How they all wore at his patience tonight. Harley, Ruben, all of them. He understood why Risque kept that near skeletal vampire with his long, spidery fingers and his weird fucking obsession with cats. The man was, for the most part, good at his job. His fascination with those felines appealed to Risque in every way and yet oh how Darcy disdained that man and his very...demeanor. There were so few things that unsettled the Southern Vampire in any sense. He had lived too long, seen too much and yet there was simply something about Ruben that even Darcy was inclined to admit he found..creepy. So much so that his own possessive nature had readily flared in all its heated glory. Harley was a useless fucking fool most of the time and yet she was his. The vampire so refused to share her in any fashion with his underling. Ruben knew his place in that hierarchy and he would do well to remember it. Whatever sick fascination he had with Harley would have to wait. Darcy, tonight, refused to allow Ruben even the satisfaction of lingering close to her. That very act so hardly an effort to protect Harley as much as it was a near violent vampiric guarding of his possessions. The raven-haired woman, for once, perhaps saved by her master's volatile nature and refusal to share with his own kind. Rubens' outreached hand was slapped away with a striking force. That very slap more than capable of snapping the bones of a human and yet, upon another vampire, that strike was a mere warning blow.

For a singular, near precarious moment Ruben seemed content to consider fighting back. The tension within that room all but skyrocketed for a singular moment in time before Darcy's warning his spat free and Rueben recoiled back. That feline caretaker might well have been the dominant force within this dungeon- but within Syn itself he hardly held such a lofty position. How well he would do to remember it. That hissing, spitting display was over near as quickly as it had begun before Ruben's form offered that ready submission that seemed to sooth Darcy's aggression for now. The Southern vampire, for once, near oblivious to how uncomfortable that very display had made his feline companion. Harley, for perhaps the first time, so having realised that she was....a possession. As if she had been foolish enough to believe she was anything more. Yet, for tonight at least, she had a use. Harley alone was capable of talking to that single escapee they had managed to recapture for that night. That feline would have seen who freed him. He would offer those answers the very world seemed content to deny him. Darcy so refusing to give up upon that veritable chase. His mind had become near fixated upon it, upon finding those answers. Oh how Risque would reward him when he did. That mere contemplation alone enough to stoke at those fires of determination within him. All he needed was for Harley to play her part.

The woman's sudden suggestion that he needed her was met with a sudden cutting of his mismatched gaze towards her. Needed her? Did she truly believe herself to have that much value. She was....a convenience and little more. It would be far too easy to replace her with Tetradore. The emerald eyed panther, in the very least, would do what was commanded of him without running his mouth. How he loathed that fucking cat and yet, Tetradore was often silent. A trait Harley seemed uninclined to truly learn. She still had far too much...spirit about her. Hmmm. Later, perhaps, she might need another....breaking. It was almost....remarkable how quickly she had recovered from the last. Risque's words seemed to find him then. That memory of his Mistress's voice turned within the very depths of his skull. Risque so having wondered if someone had been helping Tetradore all these years. His resilience, after all, was unmatched. Until Harley. Darcy was near quick to cast that thought away in the same fashion he had done the night Risque had uttered it. No fool would help Tetradore for twenty fucking years. There was not a being in this world bold enough to take on Risques wrath like that. Darcy was assured of that. Harley too was merely....wilful. That would be easy enough to shatter over time. A near warning growl rose within the depths of the cowboys throat. Harley seeming near...oblivious to the implications of that very threat to replace her. The woman's sarcasm reached his ears once more. Oh, how thin that line she walked. How fucking oblivious she was to just how quickly her 'use' might run out. Her life would be meaningless then and how Darcy so disliked to keep 'meaningless' lives around. They ate into his profit margin, after all. She would make a far nicer rug then she did a pet. Something to wipe his feet on at the end of the day. How satisfying.

