The change ( his mate)

Grayson I tossed and turned in my sleep, I dreamt I was in wolf form, just a pup, beside me my brother in wolf form too was running, we were trying to keep up with mum and dad as they led the hunt. We were hunting down a stag for dinner. Mum reached it first and bit on its flank, dad joined her and managed to clamp his jaws around its throat. It bucked and fought back. Dad lost his grip and one of the antlers pierced his side. Mum tried to help, but the stag used it antlers to knock her flying against a tree. My brother rushed to help, but he was only a pup and the stag in its panic stepped on him, crushed him. I whine. Mum whimpers in anguish and grief and rushes back towards the stag, but it’s too late, dad gets pierced again by its antlers, only this time in the throat. Blood is flowing out as he falls limply to the floor. Mum throws herself at the stag and bites down on it neck, tearing flesh, but the stag hurls her off and then charges at her, impaling her with its antlers and then it runs off, leaving me there, alone, my family all dead. I woke up sweating, wiping the back of my arm across my forehead. It hadn’t been a nightmare, it was a real memory from my past. I was a werewolf, my whole family had been werewolves, and all it had taken was one night to lose them all in a blink of an eye. People think of deer and stags as cute and harmless, but they could be lethal, especially the stags with their deadly antlers, it was always risky hunting one. I had been only four at the time, I didn’t remember much, but I remembered that night as if it had only happened yesterday. I knew I wasn’t normal, I wasn’t like other werewolves, I had been wild and feral when my alpha found me. Mum and dad had made their own pack consisting of themselves, my brother and myself. they opted for us to live in the woods, away from others, and we had survived like real wolves, hunting for food and drinking from the streams. Mum and dad spent so much time in wolf form that she had even given birth to me in wolf form, it was something that had never been done before, and Leo, my alpha, thought this was why I had always been able to change from so young. Usually werewolves didn’t have their first change until puberty kicked in, which meant to the others I was a freak. I didn’t care and when I was a teenager two of the other teens in the pack, Reese and Charlie had played some prank on me, their words not mine. I hadn’t found it funny when they’d lured some mutt to come and fight me. We fought, did I win? Hell no, I was still just a scrappy teenager and the mutt had been a grown man. When I was lying on the floor a bloody mess he figured he’d won and stood arrogantly over me, grinning and spouting off some macho s.hit, I couldn’t remember what as I hadn’t paid much attention. I’d seen a broken bottle on the floor, grabbed it and jammed it in his throat without thinking. Blood had sprayed from his throat and as he fell to his knees, eyes wide and clutching his throat you’d think I would feel something, trauma, shock, remorse, I didn’t, I felt absolutely nothing as he died in front of my eyes. I was safe, the pack was safe and that was all that mattered. Leo had not been happy having to hide and dispose of another body, yeah, there had been more than one incident when it came to me. The upside to this was no one ever tried to ‘prank me’ again, didn’t so much as scowl at me, they thought I was a psychopath, a wild unpredictable psychopath. I looked at the clock on the bedside table and saw it was eight in the morning, never did I think I’d be able to read the time. When Leo had found me as an orphaned pup it was my scent and eyes that let him know I was a werewolf and not a real wolf pup. I’d spent most of my short years in wolf form, Leo had to teach me how to change back to human form. Mum and dad had lost touch with their humanity and lived as true wolves, which meant I had too. I was never taught to speak, dress myself, have table manners. Leo had to teach me everything, even how to walk on two legs. Rubbing my face, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and got up. I went into the adjoining bathroom and turning the shower on I climbed in. I was sticky and sweaty, enough that my own wolf nose was struggling with the smell. I used unscented soap, I didn’t mind the smell of scented soap on other people, but on me it was too much for my sensitive nose and by the end of the day I’d have a headache. Most werewolves had heightened senses, those who bothered to use them. Mutts rarely bothered, they were lone wolves who either hated what they were or were low life criminals. Leo was always telling me that not all mutts were like that, but I’d