Chapter Five
Time For A Change

I awoke in the middle of the night.  In fact it was 1.15am, I know because I checked the clock and then spent the next twenty minutes or so trying to get back to sleep.  Eventually, at about 1.45am I threw back the covers and climbed out of bed deciding to go get a drink.
There was a chill in the air and so I went to retrieve my t-shirt from the floor only to find the clothes I’d arrived in gone.  Someone had obviously been in my room whilst I slept, no doubt Nate checking up on me like he had said he would.  Crossing my room I reached into my wardrobe and pulled out a loose, grey granddad shirt with three buttons over the chest.  It wasn’t much but it would be enough whilst I was getting a drink.  As I pulled it over my head and down over my stomach I wondered where the shirt had come from.  I didn’t remember ever having worn it before.  It was pretty comfortable and from the size I guessed it to be an old shirt of Nate’s since he’s both taller and a little broader than me.  That and his scent was all over it.  Part of me thought he did the whole hand-me-down thing as a feeble attempt at being an “ordinary” family whatever that means, despite the fact that we have more than enough money to keep us both kitted out in brand new clothes; even if we didn’t the Pack would provide for us.  
Of course part of me also thought it was his way of protecting me, on the off chance some werewolf from another Pack or a lone wolf found me they’d know I was – I can’t believe I’m saying this but – they’d know I was the territory of a much stronger werewolf.  They’d probably even recognise the Pack from it, not that they wouldn’t know who I was as the only sixteen year old werewolf.  Until I was strong enough to tackle a full-grown adult werewolf it was the best protection I could have.  Werewolves can be territorial at times and were I to stumble into some other wolves’ territory I’d need all the help I could get.  Though the way I understand it most other werewolves know of me and Nate, hell we’re the only kids to ever survive the werewolf transformation.  News of us travelled amongst werewolves back then, amongst a lot of Supernatural folk actually.
In all honesty I didn’t mind Nate’s hand-me-downs, his clothes are pretty comfortable and not too shabby and besides I get new clothes too.
I made my way downstairs in my boxers and Nate’s old top.  I didn’t bother with the lights, not really much point since we werewolves have almost as good vision in the dark as we do in the light, that and the fact that I know my way around Dawn Croft as well as my own house.  Hell it is my house.
When I got downstairs I turned left and headed along the hallway, making my way to the enormous kitchen at the back of the house.  The terracotta tiles on the kitchen floor were cold beneath my bare feet and I instantly wished I’d put on some socks or something.  
Opening the fridge door the light blinked on and cast itself out across the kitchen, reaching out towards the central island counter.  Grabbing a carton of milk I pulled it from the shelf on the fridge door opened the nozzle and took a quick mouthful before I grabbed a glass from the top shelf of the cupboard beside the fridge.  Going to pour the milk into the glass I stopped abruptly as I heard a noise from back along the hall.  Thinking it was a door I put the milk down and then quietly closed the fridge pitching myself into darkness once again.  What startled me I couldn’t say, I mean I was in a house with five other occupants that I knew of, some of the others could easily be home too.  I guess what had happened earlier had just made me a little overly cautious.  I laughed at the thought – I was in a house with at least four guys and one girl who would rip the heads off anyone who so much as looked at me funny not to mention that I’m hardly defenceless myself.
Still, caution was everything as I crept along the hall listening for any other sounds that were out of place at this hour.  When nothing else could be heard the thought occurred, maybe my imagination was playing tricks on me?  But then from the corner of my eye I saw that one of the hallway doors was open none of which had been on my way down.  Not just any door but the door to Leon’s study.  Though the Pack Alpha’s private study wasn’t off limits it was normally where Leon escaped the ruckus of the ‘more youthful’ werewolves as he put it or where Leon and the older werewolves would discuss important things.  It was also where Leon would let me hang out when the others went out to clubs I was too young to get in to, it’s pretty cool actually, lots of interesting books and stuff.
Walking up to the doorway I peered inside and saw the tall, powerful figure standing beside the open window and illuminated by the dim moonlight and the glow of a small table lamp.
