~

“So, what’s the plan?” Paige asked.

“I propose that we go down the secret tunnels and escape that way,” Mel offered back. Both sisters stared at her as if they’d never seen her before as they twisted their heads on their necks and offered her a quizzical look.

“But, we don’t have any secret tunnels,” Paige offered back as if Mel had lost her mind.

“Well, doh — which means we’re all out of plans,” Mel said, tossing her hands up in frustration, and stalking into the living room.

“Sometimes, I can see why you want to kill her,” Paige said to Kat.

“Meh,” Kat shrugged her shoulders. “Right now, I’m considering throwing her outside like a bad Kitty sacrificial offering to the shifters.”

“I get that.”

“But, five minutes with her and they’d probably beg us to take her back again.”

“I can hear you,” Mel hissed.

Paige and Kat shared a conspiratorial grin and a chuckle at their sister’s expense.

 

~

~

 

“Why did you let the witch go?” Grayson grumbled.

“Oh, like you would have seized her in the first place,” Parker snorted back.

“Well, now they’re inside the house, their territory, and what are we going to do?” Grayson grumbled some more.

“You could try to huff and puff…” Raff offered, but when both the shifters turned a death glare upon him, he shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “Too soon?”

“You think?” Grayson stared back.

“But I thought this was a fairytale,” Raff chuckled.

“It would have to be a dark one, considering they’re witches,” Dusty offered.

“And what does that mean?” Parker growled.

“Oh, like you like witches,” Dusty tossed back with a grunt of disbelief, followed by a snort of contempt for his alpha’s hypocritical ways.

“Doesn’t look like I have any choice in the matter, does it?” Parker snapped back.

“Witches — death,” Raff held up his hands and weighed the options as he saw them.

“After what I just saw — death might be a preferable option,” Dusty chuckled.

“Well, when it’s your turn to find a mate, let’s see what you bring home,” Grayson growled.

“What — I bring home — don’t you mean who?” Dusty chuckled.

“Have you met you?” Parker growled.

“Probably a she-demon,” Grayson chuckled.

“Maybe a vampire?” Raff offered up his two cents worth.

“Well, as long as it’s not a witch — we seem to have more than enough of those,” Dusty grumbled back.

“At the moment — we don’t seem to have any,” Raff said, turning toward the mates. “And speaking of witch — no pun intended, okay, I lied — how are you going to get the little darlings out of the big bad house?”

“Try asking me something I do know the answer to,” Parker grumbled.

 

~

~

 

“We have no choice we have to kill them,” Paige shrugged as if it was water off a duck’s back.

“We do?” Mel looked sort of shocked at her younger siblings answer to their problems.

“We do?” Kat was equally taken aback.

“We do!” Paige gave a forceful answer. “Unless…” She left that word hanging in the air.

“Unless?” Mel snapped.

“Unless you to want to be forever mates to wolf shifters, and live happily ever after having pups, and surrounded by the pack.” Paige shrugged her shoulders. It wasn’t her decision to make.

“W-e-l-l…” Kat started, but she balked at the next words as her mind raced in all different directions.

“Well?” Mel snapped at her sister.

“I’m thinking,” Kat snapped back.

“Thinking!” Mel hissed out in disbelief.

“Yes, thinking — it’s what people do — not you though because I’m sure that we never shared the same womb — you were probably cloned by aliens and placed in the crib beside me.”

“What’s there to think about?” Mel demanded, letting the other stuff go.

“Life — love — family — babies — stuff…” Kat rhymed them off on her fingers.

“Shifters — growly — furry — stubborn — testosterone-fuelled — man beating chest…” Mel counted them back.

“I get it! I do! But just because you’re turning your nose up at a future…” Kat hissed.

“What future?” Mel snapped back.

“Life – love — family — babies…”

“Well, excuse me, I didn’t know we’d slipped through a time warp back to the fifties…” Mel grumbled.

“There was nothing wrong with the nineteen fifties,” Kat snapped.

“Probably not — I was talking about the eighteen fifties.” Mel folded her arms and huffed.

“You two need to stop snapping and snarling at each other, and start doing it at those shifters outside,” Paige berated her siblings.

“She’s right,” Kat said begrudgingly.

“I know she’s bloody right and I don’t need you to tell me that,” Mel huffed.

“I want chocolate cake,” Kat grumbled, and then she remembered the chocolate cake on the coffee table.

She practically growled as she stalked across the room, dropped down to her backside on the floor, snatched up a fork, and dug in.

“Hey, leave some me,” Mel grumbled, following her sister’s lead and sitting opposite her, cross-legged on the floor, as Paige eyed her siblings.

“Better,” she said. “I’ll pour the wine.”