Mystics and Mental Blocks
Amplifier 3
Meghan Ciana Doidge
Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions
Contents
Author’s note: Amplifier Series
Author’s Note: Adept Universe
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
COMING SOON
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Meghan Ciana Doidge
The Adept Universe by MCD
Author’s Note:
* * *
Mystics and Mental Blocks is the third book in the Amplifier series, which is set in the same universe as the Dowser, Oracle, and Reconstructionist series.
* * *
The Amplifier Protocol (Amplifier 0)
Close to Home (Amplifier 0.5)
Demons and DNA (Amplifier 1)
Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)
Mystics and Mental Blocks (Amplifier 3)
Author’s Note:
* * *
Mystics and Mental Blocks is the third book in the Amplifier series, which is set in the same universe as the Dowser, Oracle, and Reconstructionist series. While it is not necessary to read all four series, in order to avoid spoilers the ideal reading order of the Adept Universe is as follows:
* * *
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1)
Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser 2)
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser 3)
I See Me (Oracle 1)
Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic (Dowser 4)
Maps, Artifacts, and Other Arcane Magic (Dowser 5)
I See You (Oracle 2)
Artifacts, Dragons, and Other Lethal Magic (Dowser 6)
I See Us (Oracle 3)
Catching Echoes (Reconstructionist 1)
Tangled Echoes (Reconstructionist 2)
Unleashing Echoes (Reconstructionist 3)
Champagne, Misfits, and Other Shady Magic (Dowser 7)
Misfits, Gemstones, and Other Shattered Magic (Dowser 8)
Graveyards, Visions, and Other Things that Byte (Dowser 8.5)
Gemstones, Elves, and Other Insidious Magic (Dowser 9)
The Amplifier Protocol (Amplifier 0)
Demons and DNA (Amplifier 1)
Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)
Mystics and Mental Blocks (Amplifier 3)
* * *
More books in the Amplifier series will follow.
* * *
More information can be found at www.madebymeghan.ca/novels.
Introduction
Three days. That was all the reprieve we got before one of the Five showed up, injured and on the run. The snowstorm that had encased the property, as well as stifled the town, hadn’t even melted away.
That wounded prey led our newest adversary directly to me, to Christopher. Inconvenient timing, but not unexpected.
It was the betrayal forcing me to stay my hand against that adversary that shocked me. Betrayal from the least likely of sources. Or so I would have thought.
But that didn’t change who I was, and what I would do to preserve a life I loved, people I cherished.
I wasn’t so easily broken. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t be hurt, couldn’t be pulled apart. Unraveled.
And if I managed to put the pieces back together? I wasn’t certain who I’d be on the other side of it all. Friend? Lover? Killer? Emma or Amp5?
Or was it possible to be all those things at once?
Chapter 1
Magic whispered across my collarbone, exhaled by the sorcerer sleeping next to me. I snuggled underneath the quilt, willing myself back to sleep. The house was still, dawn edging the drawn curtains. It wasn’t time to wake up. I hadn’t had more than four hours of sleep in the previous three days. And even I needed to recharge.
Battles had been fought, Opal rescued twice, and an alliance fortified — a partnership of my choosing. With Aiden. And snuggled in bed, it felt as though months had passed. But it was still mid-February. Friday, if I was remembering correctly. I definitely needed more shut-eye.
Still in the depths of sleep, Aiden reached for me under the covers, resting his hand on my hip, fingers splayed. A possessive touch, perhaps. Or maybe just an involuntary need to assure himself that I was near, touchable.
Giving up on falling back to sleep, I gave in to my own possessive impulse, my own involuntary need — just to look at him. He was on his side, facing me, dark hair mushed against a white pillow, jaw shadowed with thick stubble. His deeply tanned skin was a sharp contrast to the white sheets pulled across his shoulders. A hint of the faded, black-inked runes decorating his neck and upper chest edged the collar of a white T-shirt.
My sheets.
My bed.
In my own home.
That I had chosen to share with Aiden.
I knew the spent runes covered almost every section of his body. That they’d been inked in a combination of his own blood and black marker. The sorcerer had drawn a second set on Christopher, so that they could both cross through a section of the demon dimension that Aiden’s brother, Isa, and cousin, Ruwa, had anchored to the Grant farm.
Less than seventy-two hours had passed since then. The pocket of the demon dimension had collapsed, nearly swallowing Christopher, Paisley, Opal, Jenni, and me. Ruwa was dead, as was the demon she’d bound to herself. Dead by my hand. Isa Azar had disappeared into the snowstorm that had all but swallowed the northwest coast of Canada and the US. Aiden was still healing.
And witches were on their way to take Opal back to the Academy.
As expected.
As it should be.
