Mate.
It had been the first thing Derek had seen fit to teach you.
a wolf's anchor is most often it's mate.
He'd stressed, over and over and over again until the words made your ears want to bleed, the importance of finding your anchor, after the change from lizard to wolf had been made. The kanima's change was controlled by others, only, always; the wolf's change was all you, as long as you had control. As long as you had an anchor.
Mate.
You'd known it was Lydia. After all, it was her love that had brought you back from the dead. But the wolf didn't listen to you when you called up your memories of her to tame it. The wolf howled matematemate but it didn't mean Lydia and you both knew it.
The full moon comes and Derek comes with it, with glowing eyes and long teeth. He's there to watch over you. Somehow he knows you haven't found your mate yet, your anchor.
"The anchor is not always mate," he tells you as you whine and writhe. The moon calls to you, it croons, it coos. let me hold you, little wolf. let me see you. so sweet, so beautiful. Your wolf begs in return for something of its own to hold, something sweet and beautiful. The anchor is not always mate, but it seems to be for you. If only you knew who.
The moonlight dapples upon your body; where it touches, fur sprouts from your skin. Derek watches you change from boy to wolf and the only response from him is to flash his eyes at you. He is the Alpha and you will do what he says. And if he says to find your mate to stay in control tonight, you will.
There's a light breeze that comes through the trees. It brushes through the leaves and they whisper to you in ways they never did before, not when you were lizard and certainly not when you were boy.
little wolf sing the oak leaves.
he looks for his mate! cry the maple leaves.
the mate the mate the mate, gasp the rowan leaves. One falls from its tree as you run, tempted by the smell of sweetness that the breeze carried to you, and lands on your head. your mate waits for you, it says into your ear, before slipping and sliding away.
"Pay them no mind," Derek tells you when you turn back to find it. "They are simply gossipers. You needn't listen to them."
What Derek says is law.
You don't listen to the leaves anymore.
Instead, you trail desperately after the scent carried on the wind. It tastes like happy and content and caring and your wolf is you and you are the wolf not the boy so you throw your head back and howl to the moon, my mate, my mate, I want my mate, and Derek lets you warble for a few heartbeats before falling to all fours beside you and tilting his own head back and joining you.
mate, mate mate you both sing. His paws slap the ground next to you and instinct wavers inside you. Let the Alpha lead, part of you says. Find your mate first, the other part says. Don't let another wolf get to him first.
I won't.
You charge ahead, leaving Derek behind to chase after you. You are blind, you are deaf, you are ignorant to everything in the world that isn't the scent of your mate, the soft pull of the moon, the comforting presence of your Alpha at your feet. You notice not the trees falling away as you run, nor the earth turning to concrete and asphalt beneath your paws, nor the way the quiet thrum of the forest is replaced harshly with the ever present blare of city life.
You notice not when Alpha tenses behind you, when the scent of matematemate leads you to a familiar house, when a familiar voice trickles out of the familiar window. You are only the wolf and the wolf only cares for its mate and that is your mate, right there, silhouetted at the window and making noise to you.
For you.
"Jackson," mate says, "what the hell. Derek? What's going on?"
And you can't help falling to the ground below the window, rolling in the smell of your mate where it's thick, can't help the whine that bubbles out of you as your mate calls to another wolf.
Derek says nothing at first. The growl isn't for mate, it's for you, but while it makes your ears go flat and your tail tuck under, the rest of your instinct cries for mate and demands you don't leave him behind to another wolf. Then Derek's growl shifts into words as his muzzle retracts back into his face, as his teeth shorten and his lips thicken and his legs twist and bend in all the wrong ways and his eyes stay furious, burning Alpha red.
"We're just handling Jackson's first full moon," he says to your mate, yours, and you want to bite, you do. But then he says, "shouldn't you be in bed by now, Stiles?" and the wolf may be singing at hearing its mate's name but then there's the boy again and you're not the wolf, you're the boy, and you recognize the name and you
It startles you out of the shift entirely. One moment you're a wolf, long and sleek and slender, appealing, and the next you're a human laying spread-eagled across the Sheriff's lawn, staring up at his son with disbelief in your eyes while he carries amusement in his own.
they're such beautiful eyes, the grass sighs under your skin, and you can't respond, because it's Stiles. Stiles is your mate.
