Idols and Enemies (Amplifier 4)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “And I’m letting it be invaded.”

  I bared my teeth. “Luring enemies into your lair is not the same thing, sorcerer.”

  He barked out a laugh, then pressed his forehead to mine. “Yes. Yes.”

  We stood like that in the hall, energy and magic shifting between us until the soft sound of the exterior laundry room door shutting drew us apart.

  Kader Azar had just entered the house. His power was as muffled, as tightly contained, as ever.

  Aiden sighed. “You know the bastard has already figured it out. That Cerise used me to get to him.”

  “Well, he used Cerise to get you. So it’s already in his nature to expect that level of betrayal.”

  Aiden snorted. Then, sighing begrudgingly, he strode toward the kitchen, smoothing the crumpled letter in his hand. Apparently, it was time to speak with his father — and that wasn’t a conversation I needed to participate in. In fact, given that I was still feeling the residual of Aiden’s torrent of emotions, it was probably best if I kept my distance from the elder sorcerer as much as possible.

  Plus, if I was going to have guests, I needed to make up more beds. And order some more groceries. I would have preferred brunch at the Home Cafe with Aiden, but unfortunately, I wasn’t currently following my own schedule.

  That was a new and uncomfortable realization, which I instantly shoved into the background. It wasn’t the time for personal revelations.

  Aiden stepped into the hall from our bedroom, wearing one of his suits. A perfectly pressed dark-gray number that hugged his shoulders and tapered slightly at the hips. A crisp white dress shirt, polished black shoes, no tie. And all of it layered with powerful protection spells. I hadn’t seen him wear a suit since we’d had dinner with Isa and Ruwa.

  My chest tightened, anger flushing through my limbs. He didn’t feel safe. In our own home.

  I should have kicked Kader Azar to the curb.

  No.

  I should have brought my blades out to play before the architect of my birth had a chance to open his mouth.

  The handle of the cleaning bucket I was holding snapped in my hand. The bucket listed sideways, spilling dirty, soapy water down my bare leg. I had just finished cleaning the upstairs, making up the beds with fresh sheets and scouring the main bathroom. All of that even though Christopher had done so before he’d left.

  Aiden swiftly closed the space between us, sliding his hand into my hair to cradle my head as I shoved my anger aside — to simmer, not to abate. I raised my chin to welcome a warm, lingering kiss.

  “I love it when you let your magic out to play,” he murmured against my lips.

  I hadn’t realized I’d done anything of the sort. But I could feel that magic raging around me now, my hold on it loosened by my emotions. I had learned how to keep my power in check at a young age. But apparently, Aiden and I were both clothing ourselves in power in anticipation of dealing with another influx of his relatives.

  Not bothering to rein my magic in, I sucked lightly on his bottom lip. “When I let it come out to play with you, you mean. But I should tuck it away so I don’t scare everyone else.”

  A darkly tinted laugh rumbled in his chest. “Scare the shit out of them all, Emma.”

  I pulled back slightly. “Even your mother? Your sisters?”

  He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I … the whole situation is …” He dropped his hand, not finishing his thought.

  “We should go to the diner for a late lunch. Just us.”

  “And leave the house unprotected?”

  I smirked. “Well, only after I scare the shit out of everyone, of course.”

  Aiden grinned with a joy so genuine and fierce that I could read it even though I wasn’t touching him skin to skin. I rectified that oversight, lifting up on my toes to brush my lips against his, playfully.

  Magic danced up my spine. Someone had just brushed against the property wards. The gentle, playful caress of a request for entry was completely different from the tenor of the sorcerers. All four of them.

  The witches had arrived.

  “That was fast,” I murmured against Aiden’s lips when he didn’t seem inclined to break our embrace. “They must have teleported at least part of the way. That’s risky, isn’t it?”

  Aiden only grunted, tightening his grip on me.

  Magic tingled across my spine again, this time raising all the hair on the back of my neck. “Impatient.”

