[P] devil's in a rush

[Acton]

Acton these violent delights have violent ends She was terribly bold, this golden girl, to walk Calligo’s roads so carelessly. Acton could admire that, even as her terse responses rankled him, working the burr of his anger and suspicion deeper into his skin. Bold, and foolish, and beautiful. It was like looking in a mirror. A very angry mirror, that wanted very little to do with him. “Better a rat than a snake,” he answered her, amiably enough – save for the last syllable, bitten off with relish. His smile outshone the hazy stars, the distant bonfires. He felt wonderfully alive. He felt it even as he felt the coldness roll off of her, a frigid desert night. His initial plan, before that realization, had contained rather less finesse. Now, as he took her in – that smile like a knife, the gleam of her eyes – he buried the anger than ran ragged and hot through his veins, and shifted his stride to something rolling and languid. Hunting. But the Night Court could hold no prey for her. “You’re right,” he said, and flicked his tail so that the rich dark strands of it met briefly with the golden spill of hers. “You’re far too lovely for a vulture. Forgive me.” Briefly the buckskin ducked his masked head, the picture of contrition. Crickets sang around them, and the humidity had curled his hair. “May I ask, then, what you are hunting in Calligo’s great dark? I make a good guide.” The heat in his eyes was a dare, the curve of his lips a promise. He did not ask if she was hunting for a drunken Warden, even though he wanted to. If he’d known how she felt, known the thing that clawed from within her and begged to be a beast wearing her skin – oh, he would have understood. Acton had long had a monster curled within his own gut. It whispered him promises, it waited for sleep or distraction. It wanted. And most of the time, he managed to ignore it. Managed to appease it with wine, with women, with performing. Because it was such a hideous thing, when it got out. Such a glorious thing. @Bexley