The Songbird and the Wolf

[ XXX ] Marked by Death

All the colour has drained from the jailor's face, his legs scrambling desperately, kicking against the cell-bars and creating a harsh, metallic bang. 

The Wolf in Quinn screams at him, begging for blood. 

Desperate to sink its fangs into the stranger's jugular, bite down until he heard the crack of bone and the mouse in his grip fell limp. 

Pleads with him to dominate the weaker creature, as was his right. 

It's what his parents would have demanded he do. 

And it is that thought that looses his grip, the jailor hitting the floor like a dropped rock. 

The moment his boots have met the stone, he is scrambling to his feet again. Lurching upright as through dragged by a fishing line, the fury blazing through the stranger in an instant. 

Had Quinn been kindling, he too would have been caught in the blaze. 

But he withstands the heat of the glare without buckling beneath it. 

The jailor reaches down, and for a moment Quinn thinks he is going for his blade, but he doesn't. Instead, he pulls up the cuff of his shirt, ever so slightly. Presses three fingertips to the patch of inked skin there. 

Still Quinn cannot quite decipher what the ink is meant to depict. 

It only takes a moment, however, for the sound of boots to start pummelling down the stairs once again. The door bursts open with a crack of wood against stone, and half a dozen more guards pool into the room, like water bursting through a cracked dam. 

The metal groans again as the cell-door is unlocked, yanked open. It is Quinn, not the Wolf, who allows them to open the gate to his den, and flood through the gap reaching for him.

Hands are on him, snatching at his clothes his skin, dragging him.

He has to suffocate the snarl that pulls from his lips, allows himself to go limp under the grip as they pull him from the cell. He barely notices the plethora of kicks and blows they deal him as they drag him into a smaller, isolated cell several metres further from the others. 

This one is windowless, the stench of urine and ammonia driving deep into his soul. 

This is a place he recognises in the pits of his soul, isolation. 

Only when the door is slammed shut again, the safety of metal bars separating them from the danger, does the tide of guards turn for him again. 

A sea of cackling faces, proud of their work, watching the wolf imprisoned. 

"You can't say I didn't warn you," the jailor is speaking again. Adjusting the lapels of his shirt, doing a poor job of hiding the embarrassment that clings to his skin like a shadow. 

Like he hadn't required a small army to deal with the Wolf. 

Quinn does not deign to provide the stranger with a response, watching the man with the half-lidded gaze of a cornered predator. 

When he realises he will not be getting a response, the jailor grunts. Nodding to the throng of guards who disperse wordlessly, with mutters that brings a slight crack of a smile to Quinn's features. 

"I'm sorry," he breathes into the quiet, his head ducked to his chest. 

"If it wasn't you, it would have been me," Astor's voice offers quiet reassurance, a certain bloodthirstiness lacing his soft tone. 

Like if he'd been given half the chance, he would have torn the jailor's jugular out with only his bare hands.

Quinn paces, short quick circles, in the confinements of his cell. Trying to force his breaths into a steadier rhythm, but the heat in his chest is such that he feels like he could breathe fire in those moments.