The Alpha: Claiming His Enemy's Daughter
Chapter 931: MANIPULATION AND THE TRUTH (4)

Chapter 931: MANIPULATION AND THE TRUTH (4)

After Rei had taken away Elder Dandolf before he could give any information about what happened to her mother, Iris was left inside this empty hall, where she felt a strong black magic from a certain direction.

She didn’t have any idea where she was right now, but her instinct told her there was a massive mishap somewhere. Rei managed to manipulate the situation, yet was it really only her?

Where was Cane? He was supposed to be here.

She was not inside the abandon house and now she wondered whether that house was really existed in the first place.

Her little lights fluttered around her. One of them rested on her shoulder and then moved slowly, while the other was spinning above her head.

Iris raised her hand and the little light perched on her finger. "It’s okay, baby. It’s okay." She smiled softly, but there was this nagging feeling in her heart that told her to find the source of the black magic she felt right now.

Iris looked around her. She was not sure where the exit was, whether how she could get here, thus she followed the only guide she had; the black magic, which led her to go through a dark tunnel.

Having locked inside the dark attic very often, Iris developed this fear of a dark place, but her little lights shone the path for her and there was one more thing that she noticed; despite she was being alone, she didn’t feel scare at all.

Technically, she was not alone, she had her babies with her, who would always accompany her.

"Do you want to go there?" Iris talked in soft voice. "Okay, let’s go."

The tunnel was dark, but her little lights made it easy for her, even the lazy one was trying to keep up with the other light. They were already as big as her thumb right now and started to shape.

This tunnel was very long, it seemed this was located under the ground, because Iris had to exert an effort, since the ground started to go uphill in some part.

But, when she finally saw the light in the end of this tunnel and emerged from there, she saw something that made her heart dropped to her stomach.

Iris had never been in the Red Claw pack’s magic stone mine before, but she was sure this was the place, because she could feel that she was surrounded by countless fire magic stone. She didn’t feel it earlier because of the ominous feeling she felt that came from the black magic, but when she was literally standing on top of thousand magic stone, the feeling became palpable.

However, that was not Iris’s main concern right now, since she saw Cane was standing on the edge of a cliff, he was ready to jump. He walked slowly toward the edge and there was no sign he was going to stop.

"Cane!" Iris called him on the top of her lungs and started to run toward her mate. "Cane! Stop! What are you doing?!"

To her horror, Cane didn’t look like he was hearing her voice at all. He kept going and Iris felt like her heart dropped to her stomach when Cane was only two steps away from falling.

She didn’t know how high this cliff was, but from the wind that was howling around her, she knew the altitude of this place would make you met your demise once you fell.

"CANE!"

Iris ran as fast as she could, her heart was beating painfully and her lungs demanded more air, yet Iris didn’t heed her body’s scream for her to slow down, instead she ran faster. Tears started welling up in her eyes when she was thinking the worse, where she was being very late.

There was no time to think and when she finally could reach him, Iris hugged him from behind. Her touch purified the black magic that controlled Cane. How was he able to be controlled by the dark magic when the lycan was with him?

However, Iris didn’t have time for the question. She only wanted to drag her mate to a safe place.

"Iris?" Cane’s voice was hoarse, but it managed to soothe her anxiety and a moment later, he had carried her in his arms and took both of them to a safe place. He looked confused, but his grip on her body was very firm.

He looked around and it seemed, only now it registered to his mind what he was going to do if Iris didn’t stop him in time.

"What happened, Cane? What did you see?" Iris asked with concern in her voice, because she could feel how his body was currently trembling, not because with the fact he almost jumped off the cliff, but something else. Iris could tell that.

"Nothing." Cane’s response was very curt and he didn’t give any room for Iris to ask further. "Where are they? What actually is happening?"

He led thousands of forces to enter the Red Claw pack, but right now, they were already in their territory, but there was no one else here aside from the two of them.

It reminded Cane of the spies that mysteriously disappeared without any trace.

"I am not sure," Iris said in small voice and then started to recall her encounter with Rei and the grip on her body became more protective. "Where do you think we are, Cane? I can feel a lot of magic stone here. Are we in the magic stone’s mines?"

"Yes." Cane had been here before, though he was sure this was their mines, but a lot of things had changed here.

"We need to go to find them," Iris said hastily, she was worried about the other people and how they were right now. She couldn’t imagine if the people that dear to her went through the same thing like Cane and there was no one to stop them from jumping.

"Can you find them like how you found me?"

"I will try."

Cane kissed her forehead, but his protective arm around her waist didn’t move an inch. He was being very alert toward his surroundings and any potential danger, even Iris could feel how his body was very tense.

"Cane, are you sure, you are okay?"

"I am."

Iris then didn’t pry further and then pointed her finger at a certain direction where she felt the black magic and both of them started to walk away.

But, Cane turned his head and looked over his shoulder to a spot where Leane was standing only a few minutes ago. The woman that he prayed he could meet with her once again...

They were indeed inside the Red Claw pack, not only that, they were already in their magic stone mines.

"How can you find me?" Cane asked Iris when they walked together, the sky had turned red and the sun was almost set. The alpha was on high alert. His hand on her waist tightened, which made Iris frowned.

"I felt the black magic from you," Iris replied with honesty, as she tilted her head and looked at him. "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing." Once again, Cane denied to explanation what he actually felt.

"Cane?"

"Hm?"

"You hurt me," Iris said. The way he held her made Iris grimaced.

