Several days later

A month.

It had been a month since Menza and Maeve had disappeared. Trails had gone cold, we still searched, as best as we could we searched for them. The north western territory line had been a bust, several of the patrols said they had scented Getts and Regan out there, their scents had masked anything that could have lingered. A dead end. Anger was becoming a common bed fellow. It raged through me constantly and I barely slept, drank far more than I should have, and lash out constantly. It was anger at everyone, myself, the world, fucking Stenton and the ranks.

He could sit there and claim that he had stopped my searching temporarily because I was wearing myself out, that he wanted to see me on the training grounds but after I told him about the north western part of the territory and scenting the rogues, suddenly Getts' scent and Regan's was all over the place, drowning everything else out? It didn't make sense.

Stenton said he was working on it, that he was sparing no expense on making sure Maeve made it home, that she would be back where she belonged but I saw nothing. He had nothing to show for it but dead ends he kept creating for us. Nothing but Commands that were throttling the patrols. I bit my tongue because I didn't want even more taken from me. I wanted to be able to search. The days were becoming colder and I knew winter was going to settle in and I wanted Menza and Maeve home before it snowed.

"Yah... like I understand where the ranks are coming from though." The words came from a male who was next to the bench at the training grounds. I glanced over at them as I used my t-shirt to wipe the sweat from my face.

I was exhausted, since Stenton had Commanded me to take a break and train for a bit I was getting drunk and sleeping on the couch. I hadn't wanted the distraction of waking up with memories of Menza and I's drunken night. All it was, was a distraction. So I brought that quilt out and I slept on the couch until I inevitably woke up from a nightmare and came to the training grounds. I was hoping I would run into Stenton and convince him to start letting me look again.

"If she was lost we would have found her by now. It's been like a month." The male spoke again and I worked my jaw side to side, anger rising up inside me all over again and turned my back to the small group. I wanted to throttle the male, he had no rights to speak up on the females under my care. That malevolent whisper told me he had a point but I shoved it deep down. Menza wasn't like that, she was a good female. She was too timid to do as that stupid rogue said. But that was all besides the point, all that talk did was muddy the waters of finding them both and bringing them home.

"I get that point but she's also a half-breed. She's certainly doesn't have the training or conditioning to evade our patrols. If she did leave, we should have caught her by now." The words were muttered out and I felt eyes on my back as the males glanced over at me. All it did was make me tense more. I didn't want to hear their theories. I didn't want to hear about what they thought, especially considering they weren't even out there looking. Two females were missing, my females. That was what mattered most to me, getting them home.

"Unless the rogue was telling the truth and they helped her." The words filtered in despite how hard I was trying to tune them out.

"Yah but looking at the male, I wouldn't trust him." The quietly said words floated over to me and I turned and sat on the bench, shoving my face into my t-shirt and closed my eyes. I didn't want to be training, I wanted to be searching. I didn't want to be this fucking useless. "I agree with Simon, that male obviously wanted to cause chaos. He saw a chance and he took it." The mention of the whelp had my hackles up, both my wolf and I were getting sick and fucking tired of him and his attitude. He was still locked in the pack jail and despite how he agitated me and always twisted what I said, I could trust him to be out there searching or helping guide the searches. He needed to get his shit together and stop agitated Stenton so he could be out searching.

"Besides, Jason says that the rogue chasing her was not chasing her in a friendly game, he said it looked like life or death." The male continued and I clenched my teeth together as I lowered my t-shirt from my face and took in a deep inhale of the cold autumn air. I didn't like hearing about it. I didn't like hearing about Menza running for her life and me not being there to protect her. I know we had fucked up, that I had fucked up getting drunk with her but I should have been there.

"I heard that Jason said he thought she had been hurt. Like that the rogue hurt her." More eyes were glancing my way and I kept my face even and blank. I didn't want to give any of them the satisfaction of getting a reaction from me. "Plus he said she had been calling for her brother when he was put onto the trail."

"One might think that people would be out searching and not training." The censure was clear in the voice and I tightened my hands into my fists, biting my tongue so hard I felt like it would bleed. I wanted to tell them that I would be out there, that I would be searching if I had been able to but I also didn't care. They weren't out searching, they didn't run their wolves ragged trying to find something, anything, to guide them to what was lost.

"Shut your fucking mouth." The words were growled out and I glanced up as Jason glowered down at the two males. "Fuck off." I watched as the two males scrambled away and Jason sat down on the bench heavily. There was a thick silence between us.

He had healed from what the rogue had done, he carried a nasty fucking scar from it. I glanced at him from the corner of my eyes. It was brutal looking as it wrapped from his throat to his shoulder. I had hoped he would talk to me, to tell me more but he had been avoiding me it seemed. I didn't know what he was telling other people because he had never come to me to tell me about what he dealt with that day.

