Who is Magpie?

“Night Bronxy,” Ezekiel mocked, having a conversation between the two wolven Jessamine was unaware to as she fell asleep.

“You’re just bitter because I have a nickname,” Bronx teased in return.

Ezekiel only paused a moment before showing him his teeth. “Maybe I don’t have a nickname, yet, but when she calls me Alpha.” A low growl sounded in his throat and Jessamine squirmed beside them, a soft grin spreading over her face and she moaned in return.

“You keep that up and it’s going to be a very long night for us beside her.” Bronx noted, ignoring the way her moan rumbled through her chest against his paw.

Ezekiel nuzzled against her head again gently. “Just encouraging her sordid dreams,” he mused with a mental laugh.

Bronx rolled his eyes but the thought made him sad. “Tonight should have been different. She should just be getting back with you in tow…”

“You think it would take me that long?” Ezekiel asked skeptically.

Bronx laughed, “absolutely. You underestimated her for sure, I think she could have evaded you most of the night.”

Ezekiel’s mood turned sadly too. “They also underestimated her, but just barely. They won’t do that again, and the next time they’ll come in greater numbers.”

They both knew this was true, and knew that meant Jessamine would need constant protection. She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere or be alone with anyone for the foreseeable future, which was sure to be an interesting discussion. One perk about them being in their wolven forms meant that they could stay up all night talking about it without waking her.

The downside to them being able to stay up all night discussing the problems was that she was able to get up without waking them.

“Son of a fucking bitch! Eerrmmm!” Jessamine yelled, waking both of the men still curled beside each other with a Jessamine sized space between them.

They stood immediately, shifting back, and looked around the room, the bathroom door was closed, but a second later it opened and Jessamine’s head poked around the side of it cautiously. She made eye contact with the two men with sympathetic eyes and sighed quietly.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep,” she begged, retreating back to the bathroom, but they were both firmly awake now.

“What are you doing in there?” Ezekiel asked, moving toward the bathroom.

Bronx’s curiosity got the better of him and he followed behind as he opened the door. They could hear the shower running and her splints laid on the floor. She had returned to the glass shower and was trying to lean her head over to wash her hair without it touching her back again. The water ran a rust colour down the drain as she worked the dirt and blood free.

Bronx however had focused on the braces, as he had seen them go on. “Jessamine! There’s no way you are healed enough for this with how your back still looks.”

“Jessa,” she corrected. “And well… you may actually be right. Thus the cursing from earlier, but I had already put the soap in my hair so I have to finish it.” She admitted to him.

Ezekiel on the other hand was already moving into the shower to help. He gave her an arm to take weight off her ankle while taking the shower head down to rinse her hair better. She grabbed the conditioner as he replaced the shower head and looked over her back.

“He’s right my Luna, your back should have healed more than this by now. Bronx is it any better than it was last night? I find it hard to believe it was worse,” Ezekiel called out.

Bronx hesitated before opening the door and joining them, moving to add his eyes to those looking over the injury. “Barely, I believe these two lines extended further.” His smallest finger traced over her hip where the skin was still red but no longer open and she arched her back in with the touch.

“It’s probably due to all the scars there. Or my body has gotten lazy in healing that skin with all the Sanaberry gel used to fade the scars.” Jessamine spoke as she dipped her head under the water again for her last rinse.

“Sanaberry?” Was said by Bronx at the same time Ezekiel angrily asked, “they were deeper?”

Jessamine chose to only answer one of the questions. “Yea sanaberry, derived from the plant. It’s a thick gel that when applied to wounds boosts healing considerably. That’s why all the Fae look so perfect despite being so shitty at physical altercations, most of the time.”

Ezekiel feared his next question. “If it can heal the skin so perfectly, why..?”

“Were my scars so deep?” She finished for him, being done rinsing her hair and able to look at him. “Because they were my punishments, they healed at a human pace, specifically inflicted at times when they didn’t need me or needed me out of the way.”

She looked behind herself to Bronx who wasn’t even staring at her ass like she hoped and met his eyes. “These..?” He asked, wrapping his large hands around her hips. “… were all punishments? And have regularly refused you treatment? What could you have possibly done?”

Jessamine mistook the rhetorical question as serious. “Yea, they didn’t usually give it to me, it’s only been these last months that someone would bring their stash of it to help.” She reached and touched her shoulder and then other areas on her back. “Someone died on a mission I was also on and it hadn’t been me. I… I think I deflected too hard and they zapped themselves so I got their stun gun… I cracked my practise staff, so they broke it…”

She went on, touching the marks, not even needing the mirror to remember where each was. “Jessa.” Bronx stilled her hand as her finger tips brushed an explosive looking burn he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the story for. “They will not get you back,” he assured.

He had a way of stilling her with his words, reminding her of the fears that she had been so used to ignoring in the back of her mind. Bronx always brought those fears to the surface and there they were now right where everyone could see. Somehow he knew that she spoke so casually when her mind was the most busy, thoughts buzzing like flies over the sticky paper of her conscious thoughts.

“I… i know.” It was nearly a whisper and they knew she was lying.

He continued to hold her hand, moving it as he stood beside her but it was Ezekiel who spoke next. “I am so sorry you had to relive your fears with what happened last night. You have my word that I will not let them take you.”

She gripped Bronx’s hand tightly while those words sunk in, but then leant in to kiss Ezekiel. “I… I just want to forget, even for a minute.”

Her hand had wound up through his hair and his hand mimicked hers, happily tangling in the hair absent of another wolven’s blood. “I think I can give you more than a minute.”

She leaned against him, sinking her teeth fully into the spot where his shoulder and neck met to mark him the way he had her. She felt him groan through the pain, his hand gripping her hip until she let go, all the while Bronx tried to squirm his hand free from her grip.

Truthfully she knew it was cruel to hang on so tightly, but the words uttered the night before sat there where her palm touched his and she knew she felt the same way. Her love for Ezekiel felt more like her wolf, wild and changing quickly, but with Bronx she felt a sense of comfort, like it would always be the same.

Ezekiel noticed the struggle when Bronx started to argued wordlessly to Jessamine, but she only pouted at him. “Is he being mean to you again my Luna?” He chuckled, reaching to grab the hand and redirecting it to her hip. “If she wants you here, you can stay, but you can’t force him.” He ended the sentence looking at Jessamine, taking her face in both his hands to kiss her feverishly. “Never forget, you are my mate.”

He could feel the love she felt in her heart as it warmed through her touch, and projected into the very air around her.