Chapter 45 45
Annabeth's POV:
Kaelen was different the next morning, tense in a way that set my nerves on edge the second I woke up and found him already dressed and staring out the window.
"Hey," I said, sitting up. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah. I mean, no. I mean..." He ran his hand through his hair in that way he did when he was stressed. "I need to take you somewhere this morning. There's someone you need to meet."
"Who?"
"I'll explain when we get there. Just... trust me, okay?"
Trust him. That should've been easy after everything we'd been through, after telling him I loved him, after letting him see every vulnerable part of me. But something in his voice made my stomach twist with anxiety.
"Kaelen, you're scaring me."
"I know. I'm sorry. Just get dressed and we'll go."
I followed his car in mine, refusing to ride with him when he was being so evasive about where we were going. The whole drive I watched his taillights and tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
We ended up at an abandoned house on the edge of town, the kind of place that probably used to be nice but had been left to rot for years. I parked behind him and turned off the engine, watching as he sat in his car for a long moment before finally getting out. I did the same and walked over to him, my stomach twisting with anxiety.
"Before we go in," he said quietly, "I need you to know that everything I did, I did to protect you. Even the things that were wrong, even the lies, it was all to keep you safe."
"What lies? Kaelen, what the fuck is going on?"
"Just... please remember that I love you. No matter what happens in the next few minutes, remember that's real."
He got out of the car and I followed, my heart pounding and my dragon senses screaming that something was wrong. We walked to the front door and he opened it, gestured for me to go in first.
The inside was mostly empty except for some old furniture and dust, but there was a man standing in what used to be the living room with his back to us.
And the second I saw him, before he even turned around, I knew.
I don't know how I knew. Maybe it was the bond that dragons could share with blood relatives, maybe it was instinct, maybe it was just that my body recognized his presence in a way my brain couldn't process. But I knew with absolute certainty who he was before he turned to face me.
When he did turn around, when I saw his face and those red eyes that were identical to mine when my dragon nature surfaced, the world stopped.
My father.
Marcus Thorne was alive and standing ten feet away from me.
"Annabeth," he said, and his voice was rough like he'd been screaming or hadn't used it in a long time. "I know this must be a shock. I'm sorry. For all of it. For leaving, for not being there, for everything you've had to go through alone."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Just stood there staring at him while my brain tried and failed to process what I was seeing.
"I had to leave when you were about to be born," he continued, taking a step closer. "The Order was closing in and if I'd stayed they would've found you and your mother. So I disappeared, drew them away, made them think I'd left the country. And I've been watching you ever since, protecting you from a distance, killing anyone who got too close."
"Her name was Samantha," I managed to say after a moment, my voice barely above a whisper. "Not 'your mother.' She had a name. Sammy, everyone called her."
Something flickered in his eyes. Pain, maybe. "I know. I called her that too."
"You've been alive," I spoke again, almost whispering. "For eighteen years. You've been alive."
"Yes."
"And you never..." The anger started rising, cutting through the shock. "You never tried to contact me? Never let me know you existed?"
"I couldn't. Any contact would've put you in danger, would've led them right to you. The only way to keep you safe was to stay away."
"Bullshit. You were protecting yourself, not me. You didn't want the responsibility of a kid so you fucked off and let Aunt Sarah raise me alone."
"That's not true. Everything I've done for eighteen years has been for you. I've killed more Order operatives than I can count who were tracking you, I've sacrificed any chance at a normal life to make sure you survived." His voice got harder. "You're alive right now because I left. If I'd stayed they would've taken us both."
I wanted to scream at him, wanted to rage about all the years he'd been gone, all the questions I'd had about who I was and where I came from. But then another thought hit me, something that made my blood go cold.
"How long has Kaelen known?" I asked, turning to look at him where he stood by the door. "How long have you known my father was alive?"
The guilt on his face told me everything before he opened his mouth.
"A few weeks," Kaelen said quietly.
"A few weeks." I repeated it because it couldn't be true, couldn't be real. "You've known for weeks that my father was alive and you didn't tell me?"
"He asked me not to. He said—"
"I don't give a fuck what he said!" My voice was getting louder, shrill with betrayal. "You knew the biggest secret of my life and you kept it from me while I trusted you with everything!"
