Petting Them: An Anthology of Claw-ver Tails

by Tate James

  Zach let out a groan, breathing in deep. Michaella let her hand drop to his back and smoothed over his t-shirt. She sent a tiny nudge of calm to him. “You’re okay,” she whispered, even though he couldn’t hear her.

  His dark eyelashes rested on his tan cheeks. Oh, fuck her. He had freckles. Tiny, barely-visible spots dotted beneath his eyes. They’d moved in next door as teenagers, but she could see what he would have looked like as a little boy. A lot less tough. A whole lot more vulnerable.

  Every so often the muscles in his back would tighten, so she kept rubbing his back and slid her magic to him. The emotional upheaval of the day before, paired with flying over the ocean, had tapped her out.

  She considered something, lying there with Zach. Was it possible to give all of her magic to someone? She loved her job as a healer. Each time she brought peace to someone, it soothed something inside her as much as it did her patient. And she was good at it, but there were people who were much better.

  Her hand stilled on Zach’s back. What if she could boost another healer’s powers? What if she could make a great healer, a phenomenal healer?

  “You stopped,” a voice gruff with sleep complained.

  Her breath caught in her throat as Michaella glanced down at Zach’s open eyes. He moved quickly, sitting up and sliding her down to cuddle in his arms.

  Zach is cuddling me! I’m getting Zach snuggles! What do I do?

  “You’re thinking too much,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “Your whole body clenched. Just relax.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she said. Was this another joke? Was he going to hug her and then say something like now get out of my bed, Riffraff! But he didn’t. He was silent as he adjusted his hold on her and then turned her so her head rested on his chest. She lay there, stiff as a board, and he sighed. Taking her hand, he placed it on his chest. He left his over it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “For what specifically?” Was he apologizing for bringing her here? For needing a little gentle healing? For cuddling her?

  He sighed. “For being an ass.”

  Well, that covered a lot of ground. “Why were you? Did I do something? Was it just my existence in general? Did you want my house?”

  He was quiet for a moment, and she thought he might not answer her. “We have a very unique life. And to protect it, we’ve gotten to be very hostile, very defensive, and very… rude. Anyone who might be able to get too close gets pushed away. That has included all our neighbors or anyone we regularly interact with. Being rich, the attitude seemed to make us popular. I think at some point we forgot why we were doing it and it became just who we are. I’m not proud of it. There has to be a better way. If our mother was alive, she’d be ashamed of us. I can’t…”

  His voice trailed off. She could feel his pain, and even though it had caused her a lot of grief over the years, she was compelled to do something about it. With her hand on his chest, she sent him more energy. He made a sound in the back of his throat. “That feels like butterfly wings all over my body.”

  “I can stop if you don’t like it. Probably. I’ve never actually not done it when I feel compelled to.” But she could certainly try. Getting out of the bed might be key.

  He shook his head. “I love it, actually. Don’t stop. I probably don’t deserve it, but if you’re giving it out, I’m not saying no.

  She laughed, throwing back her head. “Okay. It’s a deal.”

  “I love that sound. You laughing. Look, here’s the situation.” He sighed. “A hundred years ago, some witches in my family got together and decided that they wanted to consolidate power. They didn’t like the idea of one sibling being less powerful than another. I think the intent was to make everyone strong. What they actually did was create a spell that passes generation to generation. We do get more powerful with each child born, but we have to share the power. If I get too far from my brothers, I lose almost all my power and vice versa. We’re sort of like a rubber band. Our powers snap us back to each other. It’s actually painful what they did to us.”

  She tried to make sense of this. “With that concept, if your family wanted power, they could have twenty kids. You’d all have to stay together, but you’d be unstoppable.”

  “Well, you know how magic always balances? Yeah, not one of us has been able to have more than four. In fact, between my father and his brothers, only my father and his sister could have kids. His sister had my cousin. You met her. It’s us and her.”

  She still wasn’t sure she understood. “Then why did she make you cats?”

