Who is Magpie?

“Is there anything we can get you Jessamine?” Talia asked hopefully.

Jessamine paused, nearly saying something vaguely suggestive before she remembered the present company. She thought for a serious moment, internalizing just how wrong everything was and wrecked right through she felt. Dark thoughts crossed her mind in those moments before she took a deep breath.

With a smirk on her face Jessamine breathed half a laugh. “No, I honestly don’t think there’s anything anyone can do for me.”

Ezekiel squeezed her tightly. “He won’t get you,” he assured but nothing had ever felt so much like a lie.

“Never alive,” she muttered bitterly but her anger was fading to be replaced with fear. “What was their arrangement?” She asked desperately.

Bronx rubbed her thigh. “They will not get you.” He repeated.

She growled low and shoved him aggressively. “Stop saying that. I’m years behind understanding their plans for me. There’s a whole plot I knew nothing about, and I just found out those that made my life hell were only holding me for someone else. So what the fuck does he want to do to me?”

“He likely wants your bloodline,” Tidas cut in. “If you are around the same age and as a rogue he doesn’t have a mate, then he’s likely become infatuated with the idea of you.”

That didn’t particularly help, and some how she doubted he would go this far for ‘the idea’ of her, but arguing that wouldn’t help anyway. Her mind had returned to that dark place that she had gone to after the fight, but something felt more familiar about it this time. Her chest felt empty at the idea of them taking her to anything that resembled what she had left. She would rather die.

“I didn’t even escape the first time.” Her gut wretched, feeling like she was hollow but could still throw up. “I doubt….” she couldn’t finish the thoughts that choked her as they became words.

She fell backwards into that darkness, and her face fell out of character for Jessamine, but felt familiar for Magpie.

‘Emotions are useless,’ she told her wolf. ‘Having attachments is useless. I let myself feel too much, and now I’d rather not exist without them.’

Jessamine shutdown, feeling the room go silent around her despite others still talking. She wasn’t hearing anything as the words ‘waste of time’ rang out in her memories. Her entire body felt like it had been given a much stronger tranquilizer as her dark thoughts came to roost like buzzards.

Ezekiel had jostled Jessamine twice and tried to speak with her, but she hadn’t even looked at him. Bronx had rubbed her leg and done the same with no greater response. Her eyes remained open, looking out toward the window where she knew the wolven walked the same patrol shifts.

“What happened at that fight?” Talia asked, looking at Jessamine like she had gone catatonic.

Ezekiel rubbed the sides of her arms, feeling like this action would warm and comfort her as he began to summarize what she had told them in the shower.

Willow and Tidas were just as surprised as Talia with this information, but then Bronx looked to fill Talia in on the only thing she didn’t yet know. “Athena didn’t yield,” he said blandly. “She really wanted to force Jessa into the banishment, making a lot of superficial or painful strikes to try and prove her point.”

“I don’t regret it,” Jessamine said softly, blandly, with so much exhaustion that it could have been said half asleep. “If she had taken banishment she would have joined the rogues to come and kill all of us. She would aim to at least get the land, but from her strong emotions I wouldn’t put it past her to leverage one of you into giving her strong offspring.”

“Fat chance,” both Ezekiel and Bronx muttered in unison.

Jessamine laughed with more sadness than the sound had ever come from her. “You don’t understand how fucked up everything is.” She breathed deeply, closing her eyes and willing her emotions to stay numb. “Athena was in and out of here all the time, with this plan and information in her pocket. That means this began with her or her family 7-8 years ago. The rogues current alpha found out where my family was hiding from one of the Gilan’s.”

Bronx sighed with defeated understanding. “Around then the rogue’s previous alpha would have had a son nearly ready to take over. They would be pillaging territories and looking for strong women or bloodlines to start the next generation.”

“The Gilan’s had suffered quite badly during those attacks. I believe Athena lost an aunt and uncle, and her father was injured.” Tidas confirmed what Jessamine had been thinking.

Jessamine was still nodding slightly when she spoke. “They gave up my family to offer the rogues a different female, from the same bloodline, that would put up less fight.” She scoffed and switched to shaking her head. “And I got the three of them to team up.”

“Four,” Tidas said suddenly, and Jessamine’s eyes grew wider as she looked at him. “I’m not agreeing that you did, but there were four sides working together. I fail to see what the Gilan’s and the Ormans have in common.”

