they cornered her at the mouth of her whelping den and she crouched delicately over the suckling forms of her babes, a snarl raising on her lip.  their forms twisted into her mind, and her nightmares formed clear visions in her head: these women were here to take her babies and crush their yielding forms between their wanting jaws.  

although her nightmare faded, her body remained bristling and aware; her muscles were taut.  annasiak let the redleaf reprimand her — for what, this time? — only for the sake of her babies.  she was growing sick of being accosted at every corner when she had made one mistake in her time.

anna had been here since the formation of bearclaw.  anna had been the first woman to sleep with alexander.  anna had spent countless hours showing him what life was like when he had fun.  anna bore sentry to the borders daily, guarding them from intruders — she had killed on behalf of the valley.  anna filled the caches while she was pregnant despite her need for food, anna had thus far met every intruder and hopeful that showed up on their doorstep — what had laurel ever done that anna had not?

she wanted alexander to run at her beck and call when she had indra to care for her — if xan tended to laurel, too, where did that leave anna?  but that didn't matter, right?  so long as the redleafs were happy, all was well with the world... even if they had to burn it down to get what they wanted.

but it was not anger that held annasiak's gaze when her mismatched eyes bore into the pale seafoam of the gravid woman.  it was pity.  leave, she commanded level and soft, arching her maw in the direction from whence the women had came.  annasiak had taken nothing that hadn't been offered to her freely — that much would hopefully come to laurel with time.

anna once again bit her tongue and held back the ugly black tendrils of anger that threatened to pull back her lips although it was more for her own children and the life that stirred within laurel than either of the redleaf women that stood before her.  trepidation began to bloom in the raven's chest as the woman continued her tirade.  if it escalated any further, she would call for her mate —

and then laurel was collapsing at the mouth of the den.  recognition stirred within bearclaw's matriarch.  she had just been through this herself and she knew: it's time, she offered gently, her nose coming close to the gravid woman but not within easy biting distance, kindness in her eyes.  

the children beneath her (except for marten, the sweet boy) began to squirm and squeal as annasiak weighed her options.  she could condemn the laboring woman to crawl across the wilderness and back to her own den, she could call for the entire pack to go drag her sorry hind end back to where it came from.  

or she could make room in her own den — the safe space she had created that had shielded her from the aftermath of her sexual assault.  that had hidden her safely from the wrath of the redleaf sisters.  where she and xan had become a unit.

being an alpha was not solely about the respect you commanded or the opinions others held for you.  what set annasiak apart was that she would do what was right, and sometimes that meant putting on your big girl pants and letting things go.

come in, she whispered before disappearing back inside the den, moving her pups to an isolated corner next to the bison skin that valette had brought before calling for @Forrest, as the woman had done an excellent job of guiding anna through her own labor.  she gathered the lavendar bushels in her mouth and arranged them in a spot for laurel — whether she decided to enter or not.