Glorious Rivals

Book 2: The Grandest Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers; YA Contemporary Romance; YA Romance

Synopsis

Millions, hearts, and lives are on the line in this heart-stopping sequel to The Grandest Game by #1 bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes. The stakes get higher, the game gets twistier, and everything heats up in this newest installment in the TikTok sensation Inheritance Games Saga.

Release date: July 29, 2025

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 400

Sample

Kissing Grayson Hawthorne felt like stepping out of time. Nothing else existed. Not the ground beneath Lyra’s feet. Not the ruins or the cliffs. Just this. Every place their bodies touched. His lips and hers. A jagged breath—this.

The right kind of disaster just waiting to happen, Odette’s voice whispered in Lyra’s memory. A Hawthorne and a girl who has every reason to stay away from Hawthornes.

As if he’d heard Lyra’s thoughts, Grayson pulled his lips slowly back from hers. “I usually have more control than this,” he said, his voice achingly low.

“I usually have better sense,” Lyra replied, keenly aware of just how close her lips still were to his—and how close the two of them were to a repeat performance. That kiss, their first, their only, had been earth-shattering.

It had also almost certainly been a mistake.

The wind off the ocean picked up behind Lyra, sending her ponytail flying into her face—and his. Grayson tamed her long hair, pushing it back, and as he did, the wind calmed, too, so suddenly and completely that Lyra couldn’t shake the illogical thought that he had calmed it through sheer force of will.

An alarm went off in the back of Lyra’s mind. This was Grayson Hawthorne.

And even if he wasn’t the cold, above-it-all, asshole rich boy she’d thought him to be twenty-four hours earlier, he was still a Hawthorne. His blood wasn’t just blue; it was practically cerulean. And soon enough, the Grandest Game would be over, and promises or not, Lyra and Grayson Hawthorne would go back to being what they’d always been: little more than strangers… with every reason to stay away from each other.

Neither one of you knows what you think you know. Another of Odette’s warnings echoed through Lyra’s memory, but even that couldn’t distract her from the fact that she was still so close to Grayson that she could feel his every breath on her skin.

“We should try to get some sleep before phase two,” Lyra said. The words came out throaty and low. She’d been aiming for practical. They’d been given twelve hours to recover from the first phase of the game. So far, Lyra hadn’t managed anything resembling respite.

“We should,” Grayson agreed, but instead of putting even a modicum of space between them, he brushed the knuckles of his right hand lightly over her cheek, stealing her next breath like a born thief. “I meant what I said, Lyra. We’ll figure this out—the game and all the rest.”

The rest. That was the understatement of the century, and even just thinking the words had others ringing through Lyra’s mind. A Hawthorne did this.

A Hawthorne.

Omega.

There are always three.

Lyra took a step back. Maybe with a little more distance, she’d be able to breathe, to think, to focus on what came next. The two of them were standing on what had once been the cliffside patio of a glorious mansion that was nothing but ruins now, a charred and visible reminder of the way even the grandest things could be reduced to ashes.

“Someone sent me here.” Lyra focused on that. “Someone put me in this game, and whoever that person is—they know about my father. I’m someone’s pawn.” Lyra looked away from Grayson’s pale and piercing eyes. “Or a weapon. Or a bomb.”

That was the logical conclusion, wasn’t it? That the person who’d sent her that ticket had put Lyra in the Grandest Game because of her history with the Hawthorne family? Because of her father’s death.

Because of Alice Hawthorne’s role in it.

“You are no one’s weapon, Lyra,” Grayson said, his tone making it perfectly clear just how rarely he lost arguments of any kind, “bomb or otherwise, and you are certainly not a pawn.”

“Then what am I?” Lyra retorted, her gaze returning to his like a homing missile.

“You are lethal,” Grayson said quietly, “in the best possible way.”

