Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “Not in anger,” he said stiffly.

  “I thought I was scared, Knox. You should make up your mind.”

  “Do you want me to apologize?” he snarled. “For which part? Existing?”

  I snagged his wrist, holding him tightly enough that he’d have to make an effort to break away. My empathy triggered at the skin-to-skin contact, and I instantly felt a flood of frustration from him. “I need you here with me, Knox. Are you here? Am I arguing with you? Or a future version of you?”

  His shoulders slumped. “Both versions, all versions are me.”

  “If you want to back Aiden with his brother and Ruwa, he needs you in the present. As much as possible.”

  “I’m not an idiot. I’m just as well trained as you, Socks.”

  “Have you checked yourself for spells?”

  He blinked, then looked surprised.

  Aiden swore, lyrically. In that foreign, possibly arcane language he favored when perturbed or angry.

  “You’re acting out of character, my Knox,” I whispered.

  Christopher closed his eyes, swaying back as if the only thing that anchored him was my hold on his wrist. His frustration shifted to confusion, filtering through my empathy. “I haven’t,” he murmured. “I … thought you were being crazy suggesting that I was being blocked, suggesting that I’d slept with someone wearing Jenni’s body.”

  I settled my other hand on Christopher’s shoulder, then glanced over at Aiden. “I’m not sensitive enough to pick up if he’s been spelled.”

  The sorcerer closed the space between us, ghosting his hand over Christopher’s outstretched arm, up over his shoulder, neck, and head. His expression was carefully neutral, but magic seethed in his eyes. Aiden was angry but keeping it in check.

  “I’m not a liability,” Christopher murmured, drawing my attention back to him. The compressed ring of magic around his eyes had thinned.

  “Of course not,” I said. Then to Aiden, I added, “It might be in the process of wearing off.”

  “I’m surprised that Isa or Ruwa would be strong enough to hold Christopher at all,” Aiden said.

  “Sex makes us all vulnerable,” the clairvoyant said. “Even the Five.”

  I nodded.

  Aiden didn’t offer an opinion as he stepped around Christopher, still ghosting his fingers over him.

  “I’m sorry I said those things,” Knox said. “I know you do what you think is best for me and Paisley. That you put us first —”

  “No,” I said. “I put myself first. I always have. It just so happens that without you or Paisley, I am … no one. I have no purpose.”

  “Socks …”

  I shook my head. “I have no issue with you sleeping with Jenni.”

  “I know.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “Do you?”

  He huffed out a laugh. “Sometimes I just say things … we have different conversations in my head. We are occasionally different people in my head. Sometimes you even belong to me.”

  “I do belong to you,” I said stiffly, stepping back so Aiden could take my place and continue scanning Christopher.

  “I’m not talking about some forced blood tie,” he said, his tone becoming heated.

  “Got it,” Aiden murmured. “Could you remove your shirt?”

  Christopher sighed, then pulled off his T-shirt.

  “Right arm up,” Aiden said. Then, stepping to the side, he peered at a series of marks on the upper side of Christopher’s rib cage.

  “Scratches,” the clairvoyant said. “Already healing over. A hazard of sleeping with a …” He trailed off as if realizing what he was saying as he voiced it.

  I frowned. “Jenni doesn’t usually scratch you?”

  He grimaced.

  Yeah, Jenni Raymond rarely used her natural strength, not even when she was in jeopardy.

  Aiden hummed thoughtfully. Then he pulled a black marker out of his pocket, carefully inscribing a pentagram around the marks on Christopher’s side.

  “Damn it. Damn it!” Christopher flushed with frustration.

  “Keep your magic in check,” I said coolly.

  “Some of us make mistakes, Socks,” the clairvoyant snarled. “And we have to work through them.”

  “Some of us understand,” I said, leaning back against the counter, watching as Aiden drew a rune at each point of the pentagram. “Though some of us are confused about referring to ourselves in the third person.”

