Page 16 of The Grandest Game

“Does it look like I need help?” Savannah’s tone was completely unperturbed, like they weren’t fifty feet off the ground, like her body wasn’t inches from Rohan’s, their legs practically intertwined. She let go with one hand and lifted the chain off her shoulder and up over the top of the flagpole.

Nice to meet you, Savannah Grayson.Rohan had wanted to know who she was. She’d shown him.

By the time they’d made it back down the pole, the two of them were no longer alone.

Savannah favored her right leg as she landed on the ground beside the interloper.

“Your knee, Savannah.” Grayson Hawthorne bore a striking resemblance to his half sister. Both of them kept their emotions tightly locked away—or tried to, at least.

Physical locks weren’t the only ones that Rohan had taught himself to pick.

“I’m fine.” There was a note of tension in Savannah—not in her voice or in her face, but in the long, graceful lines of her neck.

Someone did not appreciate being reminded of her weaknesses.

And someone else didn’t appear to appreciate how close to his sister Rohan was standing.

“Elsewhere.” Grayson let that word stand on its own for a second. “That,” he clarified for Rohan, “is where you want to be right now.”

The brother was overprotective. The sister didn’t want to be protected. Whether or not he knew it, Grayson had just done Rohan a favor.

“Is this the ‘stay away from my sister’ speech?” Rohan smirked in Savannah’s direction. “He’s right, love. I’m a very, very bad idea—unless you’re a hedonist, and then I’m a very good one.”

Grayson took a single step forward.

“Don’t,” Savannah ordered her brother. “I can take care of myself.”

“I can see that.” Rohan lingered on that statement. “Though, inyour brother’s defense, there is some chance he’s carrying a grudge about that whole business with the ribs.”

“Ribs?” Savannah said.

“Jameson’s,” Rohan clarified. The incident in question had happened in the ring of the Devil’s Mercy. “It was amicable,” he continued lightly, “as far as rib-breakings go.”

Contrary to his tone, Rohan hadn’t enjoyed it. Jameson Hawthorne was one of those people who didn’t know when to stay down.

Grayson Hawthorne appeared to have more restraint. He didn’t respond to Rohan’s bait, choosing instead to refocus his laser-like attention on Savannah. “You had surgery barely three months ago. Your knee can’t be at more than eighty percent.”

There was a flash ofsomethingin Savannah’s eyes, and for a moment, Rohan saw a tension in her body that went far beyond her neck.

The body never lies, Rohan thought.

“We both know I don’t do eighty percent,” Savannah told Grayson.

“As luck would have it,” Rohan said, “neither do I.”

Savannah shifted her gaze to his for a full three seconds, which felt tantalizingly like a challenge, and then she took off into the forest like an Olympic runner exploding off the block.

Rohan rather enjoyed watching her go.

“It would be prudent,” Grayson said, his tone calm but his elocution blade-sharp, “for you to stay away from my sister.”

Rohan considered allowing Grayson the final word. He was, after all, the Hawthorne tasked with the enforcement of rules in this game, whatever those rules turned out to be. Backing off wasthe safer play here. But Rohan had a theory to test, and he hadn’t gotten where he was in life by playingsafe.

“I’d be happy to stay away from your sister,” Rohan said. “Both of them, actually.” He locked his eyes on to Grayson’s and ran a little experiment. “But that would require turning all of my attentions to Lyra Kane.”

Chapter 13

LYRA