Where did he get off saying something like that and sounding, for all the world, like he meant it? Lyra went to take another step back, but Grayson reached for her shoulder, and the next thing she knew, he’d reversed their positions. Now Grayson was the one standing with his back to the cliff’s edge, and Lyra had the magnificent ocean view.

He’d just put himself between her and the drop-off. “I don’t need your protection, Hawthorne.”

Grayson arched a brow. “Agree to disagree.”

The wind off the ocean picked up again. A front rolling in. A slight shiver passed through Lyra’s body. Eyeing her, Grayson undid the top button on the jacket of his fits-like-a-glove suit. The middle button was next.

“What are you doing?” Lyra asked. She wasn’t just talking about his suit jacket, and he was perceptive enough to know that. What are we doing?

“I would think the answer apparent.” Grayson undid the final button on his jacket, and then…

The jacket came off, and Lyra’s body remembered: My lips and yours. A jagged breath.

“You’d better not be planning on offering me that jacket.” Lyra steeled her voice.

“You’re cold.” Grayson’s lips curved. “And I believe that I have already acquainted you with the fact that when I encounter a problem, I solve it.”

This was about so much more than the damn jacket. It was about his family and hers and an unknown threat. It was about the fact that Odette Morales, the one person who might have known some fraction of the big picture here, had given up her spot in the Grandest Game—and her chance at millions—because of the danger that Lyra and Grayson somehow represented.

The right kind of disaster just waiting to happen.

“I don’t need your jacket,” Lyra told Grayson.

“Perhaps I need to give it to you,” Grayson suggested. “Chivalry. It’s a coping mechanism.”

“I’m warning you, Hawthorne: If you try to put that jacket around my shoulders, I’m taking mine off and giving it to you.” To make her point, Lyra lifted a hand to the zipper on her own athletic jacket—which, to be fair, was more of an outer shirt.

Grayson took a moment to assess whether or not she was bluffing.

Lyra was not bluffing.

“Consider me warned,” Grayson replied archly. He slipped his suit jacket back on.

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “Why do I feel like I lost this argument?” she said.

“Because,” Grayson replied, “I’m still standing between you and the edge of the cliff.”

Once upon a time, Lyra might have had it in her to let another person protect her, but that was before. Before the dreams had started. Before she’d realized that her entire life had been a lie.

For years, her parents had let her believe that she was normal. They’d let her just go on like the defining trauma of her life had never happened, like her biological father hadn’t abducted her from preschool on her fourth birthday, like she hadn’t witnessed his suicide. And once Lyra had remembered, it was like nothing about the life she’d lived fit anymore, like the person she’d been had never even been real. She hadn’t wanted anyone to know why she’d changed, so she’d pretended that she hadn’t. She’d faked it for as long as she could.

But there was no faking anything with Grayson Hawthorne. And these days, when it came to the possibility of being hurt in any way, Lyra had to face it head-on. She had to protect herself, and Grayson made that so very hard. He was a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her from the darkness, telling her that she did not have to be fine.

But she did.

So instead of letting Grayson escort her back to the puzzle-filled mansion on the north point to get some sleep, Lyra warned him not to follow her and took off on another run.

Even though she’d already pushed her body to its limits.

Even though she needed her mind sharp for what was to come.

Lyra ran because her thoughts were a mess. She ran to stop her body from remembering his. She ran because she could.

Grayson must have sensed that it really wouldn’t be wise to follow, because he didn’t, and eventually, once Lyra had pushed herself hard enough and long enough, the ghost of his touch left her, and the only thing that existed besides the burning in her muscles and her lungs was the island.

Lyra felt it like an extension of herself: wild and free, scarred and ruined, beautiful, sharp. Hawthorne Island was full of rocky shores and steep drops, native grass and soaring trees, cliffs upon cliffs, the occasional narrow slice of beach, all of it surrounded by ocean.

