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“You may be the bear, but Zath will turn into one if we wake him up,” I told Riven quickly.
“And here I thought you just didn’t like me anymore by slamming the door in my face,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes at the dramatics. “That was not a slam. Plus, I’m not really the subtle type. I’d have straight up told you I didn’t like you, especially for waking me up this early.”
“Well, you look pretty awake to me,” he chuckled.
“Watch yourself, bear. I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” I shot back with mock annoyance, which he just ignored. “Any clue why Stanley moved this meeting up? It’s not like we weren’t already coming down in a few hours.”
“I don’t know unless someone who saw us last night came up with some lies about us. I wouldn’t put it past a jealous ex or the lady who didn’t like getting turned down,” he pointed out as gently as possible.
“I’d like to say he wouldn’t do that, but I, clearly, don’t even know him,” I sighed. It was so frustrating that something else was piling on us after everything we were already dealing with. If I found out it was that lady then all bets were off. My horse huffed in agreement, ready to trample anyone who stood in our way.
“She was fake when she was hitting on me. It was obviously a show, maybe in hopes we’d get with her and quit? Who knows,” he said.
“She better watch it. I’m not afraid to cut a bitch,” I said, my horse huffing in agreement. She was just as ready as I was to charge into a fight to protect our mates.
“For touching your mates?” Riven was obviously teasing but I frowned at the word. It wasn’t my favorite after what happened, and the idea of ‘mates’ was ruined for me. But I couldn’t exactly blame or punish El and Riven for what Lance did.
“Look, I’m not saying that we’re not going to have any chance to become bonded mates but I will tell you now that the word ‘mate’ is really hard to use, and not just for me it’s an issue for Zathrian as well.”
Riven sighed. “I thought we talked about this. We’ve all got baggage, but we’ll figure it out. It’s not like we don’t live in the same city, Nyla. We aren’t restricted to just this week to get things in order. It’s going to be fine.”
It was odd but I kind of believed what Riven was saying. He wasn’t just going to disappear into obscurity after this and we didn’t have to push everything into one week. There was no timeline or right or wrong way to handle finding your mates. Ours might be more complicated than most, but we’d find a way to make it work. Already, I was comfortable with them and that was a huge thing for me. I didn’t trust easily.
When we reached the ground floor, we dropped the conversation. Stanley’s message said to meet him in the same ballroom where they held the competition. The halls were still quiet this time of day outside of a few members of the cleaning staff and people heading to breakfast.
Stanley was already waiting for us when we walked into the room. He was sitting front and center but stood when he saw us. My stomach was in knots, even more so when I saw the stern expression on his face. Someone had definitely told him something. That wasn’t a normal expression to have toward innocent people.
“Thank you for joining me. It’s unfortunate that we have to have a talk like this so soon into the competition. In fact, it’s a first in this competition at all,” he said solemnly. “I’m not pleased and we are going to address it now before it becomes an even bigger issue.” We both bristled at the reprimand in his voice.
“Okay, I’m a bit confused as to why we’re even here,” I said bluntly. Seven-thirty was not the time for filters.
“Oh, really?” he said, pursing his lips in disapproval. “Well, let’s refresh your memory then. I was given some evidence last night of fraternization and the intent to sway the competition in your favor. I had hoped we could own up to our transgressions instead of doing this dance.”
“Sway the competition?” Riven asked. “That’s absurd.”
“We just met, why would I want him to win over myself? You invited us here personally, it’s not like we were business partners,” I pointed out in a frustrated tone. “And I don't appreciate the condescending tone here.”
Stanley was taken aback by our intense words. Neither of us were rude but we also weren’t going to stand here and be accused of this bullshit. Whatever evidence he thought he had was obviously staged or fake. There was no other explanation.
“Now there’s no need to jump into the defensive, we are just here to address and remind you of the rules,” he countered as if that was simply his plan and not a full switch of tactics. He’d literally just said he wanted us to admit our guilt.
“Fate has no rules,” Riven chimed in with a slight growl to his voice. “I didn’t expect to come here and find my mate, nor did my partner El. Or Zathrian and Nyla, for that matter, and yet, here we are. Not to mention, we read the rules, Stanley. We can get to know each other if we want to, there’s nothing against it.”
Stanley’s eyes widened. “Mates?” he questioned.
A soft laugh escaped me. “Believe me, Stanley, I had no intention of meeting anyone here, especially the biggest rival we had. Our businesses are indirectcompetition, and this is completely out of left field, but we can’t exactly argue against fate.”
“I’d still like to know what evidence you were sent because not once have we had a single conversation about conspiring. In fact, we don’t even have access to what the day’s challenges are going to be so it would be impossible. How could we sabotage each other, even if we wanted to?” Riven challenged. Stanley had poked the bear and he was in defensive mode now.
Instead of explaining, Stanley pulled out his phone and clicked around before pulling open a voice clip and hitting play.
Someone tried really hard to sound like us, but from the first fake giggle, I was rolling my eyes. It was very clear that this was not me. Not only was the woman’s deeper voice comically raised to imitate mine, it sounded rehearsed. Then the man spoke and I couldn’t hide my laughter at his expense. The deep baritone didn’t match River’s smokey voice at all.
The clip continued on until they were conspiring for one of the teams to throw the competition to lose on purpose.
As it concluded, he looked at us like the cat that caught the canary, confident we’d been caught red-handed.
