Note: Sorry this chapter is a little shorter than normal-shit is about to go down and I didn't want to leave this on a horrendous cliffhanger in case I'm slow updating again. Thanks so much for reading, and sticking with me.
Family is Doing Okay
Right. Great. So it weren't bad enough that his paternal great grandparents had been total elitest, arsehole snobs who'd boot a daughter out for getting up the duff outside of marriage, and a great uncle who was trying to kill him cause he was a power-hungry, low-level James Bond villain-now Eggsy had to contend with a shithouse rat level crazy for a granny. Though maybe she'd been all right when his dad was still alive, Eggsy's guilty conscience pointed out. Losing him so young, the way she had, well that would drive any parent a little mad, wouldn't it? Especially when he was the only family she'd had.
Course she had still had him and his Mum, hadn't she? Then again, according to everyone his dad's mum hadn't wanted much to do with them even before her son passed, much less after. Hadn't approved of Eggsy's mum cause she thought she'd gotten pregnant on purpose ta trap her precious baby boy, and as for him-well his uncles and Harry had tried to soften it, but Eggsy had read between the lines well enough. The odds of him being able to transform into a werewolf had been low given his mixed blood so Amelia Unwin, formerly King, had seen him as a mongrel that a purebred like her had no use for. Specially once her son wasn't around to care how his mum treated the rest of his family.
Where she'd been all this time, now that was the question that Eggsy figured was on everyone's mind as they waited with baited breath for her next move. The official answer the Kings gave was that she'd gone to live somewhere abroad, overcome with grief, but no one had seen or heard from her neither, in all that time.
Fuck, had she been locked away in the King family attic or somethin all this time? Like the first wife of that Rochester bloke in that book he'd had to read in school. She sure as fuck looked like that could be the case.
But Uncle William would have...oh. Oh, she didn't have any scent, neither. Like she'd done to his dad. He hadn't noticed right away cause of everything else, and she did have scents attached to her of course, but no natural scent. Man, that really was freaking creepy.
Murmurs around them asked why no one was stopping her as she continued her walk to the front of the crowd, the answer that no one could touch her clueing Eggsy into something else he hadn't realized till now.
Amelia-Eggsy couldn't really think of her as his grandmother seeing as she obviously didn't think of him as family, and he didn't really want to think of her that way neither-had come on the one night where not even her brother as Alpha could bar her from coming onto Kingsman Lands. She might have been disowned and forgotten, the name stripped from her long ago, but in blood Amelia was still a King. Could, by the rules of the pack, be eligible for the position of Alpha. They couldn't stop her from Challenging her brother, and Chester couldn't forbid or have her removed without bringing his right to be Alpha into question.
Even worse-for fucking Chester-he didn't have guards. Couldn't have guards, on the Field of Challenge or whatever this was called. The Kingsmen, normally, would be the Alpha's to command in that regard. Eggsy didn't doubt King would have ordered them to protect him or eliminate his sister before thinking about the wellbeing of anyone else if he could. But the Kingsmen were all standing with their families as tradition dictated. And by tradition they couldn't interfere and wouldn't attack Amelia unless she tried to harm a non-combatant. Which right now was everyone EXCEPT her brother.
"Amelia...what are you doing here?"
"Don't you mean how am I here, Brother Dear?" Was the sing song response in a voice that was rough and harsh, like she'd gargled broken glass before coming. "I should be in that Hellhole you and Father shut me up in, shouldn't I?"
All eyes went from sibling to sibling, no one failing to notice Chester paling more.
"Well, you have no one to blame but yourself, Chessy. You've been so busy preparing for tonight, for finally taking over this wretched pack now that Father's dead, that you haven't been properly keeping up with your correspondence. If you had, you'd have seen that once he got word of Father's death the doctor in charge of my so called 'care' tried petitioning you to decrease the medication I was on. The ones designed to keep me incapacitated and mindless all these years. He tried for years with Father, which naturally fell on deaf ears. Of course Doctor Morris didn't know what I was, why the doses had to be so high to keep me out and under control. He actually dared to slowly lower my doses these last few years even without permission. Then you, such a busy, busy man, sent him that note back telling him to just do his job where I was concerned and to stop bothering him." A very pointed pause. "Unfortunately for you, Brother Dear, he took that to mean he should keep his oath to do no harm."
"Father was the one-"
"Spare me. I didn't come to hear your excuses."
"Aunt Amelia." Uncle William spoke carefully, stepping forward slowly. "I didn't know that-"
The look she aimed in his direction, the mindless, furious need to kill and taste his blood unspoken but felt by everyone in the vicinity.
Fucking Hell.
