~

“Look at them, fighting among themselves like a pack of wild animals,” Kat snorted in disgust as she tried to pull her gaze from the big, bad, sexy as hell alpha that had just punched his brother in the face, but she couldn’t seem to manage it.

She only wished that she could punch Mel in the damn face every time her sister annoyed her. That would be satisfying.

“Bunch of wolves,” Mel snorted in contempt.

“Pack of wolves,” Raff offered. “And if I’m not mistaken – they’re your pack now.”

“Do you have a timeshare on a coffin? If not then go crawl back into it,” Mel hissed.

“Sticks and stones…” Raff waved an absent hand in the air.

“A big pointy stick…” Mel hissed.

“Right through that unbeating, uncaring heart of yours,” Kat offered.

“That’s the trouble with witches – so damn bloodthirsty,” Raff teased back and noted the dark glare that he was getting from all three of them. At least they were consistent; he’d give them bonus points for that.

“Run along, let the grown-ups talk,” Mel shooed him with her hands, but he just offered her a cocky grin back.

“Grown-ups? Witches – hmm, why doesn’t that compute?” he grinned.

“Maybe you need a jolt to your mainframe,” Kat offered with a deep scowl of annoyance for the vampire’s continued presence, and the fact that he was interfering where he didn’t belong.

“Thank you for making my point for me — if you can’t win the argument zap somebody — very grown-up,” he smirked.

“I’m warning you,” Kat hissed in annoyance. The vampire was jumping up and down on her very last nerve and if he wasn’t careful that nerve was going to snap, and so was she.

“And I’m quivering in my boots…” He smirked back, but he wasn’t smirking when Kat and Mel zapped him in unison. He really was quaking in his boots.

“Enough,” Paige grumbled. “Can’t you see that he’s the distraction tactic while the others work out a cunning and devious plan?”

“Take one for the team?” Mel said.

“Exactly,” Paige tossed back.

“In that case…” Mel said, and they zapped him again. “No point in half measures.”

“I didn’t think vampires were team players,” Kat grumbled at the man as he shook off the magic and eyed the witches with a new found sense of self-preservation.

“It depends on the team,” he bit out.

He was all up for distracting and deflecting the witches attention for the alpha, but he’d only go so far. Yes, he bounced back quickly from the witches attacks on him, but he wasn’t a damn saint. Sooner or later that was going to get old.

When the alpha started toward them with his trusty betas by his side, the witches turned their attention toward the shifters.

“We’ve decided that it’s time to go home,” Parker said, splitting his attention between the twins because when they were together, their scents mixed, and right then — he couldn’t tell one from the other.

“You’re not going to get an argument from us,” Mel said, folding her arms, and tipping her chin up in defiance.

“Good. Get in the truck,” Parker’s voice rumbled with a low, deep growl that said he was expecting trouble.

“Okay, maybe you are going to get an argument from us,” Kat tossed back.

“Argue away; it won’t do you any good.” The alpha’s words were more a promise, a statement of fact, and that ruffled more than a few feathers for the witches.

“I’m sure being zapped on a constant loop won’t do you any good either,” Mel said. She hoped that she conveyed his tone of voice right back at him, but if she didn’t — there was always the magic zap.

“Witches — zap-happy — nothing new here,” Raff chuckled at the alpha’s dilemma.

“There is four of us and three of you…” Dusty said, folding his arms across his broad chest as he eyed the mates, but he never got to finish his posturing.

“And why do I get dragged into your schemes?” Raff tossed back.

“Everybody knows that vampires have no honour,” Paige said.

“Okay, I’m on the shifter side — thank you for the clarity,” Raff offered back with a smirk.

“Gee, Paige, why don’t we make the situation worse?” Mel grumbled at her sister’s lack of thought and timing.

“Can I help it if the man is a Muppet?” Paige grumbled.

“Was now really the time to point that out?” Kat tossed back.

“Is now really the time to turn on each other?” Paige bit out in annoyance.

