Enough snow had fallen that the tire tracks on the driveway and the footsteps marking Aiden’s passage between the barn and the house were almost completely obscured. But a phone call to the Home Cafe confirmed that the main streets were still being regularly plowed, and that Melissa and Brian were planning on staying open for as long as they could.
Leaving it to Aiden to contact his brother and Ruwa with a time and location for our dinner, I retreated into my bedroom and tried to find something to wear. The combination of a snowstorm and a dinner with Adepts I might have to drain and leave for dead created a quandary. Jeans, hiking boots, and my Gore-Tex jacket were appropriate for the snow. Some sort of dress, leaving my arms mostly bare, would be best for the other.
I actually considered borrowing Christopher’s phone to call Hannah Stewart, to see if she had anything new at the thrift shop — then remembered I had no idea what her number was, which I’d likely have to get from Jenni Raymond. That put the situation into perspective.
It didn’t matter what I wore.
I opted for a dark-navy dress with a large flower print, topped by a pink raincoat. I left my hair partly down. I knew I’d made the right decision for the look when I spotted Aiden wearing his suit. Though I didn’t doubt the suit was layered with sorcerer spells to repel dirt and whatnot.
Paisley grumbled, following me down the stairs, then pacing around me as I carried two sets of shoes to the front door. Boots to come and go from the house, and black flats for inside the diner. Movement through the glass of the door drew my attention outside. Aiden was in the process of pulling the SUV up against the front stairs. He’d already brushed off the snow that had accumulated on the vehicle.
Paisley sat in front of the door, glaring at me balefully.
I ignored her, feeling magic shift over the blood tattoo on my spine as Christopher stepped into the hall from the front sitting room. He was absentmindedly shuffling his oracle card deck, but his gaze was clear.
Paisley let out an undulating wail, designed to raise all the hair on the back of my neck. Also, to communicate her utter despair at being forced to stay behind.
“Your protest is noted,” I said mildly. “Had it anything to do with a concern for me or an instinctual sense of pending violence —”
Paisley opened her mouth to interrupt me.
I gave her a look.
She snapped her mouth closed, looking away as if I were beneath her notice. She didn’t, however, move from blocking the door.
Christopher stifled a laugh.
I gave him the same quelling look, then turned back to address the demon dog. “Christopher isn’t coming either.”
“I’d yowl my disappointment as well,” the clairvoyant muttered wryly. “Except I want to keep an eye on the incubator in case the power goes out. Plus, Isa Azar is a bore. And I have a feeling that with you and Aiden at the table, I won’t even rate Ruwa’s notice.”
“Any sorcerer would be interested in you,” I said. “Too interested.”
He laughed. “I’m talking about sex, Socks.”
“So was I.”
He snorted, shuffling the deck again. His magic welled, snapping to the cards moving through his fingers.
I waited.
Nothing more happened.
I turned to Paisley. “I’ll bring a treat back. Pasta?”
The demon dog grumbled, refusing to look at me. Or to move away from the door.
I sighed. “A turkey burger, then.”
Paisley’s ears flickered.
I grimaced. “Beef …”
She side-eyed me, a gleam of red highlighting her pupils.
“I’m not ordering bacon. Cheese, yes. I can even ask Brian to put a fried egg on it. But not bacon.”
Paisley flashed doubled rows of sharp teeth at me. Aiden stepped up onto the front patio, brushing snow from his suit and stomping his feet just beyond the doormat. He opened the door, almost hitting Paisley as she crossed by me and headed down the hall.
I ignored the urge to call her back, to give her a firm set of instructions. Contingency plans.
“Ready?” Aiden asked. His tone was as grim as I felt.
I glanced over at Christopher.
The clairvoyant shrugged, holding the cards loosely in one hand. “I see nothing that tells me you shouldn’t go.”
“If they’re at the diner with us, Emma,” Aiden said, “they can’t also be striking at Christopher and Paisley.”
The clairvoyant kept his gaze on me, speaking to the sorcerer. “Emma doesn’t like ‘ifs.’ Uncertainty is one thing. A fact of life, of magic. But making firm decisions based solely on possibilities is poor leadership.”
“Are you mocking me?” I asked in a whisper.
Christopher straightened, reaching for but not actually touching me. “You know I’m not.”
I glanced over at Aiden, then back at Christopher. “Neither sorcerer is a match for you,” I said. “Or for Paisley. You will not hesitate to act accordingly.” I didn’t bother mentioning any of the several contingency plans we’d already adapted to our current surroundings. Christopher would strike back at the sorcerers before abandoning the property.
The clairvoyant flicked his gaze to Aiden, then back to me, nodding. “I understand.”