"Don't you talk to me. Don't you dare."
Trying to be as quiet as possible Eggsy whispered the question of whether or not he should try and speak to her, really hoping that his uncles and Harry would all shake their heads.
Unfortunately, his dad's mum either had super hearing even for a werewolf or he'd always been her next target, her chilling gaze switching over in his direction before anyone could answer his question.
Her look towards her brother had been cold, deep-seated hate. For her nephew, for some reason, it had been hot, thirsting for his blood rage. Eggsy? Eggsy was treated to a detached, almost clinical once over by the woman who shared a quarter of his genes.
"And look at you. The spitting image of an Egerton. The bastard son that piece of human trash whore trapped Lee with."
"Oi! That's my mum you're talking about!"
"Stating the obvious, aren't we?" Was her smirking response. "But she did turn out to have a use, surprisingly enough."
That did not sound good. Not good at all.
One last look, then Amelia's gaze switched over to his uncles. "I hear I have you two to thank for sending her right to me. You can only imagine my surprise when I caught that twat's scent on the breeze a little over a week ago, coming from the main building. My prison, where Europe's elite send their problem children to detox and dry out. The 'long term care' facility for those of us deemed 'uncurable' is in another building a small distance away...but I was sneaking out at that point to try and fail to find my wolf again."
Oh, shite. Eggsy had been told horror stories about what happened when their kind, through mental or physical trauma, lost the ability to change and be one with their wolves. Fuck.
"No wonder you're insane then." Uncle Addison informed her with zero sympathy in his voice, 'casually' crossing his arms in front of his chest. All the while giving off vibes that said he was struggling to keep himself from eliminating the very obvious threat before them.
Uncle Taron, meanwhile, was giving Eggsy a horrified look, obviously blaming himself for sending Eggsy's mother right into Amelia's territory.
"Ya couldn't have known. It's okay." Eggsy whispered to him, hoping Taron could see and hear that he meant it before Eggsy raised his voice to draw Amelia's attention back to him.
"Wot do ya mean; my mum was of use to you?"
Fuck but having her turn her attention fully back on him was just as creepy as fuck the second time around.
"Well, she had a lot to say to me, didn't she? The bitch blaming me for not telling Lee who his father was. Giving him access to all that Egerton money. That's all she wanted to talk about, really. The money and how much she hated you all for putting her away in rehab. Well, that and how she didn't need the drugs while whining and begging for them. I'll leave it to your imagination, the things she was promising male staff if they'd just give her a quick hit of something."
A cruel, cruel laugh that had Eggsy flinching, the sound as horrible as her words.
"So stupid...as if Lee would have been allowed to live if my family knew who his father was. Egertons and Kings aren't allowed to mate and produce children. My father would have never suffered one to live. Isn't that right, Taron?"
Eggsy joined the majority of people in looking over at his uncle, wondering why he would be singled out for that statement.
No surprise, Uncle Taron's face revealed nothing.
"Have you come to Challenge your brother for his position?" Uncle Taron asked instead.
"Why did I come? Oh, let me think." Very slowly, like she wanted to appear as 'Exorcist' possessed as possible, Amelia twisted her neck around to focus all her attention back on her brother. "Ah, that's right. I came here for a few reasons...firstly to tell the whole pack a little story. The story of why you and Father Dearest decided you had to lock me away forever."
"Amelia..."
"What? I'm sure they all want to hear how you murdered my son."
)
"Father and I had you taken to a place where you would be safe and well cared for because you were, and are ill, Amelia. You suffered a mental breakdown after your son's death, and with his killer already dead you had no one to blame but us for assigning the final Kingsman candidates to observe the interrogation of the intruder from another pack." Chester King was doing his best to stare his sister down as he spoke, perhaps hoping that his dominance would affect her despite the fact that she was a maternal dominant, and a strong one at that.
Or she had been, once upon a time, Harry thought as he fought the urge to hide Eggsy behind him, knowing that the younger man wouldn't stay there if he tried.
Taron, at least, had to be fighting a similar instinct as well. Addison's wolf was straining to end this, the dominant the type who might love to play with his prey, but didn't care for it when the tables were turned and he was the one being toyed with.
As for Amelia, Harry wasn't surprised that she still blamed her family for Lee's death. He hadn't been there, but he'd heard she'd flown into a murderous rage when her father had informed her of her son's death. She'd shredded his face pretty badly, though the man's healing and Rachel's skill had kept the marks from being permanent.
"Right. Because it was a total coincidence that everyone in that room was someone you two wanted dead."
