Chapter 32 32
Annabeth's POV:
I made it home somehow without crashing my car, which felt like an achievement considering my brain had basically stopped working the moment Kaelen's mouth touched my neck. My hands were still shaking when I pulled into the driveway, and I sat there for a solid minute just staring at the steering wheel and trying to remember how to act like a normal human being instead of someone who'd just been kissed against a tree until her knees stopped working.
The house smelled like garlic and tomatoes when I walked in, which meant Aunt Sarah was making pasta. She was at the stove stirring something in a pot, still in her work clothes with her hair falling out of its clip.
"Hey honey," she said without turning around. "How was training?"
Training. Right. That thing I was supposed to have been doing instead of making out with Kaelen in the woods.
"Good," I managed, dropping my bag by the door. "Really good actually. I held the fire for like forty-seven seconds without burning anything."
"That's wonderful! See, I told you practice would help." She glanced over her shoulder at me and her eyebrows went up. "Are you okay? Your face is really red."
Shit. I touched my cheeks and they were burning hot, which had nothing to do with dragon fire and everything to do with replaying the last hour in my head on loop.
"Just, uh, the training was intense. Lot of heat involved."
"Makes sense." She turned back to the stove. "How's Kaelen doing? Is he a good teacher?"
My brain immediately supplied an image of his hands on my waist, his mouth on mine, the way he'd said he wouldn't be able to stop in that rough voice that made everything inside me turn liquid. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water, hoping the cold would snap me out of whatever this was.
"Yeah, he's great. Really patient and, um, hands-on with the instruction."
Oh god. Why did I say it like that?
Aunt Sarah didn't seem to notice, thank god. She was still focused on dinner, adding salt to whatever she was making.
"You know," she said casually, "I've been thinking maybe I should come watch one of your training sessions sometime. Just to see how you're progressing, make sure you're being safe."
I choked on my water. Actually choked, water going down the wrong pipe and making me cough so hard my eyes watered.
"You okay?" Aunt Sarah turned around, concerned.
"Fine," I gasped between coughs. "Just... went down wrong."
But my brain was absolutely not fine because it was now showing me a very detailed replay of exactly what she would have seen if she'd shown up to training today. Me pressed against a tree with Kaelen's body flush against mine, his mouth doing things to my neck that should probably be illegal, my hands fisted in his shirt like I was trying to climb him.
My face went from red to probably purple.
"I don't think that's a good idea," I said too quickly. "The training, I mean. It's really boring actually. Just a lot of breathing exercises and standing still. You'd hate it."
"I wouldn't hate supporting you."
"No, seriously, it's like watching paint dry. And also it's kind of, uh, private? Because of the whole dragon thing. Fewer people around is better."
She studied me for a long moment and I tried very hard to look normal and casual instead of like someone whose entire nervous system was still short-circuiting from being kissed senseless twenty minutes ago.
"Okay," she said finally. "If you think that's best."
"I do. Definitely. Best for everyone involved."
She went back to cooking and I slumped against the counter, my heart still racing. Jesus Christ. The mental image of my aunt accidentally witnessing me and Kaelen going at it like teenagers who'd just discovered hormones was gonna haunt me forever.
Dinner was some kind of pasta primavera that probably tasted good but I could barely register it. I pushed food around my plate while Aunt Sarah talked about her day at work, something about a difficult client and a deadline, and I nodded in the right places and made appropriate sounds but my mind was completely elsewhere.
I kept touching my lips without meaning to, remembering the way Kaelen had kissed me. The desperation in it, the barely controlled intensity, the way he'd pulled back and said we couldn't, not like that, even though we both clearly wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
The realization hit me somewhere between bites of pasta. I wanted to complete the bond. Wanted him, wanted the permanent connection, wanted everything that came with it even if it was scary and huge and forever.
But he was right. Against a tree in the woods because we got carried away during training wasn't the way to make that decision. It deserved intention, deserved certainty, deserved... I don't know. Something more than heat of the moment desperation.
"Annabeth?"
I looked up. Aunt Sarah was watching me with that expression that meant she knew I wasn't paying attention.
"Sorry, what?"
"I asked if you wanted seconds."
"Oh. No, I'm good. Actually I'm really tired, I think I'm gonna go to bed early."
She checked the clock on the microwave. "It's barely seven-thirty."
"I know, but the training just wiped me out. Like, completely drained." That part was true, actually. Now that the adrenaline from the kiss was wearing off, I could feel the exhaustion settling into my bones, heavy and overwhelming.