The day before, Lyra had been drawn again and again to the burned forest. Today, she stuck to the southern and eastern shores—the roughest terrain on the island by far. Uneven ground. Thorns. And very little else. Objectively, it didn’t resemble the place where Lyra had grown up, but somehow, Mile’s End and the most untouched parts of Hawthorne Island felt the same to her: unchanging, real in a way that nothing more developed ever was.

Lyra let that feeling fill her as she ran, her sense of purpose crystalizing. She’d entered the Grandest Game to save Mile’s End. Everything—and everyone—else could wait.

When Lyra finally reached the point where she could risk not running, where she could let herself stop, she stared up at the lone, breathtaking structure on the southeastern shore. Out on the water, massive stone arches that looked like they’d been lifted straight from ancient Rome cast outsized shadows on blue-green waters. Beneath those arches, there was a dock.

Breathing heavily, Lyra made her way onto a large boat slip that stood perpendicular to two smaller ones, a platform in between. Her body very nearly spent, she walked to the end of the dock, and as she stared out at the water, an odd feeling hit her, like calloused fingers skimming her shoulder blades. Lyra turned, casting her gaze back toward the island.

Nothing. She was alone.

Exhaling, Lyra turned to face the ocean. She tried to make out the mainland in the distance and couldn’t. The real world was out there somewhere, but Lyra couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see anything other than water and shadows and a light fog on the ocean.

And still…

Still. As Lyra stood there, staring out at the Pacific, she had the strangest sense that she was being watched.

Grayson looked down at the smartwatch on his wrist. Given that each remaining player in the Grandest Game had been given one, it doubtlessly did more than tell time. A thorough assessment, however, revealed that the only thing Grayson could do with the watch at this juncture was toggle between the time and another symbol.

A spade.

In phase one of the game, the players had been divided into teams: Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs. Grayson’s mind made quick work of this fourth symbol. Spades—for the people behind the scenes. From the beginning, Grayson had been able to feel his brothers’ and Avery’s touches in every detail of the Grandest Game—including the fact that they’d made him a player. Grayson had fully intended to have a conversation with all four of them about that, but now there were more important conversations to be had.

Grayson tapped the spade. A text box and keyboard popped up, a way to send a message to the game makers. Grayson chose his words with care, a simple anagram that Avery and his brothers would recognize as a Hawthorne request—meaning that it really was not a request at all.

ZEN DROVE US.

Grayson waited for a reply, and eventually, he got one. NORTHERN SHORE.

Grayson knew from experience that, when it came to his brothers, a rendezvous could take a variety of forms. Some involved explosions. Some involved helicopters. Sword fights, mud wrestling, karaoke, and fisticuffs were all on the table. But the brother who joined Grayson on the northern shore of Hawthorne Island wasn’t prone to most of those.

“Nash.” Grayson kept his gaze trained on the ocean and greeted his eldest brother moments before Nash stepped into his peripheral vision.

“Thinkin’ about a swim?” The oldest of the four Hawthorne brothers nodded his head toward the waves.

“A bit cold for that,” Grayson replied.

“Never stopped you before.”

“Assignment from my therapist,” Grayson said evenly. “Apparently, I swim as an exercise in punishing perfectionism with the goal of exhausting myself to the point where I cannot feel. It is, supposedly, healthier to let the thoughts and the feelings come.”

Thoughts like: Some mistakes are worth making.

Thoughts like: Why not me? With her, right now—why not me?

But Grayson hadn’t called for a rendezvous to discuss his feelings. “There’s a threat,” he told Nash. “Or at the very least, the potential for one. Lyra Kane received her ticket to the Grandest Game from an anonymous third party. Someone sent her here.”

Nash chewed on that. “Now why would an anonymous third party do that?”

Exactly. “As it happens, our family was implicated in Lyra’s father’s death.” Grayson’s voice sounded, to his own ears, far more measured than he felt. “Suicide. She was four. She was there.” Just thinking about what the memory of that night did to Lyra made Grayson want to wage war on behalf of the child she’d been—and that wasn’t even touching on the woman she was now.

