Sköll had done it again. Who knew or who had found out had yet to be accounted for, but all the dark prince had come to realize was that the deed had to be done. His instincts and ego required it of him; his conscience had asked it of him for the sake of Willow Ridge's well-being. Blood dripped down the front of his chest, the black-and-white fur matted at his throat and chin. It had taken some time for the adrenaline to wear off but once it had, there was nothing left to do but crawl towards his secluded space and curl up to rest. The scent of plasma might not have been bothersome but something about this time of year - when the weather had begun to grow warmer and the sun had actually had the chance to come out - had taken his senses for quite a ride. Every so often he snorted in attempt to keep the various perfumes from bombarding his olfactory senses. It didn't work; and, when he managed to get comfortable on top of the mound of mud that had kept his treasures safe for the winter, he had fallen asleep with the tip of his tail draped over the tip of his nose.

_____________

It was amazing what a decent nap could do for the spirit. Having woken up from a short snooze beneath his willow tree, Sköll Archer was refreshed, reenergized, and a bit... antsy... now that he thought of it. His nostrils flared and for a moment he went dizzy, wobbling on his four lanky limbs. Fuck. He steadied himself by leaning against a nearby tree trunk; and, where he had expected smooth willow bark, rough pine scraped at his shoulder, ensnaring in it a tuft of his lavish winter coat. The scent, it seemed, was everywhere now. On every tree, coming up through the ground, on every newly sprouted bit of green, in the godforsaken air for crying out loud.

He held himself very still and it t felt as though his mind were spinning inside his skull. What was worse was the fact that a pressure had begun to worsen in his gut and the base of his spine and nothing, not the lashing of his tail nor the ache in his limbs from a quick sprint, could currently relieve him of it. It must have been something primal that he had yet to understand, something that his mother and step-father had forgotten to tell him. As far as he understood, though, he assumed it had to be stemmed from the fact that it was nearly time for him to prove his worth to the whole of Willow Ridge. Even in his dreams he had relished the visions and fanciful sensations of sparring, savored the domination of every other male beneath Angier one by one.

The thought sent a chill down between his shoulder blades and sent him into motion, ambling aimlessly forward. His breathing came in heavy puffs before he released a frustrated growl towards no one else but himself. A sliver of satisfaction lightened his chest before it contracted again with an overwhelming sense of need. He took a deep breath, coughing twice before rubbing his nose against his right wrist to no avail.

It smelled here, but the more he attempted to breath normally, the more he soon came to realize that he was no longer alone this far away from his favorite hiding place. The right side of his muzzle twitched, urged by the voice in his head to find her. Piety. Just thinking of her made his joints lock up and immediately survey his surroundings. This wouldn't be the first time he had ever seen glimpses of her through the whip-like curtains of willow branches, but he supposed that this would be the first instance in which he had met her in the dark.

Like a bloodhound honing in on a particular scent, he immediately sniffed her out. The pupils of his eyes faintly glowing an eerie green or teal hue as he also relied on the moonshine to give away her pristine white coat against the shadows. He stamped his feet into the ground, lifting his tail as he anticipated her appearance. He must have circled around and retraced her steps as her scent had begun to grow stronger with a trace of something else that riled him up from within.

What was he going to do? Assert dominance over her? He frowned at the thought. He already knew that she would probably take up a place beneath him and that she might do well serving him as a royal, but was the action enough to quell the discomfort that was churning in the whole of his chest? Perhaps he ought to give it a shot... All he had to do was locate her first and get her to stop moving around so much. It was already too much that his senses had gone haywire earlier and given him a few unpleasant dizzy spells.

After a few minutes of following her, he stopped completely, restless now and flustered by the fact that all this wandering around after her was doing nothing for the itch that had started to jab at the undersides of his paws. "Piety," he barked, just loud enough for those within a few meters to hear. It was clear that he had become impatient by the urgent whisper his tone had changed into; he didn't want anyone else besides her to hear him now. The sooner he saw his eyesome age-mate, the better. "Where do you think you're going? Come here."

