Who is Magpie?

Backup came but it didn’t last long. After they had distracted those with weapons they were able to disarm them and force them into shifting, eliminating a long distance threat, but after that another large fire in pulled their forces in two directions again. Ezekiel and Bronx had been caught up fighting multiple wolven at a time and directing their people in support efforts, but Jessamine had been left on her own in the chaos.

At different points, Ezekiel or Bronx had felt her anger and seen her giving Azural a run for his money, but their connection to her ended suddenly. They knew she was alive because they weren’t in pain, but she was no where to be seen. Panic set in and the orders were given for everyone to try and see their Luna but no one had a visual.

Bites became more ferocious as Quoba and Bantu took over, their bodies sacrificed as they went for the kill every time. When the path to the forest gate was clear they both moved to take off towards it, but another fire caught their eye as the main house went up.

“Go help our parents and Gma,” Bronx ordered. “I will go after her.”

“Bring her home.” Ezekiel begged, butting his forehead against his brother’s before they both took off in opposite directions.

Ezekiel ran for his parents room first, calling out to his family, and finding them where he expected. However, he had not anticipated to find his mother in labour, caused by the stress of everything happening outside of her bedroom window. Willow was delivering the baby and Tidas was pulling his hair, feeling completely useless.

Ezekiel called him out into the hall to help put out the fires, while Talia couldn’t be moved to, at the very least, keep a path clear. The tainted wolvesbane water from earlier had already been emptied around the various houses with the first wave taking one variable out of the equation, but the system had to be reset to flush the bug that had set them all off at once.

Getting his family out was the easiest of the things Ezekiel had done in the last hour, filling his father in and having him call Ezekiel’s own counsel to alert the surrounding areas to the threat and get medical assistance on route before rejoining the fight. They needed to capture, kill, or run off all the rogues and traitors left behind. The losses would be calculated later, but right now he needed to take charge of the situation.

—

Bronx knew if he lost the trail now it could cost him enough time to lose her completely. She couldn’t shift to communicate with them farther, and he figured she had been rendered unconscious for him to not be able to sense her now. Losing her twice wasn’t an option.

If the adrenaline pumping through him wasn’t enough to keep him awake the chill of the brisk air would. He worried further about Jessamine, her strapless dress, soaked in blood, wasn’t enough to keep her warm.

Their trail followed outside the pack land walls for a while before darting through the woods, and he figured they would head back to that cave system in the mountains to escape. If he was right he could take a short cut and beat them, but if he was wrong…

She wasn’t worth that risk, and him and his wolf put all their energy into their strides to catch up. If he wanted her as he claimed, Azural would need to move at a steady pace to keep her from falling off or being injured. That would be to his advantage.

He felt like he could smell her, like amongst all of the smells he was familiar with in the forest, the smell of lilies stood out, and then he could see another wolf. He tried to nudge her through their bond, reach out with his emotions to wake her up but she wasn’t very responsive.

It was only two against one, and Bronx would take those odds over losing her in a heartbeat. He ran around them at a wide angle, sinking his teeth into the wolf’s leg like Athena had done to Jessamine, and brought the wolf to the ground.

Azural wrapped his arms around Jessamine, flipping her on top of him as they were thrown into the brush. He checked her over quickly for injury before laying her down on her side behind some rocks.

“This ends now,” he muttered, brushing her hair from her face before stripping off his clothes and shifting to join the fight.

Bronx had broken the other wolven’s leg, tossing them into the rocks after taking them down. The wolf, Kizer, was still trying to bite and claw back but Bronx had also taken a chunk from the back leg and the blood loss had him unable to get off his back to get away.

Azural leapt on top of Bronx, flipping to toss him away from Kizer but Bronx was too heavy for him. The two began to scrap, teeth and claws tearing into anything they could get near and with every hit Bronx took, Jessamine felt his pain and began to stir.

A particularly deep cut over Bronx’s shoulder was enough to wake Jessamine with a loud gasp. She could feel his pain, his anger, his worry, and despite the fog in her head she tried to crawl towards him. It took her several feet of crawling to remember what had happened, coming around the rocks she was behind to see her wolven mate fighting another.

Azural threw Bronx aside with a shove into a tree, but a second later Bronx threw him into a bramble bush. Jessamine could feel their heavy steps through the ground as she moved to where they fought, coming across a small gun along the way she assumed had been Azural’s.

When Bronx could feel Jessamine again his hope grew stronger, but Azural didn’t seem to notice her, and their fight migrated in her direction. Tackling Bronx, the two tumbled over each other, stopping just short of rolling over the rock and crushing her.

Bronx redirected Azural, catching sight of a weapon in Jessamine’s hand. She had felt determined when she picked it up, sure that she could fire straight if only they would stop moving long enough for Bronx to be out of the way.

Teeth sinking in to Azural’s neck, Bronx gave Jessamine the eyes, and the feeling, she knew he wanted her to take the shot and end this. Her arms her steady and it only took a second for her to cock the gun, take aim, and squeeze the trigger.

