Page 99 of Glorious Rivals
“I know.”Grayson wanted nothing more than to touch her now.“If you will just—”
“Don’t,” she bit out.“Show me your watch, Grayson.”
He’d asked her not to look.She had, but he’d twisted his arm before she could read the message.And now,shewas the one asking, telling him what she needed.
Slowly, Grayson turned his wrist back over.A message stared up at them both:O.M.LOCATED.
Alisa had found Odette.The message itself was less damning than Grayson had feared it would be, but Lyra scrolled back.
“Toby knows something,” Lyra read.“Not about Eve, apparently.So what exactly does your uncle Toby know, Grayson?Something about his mother?AboutAlice?”
I was trying to protect my family, and I was trying to protect you.Grayson knew that Lyra Kane would not thank him for that.
“And Odette has beenlocated?Was she missing?”Lyra fired questions off, one after another.“I don’t understand.Make me understand, Grayson.”Lyra gave him a second—just one—to reply.“Why does your family consider me a liability?A threat.”
“They do not think you are a threat.”Grayson’s voice stayed even, no matter the sensation in his chest: a tightening of muscles, a ripping of something at his core.
“IfI’mnot the threat…” The expression in Lyra’s golden brown eyes shifted as she realized the full implication of that.“Alice.She’s the threat.And I’m a liability because I know she’s alive.I guess that makes Odette a liability, too, since she’s the one who told us.And you—”
Grayson cut her off.“I,” he told Lyra, his voice breaking, “am forever pulling people back from cliffs.”
Lyra just looked at him.“I don’t want your protection.”
Grayson knew that.She wantedhim.And though he knew exactly how this was going to play out, he could not stop his reply.“You have it nonetheless.”
For the longest time, Lyra just stared at him, and then she left the bed and stood, her feet shoulder width apart, beside it.“I have a game to play.”
For years, Grayson had not been capable of running to anything or anyone.The risks of losing someone else were too great.But this time, he was out of the bed in a heartbeat.
He went to Lyra.He ran toher.“Wehave a game to play,” Grayson said.
For four or five excruciating seconds, Lyra stood there, saying absolutely nothing, and then she raised her eyes and looked at him the way she had the first time he’d ever touched her—in the ruins, his hand on her arm.
It was a warning look, electric and raw.“I’m not going to stop,” Lyra said intently.“You know that, right?”
She wasn’t going to stop looking for answers.She wasn’t going to stop pushing.
“I am not going to stop,” Lyra repeated, her intensity a match for any Hawthorne.“And when it comes down to it, if the Hawthorne family is on one side of this, and I’m on the other…” She pushed past him and out of the ballroom.“We both know that you won’t choose me.”
Chapter 71
ROHAN
Burn it all down.Rohan watched Lyra Kane from a distance.She was running, and she was alone.Perhaps his earlier warnings to her had finally paid off.Perhaps not.Either way, it wasn’t personal.Strategy was strategy.
People were a means to an end, and that was all.
It made sense, from that perspective, to light another match, another fuse.After all, there was little else for Rohan to do in the hour remaining beforenightfell.
Clever Hawthornes and their clever little tricks.
Rohan followed Lyra, staying far enough away that she wouldn’t see him immediately and close enough that she might feel him closing in.When she did, when she turned to glance back over her shoulder, Rohan disappeared into shadow.
Just a little while longer.
Just another few minutes.
And then he looped around, approaching her from the front.Let her believe there’s someone else on her tail.
