Free Not The Leader Of The Pack by Annabeth Leong

distant, and she shivered a little. “The month before Will and I mated, I woke up each morning fully shifted. I was lucky if I was still inside my house. One morning, I came to in the backyard with a rabbit in my mouth. Passion is wild, boy. There’s no containing it.”
    Neil cleared his throat. He’d lose his mind if he considered the idea of passion, particularly not how Juli might express it. “Well, I can’t afford not to contain this, Grandma Sarah.”
    “Good boy. You do know how you feel. Now you know what to do.” The older woman leaned forward, both her palms flat on the kitchen table. She lowered her voice. “Go after her, Neil. She can’t have gone far.”
    He swallowed hard, knowing down to his very bones what he wanted to do with Juli. “I can’t do that. For one thing, she probably hates me.” He paused. “For another thing, I’m pretty sure the Lewistown investigators will notice if I shift this afternoon because my feelings get away from me. They’ve been watching me pretty closely.”
    “Neil, you brought these investigators here, and you can send them back to Lewistown. We don’t need their attention.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Darrow should never have given in to the Council’s prudish suppression of natural instincts, but we have to live with their foolish regulations for the time being. The last thing we need are arrogant kids on lycanthropy suppressants going around issuing citations to every werewolf in the midst of a normal phase of life.”
    She pursed her lips, and he wondered at the heat in her words. He remembered the way she and Will Edmond had stood together at pack gatherings, strong and entwined. “Grandma Sarah, what was it like to have a mate?”
    Sarah smiled faintly. “Maddening. I couldn’t have a weak feeling about him. I wanted him with every cell in my body. When we fought, I wanted to wrestle him all night and then spend the whole next day making up.”
    “That sounds like a pretty hard—”
    “Like being alive. More than I’d ever dreamed possible.” She cocked her head and looked into him with searching eyes. “Don’t fear her, Neil. I know you feel like you’re losing control, but you’re going to find yourself clearer than you’ve ever been. If Juli unleashes the beast in you, that’s a thing to celebrate. If you run away from her, what you’re really doing is running away from yourself.”
    Neil tapped his foot on her wooden floor, but it sounded wrong. He glanced down and swore. His feet had grown and changed, bursting out of his sneakers and leaving his claws bare.
    Sarah touched his hand. “A generation ago, a newly mated pair ran a whole month fully shifted, moon to moon, to celebrate the continuation of life in the pack. It wasn’t just a ritual. They needed it.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t tell you how beautiful it was, becoming myself in a way I never had before, under the trees, with him at my side. I wish the same for you.”
    Her attempt at comfort couldn’t reach through the sick fear twisting Neil’s gut. Werewolves needed control to survive. She described a romantic reality whose time had passed. In the modern world, it just wasn’t possible. “I can’t even imagine what the Werewolf Council would do to me if I tried that.”
    “Neil, you’re fighting the wrong battle with them. You’ve made Juli your enemy, when the two of you should stand together against this strangle grip.”
    “Are you telling me you support joining the free packs in Wyoming after all?”
    Sarah laughed. “Revolutions are for the young. When you get older, you learn how to have your private rebellions. We don’t need the wrath of Lewistown. Why not fight them from within? Fight them by example. Show them what werewolves ought to be. This full moon, shift with Juli. Fight with her. Mate with her if that’s where it takes you. Trust your instincts. Some people call this a curse, but Will always said the beast’s