  “She tried to kill us, actually. Or I should be more specific. She brought in a psycho witch. Crazy eyes. He cornered us upstairs. We didn’t see it coming. He should have killed us. But something twisted in his gaze. He started laughing, and he turned us into cats. I can’t explain it really. Took us a bit to figure out what happened, but then when she showed up asking about cats, we were sure.” He shook his head. “She’s always been convinced that if she killed us she could have all the power to herself.”

  She swallowed. “For the first time, I think being like me, and having no power, would just be easier.”

  “You have power, Michaella. You have beautiful power, and it’s not distorted by this lunacy.” He rolled over, staring at the ceiling. “You should know, my father and his two brothers? They were close. Our mom? She was married to all of them. Well, not legally obviously. But they were all together. And we’ve been guarding this whole mess of a situation ever since birth.”

  Oh. Michaella didn’t know what to say to that. Congratulations? Weird? Except what came out was, “I guess you don’t want kids, then.”

  Zach reared back. “Why would you say that?” He shook his head. “Not that we’re thinking about kids. We don’t have a wife.”

  “Well,” Michaella began, “if the spell is so awful, why would you pass it down? Oh! You’re going to share a wife? All of you?” She wished for a time-traveling spell so she could warn herself to keep her mouth closed. “Oh my god. That’s none of my business. I’m shutting up.”

  He squeezed her hand but didn’t reply. After a moment of awkward silence, Michaella changed the subject. “Crazy cousin hired a witch assassin and instead of murdering you, he changed you into cats. I really liked you as cats.”

  “Do you not like us now?” Zach asked.

  Boy, she was really making a mess out of this. “I like you right now,” Michaella answered. “I like who you really are. I don’t know why you’d hide it. I guess I don’t understand how keeping people away was good for your magic.”

  “It wasn’t for our magic,” Zach replied. “It was for our family.”

  “The magic in your family?”

  “No,” he replied. “For our family. For our mother. She had a hard time, being married to brothers. People judged her. Said things about her. Her family tried to commit her to Prestige, thinking there was something wrong with her.”

  “Because she married more than one man?” Michaella sighed. “That’s stupid. I hope Prestige didn’t admit her.” She hoped the place where she exhausted her magic hadn’t been involved in something so cruel.

  “They didn’t,” Zach said. He began to stroke her hair, weaving his hand between the strands before letting them fall. “A healer there called our dad and uncles. They came to get her.”

  It probably didn’t make Michaella a badass chick, but she thought it was romantic, getting rescued by the men who loved her. The realistic part of her recognized how messed up it was, though. If her family was alive, they’d have supported her, no matter what.

  “Her family disowned her, but it didn’t bring our mother down. There was no one kinder, stronger, than my mom.”

  Michaella wanted to be like that. “You kept people away from your family to protect your mother.”

  “But she didn’t need us to,” Zach whispered. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she felt his lips touch her head. “She never hid. None of them did. School play
s. Sports games. They all showed up. People would be so friendly to her face. Until her back was turned.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow?”

  “You became assholes, but for the best reasons. Okay.” Michaella nodded her head.

  He stared at her a long moment. “Don’t forgive me so fast. She wouldn’t have.”

  The door swung open, and a yawning David strode into the room. He was shirtless. Zach turned his head slightly to regard his brother and then glanced back to her. David climbed into the bed on her other side, nudging her toward Zach before he lay down and closed his eyes on her pillow.

  “He’s not really awake. He sleep walks. Always has. Used to freak us out as children. Sometimes he leaves the house. The finding each other ability that comes with the shared magic was really helpful. Guess he wanted to be in here with you.”

  With her? She shook her head. “More likely he was looking for you.”

  “He doesn’t sleep walk into my bedroom and climb in my bed.” Zach leaned on his elbow. “You remind me of her sometimes.”