Jessamine did everything right, but Azural had only pretended to not see her there. He bowed his head, rolling Bronx over his back, and Jessamine’s scream shook the birds from the trees when the shot struck the wrong mark.

The pain from her ankle didn’t exist as she ran to him, the agony in her chest winning over everything else. Azural didn’t even exist as he circled around her, and she tore off as much of her dress as she could spare to press against the wound.

“Bronx! Bronxy, mo coille, please be ok, please,.. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Bronteslav, please stay with me. I’m so sorry, please…” Her words raked painfully through her throat as the blood soaked into the fabric.

He whimpered softly, bringing his nose to sniff her hair. The pain from his wound was sizeable, overpowering the other injuries he’d gathered, but the pain he felt from Jessamine was nothing short of anguish.

“Please, please, pleas-…. No!” Azural moved to grab her and she shoved him off. “Bronx you need to be okay, I need you to be okay.”

“Jessamine,” Azural spoke lowly, but there was a warning tone to it. “I could drag you with me, but then you’ll get injured. I’d prefer if you’d listen.”

Her face was soaked in tears, her eyes swollen and red, but her anger won over. Her eyes shifted to black and her mouth formed a snarl. “You could threaten to drag me by my hair all the way to Two Rivers and I would never willingly listen you.”

He groaned audibly. “He’s bleeding heavily, there’s nothing you can do for him.”

She drew in a quiet breath, so low he couldn’t hear it, and screamed with every ounce of everything she had. He darted forward to cover her mouth and she bit him, keeping pressure on the wound.

He growled, “Jessamine….”

She looked to Bronx hopefully, but knew that no one was close enough. She could see more smoke in the direction of the pack grounds and knew that with an unknown number of traitors, help would not be along fast enough.

“Help him,” she begged. “I’ll do anything, please don’t let him die.”

Azural hated the pity he felt, but more importantly he wanted as far away from the Ashford pack grounds as possible. “No more fighting, we leave and you don’t fight me on it.”

She bit her lip severely but nodded several times. “You will not harm him anymore.”

Bronx whimpered beneath her hands, and she nuzzled her face into his fur. “I can’t live in a world without you in it,” she whispered and pulled two pins from her hair to rest by his face.

“Here,” Azural called, tossing her the tin of Sanaberry gel from earlier. “Make it quick.”

She leaned into him again. “I’m sorry my love, this will fucking hurt.”

Kissing him quickly near where she hoped her mark would be, she dipped her finger into his wound to remove the bullet. When she removed it she could feel Azural behind her and scooped the entire contents of the tin into the wound.

He got out half an objection before it was too late and he groaned, “Jessamine.”

Like an imprudent child, she stuck her tongue out at him and tossed back the small, empty tin. There wasn’t much in it after her leg, and anything less would have been barely a bandaid to a bullet hole.

She could hear him coming up closer behind her, but there was nothing she could do. As someone who had never lost a fight after she had started to win, she knew when she had lost.

She might be able to escape, to risk the ankle and shift to run with three legs being faster than one. She might even be able to fight for a short time, but the adrenaline she got from feeling her mate’s pain wasn’t enough to overcome the drugs she’d been given. He was completely unimpaired, and she couldn’t think of any option, short of what she’d agreed to, that wouldn’t put Bronx at risk.

She was still muttering soft sentiments to Bronx as she applied the gel, and then reapplied pressure. Kissing or nuzzling into his fur was something she started doing for comfort while he was in pain but, as his smell covered her, she knew it made Bronx happy and would piss Azural off entirely. So she rubbed her whole side against him before Azural finally pulled her away.

“Enough Jessamine!” He barked, pulling her to stand and holding her tightly from behind again. “You are my mate! And now I can finally mark you when the Fae can’t erase it.”

His teeth sunk in to the back of her neck, causing both her and Bronx to wince and call out. While she was still tensing from the ache he brought a rope around in front of her with two clear spots for her wrists in the middle and two very long ends.

She reluctantly put her hands through the opening, trying to ‘accidentally’ miss an inner loop but he noticed right away and adjusted it. As he moved her to stand behind him he muttered something about holding on and shifted, revealing why the long ends had been tied together as it looped around his neck tightly.

His other man had been laying quietly, letting himself heal as much as possible, but now got up and limped after them, lagging behind.

“If he goes back and hurts Bronx I will know,” she yelled to reach Azural’s ear, despite knowing she didn’t need to. “And considering you already know what I’m capable of, I don’t need to tell you that you will regret faulting on our deal.”

She gave a slight pull on the rope that wrapped around his neck. He turned slightly to meet her eye and nodded, taking off at a quicker pace.

She had no choice but to lay against him, her head bouncing lazily as he ran with the drugs taking back over.

More wolven could be heard in the distance, but Azural had thought of everything, having a car hidden at the edge of the forest. He shifted back, having to turn and support her up as her tired body ebbed.

“In the back,” he said shortly, rounding the car with her to the drivers side.

She moved to open the door but Azural quickly moved to pull the rope off first. Before she could ask, or try to fight him, the door opened on its own and a boy looking about 5 jumped out.

“Mommy!”