Blackfeather Woods you must know life to see decay.

Quixote halted a bit farther back, keeping close to the pacing he'd had before.  He still thought of himself as the one playing bait, despite the fact there was another in the party that he didn't realize.

Oh how he wished that Towhee hadn't yelled.  His face contorted, lips drawing back in a stifled flash of fangs.  The slowing pace had brought him to the twitchy side of the spectrum.  He wanted to be the one doing the hunting, and she'd gone and given them away.  It was foolish.  Bold, certainly, but still foolish.  But then again, their numbers were widely spread -- perhaps if the whole force came together, evenly sweeping through the brush like a fire, that would have been the ideal way to deal with it.  Far too late, no point in lecturing otherwise.  Far too quiet now.  He hoped there wouldn't be a next time, that explaining how things should be done wouldn't be a necessity.  Let it end here.

For a brief moment he thought her err had gone unnoticed, but that was quickly proven otherwise as a faint noise in the distance became a pale apparition that sprung from the brush.  He'd barely had time to open his maw and utter half a letter, not that Towhee would have heard it.  Whatever garbled word it was, it died as he started forward a bound or two to close the gap to the impending fight before another cry caused him to spin in heel, expecting another attacker before his brain finally caught up and processed the words.  He didn't know Eljay, didn't recognize his voice, but he did see a flash of greys bowled over by a dark one.  And honestly, somewhere in his dark, snarky heart he was a bit of a sap and that was just the kind of words that would get his attention -- even if the kid would turn out to be only marginally younger than himself.  Finley was closest to Towhee when he last saw, and he gave it a fraction of a second thought before dismissing that they could deal with one together.

He snarled and dove at the black woman, acidic eyes blazing with the intensity released from the coiled spring within him.  He was definitely doing his best to be a giant, much more threatening distraction, planning to careen into her and latch his fangs into whatever was convenient if she didn't release the grey wolf.

He expected things to go pear shaped, but not like this.