy, her curls made her head look so big. She didn’t see herself as a beauty and that was what her brother always told her.

But then, her eyes trailed down to her neck, since Cane pulled her collar down to let her see what was there and Iris gasped. She was shocked to see a mark on her neck.

She knew what a mark like this meant to shifters. She had seen it herself and how sacred a mark was, but how? How could she get this mark? And the realization dawned on her, which made her stagger back, but Cane held her, so she could face this reality.

"Impossible..." Iris would have never thought that getting that bite from the monster would be a marking process. "How... how can this happen?" Iris turned her body around and then faced Cane. "Why?"

Cane felt aggravated by the question, but it didn’t show on his expression.

"I don’t want a single soul to know about this." His voice was so low and cold. It emanated danger. The tension was so heavy, it made Iris feel like he strangled her again. "Not a single soul will learn about this and what happened that night."

Iris nodded. She knew that she had to clamp her mouth shut the moment she learned a secret that she shouldn’t know.

"Say something about this and I will throw you to those savages, for them to take pleasure from you until your last breath."

Iris felt her eyes sting with tears and fear. She nodded again and immediately covered her neck with her long, curly hair. She didn’t want to die in that way. That was a horrible way to meet your demise.

There was one time in the past when she sneaked out of her room in the middle of the night and saw how her brother ordered ten savages to rape Will, Cane’s personal guard at present, and the image would never go away from her mind.

She couldn’t hear Will let out endless earth- shattering screams, but she could feel it when he saw the anger and desperation in his eyes.

They had freed themselves from the slavery, but no one would be able to recover fully from what happened, from the hell that they had gone through and that was understandable. What they had gone through was so severe, it was beyond your worst nightmare and it dragged on for years.

People, who still stood strong and didn’t break during all those hellish days, would never be normal.

"U- understood." Iris nodded, she tried to hold back her tears. Her brother always told her that she upset him more when she was crying, thus she didn’t want to do that.

"Leave now."

Cane didn’t want to see her. She gave him another trouble that he didn’t want to face.

Meanwhile, reading that, Iris immediately rushed out of the bedroom. Her legs almost gave away, but she willed herself to be, at least, on the other side of the door before she broke down. She didn’t want Cane to change his mind and punish her later.

On the other hand, after Cane heard the door being closed, he broke down. He fell to his knees and covered his face with both of his hands, his shoulders trembled. The realization that he had marked another girl wrecked him. It felt like an insult to Leane. To his destined mate. He felt horrible.

More so, it was the girl that he was supposed to hate to death.

There were no tears, he couldn’t cry, but the pain shook his whole body. This amount of pain suffocated him.

He felt like he had betrayed his dead mate.