Chains

Chapter 6 - One year later

Beta Terrence

Morale in the pack has been deteriorating more and more over the last year. Pete is neglecting his duties as pack Alpha and it's starting to show. There is a lot of grumbling from pack members, fights are breaking out among friends, there have been more raids by rogues, several pack members have been killed and Pete hasn't been taking an interest in any of it. All he seems to care about are his parties; orgies really, but nobody wants to think about them like that so we just refer to them euphemistically as "parties". The cleaning staff dread coming in to clean up after them and the pack house smells funky for days after.

Other than the few warriors who participate in the parties with the alpha, the majority of the pack disapproves. Everyone knows what they're doing to Jaxon too, the cleaning staff have arrived more than once when the party continued into the morning. They'd seen Jaxon being abused while lying there unconscious; and the omegas who sometimes take his food tend to gossip about his condition. Everyone feels sorry for the poor boy, but there's not much to be done about it though, Pete is the alpha. He has changed. When he first took over the pack from his father he was such a good alpha. The entire pack admired and respected him. Not any more though. Things have changed so much since he rejected his mate; a mistake he is too proud to admit to.

That is another sore point with the pack. Almost everyone knew Jaxon from before. He was always a good kid; cheerful, friendly, always ready to lend a hand to anybody who needed it. Whenever he's out in the yard now, under guard of course, he looks like a dead man walking. He's nothing but skin and bones after a year of abuse and near starvation. His eyes look dead. He's always clean and tidy when he's out in the open; his sister does her best to help him maintain himself. There are a many pack members whose eyes echo the anger visible in hers.

The pack problems are bad enough, but the increase in rogue attacks is extremely concerning. They've increased in frequency and casualties are increasing too. The rogues seem to sense that something is out of whack here in this pack. I've been doing my best to keep up on the day to day business of the pack but there are things that require alpha's attention and he ignores all my efforts to get him to deal with them. We're in his office now, but he's not paying attention to the reports I'm giving him.

"Alpha, we need to increase the patrols along the Eastern border, that's where the majority of the rogue attacks are coming from. Will you authorize the changes on this list?". I held out the new patrol schedule, handing it to him. He just tossed it onto the desk and went back to staring vacantly into the air.

"Is there something wrong, sir?" I asked. Then asked again when he didn't respond.

Pete turned his eyes to me no longer looking vacant: "Levi hasn't spoken to me in a over a year. Not since the day I rejected Jaxon".

I felt my mouth drop open in shock at that revelation. I've never heard of a wolf not speaking to his human for more than a few days at most. And when that happened, it was because they were really angry or they were dead or there was something else terribly wrong. Over a year! To go that long without speaking with his wolf, no wonder his eyes were bloodshot and sunken. Was he even sleeping at night? I could understand his not being able to concentrate on pack business now. I'd seen werewolves who had lost their wolf through wolfbane or something else like it, and they often seemed as if they were only half alive. Just the thought of losing my own wolf, Blake, gave me chills.