  “You are such an asshole.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “You are totally culpable in all of this. If Isa and Ruwa are involved, it’s because you brought Aiden here.”

  The sorcerer’s head snapped up. “So Emma isn’t to have an opinion about who you sleep with, but she has to double-check with you when she wants to do the same?”

  “If you were just a passing fancy, sorcerer, you’d be long gone. Hell, Socks wouldn’t have brought you home in the first place. As far as I’ve figured, she isn’t big on beds at all.”

  “And how would you know that?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even but failing.

  Christopher exhaled harshly, rubbing his head. “Why are we having this argument?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Aiden inked the final rune, and magic shimmered around the pentagram. “You’re arguing because Christopher feels bad about letting someone spell him,” he said. “Blocking his magic with regard to the dream walker and her kidnapper. He feels like seeing the future is his only worthy contribution.” The sorcerer stepped back, capping his marker. “He also, in typical sibling fashion, believes that he doesn’t measure up to you, Emma. And that you’re ruining your life taking care of him. Unfortunately, he expresses this by lashing out and accusing you of things that someone who can see the future should know aren’t remotely true.”

  The clairvoyant lowered his arm, gazing at the sorcerer.

  I stared at Aiden as well, trying to absorb his assessment of the situation.

  The sorcerer’s tone became edged. “Emma doesn’t make fear-based decisions, and she most certainly doesn’t need you suggesting that she ruins everything she touches.”

  Christopher clenched his hands. “I would never suggest —”

  “You do,” Aiden said, interrupting. “Every single time you get angry … at your own mistakes.”

  “You know nothing about us, sorcerer,” Christopher snarled. “You understand nothing about our past.”

  “I’m here for the present, clairvoyant.”

  Christopher opened his mouth.

  “That’s enough,” I said coolly. “Aiden, thank you.” I nodded toward the pentagram he’d drawn on Christopher. A light shimmer of blue magic marked its black edges.

  “It was already fading as the wound healed over. But that should hold the residual at bay. It’s blood based. I imagine that was the only way to get past the clairvoyant’s natural resistance to magic.”

  “There’s nothing natural about any of the Five,” Christopher said darkly. “Don’t kid yourself, sorcerer.”

  “I said that’s enough.” I stepped forward to draw the clairvoyant’s attention from Aiden. “Remember who you are. Who you want to be. Christopher Johnson. Here in the present with me, with us. Your words have weight.”

  He shook his head, tugging his deck of oracle cards out of his pocket. “I’m here. I just feel like a fucking idiot.” He allowed the cards to fall from the box into his left hand. “And I don’t like being mentally assessed by the sorcerer. I’ve had enough of that shit.”

  “I apologize,” Aiden said steadily. “But I’m not interested in standing around while you attack Emma.”

  Christopher nodded, though he wasn’t pleased about it. He shuffled the cards, once, twice, three times. His head snapped up. “Fuck. I am being blocked.”

  I sighed. “Yeah.” I glanced over at Aiden. “That’s some complicated spell work, done in … what? Five minutes?”

  Aiden shook his head. “The scratch delive
red a preset spell, but it was likely something that took days to craft. Blood triggered, obviously. Whatever is blocking the clairvoyant is a separate casting, which likely took from the moment the condom was stolen to Opal’s escape to construct. Or the witch was let loose in an attempt to force you into a position where you have to defend her.”

  I nodded, agreeing with his assessment of the situation. “Binding spells,” I said. “On Opal and now on Christopher. Ruwa’s specialty.”

  Aiden huffed out a breath, still eyeing the scratches on Christopher, as well as the spell encompassed by his inked pentagram. He’d told Jenni Raymond that he could see different shades of magic. “Yes. Normally I’d pin this on her without question. But by the feel, by the look, I have no idea what kind of magic we’re dealing with. I’d guess witch. Black witch. Except for the shapeshifting.”

  “Two different Adepts, then?”

  Aiden nodded. “That would make sense. But then we have four separate individuals involved, not including Opal. Isa, Ruwa, the black witch, and the human shapeshifter. And the chances that four Adepts of such different magical persuasions are working together is highly unlikely.”