In his entire life, Grayson had kissed four people, counting Lyra. And when he’d kissed her, for the first time in his life, he’d let the feelings come. All of them.

Lyra Kane kissed the way she moved: with heightened bodily awareness, with grace, like kissing was a matter of whole-body coordination.

“How big a threat is she?” Nash asked, his tone casual. Grayson wasn’t fooled. A threat to one of them was a threat to all of them, and Nash was a man who defended what he loved.

“Lyra is not the threat.” Grayson hadn’t meant to issue that statement as a warning, but there it was.

Nash cocked his head. “Exactly how far gone are you, little brother?”

“It’s only been one day,” Grayson replied, the answer automatic.

Nash rocked back on the heels of his boots. “I knew almost immediately with Lib.”

Libby Grambs—Libby Hawthorne, now—was Nash’s wife. Grayson lips quirked upward just thinking about his sister-in-law and the babies she was carrying. “How is Libby?”

“Full of cravings. A little cranky.” Nash grinned. “Wholly incandescent.” He turned his head to shoot Grayson a knowing look. “I’m going to ask again, Gray: How far gone are you with this girl who’s not a threat?”

Grayson fixed his eyes back on the horizon. Let it all come. “Far enough.”

Nash let out a low whistle. “Jamie was right. This is gonna be fun.”

“Delighted to amuse,” Grayson said dryly. “But I didn’t call you here for fun. What do we know about the blackout last night?”

During phase one, the power had gone off—generator and backup generator both.

“Xander says the culprits appear to be squirrels,” Nash replied. “The collective noun of which he insists is also squirrel.”

“A squirrel of squirrels?” Grayson tone made it clear: His skepticism was not limited to Xander’s linguistic assertion.

“Island’s locked down tight,” Nash said.

“Either it’s not locked down as tight as you think or Lyra’s sponsor has another player in the game.” With characteristic efficiency, Grayson proceeded to tell Nash about the notes someone had left for Lyra in the burned forest, bearing her dead father’s names—his aliases. “You’ll also want to have someone keep tabs on Odette Morales now that she’s exited the game. She knows something.”

“What kind of something?”

Grayson saw no reason to dissemble. “The kind that involves our grandmother not being nearly as dead as advertised.”

Nash responded to that bombshell with trademark calm, removing his worn cowboy hat and running his thumb slowly over its edge. He’d done the exact same thing the one and only time Grayson had ever taken a swing at him.

“You’re going to want to get in a sharing mood real quick, little brother.”

Grayson narrowed his eyes, but ultimately, he allowed Nash to get away with pulling rank. “As of fifteen years ago—several years after our grandmother’s supposed death—Alice Hawthorne was apparently alive and well. She came to the old man, revealed herself, and asked him for a favor.” Grayson paused, thinking about the grandfather he had known, the Tobias Hawthorne who’d come out on top of every challenge, every confrontation. The one who’d trained them to do the same. “Also fifteen years ago,” Grayson continued, “one of the last things that Lyra’s father said to her before putting a bullet in his own head was: A Hawthorne did this.”

“A. Hawthorne. Alice.”

“You’ll tell the others.” Grayson did not phrase that as a question. “There may be more than one game being played on this island.”

“Do we call it off?” Nash said, steady as ever. “This year’s Grandest Game?”

“No.” Grayson didn’t even hesitate. “Either there is no true threat and calling the game off would be premature, or there is one—and we need to take this opportunity to identify it.”

The first step to neutralizing an opponent was to make them show their hand.

“So you’re playing,” Nash said. “Phase two.”

“I’m playing,” Grayson confirmed. Not to win—but for her.

Nash ran the back of his hand over the five o’clock shadow on his jaw and smiled slightly. “What does she need the prize money for?”

Grayson’s brothers had all always been too perceptive for their own good. “She wants to save her family home.” Grayson thought about Lyra refusing his jacket and threatening to give him hers. “Suffice it to say, the lady will not accept a dime from me.”