“You’re meant to be resting.”  Came the deep, calm voice of the Pack Alpha.  It wasn’t an order or request like you might expect so much as a statement of fact.  Leon hadn’t even turned from the window.
“I couldn’t sleep.”  I said as I stepped into the room.
Turning from the window, Leon’s bare torso was illuminated by the lamplight.  An imposing and impressive man, to see the scars on his chest and stomach always made me wonder how he had lived so long it’s such an intimidating sight; anyone who had gotten all those and survived had to be a tough guy.  Of course you had to be tough to get to be Pack Alpha.  But then Leon could be pretty deep as well.  An intelligent man, he had near on sixty years of life experience notched up, though he didn’t look a day over forty if that; I have to say it does make me smile whenever I think how long it’ll be before I start to really get old.  In fifty or sixty years I’ll still only appear middle-aged at the most.
“Neither could I.”  He replied.  “It’s good to have you home.”  I smiled at him.  Despite his and Nate’s decision that I should grow up with a life outside the Pack, Leon was always adamant that Dawn Croft was my home and so was I.  “How are you feeling?”
“Better.  Much better.  I’m not going to say I’m over it because… well Linda’s dead, but it feels better just being here.”  I saw Leon smile at this.  
“Well so you know, Nate has told everyone to tread carefully with you.  And they’re all under his orders not to ask you about it unless you bring it up.”
“They’re under orders…” I looked at him wide eyed.
He nodded, yes.  “Me too.”
I had to laugh at that.  Nate, in his attempt to take care of me had given the Pack Alpha an order.  Of course Leon fully understood it and wouldn’t think anything of it but still.  It’s not really something you do.  The Pack Alpha gives the orders.  The room fell into a moment of silence before I broke it.  “So what’s keeping you up?  The – uh – crisis playing on your mind?”  He grinned in amusement at that.
“Trying to trick information from me?”
“Leon… would I do that?”
“Yes, for a pup you’re very cheeky at times.”  He chuckled to himself before returning to the amused grin.  “We’re having a meeting in the morning.  You’ll find out everything then.”  Even in the dim light I could see his eye brows raise expecting me to try getting him to tell me now.  I held my ground and didn’t ask – if they were going to tell me in the morning then I’d have to wait.
“Okay.”  Was my only response.
Leon let the silence hang in the air for a minute, no doubt expecting some kind of trick from me.  He knew me too well, he often reminded me of all the questions I had asked back in the early days.  Apparently I wanted to know everything about everything.  “Well – I was about to go for a run to take my mind off… things.  Would you care to join me?  You must be ready for a Change after a week in town.”
“It would be good to loosen up a little – and the fresh air might help me sleep…”
He laughed.  “I’m inviting you along Max, you don’t have to convince me.”
“I know.  I doubt Nate will even let me out of his sight much in the next few… weeks.  He’ll probably kick my ass for going out now and not letting him know.”
He sniffed in amusement.  “I’m sure he’ll be okay since you’re with me.  And if not I’ll have words with that brother of yours.”  He gave me a reassuring nod then turned back to the window.  He bent down as he pulled down the loose cotton pants he’d been wearing leaving himself naked.  You’re probably thinking this must have made me a little uncomfortable but it really doesn’t.  That kind of thing isn’t important to werewolves, though I have to admit that as a sixteen-year-old boy I’m slightly reluctant to strip in front of Lorna and the other girls – call it what you will but there’s only so much self-esteem a kid my age has.  The others however don’t seem to mind whether they’re in male or female company, werewolves as a rule are pretty confident.  Besides if we change still clothed we tend to have to shred our clothing to get out of it so it’s easier (and much cheaper) to change already dis-robed.
