Chapter 36
Iris put down the empty bowl and felt a little bit better now that she was fed and then went on to put on the dress. It felt so soft on her skin, almost like one of her old dresses.
But then, the howling didn’t stop and this made her heart ache for some reason. The howling sounded very pitiful, like coming from an injured animal, begging for mercy. She was not sure why she felt this way.
How could she decipher such howling?
Iris looked at herself in the mirror, there were streaks of tears on her cheeks. She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face and her hair to make her curls not look like a bird’s nest.
After that, she tidied up the bed and walked out of the bedroom with the tray in her hands. She didn’t want to be so ungrateful and not clean up after herself after receiving such kindness.
Iris walked gingerly in the corridor and only met a few guards that were on patrol around the area. They only glanced at her and left her alone, which she was grateful for, because the guards of the Blue Moon pack would snatch a slave and have a fun time with them whenever they could, but the people from the Howling Wolf pack didn’t do such a thing.
Even though Iris could see how much they hated her because she was Alpha Gerald’s daughter, something she couldn’t help with.
However, the more Iris walked away from the pack house to the kitchen area to put away her empty plates, the clearer the howling in her ears sounded. It bothered her greatly, because it almost felt like the wounded animal was only a few steps away from her.
She kept turning around and glancing over her shoulder, only to find nothing was following her, but she was sure the howling came not too far from here.
There was no one in the kitchen and she put the tray in the sink along with the other dirty plates. She considered ignoring the sound and returning to her bedroom, to snuggle with Hanna.
Iris didn’t want to put herself in danger, today was enough for her, but then she couldn’t shake off this sadness upon hearing the howl.
“Should I go take a look?” There was this nagging feeling that she couldn’t ignore and without her knowing it, her legs started leading her away from the annex, the place for slaves to sleep.
She knew this place, since this pack house was the only world that she had ever seen for the last twenty years, because her father wouldn’t allow her to roam around and meet other people. This place and the mining site.
Iris knew this place like the back of her hand, as she used to sneak out every night to take a stroll.
In the west garden, there was a small hut, where her father would take his favorite slaves to be tortured. It was a secluded place and was far away from where the people resided. Not to mention the place of that torture was actually in the basement of the small hut. The noise wouldn’t be heard if one didn’t scream loud enough or a person didn’t stay so close to this rickety hut.
Iris once came to this place and watched how her father tortured the slaves, therefore, she knew there was a hidden room in this hut and the howling voice came from there.
“But, the howling sounded so close when I was in the kitchen,” Iris muttered to herself when she entered the hut.
It took fifteen minutes to walk from the kitchen to this hut, thus there was no way no one heard this howl aside from her, but the guards that she met didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all, or maybe they didn’t hear it in the first place?
This nagging feeling was getting stronger the more she got closer to the hidden room, the same feeling like when she found the magic stone, but with a different intensity.
Iris couldn’t describe the feeling well, but all she knew was this was different.
It was so dark inside the hut and she halted her steps because she couldn’t bring herself to walk into this darkness. She was afraid, but the howling became even more restless.
Iris was stuck.
In the end, she found a torch near the door of the hut and the kindle. Clumsily, Iris tried to light it up, since she had never done it before, but she had seen it countless times. It was not easy, but in her fourth attempt, finally the fire illuminated the dark corners of the hut. She sighed in relief, as she reentered the hut with the torch in her hand.
The secret room was hidden behind a bluebird picture that hung on the wall. There was a door behind it which led them to the basement of this hut. It was exactly the same as the last time she was here and this brought back unpleasant memories to her mind.
Iris shook her head and focused on what she would find in the basement. She could see nothing, but probably there was something there.
Her heart was beating so fast and her breathing became erratic as she was so close to the source of this howl. She walked down the stairs, toward the sound and raised her torch to illuminate the dark corners of the basement.
“Argh!”
Iris dropped the torch in her hand and in an instant the room became so dark, but she could see a pair of red eyes staring at her, as the sad howling turned into angry ones.
There, Iris watched a huge beast chained to the wall behind.