The Alpha: Claiming His Enemy's Daughter
Chapter 63: SHE IS NOT BREATHING!

Chapter 63: SHE IS NOT BREATHING!

"Step forward, anyone who has been hurt by her!" Hanna looked at them one by one. "I WILL HELP YOU STONE HER IF THERE IS ANYONE THAT CAN PROVE IT TO ME THAT SHE HAD HURT YOU! STEP FORWARD!"

"Why didn’t she help us in the beginning?" There was this sudden question among the crowd. Hanna turned around and came face to face with a young man around the same age as Will.

Hanna felt her heart would burst into pieces, she was overwhelmed with this emotion. She wanted them to understand, she wanted them to know what Iris had done for them desperately. She was afraid that her words would not be clear enough and they would turn deaf ears again.

But, she kept speaking what was in her mind. She stopped thinking and kept speaking whatever that came to her mind.

"She knew how much you have suffered at the hands of her father and brother! She was only ten years old when you were enslaved by alpha Gerald! What can a ten year old girl do for you!?"

That was right. Iris was only ten years old when they became slaves in the Blue Moon pack.

"Just like what you have heard! Everyone knows how much alpha Gerald hated her because she was born as a runt!"

Everyone in the crowd visibly lowered their head. Hanna was right. It was not even a secret that alpha Gerald and Mason didn’t like her because she was a useless runt and she rarely made an appearance because the two of them were ashamed of her.

And then, Hanna made a sudden move that they didn’t expect at all, leaving them speechless.

Crying, Hanna ripped the back of her dress and showed something to everyone present there; the ghastly scars on her back.

Though her body was covered in blood now, all of them could see the horrible state of her back. Something that they couldn’t even imagine at all.

"Look at this! Look at what her brother had done to her!" Hanna stood up and threw a vicious glare at them. She looked like she was going to shift and attack them all. "LOOK AT THIS CLEARLY AND TELL ME THAT SHE HAD NOT SUFFERED UNDER THEIR CRUELTY!"

A loud gasp rippled among the onlookers. Most of the women could only look at Iris’ back once and they didn’t have the heart to look at her twice. They felt shameful.

"She got beaten up every time she got caught trying to feed you all and steal medicine! She was whipped for that! And here you are?! Stoning her to death!? HOW DARE YOU?! You should be ashamed of yourself! YOU ARE THE MONSTERS!" Hanna screamed painfully until she was hyperventilating. "EVEN MONSTERS WILL KNOW HOW TO THANK THE PERSON THAT HELPED THEM!"

These feelings were too much for her.

The crowd grew silent, as the women started to cry while the men could only clench their fists. It was not only them that had suffered.

It was not Iris’ fault whatever that had happened to them and she had never done anything to harm them. They couldn’t imagine someone hurting their own flesh and blood like Alpha Gerald and Mason. Both of them should be left to rot in hell! They felt ashamed.

And the fact that all of them had been helped by Iris through Hanna made it even more worse. Guilty feelings started to creep into their hearts.

If Iris had been beaten and whipped because she had helped them, it meant, every scar on her body was because of them while it was really true for her new wounds after what they had done.

"Not even once! Not even once did she hurt you! Not even once did she agree with what her father and brother had done to you!" Hanna balled her hands into tight fists. She needed to control herself because she didn’t want to cry now. She must let them know the truth first. "Step forward, whoever thinks she has harmed you! I will help you stone her if it’s true!" She dared to say this because she knew a hundred percent that Iris had never done anything to them.

How could she do something when she was barely out of her bedroom, except for sneaking out at night occasionally?

"Do you really think her father and brother hated her just because she was born as a runt?! They excluded her because she is nothing like them! Her brother would whip her every time he found out that she sneaked around to prepare food for you! He had beaten her whenever he found out what she had done!

"Did she stop, though? NO! She never stopped doing that! Even when her back was bleeding from all the whipping, she didn’t think of stopping!"

Iris knew that her brother wouldn’t kill her. No matter how much her father didn’t care about her, she was still his daughter and she still had some value. It was always Mason who would punish her by beating and whipping her, while alpha Gerald didn’t care much as long as she didn’t die.

"She saved me when I was nothing but a slave!" Hanna shook her head. "No. Even a slave still had a higher rank than me at that time! I was being tortured to death but she saved me! She kept me by her side!"

She remembered how little Iris rushed toward the people that were beating her and pushed them away from her. Thankfully, the guards that came with her were able to bring them out of the chaos alive.

It was her fortune, because that happened on a rare occasion when Iris was allowed to step out of the pack house.

Hanna had been beaten, about to be sold as a sex slave because her parents left so much debt, since the tax was so high in this pack. Both of her parents died and she was alone. She thought that would be her life from then, but no, Iris came to save her.

Hanna was fifteen at that time.