Lyra needed to win the money. Grayson needed to do whatever he could to help her.

“She got a nickname for you yet?” Nash cocked a brow.

Grayson’s lips twitched. “I’m pretty sure it’s asshole.”

“I like her already.” Nash grinned and put his hat back on. “And speaking of family, I have something to tell you, and you’re not gonna like it. When we went to escort the eliminated players off the island, Gigi never showed. Little sis is MIA—and so is Xander’s boat. Seems Gigi took it and left a note. And apology Twinkies.”

Grayson frowned. “We’re on an island. Where did Gigi get Twinkies?”

“My understanding from Xan is that it was more of an IOU.”

Grayson kneaded his forehead. That sounded exactly like his sister, and Grayson didn’t need Nash to tell him that Gigi had taken being eliminated from the Grandest Game hard. “I should have checked on her.”

“Alisa’s already working on tracking down the boat. We’ll find little sis. In the meantime, you’ve got a game to play—and another sister to watch out for.”

Savannah. Nash’s reminder had Grayson thinking about his sister’s roughly shorn hair—hair that looked very much like it had been cut with a knife. And then Grayson thought about the player with whom Savannah appeared to have allied herself in this game.

The person who had, in all likelihood, borne the knife.

“Savannah doesn’t want me looking after her,” Grayson commented with all the calm he could muster.

“The ones who need the most looking after never do.” Nash slapped Grayson on the back. “And on that note, we fixed a room up for you at the house.” He held out a large, bronze key. “Find it and get some shut-eye, little brother. Phase two is not for the weak of heart.”

Rohan never slept deeply. He hadn’t since he was a child. Memories lingered in deep sleep, like shadows with a mind and hunger of their own, so Rohan slept lightly—always aware, always listening, always on guard.

And yet…

He woke in Savannah Grayson’s bed to find himself alone. Let your guard down, did you, boy? the Proprietor’s voice said somewhere in his mind. The formidable Ms. Grayson was nowhere to be seen—and neither was Rohan’s room key.

He knew immediately what Savannah was up to. The sword.

The weapon in question was a longsword with words etched along its silver blade: From every trap be free, for every lock a key. Each team in phase one had been given its own sword—just one. Rohan had made a point the night before of keeping possession of the one he and Savannah had been given. They might have been allies, but theirs was an alliance with a ticking clock.

Ultimately, the Grandest Game could have only one winner, and for Rohan, everything was on the line. He would win. Savannah just hadn’t realized it yet. She’d doubtless stolen his key to search his room for the sword and claim it as her own.

Propping himself up on his elbows, Rohan smiled wolfishly. Good luck with that, love. He decided to return the favor, searching Savannah’s room while she was gone. With skilled hands, he tested every floorboard, pressed at every molding with fingers both dexterous and strong, removed pillows from their cases, sheets from the bed. He flipped the mattress, searching it for slits. When that turned up nothing, Rohan made his way into the attached bathroom.

Sitting on the marble counter was a mask made of swirling, silvery blue metal. Three teardrop diamonds hung from the corner of each eye. The design had suited Savannah at the masquerade ball the prior evening. Rohan ran the pad of his index finger over the delicate strings of diamonds. Precious gemstones, frozen tears.

But Rohan knew: Savannah Grayson didn’t cry.

Wondering how long it would take her to admit defeat in his room, Rohan turned on Savannah’s shower. While the water heated up, he gathered his clothes from the floor of the bedroom and slipped a pair of glass dice out of his pocket.

The indomitable Ms. Grayson had a lot to learn. If she’d been playing long games for as many years as Rohan had, she would have stolen his dice and then gone to look for the sword.

Stepping into the shower, Rohan laid his red dice on a marble shelf and gave his body up to the scalding spray. Rohan had never minded heat. The cold was a different matter—cold water, especially.

