Iris was shocked, unable to believe it when Cane told her to ride on the back of his beast. She thought he was joking and playing with her, but then she realized it was out of character for him to do so.
"It will take forever to reach the Riverside pack by foot."
Cane simply said that when Iris looked mortified after he told her what to do. In a way, he was right because at normal pace by carriage and horse, it would take them more or less two whole weeks, let alone by foot.
And it was out of the question to leave Iris behind.
At first, it felt so awkward to clamber on top of the black beast, as Iris felt it was so intimate to straddle him, but after the second day, she finally got a hang of it and felt less clumsy. Actually, she started enjoying it in no time.
The silence between them, the cold breeze that caressed her cheeks and the closeness... the serenity Iris had never felt before. Iris felt so close to Cane, not because she literally hugged him through the morning and the afternoon, until evening came, with intermittent breaks in between, but because she felt connected to her mate, despite there was no word that was exchanged between them during the long hours of their journey.
This was the peace Iris couldn’t describe. Not even words could define what they had right now.
Iris wondered whether Cane felt the same as her. Sometimes, she could feel his sincerity and how he tried to make things work in their relationship, just like what he promised her, but oftentimes, she felt this doubt in her heart, because Cane had never expressed his feelings clearly to her.
He was very short with his words and you had a better chance turning into a mermaid than getting a full explanation from his mouth.
Therefore, days in the forest, on their way back to one of the southern packs, the Riverside pack, were very blissful. This was the quiet they needed after the chaos in the capital city.
Cane shifted into his human form and approached Iris. "Tired?" They stopped at the riverbank, so they could fill their waterskins. There were still big chunks of ice floating in the river water.
"No." Iris shook her head, she pulled down her hoodie and squatted down near the river to wash her face. The water was so cold, but it was refreshing.
Somehow, maybe because she ate more healthy food and Hanna could take better care of her, since it was easy for her to get tonics to nurse her health, Iris was way better on a long journey like this and didn’t feel tired easily, nor did she fall sick. Moreover, this was not her first long journey, Cane had taken her to more places with him within less than a year than she went to during her entire twenty years of life.
"I will be right back," Cane said, as he caressed her head. "Stay here." He wiped her wet face with his sleeves and then turned around to shift back into his beast.
Meanwhile, Iris waited for him to return. Cane went to hunt their dinner and in the west, the sun had almost set, leaving the sky in a hue of red. It was a beautiful color, almost the same color as her hair.
Because they needed to avoid the main road, so their whereabouts wouldn’t be traced out by the search party that was sent by the royal family and also warriors from the Red Claw pack, they needed to make stops as little as they could and rush to the Riverside pack.
Even though Ethan had his eyes on the search party and the Red Claw pack warriors, Cane still needed to take precautions, so the story of the lycan kidnapping Iris and him going to save his mate would remain the same, no one could prove otherwise of that story.
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