“You will not come to the diner.”
“That, I won’t promise.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“You’ll hesitate. And not just because you don’t want to hurt Aiden, but because you’ll worry about hurting Melissa and Brian, of compromising our place in the town.”
I leaned closer. “Listen to me …” Magic rose, flicking across the blood tattoo on my T3 vertebra. “Nothing will stay my hand when it comes to your and Paisley’s safety. You know it.”
“I know it,” he murmured. “But the same goes for me. You don’t get to be the only fierce warrior under this roof, Socks.” He smiled, magic flickering across his eyes but not settling. “Besides, it won’t come to that.” He looked over at Aiden standing in the doorway. “For once, this isn’t about us. About the Five. Or the Collective.”
I followed his gaze.
Aiden let us look at him without reacting to our conversation.
“It isn’t about us,” I echoed agreeably. Then I looked at Christopher and spoke pointedly. “Not yet.” My distrust of any Adepts, and of Azar sorcerers specifically, I left unspoken. I never actually needed to voice my concerns with Christopher.
He nodded.
I stepped past Aiden in the doorway. He murmured a goodbye to Christopher, then made an attempt to open the passenger door of the SUV for me. I got there first. His fingers, cold from being outside, brushed over the back of my hand before he could pull away. Magic echoed in the wake of his touch.
I climbed into the vehicle, letting the inadvertent power transfer fade without trying to harness the sorcerer’s magic.
Aiden didn’t react. Though I had no doubt that he had felt the energy shift between us as well.
I needed to stay calm. Rational. The sorcerer stirred me up. And I recognized that I’d become oddly territorial, about the property, about our small town.
And that made me even more dangerous.
Christopher was correct. I would always do whatever I could to maintain our presence and our acceptance in Lake Cowichan. But I was becoming increasingly certain that ‘whatever I could’ now included fighting for it. Fighting for every stone and speck of dirt that belonged to me, and destroying anything that threatened that.
Aiden climbed into the driver’s seat, shutting his door as he started the vehicle. He glanced at me.
The sorcerer was also right. No matter how I felt about him, I wouldn’t lose everything to keep him. I’d never been the self-sacrificing type. ‘Kill or be killed’ was more my training. It just took a lot more to push me than it ever had before.
“Emma?” Aiden said.
I shook my head, denying whatever he wanted to say before he had a chance to articulate it.
He nodded stiffly, then shifted into gear. The SUV’s chained tires churned through the snow as we slowly pulled away from the house.
The evening was darkening as Aiden parked the SUV outside the Home Cafe. So much so that the glow from the wide windows of the diner cast a golden-tinted light over the snow-edged street. The sidewalk had been cleared and salted, but the snow was still trying to stick.
I climbed out of the warm vehicle, immediately opening my umbrella as I spotted Lani Zachary in conversation with Brian Martin and Jenni Raymond at the long counter that bisected the interior of the diner. The two sets of plates beside Lani’s elbow were empty, so she and the shifter had presumably eaten dinner together. The RCMP constable was out of uniform.
For a brief moment, I had to shove away the impulse to race inside the diner and force Lani and Jenni out through the back door, so that the sorcerers about to arrive wouldn’t get a read on either’s magic.
Protective instincts.
That was an annoying side effect of choosing to settle, to build a life.
“Shall we go in?” Aiden murmured as he stepped up on the curb beside me.
I scanned the block, taking in the darkened interiors of the nearby stores and the empty sidewalks. If Isa Azar and Ruwa were in the vicinity, I couldn’t feel their magic. But it seemed likely that sorcerers of their power would be able to block themselves from my senses easily enough, even if only at a distance.
The sound of a male voice, raised in anger, pulled my attention in the other direction. Peter Grant was peering into the window of Hannah Stewart’s thrift shop, about a half block over on the north side of the street.
Aiden twisted to follow my gaze.
Grant, his jacket unzipped over an untucked shirt and worn jeans, raised his fist to bang on the window. He slipped in the snow, barely catching his balance. His pudgy face flushed an even deeper shade of red as he let out a series of nasty curses.
Drunk.
And seemingly fixated on Hannah.
I glanced up at the windows of the second-floor apartment above the shop. The lights were on, so Hannah was home. She’d presumably ignored her ex-boyfriend’s father when he banged on the door of her apartment. It would have made sense for Peter Grant to try to accost her at home, rather than at the obviously closed store.
Of course, he might just have been so inebriated that he was functioning without actual intention. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t attack Hannah the moment he laid eyes on her.
