However, all of that was not important to Iris now. There was nothing she could do to refuse it.
Silently, Iris took the dress. “Where can I get changed?” She asked Bian, she looked a little bit nicer than Dalia, who openly showed her hatred.
“You need to change here.” Bian’s tone was almost apologetic when she spoke, but then she cleared her throat and all the pity that came over her a moment ago vanished into thin air.
“Here?” Iris looked around her surroundings.
This was the first time she went to the mines and especially to such a huge room.
This room was akin to a hall, but a little bit smaller than that, where there were many lockers to store each slave’s dress and a few belongings they had. There was no privacy here, as they had to change their dresses into their ‘uniforms’ and go immediately to the mines, before the slave trainer whipped them because they were late.
Iris balled her fists tightly, the dress felt so rough in her hands, the fabric was made of the worst material.
“Okay,” Iris said, as she started to undress herself.
There were only Bian and two more girls, a little bit older than Iris, who changed their dresses and then immediately went out of this room.
Iris put on the dress and it felt like she was wearing a rug, but she didn’t complain about it and folded her earlier dress to put it into the locker.
“You can only leave the site after the sunset and only if the slave trainer allows you.” Bian glanced at Iris briefly, she looked so calm for someone, who knew what kind of fate that was waiting for her. “And if he didn’t allow you to go, you have to keep working, do you understand?”
“Yes,” Iris replied briefly.
Once they were outside, they met with Dalia. She had been waiting for them and looked impatient. Her sharp eyes stared at Iris, but she simply looked somewhere else.
It was not a new thing for Iris to be treated this way, therefore, she knew the rule that she couldn’t look them directly in their eyes, since it could be interpreted as a confrontation. Someone of lower rank, shouldn’t look the upper ranking shifters in their eyes for long, it was disrespectful.
“Here.” Dalia shoved a shovel into her hand, this small shovel was only the size of Iris palm. “Use this and start digging. He will tell you what to do.”
Iris turned her attention to the man beside Dalia, he was so big and tall, probably as big as the alpha, though Cane was taller. His demeanor was so intimidating, which worked for his job as a slave trainer.
“Is she that nefarious alpha’s daughter?” The man’s voice was full of resentment.
“Yes, she is. She is a runt, so probably she will not be much help.” Dalia smirked, it seemed she was happy to see how the slave trainer was repulsed by the sight of Iris. “Oh, I forgot to tell you something.”
Dalia then pinched Iris’s chin and lifted her head up.
“You need to make sure that she looks at you when you talk.”
Stone gave her a questioning look.
“She has difficulty with hearing,” Dalia informed him. “But, she can read lips. That’s why you need to make her look at you when you want to talk to her.”
This was a humiliation that Iris always got from her brother and the other girls around her age. Though she was the alpha’s daughter, with her condition and character, they used to mock her, knowing that no one would stand up for her.
“We should have crushed her head with a stone rather than let her live and breathe the same air as us.”
“Easy, Stone. The alpha wants her to live. Death is too easy for her.” Dalia patted the man named Stone, on his shoulder, as if to calm him down.
“Yeah, but accidents happen in the mines every day, right?” Stone spoke so callously.
“You are very right about that,” Dalia said in a cheeky voice. Her eyes couldn’t hide her hatred. “You don’t need to worry, this is the alpha’s order. He wants this runt to be here.”
“Oh, that’s great!”
Iris could feel a chill run down her spine when she read the way they talked about her, but she kept her mouth shut and showed no expression. Mason always said that her face was annoying.
She shifted her attention to the barren land before her eyes and breathed raggedly. This was the first time she was here. Hanna always said that working in the mines was akin to hell, now she seemed to know why.
There was no shady area, which meant, you would be directly exposed to the bright sun above your head and this could make you dizzy and dehydrated.
Let alone working, even standing there in this kind of condition would be so hard.
Iris was staring at the vast barren land before her eyes and flinched when Stone pinched her chin and directed her eyes at him. He looked terrifying and the resentment in his eyes was very palpable, he used it as a cloak around him.
“Put this on.” He raised his hand and showed an anklet to Iris before he threw it on the ground. “And follow me.”
Iris immediately recognized the anklet, they used this to keep track of the slaves, just in case they would run away. It gave off a certain scent that was easy for the hunters of the pack to track them down.
Without questioning anything, Iris put it on her left ankle and followed Stone. She ignored what Dalia was saying, not putting any effort to read her lips, since it wouldn’t help and only hurt her more.
****************************
“The king will come in a month,” Jace said, as he read a message that just arrived this morning, informing them that the king would grace them with his presence, which was bullshit.
The king only wanted to make sure that Cane wouldn’t go with his plan to merge the two packs together.
“Distant nephew?” Jace scoffed. “Now he wants to play the family card with you?” The beta read the last few words and immediately felt repulsed by how shameless this alpha king was.
He didn’t address himself as king Aeon of the Ogregon kingdom, but he called himself as Cane’s distant relative. His uncle.
“I feel like I want to vomit,” Jace mumbled under his breath.
King Aeon was the illegitimate son of Cane’s mother’s father and he managed to be crowned as the king after he got rid of all the other eligible candidates. It was kind of a bloody event at that time, but it was not unusual for some power struggle in the court.
“Will you receive him here?” Jace put down the paper and then directed his attention toward his alpha.
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