yet to meet one who wasn’t and I was twenty-four now. I climbed out of the shower when I was done and grabbed a white towel to dry myself. I would have walked around naked if I could, but Leo had drummed that out of me years ago, humans didn’t like it and neither did the pack, so I wore clothes. I was rifling through my drawers, throwing clothes everywhere until I found a pair of jeans and a white muscle fit t-shirt. Usually I walked around in nothing but sweatpants, the least amount of clothing Leo would allow, but today, against my wishes, he wanted me to attend my first college class that he’d signed me up for. I was not in a good mood when I made my way down the stairs. Leo knew me well, and before I could snarl or argue with him he slid over a plate of eggs, sausages, bacon and a pile of pancakes on another plate. Food helped, and I sat down to eat without saying anything. Not for long, Leo saw my face when I’d finished eating and sighed, knowing what was about to come. “Let me stay with you, send Charlie or Reese instead.” “Charlie is living a quiet life with his very human girlfriend, it’s too risky, and Reese has flown to Australia for a months holiday.” He knew I knew all this because we’d had many arguments about it and he always told me the same thing in his irritatingly calm manner. He wasn’t always calm, he could snap and raise his voice and threaten just fine if he had to, but when it came to me he never did, it was like he had endless patience for only me. I knew better, it wasn’t because I was his son, it was because he knew how bad of a temper I had and how wild and unpredictable I could be. I didn’t mean to be difficult for him and I tried not to be, but he knew as well as I did that if we both started yelling it would end with smashed plates and furniture and me losing control. He was my hero, my father and my alpha, I loved him and I would do anything for him, but that didn’t mean I’d do it easy and quietly. I was already growing impatient and I said, “you need your second in command by your side, you should send a lower rank wolf to do the stupid scouting stuff, I need to protect you.” Leo ran his hand through his dark brown hair and looked at me with matching dark brown eyes. “I really don’t want to argue about this anymore, Grayson, I don’t need your protection right now, I will be fine. We both know you have the best nose and tracking skills, the mutt has been sighted at the college and you are the best person to both stalk him and hunt him down if need be, three bodies have turned up, all of them bitten, we cannot afford anymore or we risk exposure.” “But—” “But nothing, you know I’m right and we both know that’s not what’s really bugging you. You just don’t want to interact with the humans.” I sat back against my chair and said nothing, proving him right. “Grayson, you can do this, I trust you, you’ve learnt all there is to know on how to interact in the human world.” “Don’t kill them, don’t fight them, don’t cause trouble,” I muttered under my breath. He gave a small laugh and said, “that’s the best we can hope for when it comes to you. You know I’m right, you are the best person for this and right now, you are all I’ve got until the others return from their vacations.” “Well—” “I’m being calm, but this is an order Grayson, and you will do it.” He walked away after that. “F.uck,” I muttered. I slammed my fist into the thick wooden table, not enough to break it and risk another of Leo’s lectures, just enough to make my knuckles bleed, the pain helped calm the anger, and I got up to prepare for the t.orture I was about to endure. As much as I’d kicked and fought and argued about the whole thing, I knew Leo would never change his mind, when he made a plan, he stuck to it, so I had sat in my room for the last month and studied the papers for wanting to become a cook. Yeah, you heard that right, Leo said it would be more relaxed than studying to be a lawyer, the course he’d almost chosen for me, personally I think he just wanted to make sure I didn’t lose my temper from being pressured to work hard for something I had zero interest in, that and to actually learn some basic home skills. Before I left, I spent the day training with Leo outside, we used a combination of boxing, MMA and street fighting, followed by a workout in the gym we had. As soon as Charlie and Reese had started pulling their stupidly dangerous pranks I’d started to work out to build up my muscle and strength. Leo had chosen night classes for me to attend, it was when the mutt seemed to strike and it was also quieter and meant less people for me to deal with. I was pulling my shoes on grumbling to myself about the whole thing. It wasn’t like I had never been