The Alpha: Claiming His Enemy's Daughter novel Chapter 60

Chapter 60: HELPING OUT THE PACK

"Are you sure she is Gerald’s daughter?" A young woman approached Grilla, as she stared at Iris. "Or is she just pretending to be nice?"

Grilla shook her head. "I don’t know," she replied in a small voice, but she intended to look at her closely.

Meanwhile, Iris was not aware of what they were talking about, she only thought that they were mocking or cursing her for being there, which she was already used to and now, she only focused on what she was doing.

Attentively, she removed the bandages and cleaned up the rotten flesh and applied ointment, before she bandaged the wounds again. She had done it thrice before, so the fourth time was much easier for her.

However, the fifth man stirred and opened his eyes. Iris was surprised, but offered him a smile. She just put on ointment and only needed to bandage him again, but seeing he woke up, she offered to give him a glass of water, thinking he must be thirsty after being unconscious for so long.

Iris swiftly washed her hands and poured a glass of water for him.

"Here, you must be thirsty," Iris said warmly, as she brought the glass close to his lips, but to her surprise, he swatted her hand away, which caused the glass to shatter on the ground. It attracted attention from the people around, some patients stirred awake because of the disturbance.

"DON’T TOUCH ME!" The man roared in anger, the way he looked at her, as if he was going to kill her, made Iris jolt and stand up. She took a few steps back out of fear. "Don’t touch me, you monster!"

The last thing that he knew was; he was fighting a monster and got injured, only to wake up and see the daughter of alpha Gerald. His mind was racing back to the days of his slavery and he couldn’t control his emotions, despite his body aching all over.

It was a fact that nobody would ever get over what happened on those dark days.

"GET OUT!" The man screamed and became even more ferocious when Iris didn’t move.

It was not that she didn’t want to go from there, but she was too afraid to move, her body didn’t want to cooperate with her, her leg was cut when he pushed the glass to the ground, but she didn’t feel the pain, she was stunned.

"Come here," Grilla said, as she pulled Iris away, out of the tent, while the others tried to calm the man down.

Once they were outside, the cold night breeze hit her face and it made her able to breathe again. Iris was hyperventilating without her knowing it.

Grilla gave her a glass of water to calm her down, which she ended up finishing in one go. She felt slightly better now, but the panic was still there.

"I- I didn’t do anything to him... I just gave him a glass of water." Iris was afraid that Grilla would think that she was trying to harm the man, without that accusation alone, she had been hated enough.

"I know, I know..." Grilla said in an attempt to calm her down, because she was stuttering now. "That man is named Avid. He had it hard in your father’s reign, so the sight of you must have triggered something in him."

"Wh- what happened to him?" Iris knew that she shouldn’t ask. Nothing good would come out of this and even if she knew, there was nothing that she could do to change other people’s views of her.

Grilla sighed deeply. "Your father used his parents, his siblings and himself as bait to lure the monsters out, but he was the only survivor. He watched his family get killed and he couldn’t help them."

The guilty feeling as a survivor was something real, which you couldn’t simply put aside and her father had this penchant of making other people feeling helpless and desperate, making them lose all hope that they had, shattering even the tiniest bit of light for them to live on.

Thus, it would be their minds that died first before their bodies followed.

"Go and take a rest. I can’t let you in any longer, but if you still want to help, I can put you somewhere." Grilla watched how Iris was crying silently, she wiped her tears roughly, so she still could read what she said. "Now go back and rest."

The sight of her crying like this didn’t settle well with her. It shook the whole image that they had built around her, since it would be Gerald’s shadow that shrouded her every time they looked at this young woman.

Iris nodded and wiped her tears again, before she muttered a ’thank you’ and then walked away toward the pack house.

She sniffled on her way to her bedroom. She really wanted to know why her father and brother were so cruel as she had to bear the brunt of something that she didn’t do now. They hated her for what they had done.

The path ahead of her was slightly blurry because of tears, yet because she had been living in this place for twenty years, it was not hard for her to find her way around.

When Iris entered her bedroom, Hanna had been waiting, she looked worried and Iris felt bad to make her feel that way.

"I will prepare a warm bath, okay? You will feel better after that," Hanna said. She didn’t ask what happened, because she could see how distraught Iris was right now.

After that, she prepared a bath for her missy.

At least, Hanna was right about one thing; after taking a bath, Iris felt slightly better and easily fell asleep, but her nightmares still troubled her.

Early in the morning, she was woken up by Hanna, who told her that Ethan was waiting outside the door, he said that they needed to go to the mines.

"Now?" Iris looked around and realized the sky was still so gloomy, which meant she didn’t even sleep for three hours completely.

"Yes. He said he wants you to hurry," Hanna said, sounding almost apologetic because she knew how tired Iris was, but she couldn’t turn the gamma down. "I told him that you will need fifteen minutes to get ready, since you came so late last night."

Iris thanked her and immediately got off the bed and prepared herself. Hanna helped her to braid her long, curly hair, so it wouldn’t get in the way.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Hanna asked out of concern.