The past will drown you if you let it, boy. The Proprietor’s voice echoed through the twisting halls of Rohan’s mind. Like stones tied to your ankles.

Rohan stepped farther into the scalding heat of the spray, taking in it a distinct kind of pleasure. His focus was sharpest in moments like these. I am going to win the Grandest Game.

Power came, always, at a cost. Pain was a reminder of that. And heat reminded Rohan: I was not made to shiver or drown.

Whatever he had to do to win, he would do it.

Footsteps. Rohan marked the sound of them and the length of the stride—Savannah, incoming. Soon enough, she was standing right outside the shower curtain.

“I didn’t say you could use my shower.” Savannah Grayson’s voice was a socialite’s voice, its sharpness the sharpness of diamonds, not glass.

“And I didn’t say you could try to steal my sword,” Rohan replied lazily. It was too bad, really, that her shower had a curtain instead of a glass door. He would have liked to have seen the expression on her delightfully angular face the moment he called her out.

“The sword isn’t yours.”

Didn’t find it, did you, love? Rohan’s smile deepened. “Agree to disagree.”

“Get out of my shower,” Savannah ordered.

Rohan, magnificent bastard that he was, was happy to comply. He turned off the water, swept the red glass dice from the shelf with his left hand, and curled the fingers on his right hand around the curtain. “Careful what you wish for, love.”

Savannah threw a towel over the rod. Hard. Rohan made use of it, toweling off, then wrapping it around his waist before stepping out from behind the curtain. “I do hope you put my room back as you found it after you failed to find that sword.”

Savannah’s gaze roved over his body—chest, abs, down to the place where the towel hugged his hips. “I hope you weren’t expecting what happened to mean anything,” she replied.

Ruthless. Rohan appreciated that in a woman—in anyone, really. “I expect you to hold up your end of the deal in this phase of the game, Savvy, and that is all.”

Per their agreed-upon terms, the two of them would continue playing the Grandest Game as a team until—and only until—the competition had been effectively dispatched.

“There’s no need for concern.” Savannah arched a pale brow at him. “When I promised to work alongside you and then destroy you, I meant it.” She turned toward the mirror, examining her own reflection—an attempt, Rohan was certain, to keep from further examining him.

He brought one hand to rest on the towel around his hips and smirked at her.

“Grayson is going to be a problem,” Savannah commented coolly.

All business. “How fortunate, then,” Rohan said, “that I excel at taking care of problems.” And how fortunate that the Hawthorne brother in question has developed a weakness.

Savannah raised her chin, her newly shorn hair making her pale eyes look that much larger, her cheekbones that much sharper. “What do you know about the girl?” she asked.

Lyra Kane. Savannah had zeroed in on Grayson’s weak point with admirable efficiency.

“What do you know,” Rohan countered, “about how Lyra Kane’s father’s name ended up plastered all over the burnt forest?”

“What are you suggesting?” Savannah could play the ice queen to perfection.

“You have a sponsor, love.” Rohan didn’t pull his punches. “You’re very likely not the only player with one, and I doubt any of them are above playing dirty.” He gave her a look. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“If I wasted my time pointing out your every misapprehension, we’d barely have any left to strategize.” Savannah gave a deadly, elegant little shrug. “I will, however, point out that you are the one more positioned to know other players’ secrets—assuming, of course, that the Mercy is as powerful as you claim.”

An eighteen-year-old American girl couldn’t even begin to fathom the power, the wealth, the reach of the Devil’s Mercy, the organization that had raised Rohan, the organization that he was determined to rule. He’d been given a year to come up with the buy-in, a year to obtain ten million pounds and claim his rightful place as the next Proprietor.

Unless and until he did so, as far as the Mercy was concerned, Rohan was nothing.

“You claim that you want to win more than I do.” Savannah shifted her gaze back to his. “You never told me why.”

“Imagine that,” Rohan replied.

Savannah narrowed her eyes at him.. . .