Leon had already started his change, his nose and mouth having already elongated into a snout.  His ears, hairless as they were, had become bat-like as they grew but quickly became covered in fur and stood up erect.  Suddenly his legs cracked as they bent into their new lupine state, his arms becoming more slender.  Both his legs and arms ended now in large canine paws.  He doubled over and went down onto all fours, stretching the muscles and limbs that were newly formed and as he did so the last of any bare flesh became covered in fur and then a bushy tail sprouted seemingly by magic from his hindquarters.  As the transformation ended he shook his head to loosen up the joints and once again stretched in the muscles that hadn’t been there before.  Just seeing someone else change made me hunger for it all the more myself.
Suddenly Leon’s head snapped round and looked at me.  I remember almost jumping out of my skin in fright the first time he’d done that.  Now he did it just as a reminder to me of how I’d grown.  Turning he stepped back into the room and came up to me standing well over waist high, almost reaching the top of my stomach.  I mean the tallest of wolves can reach three feet at the shoulder but a mature werewolf blows that out of the water.  Werewolves are more powerfully built than our full wolf kin too, more muscular in ways I guess, but for all intent and purposes we look like large wolves.  Supposedly there is a way to hold a state midway through the transformation, kind of half-man-half-wolf, I guess that’s where the monsters from the movies come from but very few werewolves try that these days for… obvious reasons.  It’s much harder to get away with appearing as being a wild animal when you look like a creature from legend.  Then again most people would look at a wolf the size of Leon and piss themselves from fear.  I’d be scared if I didn’t know him.  And he isn’t even the biggest; Ryan and Nate are both even bigger than Leon.
He stood looking at me questioningly for a minute, obviously waiting for me to change too before he nipped my hand.  It wasn’t nasty in anyway and didn’t hurt, strange that something so big and supposedly terrifying can actually be gentle.
Without anymore waiting Leon turned to the small French doors that stood to one side of the room, I noticed one was slightly ajar, no doubt Leon had left it open for himself.  He walked out slowly into the cool night.  I couldn’t wait any longer and so I pulled off my shirt and threw it on a chair followed soon after by my boxers, by the time these were off my face had already started to transform.  My hands reached up as my nose and mouth stretched outward, then my ears, my arms and legs began to change next with the fingers of my hands disappearing into paws and then I too doubled over onto all fours.  I tested my muscles as the fur finished replacing bare flesh and my tail sprouted.  The weird thing is everything you see and read about werewolves tends to have one thing in common – the transformation is agony.  Do you seriously think we’d change by choice if it were like that?  The transformation is amazing, it’s like a drug or so I’ve been told.  That is part of the whole urge to change thing, to feel the pure bliss of the transformation once again.  Then again changing back isn’t quite the same, that’s more mundane but still not painful in the slightest.  When it was over I made my way over to a freestanding mirror that was in one corner of Leon’s study and looked at myself in the dim light.
I was nowhere near as impressive as Leon or the others, in wolf form I really did look like a pup.  Well a young wolf at least though up until a few years ago I’d been a puppy in every sense of the word when changed.  Now I was all scrawny limbs and tufts of fluffy fur.  To be honest I look more like a slightly wild golden Labrador being one of the few wolves whose wolf-form fur is the same colour as my human hair.  A blonde furred werewolf, who would have thought it right?  As far as my size goes I’m no larger than an average dog, which is another kick in the pants.  Of course the day will come hopefully when I’ll be a “real” werewolf as it were of course it does have it’s benefits being slightly smaller.  For one I could take a walk through a town and just be taken as a stray, none of the others can do that.
Turning around I practically bounced out of the door after Leon and before I knew it I was standing in grass with a cool breeze blowing around me.  I could hear some animals in the distance, an owl I think and maybe a bat.  Lifting my nose into the air I searched for signs of Leon, the problem being that it was everywhere.  Either he’d already been out for a run once tonight or he’d come out and run all over the place.  I smiled to myself, or I did in my head - I don’t really know if I’d say a wolf can smile or not – Leon was playing a game.  Hide and seek for werewolves.  I used to love playing this when I was younger, in truth it’s a way to teach young wolves how to hunt but it’s wicked awesome too, much better with more than one to find but still.  A little secret, I still like to play now.  Changing into a werewolf sort of changes the way you think as well as look, one of those mental changes is a certain amount of playfulness.  I mean think about your dog or your neighbour’s dog or something.  They reach old age (to them) and still like to play and be fussed.  It’s kind of like that.  Even Leon and the older Pack members are like it if less so than me.