"We did not want-"
"Oh, really? Let's see...no need to ask why you'd want my baby, my heart and soul, dead. Everyone here already knows that. Then there were the two maternal dominants in the room. Percival's mate-well everyone knows that you and Father don't approve of the idea of maternal dominants doing anything but breeding the next generation. With our numbers and blood purity dropping so much, they owe it to their packs to stay home and be mothers, not fighters. Not get uppity and think they're equal to regular dominants. Killing two of them, cutting off any chance for them producing more children...wouldn't that be a marvelous springboard to argue for making future maternals ineligible to compete for positions in Kingsman?"
Amelia clapped her hands together in mad, childish glee, possibly at the expressions on the faces of those around her.
"And as for Harry...well Father and you wanted him dead especially. For questioning you. Disobeying you. For putting Lee forth as a candidate so that you would have to recognize his greatness. His worthiness. The fact that he was the greatest our line has ever produced, not William."
"He would have always failed. And again, you're letting your grief-"
"Silence!" She screamed at him, shutting her brother up.
And then she began to speak again normally, as though she was perfectly fine.
"Ah, yes. Last but certainly not least...Merlin. Would you like to tell Rachel why you and Father tried to murder her mate, or should I, Chessy?"
Not waiting for her brother to offer up a response Amelia turned her attention to William, her lips curling up in a grotesque smile. "Or do you want to tell her, Nephew?"
"I would never have had any part in murdering members of our pack, Aunt Amelia. Or killing Lee, my own flesh and blood. And I don't disagree that both Father and Grandfather are and were the type who thought killing two birds with one stone was for amateurs. Especially in Grandfather's case. He always had plans within plans. Why do you believe they wanted someone as valuable to the pack as Merlin dead?"
"William! How could you say that?" The man's father hissed, the look he sent his son making his feelings of betrayal clear.
But William's sole focus was on his aunt, who continued to smile back at him demonically.
"They wanted him dead for you, of course."
"Me?"
"Well, if he was dead, William...wouldn't that make his beloved by the entire pack wife a widow? And you without a wife at the time."
Merlin's howl of rage perfectly punctuated her words.
All the times that Harry had wondered if the Kings had orchestrated the bomb that had killed Lee it had been Merlin's presence in the room that had most tripped him up. Merlin was a genius, whose technical expertise and inventions had brought considerable wealth, knowledge, and prestige to their pack. He was a gold mine the King would not have wanted to lose regardless of the fact that they weren't fond of him personally or vice versa. Then there was the fact that killing him would have killed Rachel on a soul deep level, the love between the two starting when they were practically children. Mates often died within days of each other when they were bonded that deeply. Costing them their strongest healer, one beloved by the entire pack as Amelia had stated, would have been a stupid risk without enough payback.
They could have killed Lee and made it look like an accident countless times, after all.
It hadn't occurred to Harry that they might think the gamble worth it if it meant that a depressed and brokenhearted Rachel might be coerced or pushed in her grief to become William's wife. To become a King herself, improving the family's image and prestige if they played it right, with Harry dead as well, unable to defend or counsel his best friend's widow.
Coming to the same conclusion as Harry, that the bastards absolutely would have taken that risk if they thought they could pull that off, William turned and looked at his father in horror, the other man refusing to look at him.
Harry had never wanted to kill the fucker more than he did in this moment.
Merlin, meanwhile, was being held back from ripping Chester King's head off by his wife and the Alpha who had come from Scotland to officiate. The older Mortons doing the same with their children, all of their eyes gleaming wolf in the darkness
And when the hell had Addison moved? Eggsy's uncle was now standing in front of Merlin's children, a hand on each of their shoulders as he spoke so quietly to them Harry couldn't hear what was said despite only being about eight feet away from them. He only knew Addison was speaking to them because his mouth was moving.
He was keeping them from attacking King, that was the most important thing right now.
But they weren't the only ones thinking about sinking their teeth into Chester King's throat and ripping it out.
Because of William.
Amelia was very obviously insane. No one looking at her, now knowing what had likely been done to her, doubted that. Her grasp on reality, and the truth of what had happened so long ago was likely tenuous at best. That being the case her word and interpretation of things could therefore not be trusted. She might very well believe what she said to be true-that did not make it so.
What had people believing was the fact that William, of all people, obviously believed his father and grandfather to be capable of the heinous crimes his aunt had just accused them of committing. It was possible she was wrong about some things, yes, but William believed it possible. That was written all over his face as he stared at the father that wouldn't look at him. He believed that his own father, who he genuinely loved, could do these horrible things.
And that's what had the majority of the pack opening their mouths and calling out their refuting of Chester King as their leader going forward.
"I will not accept him as Alpha." Rang out throughout the clearing, voices becoming a chant.
