Chapter 2 - Vows

• Daisy -
• My darling brother was never one to covet what others had, but because he didn’t want to burden his best friend with 2 packs to run, not when he had only just found his mate after almost 8 years of longing for her. So, with him taking on the role of Alpha to a pack under such turmoil, I am now the unofficial Beta of Twin Lakes as, without Dave as Alpha and me as Beta the pack would be completely leaderless.
• Ace very quickly went underground, he like, literally vanished, he is in hiding, the bloody coward ran as soon as he felt the shift in power, according to some of the pack members. He escaped with Maddie who was the Delta's daughter and her father. From what we have learned, it seems her father began orchestrating her rise through the ranks a long time ago, he poisoned the Luna to be barren, he encouraged Maddie to be with Ace, as he would have been Alpha since the current Alpha was and would always be childless, and he helped to kill the Luna to weaken Alpha Sven and Goddess only knows what happened to the Gamma, but he hasn’t been seen or heard from in a while according to Dr. Thorne.
• So like I said, my twin brother is the Alpha, yes, the freaking Alpha of Twin Lakes Pack, I still can’t wrap my head around it. We have had to leave the only home we have ever had, which is thankfully only a short distance away, (and it was agreed before we left that we will essentially be merging the packs since we are so close to Jack and Cassie), as well as leaving our friends who are all finding their mates lately, but the changes have been fast paced and now we have to find Ace because who knows what that shithead is planning, but one thing we know for sure is, he is planning something.
• So now Dave and I have come to a pack that is slightly traumatized and is in a complete mess. When Ace locked their Alpha away, the pack members suffered greatly, they were all affected by the declining health of their Alpha, and on top of that they were treated very poorly if they refused to swear loyalty to Ace. They were all neglected, denied their basic rights as living beings and even abused mentally, physically and sexually in some cases, well, that was the fate for most, with the small exception of those that claimed to be loyal to Ace anyway and even those who claimed to be, were not all honest, some of them claimed loyalty to save themselves and their families from a tyrant, some pledged loyalty to save their unmated female family members, others for the sake of their young. Some were so opposed to the new laws that they attempted to run, to escape, but they were quickly caught and disposed of.. As far as we can tell, Ace had maybe 10 people that were truly loyal to him, the rest have sworn allegiance to Dave, they did it as soon as they were able to and now they are being completely honest about their time under Ace, telling us all about the things they did, the things that they allowed to happen without question and they are all willing and thankful when accepting the punishments Dave has been distributing to all pack members for their negligence of an abused member. I can’t say I blame them, some of them have very young families and simply did what they could to keep them safe, though I don’t think I could have ever stood by and allowed things to escalate as much as they did, but I understand the difficult position they were put in.
• Poor Cassie was traumatized here, she was abused, she was ignored and not one person stepped up and helped her or tried to stop everything. Not one! And now we are learning that the torment didn’t end there, according to some of the pack members, once Cassie got away, Ace went on a rampage, nobody was safe from his temper or his sadistic imagination, the women were especially vulnerable and their mates did all they could to keep them out of danger, but not all of the women are lucky enough to be mated, and those were the ones he seemed to direct his attention to the most, those with little to no protection.
• Coming here was tough, leaving our friends, knowing what had been allowed to happen here, what had been ignored, we knew it would be hard to face these wolves and keep our cool after everything we had heard, but we had to come and we planned on doing everything we could to make it right. For Cassie and for the good of the whole pack.
• Within the last month we have already issued a mandatory training schedule for all pack members of age. Every member must attend a predetermined number of training sessions, this is in part, their punishment for the way they allowed Cassie and a select few others to be treated, but we are hoping that it is also an opportunity for all the pack to become stronger, to get them to believe in themselves. The wolves not used to training are being made to attend a minimum of 20 training sessions, those who train regularly already are being made to train for an additional hour every day and their training has been intensified by Dave, who tells me that their training was mediocre at best and that everyone seems to have gotten lazy under Ace’s rule.
• Although this is being referred to as their punishment it is also meant to be a chance, it will allow those who have not trained before to try it out, they might find they enjoy the training and they might choose to improve themselves, likewise they might decide that fighting is not for them, in which case we would work with them to determine their strongest skill that will aid in the pack’s growth and continued survival. That is Dave’s goal, he wants the pack to be proud of themselves. He has also set up a meeting with the lower ranked she-wolves to determine who among them may have also been mistreated and who may need emotional support. The men and women were separated and questioned individually and then as a group so that we could try to build the pack’s relationships. Jack and even his father before him have set great examples for us as to what is expected of a good Alpha, a good leader, and what is needed to be a strong pack and we are doing everything we can to help this pack grow and I am ridiculously proud of my brother, I always knew he could do it, but seeing him in action tells me that he is the perfect person for this role.