Chapter 20 20
Annabeth's POV:
I drove home on autopilot, my brain trying to process the last two hours. Dragons were real. I was one of them, sort of. There was a cult that wanted to drain my blood. Kaelen could turn into an actual dragon with wings and scales. The guy I was falling for was a different species than I thought he was, except I was that species too, apparently.
My hands were shaking on the steering wheel.
I should have been terrified. Any rational person would be. But instead I just felt... clear. Like something that had been out of focus my entire life had suddenly snapped into sharp resolution.
The fever made sense. The dreams made sense. The eyes, the strength, all of it made sense.
I wasn't broken. I was just different.
I was a dragon.
Holy shit, I was a dragon!
I pulled into the driveway and sat in the car for a minute, trying to compose myself before going inside. My aunt's car was there, which meant she was home from work. I needed to act normal, couldn't let her see that anything had changed.
Except everything had changed.
And she'd been lying to me about it my entire life.
That thought hit me as I walked up to the front door, and suddenly my composure cracked. She knew. Of course she knew. She'd asked all those weird questions about Kaelen and about whether I felt different. She'd looked terrified when I had that fever.
She'd known what I was and she'd never told me.
I found her in the kitchen making dinner, still in her work clothes, her hair pulled back in a clip. She looked up when I came in and smiled.
"Hey, honey. How was your day?"
I stared at her. Really looked at her, at the lines around her eyes and the gray in her hair and the way her smile didn't quite reach her eyes because she was always worried, always watching.
"You know," I said. It wasn't a question.
Her smile disappeared. "Know what?"
"You know what I am. What my father was. You've known the whole time."
The silence stretched between us, heavy and accusatory. I watched her face go through emotions—surprise, fear, resignation.
"Annabeth..." she started.
"Don't. Don't lie to me anymore. I know the truth. I know about dragons and lineages and the Order and all of it. So just... just tell me. Please."
She set down the knife she'd been using to cut vegetables and gripped the edge of the counter.
"How did you find out?" Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes. If someone told you, if someone knows—"
"A friend told me. Someone who's like me. Someone I can trust."
She looked at me for a long moment, then her shoulders sagged and she pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, sitting down heavily.
"I promised your mother," she said. "Promised I would keep you safe, keep you ignorant until it was absolutely necessary for you to know."
"And when was that going to be?" I sat down across from her, my voice harder than I intended. "When the Order showed up? When I hurt someone because I didn't understand my own strength? When, Aunt Sarah?"
"I don't know. I kept waiting for the right time and it never came."
"You should have told me years ago."
"Maybe. Probably." She looked down at her hands. "But your mother made me swear, and I've spent eighteen years trying to honor that promise."
My anger deflated slightly. She'd been trying to protect me, in her own misguided way.
"I need to know everything," I said. "About my mother, about my father, about what happened. No more secrets."
She was quiet for so long I thought she wouldn't answer. Then:
"Your mother met your father at a coffee shop downtown. She was twenty-three, just out of college, working her first real job. He was..." She smiled slightly. "He was beautiful. She told me that the first time she saw him, she felt like she'd been waiting her whole life for that moment."
"What was his name?"
"Marcus. Marcus Thorne."
Marcus Thorne... I was listening to my father’s name for the time in my life. And it sounded so beautiful somehow.
"He was a red dragon," my aunt continued. "Pure bloodline, one of the last of his kind. He'd been hiding in the city for years, keeping a low profile, trying to avoid the Order's attention. But when he met your mother... he said he couldn't stay away from her. That she was worth the risk."
"They fell in love."
"They did. Fast and completely. Your mother knew what he was almost from the beginning—he couldn't hide it from her, the heat and the strength and the way his eyes changed. She didn't care. She loved him anyway."
I could picture it, my mother young and in love with someone impossible, someone dangerous.
"How long were they together?"
"Two years. They talked about getting married, about having a family. Your mother knew the risks, knew that having a child with him would be complicated. But she wanted it anyway. Wanted you."
"What happened? Why did he leave?"
My aunt's expression darkened. "The Order found him. Someone reported seeing a man with red eyes, and they started investigating. Marcus realized they were closing in and he knew if he stayed, he'd lead them right to your mother. To you."
"So he left to protect us."
"He left to protect you. Your mother was six months pregnant when he disappeared. She tried to find him, spent months searching, but he'd gone completely dark. No trail, no messages, nothing. She never knew if he made it out alive or if they caught him."
Tears burned in my eyes. My father had loved me enough to leave before I was even born.
"And my mother?" I asked, even though I already knew this part would hurt.
My aunt's voice got softer. "The pregnancy was difficult from the start. You were so strong, even as a fetus. Your fire... it was too much for her body to handle. Human bodies aren't made to carry dragon children, especially not red dragon children."
"I killed her." The words came out broken.
"No. Annabeth, no." My aunt reached across the table and grabbed my hand. "She chose this. She knew the risks and she chose to have you anyway because she loved you so much. Even before you were born, she loved you more than anything."
"But if I hadn't—"
"If you hadn't existed, she would have been heartbroken. You gave her joy and purpose and hope in those last months. Don't you dare feel guilty for being born."
The tears spilled over and I couldn't stop them. I cried for the mother I never knew, for the father who left to keep me safe, for the childhood I could have had if things were different.
My aunt moved around the table and pulled me into a hug, and I clung to her like I was five years old again.
"She left me that diary," I said into her shoulder. "Wrote me a message in English and the rest in dragon language. She wanted me to know."
"I should have given it to you sooner. Should have explained instead of hiding everything."
"Yeah. You should have."
"I'm sorry. I've been so scared of losing you the way I lost her. If the Order found out about you..."
"They won't. I'll be careful."
We stayed like that for a while, holding each other in the kitchen while dinner got cold on the counter. When I finally pulled back, my face was blotchy and my eyes hurt but I felt lighter somehow.
"What was she like?" I asked. "My mother. Really like, not just the stuff from old photos."
My aunt smiled through her own tears. "She was brilliant and stubborn and so full of life. She laughed loud and talked too much and always believed the best in people. You're like her in so many ways."
"I wish I could have known her."
"She knew you, sweetie. For nine months she talked to you every day, told you stories, sang to you. She made me promise to tell you that she loved you, that she'd always love you, even if she couldn't be there to say it herself."
More tears, but quieter now.
"Thank you," I said. "For telling me. For keeping me safe all these years even if I didn't know why."
"I'm sorry I waited so long."
"I know. I'm sorry too. For being angry."
"You have every right to be angry."
We finally ate in silence, and then we sat at the table talking for hours. She told me stories about my mother, about the pregnancy, about how scared she'd been taking care of a hybrid baby who ran hot enough to burn her hands. About the first time my eyes flashed red and she'd almost called 911 before remembering what I was.
By the time I went to bed, exhausted and emotionally wrung out, I felt like I finally understood my place in the world.
I was Annabeth Clarke, daughter of a human woman and a dragon man, hybrid with fire in my veins and power I was just beginning to understand.
And I wasn't alone anymore.
I had Kaelen, who knew what I was and wanted me anyway. I had my aunt, who'd dedicated her life to protecting me. And somewhere out there, maybe, I had a father who loved me enough to disappear.
It was complicated and dangerous and completely impossible.
But it was mine.
And I was ready to stop running from it and start learning what it meant to be a dragon.