That tiny part of me, the one that tugged at my stomach and whispered at me, told me that I needed to talk to him, to ask him. The other part said if he had anything to say to me, he would have come to me by now. That I shouldn't have to chase someone who didn't want to talk to me. But the rest of me knew that chasing after someone just took time away from searching for Menza and Maeve. My focus was on finding them. I could deal with everything else once they were found.

However it was strange seeing him there when I hadn't seen him in weeks.

"Thanks." I didn't know why I said it but I did. Perhaps it was him protecting Menza when I hadn't been able to. Everyone could say what they wanted but I knew Menza, despite everything, that hissed little whisper that to me me I didn't. Menza must have been attacked and Jason was an honest male, as honest as I had seen. I trusted what he said the day of the attack.

"They need to keep their mouths shut." He growled the words. "I don't see them out there searching, they have no reason to judge those who are." He grunted slightly as he leaned forward, rubbing at his palm with his thumb. I leaned forward as well, my elbows on my knees.

"What happened that day?" I kept my voice low, looking out over the training field. I needed his insight, he was the only one that had been close enough. He had seen Menza before she disappeared, he knew more than anyone else.

A thick and heavy silence fell between us and I glanced over at him. He had a pinched look on his face before he glanced at me. "I'm unable to tell... you... what happened, what I saw, and what I found after." He spoke clearly, concisely but the way he said it had alarm bells ringing in my head. He emphasized the words strange like he wasn't allowed to tell me. Me. He could tell others but not me. Like something prevented him, like... perhaps, someone had Commanded him not to.

The fleeting look he gave me had me frowning, my eyes narrowing. "Is it the same reason I'm stuck here and not searching?" My heart thundered in my throat as I asked it. Had Stenton Commanded Jason to not talk to me about it? To not tell me what had happened that day? My wolf gave a low growl, he didn't like that thought, at all.

Jason paused, going still before he looked away. "It's likely. Do you want to be searching?"

"I wouldn't be here if I could." I gritted the words out. I wanted to be out searching for them with everything I had. I wanted to be out there looking for them, trying to test out where I could go past the territory lines, to wiggle around the subtle Commands Stenton had given us that barred us from looking too far.

"And I would tell you if I could." The low said words had nausea swirling in my stomach. Jason would tell me if he could and that meant he couldn't. That meant someone told him not to, someone with the power to be able to Command the silence.

"What are you doing, Jason?" Stenton's voice was overly calm, almost brittle.

"Asking Brochan what he thinks of Trevor's guidance." The lie spilled out from his lips so easily as he pointed to it and I flicked my gaze to him before I looked at Stenton.

"It's sloppy. He's not doing anything but giving them bad habits." I kept each word said carefully, keeping them calm and even. Stenton had Commanded Jason to not tell me what happened. He Commanded him to keep quiet.

"Something you would fix if you were my Master-At-Arms again." Stenton gave me a tight smile before it slipped off and he looked at Jason. I watched as the pack warrior stiffened, as if Stenton had mindlinked him. "Run off, Jason. Keep to your drills. This is no time to be chatting." There was a warning to his voice that raised my wolf's hackles as Jason stood up and walked away, not looking back at either of us as he stalked across the field. "That male is a troublemaker. If he wasn't such a good pack warrior I would take him to task for the shit he spreads around." He gave such an exasperated sigh that my eyes twitched.

He was lying, between his teeth and he was trying to discredit Jason to me. He was trying to make him seem unreliable but it just made him seem worse. Jason hadn't said anything and that silence, what hadn't been said, spoke more than any words. Stenon had Commanded Jason to stay quiet, to keep me in the dark. The issue was, I didn't know why and that made the situation volatile. I didn't know what Stenton's intentions were and that was a problem.

"I hope you've had a good rest." He spoke so casually and I felt like if I clenched my teeth together any tighter that my molars would crack.

"Have you found anything?" I worked my jaw back and forth, deflect on him. He said he was searching, sparing no expense to find Maeve. I wanted him to forget about Jason speaking to me. I wanted him to slip up on something, anything, that would give me some insight into his mind and what his motives were.

"I've put out another reward and have paid some people to look into the disappearance and to report back if they have seen the little bitch." He spat the words out and my jaw twitched at the insult.

"Don't speak about the females of my house like that." I spoke low, clear, as I stared up at him.

He rolled his eyes as if slightly exasperated, "Brochan, you and I both know what she did."

"No, we don't. What we know is that she and my daughter are missing and it's likely it wasn't under her own steam. We won't know what happened until we get them back and I don't care about the hows or the whys until they are both safe." That insidious little voice hissed at me to listen to him, that Menza was vindictive and cruel and when that tugging started to drown it out with saying that Menza would never do that, I actually appreciated it. They could both shut the fuck up and drown each other out.

