Chapter 36 36
Kaelen's POV:
Three days after I'd recovered from the red dragon fire incident, I texted Annabeth and asked if she wanted to do something completely normal. Like, aggressively normal. Coffee, walking around campus, pretending we were just regular college students instead of dragons dealing with potential threats and uncontrolled powers.
Her response came back in about five seconds: "YES. Please. I need normal so badly."
So that's how we ended up at the campus café on a Thursday afternoon, standing in line with about twenty other students and debating whether the pumpkin spice latte was worth the hype.
"It's mid-October," Annabeth said. "Peak pumpkin spice season. You're basic."
"I'm embracing the season. There's a difference."
"There's really not."
"Says the person who's about to order an iced coffee when it's barely fifteen degrees outside."
"Iced coffee is a year-round beverage. Pumpkin spice is a marketing scheme."
"You're describing chaos. Cold caffeine in fall weather is chaos."
She laughed and it was so normal, so easy, that I felt something in my chest relax that had been tight for weeks. We weren't training, we weren't talking about the Order or bonds or powers. We were just two people arguing about coffee flavors in line at a café.
I got the pumpkin spice latte and she got an iced Americano out of spite, and we found a table outside under one of the heaters. The afternoon sun was warm enough that sitting outside was still comfortable, and the campus was busy with students walking between classes, everyone focused on their own lives and paying zero attention to us.
"This is nice," Annabeth said, wrapping her hands around her cup. "Just... being. Without worrying about accidentally setting something on fire."
"How's that been going? The fire control."
"Better. Way better actually. I've been practicing the breathing exercises every day and I haven't had any incidents since, you know. The bedroom thing." She looked down at her coffee. "I still feel terrible about what happened to you."
"Don't. I told you, I'd do it again." I reached across the table and took her hand. "And you're getting stronger every day. Soon you won't need me to absorb overflow at all."
"I don't know if that's good or bad."
"What do you mean?"
She smiled, a little shy. "I mean, I kind of like needing you. Even if the circumstances suck."
My heart did that stupid thing where it tried to climb out of my chest. "I like you needing me too. But I also want you safe and in control of your powers, so... conflicted feelings all around."
We sat there holding hands across the table and drinking overpriced coffee, and it was perfect. Completely, absolutely perfect in its mundane simplicity.
After we finished, we walked around campus with no destination in mind. She pointed out buildings where her classes were, told me about one of her professors, who apparently spent half of every lecture talking about his ex-wife instead of actually teaching. I told her about my Beowulf professor who insisted on reading passages out loud in Old English even though nobody understood a word.
"That sounds like torture," she said.
"It is. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna fail that class."
"Want me to help you study?"
"You know Old English?"
"No, but I'm good at pretending I understand things I don't. I'll nod supportively while you suffer."
"That's true love right there."
The words came out before I thought about them and we both went quiet for a second. Love. I'd said love, even as a joke, and the weight of it hung between us.
But Annabeth just squeezed my hand and said, "Damn right it is."
We stopped at the campus bookstore and browsed the shelves, her showing me books she'd read and loved, me finding terrible romance novels with ridiculous covers and reading the back descriptions out loud until she was laughing so hard she had to lean on me to stay upright.
That's when I felt it. The prickling awareness of being watched.
I looked up from the book I'd been holding and scanned the store, my dragon senses expanding outward automatically. There, through the front window, standing on the sidewalk across the street.
Marcus. Her father.
He was wearing different clothes than last time but I recognized him immediately. The same imposing presence, the same intensity in his gaze even from fifty feet away. He was watching us, specifically watching Annabeth laugh with her head against my shoulder, and his expression was impossible to read.
Everything in me went tense. My hand tightened on Annabeth's and she noticed immediately.
"What's wrong?" she asked, pulling back to look at me.
I forced myself to relax, to look away from Marcus and focus on her instead. "Nothing. Just thought I saw someone I used to know."
"Someone from before? From when you were running?"
"Maybe. I'm not sure. Could be my imagination." The lies tasted like ash but I kept my expression neutral, casual. "It's fine."
She studied my face for a long moment and I could see her trying to decide if she believed me. Finally she nodded. "Okay. But if you see them again and it's not your imagination, you'll tell me, right?"
"Of course."
More lies. God, I hated this. Hated keeping Marcus a secret, hated that he was out there watching and I couldn't tell her why or who he was or what he wanted. But I'd promised him I wouldn't reveal his existence until he was ready, and I couldn't break that promise even if keeping it was killing me.
When I looked back out the window, Marcus was gone. Just disappeared like he'd never been there at all.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"You okay?" Annabeth asked.
"Yeah. Sorry. Just got weird for a second."
"Weird how?"
"Just... feeling watched, I guess. Paranoia from running for so long. It's hard to shake." That part was true at least. I was paranoid, I did feel watched, I just happened to be right about it this time.
She wrapped her arm around my waist and leaned into me. "Well if anyone tries anything, I'll set them on fire. My control is way better now."
I laughed despite the tension still coiled in my chest. "My hero."
We left the bookstore and walked around for another hour, the sun starting to set and the temperature dropping. She was wearing my jacket by the end because she'd insisted she didn't need one and then immediately regretted it, and I was perfectly fine in just a long-sleeved shirt because dragon metabolism was useful like that.
By the time we made it back to the parking lot where her car was, the sky was going pink and orange, the campus quieter as everyone headed to dinner or back to their dorms.
"This was really nice," Annabeth said, leaning against her car door. "We should do normal more often."
"Agreed. Maybe next time we can aim for something really wild like a movie or dinner."
"Whoa, slow down. I don't know if I'm ready for that level of normal yet."
I smiled and stepped closer, my hands finding her waist. She tilted her face up and the sunset light caught in her hair, turned her dark eyes brighter, and I forgot how to breathe for a second.
"Thank you," I said quietly. "For this. For just... being with me. For making everything less terrible."
"You make everything less terrible too," she said. "Even when you're absorbing my excess dragon fire and making yourself sick in the process."
"Especially then."
I kissed her and it was different from every other time. Not desperate or urgent or charged with barely controlled attraction. Just soft, tender, a kiss that said I care about you and I want this and I'm so glad you're here. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I pulled her closer, and we stayed like that for a long moment with the sunset fading around us and the world narrowed down to just the two of us.
When we finally broke apart, her eyes were bright and her smile was the kind that made my heart ache in the best way.
"Text me when you get home?" I asked.
"Always."
I watched her drive away, then stood in the parking lot for a few minutes just breathing and trying to process the day. Normal. We'd had normal. For a few hours we'd been just two college students falling for each other without all the complicated dragon bullshit in the way.
And then Marcus had shown up to remind me that normal was a temporary illusion, and that secrets had a way of destroying everything good.