  Aiden sighed, withdrawing reluctantly. He waved his fingers at the spilled water and muttered a word. The dirty water disappeared. Witch magic. Power that he’d inherited from the parent waiting at the front gate.

  “See?” he said tightly. “I’m capable of doing some cleaning.”

  I frowned, not quite certain what to say to that.

  He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m not dealing with all of this very well. I have this feeling that I’ve invited something that I’m not sure I can handle.” He shook his head, squaring his shoulders, then offered me his hand.

  “We invited it. And we can handle it. Just let me put on a dress and put the bucket in the laundry.”

  Aiden took the bucket from me, holding it by the lip. The two halves of the handle dangled uselessly. “I’ll meet you on the front porch.”

  I headed for my bedroom, achingly aware that there was some emotional component to our current situation that I had no context for, and therefore no ability to help Aiden through.

  His own magic coiled tightly around him as the dark-haired sorcerer headed downstairs, footsteps silenced by the spells on his dress shoes. And as idiotic as the thought was, that made my chest ache.

  It hurt to see Aiden wearing that damn suit.

  All five of the Azar sorcerers were arrayed on the front patio by the time I stepped out from the house. Aiden on the top step. Isa immediately to his right, standing at the railing. Kader to my left, standing at center, and alone. Grosvenor stood in the far right-front corner, while Khalid lounged back against the wall next to the front door. He was the only one to look at me, scanning me head to toe.

  I’d selected an azure linen dress that Aiden had bought for me. It had a scooped neck and was belted at the waist, flaring just below my knee. The fabric was sturdy but soft. I hadn’t missed noticing the runes that had been marked along the inner hems. And though I couldn’t feel the magic, I presumed the dress was coated in protection spells similar to those of Aiden’s suits. Similar to those of the suits all the sorcerers currently wore.

  The tableau made me uncomfortable. The show of force. The four outsider sorcerers versus the three indistinct figures I could see beyond the front gate. The witches. And since it was far too early in the day to just start stabbing any of the figures occupying my front patio, I opted for belligerent taunting.

  “Scared of three witches, are you?”

  “You haven’t met the witches in question,” Grosvenor muttered.

  Kader chuckled quietly. His tan suit jacket was open, hands stuffed in his pants pockets.

  Aiden reached back for me. I stepped forward to take his hand obligingly, traversing the steps to the front path with him.

  “Try not to kill anyone, Emma,” Isa said. “I’d like to get a better look at the working before going that route.”

  I chafed at the inference that I was under orders from any of the sorcerers, but Aiden squeezed my hand and I kept my mouth shut. For now. I wasn’t particularly effective with words anyway.

  “So, Isa,” the curse breaker drawled behind us, “you’re a complete prat around Emma because she scares the shit out of you, right?”

  Khalid chuckled darkly.

  Isa didn’t answer.

  I stepped off the path into the grass, crossing alongside the rose bushes that edged the gravel drive. Aiden was silent at my side.

  The figures at the gate came into better view as we neared them. Three women, ages ranging from late teens to early thirties, all with various shades of brown hair.


  The eldest wore a cream-colored wrapped dress with a wide-belted sash, shorter than both of the younger witches standing on either side of her. The youngest witch, still in her teens, was clad in jeans with a single ripped knee, along with a navy tank top. The second youngest, in her early twenties, also wore jeans, paired with a yellow silk peasant top.

  I frowned. “Your mother? She decided not to come?”

  “She’s the one in the middle.” Aiden’s tone was low and tense, his gaze fixed on the witches.

  Aiden’s mother should have been in her early fifties. All of the Adept tended to age well if they didn’t die young — as was the case for some. Shapeshifters and clairvoyants, specifically, though for exceedingly different reasons. But if the cream-clad witch was Aiden’s mother, there was nothing natural about her youth. By her appearance, she was more likely to have been his sister than his parent.

  “I thought your great-aunt was the head of the Myers coven?” I asked, slowing my pace slightly.

  Aiden matched my stride. “She is. It will pass to her daughter.”