  She had to follow his train of thought. “Your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  That was very sweet, so she patted him on his arm. Sweet but not sexy. That wasn’t at all surprising. It had already been determined they didn’t think she was hot, and even if they were all going to be friendly now in the post-cat world, that didn’t mean the truth of things had changed. Lying between their inked and pierced hard bodies had momentarily distracted her.

  The door opened again, this time by Bradley. “Oh good. You’re all here. No one wanted to tell me the party was in here?”

  “It’s hardly a party. I don’t really do parties. I know you guys do, but they’ve never been my thing.” It was too hard being around so many people all the time.

  Zach yawned. “We party to be in a constant state of distraction. So much so we were caught unaware by an assassin hired by our idiot cousin and her stupid husband. I think we have to change our ways.”

  “I assume by that statement you have told her all about our dirty little family secret.” Bradley grabbed a blanket off a nearby chair and came to the end of the bed. He lay across the bottom of it.

  Were they all going to spend the night in this bed? Was this something they just did?

  “I told her and she hasn’t denounced us as monsters. She’s actually forgiven us.” Zach cuddled back down, drawing her to him which only made David swing an arm over her center to hold her close. In this scenario, she wasn’t going to be allowed to move much.

  She cleared her throat. “Are you okay down there by our feet, Bradley?”

  He didn’t answer, and when she looked, it was to see his eyes already closed. Had he fallen asleep that fast? Her gut clenched. They had all just survived transfiguration after a murder attempt and then followed her into the ocean where they’d had to spell themselves to breathe. Of course they were exhausted. All of this could be figured out in the morning.

  Zach met her gaze. “You okay, Michaella?”

  “Yes. It’s nice of you guys to take care of me tonight.”

  He shook his head. “We’re not nice.”

  She lowered herself back down and closed her eyes. There would be women all over the world who would die for the chance to be with the Addingtons. Only she’d never been one of them. They were gorgeous, but she’d never allowed herself to consider them in any physical way. Heck, life was too scary and difficult to consider anyone that way.

  Yet here she was. They were all silent now. Had Zach fallen asleep? She was afraid to look. Michaella forced her eyes closed. If she had to, she’d just stay this way the rest of the night. Only, she was warm and it was sort of nice to know that there were others around to handle things if something went to hell in the middle of the night.

  Sleep drifted through her, sweeping her away until morning.

  9

  Michaella arched her back, seeking the heat coming from behind her. The sheets smelled good, like something manly and clean. It made her want to bury her nose in the scent, so she did. Arch. Sniff. Arch. Sniff.

  On the second sniff, she stopped. Oh, no. This wasn’t her bed. These weren’t her sheets.

  Michaella kept her eyes shut, maybe if she just lay here, pretending to sleep…

  “Morning.” A hand squeezed her side, and she squeaked.

  Michaella glanced over her shoulder to see David smiling at her. “I guess I made my way here in my sleep.”

  “Yup,” Zach answered.

  David nodded, his chin bumping her shoulder. His breath lifted her hair, blowing it across her face so her nose itched.

  Michaella scooted toward the headboard. She was boxed in. Bradley blinked at her from the bottom of the bed and smiled, as if he knew she was trying to escape. Screw it. Bouncing over the mattress, she managed to keep her balance until she fell off the bed. Before she could hit the wood floor (which was gorgeous, of course), something caught her.

  “Gotcha,” Bradley said.

  As she floated to a standing position, she caught three equal smirks on three different faces. “I’m just going to…” They waited. “Run home and take a shower. I smell like the ocean.” She sniffed her arm. “Yep. Ocean.”

  Zach stood. How had she not noticed he was shirtless? Bradley stood, and he was in his boxers. And David.

  Michaella slapped her hand over her eyes. David apparently slept nude. He must have taken off his boxers after he got into the bed. How had she not noticed that?

  Except she had. She’d been arching into him. Apparently, her secret ho-self sought out dicks like a reverse heat seeking missile. Because his dick was definitely the missile.

  Would that make her a heat seeking missile silo?