  “It occasionally works,” Christopher said, offering me an amused grin.

  I didn’t return it. The reasons the Five worked together so well were coded into our DNA. Choice had nothing to do with it.

  The smile faded from the clairvoyant’s face as he shuffled the cards again. “You know I love you, right?” he murmured, addressing me. “I just got … I get mixed up. And the spell blocking me from understanding that I was being blocked probably wasn’t helping.”

  I almost threw the fact that I’d been spelled by a black witch myself, only a few months previously, back in his face. That spell had tried to make me kill myself, and even under its influence, I managed to remember that he was my first priority. Instead, I said nothing.

  “Right.” Christopher stretched his neck. “Right. Well, let’s get to the bottom of this. I’ll get my sword.” He tucked the cards away, moving toward the front hall.

  “I need a few moments to refill the bat and my rings,” Aiden said, calling after the clairvoyant.

  Christopher waved over his shoulder, then continued down the hall and up the stairs.

  Aiden settled his piercing gaze on me. I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to thank him for defending me — or to tell him it wasn’t his place to do so.

  A grin that informed me he could tell what I was thinking spread across the sorcerer’s face. Then he laughed quietly. “Care to join me?”

  “In your pentagram?”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat, encouraging but noncommittal. “Are you asking me to power you up, sorcerer?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  His grin widened. “I’m asking you if you want to fool around.”

  “Fool … around?”

  He chuckled. “I figure we’ve only got a few minutes, so I can’t offer more than that …” He trailed off, his smile fading. “I was … I was trying to flirt. Ridiculously bad timing. I didn’t mean to suggest that —”

  I closed the space between us, pausing near enough that I could touch him, but not so near that I couldn’t focus on his face, his eyes. “I can’t leave the house,” I whispered, threading the fingers of my right hand through his. “I promised Opal.”

  Aiden reached up with his free hand and smoothed my hair back from my face. “It is an effort to not be continually reaching for you, Emma. Touching you.”

  “Since the amplification?”

  “No. No, before that. All the time. The amplification was just unexpected. And I …” He cleared his throat. “I liked it. More than I think I should.”

  “I could be rougher next time.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “I doubt that would change my reaction. Intensify it, maybe.”

  “Can you use the leftover salt?” I asked. “For a pentagram?”

  He frowned for a moment, then shook his head. “I forgot what we were talking about.”

  “Powering up the bat and the copper rings.”

  “Right. Right. That’s probably a priority.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t move away.

  Neither did he.

  “At the risk of getting you more addicted …” I swallowed, forcing myself to meet his sharp, blue-eyed gaze. “To my magic …”

  “It’s not even remotely possible to become less addicted to you, Emma,” he murmured.

  I nodded, stepping back from articulating my offer. But he countered my retreat, pulling me against his chest, lowering his head.

  I lifted my chin. A tiny movement was all it took to brush my lips against his. But it was an invitation he’d been waiting for, because he immediately closed and intensified the kiss. I laced my fingers through his thick, silky hair.

  Desire crashed over me. His desire, picked up through my empathy. Intermingled with my own desire, flooding through me, hardening my nipples, and pooling heavily in my lower regions. I gasped, meeting Aiden’s questing tongue with my own.

  He groaned.

  The sound twisted through me, following the same path as the flush of desire had. Increasing it twofold.

  I slipped my hand up under his sweater, seeking and finding his warm skin, muscles shifting under my touch. Magic rose and ebbed around us. I let it do as it willed, allowing the moment to unfold undirected, without my typical calculation.

  I moved my hand around the front, trailing my fingers over Aiden’s abdomen, up across his chest, teasing his nipples.

  He muttered something, a curse or an exaltation in that lyrical language that was his own. Trailing kisses down my neck, he found a spot below and behind my ear that made my knees inexplicably weaken.

  I swayed into him.

