Indistinct memories came flooding back as he stared down at the terrified Wolf beneath him. Seeing her pinned to the ground, just as he had been all those years before. It was an almost perfect mirror image of how it had been during his first change. The fear, the uncertainty and the almost overwhelming panic. Hopefully the new, wolf part of her mind was sufficient to keep the rest under some degree of control. Garret had lived through enough in his life to understand that the nature a wolf was very different to that of a person. Although a Wolf is a natural hunter, they never rush into anything. There is a cold, steely detachment in a Wolf’s mind that a human can’t hope to replicate. And that fact had saved his life on more than one occasion… as a person and a Wolf.<br/><br/>Forcing himself not to growl at her incessant whining, Garret’s golden eyes studied the younger wolf with a calculating air. It was difficult enough for her to adjust to what is happening without him aggressively dominating her. Her current state of shock would soon dissipate and only then would he unleash his full Alpha nature upon her; which was proving more difficult to curb than he could ever have imagined. All he wanted to do was snap powerful jaws at her, to force her to be quiet.<br/><br/>Shifting himself off the prone figure, he ensured his vast bulk was still pressed against her. As a very real physical warning that he was still there, and still very much in control.<strong>”My name, as I have already told you is Garret. What is happening is that you have just turned into a wolf…”</strong>Even after all these years, the human part of his brain balked at the mere thought of physically changing into a wild animal every month. It was only the serenely calculative nature of the Wolf that allowed him to say it so calmly. However, it wasn’t that abhorrent thought which made his words trail off into nothing. It was that she’d asked the one question he knew he would struggle to answer. A part of him wanted to tell her everything. How he had first met her, how it was he who had been the reason for what was happening to her right now. How he had never truly left her side ever since then. However, the other part of him: the part that had watched her with anxious trepidation every day for the past dozen years. Simply couldn’t.<br/><br/>Attempting to divert the conversation towards something less divisive; Garret sifted through hazy memories for what was said to him during those short hours he had spent as part of a pack.<strong>”I know you’re scared Leiah. This might not seem real. Like some kind of terrible dream that you are going to wake up from at any moment. But I’m afraid it is real, and you aren’t going to wake up any different tomorrow.”</strong>The words were literally being implanted into her head. Despite their very stark and blunt message, the tone was soothing and reassuring.<strong>”But there will come a time soon that you won’t want to be any other way.”</strong>The words came to him completely unbidden. For a moment he wondered where they had come from, because he wasn’t sure he believed them himself. But then it hit him. He had heard them before. Those were the last words he had been told before he had left the pack on his way home. Only to lumber into the path of Leiah’s family’s car, forever changing the course of his life. Yet for the first time since he had heard them spoken to him… he actually believed them. That having her join him in his pack, would be the real reason he had been following her all these years. Just lying in wait; for the day that would forever change her life.<br/>