Heron Lake Plateau My disintegration.

Raven's emotions were all over the place. She vacillated wildly between depression, grief, and fiery anger, and each of those was amplified tenfold by the rampant hormones of her advancing pregnancy. Everything felt like it was spinning out of control around her. She couldn't shake the feeling that she had failed Wildfire, and now somehow she'd failed Towhee and Phox and hell, probably half the rest of her pack as well. She'd only been back in leadership for a short time and already she was contemplating ragequitting it again just to go back to the simpler life of being a minivan for fetuses and a crazy plant lady.

She dwelled bitterly on things as she lay in the sparse little copse of trees under which she and Quixote had always made their home. The logical side of her had urged her to go to Phoxhee and try to reason with them, try to convince them to stay, promise she would mediate the issues they had with Quixote and try to find some sort of resolution. But the more emotional side of her dismissed this as a waste of time. Maybe Towhee could be swayed, but Phox was stubborn as the bovine creature that made up the latter half of his name. And frankly, she didn't want to look at him right now anyway.

The sound of someone approaching distracted her from her pessimistic thoughts and, for the briefest of moments, she thought it might be her mate. But the footfalls sounded different and she quickly realized it was none other than Towhee. She couldn't help the upswell of affection and gladness she felt at the sight of her beloved sister, but that was quickly eclipsed by anxiety and dread. Nothing she was coming to say could possibly be good, Raven thought. The alpha didn't rise to greet her sister; rather, dejection and sadness were written in every line of her face as she watched the wolf who was breaking her heart in entirely new ways draw near.