Meow, Baby Read online

  Meow, Baby

  A Wands and Wards Novella

  Rebecca Royce

  Ripley Proserpina

  Copyright © 2018 by Rebecca Royce & Ripley Proserpina

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Content Editing by: Heather Long

  Copy & Proof by: Jennifer Jones at Bookends Editing

  Cover by: Crimson Phoenix

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Also by Rebecca Royce

  Also by Ripley Proserpina

  Chapter 1

  Michaella Lansing stared at the mess of her front yard in absolute and abject horror. When she’d left for work that morning, things had been in order. The small black bench she’d found in an estate sale hadn’t been turned over on its side. Her bushes hadn’t been shredded and there hadn’t been empty red cups and beer cans all over her front porch.

  When tears of frustration filled her eyes, she blinked them away. This wasn’t the first time she’d come home after a twelve-hour shift to this kind of disaster.

  Every summer it was the same. Summer residents invaded and destroyed things in her sweet, small country home, and left the town a nightmare. It would be months before the locals would have everything to rights.

  In Michaella’s case, it was always the same three asshats who arrived to destroy her life year after year. When she’d been sixteen years old, the house next door had been sold to the very mean, very wealthy, Addington family. They’d knocked down the charming cottage and rebuilt the monstrous McMansion that now took up almost the entire lot. They spent every summer making her life hell and then spent the rest of the year destroying other people’s lives. Or at least she assumed they did. She didn’t really know what they did when they left here, but she guessed it was a cross between pirating and polo.

  The last five summers, however, only the youngest Addingtons had returned. Michaella should have expected it, but the three brothers were worse than their parents, uncles, and cousins combined. Zach, Bradley, and David Addington made this place their personal playground for their rich friends, and didn’t one of them care whose property they destroyed during their revelries.

  Since Michaella worked nights, the brothers and their friends had free rein to run amok. She steeled herself, taking a deep breath and straightening her shoulders. By thirty years-old, people should be past this kind of behavior.

  And the worst part? If she complained to authorities, they dismissed her. The Addingtons money was too good to pass up, and everyone in town knew it. If she dared to speak to the Addingtons themselves, they laughed at her and inevitably made an offer to buy her house.

  She should move out? That was their solution? Was it too much to ask that they respect her space and the wards she’d placed on her home to keep people away?

  But they respected nothing. Michaella’s flimsy powers were a joke to them, because of course, the brothers were more powerful witches in addition to being wealthy. And good-looking. And having tons of friends and the world at their fingertips.

  Ugh! Life was so unfair.

  Michaella lifted her hand. Cleaning this up was officially going to burn up her magic for the day, and she’d have to sleep for hours to recharge. The sound of the ocean in the distance called to her. So much for flying over the white caps on the water. She’d never be able to enjoy the wild waves churning on the surface now. It was the one thing she did that gave her any happiness. The Addingtons had wrecked her lawn, and when she finally finished cleaning it up, she’d be spent. She wouldn’t even be able to zone out after, since her favorite comfy chair, the one that had been passed down from her grandmother, had been stolen by her idiotic ex-boyfriend when he walked out.

  Michaella clenched her jaw. There was nothing for it. She couldn’t leave this the way it was. They hadn’t, at least not yet, taken their party inside her house. She supposed she should be grateful.

  With more force than necessary, she whirled the garbage into the can and was rewarded with a crash. The momentum had rocked the empty can, throwing it off balance so it tipped over. Garbage spilled everywhere and Michaella gave up on not crying. She would, however, do it silently.

  Covering her nose with the neck of her shirt, she righted the can and began to refill the container. This time, however, she used her hands and not her magic.

  Gag. Toss. Gag. Toss. It didn’t matter that everything in that bag was her garbage, it was gross.

  The sun bore down on the top of her head, burning her skin. Her mouse-brown hair naturally parted in the middle. The wispy fine tendrils stuck to her temples and neck, and refused to be moved when she tried to flick it out of her eyes.

  As she flipped the lid to cover the container, a car revved behind her, pulling to the curb with a screech. There was only one car that sounded like that, and when three doors slammed shut, Michaella wished her power was invisibility and not flight.

  And she’d always loved flying.

  “Hey, Riff,” a voice called.

  Michaella power-walked toward her porch, ignoring the voice, but three sets of feet darted behind her.

  “Riff! Come on, don’t ignore us!”

  Michaella reached for her doorknob and turned it. But it stuck. What the— She shook the door, like she could dislodge it, and she realized what had happened.

  The stupid, jerk-faced Addington boys had magically locked her doors. With a sigh, she turned around. “Hey,” she said with zero inflection.

  Zach. David. Bradley. Had there ever been more yuppie names given to a group of rich boys? Oh, Zachie, we’re playing doubles at the club! Call Tiff and meet us!

  Of course, Stephanie, darling! We’d love to. And after, we’ll sail around the harbor and sip… That was where Michaella’s imagination ran out. She didn’t know fancy drinks.