You turn to Derek, needing some sort of comfort from him after this monumental discovery, but his eyes are fixed somewhere else. His attention is on Stiles, up at the window, who's smirking and snarking at him about it being a Friday night, Derek, what kind of self-respecting teen is in bed at this time? and Derek bares his teeth and snarls right back maybe a teen who knows what tonight is and how it might not be safe for weak, fragile humans to keep themselves up and draw attention like some kind of werewolf honing beacon that says, look at me, i'm tender and smell good, go right ahead and eat me.
Stiles tilts his head at Derek and the smirk turns into a grin. "Oh, I smell good, huh?" From your angle laying on the ground, you can't see the exact face Derek's making, only the soft burn and glow of his eyes radiating into the night, but you know it's the reason Stiles tilts his head back and laughs. His laugh is not as grating as you've always thought it was. It's sweet and delicious now, and you want to hear more of it and you never want it to stop (except for the wolf who yips that it might prefer drawing other sounds out of mate and you can't help but agree) and you hate that it was Alpha, it was Derek, who pulled that sound from your mate's lips, not you.
Gone is the shock that had rippled over you at the discovery of your mate's identity. In its place is want, hot and slick and savage. You remember the times over the years that you had caught yourself watching that boy watching your girlfriend, had seen the desire in his eyes, had felt the desire in your own. You'd watched him transform from the clumsy beanpole Sheriff's son to the human boy who ran with wolves, with a smart(tasty) mouth and long(tantalizing) limbs and pale(perfect) skin. You'd felt it as the lust transformed too, as your dreams changed from heat and biting and fucking to cradling and kissing and gentle, so, so gentle. You don't know when it turned from lust to love, not exactly, but you know that it did.
And now you have someone else who wants to take your mate, your Stiles, away from you, and keep him for their own. You can tell, can see it in the way Derek has positioned himself so that he's between you and the window, can smell it in the longing that's practically wafting off of him in waves.
But Stiles doesn't want him.
His eyes shift to you, panting on the grass, yet to speak, and they soften. "Rough night?" he hums. He's hanging half out of the window and you want to reach up and drag him down to you and you want to push him back inside so he doesn't fall and get hurt. You can only nod in response, because any more movement would have you doing either of the things you probably shouldn't do. You're safer on the grass and so's he. At least, until he says "why don't you two come up for a bit? Dad's got night shift for the weekend and I still have all my supplies for taking care of Scott during his early puppy training days."
If you came into his room now, when he looks and smells like an invitation, an offering, while the wolf writhes and calls for mate, you wouldn't be able to help yourself from taking. Not when he's looking at you with a knowing glint in his eyes, and it's not discouraging, it's quite the opposite, even.
"No," Derek bites out. He turns to glare at you and you cow under the strength of the anger in those burning eyes. His fangs are back, peeking over his lip, just waiting to be bared. "Jackson's not in enough control yet. I don't want him around you right now." what he means, of course, is that he doesn't want you around Stiles at all, but Stiles is not wolf and doesn't know that, except maybe he does, because he rolls his eyes and huffs.
"Whatever you say, Sourwolf," he chuckles. He's still got eyes on you though, and the wolf preens under the attention. "But, Jackson? I think we should have a talk sometime. Soon, that is. Like, maybe when you're feeling less hairy. You can come by tomorrow. I'll make breakfast. I know how much you wolves need to eat after the full moon and, let me tell you, it's just ridiculous, but, whatever. I'm always stocked up for Scott. So, what do you think?"
no, Derek says again. This time it's far quieter. Only you can hear, and you can only barely hear it. Your eyes flick to him, unbidden, unwanted, He is Alpha. What he says is law. "He is mine," Derek says. "You can't have this. You can't have him."
What Alpha says is law. But Stiles has looked between the both of you tonight, the Alpha and his newest, weakest Beta, and his heartbeat has only soared when he looks at you. His scent is pleasant enough toward Derek, but it's an open invitation toward you, and that's not just because you want him, it's because he wants you too. And he doesn't want Derek.
"There better be sausage," you say to Stiles, to your mate, and the wolf dances with joy when Stiles beams back at you, easy as you please, and pleased as punch.
You pick yourself back to your feet and shake into the wolf, just like that. There's an angry, jealous Alpha beside you, but your mate is a handful of feet away, radiating pleasure that was caused by you, and you will face retribution for your disobedience later, you know, but tomorrow you will go to Stiles Your Mate and he will feed you, he will cook for you, and the wolf is happy.
A wolf's anchor is most often its mate. And you've found yours.