CHAPTER 82 LYRA

Chapter 82

LYRA

L yra tried to sleep, and when she couldn't, she ran to tire herself out so she could get some sleep before the next phase of the game, to silence the voices in her mind.

In the grandest of games, there are no coincidences.

A Hawthorne did this.

A Hawthorne.

There are always three.

Lyra just kept running. She pushed herself past the point of all endurance, and when everything hurt, when her body threatened to quit, Lyra forced herself to keep going until she couldn't anymore.

Until she hit the ruins.

Her chest heaving, her muscles on fire, Lyra closed her eyes and paced her way through the charred and skeletal remains of the old mansion, out onto the ruined patio, right up to the edge of the cliff.

And just like that, Grayson was there. This time, Lyra felt his approach. She turned and opened her eyes.

"What we have," Grayson told her, "what Odette gave us—it's a start."

A muscle in Lyra's chest twinged. "There is no we , Grayson." Lyra looked down, then away—anywhere but at him. "You don't have to keep playing. We made it out. You held up your end of the deal."

"Rest assured, Lyra: I'm playing until the end." There was no arguing with that voice. No arguing with Grayson Hawthorne.

She could only ask . "Why?"

"I am afraid you will have to elaborate on that question."

Lyra couldn't keep herself from looking at him again, ripping him apart with her gaze, trying to see past the surface. "Why do you even care?"

About the Grandest Game.

About my father and omega.

About this.

About me.

"It's clear enough now," Grayson told her, "the mystery at hand concerns my family, too."

"Right." Lyra's lips felt painfully dry—her mouth, too, and her throat. "Of course."

What other answer had she expected? What other answer could there possibly be?

"Lyra." That was a command, a look at me , a plea.

She did. Look at him.

"I have always cared." Grayson's words came out rough and raw. "When you were nothing but a voice on the other end of the phone calling me an asshole. Hanging up on me. Baring your soul in a tone that made it clear you don't even know how to flinch. And your voice … just the sound of it, Lyra." Grayson looked away, like looking at her was almost physically painful. "I always cared."

Lyra shook her head, sending her dark hair flying. "And when you told me to stop calling," she replied, more sharpness in her tone than she felt, "you didn't mean it."

There had been a moment, back in the Grandest Escape Room, when she'd believed him. Why was it so hard to believe that now?

"That day, when you called, I was hurting." Grayson angled his eyes up toward hers. "For reasons that have nothing to do with you, I was coming undone, and I do not do that . As a rule, when I can no longer deny that I am hurting, I push people away. I find a way to hurt more ."

"To prove you can," Lyra said, thinking of how many times she'd run until she hit and surpassed the point of pain. "To prove that no matter how much you hurt, you'll survive."

"Yes." This was Grayson as he'd been then, before all that practice being wrong. "I regretted telling you to stop calling. Immensely. I kept waiting for you to call again anyway. The number of hours I spent with your father's file, the number of ways I tried to find you—"

"You didn't!" Lyra didn't hold back this time. "You're Grayson Hawthorne. You don't try to do anything. You incline your head half an inch, and it's done ." The words were coming faster now. " They found me—your brothers and Avery. They found me for the Grandest Game, so don't tell me you looked, Grayson. You're Grayson Hawthorne . You could have—"

"I couldn't." Grayson took a step forward. "And my brothers and Avery—they didn't."

Lyra's gaze snapped right back to his face.

"No one found you, Lyra. You came here," Grayson said, his voice low, the emphasis unmistakable. You. Here.

"Because I was invited!" Lyra had almost said those words once before.

Grayson didn't argue with her—not at first. He didn't have to. He was Grayson Hawthorne. His eyes did it for him.

And she just couldn't look away.

Finally, Grayson spoke, the intensity in his voice matched in every line of his stone-carved face. "I delivered Savannah's ticket myself. I offered it to Gigi first, as I'd been instructed to do, but Gigi declined. She wanted to win her own ticket—one of the four wild cards. Savannah was next in line."

"Savannah got a direct invitation to the game," Lyra said. "So?" But even as she said the word, Lyra flashed back suddenly to Brady on the dock, after Odette had given him her watch, saying that he'd been given a spot in the Grandest Game twice .

And Odette had also been one of Avery's picks.

"Savannah. Brady. Odette." Lyra swallowed. "Three players of Avery's choosing." She flashed back to the masquerade ball, to dancing with Grayson, to the moment when she'd been on the verge of saying I'm here because I was invited and ended up saying because I deserve this instead.

She'd been given her ticket. It had come with a note.

"After I heard your voice for the first time, I confronted Avery and my brothers." Grayson locked his eyes on hers. "I went to find out what the hell was going on, and the four of them made it very clear: You came to us."

You. Us.

"A wild card," Grayson said.

But Lyra hadn't come to them. She hadn't competed to win her ticket. Someone had sent it to her. Someone had written the words YOU DESERVE THIS on paper that crumbled to dust. Lyra couldn't call to mind an image of the handwriting, but she did remember one thing about it.

The ink was dark blue.

"The notes on the trees." Lyra willed Grayson to understand, even though she hadn't put her thoughts into words for him. "The ink was blue."

"Lyra?" Grayson turned her name into a question.

Someone had wanted her here.

Someone knew her father's names.

And Grayson had looked for her. A floodgate broke inside of Lyra. The right kind of disaster just waiting to happen. A Hawthorne and a girl who has every reason to stay away from Hawthornes.

Lyra reached for Grayson anyway. Her hand found its way to the back of his neck for once. "Someone sent me that ticket, Grayson. I thought it was Avery. But if it wasn't…"

"Then who the hell was it?" Grayson finished, his hand going to her cheek.

Lyra didn't pull back. He was a Hawthorne. That Hawthorne.

Your Hawthorne , Odette had said.

Lyra thought about the danger of touch. She thought about all the reasons she had not to do this. But as Grayson lowered his lips, Lyra rose up on her toes, tilted her head backward, moving like a dancer, needing this—and him.

Her long-held memory of that kiss gave way to this kiss . And this kiss was everything .