Leah woke up just as the sun was rising, the same as she had every morning since she shifted for the first time, and her internal clock kicked in. She always knew what time it was and always woke at sunrise; her nightmares the only exception. Taking a moment to shake off the sleep, Leah made a plan of what she needed to do for that day; seeing Matthew again, meeting the Alpha, calling her best friend, calling Kade, and calling the Beta of the only pack she had been part of. She was supposed to have called her Beta the night before but had spent too long reassuring Kade that she was safe, that she didn’t have time to call anyone else.
After rummaging around her bags for clothes for the day, Leah got ready to meet the Alpha when Matthew came to pick her up. They hadn’t decided on a definite time for Matthew to pick her up, just saying that he would come sometime after breakfast which Leah assumed would be around 9 o’clock. Since that was still two hours away, Leah started unpacking some of the kitchen utensils, debating whether to go find breakfast somewhere or make something from the groceries her mom had picked up the night before. When her brother sat down at the kitchen bar, she made up her mind to make breakfast rather than going out.
“What are you making, Lee?” Alex was still half asleep and his words were slurred. “I’m so hungry, I feel like I haven’t eaten in months!”
Having put away all the pots and pans except the two frying pans she needed to make breakfast, Leah turned to the fridge, grabbing the large carton of eggs and the large stack of bacon. She held them up for her brother to see and raised an eyebrow in question. Seeing his grin and thumbs up, Leah started preparing a breakfast large enough for a house full of grown males. Alex didn’t know why she was making so much food, it wasn’t like they were having company that morning and while he knew that he and Leah ate more than the average person, their mom only ate a quarter of what they did.
“What’s with the food, Lee? We having the football team over or something?”
Smiling at her brother, she continued making breakfast while saying, “Your body’s changing already, Alex. Your scent change is the first change you undergo before you shift for the first time, the next is your metabolism goes into overdrive. Up until your first change, you’re going to need to double your calorie intake, otherwise, you’ll be so hungry you’ll feel as if you haven’t eaten for a month.” She threw his words back at him with a grin before continuing, “Extra meat and carbs are what you need but once you shift into a wolf for the first time, your body basically reboots itself and you can go back to eating like you are now. But remember that after any shift, you’ll always feel hungry unless you’ve gone hunting, which you can’t always do.”
Leah could see that Alex was taking in everything she was saying, knowing that she had more experience at helping other shifters with their first change. Knowing he could ask her anything without her judging him, he said, “How will I know when it’s time?” Although he sounded awake, Alex’s voice was full of nerves, wary of the unknown.
Looking Alex in the eye so he knew how important her next words were, Lee said, “We won't know. It could be a month from now or it could be six months from now; we won’t know until it’s about to happen. You’ll feel emotional, mostly like everyone is out to annoy you and anger you, but that’s the wolf looking for a challenge and trying to exert his dominance. You cannot let him win. Odds are you’ll be going to school with other shifters and this is the age the more dominant wolves shift. The more you give in to the wolf, especially in anger, the more likely the change is to slip over you unaware. If you control the times you let him out, it’s easier to control when the change happens. Does that make sense?”
Thinking about what Lee said, Alex clarified, “So if I act with the wolf’s anger, I could change in public but if I control it, then what? I can choose when the shift happens?”
Shaking her head before he even finished Leah said, “Think of the meditation we do before krav maga. You control your emotions and tuck everything else away so you fight logically and don’t lose focus. This is the same. Tuck the emotions away and look at it logically, what would happen if you did fight? In a highly emotional state, the divide between man and wolf is almost non-existent; think fight or flight. That instinct in a shifter is heightened by adding the wolf into it. Your wolf is wondering if he needs to step in and save you but if you can control your emotions enough that you don’t get that adrenaline boost, the wolf won’t break free.”
Alex was nodding his head, “So if I can control it during the emotional times, then when it's time to shift, I’ll have a little more time to get to a safe place to shift, right?”
Leah had gone back to making breakfast and by the time, Alex had asked his latest question, she was serving giant omelets with ham, cheese, and peppers with a side of bacon. Lee hid her laugh as Alex dove into his food before she even finished putting his plate down.
“Exactly! However, you still have to let the wolf out before the change otherwise he will continuously fight you. That’s the reason I stayed a wolf for so long after my first shift. I had fought my wolf so hard, she didn’t want to move aside for my human half, so she reigned for weeks. Lethe told me that if I had allowed her some time before the shift, then that wouldn’t have happened.”
Interrupting his sister, Alex asked, “What do I do then to let the wolf out if I can’t give in to his emotions? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, Lee. I have to let him out but I can’t let him out.”
Piling more food onto his plate, Leah answered, “You have to find something that you both enjoy. Some wolves I’ve helped enjoyed running through the woods, others liked having a sparring partner. I met one wolf who would go out swimming in the lake and another who would just sit in the middle of a meadow, just meditating. It all depends on the person and their wolf. You have to find something and once you find it, that something will feel right and will be something you feel compelled to do even after your first shift. The sooner you start looking for that element, the easier it will be to get along with your wolf.”
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