Chapter 124 124
Annabeth's POV:
Kaelen took the diary from my hands. His fingers were gentle with it, careful, treating it like the precious thing it was. He opened to a page somewhere in the middle, his eyes scanning the symbols that still looked like nonsense to me.
"She writes about your father here," he said quietly. "About meeting him. The real version, not the one I told you before."
"Tell me."
He started reading.
Not translating word by word like he'd pretended to do that first time, stumbling over syllables he definitely knew. Actually reading, his voice low and steady, the ancient language flowing out of him like it was his native tongue. Which I guess, in a way, it was.
And then he'd pause and tell me what it meant.
"She says she knew the moment she saw him. Not because of how he looked, though she mentions that too, says his eyes were like fire held in human form." He smiled slightly. "Your mom had a thing for dramatic descriptions."
"Wonder where I got it from."
"She says her whole body reacted to him before her brain caught up. Like every cell in her knew something her mind hadn't figured out yet." He turned a page. "She was scared of him at first. Not because he was dangerous, though he was. Because of how much she wanted him. She'd never wanted anything that badly before."
I leaned against his shoulder, listening to my mother's words filtered through his voice. She talked about falling in love with a monster, except he wasn't a monster, he was just different. She talked about the fear and the longing and the way he made her feel like she was burning from the inside out.
She talked about the bond.
"When he finally told me what he was," Kaelen read, "I should have run. Any sane person would have run. But I looked at him and I thought, I have been waiting my entire life to feel like this. I have been waiting my entire life to find someone who makes the world make sense. And I knew that whatever he was, whatever danger came with loving him, I would face it. Because a life without him wasn't a life worth protecting."
My eyes were burning. I blinked hard, trying not to cry, but a tear escaped anyway and ran down my cheek.
Kaelen stopped reading. Closed the diary gently and set it on the nightstand. Then he turned to face me, reaching up to wipe the tear away with his thumb.
"She loved him," I said. "She really loved him. Even knowing what it would cost her."
"Yeah. She did."
"Do you think she regretted it? At the end? When she was dying and he wasn't there?"
Kaelen was quiet for a moment. Through the bond I felt him considering the question, weighing his answer carefully.
"I think," he said slowly, "that she would have done it all again. Even knowing how it ended. Because she got you out of it. And because some things are worth the cost, even when the cost is everything."
Yeah, that was definitely true. I thought about him and me for a second, about how much we had risked and sacrificed for each other. And how we would do it all again if we had to. Our love was not different than my parents', and that made me feel a bit sad. I wondered if we would become so distant and cold as my dad if something happened to the other.
But I didn’t even want to consider that option. Things were different for us than for my parents, now the Order was gone, and if any other threat appeared we would face it together and definitely win. I had no doubts about it.
I just erased the negative thoughts and leaned in and kissed him.
Not soft, not gentle. I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him toward me and kissed him like I was trying to climb inside him. All the emotion from the past few weeks, the fear and the grief and the overwhelming relief of being alive, of having him here, of being allowed to want this, I poured all of it into that kiss.
He made a surprised sound against my mouth and then his hands were in my hair, on my waist, pulling me closer. We fell backward onto the bed, him on top of me, and the weight of his body pressed me into the mattress in a way that felt grounding, real, solid.
"Annabeth—" he started.
"Don't." I pulled at his shirt, tugging it up. "Don't ask if I'm sure. Don't ask if this is what I want. I almost lost you. I thought you were dead for three days. I need to feel you, Kaelen. I need to know you're real."
He sat back just long enough to yank his shirt over his head, and then his mouth was on my neck, my collarbone, the hollow of my throat. I arched into him, my fingers digging into his shoulders, feeling the muscles shift under his skin.
"I'm real," he said against my skin. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
"Then just prove it."
He pulled back to look at me, his eyes already shifting gold at the edges, and something in his expression changed. Went from tender to hungry in a way that made heat pool low in my stomach.
"Take off your shirt," he said.
I sat up and pulled it over my head, tossed it somewhere behind me. His eyes tracked over my body and I felt the appreciation through the bond, this wave of want that mixed with my own until I couldn't tell whose desire was whose.
He kissed me again, pushing me back down, his hands everywhere at once. My bra came off, I don't even know who unhooked it, and then his mouth was on my breast and I gasped, my back arching off the bed.
This was different from the first time. The first time had been slow, careful, both of us nervous and fumbling and checking in constantly. This was urgent. This was needy. This was two people who'd almost lost each other and needed to prove they were still alive.
I reached for his belt, managed to undo it while his mouth was still doing devastating things to my chest. He groaned when my hand slipped inside his jeans and found him already hard.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Annabeth—"
"Off. Now. Everything off."