A deep hum of magic pulled my attention in the other direction. Isa Azar and Ruwa stepped around the corner of the street, leaving footprints in the falling snow.
Isa was swathed in a pristinely pressed charcoal suit, including a silver-striped tie and cufflinks that glinted with magic as he raised his hand, greeting his brother from afar. Ruwa was wearing layers of golden-brown silk, fully covered from neck to toe — yet the dress writhed around her as she walked. Seductively. By intention. She was wearing heels, open toed and high enough to make her taller than Isa.
Neither of them had a flake of snow on them. It was a ridiculous display of magical prowess, especially in a small town filled with mundanes.
Aiden clenched his fists, his magic shifting across his rune-scribed copper rings.
Isa’s step hitched. Then he smiled tightly and continued to close the space between us. Ruwa’s gaze remained glued to Aiden.
The sorcerer at my side deliberately turned his back on his approaching family members, leaning in to speak to me while carefully not blocking my sight of the magically laden newcomers. A look filled with incredulity flitted over Isa’s face at his brother’s slight. Ruwa frowned.
“Do you need to check on Hannah?” Aiden asked, pitching his voice low. “I can get a booth. And we’ll wait to order.”
I glanced up at him, completely surprised at the offer. Surprised that a sorcerer would even think about a mundane, especially one he’d only heard about. Snowflakes were caught in his dark hair.
Following an impulse I didn’t bother assessing or countering, I tilted my head back, leaning just close enough to brush a kiss across his lips.
He smiled, huffing softly and leaning closer —
“You!” Peter Grant shouted, words slurred. “You! Red!”
I glanced to the right, confirming that the inebriated idiot had indeed keyed in on me and was now stumbling across the street. The snow that had built up at the edges of the curb impeded his progress.
Aiden started to shift himself in front of me, then hesitated. I wasn’t certain whether his caution was due to not wanting to intercede in a confrontation I was overqualified to deal with, or because he’d just remembered the sorcerers approaching from the opposite direction.
I glanced over at Isa and Ruwa, who had paused one storefront over. Ruwa was watching Peter Grant with contemptuous disdain as he slipped on the nearer curb and fell back against Aiden’s SUV.
The door of the diner opened. Jenni Raymond stepped out, pulling on her winter jacket. Lani was at her heels. Both of their gazes were trained on Peter Grant as he regained his balance and made it onto the sidewalk.
“Grant,” Jenni said mildly, tugging gloves from her pockets and pulling them on. “Odd timing for a stroll, isn’t it?”
“I can speak to whoever I like,” Grant screeched, jabbing his finger in my direction. “It’s a free country. And I got a bone to pick.”
“Well,” Aiden said quietly, glancing over at Isa and Ruwa. “At least you distracted him from Hannah.”
“He’s got a hard-on all right,” Lani muttered, presumably thinking only Jenni could hear her. “But for all the wrong reasons.”
Jenni grunted, casting her gaze over Aiden, then briefly eyed the two other sorcerers. She held her hands out to the sides and stepped toward Grant, in the same fashion that she might have approached a rabid dog. “Come on, Grant. I’ll drive you home.”
Peter Grant, legs spread wide in order to hold his balance, lowered his head, glaring at me balefully. But he didn’t try to close the space between us. “Hurt my boy, she did,” he muttered, swaying.
Lani snorted, exchanging a look with Jenni. The shifter glanced my way, but seemed unsurprised by the accusation. I had broken Tyler Grant’s wrist and ankle. Then I’d let the RCMP officer believe that the damage had been done by Christopher, while protecting Hannah Stewart from her abusive ex.
Jenni stepped between Grant and me. “How about some coffee at the station? You know I can’t let you drive.”
The inebriated man muttered under his breath, but he shuffled back a few steps.
“Shall we get out of the cold?” Aiden asked, gazing over at Isa and Ruwa, then sweeping his hand toward the diner.
Isa nodded, stepping toward the glass front door.
Ruwa laughed huskily, following Isa. The unnatural swirl of her silken clothing had died down to a normal undulation around her ankles. “Anything and everything you want, Aiden. Whenever and however you want it.”
Aiden ignored her.
Tugging on a knit hat, Lani smiled at Isa politely as they crossed paths. Her smile widened as she stepped across the sidewalk with her hand held out to Aiden. “You’re back. For good?”
He took her hand, shaking it firmly. “Lani. I hope so.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice and including me in the conversation. “Everything okay with … ?” She nodded back toward the diner.
Inside, Isa and Ruwa were in the process of crossing by the red-vinyl booths along the windows, intent on selecting the one in the far corner. Getting there first, they would select the seats that put their backs to the wall. But I could cede the perceived advantage to them. I had no need of it myself.