"She is not a monster! She is not evil like her father and brother! SHE IS NOTHING LIKE HER FATHER AND BROTHER!" Hanna felt so tired to tell them this.

All of them looked regretful.

So did the guards, who didn’t do anything and just watched what they had done to Iris.

However, Hanna didn’t care about their REGRETS. It was not her that they had to feel sorry for or apologise sincerely.

Hanna’s eyes then landed on Grace, the healer, who had been treating Iris so coldly.

Before, Hanna wouldn’t even raise her voice when Grace treated Iris half-heartedly. She would accept that, because her dearest missy never wanted to raise a conflict by talking about what she had done for them.

But not anymore.

Hanna’s cold eyes were enough to make the hell freeze over.

"You, Grace." The healer flinched when Hanna called her out. She was standing among the crowd.

Yes, she didn’t participate in stoning Iris, but she didn’t do anything to help either when she could have prevented this from happening.

"Do you really think because you are a healer that alpha Gerald spared you?! If it was not for Miss Iris, who put the idea of taking you in in the head healer’s head, in hopes that you will be able to help your people, you would have ended up in a much worse fate with that beautiful face of yours!"

Yes, during that time, having a beautiful face was a curse. You will have to go through the unimaginable because of your face and Grace was so beautiful and young, a combination that would make the alpha and his son salivate over her.

"Miss Iris did everything to convince her teacher and the head healer to take you in! Have you ever wondered for even once how you can end up as a healer, when you are so young to be recognized as a useful healer?! They didn’t need you! You are not a genius that will only appear once in a hundred years!"

Hanna knew that her words were harsh and she shouldn’t speak that way, but then she couldn’t help it when she remembered how she had treated Iris, as if she was a nuisance and didn’t deserve to be saved.

Grace fiddled with her fingers when she heard that, she lowered her head in shame, but then she came forward and approached Iris’ battered body and started to cast healing magic on her to stop the bleeding.

She couldn’t do much with her healing power. As a runt, Iris didn’t respond to this magic. They needed to heal her in a conventional way.

"W- we need to get her treated immediately," Grace stuttered, she was so ashamed of herself, while Hanna broke down crying even more. She didn’t even dare to touch Iris, she was afraid that she would hurt her even more.

On the other hand, Will was so stunned to hear all this revelation, but then he snapped out of it and crouched down to carry Iris. He did that ever so gently, but even so, Iris still whimpered in pain, breathing raggedly.

Afterward, he rushed toward Iris’ bedroom. His head was spinning after hearing what Hanna had said. Everything made more sense now.

How could a servant like Hanna have access to the feasts that they had? Meat and medicine were two heavenly things that could soothe their misery.

Will ran as fast as he could, while Hanna and Grace followed behind him, leaving the crowd, who were sobbing, regretting their mistakes over how they had hurt the person that had helped them. All of them felt so remorseful, especially those who had stoned, beaten and kicked Iris mercilessly, though she had pleaded with them to stop.

However, Hanna didn’t care about what they were feeling right now, because the only important thing to her was Iris’ well being.

==========================

Amee forced herself to push back her pain and in a halting, tearful voice, she relayed everything that had transpired to the alpha.

Beside the alpha, were Jace and Ethan, both of them were stunned and unable to speak. Their minds reeled with the facts Amee and Grilla presented to them.

Of course, they had also eaten the meat and were very grateful for the medicine that Hanna and her friends had brought to them.

"Impossible..." Ethan frowned so hard.

"Where is she?" Cane stood up from his seat, as he walked toward the door. His expression was impassive, but there was a flicker of emotion in his dark eyes.

"She is in her room, Grace and a few healers are trying to help her." Grilla reported to him. She felt even more remorseful and awful than Amee, because she was the one who stopped her from preventing that from happening.

On the other hand, Amee was beating herself up for not being more vocal and stepping forward when she could still prevent it.

Both old ladies cried silently, they were so ashamed.

Grilla remembered how eager Iris was to help the victims, while she was suspicious of her intentions, when her heart was so pure. Hanna was right, they were the monsters, their hearts were so blinded by anger and hatred.

Even now there was not a single memory that she could recall where Iris hurt them. Even if you asked around, no one would be able to say anything bad about Iris, because there was nothing like that.

All of that was only in their minds. Their minds were so clouded by what alpha Gerald and Mason had done, so they looked at Iris in their shadow.

When Cane arrived at Iris’ bedroom, he saw Grace and Ardand, the head healer. He was an old man, who had retired, but Grace still asked him to come over, since Iris’ condition was too severe and she couldn’t use her healing magic.

Ardand gave instructions to the other two healers to start looking for herbs that could help treat Iris’ injuries, while Grace still tried to stop her bleeding.

"Oh, no!" Grace gasped, as she started panicking. "She is not breathing!"

Ardand immediately took Iris’ other hand and used his healing magic, but Iris’ body rejected that kind of magic.