  “What are you thinking?” Zach asked. “I can’t see your eyes, but you’re smiling and seem confused at the same time.”

  Michaella started in the direction she thought the door was.

  “Watch where you’re—” She backed into the door, the knob hitting right in the center of her lower back. There would be a bruise, for sure.

  “We’ll walk you home.”

  She fumbled with the knob, turned it, and opened the door. Immediately, she faced the hall. “That’s okay!” she called as she ran down the stairs. “I’m fine!”

  “Michaella!”

  Her entire body was on fire. Zach. Bradley. David. She always knew they were good looking, but with kind personalities, they went from handsome to… what was better than handsome? Ravishing? God. Zach’s story about protecting their mother made her want to simultaneously hug and hump him.

  Which wasn’t good. Because those guys were way out of her league. So far out of her league, they played different sports.

  Michaella burst through her front door. She barely had time to question why it wasn’t locked when two hands gripped her shoulders tightly.

  “Michaella Lansing.” James, the man with the slicked-backed hair, smiled down at her. Gone was the smooth looking man from earlier. His wild eyes raked her from head to toe, gleaming nastily. “You lying little bitch.”

  She squeaked and then screamed. This was the crazy husband of the cousin who wanted the Addingtons dead. She had no defensive magic, but humans knew how to defend themselves, and she’d go for that. She kicked him hard before she kneed him right in the groin. He yelled out in pain as all three Addingtons crashed through her door.

  It took David half a second before he had James in a magical death grip. James floated above the floor and wrapped his hands around his throat as if he could pry off the magic with his fingers. Michaella sank to the floor as the man gagged and choked.

  “You cowardly idiot.” Zach snarled. “You think you can come here and hurt our girlfriend?”

  Their what? She didn’t have time to dwell on that sudden development or what it meant as he continued. “Where is Marge?”

  That’s right. The cousin.

  Bradley tilted his head to the side. “Release his throat, David, s
o he can answer.”

  The most silent of the bunch didn’t respond right away. “Don’t. Want. To.”

  She got to her feet and put her hand on his arm. “If you kill him, the Enforcers will come after you. I’d hate that. Not when we’re just all getting to know one another.”

  David dropped James onto the floor. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll never stop him.” He glared at James. “You were played. Once The Full Moon Butcher has a target, he never stops. He’ll come for you. I can promise you that.”

  There was a pop, and Lawson appeared, taking in the scene in front of him. “James, we’ve been looking for you, asshole. Everyone okay here?”

  “No thanks to you, Lawson.” Zach snarled at him. She moved her hand off David and placed it on Zach instead. He needed to watch his mouth. She didn’t want the Enforcers coming after him either. “He was in here waiting for her.”

  Lawson regarded her. “You okay, Michaella?”

  “I am.” She was just glad this was over. “Grabbing James is great news, right? Now it can all be over.”

  “It is. Thanks to some random good luck we have Evan Armstrong, also known as the Full Moon Butcher, locked up in Prestige. We’ll be moving him to safer ground shortly, once we get that paperwork sorted out. Now we have James. Marge will be next. Then you can all rest easier.” He eyed Michaella for another moment. “Careful with these people. They leave a trail of problems wherever they go.”

  Before any of the Addingtons could respond, she did. “Thank you for your help, Lawson, but you don’t know them like I do. No one is perfect. But they’re pretty good people. I like them a lot.”

  David spoke again. It was a record for him since she’d known him. “She’s our girlfriend.”

  Why were they doing that? Michaella coughed. “Speaking of delusional…”

  David glared at her, but Lawson laughed. James was held in a magical field, unable to move, but he laughed along with Lawson. “This is the best. She has no idea. You’re all such dumbasses. Marge was right.”

  A surge of anger toward James flowed through her. He’d frightened her. Hurt her. Broke into her home. And now he insulted the guys? Michaella wasn’t sure when she started to feel responsible for them, maybe it was when she’d scooped their kitty litter, but she did.