Who is Magpie?

That weird itch people had to show others around a location that they knew better thrummed inside her, but she didn’t point out anything as they walked on. She secretly hoped that Kay would demolish the whole thing and start entirely from scratch, but she also knew that the Fae, even her friend, were unlikely to change everything about this place. Just because those that changed sides in the end did so because of the plan to eradicate a species instead of just hating them, did not mean they would give up everything they were.

Kay ran up and hugged her when they returned, expecting and not surprised, when Jessamine shoved her protector away to finish the embrace.

“I’ll miss you,” Kay breathed.

Jessamine froze. “Why?”

An exhausted breath tumbled out. “I am no one in all this. I hadn’t even been named Doux because they thought I would take over. This couldn’t go unnoticed; many, many people died tonight. I couldn’t cover this up if I used every trick in the book-“

“-is there actually a book?” Azural whispered.

Kay rolled her eyes. “- I’ve already contacted our elders. We’re to bury those involved and apologize on our knees for this transgression.” She looked over to Ezekiel and eyed him up and down. “We even?”

He snarled. “Far from even with the Fae, but I have no quarrel with you Kay.”

She smiled but Jessamine was growing anxious. “Why will you miss me?” She asked again.

Kay’s shoulders slumped. “We’re going back to Taelaris, the country of Fae origins. Apparently we were asked to give up this land a long, long time ago, but my grandfather insisted he would get something irreplaceable from maintaining his foothold.”

“That’s …” Jessamine gasped. “On the other side of the world. They won’t let me on that land.” She seemed to shrink in on herself, sadness taking over.

“Hey, heyy….” Kay drawled, hugging her again. “Not forever, just for now. You need some time at home anyway, recover, and heal. I love you,” she crooned. “I will never stop caring about you, and I want an invitation to the wedding-“ she eyed all the men and wagged her finger with a chuckle “- if you figure out how that’s going to work.”

“You’re the first person after my mom died that took care of me and was honest with me… other than the ‘magic you-can-visit-the-garden potion.” Jessamine laughed. “I love you too. If anything changes, if you’re not safe there, you will always have a home with me.”

Kay hugged her again, tighter this time. “We have your people checking the grounds for anyone hiding, but then we’ll start digging holes. We leave when it’s done.”

Jessamine looked hopefully at Ezekiel. “That’s a lot of holes.”

“I will ask for volunteers to help,” he muttered and bowed his head slightly to Kay.

Bronx did the same. “We appreciate you doing what you could, even if some of that was to help Azural take her from us…. We understand your goal was to help her.”

Kay nodded and bowed her head only slightly. “I’m glad she has people to take care of her. That was always my biggest worry when they sent her away…. It’s unfortunate, but it will be mass graves for those here. If you have volunteers I can show them where to begin, but I’ll need them out before us. I’m putting weed killer in the sprinkler systems before we go. I’m so done with all these fucking plants.”

“Me too,” Jessamine agreed.

Kay pecked a kiss on her cheek and all the men behind her growled. Jessamine lashed out a couple of elbows and a kick to their shins before leaning in an making a spectacle of returning the kiss to Kay’s cheek.

“I loved her first,” she returned to them. “She is my best friend, so don’t you dare growl at her again unless you want to risk making me angry.”

They met the intensity of her stare, each of them taking a small step backward.

“Anyone else thinking about how the last people she was angry at had both arms dislocated at once and were be headed with one bite?” Azural asked, looking between them even as they looked dumbfounded back at him. “.. What? It can’t possibly just be me.”

Kay laughed and shoved her. “Go, we’ll meet again.”

After another big hug, they moved to the doors where they knew their medical crews were waiting in vans just on the other side.

“I probably missed the best one, but what did you do to that raging hemorrhoid, Bluejay?” Azural asked and Jessamine stopped.

“Kay?” She asked hopefully.

Kay shook her head slowly, eyes wide. “Not me… I’ll keep a lookout while we burry them. Someone must have gotten him outside.”

Jessamine nodded hopefully, carrying on to the door a little less relaxed than before, but still opened it and moved quickly into a waiting van. Ezekiel and Bronx followed close behind into the backseat, moving her over one of them to sit in the middle. The door opened in and Azural climbed in, garnishing a fresh round of low growls, but still he sat across from them.

“Lower your voices, you’re ruining the quiet in here,” he ‘soothed’, and reached for Jessamine’s hand. “I just needed to see, really see, that you’re okay.” He managed a weak smile and reached under the seat revealing a new oxygen mask rig. “And get one of these. Someone has to stay out there to manage things.

