Lauren wouldn't know a good alpha from a bad one - or rather, she probably would, studying up on wolf behavior as she was - but it had never been something that applied to her. Coyotes ran in packs sometimes, but Lauren never had. She wasn't really the animal she became, and she wasn't a were. She stood separate from all those groupings. Lonely at times, maybe, but she was used to it. Growing up the way she had, it was pretty much a requirement even if it still got to her at times.
She was busy tearing after the younger wolf for all she was worth; she was fast but she was small, so catching up required some work and strategic running. Going straight after her wasn't going to work too well; she could catch up, especially with the little stops and starts, but she'd lose her lead if she tried to pounce. So Lauren veered left, shooting up a tree and out onto a low-hanging branch that she'd predicted would intersect the wolf's path - cutting corners, so to speak. It worked the way she'd planned and put her dead even with the younger wolf - so when she stopped, Lauren pounced, leaping off the branch and directly at the wolf. Claws in, of course - this was play, not real fighting, but she wasn't worried about hitting the wolf too hard, not with their relative sizes.