among humans before, I knew how to interact and behave, I just preferred not to. Leo had taught me all he could, but he could never take away the wolf, I would always think like a wolf more than a human, I saw myself as separate from them and everything about them made my hackles raise, the way they smelt with their overwhelming scents of perfume and cologne, smoke and sweat, the way females stared at me and gave me attention I didn’t want. The only thing I would ever be interested in when it came to females was a mate, a lifetime mate and nothing less. The problem was that there were no females in our pack, I wanted her to be apart of my pack. There were female werewolves too, just not as many as males, the change was almost impossible to survive and even some males didn’t survive it. Werewolves needed to eat a lot due to our fast metabolism, so I ate two big dinners and some dessert before leaving. The kitchen had glass windows as walls looking out to the back of the house. I was looking out longingly at the massive green field that led into the woods, I wanted to go for a run in wolf form, but I didn’t have enough time. Scraping my chair back I made Leo wince and tried not to smirk. “Wish me luck,” I grumbled. “I’ll be wishing anyone you bump into luck,” he called out. I rolled my eyes, grabbed the keys of the side and left the house. It was a ranch house and massive with six bedrooms, Leo had built it himself, a past builder he knew how and had bought the land, it came with the back field and woods, it was our property. Before he found me he had left his building job and taken over his father’s syrup company when he’d passed away, to say Leo was rich would be an understatement. It hadn’t always been that way, his father had been rich, but he had also wanted Leo to make a life for himself and earn his own way, he didn’t want a lazy spoilt rich kid and it had paid off, Leo was a hard worker and a good man and an even better alpha, he took care of all of us and followed in his fathers footsteps when it came to me. He didn’t let me hide away just because I didn’t like humans, he made me go out and socialise as a child, made me attend a public school. I hated it and I had struggled a lot to the point teachers were concerned that I had no friends, had broken one boys arm when he had tried taking my lunch and the fact I was a ten year old who didn’t talk. I could talk, Leo knew I could because he had taught me himself, I just preferred not to. He had gotten so fed up with all the meetings and was worried I’d expose what I was, did he pull me out? No, he knew that’s what I wanted, so he worked harder at making sure I learn some kind of social interaction among humans and told the school I had autism which explained my difficulties with social interactions and understanding of things, this both made the school relax and get me extra help and also took the heat of worry away about me exposing what I truly was. When I was old enough, Leo had made me take driving lessons, it had been a t.orture I never wanted to repeat ever again, being so close to a strange human almost every other day, so I had worked really hard at making sure I would pass the first time. I didn’t like driving, but it got me to where I needed to be and it meant I didn’t have to walk in the crowds. I walked towards the small drive we had and climbed into my black Lamborghini, that’s as much as I knew about the car, it’s make. I could drive and I could fill the gas up, but that’s where my skills ended, anything else Leo had to do as I didn’t have a clue and didn’t care to. Pure luck had been with me when Leo had found me, he’d been on holiday visiting America where I was originally from and brought me back to England. How he got me on the plane I have no idea, but with him teaching me how to talk, and having originally been born in Ireland himself, it meant he had a strong Irish accent and now I had a mix of Irish and American accent, maybe on the rare occasions we’d been in human form I’d heard mum and dad talk, I don’t know why else my voice couldn’t decide what the f.uck it wanted to be. Our ranch was in the middle of nowhere basically, great for being able to run and change without risk of humans seeing us, but sucked for moments like this. The college was a five hour drive, so I’d have to rent an apartment there which Leo had already sorted out. I had Leo’s shirt with me as I drove, I used to need it all the time, but these days it was only occasionally, I hated to admit it to anyone and only Leo knew, but when I felt overwhelmed or panicked among the humans, I would use his shirt to sniff, his scent calming me. By the time I arrived I had only needed to use the shirt three times.