Chapter 2. Fergus

I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen, cooking meals and washing dishes. Lucky for me we had other helpers around who took care of the rest of the house. I wasn’t permitted to go out for anything. Diamond Crescent wasn’t such a big pack, but it flourished.

I missed going out for walks and shopping with my friends when I was still a young intending Alpha of my pack. All of that stopped after they died. My freedom was taken away, and everything I had was taken away.

My uncle usually said much earlier on when my parents had been killed that I needed to be groomed to lead the pack and that this was part of the training that intending Alpha needed.

These days he hardly spoke to me about training to lead the pack again. He became more hostile and aggressive about the training.

He and the entire family, save a few.

“Daph…………”

I turned to see Elton standing by the door.

“Don’t forget to give Father his evening tea. And please put a smile on your face.”

I chuckled softly. “I’ll try.” He was on a blue striped jacket coat and he seemed like he was going out. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes um……….I need to fetch some jewellery for Mom from the store in the market.”

The “Oh, why can’t it just be brought to the pack house………”

“I need a breath of fresh air, Dad has been on my neck for a while and I just can’t stand him right now. The journey to the market should help me relax.” He nodded his head and tried to avoid my stare.

I knew why he was having those issues with his father. It was because of me. It seemed like he was his father’s worst child because he was closest to me.

I saw the look his father gave him when we both came in with the breakfast trays. I had tried all I could to stop Elton from helping me, but he didn’t budge. He had stuck around since my parents were gone and he was the only one who had my back, who tried to defend me.

Who tried to fight for me.

I nodded back. “Sure, you do that and bring me some flowers on your way back…….” I said jokingly.

He smiled and pointed at me. “You’ve got it.” Then he turned and left.

I walked over to the shelf in the kitchen where tea cups were stationed. I picked one for my uncle, the bland tea that he liked to drink in the evening had been prepared earlier on already and was in the jug so I warmed it up and served it in the cup.

Then I started on my way to his office upstairs with the tea.

As I got closer and closer to his office I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation that was going on in the office. I felt it was just some banter that I wouldn’t understand and when I got to the front of the door I made to turn the knob and go in when I heard my name.

I paused.

What had I done again? I was close enough to hear what was being discussed so I remained quiet and waited.

“We can’t send her out of the pack just like that……..the people won’t accept it that easily……”

“I know, that’s why I think………”

“Can’t we just kill her? She’s trash and I don’t know why we’ve kept her around for this long.” I could hear Uncle Fergus’s wife, Agatha say.

There was a small pause.

“Not now………she still has some use.” My uncle said.

“What use? A pack runt can’t be of any use…….”

“She’s a descendant of the Kingsman bloodline…….”

“She’s not even a proper wolf!! She hasn’t shifted yet, she’s the only Kingsman that’s yet to shift! She’s not one of us!! She alongside her dead parents, Arthur and Freya are no longer a part of us!”

“We’ll have to look for a way to dispose of us here without causing an uproar.”

“Leave that to me.” I heard Uncle Fergus say. Judging from the voices I could hear, there were four people in the room. Uncle Fergus, his wife and two other men.

I suddenly felt cold sweat envelop me as I quickly realized what they were talking about. Arthur and Freya were my parents.

It was me they were planning to dispose of.

I heard the faint sound of footsteps behind me and I turned quickly to see if I had been caught eavesdropping. Someone was indeed coming but whoever it was was still at the foot of the stairs that led to Uncle Fergus’s office. I hastily put myself together and gave the door a soft knock.

“Come in……” Aunt Agatha’s voice called from inside.

I turned the knob and pushed the door open.

I noticed the way they suddenly became extra alert when they noticed I was the one at the door. They were all seated on the round table at the other corner of the office. This used to be my dad’s office, and I remember playing here quite often. Instead of sitting on the huge flat office table close to the bookshelf by the window, my dad spent most of his time working on the round table. He said it was more comfortable. He had his lunch on the table too, with Mom and sometimes me when I bubbled in to check on the two lovebirds and mess around with my dad’s documents.

“Daphne………what are you doing here?” Aunt Agatha questioned when I had walked to the table to drop the tray.

“I………” A lump had formed in my throat and I coughed to clear it. “I brought Uncle Fergus’s evening tea.” From the moment I walked into the office I kept my head low and faced the ground. It was a custom for servants in the house to not look directly at the faces of their masters. And I would be a fool if I didn’t realize by now that I was not any different from a pack servant.

“Come here, child.” I heard an unfamiliar voice call.

I started to walk towards the round table where the voice that called me had come from.

“Look up.”

I slowly lifted my head until I was looking at a man seated next to Uncle Fergus. The man was in a suit even though he didn’t look like someone who should be wearing a suit.

He had large claw marks on his face and neck and he looked very rough. I almost looked away in fear.

