THE MONSTER

'Because I don't want to hurt you.'

What Cane said kept ringing in Aria's mind. Her body was aching all over, but she was still able to feel the pleasant feeling of her releases, the way Cane took pleasure from her and the other way around.

Cane had never been gentle with her, but she didn't complain, she liked it when they were together and she could do something for him that no one else was able to do.

She felt they shared something special between them, which no one could understand. If it was Iris in Aria's position right now, she would have died already.

A soft smile tugged on the corners of her lips.

"He doesn't want to hurt me…" Aria kept repeating the words and then curled her body to sleep in the room next to the alpha's chambers, the place where she could take a rest after Cane was done with her.

She wanted to be as close as possible to him.

"He is concerned about me." Aria bit her lip and remembered the way Cane touched her.

Meanwhile, Grilla was cleaning up the mess that they made. The sheets are stained with their releases and her blood.

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Iris felt her brain was boiling from all the heat, her vision was blurry and her breath kept hitching. She was exposed to the sun from noon until sunset. It felt almost like hell.

Calluses started to form on her palms because she dug the hard ground all this afternoon and was only fed a piece of hard bread and a bottle of water. It was barely enough for such hard labor.

Those who complained would be kicked and have to receive harsh punishment. People die in this place every day, but there will always be someone new here.

It seemed, the current alpha had managed to swipe most of Mason's supporters and made them work to death in these mines, if they managed to escape death punishment that was.

"Don't you know that I am a close relative of the former beta! I come from a prestigious family!" One of the men shouted, as he threw the hard bread on the ground and shattered the glass in his hand.

Iris jolted and moved away from that commotion, because she saw there were a few slave trainers that came his way.

She recognized the man, he was indeed a cousin of the former beta during her father's reign, but right now, he was no more than a slave.

With the drug that they fed them and the anklet on his leg, he couldn't shift into his beast and it was nearly impossible to escape from here.

"Good! So, you are the dirty blood of that beta!?" One of the slave trainers landed a hard punch on his face. "Should we rip his throat so he will not make noise and start to work?" He contemplated with his four fellow trainers.

"Yeah, cutting his tongue will be nice, so he will not be able to complain."

"It is so funny to see how they complain about this kind of work."

Right.

Compared to what the people from the Howling Wolf pack had to do when they enslaved them, this kind of work was heaven.

Iris immediately took her shovel and went to dig somewhere, because she didn't want to see the bloody scene that would follow later.

"Where are you going?"

Iris bumped into someone and because she was too exhausted, she didn't have the energy to steady herself in time and fell on her butt.

She grimaced and then lifted her head to see who it was.

Her eyes clashed with Stone's menacing ones, the slave trainer that was in charge of her.

"Trying to run away?"

Iris shook her head.

"I… I am going to work…"

Stone shifted his attention to the commotion behind Iris and watched how the man howled in pain when they broke his arms.

"Why? You don't like to see that?" He nodded to the event that unfolded behind, but Iris didn't want to turn her head. "Your father and brother really enjoy such scenes, you know."

"I am not them," Iris replied in a small voice.

Anger flashed in Stone's eyes. "So, you think you are better than them?!" He reached out to her face and pinched her chin, so their eyes could meet.

"I have never hurt you," Iris replied, she bit her lip in fear. Hanna said that she couldn't talk back, or else they would hurt her even more.

"Their blood runs in your veins, I doubt that you had never hurt someone," Stone scoffed and then released her face. "Work, or I will give you to those men. They will be happy to take you."

Iris shuddered when she heard that, but she knew that they wouldn't do anything sexual with her, since she was the alpha's slave, though they were still able to torture her in different ways.

With every step that Iris took, she felt her legs almost give away, her muscles burned in pain and even though the sun had set, she could feel her head was so hot.

However, when she crouched down to dig the hard ground, she felt hurried footsteps and then there were many people running past her.

Because Iris couldn't hear what they said, she was very late to realize that they were in danger. Once she looked in the direction they were running away from, she could see a horde of monsters.

Each monster was twice the size of normal people, with four arms and a body as hard as rock.

At the same time, the slave trainers and the guards were rushing forward to fight these monsters in their beast form.

However, at this point, Iris was too late to escape and she was so close to the battlefield. No one would care so much as to save her from this catastrophe, knowing how much they hated her.

Therefore, Iris tried to run as fast as she could, ignoring the pain in her legs and how her lungs were burning in pain. She needed to escape from this chaos.

"THE MONSTERS! THE MONSTERS ARE HERE! CALL MORE GUARDS!"