CHAPTER 12 ROHAN

Chapter 12

ROHAN

R ohan examined the hint he'd uncovered. Around the base of a flagpole on the western point of the island, he'd found a thick metal chain fixed in place with a padlock made of a gleaming platinum. The lock had no keyhole, no combination pad, nothing to allow it to be opened. A sentence had been engraved into the surface of the platinum in elaborate script.

No man is an island, entire of itself. Rohan recognized the words, the start of a famous poem. So what was the clue, the hint, the advantage meant to be obtained by the player who found this? His brain sorted mercilessly through possibilities: the poet's name, John Donne ; the poem itself, focused on the idea that mankind is inherently connected to one another.

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls. Rohan allowed himself to jump to the ending of the poem. It tolls for thee.

Deep in Rohan's mind, a warning sounded: Someone's coming. He'd long since trained his senses to operate exactly as he needed them to. Even when his mind was elsewhere, his ears were always listening, his body always alert. Footsteps were never just footsteps. They were tells—and Rohan was an expert at reading people.

Soft-soled shoes, aggressive stride, weight skewed toward the balls of the feet. He set the lock down and silently faded into the shadows. He already had the clue memorized, and observing another player's reaction to it would tell him more than fighting over it possibly could.

Within seconds, the owner of the soft-soled shoes and that aggressive stride appeared. Tall and powerfully built. Her long, silvery-blond hair was pulled into two tight braids that wreathed her head on either side like a crown of laurels, joining together in a thicker braid that hung down her back like a gilded rope.

Savannah Grayson. Rohan knew the basics about her already: eighteen years old, college basketball player, a reputation as an ice queen, Grayson Hawthorne's half sister.

Tell me, Savannah , Rohan said silently. Who are you really?

As he watched, Savannah zeroed in on the lock with remarkable speed. She read the clue. Most people would have paused to ponder, but the slightest shift of her weight tipped Rohan off to the fact that she wasn't most people .

He saw her next move right before she made it.

She slid her arm under the chain, looping it over her shoulder, and began to climb. There was no flag at the top of the pole. Nothing for Savannah Grayson to find there. You're not looking for anything, are you, love? She was getting the lock—and the chain—off the pole.

The fifty-foot-tall pole.

Savannah climbed the way she walked—with purpose. With fury , Rohan thought. Her arms were strong, her endurance impressive. Drawn by that purpose, that fury, that endurance, Rohan stepped out of the shadows. The pole was solid enough and large enough to support his weight as well as hers.

Rohan could think of worse ways to make a person's acquaintance.

Savannah was halfway to the top when she realized she had company. Her gaze didn't linger on his. She climbed harder, faster, but Rohan had four inches, half an arm's length, and a lifetime at the Devil's Mercy on her.

Soon enough, his hands grabbed the pole just above her ankles, the backs of his fingers brushing the front of her leg. A second later, the two of them were neck and neck. Something in Rohan wanted to push past her to see how hard she would push back, but in Rohan's world, strategy was never subject to want . He paced her, hand for hand and foot for foot, never taking the advantage and never giving it up.

As they neared the apex, Savannah Grayson's eyes met his.

"Nice day for a climb," Rohan said.

Savannah raked her gaze over him, from head to toe, and arched a brow. "I've seen nicer."

Oh, he liked her. Rohan had a certain appreciation for being put in his place. And for the set of her lips as she did it.

"Need any help with that?" Rohan nodded toward the chain looped around Savannah's shoulder. I've already seen the clue, but you don't know that. Let's see how far you'll go to protect what you perceive as yours.

"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, in your 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 of something in 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 was the safer play here. But Rohan had a theory to test, and he hadn't gotten where he was in life by playing safe .

"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."