“The Ormans!?” Jessamine exclaimed and she felt Ezekiel shirk away from her so she repeated her exclamation. “The - ORMANS?! When was this established?”

“After the trial,” Ezekiel said cautiously. “When you went off with Fiona we had a meting with the counsel. I told you he took off,… but there was a note…”

She was building up to start yelling at him when Bronx took her hand in his and rubbed it soothingly. “I backed him up on not wanting to show you. It wasn’t groundbreaking information…” he paused, realizing his words as they tumbled out. “And we didn’t want to worry you with vague threats.”

Her teeth grit angrily as she breathed a structured breath in and out through her nose. “What does it say?”

Ezekiel moved to hold her but she elbowed him. “If they had known who she was, they never would have let her leave. To have trained and treated an alpha’s daughter the way they did…. The few times we’d met, I couldn’t sense any wolven in her and I believed she was a lowly omega. Now that they both know who and where she is, it’s a race for her to see how the tri-cities fall. Killing her would have been a mercy for what is to come, and killing her before they come and get her will be a mercy for us.”

“That elitist, hypocritical, grey-water hinting,… He knew about them working together…. And the Fae didn’t know I was an Alpha’s daughter, so they didn’t know why…. This changes nothing other than two people saying what i was think…”

She cut herself short, realizing that Ezekiel could feel what she was, and Bronx had learned too much about her to not understand what she was thinking.

“We aren’t fingers that you can chop off,” Bronx breathed and she felt immediately worse.

Ezekiel held her tighter, arms wrapped around her from behind but Bronx thumbed towards the door, suggesting they go. Ezekiel nodded and they stood at the same time, lifting Jessamine together and then settling her into Ezekiels arms.

“We understand, go.” Talia said before Ezekiel could come up with an excuse and he nodded appreciatively.

The trio walked slowly to the master bedroom, pausing for a long moment between the two doors. Ezekiel kissed her cheek and neck on one side, dusting kisses over the mark he’d left there. Bronx wove his hand into her hair, pulling her towards him to rest their foreheads together and stretching the skin on her neck for Ezekiel.

Her breathing lightened. She knew nothing more would come from their affections this time, but still she stretched out towards Bronx and kissed his cheek gently. Turning the other way to Ezekiel she kissed him as well.

“What are you thinking?” Bronx asked, kissing the back of her neck lightly.

“It’s easier to pretend everything will be ok between you like this.” She said, speaking as she always wanted to, without thinking.

Ezekiel ran his nose up and down the side of her face. “Then we’ll never let you go.”

The bedroom felt overbearing. Everything looked the same as when she had left it but a heavy feeling hung in the air. Bronx flipped the covers down on the bed before searching the room for intruders or anything out of place. Jessamine allowed this search, also feeling uneasy about someone possibly being under the bed or in the closet.

She slid into the middle of the bed as Ezekiel got undressed, watching him for a moment before moving her eyes over to Bronx. He had finished his sweep of the room and was stacking throw pillows on the couch. Jessamine turned lamentably to Ezekiel who had crawled into the bed.

He didn’t need to see her face, feeling her through the connection already.

“Bronx,” he called lightly, and he looked over. “Your Luna wants you on point.”

Bronx worked to hide his joy but Jessamine could tell as he slid into the king sized bed beside her. She grabbed Ezekiel’s hand and wrapped it over her waist, warming her hips back up against his and he slid his other arm under her neck. Reaching to Bronx she placed her hand on top of his and smiled appreciatively that he didn’t say anything.

Ezekiel wrapped his hand further around her stomach and made sure their bodies touched all the way down her back. She could hear him inhale the scent off her hair deeply before he started kissing the back of her neck more possessively.

“I love you,” she breathed. “No matter what ends up happening, please don’t forget that being here was the first thing I chose to do for myself again every day.”

“Nothing will happen.” Bronx brought his other hand to clasp hers and kissed her fingers.

“We’ll keep you safe,” Ezekiel assured.

She didn’t voice the fear she still felt, she knew Ezekiel could feel it. She closed her eyes, ready for sleep, and felt Bronx lean over and silently kiss her nose. That brought the faintest smile to her face that helped carry her off into a night of nightmares.