Harley, for once, seemed to possess the sense not to comment further as Ruben led them through that maze of cages. Darcy, after too many years, had become all but unconcerned with those cramped living quarters the cats were forced to suffer. They were nothing to him, after all. Those beings whom existed down here were out of favour with his lover and by that notion alone- out of his concern. They meant nothing. They were nothing. That suffering was all but lost upon the Southern Vampire. They paused before that cage then. This one tucked away in the back. Its occupant was barely alive. Ruben had gone too far. Again. Risque would be....displeased to learn of it. Her care for this feline hardly existed any longer and yet she had not given Ruben permission to destroy it. Yet. That skeletal vampire so often went too far. Killed them before Risque had commanded. How pleasing it was to be able to report something of a failure to his lover when it came to Ruben. This was surely Harley's fate in turn if she continued to displease him. That very comment met with her own assurance that at least she would not brood that Servel to death as Tetradore would. Hmmm. A joke. One Darcy did not find.....unfunny. His disdain for Tetradore in that singular moment so overruling his irritation towards Harley. That delicate, ever changing balance so prompted the vaguest shift of his lip upward in a fleeting smirk before that look all but vanished. His features stoic once more. That simple command was offered to Ruben then to rouse that sick, pathetic looking feline into some semblance of life. The thing was nearly dead. It had....a few hours, maybe, that scent of death clung to it heavily. Its body having already begun to break down.

"Be dead wit in a few 'ours. I can smell it."

Just whom that comment was uttered toward remained to be seen. Ruben, after all, was surely already aware of that very fact. Any vampire could smell death. That breakdown of blood vessels and veins was one of the first things to occur. Blood carried a taint then. A smell. That very thing so often the reason vultures circled above a dying creature. Vampires so often equally as capable of knowing just how long a being had to live. This Servel...reeked of it. Ruben, at last, seemed to poke that feline into some measure of wakefulness. The decrepit creature managed to sit up. That very act seemed to delight Ruben as if the damned fool had some belief the thing would make it through the night. Deranged idiot. Darcy's gaze cut away from that sad little bag of bones then to eye Harley once more. That command to speak to the feline interrupted by Rubens' insistence Harley was in the wrong form. A low growl of irritation rose within Darcy's throat. That new command to shift snapped toward her then. Ruben, beside him, seemed all too eager for that very thing. Both vampires looked onward then in a clear anticipation.

Harley's features seemed to contort into a frown then. The woman insisted she could hardly change while Ruben looked on. Her hand gestured toward the other vampire then. Darcy's gaze shifted, his mismatched eyes landing firmly upon Ruben then as the other vampire leaned near eagerly forward in anticipation. How fucking hard up was he? Then again, Darcy never had seen any women with Ruben. He'd never seen any fucking men either. Darcy, for the first time, inclined to consider whether or not Ruben ever found any kind of....satisfaction in another living being. The Southern Cowboy so eyeing those cats even more warily for a moment. Surely not. Darcy's hand rose once more. That strike was like the crack of a whip as it collided with the side of Rubens face. The other vampire knocked sideways as a frantic yelp of panic escaped him.

"Move over dare."

That command was met with the clear baring of Darcy's own teeth. Those sharpened fangs enough to prompt the other vampire to do as he was told. How little Darcy cared for Harley's modesty yet- how much more he preferred to deny that gangly, foul vampire of even an ounce of pleasure. Darcy hardly saw any need to move quite as far away as Harley declared and yet Ruben was all but thrown into the far wall with that single command to face it. Darcy, for his own part, was inclined to stand near side on. The man kept an eye on Harley and Ruben both as the WerePanther began to strip. Harley pausing briefly to utter something to that caged feline.

"'Urry da 'ell up 'Arley. You ain't got nothin' i ain't seen 'efore."

Darcy's gaze cut sideways, the vampire eyeing that half dressed woman momentarily before his gaze shifted to the wall once more in some near bizarre effort to afford her.....at least some of that privacy she had demanded. Darcy, for all his violent nature and outward aggression so offering her....a moment all the same. Some Southern manner, it seemed, had persisted beneath that violent exterior. It was only once that sound of claws clicking on cement resounded within that room that Darcy turned. Ruben, for several moments, continued to face that wall before deeming it safe enough to turn around in turn. So very pretty. Those near rasping comments were ignored as Darcy strode back across the floor and towards the Panther. Hmm. Risque was right. They were better like this. Far quieter.

"Well?"

That near pointed look was offered to the big cat then. Darcy gestured toward that caged Servel who eyed him warily in turn. Were those cats....speaking? How difficult it was to tell. Darcy well aware, this time, of just how...precarious his plan was. How easy it would be for Harley to feed him the wrong information and yet- there was no reason for her to protect a criminal. No reason for her to lie.

"Ask 'im what he saw dat night. Ask 'im who dem two people were and what 'appened and so 'elp me 'Arley if you lie ta me imma fucking turn yar insides into yar outsides...."

We are rough men and used to rough ways.