“It will be,” Aiden said. “When they leave town.”
Lani snorted. “Family, eh?” Then she eyed Aiden’s SUV. “Mercedes G550. She’s a beauty. Custom color? Did you order from Vancouver?”
“Victoria. It was easier to fly through Seattle than Vancouver.” He met my gaze with a slight smile, presumably making a reference to the witch coven who claimed the mainland as their territory. The Godfreys. The coven actually claimed more than the city, but Aiden might not know that yet.
“Your brother’s driving the same model. About a year old. Not custom.”
“Is he?” Aiden laughed quietly. “And that’s where the similarities between us stop.”
Lani hummed thoughtfully, her latent magic shifting. Perking up.
Which made me realize that she and Aiden weren’t simply standing in the snow and talking about cars, hands still clasped. But what the deeper meaning behind their conversation was, I had no idea. Was Lani testing the sorcerer somehow? Feeling out his motivations?
“Lani,” Jenni called. “You want a ride?”
The hazel-eyed mechanic dropped Aiden’s hand, glancing over at Jenni where she’d managed to load Grant into a red Jeep parked on the other corner of the street. “With that in your back seat? No way. I’ll walk.”
Jenni waved, her gaze falling on Aiden, then flicking to me as she jogged around to the driver’s-side door. She nodded toward the diner, then looked at me again. Pointedly.
Asking if I needed her help, maybe?
The idea was ridiculous.
But I shook my head, smiling slightly.
She climbed into the Jeep, pulling quickly away from the curb. Her tires slipped in the snow as she sped past us, heading in the direction of the RCMP station.
“Call me if you need to, Emma,” Lani said, stepping away in the opposite direction with her gaze still on Aiden. “I’m going to check on Hannah before I head home.”
I never called. I didn’t even carry a phone. Any plans I made with Lani were always discussed in person. “I will.”
She nodded, then walked away.
Aiden was watching me, a slight smile on his face.
I resisted the impulse to make skin-to-skin contact and read his emotions. Normal people communicated with words. And other gestures. “Everything okay?” I asked.
His smile widened. “I’m standing in the snow at your side. What could possibly be wrong?”
A warmth curled in my stomach, and I found myself answering his grin with one of my own. “The brother you tried to kill, an act that led to your banishment from the Azar cabal, and your former lover, who you thought was dead, are waiting in the diner.”
“Well, when you put it like that …” He tilted his head thoughtfully, then shook it. “Nope. Still can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be okay here with you.”
“Word games, Aiden,” I said, as gruffly as I could. I needed to ignore all the weird visceral reactions his words stirred up within me.
“That isn’t my intention. Not in the least. But the only way for you to know that about me is to spend even more time with me. So let’s get this sure-to-be-ridiculous conversation over with, then go back to what I hope will be our regular lives.”
I glanced over at the diner. Ruwa, seated by the window, was watching us. Watching Aiden, specifically. Isa, seated next to her on the aisle, was reading the menu.
Aiden held his elbow out to me, and for a moment, I had no idea what he was doing. Then, remembering the gesture from multiple episodes of Downton Abbey, I reached up and curled my hand around his arm, allowing him to lead me to the entrance and through into the diner.
“Emma.” Brian’s voice was warm, as if he was actually pleased that I’d given him a reason to stay open on a snowy evening. The slightly balding, affable co-owner of the Home Cafe stepped toward us. He wiped his large hands on a tea towel, then offered one to Aiden. “Good to see you again, Aiden.”
“I’m pleased to be back.”
Brian nodded as if there was no possibility that anyone wouldn’t want to return to Lake Cowichan. Then he winked at me.
So … was he inferring that it was impossible to think Aiden wouldn’t want to return to see me?
Ruwa sighed, heavily and deliberately. Though it was only my heightened hearing that made it possible to pick up the expression of disdainful boredom from the other side of the empty diner.
“Melissa set aside the last four pieces of brownie for you,” Brian said, stepping around the counter. “I suggest having it warm with fudge sauce, instead of with ice cream.”
“Thank you. We won’t be long.”
Brian cut his gaze toward the sorcerers in the corner booth. “No. I suspect you won’t.” He exited back into the kitchen without another word.
Aiden snorted quietly. “Even the mundanes know Isa is bad news.”
“Actually, it’s Ruwa that really puts them on edge. Judging by Lani’s reaction to her.”
He frowned. “Ruwa is inconsequential.”
I glanced at him.
“What?” he asked, clearly confused.
I shrugged. “You might change your mind after we sit down.” I stepped forward.
