50: YOU HAVE SO MANY SCARS

YOU HAVE SO MANY SCARS

Iris didn't suffer any serious injuries, aside from her scraped knee that was bleeding, because Aria pushed her to the ground. Hanna was more than capable of taking care of the wound.

However, Iris had been very quiet. She didn't say anything and clutched her dress tightly.

"I will return the cloak to Stone later after I wash it, okay?" Hanna tried to coax her to speak, but Iris didn't say anything. She closed her eyes, seemingly fell asleep, but her tensed shoulders told her that she was wide awake.

But around midnight, Iris fell unconscious, she got a fever again and because tomorrow she needed to be with Cane to send off the king and the five alphas, Grace was called over to take a look at her.

Meanwhile, the rumors out there started to circulate, they talked about how the alpha had taken Iris as his luna and how he had marked her.

At first, Cane didn't want anyone to know that Iris had been marked. He didn't even have a plan to use her that way at all and was still trying to figure out a better way to announce it to the people.

But now, rumors about it had spread and people were talking about how Iris bore his mark. There was nothing to hide anymore.

Yet, it was either that, or him losing the Blue Moon pack. The resources of this pack were too great to let them fall into the king's hands and the hatred was too deep to let those people be free.

Grace had learned what had happened and reluctantly looked after her, because it was not about Iris alone. If something happened to her now, the whole pack would be implicated and their pack would be in a more vulnerable state because they didn't have the footing to hold onto Blue Moon pack.

The Howling Wolf pack was not in a good condition and they needed to fund everything that had been destroyed and to make the economy of the pack run smoothly again.

"Do you want me to heal her scars too?" Grace frowned when she saw the scars on Iris' back. From the looks of it, none were new scars, but how could she get those scars to begin with?

Hanna was wiping Iris' body, so she could sleep comfortably when Cane and Grace entered the room and she didn't have enough time to dress her missy up, which left her bare back fully exposed.

"Yes, do it," Cane replied. It made no difference to him whether her scars were fully healed or not. She was still Iris Lane, there was no change in that fact.

Grace let Hanna wipe Iris' body down and only then she used her healing magic to heal the scars, yet she realized something was wrong. She frowned deeply and put down her hand to see that her scars did not heal at all.

"Why?" Grace muttered under her breath when she couldn't heal the scars. They should have been healed by now, but the scars were still there.

Cane stared at Iris' back and knew why Grace was at a loss for words. The healer tried again and the result was still the same. She couldn't heal the scars.

"How could this happen?"

At first, Hanna was too distracted to make her missy more comfortable, but then she realized the healer was being stunned and what the reason for her reaction was.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that Missy's body is resistant to healing power," Hanna explained, as she wiped Iris' face with a warm towel.

"What do you mean she is resistant?" Grace couldn't accept that logic.

"Her scars can't be healed by magic."

"Why?"

"I don't know." Hanna shook her head and then told her and the alpha that in the past, how Iris was severely injured, but the most that the healing magic could do was to stop her bleeding, as for her recovery, she needed to use herbs. Her body didn't respond to some healing power. "Here, she still has the scar when she cut her finger when she touched a sharp shard of glass."

Hanna raised Iris' hand and on her left palm, there was a scar, which was only an inch long.

"Is she resistant to silver too?" Cane couldn't help but ask Hanna, since she knew a lot about this runt. This thought just came to his mind.

"Resistant to silver?" Hanna blinked her eyes, she tried to think about it. "I don't know about that, because Miss Iris has never encountered silver before."

Both Hanna and Grace looked at each other, since they didn't know why the alpha asked that.

"Why do you think her body is resistant to healing power?" Cane asked Grace. The more he knew about this runt, the more questions that he had.

"I am not sure about that," Grace muttered, she didn't like it when she didn't have the answer for a question that was directed at her. "Probably because she was born as a runt, so her body is built differently."

That could explain that, even the crossbreeds would have been hurt by silver and as far as Cane knew, both Iris' parents were shifters, even though she was born as a runt.

"Take care of her, I want her to be able to see the king and the alphas before they set off tomorrow," Cane said and then walked out of the room, without waiting for the reply.

"Tomorrow?" Hanna was mortified. "Don't you think that she needs to rest? She will not wake up tomorrow."

"I can make her wake up tomorrow," Grace said easily. She could make her wake up, but it didn't mean the process would be free of pain.

Hanna's tears streamed down her face again to think her missy would be in so much pain if they woke her up tomorrow.

