Soulmate Cravings

McClenaghan

     Sarawat was running his fingers through Tine's hair to try and tame the mess he'd made of it when Pam knocked on the door. Sarawat noticed when she walked into the room that her earlier candor and sweetness was gone and was replaced by a noticeable tick in her jaw and a dark cloud of aggravated hostility surrounding her.

     "McClenaghan is on his way up," she said in a clipped tone. Her aggravation overriding her ability to play sweet and kind. Sarawat was getting an idea of the bully side of Pam that Pear had been talking about Saturday night. He could see the hint of aggression and bully lurking just beneath her skin, now that he'd managed to thoroughly piss her off.

     She was much more emotional than he had ever seen her before. She had always kept her emotions under control, but Sarawat assumed that Tine, being there, had clawed its way into her skin and left her too raw to hide her emotions as well as she normally could. He also noted how Pam wouldn't look at Tine at all and was barely meeting Sarawat's eyes. In all fairness, it could be a reaction from the indecent musical he'd just forced upon her ears. But Sarawat knew in his gut that the hostility ran deeper than that.

     No one was perfect and Sarawat had a mean little petty streak. Knowing his friend's betrayal had given Sarawat the sadistic urge to hurt her back, and he had struck where it counted. Despite being aware of the immaturity of his actions, he was still proud of the hostile aura he'd caused in her and had to bite back the smug smile as he feigned care while asked with an underlying vein of cockiness in his tone, "Everything all right? You seem a little agitated," while perfectly knowing it was his fault and that he had purposely caused her surly attitude.

     Pam gave him a probing look when she'd heard his tone, almost as if she was realizing he'd done it on purpose. Her own stubborn streak kicking in, not wanting to give Sarawat the satisfaction of knowing how badly he'd rankled her chains. She reorganized her facial features and gave a sweet smile. "I'm fine. I'll be better once McClenaghan is taken care of," she said in a simpering bell-chimed tone that came out like a fake falsetto, using her weekend woes as an excuse to hide her real reasons for being pissed off. She turned on her heel and walked away towards the guest elevators to greet McClenaghan and show him in.

     Her voice was like a bucket of cold water, chilling Tine to the bone. The fake falsetto, sounding almost identical to the monster in his nightmares. He hadn't been paying attention and only caught on to the timbre as it ended; he hadn't heard enough to know that it was her. But he had heard enough to confirm that the voice in his dreams had definitely been a fake falsetto, whether it had been hers or another female's, he couldn't tell for sure, but he at least now knew the villain had purposely masked their voice, and they were female.

     Tine ran what little of the voice he'd heard back through his mind. He hadn't heard enough of it to know for sure, but he knew it was the closest to a match he'd heard so far. In conjunction with everything else and the ice in his gut, he was pretty damned sure it was her. However, the logical side of his brain came out to bat. Tine knew if he told Sarawat how positive he was that it was her, Sarawat would immediately react, and they didn't have a shred of physical evidence beyond an outsider human's claims. It wasn't enough to justify taking her out to the coven, and Tine couldn't bear to have the consequences of acting too hastily be another outside force that kept them apart.

     Sarawat turned to look at Tine and saw Tine's face was lost deep in thought. McClenaghan would be there any moment and Sarawat didn't have time to dig too much into where Tine's thoughts had taken him. Sarawat reached down and nudged Tine's chin up to meet his gaze. Tine could see the confusion and doubt in Sarawat's eyes, the fear that something was wrong.

     The war going on in Tine's head instantly cleared when he looked at Sarawat, resolving to keep the strength of his suspicions about Pam to himself, at least until they had some tangible shred of proof in their hands. Tine refused to allow her to separate them directly by taking Tine out, or indirectly by their means of disposing of her coming back to haunt them and separating them in the long run. Tine gave Sarawat a breathtaking smile, wanting to put both himself and Sarawat at ease. "Do you want me to go upstairs during your meeting?" He asked, not wanting to be in the way while Sarawat was working.