573 MY APOLOGY

Iris kept hugging Cane desperately, as if he was going to disappear if she loosened her arms on his neck, still crying. 1

"Let Grace to check on your wound, okay?"Cane sighed deeply, he leaned his back against the wall, sitting on the bed with Iris on top of him. She was glued to him, so close, he could feel her beating heart against his chest. Her scent engulfed him and he couldn't help, but felt so relax.

He missed this scent, he missed holding her so close, he missed her. .. 2

The past three days he couldn't sleep well, his nightmare returned without her by his side. Not only Cane was able to sleep for just two to three hours at night, but at day, he had to suppress the lycan as well, as the black wisp kept appearing every now and then. The lycan became so restless and agitated for not spending enough time with her. 2

"No!" Iris whimpered."You are hurt."

"You hurt me..." 1

Cane gave up. He stopped his attempt to push her away, instead he hugged her and caressing her hair and back, soothing her anxiety.

For a long moment, they stayed like that, without saying anything and only enjoying each other company, because heaven was when the two of them were alone, forgetting their misery and trouble of the world out there for a moment.

"Let me see your wound," Cane said whenIris already calmed down enough and stopped crying. "Or else, it will leave scar."

Reluctantly, Iris raised her head and stared at him with swollen eyes, her face was so red, especially her nose, which Cane kissed gently. He kissed her swollen forehead too and Iris flinched.

"Hurt?"

"It's nothing compare to the pain in here."Iris pointed her finger at her heart. "You keep ignoring me and it hurt me so much. Ifeel like someone stabbed me with a rusty dagger and twisted it viciously. I want to apologize for the way I acted that day, I know I was at fault, but you didn't give me a chance at all. You hurt me so much, you said you will not hurt me intentionally." ②

Iris couldn't help it, she poured her heart in order for Cane to know how miserable she was in the past three days, so he would know how she felt. She used to talk about her feeling openly and now she put so much effort let him knew how much she regretted her action that day and how sorry she was for challenging his authority in front of his people.

What she did was not acceptable in this continent, as a woman, you should oblige the man in your life. That was how this world worked. It was unheard of a luna or any mistresses, no matter how favored they were to challenge the man that owned them.1

"I am sorry, I am truly sorry..." A silence tearfell on her cheek and Cane leaned over to kiss it. "Forgive me...""Iris," Cane called her name softly, butfirmly. "In the future, I don't want you to challenge my order again," he said. "If I said you go lefţ, you will go left. If I said you to go, you must go, no question asked. Even if I asked you to leave me behind, you need to do it without turning back, understood?" 2

Iris frowned. She didn't like the sound of the last sentence."How can I leave you behind?" She was unhappy and Cane knew, she would focus on that part.

"Because I want you to be safe. I don't wantpeople to judge you, if you want to disagree with me, do it behind the closed door, I will take your opinion into consideration, but never disagree with me in public. I don't want to be forced to discipline my own luna." 2

It was a tradition in this continent, women didn't have voice in regards of men's decision and no matter how much Cane favored Iris, challenging him in front of his people wouldn't look good on the two of them. Cane didn't want there was a negative word around Iris if he could help it.1He knew firsthand how a rumor and that kind of stuff could ruin your reputation and put you in a damaging and disadvantageous situation.

"Okay," Iris said in small voice, but then sheadded. "Now I can protect myself also, you know." She couldn't help it, but bragged about how she killed a lot of enemies during the last attack from the Silver Warrior. "I squeezed their wolf spirits and your warriors could kill them easily."

"Our."

"Hm? What?"

"Our warriors, Iris," Cane corrected her, hehad been wanting to emphasize this, but the moment was not right, only now he could bring this up. "Our warriors, Iris. They are our warriors, our people, our pack don't draw the line." 1

Iris lowered her gaze, but Cane pinched her chin, so she could look at him in the eyes. "I know most of them started to hate me again because of the royal warrior's provocation. I can feel their hostility toward me, Cane."Cane kissed her lips and both of her eyes. He couldn't do anything to change people's heart, he was not a mind controller either, this was an internal trouble that he couldn't fix. He couldn't dictate them about their point of view, that was why, he was adamant for Iris not to challenge him in public, just in case their hatred got worst. 1

He didn't want to be in a situation, where he must eliminate his own people, like he had done. His heart had been so heavy when Haco had done the job and he couldn't shake this feeling easily, more so when he couldn't talk about this to anyone else. This was a secret that he would bring to his grave. 4

Thankfully or rather unfortunately, Haco forgot everything that happened and their conversation that night, as he had been fiddling with his herbs now.

"I can only promise you don't need to dealwith them." Cane caressed her cheek and Iris melted to his touch. "What about the five warriors?" Cane had seen how Aliana managed to get close to his mate effortlessly, while Eron and Dyne were nota problem.

"They are fine." Iris remembered all thething they talked about her when they thought she couldn't hear them.

"Iris, you know that you are not good atlying, right?"

"But, I am telling you the truth." Iris tried toshow her innocent expression and then changed the topic. "Don't ignore me again, Cane. I would rather have you scolded me and punished me."

"You know I will never do that." Canewrapped his arms under her thighs and lifted her up, as he stood up. Instinctively, Iris hugged his neck. "Get that green bottle and the white one." Because both of his arms supported Iris's body, he couldn't grab the bottle that was needed to clean her wound. "Also the cotton."

Iris grabbed all the items that Cane mentioned and he put her back on the bed again, this time, Iris didn't cl utch onto him.

"This might sting a bit, hold on." Canestarted to work to clean her wound, while Iris stared at him.He must have forgotten to ask Iris to promise him about what he had requested her, but there was no way, Iris would agree to leave him behind no matter what the circumstances they were in.

But again, no one knew what the future held for them. 1

"We are going to leave to Diandem packtomorrow morning."

The number of casualties of Silver Warrior from the last attack was rather significant and Cane was sure with additional two hundreds fifty warriors from the Bloody Wolf pack, they would think thrice to attack them again.

Cane had arranged someone to take care of the treasury of this pack and distributed it wisely to help this pack to go through winter, but his decision was solid, he wouldn't take this pack as part of his territory. There was nothing this pack could offer and the people here were in a 'special'condition, where they couldn't be accepted by another pack.

This was the best Cane could do for them.Later that night, the alpha finally could get his good night sleep, while holding his mate closed to him, while Iris slept contently within his arms. 2

However, little did they know, a beast managed to sneak into their bedroom. This creature seemed to know this place very well, which helped under this tight security.

The beast headed toward the bed slowly, its fangs barred and its sharp claws emerged, ready to tear its target into pieces.

The beast's brown eyes fell on the two people on the bed, hugging each other, as if they melted into one, and those atrocious brown eyes shifted at the au burn woman.

It was a golden opportunity to attack when they were not aware of their surroundings, became so fragile to danger, because they believed, their people would keep them safe. ①

It didn't take long before the beast locked its target on the woman. He was ordered to kill this certain woman, thus that was what he was going to do for an immeasurable amount of fortune. However, thing that he didn't expect was; the alpha was actually awake when the beast on the bedside, ready to kill the woman.

This cold feeling when there was another stronger predator around, shocked him to his core, especially when he saw those red eyes.