  He grabbed my ass, pressing himself against me. He was hard, ready.

  And I was … enthralled … overwhelmed … overcome with desire. His and mine. I lifted up on my toes, trying to line up our bodies, rubbing against him. He shifted us back two awkward steps to press me against the island counter while his mouth ravished mine. He lifted my right leg so he could settle against my core.

  “Emma,” he murmured, slipping his hand up to cup my breast, then flick my nipple through the layers of clothing between us.

  “We’re wearing too much,” I whispered.

  “We’re in the kitchen,” he said, though not sounding particularly concerned about the location or our constricting clothing.

  “Aiden,” I whispered, reaching between us to stroke the hard length of him through his jeans.

  “Emma.” He followed my name with another of his curses. More magic shifted around us, called forth by desire and need.

  “The laundry room has a door,” I murmured, sucking on his ear.

  He moaned. Turning abruptly away from me and snagging my hand at the same time, he tugged me across the kitchen and into the laundry room. I pressed myself against his back as he closed the door, then looked at the handle.

  “It doesn’t lock,” I said.

  “Damn.” He turned to me, maneuvering me against the dryer, then trying to lift me up on it.

  “It’s too high,” I said.

  “Not for what I want.” Aiden captured my mouth in his, hands moving over me, blindly sorting out how my clothing unfastened.

  “Aiden …” I slid my hand under his sweater again, luxuriating in being able to touch his skin unhindered. “The floor? I want to be on top.”

  “I still don’t have any condoms.”

  “You have to know a spell? A rune?”

  Aiden hesitated. “Nothing reliable, not up against your magic.”

  I stilled. He meant for preventing pregnancy. And I … I couldn’t get pregnant. The Collective had made certain of that for all of the Five. Was that something I was supposed to have shared with him? Should I share it now?

  Aiden cupped my face in his hands. “Emma. Where did you go?”

  “I’m … I …”

 
He kissed me softly, then with more urgency. “The floor is good. You on top is great. We can also stop at any time.”

  I reached for the handle of the dryer, trying to open it and keep my lips and pelvis in contact with Aiden at the same time. I wasn’t entirely successful, but the sorcerer didn’t seem fazed by my awkwardness.

  I pulled all the dry laundry out of the dryer — towels and some of Christopher’s clothes — tossing it onto the floor. Aiden got the gist, kneeling and pulling me down with him. He settled back. I climbed on top, straddling him, creating a pillow under his head with a couple of bundled towels.

  He slipped his hands under my sweater and my loose dress, unlatching my bra and freeing my breasts, then cupping them both with a satisfied grunt. I leaned over, kissing him, my hair falling down around us. Rubbing my core against him, planning to work him out of his jeans, planning to mount him properly.

  But energy welled between us, between our lips and tongues, between his hands and my breasts. An intense wave of desire — Aiden’s emotions intermingled with mine — overtook me. I fell into it, letting it spread through me, wiping out all my plans and intentions. Instead, I simply focused deeply on the pleasure building between my legs, curling up from the bottom of my feet, spreading up my calves, my thighs, then bursting over me in intense waves.

  I cried out, losing the rhythm, convulsing with the pleasure.

  Aiden gripped my hips, steadying me. He sat up to recapture my lips, groaning as he did so. That noise, sounding as though it had been ripped from him, somehow also flooded through our empathic connection. He came.

  Triggered by Aiden’s burst of pleasure, a second orgasm hit me without warning, flooding through me and somehow loosening all my limbs. I tumbled down on Aiden, and he shifted me next to him, rolling me onto the laundry, then rising over me to kiss me deeply.

  He slipped his hand between my legs. With his lips pressed to mine, tongue thrusting, he somehow coaxed a third orgasm from me by simply rubbing me through my clothing. The release of pleasure was almost painful.

  I panted, riding the final waves. Feeling my own heart beating madly, even as I pressed my hand to Aiden’s chest and felt his heart beating the same rhythm. I opened my eyes to meet his satisfied gaze.