I helped clear the table even though my arms felt like they weighed about a thousand pounds each, then dragged myself upstairs. My phone was in my pocket and I pulled it out, intending to text Kaelen like I'd promised.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard but the words wouldn't come. What was I supposed to say? "Hey, still thinking about your mouth on my neck, hope you're having a great evening"?
I flopped onto my bed fully clothed, phone still in my hand. Just for a minute, I told myself. I'd rest for a minute and then I'd get up, take a shower and text him.
But the exhaustion pulled me under almost immediately, dragging me into sleep before I could fight it.
The dream started normal enough. I was in the woods, walking the trail Kaelen and I always used for training. But the trees were wrong, too tall and too close together, their branches reaching down toward me.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned and there were men in dark clothes, moving through the trees with mechanical precision. They didn't run, just walked, but they were getting closer with every step and I knew, I knew with absolute certainty that they were from the Order.
I ran.
The woods stretched on forever, the path twisting and turning, branches grabbing at my clothes and hair. My lungs burned and my legs ached but I kept running because I could hear them behind me, always behind me, never stopping.
The trees disappeared and suddenly I was in a hallway, white walls and fluorescent lights and the smell of antiseptic. There were doors on either side and I could hear screaming from behind them, inhuman sounds that made my skin crawl.
A door opened ahead of me and a man stepped out in a white coat, holding a syringe filled with something red.
"We've been looking for you," he said, and smiled.
I tried to run but there were hands on me now, grabbing my arms and shoulders, dragging me toward an open doorway where I could see medical equipment and restraints and needles, so many needles.
"No!" I screamed, fighting against them. "Let me go!"
"Annabeth." That was my father's voice, I somehow knew it was him, distant and urgent. "Annabeth, wake up. You have to wake up NOW."
The heat exploded out of me.
I jolted awake and my entire body was on fire, actual fire, flames erupting from my skin in a burst of uncontrolled power that lit up my room like a bomb had gone off. The curtains caught immediately, the fabric going up in red flames that were way too hot and spreading way too fast.
"No, no, no," I gasped, scrambling off the bed. My hands were engulfed in fire, my arms, the heat radiating outward and catching everything it touched. The bedside table went up next, then the edge of my comforter.
I tried to pull it back, tried to do the breathing exercises Kaelen had taught me, but panic was making everything worse. The flames grew higher, hotter, the smoke alarm started screaming and I couldn't stop it, couldn't control it, everything was burning.
The door burst open and Aunt Sarah ran in, her eyes going wide with terror.
"Annabeth!"
"I can't stop it," I choked out, tears streaming down my face from the smoke and the fear. "I can't—"
She grabbed the fire extinguisher from the hallway and sprayed the curtains, the foam covering the flames, but more fire was still coming from me, still spreading to anything nearby.
"Annabeth, look at me," she said, her voice cutting through the panic. "Look at me and BREATHE!"
I looked at her. Forced myself to take a breath even though my lungs felt like they were full of smoke and fire.
"Again," she commanded. "In and out. You can do this."
In. Out. The fire flickered, weakened slightly.
"That's it. Keep breathing. Pull it back inside you."
In. Out. In. Out.
The flames started to recede, pulling back into my skin inch by painful inch. It felt like swallowing glass, like forcing something wild and alive back into a cage it didn't want to be in, but I kept breathing and kept pulling until the last of the fire disappeared.
I collapsed onto the floor, completely spent, my whole body shaking.
The room was a disaster. Black scorch marks on the walls, the curtains reduced to smoking rags, the bedside table charred and ruined. The smoke detector was still screaming until Aunt Sarah reached up and yanked the battery out.
The silence that followed was deafening.
She sank down next to me and pulled me into her arms, holding me tight while I shook and tried not to cry.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I was having a nightmare and—"
"Shh. It's okay. You're okay." Her voice was shaking too. "You got it under control. That's what matters."
But I could see the fear in her eyes, could feel her hands trembling as she held me.
I'd almost burned the house down.
And Kaelen had warned me this could happen, had told me my powers were getting stronger and harder to control, and I'd thought I was making progress but clearly I wasn't, clearly I was a walking disaster waiting to happen.
My phone was on the floor a few feet away, the screen cracked from the heat but still glowing with a notification.
A text from Kaelen, sent while I was asleep: "You okay? You said you'd text tonight."
I hadn't texted him. I'd fallen asleep and had a nightmare and almost killed myself and my aunt with uncontrolled dragon fire.
I was definitely not okay.