“So you’re Daphne…….” He said silently and smiled. His smile exposed decayed and chipped teeth and it was when his lips widened that I noticed there were dried blood stains on his lips.

“Yes sir,” I replied in a low tone.

He laughed.

“You didn’t tell me she was this dainty Fergus……..” He said looking at my uncle.

“Well, there you’ve seen it.” Uncle Fergus replied while looking me up and down.

“Would be a shame………” the second unfamiliar man chipped in. He was just as ugly-looking as his counterpart. I lowered my gaze again.

There was another uncomfortable pause.

“We should continue this some other time then….” My uncle suddenly said and suddenly stood up. The men stood up as well and shook hands with my uncle. Then they began to leave. I could feel their eyes on me as they walked to the door and it made me tremble.

Aunt Agatha stood up as well and beckoned to me. “Come with me………..”

“She would come to you later Agy, I want her to do something for me first.”

I looked up. Aunt Agy and her mate exchanged a glance then she turned and left without uttering another word.

“Daphne………” Uncle Fergus muttered as he took slow strides towards the door and shut it. My heart started to pound.

When he had shut the door he made his way to the back of the bookshelf by the window and pulled a whip from it. I avoided making eye contact with him as much as I could but I still monitored every step he took, awaiting my sorry fate.

I had no idea of what I had done wrong this time around. Uncle Fergus was fond of punishing me in his office by whipping me with the silver-laced whip. Some marks were yet to heal up completely from the wounds and because I hadn’t shifted yet, it was taking even longer to heal and the punishments were more painful.

He began to approach me with the whip and I lowered my head even more. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I braced myself for the blows. I wish I could run away but I dared not. Uncle Fergus was a huge man, tall and about twice my height. Even if I tried to escape it wouldn’t work, he was the Alpha of the pack, and I couldn’t escape.

“You know better than to come late for work right Daph? Remember we are trying to train you………..”

“I’m sorry Alpha,” I whispered, even though I knew it wouldn’t do anything for me now.

“Oh, you’ll be sorry by the time I’m done with you!” Just then I felt the whip crash against my head and I collapsed on the ground, holding my head in my hands, unable to make a sound because if I did the punishment would be doubled.

The whip crashed against my upper body the next time. I backed him so that I wouldn’t sustain injuries on the softer parts of my body. He continued, whipping me over and over again with all his strength while screaming “You’ll be sorry”, but I was already sorry to be alive.

I was sorry that my parents died and left me in the hands of my uncle and his wife. This was no training, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that it was, it just wasn’t it.

Blood stains trickled down my arms as I continued to block my head from the blows.

Uncle Fergus kicked me at the back and I gritted my teeth and squeezed my body to reduce the impact, he kept kicking me until I began to cough up blood.

Then he stopped suddenly.

I began to free my tired, sore and blood-stained body and allow my hands to fall to my side away from my head. I thought it was over. I heard him drop the whip on the round table.

I was almost unconscious, too weak to speak or move. To weak to run away from the office for fear that he would change his mind and pick the whip again.

Usually, when he had exhausted his energy to punish me, he would sit down and take deep breaths to calm himself. But he didn’t this time around.

I could feel his tall frame towering above me, he was standing behind me. Then I heard the sound of a belt unbuckling. Uncle Fergus had never beat me with a belt before, it was always the whip.

So then what……………

“Come here you silly girl………” he grabbed my hair from the back and pulled me to my feet. Then he pushed me to the flat table by the window, my back turned to him and began to raise my gown roughly.

The pain I felt from the whipping clouded my senses but it didn’t stop me from realizing what he was about to do. I suddenly felt cold.

“No…….please……..no…………” I coughed. I was horrified. How could my uncle……how could my uncle want to do this to me?

“Shut up you silly girl.” He said drunkenly. He pushed me harder to the table and flattened my back on it. With one hand he grabbed both of mine and held it secure at my back. Then he took advantage of me.

Uncle Fergus told me never to make a noise when he was punishing me but I couldn’t suppress the cry that tore from my mouth from the pain of what he was doing to me. It wasn’t just physical pain that I felt, I felt torn apart from within like someone had set my body on fire.

He was hard and forceful and it hurt so much. He was so much bigger than me, so I couldn’t dream of fighting him.I didn’t have it in me to cry again so I remained motionless as he had his way again and again.

After what seemed like forever, he stopped. He pulled away from me and with a single hand, he shoved me to the ground.

I could hear him breathing hard and buckling his belt. “Now you listen to me, don’t say anything about this to anyone or I’ll make your life a living hell. Do you understand me?”

I couldn’t form a reply in my mouth.

I heard him pick up some keys and walk out of the room. As soon as I heard the door close and I was sure I was alone in the room, I broke down allowing the wails to leave me.