  So Cerise Myers wasn’t even in line to head the coven. Therefore, she shouldn’t have been able to pull power from that connection — specifically, the power behind whatever she was doing to appear so young. And even if she was, she shouldn’t have been able to do so from Lake Cowichan.

  No. I was overreacting.

  Not that I’d admit it out loud.

  Perhaps Cerise’s appearance was simply an aspect of the subtle magic that the Myers coven was known for. The more powerful covens would certainly consider such a heavy-handed spell to be a waste of magic. Age was revered among witches, because with age came power.

  Aiden brushed his thumb against the back of my hand, leaving a warm tingle of magic behind. “We can kick them all out. Then we focus on finding Amanda.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t worry. We’ll be pulled into the hunt for Bee when we’re needed.”

  Aiden slanted his eyes at me in a warm, genuine smile. One I really hadn’t seen from him since he’d opened the letter from Kader. “I like that we are a ‘we.’ ”

  “So do I.” I met his gaze steadily. “Very much.”

  “Just say the word, Emma. And they can just kill each other and get it over with.” His smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  I missed it. Which was ridiculously sappy of me.

  I shook my head, traversing the final steps to the gates with the sorcerer. The risk of Aiden getting caught up in Kader’s curse was too great to change my mind now.

  Cerise Myers was beautiful — as least as far as I understood that sort of thing. Her features were delicate but well defined. Dark, straight hair brushing her shoulders. Pert nose, high cheekbones. Her bright-blue eyes were fixed on her son through the magic that defined the property boundary.

  “Introduce us, please,” she directed Aiden, smiling pleasantly. Her accent was French, as expected. Refined, smooth.

  Aiden nodded, turning his shoulder to me. “Emma Johnson, amplifier.” He gestured toward his mother. “Cerise Myers, witch. Mother to Sky.”

  He nodded at the witch in the yellow silk blouse. Sky’s hair was the lightest of the three — a medium brown threaded through with shots of copper and blond. She was wearing brown sandals and had a gold ring on each of her second toes.

  “And Ocean.”

  Aiden grinned at the third witch, the youngest. Ocean grinned back at him. Her dark-brown hair was bleached almost white at the tips. Her eyes were lighter blue than her mother’s. She was the tallest of the witches.

  “All of the Myers coven,” Cerise added gently.

  Aiden nodded slightly at his mother. The smile he’d offered Ocean had disappeared.

  Cerise raked her gaze across his face, looked at me, then looked back at her son. Sadly, I thought. “Will you invite us in?” she finally asked.

  “I’m just trying to figure out how deeply your betrayal goes first.” His tone was quiet but dark. Venomous. “And whether or not I should expose my family to it.”

  Cerise Myers flinched.

  I felt an echo of her obvious shock and pain cross my own heart. I never, ever wanted to elicit that tone from Aiden. Never.

  “How can you say that?” Sky demanded, thrusting her chin toward the house. “And you call them your family? Over us?”

  Aiden looked at his sister steadily, not speaking for long enough that she shifted on her feet, then stopped herself. She clenched her fists instead.

  “Is someone going to explain?” Ocean asked softly, glancing between her mother and her brother. The bleached tips of her hair slipped up and over her shoulders with the movement.

  Aiden arched an eyebrow at his mother. “Cerise?”

  The elder witch raised her chin. “I’m not going to apologize to him.”

  “And to me?” Aiden asked darkly. “If I’m to stand between him and the entire Myers coven? If I’m to protect and shelter you? And Sky? And Ocean?”

  “I’m not the one who asked you to get involved,” Cerise said stiffly.

  Aiden laughed darkly. “No, you simply involved me without permission.”

  “What?” Sky asked, quieter now, trying to piece things together. “How?”

  Ocean had gone pale. She touched her mother’s arm questioningly, but then immediately withdrew her hand, rubbing her fingertips together. As if Cerise Myers was emanating a magical field that I couldn’t feel through the property wards.

