The Songbird and the Wolf

[ VIII ] The Jaws of Defeat

It is not the broken man that responds to that soft command.

As the door bursts open, it is the Wolf who charges through it.

Commotion bursts to life to his right, Quinn swivels to meet the sound, a pair of boots thundering against the slick tile underfoot.

Heart racing, his nostrils flare.

The world smells of leather, pine and snow.

A medley that fills his lungs and wrap around his heart.

They ought to have smelled like home.

But all they do is fill his veins with ice.

His distraction lasts not even a beat, as Quinn turns in the opposite direction and takes off again at a sprint.

Bare feet thrum their own beat against the ground, but his exhaustion is set aside in favour of an adrenaline that burns through everything else.

A shout sounds from behind him, but he is around the next bend before he can hear the words. His eyes fix on the stairs, footsteps devouring the distance.

It does not feel like running, but flying.

It's not quick enough however, as a form steps into the artificial glow of the hospital lights.

The man is not immediately familiar to him, some faceless subordinate of the pack.

Under orders as this stranger might be, from the wicked smile that stretches across that lupine face, Quinn is left with no doubt.

The stranger would enjoy dragging him to his parents.

If Quinn gave him the chance.

The other wolf lurches forward, ungainly in the narrow corridors of the hospital. A massive fist, more bear paw than anything, swings for his head.

Spotting the manoeuvre a mile out, Quinn ducks beneath it. Air whooshing past his scalp, the blow missing by inches.

His exhaustion draws at his bones more than he cares to admit, however, as he doesn't spot the second fist until it sends him spinning. Staggering back, recoiling before his brain can even grasp the realisation he's been hit.

A cry lurches from his lungs, but Quinn is quick to get his revenge.

Two swift blows to the abdomen, winding the stranger with their precision.

As Wolves, this battle would have been over before it even started. The stranger far larger, far stronger, even before Quinn's years of starvation and torture.

But this stranger wasn't used to fighting on two legs.

Neither had Quinn been, it was something he'd had to learn. Like a dog expected to learn to eat with knife and fork, it had seemed so strange at first, unnatural to use fists when he had fangs.

But learn he had.

The other wolf moves to punch him again, but Quinn grabs him by the wrist before the movement can collide a second time. He twists sharply, as graceful and quick as the strike of a viper.

He jerks the limb at an angle just short of breaking it, drawing a scream from the stranger. But that is where he leaves it.

The stranger stumbles to his knees, arm still in Quinn's vice like grip.

"Stay down," Quinn snarls. His voice, the steel in it, echoes.

The voice is that of an Alpha, a title the wolf had never laid close to a claim to.