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That hope gave me strength. I twisted my neck and opened my jaws, blasting white-hot flame directly into his face. Syros reared back with a roar of pain, momentarily blinded. He scratched at his nose. I kicked out with my hind legs, catching him in the belly and sending him tumbling back.

We both took to the air, wings churning up small sandstorms below us. The desert night became a deadly dance of tooth and claw and flame. We spiraled higher, silhouettes against the moon, then dove at each other, claws tearing. Teeth snapping.

Each impact shook the earth below. Each roar split the night air. Blood—both mine and his—rained down upon the sand.

I feinted left, tucked my wings in and dropped, then dove sharply right and flapped hard, rising up beneath him. My jaws latched onto his wing membrane, teeth tearing through the tough tissue. Syros bellowed in pain and rage, trying to shake me off, but I held fast, ripping and tearing.

With a sickening sound, his wing buckled, a massive tear rendering it useless. But I clung on, and we both plummeted, Syros struggling to stay aloft with one damaged wing and my dead weight. Faster we fell, spiraling, almost out of control now. Syros roared his alarm. His black claws slashed at my face, trying to dislodge me.

At the last possible second, I let go and threw open my wings, like opening a parachute.

But Syros slammed into the unforgiving ground.

Sand and rock exploded around him. Bones cracked, sounding like thunder. I dropped onto him, talons locking in, pinning him under me.

He thrashed beneath me, his remaining good wing beating frantically, his tail whipping up sand. I drove my claws deeper into his shoulders, sinking them through scales and into flesh. My jaws opened wide, poised above the vulnerable spot where his neck met his chest—the fastest route to his heart.

One bite. That’s all it would take. One savage tear through scale and bone to reach the pulsing organ beneath. I could taste his fear now, acrid and electric. His struggles weakened as he realized his position.

My gaze caught his.

His throat undulated, and my brother the bully lay still, staring up at me, waiting for death.

I’d done it . . .

I’d beaten him.

He was mine!

I hesitated, panting through open jaws, teeth still bared to deliver the killing blow.

Images flashed through my mind: Victor’s quiet strength and wisdom; Zee’s bubbling laughter; the SOS Hotel, a sanctuary for the broken and lost; Tom Collins’s grudging loyalty; and even Jenny’s final choice to stand with us rather than against us.

None of us were good, but we weren’t bad either. When it came down to it, we chose the right way even if we sometimes got it wrong. And that was the important thing. Choosing to be good.

My teeth clicked shut, inches from his throat.

I pulled back slightly, still keeping him pinned. My growl rumbled through the night—a warning—as my brother watched on. Still not moving. Still waiting.

He suddenly shifted back to human, wrapping himself in glamor again, forcing me back.

“What are you doing?” he snarled, panting. ”Finish it! Prove you’re just like me!”

I shifted back, tucking all of my huge bulk into a neat Adam Vex package so I could face my brother eye to eye once more. “You will go back to that prison,” I breathed, my voice deeper, the shift too close to the surface. “Where you will be contained and handed over to the SSD. You will never threaten anyone I love again.”

His expression was unreadable, somewhere between contempt and something else—something almost like respect.

“Mercy from a dragon?” he said, the word sounding foreign on his tongue. “How . . . unexpected.”

“I’m not like you, or the rest of them,” I said. “I don’t kill to prove my strength.” Not anymore. I was Adam Vex now. Sometimes nice, with a side order of scary when necessary.

Syros scowled and looked over his shoulder at the prison, then back to me. “You want me to hand myself in?”

“I mean, it’s that or I eat your heart. So . . .”

He laughed . . . Actually laughed. “When you put it like that . . .” His expression turned contemplative, almost peaceful. And I began to wonder if we could be brothers, just the two of us. The last two dragons. Would he ever learn that he didn’t have to be bad?

Then his eyes hardened.