Moonlight, coupled with the fact that the fog made it hard to see in certain places and nipped at the nose, made navigating a little more difficult. Yet when he heard her answer back in that sort of soft, endearing, and undemanding sort of way, it made the fur at the base of his skull all the way down to the middle of his shoulder blades stand up on end. It was only when he saw the haze swirl about and give way to a submissive-looking Piety that he saw her there before him. He had to hold his breath again, taken by surprise by how easily she countered him. To date, especially since the farce that had involved a majority of the Ridge's yearlings and Rook Lyall, no one was able manage such a feat without having him snarl, show his teeth, or snap back. Once upon a time, the only one to have such a privilege was his mother, Elettra; now, even she had grown to be something nearly trivial in comparison to his inflated ego.

Her smirk did not go unnoticed and the way she moved in front of him, walking about with a careful sway in her step, had the rest of him feel like he had both been chilled to the bone and set ablaze. It was uncomfortable; the whole situation made more dizzying and frustrating by the fact that with her appearance came a stronger concentration of that nose-irritating scent. The realization soon dawned on him as she drew near to him, just close enough so that one step could have brought them into contact with one another - she was a, if not the, culprit in the distribution of the strange, mood-altering perfume.

The bewilderment that had settled on his face when she had initially approached was gone and a frown had replaced it. The corners of his white-furred mouth turned downward and he looked away from her, turning his head to the side. He was in no mood for games.

When he came to look at her once more, he caught her gaze... actually got lost within those plain-as-mud irises. She backed away from him, but there was nothing about the gesture that told him she had been offended or intimidated. In fact, it felt like she was initiating some sort of dance or a ritual of sorts. She had made the first move and now it was his turn. Rolling his shoulders, he came slowly forward, maintaining the distance that she had first set between them. "Stop moving then," he ordered her, the tone in his voice as serious as they come. He could have chosen to tease and taunt her, just as she did him, but the faint static that had only begun to build up in the air around them forbid him to do so. She might have thought of this as fun or anything of the sort, but the silver-eyed royal was not going to take her bait... not without goading her in return.

"Miss Santoro," he began again, the tone in his voice lifting up in suspicion now. "You're hiding something." The accusation, while not voiced lightly, was only meant to put her on the spot and nothing more, yet he paused for a few seconds to judge her reaction to his assumption. Without much warning, he snaked towards her, bringing his blood-stained lips to her left ear; if either of them moved so much as a centimeter closer to one another, their guard hairs were going to touch. "Tell me," he purred, his voice placid and hushed like the rustle of leaves in the wind. "Tell me and I'll tell you a secret." Perhaps if he could tempt her to give up whatever information he thought she had, he would also be given the chance to have the upper hand, to circumvolve around her the way she presently did without much effort. This was definitely a first, but fear or apprehension was something the Archer was not first-handedly familiar with. When put up against Piety, he had nothing to lose - not yet.

Ever so obedient, she obeyed. Not only did she cease all frivolous and ridiculously playful (they were yearlings, not cubs, weren't they?) movements, but she also divulged that she was hiding something. He exhaled, his breath exiting from his nostrils in a snort. Being this close to her, taking in the tantalizing fragrance of her fur was almost too much. The soreness in his limbs was easy to hide apart from his now slow movements and, when she admitted that her plan to draw him from his hiding place had been a success, he drew back with an accusing glare. Perhaps he had underestimated her in being a rather cunning and clever little thing. She had known that it took two to play such a game; and, the fact that Sköll had finally had someone to square up against on a mental and intellectual level, thrilled him. However, upon being lightly nipped at, he took a half-step away from her. Sure, it had been harmless, but it was something new, something he was unaccustomed to and unfamiliar with. Not even his mother and sister dared to touch the most vulnerable parts of him - the small patch of white on his chest, his throat, the underside of his trunk, the nook where his arms and shoulders met his torso...

"Now I get to know a secret," she told him, as she bowed forward with a small mewl. What she did next was not particularly out of line, but to feel her teeth briefly at his shoulder, made him want to flinch backward and away from her altogether. The action was bold, so assertive, as though she had already known that he might respond in kind. He remained in place, though, and his interest piqued when she so confidently informed him that she had earned the prize he had offered.

