Glorious Rivals (The Grandest Game, #2) (75)

They passed the first boulder and slowed to a stop, taking in the space between the two boulders—and what lay beyond.

“A staircase made of stone,” Lyra said, and then she shook her head. “How did I miss this? I ran the entire island multiple times. I should have seen it.”

“There’s a difference between seeing and perceiving,” Grayson said. “Our minds have a tendency to fill in gaps. Sometimes, we see things that aren’t there, and sometimes, you can look right at something and miss it all the same.”

As Lyra looked down the stone staircase, she was hit with an ominous feeling—not the feeling of being watched this time, but it came over her body with the same visceral certainty, like her body was perceiving something that her mind could not see. Driven to pinpoint what, she descended first one step on the stone staircase, then the next. She closed her eyes with the third. Grayson followed in her wake.

His body. Hers. Step by step.

With her eyes closed, Lyra felt the connection between them that much more strongly, but that did nothing to banish that nagging sense that there was something— “Stop.” Grayson’s voice cut through the air like a scythe.

Lyra’s eyes flew open, and she froze just in time to see the snake.





Chapter 64





GRAYSON


Don’t move.” Grayson placed a hand on the back of Lyra’s neck. The snake was within striking distance of her. Its head was triangular—and raised. If Grayson had thought he could take care of the threat with no risk to Lyra, he would have. But any movement toward the serpent, no matter how decisive or smooth, could precipitate a strike.

Even Hawthornes could only move so fast.

So Grayson stood there with Lyra, willing her to stay still. And with each breath they took together, Grayson saw the faces of the ones he’d failed before: The first girl he’d ever cared for, face-down on the shore. Dead.

Avery, bleeding and unconscious on the pavement. The world on fire. In the moments after his father’s bomb had gone off, Grayson hadn’t even been able to run to her.

For so long, he hadn’t been able to run toward anyone or anything.

Emily, dead. Avery, bleeding. But Lyra was here, and the snake was slithering off the stone steps.

Lyra was fine.

With great effort, Grayson let his hand fall from her neck. “You stopped when I told you to.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion.” Lyra paused. “And I trust you.” She was so still yet—perfectly still, and all Grayson could think was: You shouldn’t.

He knew—from their conversation in the tree, he knew how she felt about being kept in the dark, about that kind of protection. And here he was, doing to her exactly what her parents had, lying to her and not-lying to her, deciding what risks she would and would not take.

On some level, Grayson knew that he had no right, but he also knew that he would not survive anything happening to her—not after everything else he’d lost, not when she might be his Libby, not when the reality of Lyra Kane was more than he could have dreamed when he’d thought, day after day, about a girl who’d called him on the phone.

Grayson moved down onto Lyra’s step and then down again, taking the lead, and Lyra let him. No calamity struck, but Grayson walked the rest of the way down the stone staircase with his body in front of hers, shielding her as best he could.

Emily, dead on the beach. Avery, bleeding on the pavement.

“Grayson?” Lyra’s voice had always been so uniquely hers: layered, honey-rich, and forever tiptoeing the line to one side of husky or the other—raw and real and strong.

Grayson swallowed and forced himself to speak. “About the clue—”

“You sure as hell aren’t thinking about the clue.” Lyra’s tone made it clear: She wouldn’t let him shrug her off.

Grayson stepped onto the rocky beach and stared out at the ocean. If he turned left, he and Lyra would ultimately end up at the boathouse. He turned right instead, onto a thin slice of shore that wrapped around the island. Following this path, they’d eventually end up below the ruins of the old house.

Once the tide rolled in, there was a good chance that this path would no longer exist at all.

“My thoughts are dark, Lyra.” He walked the thin path—just wide enough that she could fall in beside him. “My mind is rather gifted at imagining in detail any potential failures on my part at protecting those who matter to me.”

The stone step. The snake. If he’d been a second later…

“Because you’ve failed before,” Lyra said quietly, far too perceptive for her own good—or his.

Grayson angled his eyes toward hers. “It’s always straight to the heart of things with you.”

Her hand worked its way stubbornly into his as they walked on. “Who did you fail? You aren’t just thinking about Savannah.”

No. I’m not. Grayson was loath to admit that out loud. He had moved past this. He had worked to move past it, to accept that he’d had no control over Emily—wild, carefree, desperate-to-feel Emily, who had never truly loved him back, who had been his first in so many things.

“There was a girl.” Grayson wasn’t sure why he was telling Lyra this, why he needed to tell her this. “I knew her my entire life. We were not particularly well suited, personality-wise, but it always felt a bit like Emily was in my blood.” He exhaled. “She certainly excelled at getting under our skin.” His and Jamie’s. Grayson’s voice hardened as he continued, “She died. Cliff-jumping. I was the one who took her out there.”