“You’re right — we should just be zapping them,” Mel said as she lifted her hand and motioned to the three brothers.

“Now, hold on a minute,” Parker grumbled a growl as his brothers gave a collective groan.

“Oh, I think you’ve made your side of the argument very plain and clear,” Kat tossed back, eyeing the alpha with a whole lot of trust issues.

“I don’t think we did,” Grayson said, giving a small shake of his head, and hoping not to get zapped again.

“Crystal,” Mel tossed back.

“What about the elders?” Raff put in, and all heads turned toward him.

“The elders?” Kat asked, and noted that Mel looked a little sheepish, even for Mel. “What about them?”

“The potion that you witches made…”

“Not all of us,” Kat turned a scowl on her sister.

“What? I thought I was helping,” Mel shrugged, but then she turned accusing eyes on the vampire. “Even if it was a shot in the dark because he wouldn’t tell me exactly what the damn problem was.”

“Blame Parker for that. He didn’t want it getting out…” Raff passed that accusation along, and the alpha grumbled a growl and bit down with a sigh.

“Well, they’re pack now…” Dusty said, but his mate cut him off.

“Assume make an ass of you not me, pal.”

“Oh, trust me…” he tried again.

“Not even close to how I feel about you,” Paige snorted her contempt for the man and noted the dark scowl as he pressed his lips together to bite down on a curse.

“Can we get back to the elders?” Mel demanded, turning her attention back to her mate. Her interest was piqued.

“It seems that there is something wrong with their healing ability.” Parker hated to admit it, even to the witches.

If news got out to the other packs that there was a problem in his, there could be trouble. Coupled with the fact that nobody knew why the elders weren’t healing as they should, or if the younger pack members could be affected in the future, that made their pack vulnerable.

  “As in?” Mel asked.

“As in…” Parker took a breath and spat it out. “They aren’t.”

“In what way?” Kat asked, intrigued.

She’d never heard of a Lycan not being able to heal before from anything but the most serious of injuries. In fact, their elders were damn sprightly for their age.

“It started with the alpha,” Dusty said, and the witches looked at Parker. “Not that one. The old alpha, our father. His memory started to slip; he’d forget to do things.”

“It got worse over time. Then other elders started to come down with it,” Grayson added.

“We tried to find a solution,” Parker admitted.

“Even my blood has no affect,” Raff said.

“That’s…” Mel scowled.

“Weird,” Kat tossed in. “And that potion I made – it won’t work.”

“Damn it,” Parker growled.

“But the good news is,” Mel said, tossing a look at her sister. Kat nodded. “Now that you’ve come clean, we can try other things.”

“You’ll help?” Grayson frowned.

“We’re witches, it’s what we do,” Paige said, offering him a look of disbelief that he’d think otherwise.

“Maybe if you’d come clean about the problem earlier,” Mel berated the alpha.

“We only told one witch, but she couldn’t seem to help any,” Parker admitted.

“Did you silence her?” Mel tossed back. “Hold her captive?”

“What? No,” he growled.

“Just going by past history,” Mel sneered.

“That’s not what…” Parker growled, but he didn’t get a chance to finish when she cut him off again.

“Nooo…?”

“I was just…”

“Me thinks you protest too much, Alphie,” Mel snapped back.

“The fact remains,” Paige said, holding up her hand and bringing silence between the mates. “In order to try to help, and we can’t guarantee anything, we need to go to pack land.”

Mel and Kat shot looks at it each other – as twins they had a natural ability to instinctively know what the other was thinking.

“Agreed,” they offered in unison.

“So, as I said before,” Parker said, sticking out his chest like a peacock strutting its stuff. “Get in the trucks.”

“Pride before the fall, Alphie,” Mel warned him.

“Gloat at thy peril,” Kat frowned.

“Be careful what you wish for because Karma’s a bitch and…” Paige never got to finish.

“So is she,” Mel and Kat said as one. The grins on their faces were unnerving, like Stepford Wives.

“Hey!” Paige snapped.