Aiden’s hand shot out as if to stop me. Then he visibly reined himself in, muttering, “I keep having to stop myself from doing that.”
I turned my back on Ruwa and Isa in case either read lips. “It’s always better if I lead and keep my hands free, unless you’re actively shielding me as we approach.”
Aiden nodded but didn’t sound convinced. “I saw.”
He was referring to how Daniel, aka Fish, and I worked together. “Don’t worry,” I teased, speaking at a normal volume as I stepped toward the booth and the sorcerers again. “I didn’t bring my blades this time.”
Aiden laughed. “I’m a bit sorry about that, actually. You wield them so well.” Then he grinned as if the thought was … beguiling?
I pulled my attention from him — and doing so was more of an effort than was reasonable, especially since I was about to dine with two unknown sorcerers. One of whom — Ruwa — I really didn’t have a solid read on yet. Neither her powers nor her motivations. And that made her the most dangerous person in the room.
A distinction that I usually held.
Isa glanced up from the menu as I approached the table, then he looked back down. “I imagine the clam chowder is good? Given the location?”
Aiden slid into the booth, placing himself by the window across from Ruwa. A pinned position, making him more vulnerable to sudden assault. But having me on the aisle was the strategically sound choice in this particular situation, since I could neutralize either or both sorcerers just by reaching across the table.
Neither of them knew that, of course. Not unless Silver Pine had been whispering in Isa Azar’s ear. Unless he knew more about the Collective than he’d let on.
But Christopher hadn’t been triggered by the sorcerers’ visit the previous day. If the Collective was behind this brotherly reunion, I had no doubt that the clairvoyant would have seen it.
Isa looked up from his menu a second time, questioningly.
Aiden hadn’t bothered filling the silence. He was currently staring at Ruwa with that carefully neutral expression he opted for when considering a situation.
“The clam chowder is very good,” I said to Isa. “Cream based. No bacon.”
A smile slowly spread over Ruwa’s face. It was most likely meant to be seductive, but all I could feel was the chaotic tenor of her magic.
“Served with garlic bread?” Isa asked, his gaze settling on Aiden.
“Fresh baked,” I said.
The sorcerer set down his menu. “Sounds delightful. And the brownie for dessert, of course,” he added, pointedly letting me know that he’d overheard the conversation with Brian at the door.
It was odd when sorcerers thought that displays of magical prowess made them intimidating. When the opposite was almost always true. I smiled at him.
His expression turned wary, but he hid it, glancing over at Aiden. “Brother.”
“Isa.”
“You look well.”
Aiden inclined his head. Then, maintaining the same pleasant tone, he shoved aside the niceties. “The rings around your neck belong to me.”
Isa chuckled, settling his gaze on me. There was something demeaning in his expression. “Women have always been your weakness, Aiden. Starting with your mother.”
Aiden didn’t respond, so I did. “How so?”
A frown flickered over Isa’s face. “Aren’t women every man’s weakness?”
“No. A person’s weakness is usually exceedingly personal, often born from some childhood trauma or neglect. So by referencing Aiden’s mother, I assume you’re alluding to how she was held against her will, raped, and forced to bear your father’s child.”
Ruwa stiffened. All the undulating magic she’d been giving free rein to tightened around her. She slowly turned her head to look at Isa.
He hadn’t looked away from me. Tension ran through his jaw. Then he reached up, loosening his tie. “My apologies, amplifier. It was an insensitive and ill-conceived attack, born out of sibling rivalry.”
“Meant to denigrate my mother’s magic, and therefore my impure blood,” Aiden said, his tone still completely neutral.
Isa opened the top two buttons of his dress shirt. Then he unclasped the chain that held Aiden’s missing rings around his neck. Rings that had been stripped from Aiden, along with most of his magic, by Silver Pine.
“It’s true, then?” Ruwa asked, sounding disturbed. “Your father magically coerced Cerise Myers?”
No one answered her.
Isa slid the rings from the chain, holding them in his palm for a moment. Then he offered his hand to Aiden. “Held with every intention of return, brother.”
Aiden tilted his head as if assessing the words, though I had no doubt that he’d already decided how the entire conversation, the entire dinner, would go — likely even before he’d gotten up from his nap. “A gesture of good faith?”
Magic shifted across the table, between the brothers. Ruwa leaned away from it, idiotically letting me know the level of her sensitivity. She caught me looking at her, curling her lip in a sneer.
“If you will,” Isa said.
The magic settled, benign and unbinding.
Aiden placed his hand under his brother’s, palm up.
Isa tipped the rings into Aiden’s hand. A mix of gold and platinum bands, all rune carved. But as far as I could feel, the rings were drained of whatever magic they’d once stored.