“I’ve already got Keizer taking head counts, we’ll see who we lost and who was injured.. I’ll even put it in a nice little file folder for you-“ he looked into the rising sun, “- for a meeting around breakfast, -tomorrow?” They agreed and Azural rose to go. “Jessa? When we get back and you see Oakley.. I know you’ll want to spend every second with him but you need today to rest. I don’t like them, but listen to your mates.

“Healing from this starts with your body-“ he pat his eyepatch that was already tinged with blood, “-lucky for me I have a while before I have to work on my mind.”

He squeezed her hand before sliding back out of the car and someone new slid in. “Hello Jessamine.”

Jessamine startled at the woman in front of her. “… Doctor Swan? I heard of your defection, and received your note. It may have saved my life, so thank you.”

Doctor Swan looked wryly. “Yes well, you have Kookaburra to thank for that actually. She threatened me if I didn’t deliver her note to you, and I figured ‘well while I’m there’ and added my own note.” Bronx choked a laugh into his hand as Jessamine’s mouth fell open that one of the biggest aids in her survival was by coincidence.

“And before you ask, I was in the kennels. They caught me soon after I sent that letter and they’ve been waiting to negotiate my transport to one of their other businesses.”

“Well I’ll thank Kay then,” Jessamine bristled and caught Ezekiel trying to quiet his laughter behind his lips and elbowed him.

She was glad they were able to laugh at that. When the words carelessly fell from Swan’s mouth, she was worried they would get angry or begin obsessively worrying about what it could have been like. The woman sat there so plainly that when she didn’t continue Jessamine got worried instead.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Jessamine asked hesitantly.

Swan shook her head, shaking her distracted smile off her face. “Sorry, I just never thought I would see you-“, she gestured to her body, “-like this, but no, it’s what I can help you with. I know you just left, but, as your primary doctor, I’d like to take you back to the medical room to treat your wounds.”

Jessamine meant to refuse, but had second thoughts. “Okay.” She pat both of their knees as she moved toward the door as Swan was already exiting. “I’ll be right back, can you wait here so I can talk to her?”

They looked wearily. “I’m not willing to let you go back in their, alone, with one of their Fae, former or not, no offence,” Ezekiel admitted.

She raised both hands slightly off her lap and waved with a smile. “None taken.”

Jessamine glanced out the window and spotted someone she could remember now, her torturous time and numerous shocks rattling just little tidbits of lost memories free.

“I’ll bring Keizer,” she blurted out, pointing out the window.

Both of the men stilled, until Bronx said, slowly, “wwhhyy?”

“He’s my brother,” she grinned, believing they would have spoken about it in the time they were all on the same property.

Ezekiel chuckled like he wasn’t surprised there was yet another surprise. “I can’t wait for this story.”

Her eyebrows quirked when she realized they didn’t know but smirked again. “It’s not a long story, he’s older by five years, and only briefly met me when I was a baby. My birth father found his mate in my mom, but he had a previous partner, and she got pregnant. When she threatened to try and get Keizer ahead of me in line for the territory by any means possible, they were exiled and became rogues.

“He grew up with Azural and, as another rogue with alpha blood, he was easily named as his beta. They tried to attend the auctions when they knew I was there, and when Azural couldn’t make it, Keizer would come to try and keep me from trouble. With the drugs I was on, I thought he was just a lonely guy, paying to pretend he had a family for so long.”

“You remember?” Bronx asked and she nodded. “Do you remember.. anything.. else?”

She could see a small blush on his cheeks and moved in to kiss them as she nodded. “It was a spider,” she whispered and pulled away, pecking Ezekiel’s cheek as well as she moved to the door.

“What?” He asked, shaking his head in confusion.

“In the garden, the first time you ever protected me, it was a spider that crawled on me, not just a bug.” She smiled at him, hearing his heart pick up as she slid out of the car with another mask from under the seat.

Bronx was thrilled that she had gotten some more of her memories back, but more even more so that one was about him. Ezekiel was sitting back, watching her out the car window as she ran up to Keizer and threw her arms around him. The large man froze and looked instantly confused, turning slowly in her arms to look at her.

It was clear that not being able to smell her approach to figure out who it was had played a large part in his confusion, because at seeing her he instantly relaxed. He brought his arms around her, and it was only the clear presence of familial love in Jessamine’s heart that kept them both in the car. She was gesturing inside with her hands and then started to feel embarrassed as he didn’t reply.

They could tell she was worried she had under-thought his willingness to accompany her for their benefit, but he turned to Azural who waved them off with a ‘whatever’ gesture. Jessamine waved back to the car and trot off after Swan with Keizer looking to the car cautiously, waving as well, and taking off behind her.