Soul Lines (Completed)

Chapter Eighteen

Unable to glare at Elle, Rylan turned his eyes towards Jacobi, shrugging carelessly. 'I guess you'll just have to wait until I feel like talking to you, especially after you lied to me.'

'I didn't lie.' I hissed through clenched teeth.

'Well, you certainly hid the truth.'

I cut across his path, abruptly stopping him in his tracks. 'You don't get to decide what I do and don't tell you. And you don't get to be angry when I do tell you things.'

He remained silent, staring over my shoulder, his face puckered with the hostility of a thousand soldiers.

Just as I was going to strive for our loyalties, I smelled something rotten in the air. Tim sauntered close, jamming past us to the elevator, sneering, 'Trouble in paradise?'

It was like nails on a chalkboard, his voice grating in our ears. I considered the consequences of snapping off his finger as he pushed the elevator button repeatedly, a plague on our lives in his own right.

'Word of advice,' he snickered, as though he had already reached his punchline, and my body locked up, already agitated by his response, 'Save the domestics for home. At least then, we won't be able to use your weaknesses against you.'

A rumbling growl filled the lobby with an almost touchable power, and my knuckles cracked. I clenched my hands, trying to dispel the rage that was building under my skin, but I couldn't relax, my blood roaring with the demand to squelch him into the marble.

Rylan's worried look over my shoulder sent warnings through my head, and I forced my nails into the palm of my hand, reminding myself not to take a swinging punch at the slimy, smug smile Tim directed our way.

Elle was in the room.

I had to repeat, over and over, the instructions to stand down. My blood prickled and itched under my skin as Tim longed for a fight.

I couldn't do that to her, not again.

If I wanted to tear Tim down, I would do it in negotiations, a fair fight that would leave him wounded for years.

Elle's voice rang like a shotgun as she cleared her throat to get our attention. 'You boys are right to head up. The meeting is about to start.'

Boys.

Her words hurt.

The doors swept open just as Jacobi reached our side, and the silence simmered in the elevator as we made our way to the second floor.

***

'You have had numerous warnings.'

Tim could not settle on a face to stare at, his eyes thrashing in their sockets with the same flash of desperation as a newly caged animal.

When he brought his fist down onto the table, it splintered, and a ravening lightning bolt crack speared the centre of the mahogany. As the whites of his eyes glowed amber, a sign that he was more wolf than human, his skin turned mottled with rage. His muscles corded beneath it, and he turned towards his parents.

A choking roar caught on his lips, their facade of indifference fueling his feeling of betrayal. He was senseless, snarling at the leaders of the four packs. 'HE IS MY BROTHER.'

He was wrong, though. His anger was unfounded as his parents weren't uncaring. Well-hidden tears glistened in his mother's eyes, and she pressed her lips silently together. His father held her hand under the table, but couldn't look at his son, so he kept his eyes on the painting over Tim's shoulder instead. Lachlan was just as much their son as he was Tim's brother.