The strength of the pack

A pack meeting had been called, and Peggy was running late. She'd been outside of pack lands, so the call had been faint and thready when she'd heard it, and she'd had to hurry back. She didn't even have time to stop at her den to shed her pack, now full of wintergreen and juniper berries, but instead hurried on to the meeting. Once there, her gaze darted between Corvus and Cadence, wondering if she could possibly sit with one without offending the other, and sighed at the insignificance of the drama in her life. At least she'd had one adventure, off saving a life and having one night of excitement. Now she had to resign herself to settling back into the pack and dealing with the small politics of it.

She froze though, when her gaze tracking casually over Shaye showed the swollen dugs of a nursing mother. Wait, when had Shaye been pregnant? How had she not noticed when Shaye had showed up at the border to speak with Cadence? Had she already been nursing then, or still pregnant? Peggy cast her mind back, trying to remember, but couldn't. She'd been too distracted by her sister showing up. Shaye had been pregnant for how long without her even realizing?

But a wave of cold left her skin tingling with awareness. She had known, hadn't she? It had been part of what had prompted her long absence from pack lands on her gathering trip, that had let her meet Ashmedai to begin with. The puzzling scents that she'd come across in the midst of pack lands, the alcohol and the musky odors that she'd never scented before mixed with Shaye's and Rhyme's. Obvious now, wasn't it? Now that the perquisite amount of time had passed for the results to be nursing off Shaye.

Fur still prickling along her spine in dread and confusion, Peggy didn't dare sit with either her sister or her younger cousin lest they ask her what was wrong. Instead she slunk over to slouch at the very back of the group, away from her friends though near enough to the burly Odysseus to make it seem that she was sitting with the giant of a warrior to give a reason as to not be with her usual group. Her mind was whirling, but as much as she'd wanted to believe that she was wrong, she had a clear memory of that morass of scent and knew she wasn't wrong.

She cautiously turned her head side to side to observe the other packmembers, but no one else seemed to think there was anything strange. Was she the only one who hadn't known about the pups? Had there been some announcement that she'd missed, or had everyone just noticed she was pregnant and accepted it? Had no one asked who the father was? Or did everyone else already know? She had so many questions but bit her tongue hard to keep from asking them, just holding herself stiffly and warily near Odysseus and his primate companion.