I set off into the night alternating between checking the air and following scent close to the ground.  Now I knew that Leon would not be too far, he may not fully believe in Nate’s methods of looking after me but after what had happened and whatever this big crisis was he would no doubt be somewhere where he could see me.  Keeping an eye on me but of course he’s a black furred wolf out hiding in his own territory of grounds and woodland in the middle of the night so just looking for him wouldn’t help.
A sound caught my attention.  Off to my right near a few trees so I turned and crept towards them keeping low, though just as Leon’s black fur gave him perfect cover my blonde fur made me stick out like a sore thumb in even the dimmest of light.  I reached the tree line and saw a bush at the base of one of the trees a perfect hiding place; I know I used to use it all the time.  Pushing my front end down and my back end in the air I prepared myself before pouncing into the bush causing more noise than a real hunter should have but I was only having a bit of fun.  Unfortunately there was nothing on the other side, though it was thick with Leon’s scent.  A trick.  He’d set the noise and then stealthily made his way somewhere else, that’s just how good a predator, he is.  He can move both unseen and unheard.
Trying to think of where he could have gone I traced his scent to my left and so I followed, once again keeping low but moving more quickly now.  If I was going to catch him I needed to move with more haste.  Eventually however the trail seemed to split, his scent going both off to my left and right.  I looked both ways but there was no visible signs to follow he was too good for that.  Like flipping a coin I chose at random and went left following it a short way I noticed it bent around to the right in a non-too-small arc.  Eventually I caught whiff of a new scent, my scent.  Looking around I saw that I was in the spot where the trail had split.  So it hadn’t split at all he’d gone around in a circle to throw me off.  But then where had he gone?
That’s when I concentrated and found the third trail of his scent going off not on my original left choice but further round to the left, deeper into the trees.  Dropping down into the undergrowth I crept along on my belly keeping check on how the scent was growing stronger until I knew he was close.  Raising my head slightly I peeked up over a long tuft of grass and saw the black form sitting there looking over at the house, his side bared to me.  He didn’t seem to be looking for me so no doubt he knew I was there but still I had found him.  Once again I raised my back end and threw myself forward in a clumsy pounce and hit Leon in the side.  He rolled over onto one side so when I recovered and stood up my front paws were on the side of his chest so I looked down at him triumphantly.  Twisting his neck he looked back at me, again not smiling but happily in some way.
After a few seconds of my victory stand he batted me off with one huge paw, just like the nip earlier it wasn’t to hurt me it was more playful – like I said even werewolves of Leon’s age still have that playfulness in them.  He sat up again and I sat next to him staring him in the face.  I win.
He gave me a look.  Took you long enough.  Before you ask no we cannot speak in wolf form and unfortunately there is no telepathy between werewolves, however cool that would be.  It’s more like we read each other some how.  It’s kind of hard to explain.  Maybe expressions, body language, sounds and all that gets translated in our heads or something?  I don’t know but I know we can all understand one another at least to a certain degree though it becomes increasingly more difficult with wolves you don’t know.  Tilting my head I did my best impression of that cute puppy dog look as if I didn’t understand.  Run through the trees?
I nodded and took off before he could even stand.  I may be a small werewolf but I’m fast when I want to be.  Of course that’s nothing compared to the others.  Within seconds Leon had over taken me and was leading the way, I knew he was slowing himself down because he never got more than a few yards ahead of me.  No doubt he did still want to keep a watchful eye on me.
We ran through the trees for five or ten minutes, always with Leon in the lead, though once or twice I darted off in another direction.  He soon tracked me down and snapped his jaws at me in way of a reprimand though I could see he was enjoying having to chase me down as much as I was enjoying running so freely.  
Unfortunately however we got tired, hey it happens even to werewolves.  So we turned back and trotted slowly back towards the house.  Still Leon never let me out of his sight.