  Confusion flickered across Cerise’s upturned face. Then she frowned. “He deserves everything coming to him.”

  Apparently, she wasn’t even going to acknowledge Aiden’s other accusations.

  “You honestly think he can hurt all of us?” Sky asked. “Through the leeching spell Mom set on him?”

  “Leeching spell?” Aiden repeated mockingly, not taking his gaze off his mother. “Is that what you’re calling it?”

  Cerise didn’t answer.

  “Well, that’s what I’m calling it,” Sky said. “Answer my question, Aiden.”

  “Yes,” her brother bit off the words. “I believe he can access the entire Myers coven through the ongoing working that Cerise has tied to him, through me.”

  “Through you?” Ocean echoed, blinking at her mother.

  “Through me.”

  Both of Cerise Myers’s daughters just looked at her then. Silence fell. A red pickup truck drove by on the road behind them. I waved, assuming it was a neighbor, though I didn’t look closely enough to tell.

  “You …” Sky cleared her throat. She was looking at her mother. “You need vengeance so badly after all these years that you would risk Aiden? Risk us?”

  Cerise still didn’t answer her daughter. Her gaze was remote, her expression stiff.

  “Why not just kill him?” Sky cried. “If you had to do something?”

  Again, confusion flickered over Cerise’s face, but it was instantly quashed as she settled her gaze on her son. “You invited me. I’m here.”

  “To negotiate,” Aiden said.

  “I will consider it.” She smiled suddenly, a full, sweet smile. “For your sake.”

  I didn’t like that smile.

  Not at all.

  But Aiden’s shoulders softened, and he reached for the latch on the gate.

  “Wait,” I murmured.

  Aiden paused, head tilted toward me.

  All three witches also tilted their heads toward me. Myers witches. These three were not even remotely a match for me, even if Ocean wielded deadly potions. I was likely at least partially immune to just about anything she might try to dose me with, thanks to the tender training provided by the Collective.

  “No harm will come from mine to yours,” Cerise said quietly. “Not while we bide by your rules on your property.”

  If magic underlaid her words, none filtered through to me, due to the property wards.

  I smiled at her blithe attempt at deception. I didn’t like being bound by anyone else’s word anyway.
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  The skin around Aiden’s eyes tightened. “That oath means nothing, Mother.”

  “What the hell, Aiden?” Sky blurted. “Since when did you become such an asshole?”

  “I’ve always been an asshole,” Aiden said mildly. “But I’m not an idiot. Words offered on the far side of a boundary line are worthless.”

  Sky blinked rapidly.

  Ocean frowned.

  “Give me the opportunity to repeat them, son.” Cerise laid her hand on the top rail of the gate, fingers caressing the magic simmering between us.

  The seemingly casual touch triggered the property wards, setting power tingling up and down my spine. Continually.

  Games.

  Actually, more games. Since the sorcerers were already playing by their own rules as well.

  Aiden glanced at me.

  I nodded.

  He opened the gate, inviting the witches through. Cerise stepped forward, instantly cupping Aiden’s face — first gazing at him, then kissing each of his cheeks. Then she stepped around her son, already reaching for me.

  Ocean flung her arms around her brother’s neck, and Aiden opened his free arm toward Sky.

  Cerise stepped toward me, her smile as wide as her open arms. Her bright-blue eyes were almost a perfect match for Aiden’s.

  Every cell in my body clenched.

  All the hair stood up on the back of my neck.

  My chest constricted, my throat tightening.

  And some instinct — previously unheard, unneeded, because I was always the biggest threat in the room — screamed in the back of my brain.

  Cerise closed the space between us, clasping the hands I’d thrown in front of me without realizing it.

  “Oh,” she cried quietly, delighted. “Emma. You are so, so lovely.” Then she leaned into my space and pressed her cheek to mine, first one side, then the other.

  An answering smile bloomed across my face. “Cerise. Welcome to my home. Our home.”

  “Yes,” she gushed, tucking her hand around my elbow and turning back to gesture to her daughters. “Sky. Ocean.”