"That's naive, Brochan." His voice was sharp and I met his gaze dead on. He was angry with me, more than likely because I wasn't toeing the line and I knew, deep down, I should have just left it but I couldn't.

"It's practical. Hate, anger, throwing theories around, does nothing but muddy the waters. My focus is on finding them both and bringing them home where it's safe. Nothing else matters but that. I don't want to hear anything about it unless you've found them and where they are." It came out clipped and I narrowed my eyes a fraction. I just wanted him to slip up, just once. I wanted to know what his motives were for all of this shit, for muddying the waters, for throttling the searches, for Commanding Jason. All I needed was just a small tell. "So if you don't have anything, then why are you here?" I knew the question was disrespectful but I didn't care. I just needed him to crack, just a fraction.

Stenton's look became icy, his dominance pressing against me heavily as his eyes narrowed. "I'll overlook the disrespect because I know you're hurting for your little female but don't let it become habit. I'll speak how I wish on who I wish. I'm Alpha, Brochan. Remember that." His tone had the same warning that it did when he had spoken to Jason. The cold one, the almost dangerous one. "But if you must know, I'm actually here to discuss punishment."

That caught my attention and I looked at him, tilting my head. "Punishment?" That was the first I was hearing of that and my eyes narrowed a touch further.

Stenton nodded, "When we find that little-" He paused, I could see him fighting the urge to call Menza a bitch and he swallowed it. "When we find her and bring your little female back into the fold. I want to take over punishment of the half-breed." There it was, a small crack. What he wanted had something to do with Menza, his motive had to do with Menza but punishing her wasn't the full scope of it. I knew it wasn't. There was something else going on underneath it all.

I stared at him sitting up a bit straighter, my wolf growling in my head at his audacity. "No."

I could see that actually threw him and he gave me a rather puzzled look. "Excuse me."

"You heard me. No. No one is punishing Menza. I'm not giving anyone leave for that." I knew what kind of punishment he would try to give her. There would be no punishment until I heard from Menza what exactly had happened that day. I would be the only one determining if there would be a punishment. Not him.

He gave a shocked, almost disbelieving chuckle. "You can't be serious. She stole you daughter, your Maeve."

"You gave her to me, she is mine, Stenton. I get final say over the females of my house and I just told you no. The only person who gets to determine punishment, if there is to be one, is me." I spoke clearly, concisely, so he could hear every single word I said. My word was law over the females in my house, by the pack's own laws and traditions. He couldn't subvert it. There was a reason he was asking. "And I think I'm rested enough." I slowly stood up, meeting his gaze. "It's time I started searching again, yah?" I spoke low as I heard Trevor give a high whistle, trying to gather the males together. Some seemed to actually listen as they headed over there, leaving Stenton and I alone.

"No." He spoke evenly and far too calmly as he stepped closer. "I don't think you are, Brochan. I think you need a lot more rest." That had my heart jumping into my throat as he grabbed my shoulder and then the back of my neck, tugging me down slightly. "In fact," I could hear the Command in his voice and I almost snarled, my wolf echoing the sound. "You are to stop searching and start prepping for taking over the Master-At-Arms position." The Command was heavy and my stomach dropped.

"Take that off of me right now." It came out from between clenched teeth and Stenton shook his head as he gave the back of my neck a dominating squeeze.

"I have people searching. It's not your place, Brochan." The words were a low drawl, "This is for your own good. You are exhausting yourself and for the good of the pack, you need to take over the training again so a situation like this doesn't happen again." He spoke clearly, the Command threaded through every word. "Fall in line, Brochan, do you understand me? Things will go so much easier if you fall in line. I don't need you searching, I need you preparing to take over your old position so things can go back to the way they were." Each word made nausea rise up in my stomach at the realization he had taken the ability to look for Maeve and Menza away from me.

Not just that, he was forcing me into training all day. I wouldn't be able to help in any of the fucking efforts. None of them. I wanted to implore to him, I looked at him, letting him see my sincerity. "Let me search, please let me-"

"No, Brochan. You'll make yourself sick if you keep searching like that." His Command wrapped around me, tightening ever so slightly, like a snake crushing its prey. "You will train, you will do so until I give you the position back." He gave my neck another squeeze that had my wolf snarling hard, struggling against the invisible chains that now held us. "Please make sure you don't tell anyone about this little chat, Brochan. It's not good for the pack to see this weakness of yours." Stenton let me go and gave me a sympathetic smile that seemed far too sharp.

"Go on now. Go train." He pointed to the field his eyes flinty and hard as I mechanically turned and walked towards the field. On the inside I was fighting with everything I had, my breathing coming out in small pants as my heart thundered in my head and chest. My eyes burned and I swallowed back bile as I struggled against the Commands holding me tightly. It felt like trying to move while encased in in metal. My arms and legs not responding, doing as they were told by Stenton, to train.

A removal of defiance.

Total submission.

And I could do nothing but obey.