His tongue emerged from between his bloodied lips, sliding across the front of his nose and down the side of his maw. "But, first," he stared hard at her now, the need to remind her of her place flaring up inside him. "Don't touch me." He focused on her, searching for some semblance of understanding on her face. As much as he had wanted to wait for her to verify that she wouldn't do any more of that shoulder-nipping stuff or do so much as nuzzle up against him with the tip of her nose, he fully stepped away from her and off to the side. The full, plume-like tail behind him lowered to a more neutral position and he looked back down at her paws.

"Please, don't touch me," it was more of a plea the second time around, softer and anguished and rather desperate. After what had gone down just a few hours ago, Sköll would never forgive himself if he did so much as to actually taint her pelt with the blood on or from his own wounds. Piety, he felt, was someone pure and unsullied. The wolves of Willow Ridge could handle, avoid, and manage his adolescent outbursts and anger-driven motives, but this darling moonbeam... perhaps not. The last thing he wanted to do was to frighten her away and ruin any prospects of seeing her again after tonight. Anyone so beautiful, innocent, and maidenly as her ought to be worthy above all else of his presence; and, he wanted her to remain this way for as long as possible.

"I don't know who you think I am," he began slowly, not yet ready to present her with her prize. "But I want you to know that I- I am dangerous." A grimace marred his face; for a moment he debated whether or not he ought to put more space between them just to make certain that she felt safe, unthreatened and definitely not within the line of fire. "I did something that I could not help but do today and I don't- I don't..." His teeth clenched together, his molars grinding against one another as he closed his eyes to think.

The prince's ears drew back in admission after some time and when he opened his eyes again, he studied her. For what was possibly the first time in his life, Sköll Archer was nervous. His tail lowered further to hang at his fetlocks but the fur along his shoulders bristled. Then came his part of the deal, the secret: "I like you, Piety." He had to take a deep breath and breathe out slowly to soothe the anxiety that had reared its head again. "And I want you... For myself. I don't know how to explain it or if I can explain it just yet, but I just know that there's something about you I can't resist."

"Fine...I guess I won't anymore if it's what you want." She was not going to stand for being spoken to so brusquely. Good. The prince liked a little bit of fire in her. But then, he smelt it, he saw it, he felt it as though it were something tangible and visible that rolled off of her and over to him. She was taking him in now, and he could see that her eyes were raking down the whole of his slender frame. No doubt she had  finally noticed the blood that had matted the fur all down the front of his very being.

In a rather exasperated fashion, his brows rose as he noticed the movement of her tail pressing up against her underside. She had thought he killed someone... The hankering to mock her was almost undeniable; but, even as she seemed to calm down from his sudden admission of fondness for her, he found that he wanted to reassure her further. To lure and reel her back to him....

He steeled himself as he continued to watch her, so fearful and eager at the same time on the forest floor as she stared up at him. If he had not asked her to do so much as lay a single hair on him, he reckoned she might have rubbed up all against him, forcing her intoxicating scent into his own coat. He didn't like the idea.

"Oh, angel," he cooed, almost in a ridiculing manner. "You think-" he almost laughed. "You think I killed someone? Nawwwww... No." His conscience frowned at him. Well that didn't sound impressive at all... Revise. Now. "I didn't," he somewhat admitted. Then, he realized, she did not know who Titan and Xetor were. Hell, why not lie? "I got rid of someone who told me earlier that they'd like to have you for themselves. It did it for you. For your safety."

"I took a chunk of his shoulder," he continued to lie, "and half of his ear. The things he said were so unsavory. I had to, you see." His stance relaxed and his tail came to hang limp behind him. "You're still not afraid of me, are you?" he asked, the expression on his face almost worried. "Come here," when said this time around, it was less demanding and more of a request than a demand. A small step forward was hopefully enough to draw her closer, leaving his right forepaw dangling in the air as if waiting to embrace her; if she so wanted to close the distance between them, now was an appropriate time as he had physically and verballyinvited her to touch him.

"I get jealous easily," he murmured, his ego clearly wounded as he released a sliver of truth at last. "You have to understand, I don't take anything lightly. Not when it comes to someone I hold dear." If Sköll wanted Piety to take anything from such an instance of divulgence, he wanted her to know this side of him, to see how she would react and take it all in. Most of the pack paid him no mind and when he acted out, it was typically Elettra who scolded him and put him back in his place. "He said he was going to take you away from me, make you his mate... that someone as beautiful as you ought to deserve better than someone of the likes of me."