  “Sorry about your bushes,” Zach said. Michaella glanced at him. If only the Addingtons looked like their names. They should have been tow-headed, popped collar, khaki-wearing preps, but they weren’t.

  Zach, the oldest, was twice Michaella’s height and built like a line-backer. He had full-sleeve tattoos on both arms and a scar in his lip where he’d had a hoop in his teens. He’d also had about a billion earrings in his ears, but had removed those long ago as well.

  Maybe she was exaggerating.

  David was the middle child, and in Michaella’s opinion, the meanest of the three. He was the one who’d given her the nickname Riff. Which was a shortened version of his first nickname for her, Riffraff. David was even bigger than Zach. And he was quiet. Like, almost silent. The only time she’d heard him speak in the last year was when he’d yelled at her for backing into his car. Which, by the way, wasn’t her fault. The asshole had parked directly in front of her driveway, and she’d had to drive onto her lawn to get to work.

  And then there was Bradley. Sigh. Bradley was too good-looking for his own… well… good. Like Zach, he’d tattooed both his arms and pierced his lip, but unlike Zach, he’d left his hoop in. He had this really distracting habit of playing with it, too, and despite her best efforts, Michaella’s eyes were constantly drawn to hi
s full lips. And his bright blue eyes. God, his eyes were beautiful.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, you could clean it up.”

  That seemed obvious. They’d made the mess. They should clean it up.

  David looked at Brad, and after making her wait way too long for a response, Brad finally answered her. “Maybe we’ll consider it payment for David’s car. I think you owe us about a million magical credits for that still, right?”

  She lifted her chin. “At the end of our lives, when we’re all looking back at how we spent the time, there will be some blip inside of each of you, some small glimmer that will remember the moments you tormented the next door neighbor. And you’ll regret it. I see it all the time with the elderly I help at Prestige. There is always something they wish they’d done differently. This is one of those moments, fellows. This is the kind of moment that comes back to haunt you.”

  “Maybe.” Zach shrugged. “But we won’t be at a place like Prestige. We’ll have an entire staff taking care of us, and our fourth wives, who are younger and hotter than you, will be around to make us feel better in those weird moments where we even bother to think about you.”

  His words had meant to wound and they had. She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t magically talented. She wasn’t rich. But she was kind. And somehow she always gave them the chance to hurt her when she should have known better.

  “Come on. We need to go see that woman about the thing. Good luck, Riff. You missed a spot.”

  As per usual, Brad and David followed Zach down the stairs. She stood like a landed fish with her mouth open, practically flopping around, as she stared at them getting back in their car and driving the short distance to their mansion.

  The ocean called to her, and she resisted the tug. There was work to do. She wouldn’t play until after she’d settled it.

  They slammed their doors again and strode into their home.

  Why couldn’t she play? Who was going to care if the house was a mess for a few more hours? The Addingtons couldn’t care less if they tried. She had to travel hours on the magical trains back and forth to Prestige, but she wouldn’t move from the ocean. Not when she needed it so much. And she did.

  “Screw it.” The mess would be there when she got back. She was going to do what she’d planned to do. Maybe she’d have some magical revelation while she was there over what to do about her bratty-yet-hot-and-way-too-full-of-themselves rich neighbors.

  Chapter 2

  The ocean had been the right decision. She’d breezed across the top of the waves, dipping her fingers in the cool water. She’d even allowed herself to hover, face to the sky as her hair blew in the breeze. She’d felt like a real witch.

  Michaella hurried up her front steps, droplets of salt water falling off of her. The briny scent clung to her and she lifted her arm to her nose to breathe it in. She hadn’t been able to resist releasing her magic and dropping beneath the surface. She’d floated there for a moment, in the darkness and silence, and it’d been perfect.

  She’d hidden her key beneath a flower pot next to her door and shivered as she lifted it. Her magic was specific, and it was limited. There was no travel between places, no wiggling her nose to make meals and then clean them up. She couldn’t snap her fingers like Mary Poppins and tidy a room.

  She was a healer, and each time she eased the pain and confusion of the aged witches and warlocks at Prestige, it drained her. Generally, Michaella was fine with it. When she was a child, flitting between rooms in her house and making her toys dance, she’d known what was in store for her. There was an expiration date on her willy-nilly use of magic. In her mind though, it was worth the payoff to see her patients happy. So as long as she had enough juice to fly over the water every night, she’d use every ounce of her magical ability at Prestige.

  As Michaella inserted the magic breaking key into the lock, she heard a plaintive cry. She spun, searching for the source, and found a lean, black cat prowling toward her. Bright blue eyes met hers, and the cat’s ears went back, flat against its head as it lowered its belly to the ground and growled.

  “Hey, pretty kitty.” A sucker for stray animals, Michaella lowered herself to sit cross-legged against her door. “You’re new around here.”

  It blinked at her before opening its mouth and yowling. The sound was piercing and sad. “Ohhh. Sad cat. What’s the matter?”

