Page 115 of Pack: Posy 3

"I'll get back to that in a minute. So this ... whatever it is ... never happened when anyone else touched Landry?" Ariel looked around at each of us.

"Again, not to our knowledge, and it would be pretty hard to miss this reaction," I said.

"Try to touch him, Ariel," alpha said.

We all swiveled toward him, and luna stared up at him with wide, worried eyes.

"No," she whispered. "It'll hurt him again."

"We don't know that. Let's experiment for a second. He's out of it, anyway." Alpha shrugged.

"Wyatt!" Luna slapped him on the chest with one tiny hand. "That's mean!"

"We need to know, baby."

"Okay," Adam nodded. "To do an experiment, you need a control. Touch him through his shirt first and see what happens, then touch his skin."

"Should I touch the same place luna did?" Ariel asked. "Science was never my best subject."

"Let's start with somewhere safe like his arm," Adam suggested, "then try his chest."

She did as directed, laying Landry's abandoned t-shirt over his forearm and touching him, then removing it and hesitantly laying her fingers against his skin.

Nothing happened.

"Okay, now do the same where luna touched him. The solar plexus."

She did the whole process over, and again nothing happened.

"Hmm."

"Stop with the hmm, witch, and tell us what you think!" Nick grouched.

"Careful, gamma," Tristan growled.

"Calm down the testosterone, boys," Ariel murmured. "I know tensions are high right now, but we're all friends here, Tris."

"Hmphf." Beta Tristan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Nick, who glared back.

Rolling her eyes, Ariel turned to alpha.

"Pretty sure it's a curse, and I think I might know which one. How it got here, I couldn't tell you, but I highly suspect it involved that bitchy mate of his. What was her name again?"

"Nia," alpha spat out.

"She really was mean, wasn't she?" Luna's bottom lip quivered and her big blue eyes watched Landry's face. "Why was she so cruel? Turning someone down for a date was his right, yet she acted like it was a sin and insult against her."

"Who can understand how a psycho thinks?" I shrugged.

"It's a curse involving his heart, isn't it?" Adam asked.

"Yeah. I could be wrong, but I believe it's Warm Hands, Cold Heart."

"And what is that?" Rio asked.

"The warm part means he's acting normal for the most part, but the cold part means someone put a shard of ice in his heart."

"Um, I'm assuming you mean that figuratively?" Adam asked as we all stared at her.

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