"I am sorry," Cane said. He loosened up a little bit, but Iris could tell he was very tensed. He lost his calmness and this was very rare to see him like this.

"When do you think Rei put black magic on us?" Iris asked to distract Cane’s mind from whatever bothering problem he was thinking right now.

"I am not sure," Cane replied, but Iris could tell that his mind was not on the topic. He didn’t even try to think about the answer.

And once again, Cane’s hold hurt her, but this time, she didn’t complain. She endured it because of how anxious her mate was.

Soon after, they found Lou and Zale, the two of them were fighting against each other and Cane told Iris to back away first before he shifted into his beast and tackled them down, so it was safe for her to come closer and purify the black magic that controlled them.

"Dang it!" Lou grumbled. "I thought I fought Marcus and he turned into an ugly dog!"

Zale glared at him, the young boy just shifted into his human form and sustained a few injuries because of Lou’s magic.

"Who is Marcus?" Iris asked with curiosity, but Lou simply waved his hand and said that was no one important.

Meanwhile, Zale said that he went through the time when he had to fight a monster to save his little sister and himself when they looked for something to eat in the mountain, which meant, it saved to say the three of them went through an agitated memory in their lives. Iris wondered what Cane had seen?

Not long after, they found Cedric and Cezi, where they told Iris that they experienced the same illusion, recalled the moment they didn’t want to remember anymore.

Meanwhile, Iris told them about Rei and Elder Dandolf, telling them the important thing only and left out the fact about her origin that tangled with the Holy Kingdom.

"I should have killed him!" Lou grumbled. "How could he be one of your protectors when he always put you in danger? He is a danger itself!"

Cedric went silent, while Zale chimed in and both of them cursed at Rei. At the very least, the two of them were on the same page when it came to hate that man.

All of sudden Cane stopped walking.

"What is it, Cane?" Iris asked, she looked at her mate, who didn’t look like himself right now.

"This place is very vast." Cane looked up, the sky had turned dark. He was less anxious compared to when Iris found him the first time. "You need to get us out of here," he said to Lou.

"How?" Lou frowned. "I spent all of the magic stone with me and we need to find more magic stone if you wanted me to create a portal." Lou could read what Cane intended to say.

"But, we are in the magic stone’s mines, aren’t we?" Zale chimed in.

"This is fire magic stone," Cezi replied, he then told him about how rare the fire magic stone that was why its price was higher than water and earth magic stone.

"Oh, I can find it," Iris said and she immediately went to find one.

"She can?" Cezi asked incredulously, he was even more shocked when Iris indeed found five fire magic stones with ease. He looked at her with eyes that filled with amazement.

"Of course, she can!" Zale said proudly, even though he didn’t know about this before.

Once they had gotten enough the magic stones, Lou created a portal that would bring them back to outside of the pack, where their forces were, but when they stepped out of the portal, they witnessed something that could make your heart dropped and fear crawled under your skin, because the moment they returned, the first thing they saw was countless cocoons on the ground and spider devils that was in the middle of their work to turn them into the food for their spiderlings.

This was the first time for them to really see the spider devils, which was as big as an old oak tree. There were twelve... fourteen... twenty of them.

Lou was having a hard time to deal with this sight.

"I hate spider!" He trembled and then hid behind Cane and Iris. "You... you deal with them!"

They were too shock to move, the warriors didn’t seem to realize of what was going on too, but they snapped back to reality when they watched how one of the spiders put something into Hana’s mouth.

"No!" Iris was about to rush toward Hanna when Cane stopped her and pulled her back.

"Don’t worry! I will stay with her, you can go and fight them all!" Lou reassured Cane that he would protect Iris. "Just leave her with me! Go Cane! Kill them all!"

Lou shut up when Cane glared at him before he shifted into his beast, so did Cezi. Cedric unsheathed his sword too to charge forward, while Zale stayed with Lou and Iris.

"Why don’t you go with them?" Lou frowned at him.

"Why don’t you go with them?" Zale asked him back brazenly. "I am still little to fight." He took the position in front of Iris, protecting her from the attack from the front.

They watched as Cane and Cezi worked together to save Hanna from the spider devil and Cedric carried her back to Iris, while Lou created a protection shield around them.

Cane used the black wisp to cut the spider devil into half.

"Hanna..." Iris whimpered, as she tried to heal her and killed the spiderlings that had been put into her body. She gritted her teeth and purified the black magic from her.

"Did you see Abby?" Cedric asked out of frustration. Some of the warriors had been folded into cocoon and some of them were on the way to end in the same fate.

And now with Cane and Cezi’s interference, the chaos was about to break loose.

"I didn’t even see any of your kind," Lou replied with a snarky remark. But, because of his comment, they just realized this fact.

"Right, where are the people from the Holy Kingdom?"

"I wish they are already being fed to the spiderlings," Lou prayed he was right.

Iris didn’t follow with their conversation, she focused on Hanna. She couldn’t lose her, though she was afraid to think where the rest of them were. Aliana, Amee, Jace, Ethan... her five warriors. She tried to focus on Hanna for the meantime, because the thought of losing them all alone, drove her insane.

Meanwhile, Cane let out the lycan to deal with the spider devils. Lu was having a great time to lash out his power on these monsters, using his black wisp and cut them into half. Let the black blood stained the ground, while the moon shone brightly above them.

However, among this confusion, the ground started shaking. Iris felt this ominous feeling again. Rei was here, so did Decratic.