Blacktail Deer Plateau Change makes me nervous

Although he hated to spend so much time away from the kids, Peregrine needed that time and space away from Hawkeye and everything she represented, primarily a marriage that had failed horribly. He was also avoiding her until he could think of a way to confront her and let her know things were really and truly over.

By day three after Atticus had dropped the bomb on him, Peregrine realized that avoiding Hawkeye was taking a heavy toll on the kids; he couldn't have that. He also realized something else: he didn't really need to have a gigantic blowout with his mate. He didn't need to keep away from her, either. Their romance was over, stone dead, but they were inextricably linked by their children, so he might as well bite the bullet and get used to establishing a distant civility between them.

When he arrived at the rendezvous site around mid-afternoon, a gaggle of puppies raced to greet him. Peregrine lowered his muzzle and licked them all, muttering heartfelt apologies and reassuring them that he would stop staying away for such long stretches of time. "Your mom and I are in a bit of a fight," he told them truthfully, leaving out all the gory details, of course. "But everything's gonna be okay. I'm here, I'm here."

He spent several hours just hanging around with the four of them. Kisu was nearby but he didn't know where Hawkeye was and didn't care. Actually, having the clearing and the pups to himself was a great relief. "I love you guys so much," he murmured as he lay down and, one by one, they dropped like flies around him. Despite the end of his marriage, Peregrine felt very much at peace right then.

After a while, he stood. "I'll be right back," he whispered into Osprey's sleeping ear (she had seemed particularly upset by his recent scarcity), then left the quartet to nap in the afternoon sunshine as he loped into the woods to fetch supper. They'd eat together tonight. And if Hawkeye showed up, she'd be welcome too, of course. And hopefully she'd read his body language and realize, without Peregrine even having to tell her, that it was finished.

When the sky grew cloudy and began to spit bits of rain, the Alpha male didn't pay it any attention. He headed toward a deer trail, trying to get his head in the game, when he quite literally stumbled across Blue Willow. "Shit," he blurted as he stepped on her tail. "Sorry, Willow, didn't see you there," he apologized. "Did I break it?" he quipped.

Moving aside and facing her, Peregrine pursed his lips. Soon enough, the pack would realize what had happened between the former Alpha pair, though he didn't want to make a grand announcement or anything dramatic like that. When it came to his closest friends, though, he wanted to tell them directly. Blue Willow especially deserved to hear the news, so he softly and simply spit it out: "Hawkeye and I are no longer mates."