Brian hustled over to the table, carrying four glasses of water, one milkshake, and four sets of cutlery rolled in napkins on a tray. “Ready to order?” he asked, setting paper cocktail napkins, then the drinks on the table.
The milkshake was for Ruwa. That was oddly surprising.
“Yes, please, Brian,” Aiden said, tucking the rings in his suit jacket pocket, then gathering the menus. “I believe we’ve all settled on the clam chowder, and the aforementioned brownies, of course.”
Brian nodded, taking the menus from Aiden. “I’ll bring extra garlic bread.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Brian touched my shoulder lightly as he turned away.
Isa caught the gesture. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He had wrapped the thick-linked platinum chain around his fingers, closing them to a fist like the chain might be a weapon. Unlike Aiden’s rings, I could pick up a hint of magic from the necklace.
“What do you think you know of me, sorcerer?” I asked, wanting to draw Isa’s attention firmly to me — and away from any idea of using my friendships with mundanes against me. “That I’m a powerful amplifier who’s infatuated with your brother? Your misogyny is odd. And not just for this decade. But because the female sitting to your right is more powerful than you. By far.”
Isa’s lips curled into a smile. “I would suggest you’re overestimating your ability to read magical power. But I would also say — what good is raw power if you don’t know how to use it?”
Aiden settled back in the booth, laughing quietly.
I leaned forward. “I once laid hands on your father, sorcerer. Perhaps you should ask him how that felt.”
Isa’s face blanked.
It was a huge bluff on my part. And I wasn’t particularly good at bluffing. Except I already knew that Isa Azar was never going to mention me, or Silver Pine, to his father. If he hadn’t come to kill Aiden, he had come to persuade him to help kill their father. Because I couldn’t conceive of any other reason why he would have been asking his youngest brother to return to the cabal.
Though admittedly, my understanding of typical familial relationships was limited to the intense study of one TV show set in the early part of the twentieth century, and anything else I randomly watched on Netflix.
I slid my gaze to Ruwa. She was watching me intently, presumably reassessing her earlier dismissal.
Isa settled back in the booth, mimicking his brother. Though I had no idea whether that was a conscious choice or not. “I pose no threat to you, amplifier.” He waved his hand to casually indicate the kitchen. “Or to anyone in the town. I understand the value of anonymity. I’ve simply never felt the need to hide, myself.”
Aiden laughed. “You’re still a piece of work, Isa.”
“As I assume you are, Aiden. Taking your mother’s name, allowing a witch to get the better of you, letting this girl speak for you? Utterly ridiculous. Reckless. Beneath your birth.”
“Which birth is that, Isa?” Aiden asked darkly.
Isa snapped his mouth shut.
Ruwa laughed huskily, then took a long sip of her milkshake as she peered at me, then Aiden, through her long lashes. “Do you like to play?” she asked, looking at Aiden but speaking to me. “Aiden always liked to play.”
“No.”
She pouted prettily, then took another sip of the milkshake. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, as if she and Aiden were the only ones at the table. “Isa is boring.”
“He doesn’t like to play?” I asked archly.
“I haven’t given you one single thought,” Aiden said dispassionately. “Isa obviously assumed it was he who you betrayed. When it was actually both of us. Which leads me to believe that my father wanted the playing field leveled up.”
Ruwa smiled over her glass, but she didn’t answer.
“So it wasn’t just quick thinking on my part that saved my life the night you tried to kill me, Aiden?” Isa asked. “How demoralizing.”
He didn’t sound particularly surprised. But the more time I spent with Aiden and his brother, the more apparent it became that an ability to hide their true feelings and reactions was an Azar trait. Perhaps even a hard-learned lesson.
Aiden nodded to his brother, keeping his attention trained on Ruwa. “The one thing I don’t know was whether or not you were sleeping with my father as well. The three of us at once.”
Ruwa’s smile widened. A red sheen of magic glinted across her pupils.
Again.
When I’d seen the crimson hue the previous day, I had thought it might have been a reflection of the late afternoon light. It obviously wasn’t.
Aiden deliberately laid his hands on the table. Presumably, he had seen the same thing I had. My instinctive guess was that it might have been some sign of the magic that bound Ruwa to Isa. But as far as I understood such things, the color was wrong. Sorcerer magic usually appeared in shades of medium to dark blue.
“Delightful,” Isa said wryly.
I had lost track of the conversation. Something about Ruwa sleeping with father and sons.
“Yes.” Aiden’s tone was stiff, unyielding. “Perhaps something you should have clarified before you allowed Ruwa to bind herself to you.”
