CHAPTER 3

Quickly, two omegas joined him in my small room and while my father watched with irritated eyes, I was cleaned with clean rags and shoved into clothes.

Not new but better than anything I'd worn in my life, clothes that fit my bony structure rather than hanging loose at every angle.

“Don't forget, you are to be seen and not heard, understand me?” My father barked as he pulled me towards the stairs, and I nodded, locking my voice away from all possible functions.

It was like turning eighteen suddenly sharpened my senses as the sun hit my eyes sharply when I walked out.

Under his fierce grip, I was pulled to the front of the Pack house and into the main entrance.

I'd not been here for anything other than serving, in over a decade.

Everyone else hung out or worked or lived through the entrance of the Pack house, I came to serve drinks, meals that couldn't be taken at the large kitchen outside, clean tables and rooms and whatever it is an Alpha's daughter had no business doing.

I thought I'd overgrown the angst that came with knowing who I was forced to become but walking into this place now because my father had finally found a ‘use’ for me stirred up something inside of me.

Maybe getting to the age of adulthood opens one up to more emotions or maybe the rejection from earlier this morning had opened a door inside of me and forgot to close it.

All in all, I was pissed.

My nose picked up a weird scent as he took me up to his office wing, a hallway housing his office, meeting hall, throne room since he liked to pretend he was a future Alpha King and his Beta’s office.

He turned into the meeting room with me in tow.

At first, I didn't see anything or anyone, he blocked my view.

“What took you so long, Blakewood?” A thick, masculine voice snapped.

At my father?

I've never heard of it before, he's the highest in every room I've watched him be in but now, even the bass of the other male’s voice made my father's sound like a whine.

“She had to be prepared for you, my Lord,” my father replied, a shiver passing through him.

And to me too because what the actual hell?

He's bowing too?

What on earth is happening?

“Let me see,” the other man demanded in a gruff voice.

My father let go of my hand and reached for my shoulder, pushing me forward.

I'd been expecting an old, grey-bearded man but staring back at me were the greyest eyes sitting on a man in his thirties at most, probably twenty-eight.

His hair was curly and full, dark as a moonless night and just long enough to look like he couldn't be bothered with it. A jaw that could cut glass sat beneath a mouth that was turned up in observation.

He was looking me over, as though cataloguing every inch of my existence.

And he was big.

Shoulders, back, chest, laps, nose and everything my eyes saw except his small, grey eyes.

He filled the couch that I'd been made to clean several times every week, his presence intimidating to say the least.

Sofie lurched forward and I grabbed her by the scruff before she embarrassed us both.

He looked at me the way my father looked at our farms every harvest season.

Is it bountiful enough? Will it serve the rest of the season?

"This is what you're offering me?" He said it to my father but kept his eyes on me.

My heart leapt out of my chest as realisation slowly trickled in.

“She's a healthy female, My Lord,” my sperm donor squeaked from behind me, “she just turned eighteen and will give you the best pups to make your dynasty a great one.”

The realisation stopped trickling in, it slammed into my head with a severe headache.

“And you think she's going to be enough to sate the debt you owe me? You think handing off your weak, half-fed, reject of a daughter to me will be enough payment?!”

He was standing now, towering over everyone, and my father stepped back from me, cowering as everyone else did.

“My Lord, you can take her alongside some of our produce this year, please have mercy on your lowly servant!”

A tear strayed down my eyes and I furiously wiped it off, the first reaction from me amidst everything unfolding.

It went unnoticed.

“Hmm,” the large male hummed and took a step which brought him closer to me than I was comfortable with and I felt his hand move before I saw it grab my jaw.

I wanted to scream, thrashor something.

Anything but stand still and allow this stranger to look me over like a piece of vegetable in the market, checking if it was fresh enough, if I was fertile enough.

But I knew the consequences of this.

From the moment the words came out of his lips and I realised what was happening, I knew.

If I didn't go with him, I would have to deal with my father's anger and disappointment.

More than I already did.

It'll be way worse if the deal didn't go through because I'd disobeyed his rules and did… something.

And goddess help me, I wanted to do something.

More than anything I wanted to scream my lungs out in this man's face and demand to know why he's okay with this, with being given a breeding mare in the form of a shewolf.

My father might have gone insane from losing my Mother but what was his excuse?

Going on with his inspection, he turned me around, and I looked at my father's eyes.

He gave me a look, that look. The one that put me in my place, reminding me that I was in the mercy of this stranger, that I was worthless to the man that supposedly once loved my mother.

And that I must do everything I can to make sure I'm no longer his headache to deal with.

The man known as the Beast of the West turned me around again and looked at me.

Into my eyes.

I wanted to cry but I was more angry than heartbroken, so to my dismay, I stared back at him with disdain, my face giving nothing away but my eyes showing every foul thought I had about him.

Many people won't but this man saw it.

And he smiled.

Something that made my heart flutter and my stomach lurched, his smile wasn't meant for the cruel world I existed in and it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared.

Then he looked above me, at my father.

“I'll take her. Keep your sickly crops. If she doesn't get pregnant by the end of this year, I'll be back. Prepare for the end of your Pack by then.”