The witches in question had been delayed by the storm, though they’d both been in constant contact since Christopher had updated them about Opal and the situation at the Grant farm. Ember Pine, my lawyer, had already come up with an action plan, through conversation with me and Jenni Raymond. And Capri Pine, Opal’s foster mother, had called twice to check in. The conversations had seemed strained on Opal’s end, though I’d tried to not listen in. Just in case my presence was overly influencing the young witch.
I tamped down on the pinch of grief that accompanied the thought of Opal leaving, focusing on gazing at Aiden, breathing in that moment for just a while longer. I should have gotten up and let the sorcerer sleep. Even amplified by me, he needed sleep to heal, to let his magic recuperate.
Aiden had been obsessively working on the property wards since we’d found him in the empty cabin where his brother had left him, and he had managed to drain himself by each evening for the last three days. He was worried about Isa returning — with his father, Kader Azar. He was worried that he couldn’t hold the sorcerer Azar at bay, not even amplified by me. Not that he’d said anything outright. I only picked up his doubt, his frustration, through my empathy.
But I wasn’t worried about Kader Azar. Or Isa.
Because I had the present moment to savor.
I’d always been highly focused on the present. I had to be, since living in the past wasn’t an option. I didn’t dwell, wouldn’t dwell. I refused to dwell.
And I had never simply slept with anyone before. No sex, just comfort. Not overnight, not in my own space, and not by choice.
Aiden’s hand was still splayed heavily across my hip. I let my own hand
settle gently on his arm where it stretched between us. His magic rose at my touch, but I let it abate without attempting to amplify it. I knew that he should have spent the night in his permanent pentagram in the barn loft, healing. Aiden had fortified it with copper piping after he’d tried to track Isa and failed.
Because I’d asked him to stay. And copper was more magically conductive than black marker or paint.
But after more than two days with little sleep for both of us, when I’d held my hand out to Aiden in the early-morning hours, he had followed me upstairs and into my bed. No more questions. No more discussions or plans.
I had checked on Opal, who I’d settled into the guest room across from Christopher’s bedroom a few hours earlier. Then Aiden and I had stripped off our outer layers of clothing and climbed under the covers. After a few gentle kisses, I’d fallen asleep, our toes and shoulders and fingertips touching.
There was a peacefulness to be found in utter exhaustion.
Though perhaps only when I got to choose who to invite into my bed.
Under the covers, I ran my hand up Aiden’s extended arm, visualizing the faded runes that were still etched across his skin. My fingers hit fabric around the middle of his bicep — the sleeve of a cotton T-shirt. The sorcerer was still partially clothed. As was I.
Fortunately, that could be easily rectified.
I smiled, promptly rejecting any notion of leaving him to sleep in peace, then running through all the possible ways I could wake the slumbering sorcerer. All the ways in which we could spend the last hour or so before dawn turned to day, and all our other obligations came —
A murmur laced with magic drew my attention to the vicinity of my feet. I propped myself up on my elbow.
A mound of fabric had appeared at the foot of the bed. In the low light, I could make out only a pile of blankets stretched across something. But the tenor of witch magic was unmistakable.
Opal.
The young witch had apparently ditched the large comfortable bed in the guest room to build herself a blanket fort at the end of my bed sometime in the middle of the night. It was slightly disconcerting that she’d been able to do so without waking me. But then, she was a dream walker. Perhaps that came with sneaky benefits.
It was odd timing, though. Opal had slept deeply, settled in the guest room, for the previous two nights. I had checked on her multiple times. So perhaps she was reacting to the witches’ pending arrival. As I was.
Aiden’s hand shifted from my hip, fingers trailing upward, across my waist and lower rib cage, teasing under my left breast.
Still partially propped up, I readied a cautionary whisper about the young witch’s presence in the room. But as I turned my head, I found myself immediately pinned into place by Aiden’s searing blue gaze.
My heart thumped.
The desire that had been slowly coming to a simmer as I visualized waking the sorcerer flooded through me.
A slow, sleepy smile softened Aiden’s gaze. Abandoning the lower curve of my breast, he slid his hand over my shoulder to the back of my neck, then gently tugged me forward into a lingering kiss.
I sighed into his mouth, pressing my free hand against his chest and feeling the steady beat of his heart.
He deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into my mouth as he slid his hand down my back to cup my ass and pull me snugly against him. The hard length of him pressed against my lower stomach — he had woken ready to back up all the promises we’d made three days before. His eagerness to do so was effortlessly transmitted through the empathic connection made by our skin-to-skin contact.
My mind turned to mush. All my concerns were deliciously swamped by desire and need.
Opal murmured something in her sleep. Again.
Aiden’s head snapped back, all vestiges of sleep wiped away in a single blink. He rose on his elbow and winced, then noted the blanket fort that had appeared at the end of the bed.
He collapsed back with a silent sigh, his disappointment warring with residual pain. His right shoulder had been dislocated when he’d tried to escape Isa’s incarceration, and the left shoulder was badly sprained. Those lingering wounds and the fact that we’d both been exhausted were why we’d gone to bed mostly clothed.