Isa’s lips thinned. “I’m not an idiot. The binding is one way.”
Aiden hummed doubtfully in the back of his throat, but he dropped the conversation as Brian approached with our clam chowders, carrying one plated bowl in hand and three on a large tray. We remained quiet as he set the soup in front of each of us, serving me first. Then he turned back to the end of the counter, grabbing a basket of garlic bread and a large plate of fries. He placed those in the center of the table, the fries nearest me.
I flashed a pleased smile at him. He laughed quietly as he turned to the counter a second time, grabbing a bottle of malt vinegar.
“Perfect,” Aiden said. “Thank you, Brian.”
The large man nodded, then he crossed back to lock the door and flip the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed.’
Ruwa pushed the remainder of her milkshake away, picking up the soup spoon set at the edge of her plate and repeatedly drawing it through her soup. To cool it, I guessed.
Isa reached into the pocket of his jacket, withdrawing something that glinted with magic.
I thrust my arm across the table, half out of my seat in order to span the distance over the food, grabbing his wrist before he saw me move.
Isa flinched.
Ruwa stilled, her mouth dropping open in surprise.
Aiden stiffened beside me, then curled his fingers around the knife he’d just freed from a napkin roll.
Isa eyed me warily, magic coiling around him tensely. But he made no attempt to free his wrist from my grasp.
I had moved too quickly. For a regular amplifier, at least.
I glanced at the object Isa had pulled from his inner suit pocket. It was an envelope. It teemed with magic, mostly concentrated around the embossed seal.
I had thought the sorcerer was about to throw a spell.
I flicked my eyes up to meet Isa’s gaze. His magic had settled into its regular hum. He’d decided I wasn’t a threat.
How very idiotic of him.
“Aren’t you a marvel, amplifier,” he murmured intimately, speaking as if his lover wasn’t seated beside him. As if his brother, who I hoped to take to my own bed, wasn’t seated beside me. “You have me in your grasp. Skin to delightfully potent skin. What are you possibly going to do?” He laughed.
His dismissal, his nonchalance, filtered through the empathic connection I had made by touching him.
He raised one eyebrow. “Amplify me?”
I applied pressure to his wrist, twisting it until he grimaced, then dropped the envelope to the table beside his soup.
It was addressed to Aiden Azar. Not Myers. If I’d been forced to guess, I would have said that the handwriting wasn’t Isa’s.
“Strong … fast …” Isa murmured, still completely nonplussed.
There was something seriously annoying about being so badly underestimated. Possibly because a sorcerer of Isa Azar’s power level should have known better — which led me to believe that he was simply skilled at masking his emotions, even to my empathy. A dampening spell perhaps, carried in one of the rune-carved rings he wore on each finger.
Still, I allowed myself to be goaded. Too much of Amp5’s ego — aka the Collective’s mandated arrogance — still resided in me. I smiled, keeping my grip firm on the sorcerer’s wrist.
The lines that edged Isa’s dark-brown eyes tightened.
“Have you ever been amplified without permission, sorcerer?” I asked conversationally. “Hard and fast, overwhelming your senses? Charging your magic, wiping your mind, your control?”
“Have I ever been raped, you mean?” he asked edgily. “No.”
“Then I suggest that mocking what an amplifier can do to incapacitate you is ignorant. Ill-conceived.”
“Point taken.” He leaned toward me, forcing intimacy. Again. “But consider my permission expressly given, Emma. No sorcerer would ever say no to what you have to offer.” He flicked his gaze toward Aiden, then back to me. “But that isn’t news to you.”
My stomach souring, I loosened my grip on Isa almost involuntarily, then covered by shifting back in my seat and snagging a few fries as I did so.
Aiden pressed his knee against mine. I didn’t move away. I also didn’t acknowledge the tension still stretched over the table, like a net of magic ignited by our conversation.
I didn’t want to be tied to the sorcerers seated across from me, not even through the exchange of words. I tamped down on a sudden desire to leave, lifting my gaze from my soup as I acknowledged the path unfolding before me.
Fight or flight.
And I wasn’t going to run.
My stomach settled at the decision. I ate more fries, holding Isa Azar’s gaze. I would have no trouble killing the sorcerer. I wasn’t even sure whether I’d allow Aiden to stop me if he was so inclined.
Isa curled his hands into fists, leaning away from me. Ruwa’s chaotic magic was writhing around her as if tasting the tension. Reveling in it.
“Did you come here to die, Isa?” Aiden asked.
The sorcerer tore his gaze from mine, looking at his brother. “No.”
“Then stop goading Emma. You’re the interloper here. An offense that no territorial Adept takes lightly.”