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

The first thing that Iris felt when she opened her eyes was how sore her throat was, the pain made her groan and unable to fall back asleep.

She looked around her and it was still night. She was on a comfortable bed, inside a room that she was familiar with.

Iris remembered almost immediately about what happened, the humiliation that she got and how she screamed for them to stop tearing her dress apart, especially when they saw her scars. It was so rare for a shifter to have scars and Iris was ashamed of hers.

She remembered how those warriors looked at her with disdain and how they judged her. Those eyes were so scary. She didn't want to see them again. It reminded her of what Mason had done to her. The way her brother looked at her was the same as them.

And when she could no longer endure it, she simply shut down. Her body and feelings turned numbed.

Iris whimpered, she wanted to drink something, her dried throat was killing her, the pain made her miserable and the fact that she couldn't move made her feel even more helpless. Her vision was blurry.

Iris cried, she wanted to die. There was no point in being alive when it was only pain, rejection and emptiness that she got. She was at her lowest point and the darkness in this room only added to her dark thoughts about ending everything.

But then, a beam of light came from the door as someone entered the room. Iris couldn't see who that was, but that person put down the candles on the table near the bed and then walked over to her.

Iris was still crying and tears obscured her vision, she didn't know who that was, even though this person sat down on the edge of the bed and made it dip with his weight.

Iris blinked her eyes and watched Cane stretch out his hand, which made her flinch, she thought he would hurt her again. She didn't want to be hurt anymore. She didn't want to be ridiculed and looked down on again. She was afraid.

But then, Cane's cold finger brushed her hair and wiped her tears away.

"What do you want?" Cane asked when he made sure Iris looked his way, so she could know what he was asking.

"W- water…" she said with difficulty.

Cane came here because he wanted to check on her, just in case she couldn't come with him to send off those alphas and the king. In that case, he had to make sure that her fever had subsided.

Once he entered the room, he heard her whimpering voice and since he couldn't sleep, as usual, there was no harm in him coming to see what she needed.

However, it became a problem when she was too weak to sit down on her own and needed his assistance to drink her water. In that case, Cane had to let her lean against him.

Cane didn't like to make any physical contact and for him to let Iris lean on him like this, as he cradled her body carefully, it was a big deal for him.

He waited for the repulsion to set in, but to his surprise, he didn't feel that way. Her body felt so right in his arms, which put him on alert, since this was not right.

Thus, Cane focused on helping her drink the water. He brought the glass closer to her lips and slightly tilted her head so she could drink from it.

Iris drank the water greedily, she almost choked, but Cane stopped her before he continued again after he warned her to drink slowly.

"You need to drink this as well," Cane said, as he picked up a different glass from the table. It was the herbs that Grace had concocted for her, just in case she had woken up in the middle of the night. She needed to drink this concoction as much as she could, because it would help in reducing her fever.

She needed to be able to get up tomorrow.

However, the bitter taste of the concoction made her cough so hard, while the taste of it shot to her nose, she couldn't help but cry.

"I- it is so bitter…" Iris whimpered.

"You need to finish this, so you can heal quickly," Cane said, as he brought the glass closer to her lips once again, after she had slightly calmed down.

"N- no." Iris shook her head, seeing how Cane wanted her to drink that bitter medicine again. "I don't want it."0

But, Cane tilted her head and made her drink it sip by sip. He was exceptionally patient with her tonight.

Probably because she was in a lot of pain, thus he had this little sympathy that left in his cold heart or maybe because the night brought out the weakest part of you.

The bitterness of the concoction made her feel awful and fortunately, Cane gave her honey water to neutralize the strong taste.

After that, he let her lie down on the bed again. Her hair was tied up on top of her head by Hanna, so it wouldn't stick to her skin when she sweated.

"C- can you stay here, please?" Iris grabbed Cane's sleeve when he was about to leave. "I am afraid."

The medicine must have kicked in by now, as she felt drowsy, but it was not enough to put her to sleep, she was only a little muddleheaded.

Cane stared at Iris' blue eyes. He could swat her hand away, but he didn't do that.

"I am afraid of the dark." Iris didn't know why she told him about this, as if he cared whether she was afraid of the dark or not, but she kept talking, she was afraid that she would be left alone. "My brother would lock me in the attic when I am being a bad sister."

Cane finally sat down and listened to her ramble, it seemed she didn't even realize what she was talking about.

"Why do you have scars?" All of a sudden, Iris changed the topic, as she looked Cane in the eyes. She was still clutching onto his sleeves.

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