Soul Lines (Completed)

Chapter Six

Chapter Six
Kaden's POV

She was on the phone again. Her voice saturated the room, rising above the arguments at the table. She was striking up a deal with the company that supplied the hotel soap.

Her words were mesmerising, but I didn't see how she was benefiting from their negotiations until she placed down her final offer. She'd made them feel like they'd won their talks, but it wouldn't be until their accountant ran their numbers that they discovered that she'd sweet-talked them into the palm of her hand. Her voice was sugary sweet, and I could picture the secret smile she gave the empty lobby as she swindled them.

'Is there something you find amusing?'

I glanced up sharply, caught under the eye of Tim Thomms. Sitting stiffly across the table, Tim turned his nose at the sight of me, sneering angrily as he jammed his finger against the file in front of him.

I didn't doubt that he was about to try and humiliate me for my inattentiveness, but I'd studied the files over the week, and I could slam his defence in my sleep.

I didn't take it personally. We may have been thrown down the end of the table in a separate discussion from the council members, but we were still on display, proving ourselves to our parents.

Tim couldn't stand the thought that the Alphas held us to a lower standard than themselves. They had handed us the scraps of their meetings tonight, and he couldn't handle it.

I didn't mind because it meant I could listen to her.

It was usually easy to zone in and out, but tonight our pack leaders had selected five dispute cases and resource requests, asking us to negotiate them. Our solutions were more suggestions than anything, to be looked over by our parents, but Tim acted as though each case was life-or-death.

His punishments were unrelenting, usually demanding that we strip our resources bare to help the Umbra Pack. Like his father, he would lead with an iron fist and always be a thorn in our negotiations.

'One of your pack member filth disrespected an Umbra Pack member today.'

I slid my eyes down the table to Lachlan, who cowered behind his brother. I let the anger flush through my nose when I felt the edge of my seat crack in my grip. Lachlan shied away, and I flicked my eyes to the file. Her name stood out like a golden beacon of light, and I wanted to burn the file to remove all traces of her from the meeting.

Rylan stiffened beside me, he could sense that I was hiding a festering anger behind my blank expression, and he knew I was near the breaking point. 'How did my pack member disrespect yours?'

He hadn't gotten the response he wanted, and his top lip curled back into a snarl. He clutched the file in his fist, crumpling the page as he waved it. 'The human girl lives in neutral lands. You can't claim her as part of your pack unless she is mated to one of your members.'

I sucked in a quiet breath, pulling the words that wanted to spill from my mouth safely away from their ears. I wasn't like Tim. I knew rash words only made me vulnerable. 'Jacobi Whetts defended a friend after your pack member was asked in no uncertain terms to leave. The human in question,' I leaned over the paper for pretences, my heart drumming in my ears, 'Elliot Clarke, spends more time on Vermiculo lands than anyone else's, but let me be very clear, Whetts wasn't claiming her as our own, he was defending her.' I'd managed to avoid her name in council for years. From when I'd discovered she was my soulmate to now, I hadn't mentioned her name.

She'd come up once before, but even then, I swallowed my anger and let the alphas lead the discussion. 'How about we talk about the fact that your pack is slowly encroaching on neutral territory.'