Isa laughed. “You’d have had me ask permission? From an amplifier living without the backing of a coven?”
“When did you figure out that father knew you helped Silver Pine kidnap him?”
Isa didn’t answer.
I took a sip of my soup. Ruwa did the same.
“If you knew Silver,” Aiden continued, “if you worked with Silver, then you know she was fixated on Emma.”
“I knew no such thing.”
Aiden laughed nastily. “Then you’re a moron. Simply being moved into place by external forces.”
“And what place is that?”
Aiden shrugged. “I imagine you’re a sacrifice.”
Isa scoffed.
I glanced over at Aiden. “On what altar? And to what end?”
Instead of answering, Aiden reached across the table and picked up the envelope, angling it toward me so I could see his name written across it. Then he flipped it, showing me the embossed seal. The dark-blue wax was pressed with a rune I didn’t recognize.
“A missive from my father,” he said. “Is Kadar Azar on his way, Isa? Are you relegated to being his errand boy?”
Isa clenched his jaw. “I’ve been carrying that letter for over six months. Our father has no idea I’m currently in a position to deliver it.”
Aiden scoffed, then tucked the envelope into his pocket. “Are we done?”
“No!” Ruwa cried, overly dramatically. “You haven’t even tried the soup. It’s surprisingly good.”
Aiden ignored her. “Emma? Shall we get the brownies to go?”
I nodded, eager to step away from the table and annoyingly disturbed by the suggestion that Kadar Azar might show up. The sorcerer Azar. As sorcerers, Aiden and Isa effectively had the power of children when compared to their father’s mastery of magic.
I brushed the concern away, stepping from the table to call out to Brian over the counter.
“I would speak with you, Aiden,” Isa said urgently.
“I’m not interested, Isa. Out of deference to Emma, I’ve sat here peacefully —”
“Peacefully,” Isa spat. “Please —”
“Get your foot out of my fucking lap, Ruwa,” Aiden snarled. “Or I’ll remove it for you.”
Ruwa laughed, darkly delighted. The sound carried a disconcerting energy that ran up my spine.
Isa hissed, glaring at Ruwa. So he’d felt it too. Or perhaps he simply had a problem with her making a pass at his brother literally under his nose.
“Brian?” I called toward the kitchen. “We’ll take those brownies to go, please. And a burger for Paisley.”
With a glance at me, Isa tugged a ring from his forefinger, placing it in the center of the table between the fries and the garlic bread. He gave the rune-scribed band a sharp spin. Magic snapped into place, arcing over the table.
Aiden said something, looking angry, but I couldn’t hear the words. Isa had cast a sound barrier spell.
“I thought you might,” Brian said, pulling my attention away from the table. He carried a brown paper bag in one hand and the bill in the other as he crossed out of the kitchen. He glanced toward the sorcerers still seated at the booth, then inclined his head toward the cash register closer to the entrance.
I stepped alongside him, traversing the long counter as I tugged my Visa card out of my pocket. Only in that moment did I realize that I was still in my boots, my shoes forgotten in the SUV. I likewise hadn’t bothered to remove my pink raincoat when I sat down.
Brian set the paper bag on the counter, then silently took the Visa from me, running it through the new debit system he’d installed on an iPad. The cash register was literally only used for cash.
“Things going sideways, eh?” he asked in a low murmur as he turned the tablet toward me.
I nodded, tapping in a tip, then scrubbing my signature across the screen when prompted.
“That’s the way with family, love them or hate them,” Brian said.
I glanced up at him.
He smiled. “The brothers look alike. Emailed receipt?”
“Yes, please.”
I glanced back at the table. Aiden slammed his hand over the ring, and the magic sealing the sound around him and Isa dissipated with a pop. He stood without another word, grabbing the plate of fries, the basket of garlic bread, and my bowl of soup as he stepped into the aisle.
His expression was a storm of emotions as he crossed toward me, then set the food on the counter near me. “You didn’t get to finish your dinner,” he said, sitting on the next stool over with his back to the counter. “But you shouldn’t have to eat in bad company.” His gaze was on Isa and Ruwa still in the booth.
Brian chuckled. “Good man.”
I sat down beside Aiden, brushing my shoulder against his as I picked up my soup spoon and took a sip. He leaned into me lightly.
“Fries?” I asked.
Aiden twisted back, taking a few fries, then settling in to keep watch on Isa and Ruwa. I grabbed a piece of garlic bread, tearing off a hunk and dipping it into my soup.
Given that we couldn’t leave the diner before the sorcerers, I knew I might as well eat Brian’s tasty food.