I laughed quietly. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I reached underneath the sheets tented between us and teasingly stroked the hard length of him through his boxers.
Just once.
I wasn’t a complete monster.
He groaned almost silently, then muttered quietly, “Not helpful.”
Magic shifted on my spine, concentrated on the blood tattoo anchored on my T3 vertebra. Aiden glanced toward the partially closed door behind me at the same time I did, presumably feeling the magic as it triggered the bond.
Christopher appeared at the door, wearing only boxers. His white blond hair was mussed. In the low light, the faded runes etched across his arms, torso, and legs were only slightly darker smudges against his golden skin. The white of the clairvoyant’s magic rimmed his pupils. Seeing we were awake, he pushed open the door, padding into the room.
“Shove over,” he grunted.
Aiden shifted to the far edge of the bed, tucking me against him.
Before I could offer any protest over having my bedroom further invaded, Christopher climbed under the covers, facing me but not touching.
I shimmied back against Aiden. He splayed his hand across my stomach. I noted, with some disappointment, that his erection had retreated, presumably due to our suddenly mixed company.
Christopher grinned at me, without a doubt reacting to some admonishment I’d voiced in whatever near future he was presently seeing unfold in his mind’s eye.
I shook my head at him, tugging up the sheets and the quilt so they covered all three of us up to our necks. All we needed was for Paisley to join us. But the demon dog was babysitting the newly hatched chicks in the barn, even though they were in a temperature-monitored, heated brooder. The chicks had hatched — with no help from anyone — while we’d all been rescuing each other at the Grant farm. Even after all of Christopher’s focus, it turned out that they hadn’t needed anyone to look after them.
“You need a bigger bed, Socks,” Christopher murmured, folding his arm under his head. Beneath the covers, he reached toward me, but then wrapped his fingers around Aiden’s wrist.
The sorcerer propped himself up so he could see the clairvoyant over my shoulder, hissing slightly with the movement. I guessed that he had tweaked his shoulder again. Magic shifted between Aiden and Christopher, humming against my stomach, but I kept my own power to myself. I didn’t want to inadvertently direct whatever had woken Christopher and brought him into my bedroom.
“Isa?” Aiden asked quietly. “As soon as I finish fortifying the wards, I should go after him. And notify Ruwa’s parents of her … demise.”
We had talked through how and when to execute both those plans, extensively. But Aiden had stayed. Because he was still hurt. And because I’d asked him to stay with me. With us. But once the incident at the Grant farm was covered up and Opal was safely back at the Academy, he was going to have to figure out what to do about his family.
We. We were going to have to figure it out.
Because the two of us were a ‘we’ now. Apparently that wasn’t as overwhelming as I might once have thought it was going to be. But I had always been good at sticking to decisions once made, no matter the consequences.
Christopher narrowed his softly glowing eyes, then shook his head slightly. He didn’t release his hold on the sorcerer though.
“Kader Azar?” I asked in a whisper, not wanting to wake the young witch slumbering at the bottom of the bed.
“Not yet,” the clairvoyant said, his voice thick with sleep.
“But soon?” Aiden asked.
“I only see the witches right now. But it feels like something else is looming just outside my reach …” Christopher released Aiden’s wrist, trailing his fingers up my arm, t
hen settling them across all four of the blood tattoos on my upper spine, hidden under my tank top. “I’m getting glimpses …”
I narrowed my eyes at the unsanctioned touching, but didn’t admonish him. He appeared to be trying to use the blood bonds to sharpen what he was seeing of the future, not simply playing around with his magic.
Clairvoyants, along with oracles and harbingers, had a much higher mortality rate than other Adepts. Mostly from suicide, due to insanity. Such magic users rarely survived their thirties without a support network, which was why most seers aligned with a witch coven. But I was more sensitive to the possibility that Christopher using his magic might burn him out than he was. It was a long-standing point of contention between us, and not something I would ever take lightly.
Granted, Christopher wasn’t just a clairvoyant. Like me, he’d been artificially conceived from a mixture of magical DNA designed to make him more than simply a conduit for seeing the immediate future. The blood tattoos each of the Five wore grounded his power as well.
“The witches?” I asked. “Ember and Capri Pine?”
“Yes. I see them. But …” He pressed one finger to each tattoo on my spine. Magic gathered under his touch, spreading across my neck and shoulder blades. “Still too far out,” he finally said. “Blood on the snow, words exchanged, a white-etched pentagram …”
“Tied to the Pine witches?” Aiden asked.
“No. To whatever else is coming.” Christopher withdrew his hand. The power in his eyes dimmed into a sliver of white around his light-gray irises. “The Pines are about an hour away. I just saw them drive over that silver bridge that leads into Duncan.”
Mystics and Mental Blocks (Amplifier 3) Page 1