Page 22

CHAPTER 22

Outside the prison’s huge perimeter fence, the vastness of the Nevada desert spread all around, bathed in monochrome moonlight—barren, beautiful, isolated, and perfect for the final showdown with my brother.

My glamor twitched as I readied to let it go.

Syros staggered several yards away, then straightened. I could see the change already beginning—his shoulders broadening, his silhouette elongating against the starlit sky.

“Just you and me now, brother,” he laughed, his voice deepening to a rumble. “No wards. No cages. No pathetic friends to hide behind.”

He still didn’t get it. Probably never would. My friends were everything to me.

I stepped forward, feeling the last of the wards’ influence fall away. “You should never have hunted me down. If you hadn’t threatened them and the hotel I’d have left you alone.”

His skin began to ripple, scales pushing up beneath his glamor. “I had to hunt you. You and me, we’re the last. It’s in our nature to kill. I need you gone so I can take the ultimate crown.”

“You still don’t understand, do you?” I shook my head and flexed my hands at my sides, gradually letting the glamor go. “It was never about power, not for me.”

Syros laughed, the sound cracking into a roar as his face elongated, teeth lengthening into fangs. “Power is all there is! That first night I came to you, I offered you a choice. The demon, the vampire, your little pets could have lived long, uneventful lives if you’d just submitted to me.”

I showed him my claws, moonlight gleaming off their razor edges . “ Uneventful is not really how the SOS Hotel works. It’s mostly chaos and mayhem.”

“After I kill you, I’m going to see to it that place is reduced to ash, starting with your wretched friends?—”

The desert night erupted in twin bursts of energy as we both shifted.

My bones stretched and cracked, glamor falling away as my spine elongated and wings burst from my back. My skin hardened into iridescent scales. I roared as the last pieces of humanity fell away, replaced by claws sharp enough to tear through steel and jaws that could crush cars like candy.

Syros roared too. Larger than me, his scales shimmered a deep tropical green, so dark they absorbed light rather than reflecting it. His eyes glowed with molten hatred, wings unfurling to block out the stars.

We circled each other, two primordial beasts, our massive bodies kicking up dust from the desert floor, tails lashing, wings flared. The prison’s tiny searchlights cut ineffectually through the darkness. Victor and Zee were down there, so were thousands of others. A few blasts of fire from Syros, and it would all be scorched rubble.

I had to end this now. End him .

He struck—a blur of scales and fury. His massive tail whipped toward my head. I ducked. Displaced air rush over my wings and back. I lunged for his exposed flank. My teeth scraped against his armored hide, searching for a weak point between scales, but skittered right off. His heart... I had to get to his heart and rip it out for good. He couldn’t heal without a heart.

Syros roared and twisted, one massive clawed talon swiping down. Pain lanced across my shoulder as his claws tore through scale and muscle. I disengaged, leaping back to create distance.

Blood—my blood—stained the desert sand. But the wound was already closing, dragon healing mending the gash even as Syros spun around for another attack.

This time I met him head on. Our bodies collided with thunderous impact, the sound echoing across the desert. We grappled, claws seeking purchase, tails lashing, wings whipping up dust storms. I was smaller, and quicker, but Syros had raw power on his side.

He caught me in a deadly embrace, his larger body driving me back, toward the prison. We crashed to the ground, me on my back, my wings pinned painfully beneath me. His jaws snapped inches from my throat—too close! I strained to lever him back and protect my belly at the same time.

He snapped at my face again.

Oh dear.

This was... not going well.

In fact, we’d been here before. I’d fled then, leaving him for dead, running and running, until coming to this world and finding one broken but bright demon whose shadow I could hide in.

I couldn’t run now. There was too much at stake, too much to fight for. My wonderful, funny, brave Zee. And Victor—my strength, my rock. The SOS Hotel, worth so much more than the rotted timbers and dodgy electrics holding it together. Staffed by people who cared. A sanctuary for all. A beacon of hope.

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.

“Fool,” he spat, and lunged.

His right hook whipped my head around. Caught off guard, I stumbled back. He reached for my throat.

“Mercy is weakness! I’ll tear out your heart and?—”

A blinding flash of purple light cut through the night, followed by the unmistakable buzzing sound of a cattle prod—amplified a hundredfold.

Syros’s body jolted upright, and convulsed violently, his roar transforming into a pained screech. Standing behind him, illuminated in the glow of his own wings, stood Zee—prison jumpsuit torn to shreds, face streaked with blood. In his hands he wielded what looked like three cattle prods wired together, crackling with electricity far beyond their intended output. With some added incubus juice too, probably.

“Surprise jab, motherfucker!” Zee yelled, jamming the makeshift weapon against Syros’s spine again. “No one fucks with SOS Hotel management!”

Syros whirled toward this new threat, but his movements were jerky, uncoordinated from the electrical shock. Before he could strike, another figure stepped from the shadows—Victor, his eyes blazing silver.

“SLEEP,” he commanded, the word carrying the full force of his amplified power.

The sound hit Syros like a physical blow. He staggered, his body swaying as he fought the compulsion. But Victor wasn’t done. He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper.

“You will sleep now, and when you wake, you will know only captivity for the rest of your days.”

Syros fought it, his will battling against Victor’s command, but the combined assault was too much. Between Zee’s electrical attack, Victor’s supernaturally charged voice, and his exhaustion from our fight, even he had his limits.

With a final, defiant growl, Syros collapsed face first in the dirt, then lay still, unconscious but alive.

The sudden silence seemed surreal. I stood there, staring at my brother’s fallen body, then at my two most favorite people in the whole world.

“You came,” I managed to say, my voice rough and strange.

Zee limped toward me, the jury-rigged cattle prod still sparking in his hand. “Always.” His wings were tattered, but they still cast a soft purple glow over the desert.

Victor approached from the other side, his pristine prison jumpsuit somehow still mostly intact despite everything. “Together,” he said simply. “Always.”

Beaten and exhausted, I wobbled, and let them scoop me into their arms, feeling stronger than ever before. Because I wasn’t alone.

“Did we just save the world again?” Zee mumbled into my hair. “Because if we did, imma need another certificate and a new fuckin’ hat.”