  It opened its mouth again, making a little cry before shutting it and then opening it again, for all the world having a conversation with her.

  “So interesting,” she answered. “What a wonderful story.”

  The cat stopped crying and flicked its tail from side to side in annoyance. In the distance, another cat meowed and then another. In a flash, two new kitties rushed to this one.

  “Holy cow!” she exclaimed when she saw their size. “You’re big boys!”

  They sat next to the first cat and now Michaella saw their resemblance. Next to each other, the cats took up the width of her stairs. They crossed paws almost the size of her palms, and sat.

  The first cat stared at her as she studied them. She noted that one of the cats had a huge tear in its ear, as if it’d been in a fight and lost a chunk in battle. That one seemed uneasy, and each time it sat, it got right back up and prowled in a circle before returning to its spot.

  “It’s okay,” she said to them. “Are you hungry?” She kept food for just this purpose. “I suppose you’d better come in. It looks like rain. My mother had a no animals in the house rule, but I have no such standards. Maybe that’s why you came over? You knew a sucker when you saw one. Plus, now I’m going to worry about you getting wet.”

  She looked over her shoulder. Michaella was almost never home at night, and now that she was, she fully expected not to be able to sleep. Inevitably her neighbors would start to party party party.

  “If you don’t come with me, you’re going to want to stay away from next door. They’re not nice people. I don’t want you getting skinned alive in some rich witch ritual.”

  Was it her imagination or did two of the cats look at each other when she said that? She shook her head. Talk about spending way too much time thinking about the neighbors. Michaella strode inside, leaving the door open for the felines. She knew about house cats, and understood it had to be their own idea to come in. No amount of coaxing was getting them through the door if they didn’t want it that way.

  A second later they entered her house, and she closed the door behind them. “You’re very pretty kitties. Are you boys or girls?” She regarded them for a second. “I’m going to go with boys. Maybe because of your size but who knows? Tomorrow you may show yourselves to be girls.”

  She yawned, making her way to the kitchen. “You’ll have to excuse the yawning. I’ve had a long day. And my yard is still a mess. I’m going to have to do that in the morning. I spent the whole day on the water. I tend to lose track of time. Who was I kidding thinking I’d do this now? I sleep at night maybe twice a month. Long story. It’s my job.” She waved her hand in the air. “You don’t care. What you want is food.”

  Michaella went to the cabinet and pulled out the food she kept there. The cats lined up watching her, their tails moving back and forth with a swish, swish. Every once in a while, one of them would twitch an ear. The one in the middle meowed at her twice, his voice demanding attention.

  “You’re the talker out of the bunch, aren’t you? You chat away, but I bet when these two talk, it’s really important.” She put food in three dishes and set them down. The cats stared down at them and then back at her. “Is the food not to your liking, monsieurs? It would be just my luck to bring in three cats with discerning tastes. All right, hold on, I think I might have some tuna fish somewhere.”

  She dug through the cabinets and found a green can. “Chunk lite, boys.” She found three paper plates and forked the flakes onto them before placing them on the floor.

  They sat, tails twitching and eyes narrowed, until she stepped away. Only then did
they dip their heads toward the tuna.

  The blue-eyed glanced up at her and then at the food before chowing down. Apparently, the other two had been waiting for him to begin, because once he did, they dug in with relish.

  “Okay. You all eat. I’m going to shower.” She sniffed her sleeve. “I took a dip in the ocean.”

  Three heads shot up at once, almost as if they understood her.

  “Don’t judge me!” she called as she walked upstairs. “You might hate getting wet, but you have no idea how wonderful it feels to float beneath the waves.” Or on top of them. Or fly above them.

  For a day that had started out pretty crappy, things hadn’t wrapped up too badly. She had three new friends, went swimming, and used her magic to fly. In fact, after her shower and some food, she might have enough energy from all this positivity to tackle the bushes. She was off tonight, and she’d be up late as her body clock was all turned around.

  She didn’t bother shutting the door to her bathroom as she peeled out of her clothes and left them on the tiled floor. Nor did she wait for the water to warm before she jumped into the shower. “Ah!” That had been a mistake. Goosebumps broke out all over her skin, and her teeth began to chatter. If she’d been the right sort of witch, the sort whose magic was more than just comforting and flying… Nope—she stopped the thought right there. She would never never wish for magic that didn’t include flying.

  So what if other witches and warlocks got flying and a million other types of magic. So what if she couldn’t make food out of thin air while popping between foreign countries. She could fly and she eased the pain of her patients. That was sufficient.

  Something flew into the shower curtain, and she screamed. As she jumped out of the way of the newly living shower curtain, she got a mouthful of water and choked. Her eyes watered as she gasped for air, but as they cleared, she realized what had happened. Her shower curtain hadn’t spontaneously animated. One of the cats jumped onto it, and then, extending its dagger-y claws, had slid down the curtain like a pirate on a ship’s sail.