Chapter 246

Alaric’s POV

The day of the sparring contest, I escorted Cara as far as I could to the venue, before we were forced to split. The contenders had to go to a side entrance where the team locker rooms were. While the onlookers had to go find seats in the stands.

Before parting, I gave her the tightest hug I could. “You are going to win,” I told her, and I believed that in my heart. But I was also worried about what Lilia had planned. “Please be careful, though.”

“I’m coming back to you,” she promised and kissed me.

Then we went our separate ways.

The venue for the sparring event was an open-air sports stadium, with seats in an oval around what would be a field. Today, that field was a roped off ring instead, elevated slightly above the field.

There was some standing room down on the field for some spectators, but the Auburn brothers and I chose seats in the first row of the stands instead. The elevation gave us a better view of the event, and each of us wanted to keep a careful eye on the head commissioner and Lilia.

I chose a seat between Eamon and Ryan. Aidan sat on the other side of Ryan, while Landon sat on the other side of Eamon. Colin opted to sit this event out so that he could personally babysit Mia and Ethan. None of us, especially Cara, wanted the kids to see the fighting.

The event was to start midmorning, an hour from now. I thought it strange that Noel still hadn’t made an appearance yet. Landon was keeping the seat beside his empty for him while the rest of the empty seats filled with people, but Noel had yet to show himself.

It shouldn’t have taken him all night to search the head commissioner’s hotel room. Unless something had happened to him, he should have at least checked in with one of us.

“Have you heard from Noel?” I asked Eamon.

“No,” he said, his expression hard. Looking now, I could see the heavy bags under his eyes, and the frown that seemed permanently fixed. Eamon looked like he hadn’t been to sleep yet. Did he even go to bed last night?

“I’ve tried reaching out to him, but his phone is turned off,” Landon added. “It’s not unusual for him to disappear for a few days while we traveled, but the timing is definitely suspect this time.”

“He’s impossible to track,” Eamon added. “Unless he tells us where he is and what has happened, we won’t be able to know.”

A bit of worry scratched uncomfortably within me. “You don’t think he’s been caught?”

“It seems unlikely, knowing him,” Landon said. “But… unfortunately, there is no telling.”

“Hopefully he found something big and is just verifying it,” Ryan said.

“I don’t like this,” Aidan said. “Any of this.”

“Me either,” I said. Looking down at the ring, I had no idea how I was going to sit here and watch the love of my life fight, without trying to intervene. “You guys might have to hold me back.”

“That’s going to be a problem for all of us,” Ryan grumbled. “We are all going to want to help her.”

“We can’t,” Eamon said firmly, though it was through clenched teeth. “We have to let Cara earn this herself. She has to prove herself.”

I looked at him and he gave me a significant look back. “We cannot intervene.”

Cara’s POV

In the locker room, I went to where the Claw Sisters and Georgie are stretching, getting ready, and join them. We didn’t talk much, other than a quick greeting. Much of the locker room was quiet, presumably as everyone got into the right headspace for a fight.

Because this was a winner-takes-all event, all of the points earned until now were rendered meaningless. Everything – the entire competition – depended on the outcome of this one event. Because the stakes were so high, the tension in the room was palpable.

No one seemed willing to break the silence… at least, not until Lilia walked over to me.

“Cara,” she said.

I’d been stretching out my legs on the ground, so I looked up at her.

Her face was the perfect picture of apologetic, except for her eyes which remained sharp as ever. I braced myself for what was surely about to be a display of acting worthy of an award.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, pouting her bottom lip. “I know how it looks on the footage, but I swear, pushing you was an accident. There was gravel under my feet, and I slipped.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” I said, hoping to end this farce. She didn’t need to apologize mainly because I knew the apology was fake.

“That’s kind of you to say,” Lilia continued. “But truly, I must tell you how very sorry I am, and how relieved I am that you were unharmed.”

I could have died, had Lucy not appeared at the last minute to save me. I wondered how she truly felt about that. She wasn’t relieved, that much I knew. But had she actually wanted me to die? Or was she hoping I’d just get bruised up enough to drop the competition?

Knowing her, and knowing the efforts she went to, to kill me in the past, I supposed there could be no doubt that she wanted me dead. How frustrating it must have been for her that I continued to survive despite her best efforts.

“Can you possibly forgive me?” she asked.

Absolutely not. Yet, before I could say anything, Georgie spoke up first.

“Get the hell out of here, Lilia,” Georgie said. “No one has time or effort for you mind games this morning. What you should be spending your effort on is getting ready for your fight with Claudia. You are going to need a miracle to survive a spar with a bear.”

Lilia paled slightly, glancing at Claudia, who just at that moment was doing a handstand. Then, to Georgie, she snapped, “No one asked you.” Looking to me once more, she said, “I just hope we can show good sportsmanship today.” Then she scurried away.

Good sportsmanship? She was the one who needed to exhibit that. The rest of us were all fine with each other. Even the other wolves had laid off the teasing and bullying after my fall off the cliff.

“Thanks,” I said to Georgie when Lilia had gone.

Georgie shrugged. “She never stops with her games.”

The brackets for the fights had already been revealed, so we already knew the first fight of the day would be between Claudia and Lilia.

“My sister will teach her not to mess with us,” Charlotte said. When Claudia righted herself from her handstand, the two high fived each other.

“Don’t underestimate her,” I warned. “I’ve known her for some time. She’s conniving. She knows physically she wouldn’t get very far in this contest, so she must have something else planned.”

“I agree,” Georgie said. “And with her suspicious connection to the head commissioner, we have to assume he is in on it some way.”

“She’s going to cheat,” I stressed. “We just don’t know how.”

“Let her try,” Claudia said and cracked her knuckles. “With my strength, she’d need an army to win this fight.”

I hoped Claudia was right, but knowing Lilia and the lengths she would go to get what she wanted, I wasn’t nearly so confident.