Otatso Wetlands Break free and leave us in ruins

stag.
mahler's brief admiration at seeing the son of his kill-brother burn to a new and powerful life was singed away by the boundary-line laid by the boy's throat — and wylla on the other side of it.
confusion collided with realization; he came to a hard halt, lavender stare firming to cold amethyst as wylla's pelt melded with that of stag;
he loathed the anger that scalded the inside of his throat, how his muscles fell to bear, to bunch with the tension of wanting only to move forward and punish the younger man for his daring, brainstem bewitched by the beguiling stipple of every instinct in her direction, heart aching with the same unwarranted want.
she did not wish him — her teeth were matched for his scarred face.
stag's tense figure, his high-flung alabaster plume, the way his long limbs promised capitulation to the eyes of the gargoyle.
low sound lifting the more savage cut of tones in the throat of wylla —
him? his lilac stare inquired, falling to her own as charcoal hackles stayed abristle. 
logic warred and lost within the shadowpriest — there must be some reason it would be stag, but the doktor only found himself enlivened with a new rage.
mahler tore his gaze from the silverknife and the snowbound, filled himself with the sight of the first man, and incredulity began to spread across his features into a wintry and humorless sigh; he caught the cur's eyes and held them.
a growl this one would remember thundering in his chest, translated into a vicious, territorial bellow; this time he leapt across the snow for the legion-wolf, and this time he meant to maim, not only take land.
a scapegoat, an example, a show of the hungry sorrowful power still left in mahler.