She banked and flew away with no more effort than a thought: left. Another, higher, and she’d punched through the damp, clinging density of the cloud cover. She bared her fangs, exulting in the sting of cold wind on her muzzle, the moisture beading mirrored drops along her mane, the wind a roaring hiss in her ears, and kept going.

Then she sliced through the top of the clouds like a scythe, and all was silent and still, the sky an endless sheer curtain of sapphire above.

Honor appeared a heartbeat later, winging around her in a loose spiral, grinning that beastly grin. Like I told Magnus, came the voice inside Lu’s mind, demonstrations are always more effective than conversations.

With that, Lu understood.

Are you always going to be this much of a pain in my ass? she answered back, flipping over to fly upside down, staring in awe at the vast nothingness of the atmosphere, stretching vapor thin and crystalline above. She noticed her wings were vermilion, the barbs along her tail and her talons a gleaming, beautiful gold.

That’s what older sisters are for, came the wry retort as Honor executed a breathtaking rolling dive, sunlight shining off her scales in blinding winks of silver. Lu righted herself and chased after Honor, finding a cold gust of wind that carried her closer.

Older? We’re twins!

I’m older by three minutes, baby sister. And a whole lot wiser. By the way, you hit like a girl. We’ll work on that.

Lu was momentarily too busy admiring how lean and strong Honor was as she flew to be angry. Her shape wasn’t the bulky, monstrous one she’d seen dragons depicted as having in old fairy tales. She was lithe and elegant, every movement a poem of economy, every stroke of her wings filled with grace. Up here in the heavens her sister was as luminous as a star, and, for the first time since meeting her, Lu felt a swelling rush of affection for this alabaster doppelganger with whom she shared nothing in common but her face.

Or so she’d thought. Watching Honor now, Lu had the distinct feeling there was so much more to her than that icy, aloof front she presented to the world.

I don’t know about wiser, but I’ll buy older, Lu thought. You really should think about investing in a good nighttime moisturizer, sister dear.

The two dragons grinned at one another. Then in a move that to an observer would have looked perfectly coordinated, they pumped their wings and glided higher into the glimmering solitude of the morning sky.

“So she is as Gifted as Honor,” breathed Dash, so named for his Gift. Even in a colony of creatures that were preternaturally fast, his ability to run from one place to another, unseen because he moved so quickly, was unusual.

Standing beside Dash, Beckett said with authority, “No.” Everyone looked at him, including Magnus. Their eyes met, and Beckett said, “Hope is more Gifted.”

Magnus knew it was true, but it was the proprietary tone that riled him. Was meant to rile him. “She likes to be called Lumina,” he growled, staring at Beckett without blinking long enough that the younger man flushed and looked away.

“What do you mean, more Gifted?” asked Oz, cracking his knuckles and straining his neck to catch a glimpse of the two dragons, high up in the sky. His real name was Liam, but his affinity for the ancient heavy metal band Black Sabbath and its dove-decapitating lead singer, Ozzy Osbourne, had earned him the moniker. Beckett had hacked into the database of a pre-Flash rock-and-roll station once and made the mistake of letting Liam browse the MP3 files. The rest was history. Magnus couldn’t count how many times the strains of “The Wizard” and “Paranoid” had blasted through the caves.

Now gazing into the heavens, Beckett said, “Just what I said. Hope is stronger. I can feel it.”

I’ll just bet you can, thought Magnus, and enjoyed a fleeting image of himself bashing Beckett’s perfect head into the large rock several feet behind him.

The group sensed his anger, and began to look nervous, which was wise; things tended to bleed when Magnus got angry. Though he was Alpha and they should have respected him simply for being more Gifted than the rest of the tribe—with the exception of Honor and now Lumina—it was his temper that really kept everyone in check. If only he could keep himself in check.

The heavy bag could only take so many beatings before Magnus needed other outlets.

But he didn’t need a fight now. What he needed was to burn the image of a gloriously naked Lumina from his mind.

His heart had stopped when he’d seen her standing there wreathed in vapor, her pale skin gleaming in the sunlight, pieces of her ruined clothing drifting like frozen confetti all around her. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one; Beckett, Dash, and Oz had all gone bug-eyed, too.

But only Beckett had lit up like a sunrise, bathing them all in a burst of evanescence that felt dirty for all its shiny brightness.

He was really starting to hate that kid.

Magnus had never before been touched by jealousy’s cold green fingers, but he wasn’t going to lie to himself about it; irrational as it was, jealousy was the correct term for the emotion eating a hole in his guts and burning like acid through his veins. Along with a host of other emotions, he felt protective of Lumina, and he couldn’t stand that look in Beckett’s eyes. That possessive, greedy look.

The one he was sure was identical to his own.

She’s better off with the pretty boy than with a busted-up bastard like you, whispered a little voice of reason inside his head.

With an ache inside his chest that felt carnivorous, Magnus watched the two dragons soar for another moment, wishing with all that was left of his mangled heart that he was even half the man he used to be. Half might have been enough to offer, enough to have allowed him some self-respect. But he wasn’t that man, even by half. He was a ghost. An angry poltergeist, haunting the ruins of his former life.

He wasn’t worthy. Not of her.

Without another word to the group, Magnus turned and walked away.

Honor led, and Lumina followed. For an hour they flew together, far above steaming fields and a sprinkling of deserted, crumbling villages, past the spidery, pale veins of empty roads, the horizon bleeding into a purple curve where earth met sky ahead. The wind was a roar when they changed directions, but when they rode along with it, letting it carry them aloft like untethered kites, there was the most beautiful stillness, and for the first time she could remember, Lu felt peace.

As she flew, her mind kept returning to the memory of Magnus running toward her, tearing his jacket and shirt off, his expression a mix of cold fury and hot intensity, his chest, arms, and stomach completely bare.

He was muscular, well-formed, but far too lean for a man his size. Every muscle was visible beneath his skin, every vein in his arms was outlined in stark relief. She wanted to cook him a meal, and sit and watch him eat it. She wanted to feed him from her fingers, and watch that dark heat always smoldering in his eyes flare into a blaze.

She wanted to run her hands over every scar on his body, pressing soft kisses to each one with her lips.