Who is Magpie?

“You will take your blade and kill the Alpha Ezekiel. You are not to return until you are successful.” He had been smoking his pipe, making her eyes water, but he had never let her presence prevent him from doing whatever he wanted. Speaking around her like she wasn’t there, smoking around her like she didn’t need to breathe, even taking phone calls and making her wait for him to finish.

She had sipped her tea until he demanded she finish it and leave. Chugging the drink always made her feel overwhelmed and anxious for a while. That feeling hadn’t worn off this time as her entire mission felt off and overwhelming.

…

He held both her wrists in his tight grip as she lashed out with her legs. Her stocking toes cracked against his hard shins, doing absolutely no damage to him, and questionable damage to her so she tried to aim for something softer.

“What are you doing?” He demanded. “Don’t you feel it?”

She did feel something, something that added to the anxiety inside her, like a distant sound down a dark hall growing closer but never quite arriving. It didn’t stop her order. She needed to kill him so she could go back. If she could get out.

She kneed him in the groin, but he was able to move just enough to miss his family jewels. Still, his grip loosened enough for her to get a few feet away and they began fighting fully. She threw a vase, and while he was focused on catching it she dove for him, slicing his side and his upper thigh where she had tried to stab, but he scarcely winced. Backing away Magpie needed to reconsider her options.

Blood ran down her hands from her changing grips, flipping it by utilizing the fingers she placed on either side of the blade in either hand, but she didn’t even notice. Ezekiel did though, his gaze slipping to follow the drips to the floor. He wondered why she didn’t stop holding them like that as they dug into her skin.

She darted for him again, running only a handful of feet before colliding with him back onto to the bed. He tried to brace her fall with his own, but she used the momentum to flip over him and off the other side. He laid on the bed and she stood above him, her knife pressed to his throat.

“Amazing!” He… cooed.

Magpie didn’t understand his reaction and a second later the door crashed opened and she didn’t have time to. She lunged to plunge her knife into Ezekiel’s chest, barely noticing the guards panicked and angry faces running toward her. Before she had realized she had missed, Ezekiel had pulled her arm down, now using her momentum against her to flip her up and over him, onto the bed beside him.

‘This is it.’ She thought, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes.

She could hear the low growl emanating from the man above her. He had his legs pinning hers, and her wrists both incapacitated by only one of his. Still she held her blade, it dug into her fingers and she had no way to use it, but she felt there must be some honour in having her throat ripped out with a blade still in her hands.

The growl continued and she opened one eye to see why she still lived. Alpha Ezekiel wasn’t even looking at her as he made the sound, instead looking behind her. Light filtered in through the open door, basking over the two of them on the bed, breaking up where the people who stood behind her cast shadows over the floor.

She wondered what threat had possibly entered that was greater than dealing with her. Craning her neck back, only dimly aware that this made her throat more vulnerable, she looked behind her to see his own guards standing there in horror.

“She is Mine.” He roared.

The guards scarcely moved but she saw one step, only one step, slowly, forward. “Alpha, Ezekiel, what’s going on man. You can tell us.” He spoke cautiously, looking from Ezekiel to Magpie, who wanted to shrug because she was also confused, but couldn’t with her arms pinned up.

“No kidding man, because it looks like you’re protecting a would be assassin.”

Magpie scoffed. “Would be.” She muttered, forgetting that they would be able to hear her and snapped her mouth shut.

“She speaks!” Ezekiel smiled, smile, at her, confusing her more.

A deep swallow in his throat attracted her attention and she fought against his grip. Even if she died here, even if her last act was just following out her orders, Kay would know that she fought until her dying breath. She had to, but her body wouldn’t even let her put half her strength into fight back.

Ezekiel’s eyes held hers, watching her pupils swing in and out like a light was being waved over her face. His eyebrows knit together, looking at her in a worry so deep it made Magpie want to cry. She could fight a little harder now, mostly in frustration, but also because her heart was racing uncontrollably.

“Alpha?” Another worried guard’s voice broke his focus.

“A healer, we need a healer!” Ezekiel demanded, hearing her little heart beating impossibly fast.

A bark of a laugh sounded. “Surely this little thing didn’t get you that good.”

“Not for me, for her!” He demanded.

“What?!” Both Magpie and the guard who chose to speak gasped at once.

“She tried to kill you.” He continued.

“I’m in peak form.” Magpie boasted, trying again to free herself but failing under his weight.

He leaned his head closer to her. “You’re bleeding.” He reminded. “You’re cutting yourself right now.”

She looked up at her hands seeing the blade between her fingers. “I don’t feel pain. I’d rather die with a weapon in my hand than begging for my life.”

Something like a purr came from him and Magpie flinched away.

The guards were muttering behind her and then Ezekiel snapped. “You will do no such thing!”

Magpie’s heart was continuing to race along in her chest, smacking so hard against her rib cage that she was sure Ezekiel could see it through her shirt. She could feel a sheen of sweat covering her brow and dampening her clothes. This was how her body felt when she had had the coughing fit in the garden, minus the coughing of course.

Her eyes grew wide, but her pupils continued to swing in and out. All of this building together in her body made it difficult to concentrate on what those around her were saying. Magpie suddenly feared, that more than her throat being torn out, that she would die from a panic attack. She would be the laughing stock in the Garden; she would shame Kay, the only friend she knew.

“Just kill me!” Magpie demanded, tears rolling down her face now at the thought of Kay hearing of her death and failure. “At least send me out with honour.”

Gasps came from behind her, from the guards who had gathered there, and silence followed. She could swear she felt the unease circle the room as the silence continued and then that same guard, or presumably the beta, spoke up again.

“Alpha… she asked for an honourable death,… will you grant it to her?” He asked, and the silence continued.

“No.” Ezekiel muttered.

A choked cry almost laugh left Magpie. “I am dead either way.”

Her eyes stopped struggle to focus as finality entered her thoughts. There was nothing she could do but grip her knife, until Ezekiel’s other hand pried it from her fingers. He winced as he felt her bones beneath his fingers, knowing he made her cuts worse and probably bruised her by doing this.

“Bronx.” He called, dropping the knife to stab into the floor.

“Yes Alpha.” The same guard, his beta replied.

“Approach, leave your weapons.” A clatter of things fell to the floor before heavy steps approached her.

Magpie looked straight up, eyeing the man who had guaranteed her death but refused to kill her himself.

Ezekiel began patting her down for weapons, rougher than he needed to but also stilted like he had never done it before. When he got as far as he could reach with one hand, then he instructed Bronx to hold her hands while he continued. Bronx did as commanded, holding her looser than Ezekiel, and somehow that made her prideful that he had seen her as a greater threat.

As Ezekiel began patting down her legs She slid a hand free from Bronx, able to capitalize on his confusion she was able to grab the tip of her baton handle. She swung it up and against his head, moving to hit Ezekiel next. She would do anything to avoid being a prisoner.

Ezekiel moved his hand easily to block her, but a rough thunk landed on her head and darkness overtook her thoughts.