"I was trying to protect you—"
"Don't. Don't you dare say you were protecting me. Lying to me isn't protection, it's manipulation." Tears were burning in my eyes but I refused to let them fall. "I told you I loved you. I let you into my life, into my body, I trusted you more than I've ever trusted anyone and you were lying to me the whole time."
"It wasn't like that," he said, and he looked destroyed but I didn't care. "I wanted to tell you, every single day I wanted to tell you, but I'd promised him—"
"You promised him." I laughed and it sounded broken. "You promised a man you barely knew instead of being honest with me. The person you supposedly love."
Marcus stepped forward. "Annabeth, this isn't his fault. I asked him to keep the secret, told him I needed to be the one to tell you when the time was right. Don't punish him for keeping his word."
"Fuck you. Both of you, fuck you." The tears were falling now and I couldn't stop them. "You left me for eighteen years and you," I turned back to Kaelen, "you lied to my face every single day while I fell in love with you. While I told you about my mom dying, while I cried about not knowing who I was, you sat there and knew the answers and said nothing."
"I'm sorry," Kaelen said, and his voice was breaking. "God, Annabeth, I'm so sorry. You're right, I should've told you, I wanted to tell you but I—"
"But you didn't. That's all that matters. You had a choice and you chose him over me."
"That's not fair," Marcus said.
"Fair?" I rounded on him. "You want to talk about fair? You abandoned me before I was even born, left my mother to die giving birth to me while you were off hiding somewhere, let Aunt Sarah struggle to raise me by herself, and you think you have any right to talk to me about fair?"
"Your mother's death wasn't—"
"Get out of my way."
I pushed past both of them and walked to the door, my vision blurred with tears and rage. Kaelen reached for my arm and I jerked away like his touch burned.
"Don't. Don't touch me. Don't call me. Don't fucking text me. I can't... I can't look at you right now."
"Annabeth, please—"
"I said don't."
I made it to my car somehow, got the keys in the ignition with shaking hands. Kaelen was standing in the doorway of the house watching me with this expression like I'd just ripped his heart out, and good. Good. He deserved to feel a fraction of what I was feeling.
I drove home and the tears didn't stop, just kept coming in waves that made it hard to see the road. I had to pull over twice because I was crying too hard to drive safely, sitting in random parking lots sobbing like my world had ended.
Because it had. Everything I thought I had, everything I believed about Kaelen and us and our relationship, was built on lies.
The bond between us was pulsing with emotion, his anguish bleeding through to me, and I hated it. Hated that even now when I wanted nothing to do with him I could feel his pain mixing with mine. Hated that a part of me still wanted to go back and let him explain even though there was no explanation that could make this okay.
When I got home Aunt Sarah took one look at my face and pulled me into a hug without asking questions. She already knew something bad was going on when I had called her last night saying that I needed to stay at Kaelen’s house and that I’d explain everything to her in the morning. I cried on her shoulder for maybe twenty minutes, ugly crying that left me exhausted and hollow.
"He lied to me," I said when I could finally talk. "My father's alive and Kaelen knew for weeks and he never told me."
"Oh honey." She held me tighter. "I'm so sorry."
"How could he do that? How could he look at me every day and lie?"
"I don't know. People make terrible choices when they're trying to protect someone they love."
"That's not love. Love is honesty. Love is trust. Not... not whatever this was."
My phone was buzzing constantly in my pocket, text after text from Kaelen that I refused to read. I finally turned it off and threw it across the room, not wanting to see his name on my screen.
That night I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my eyes swollen from crying and my chest aching like something vital had been ripped out. The bond was still there, still pulsing between us, his emotions leaking through even though I tried to block them out.
He was devastated. I could feel it, even if our bond wasn’t complete yet, that crushing guilt and grief that matched my own.
And I hated that even now, even after everything, part of me wanted to comfort him. Wanted to call him and hear his voice and let him explain until the hurt stopped.
But it wouldn't stop. Because he'd lied to me about something fundamental, something that shaped who I was, and I didn't know if I could ever forgive that.
I didn't know if I wanted to.