Chapter 2 The Contract

TEGAN'S P.O.V I looked between the beautiful woman named Lilyanna and my father before asking the question raging in my head. "What do you mean? Why?" I signed, knowing my father had the slightest clue what I was saying. His face contorted to anger. "The girl can't speak?" I read off the lips of the previous Queen. "She can, she just sounds weird." My father replied to her. "What do you mean, sounds weird?" She asked the next question curiously. "Well, the document has been signed, so she is your problem now. The girl is as useless as she is dumb." He said, breaking my heart some more. Lilyanna then turned to me, addressing me for the first time since I had arrived. "What is your name dear?" "Her name is-" "I asked her, not you." She said, cutting my father off. As much as I tried to get the words to leave my mouth, they just wouldn't come out. I could speak, of course, I just had no clue of my pitch nor what I sounded like. Every time I tried to speak to anyone before, they would always laugh and ridicule me for sounding weird, as they called it. "Don't keep the queen waiting, answer her!" My father looked as if he was yelling at me. "TETE-" I tried to get out before my father interrupted my attempt. "TEGAN, HER NAME IS TEGAN. FOR GODDESS SAKE CHILD SPIT IT OUT!" He roared while grabbing my recently injured arm again, making me squint my eyes in pain once more. "That is enough. Release the girl. I will take her. Have her packed and ready in 30 minutes, we will be leaving." She stated as she turned around to leave. I turned to my dad with pleading eyes. "Daddy please! Please don't do this!" I begged with my hands. He shoved me aside, letting go of my arm, not caring about what I had to say. "You know I can't fucking read sign language. Speak or get out of my face!" He screamed. As much as I tried, I couldn't speak. With being deaf comes a language barrier, especially when everyone treats me worse when I get the words out. This is a disadvantage to me compared to everyone else. I was worthless to my father and my pack, unwanted, unloved, and unneeded. "It's done, Tegan, the contract is signed. You will leave tonight to be the Alpha King's mate; you will bear him an heir within three months, or you will regret it!" He roared out, his face showing me just how angry he truly was. Was I being given away to be a baby-making machine for the Alpha King? How could he do this to me? Like I was nothing but the dirt on the bottom of his shoe. I was the blood of his blood, I was his only biological daughter, yet he was just willing to trade me off like some street whore? My heart was rapidly beating in my chest about my situation. How was I, a virgin, to please a king, the Alpha King at that? I've never even hugged a man, let alone kissed or even had sex with one. No man ever looked my way. I have never even had a real conversation with anyone. Unfortunately, I was avoided like the plague. "But daddy!" I signed as I grabbed ahold of his arm. "STOP DOING THAT!" He screamed as he shoved me hard enough to make me lose my balance and fall. I knew at that moment that no matter how long I begged against this, I'd never win. My fate was sealed by that damned piece of paper and my life would now be in the hands of another man. That man who was known as the cruelest Alpha known to our kind. Alpha King Ezra, of the Blood Moon pack. "Grab your shit, don't make the Queen wait any longer for the likes of you. She may even kill you before y'all even make it to the Kingdom. It wouldn't be the worst decision although I wouldn't get paid if that happened, so you had better be a good girl and do everything they say. This is the only good purpose you could possibly serve our pack. You are no longer my problem now; you are their property." He said, before leaving me alone in the room. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. How could he do this to me? I knew he hated me, but this was another level of evil that I had never expected to happen. He called me their property as if I weren't even a person. I remained motionless on the ground when Helena entered. She dropped my bag before quickly darting across the room, taking me into her arms as we both sobbed uncontrollably. She rubbed my back trying to soothe my aching heart. Just then, my eldest brother entered the hall and looked between us. "Helena, escort her out. It is time for her to go." He said without any sense of care on his face. I was his sister, yet he treated me like common folk. Hell, even common folks were treated better than me. Helena stood as she helped me off the ground. When we walked towards the door, she picked up my bag and urged me forward. I looked around the pack house one more time at having to leave the only place I knew as home. Hopefully, I wasn't leaving this hell hole to be thrown into another. Maybe I had a chance at real happiness? To not be treated as a murderer or a nuisance to everyone around me. Maybe just maybe I will have a better life? For a moment, I had hope of something other than receiving my wolf. I had hoped that I would be treated normally. Or as normal as a deaf person in a werewolf world could be. What's the worst that can happen, death? I can't remember not ever wishing for death, so if that is what awaits me, then so be it. This life has been so depressing, and I was always seeking a way out, even if that way out was death. I just never had it in me to take my own life, something inside urging me to live, that something was out there waiting for me, something bigger than this life. But I was not afraid of death. I would welcome it if that was my fate. As we exited the pack house, many people stood along the pathway looking on with judging faces. I could see some of them whispering to one another, but they were too far away for me to read their lips. None stopped to ask what was going on or why, none cared to truly know. Once I got to the car, Helena pulled me to her chest, holding onto my body tightly as if I would float away if she let go. Which, in a sense, is exactly what was happening. I was leaving with the queen and probably never returning. When she let me go, tears were actively streaming down her face. She then held her hand up. Her thumb, index finger, and pinkie finger were holding upwards while her ring and middle finger were downwards. More tears sprang forward while I held onto her tightly again, signing that I loved her too, before my father pulled her backwards. "Let her go, she is no longer this pack's problem." He said with what I assumed to be his Alpha voice as she backed away slowly with her head downwards in submission. "Go on, get." He said, looking directly at me. I turned to the car door as a driver stood with the door open for me. I slid into the back seat of the car, my heart pounding in my chest once again as he took my bag from Helena and put it into the trunk. A moment later, the car went down the long driveway. I watched as Helena's face became nothing but a blur before completely disappearing as her and my pack lands became nothing but trees in its wake. I looked out the window, placing my face on the cold glass. This was my fate. Nothing or nobody could change it for me now.