Chapter 16 16
Kaelen's POV:
I cleaned my room three times before she was supposed to arrive, which was ridiculous because it wasn't even that messy. But I kept finding things that looked wrong: the unmade bed, the stack of books on the floor, the unpacked boxes in the corner that screamed we're ready to run at any second. I wanted her to see something normal, something that didn't hint at what we really were.
By two PM I'd given up and just accepted that my room looked like what it was: temporary housing for someone who didn't expect to stay long.
The knock on the front door made my heart jump.
She stood on the porch with her backpack over one shoulder, and I could tell immediately that she hadn't slept. Dark circles under her eyes, her hair pulled back messy, her clothes wrinkled like she'd grabbed the first things she found. But she was smiling, this tired hopeful smile that made my chest tight.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey. Come in."
I led her through the small living room, grateful that Marlen and Lucian were at school like I'd told her. We passed the kitchen where dishes were still in the sink from breakfast, and I felt weirdly embarrassed about it, about her seeing how we actually lived.
My room was at the end of the hall. I opened the door and gestured for her to go in first.
She stepped inside and looked around, taking in the bare walls, the plain furniture, the general emptiness of it. If she thought it was weird, she didn't say anything. Just walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, pulling her backpack into her lap.
"Thanks for seeing me," she said. "I know this is weird."
"It's fine. I'm curious about what you found."
She unzipped the backpack and pulled out a leather-bound book, old and worn, and the second I saw it my blood went cold.
I knew what it was before she even opened it. The leather, the size, the way the pages had that aged yellow color around the edges. I'd seen books like that in my mother's collection, hidden in the boxes we'd taken when we fled. Draconic journals, written in the old language that predated human civilization.
But I couldn't let her see that I recognized it.
"This was my mother's," Annabeth said, opening to the first page. "The beginning is in English, but the rest... I can't read it. I've tried everything, looked up every ancient language I could find online, and nothing matches."
She handed it to me and I took it with hands that weren't quite steady.
The first page was in English, a message from her mother explaining that her father wasn't human, that she needed to know the truth before it was too late. My throat got tight reading it, imagining her mother writing this, knowing she was dying, desperate to leave some explanation for the daughter she'd never see grow up.
Then I turned the page and the draconic script covered everything, line after line of symbols I knew as well as English because my mother had taught us young. She'd insisted we learn to read and write it, said it was part of our heritage, something the Order couldn't take from us even if they killed us all.
I stared at the symbols and my mind translated automatically: "The red line descends from the first flames, the ancient fire that birthed the world. Your father carried this blood, pure and undiluted, and passed it to you. You are dragon-born, child of two worlds, and the power in your veins will wake when your body is ready to hold it."
"Can you read it?" Annabeth's voice pulled me back.
I looked up at her. She was watching me with those desperate hopeful eyes, and I wanted so badly to tell her the truth. To explain everything, to show her what I was, to help her understand what she was becoming.
But Marlen's voice was in my head: "Not until you're sure. Not until we know it's safe."
"Uh... Some of it," I lied. "It's... it's an obscure dialect. I studied it briefly in one of my literature classes, ancient texts and that kind of thing. Give me a minute."
I turned pages slowly, pretending to struggle with translation while actually just deciding what to tell her and what to hide. The diary laid out everything: her father's red dragon lineage, the powers she'd inherit, the dangers she'd face, instructions for controlling the transformation when it came.
Too much truth would terrify her. Too little and she'd be unprepared for what was coming.
"Okay," I said finally. "This part here, it talks about... bloodlines. Ancient bloodlines that go back centuries, maybe longer." I pointed to a passage about lineage powers. "It says these bloodlines carry abilities that wake up as people get older, usually around late teens or early twenties."
"What kind of abilities?"
I chose my words carefully. "Strength beyond normal humans. Enhanced senses. Healing faster than should be possible. Heat, like running a constant fever but not being sick."
Her breath caught. "That's happening to me. All of that."
"I know."
"What does it mean?"
I kept reading, kept pretending to translate. "Your mother writes that your father came from one of these bloodlines. She doesn't specify which one, but she says his blood was pure, undiluted. And that he passed it to you."
Annabeth was silent for a long moment. When I looked up, there were tears in her eyes but she wasn't crying, just staring at the diary like it held the answer to every question she'd ever had.
"My father wasn't human," she whispered. "That's what this says, right? That's what my mother meant on the first page."
I couldn't lie about that, not directly. "That's what it says."
"What was he then?"
This was the dangerous part, the line I couldn't cross yet. "The diary doesn't say exactly. Just that he carried ancient blood, old power. Something that's been hidden for a long time because it's dangerous for people like him to be known."
"People like him," she repeated. "People like me."
"Yeah."
She took the diary back from my hands and stared at the pages she couldn't read, her fingers tracing the symbols. We were sitting close enough that our shoulders touched, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off her skin, way too hot for a normal human.
"I thought I was going crazy," she said quietly. "When my eyes did that thing in the mirror, when I felt too strong, too hot, too everything. I thought something was wrong with me."
"Nothing's wrong with you."
"How do you know? You barely know me, Kaelen. How can you be so sure I'm not just... broken somehow?"
Because I'm a dragon and I recognize my own kind. Because your essence calls to mine every time we're close. Because my soul knew you before my mind did.
"Because I see you," I said instead. "I see how strong you are, how you face things that would make other people run away. When those guys attacked me and you got out of your car without hesitating, that wasn't broken. That was brave."
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and the air between us got heavy with everything we weren't saying. The diary sat forgotten in her lap and all I could think about was how close she was, how easy it would be to close the distance, to kiss her and feel if the bond would snap into place the way I thought it would.
But I couldn't. Not yet. Not before she knew the truth.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" she asked. "For believing this? For thinking maybe my father really was something not human?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Because I know for a fact that dragons exist, that magic is real, that the world is so much stranger than humans understand. Because I've lived my entire life hiding what I am, running from people who want to drain my blood for immortality. Because everything in that diary is true and I'm terrified of what it means that you're awakening now, here, where the Order might be watching.
"Because I have secrets too, Annabeth," I said.
She blinked. "What kind of secrets?"
I should have deflected, changed the subject, pulled back from this edge we were standing on. But instead I held her gaze and let her see just enough truth in my eyes to know I meant it.
"The kind that would explain why I understand more than I should," I said. "Why I'm not surprised by what's in that diary. Why I believe every word of it without question."
"Kaelen—"
My phone rang, way too loud in the quiet of my room. I grabbed it without looking, ready to silence it, but Marlen's name on the screen made me answer.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You said to check in after lunch and you didn’t."
Right. Because I'd been paranoid after seeing that car, after the break-in, after everything. And because I had totally forgotten to call her because I was too busy cleaning my room obsessively. "I'm fine. I'm with Annabeth."
Pause. "She's there? At the house?"
"Yeah."
"Kael..." Her voice dropped lower. "Be careful, okay? Just... be careful."
"I will."
I hung up and turned back to Annabeth. She was watching me with questions all over her face, but she didn't ask them. Just tucked the diary back into her backpack and stood up.
"I should go," she said. "Let you have your afternoon."
"You don't have to."
"I know. But I need to think about all this. Process it. Figure out what it means."
I walked her to the door, wanting to say a hundred things and not knowing how to say any of them. She paused on the porch, turned back.
"Thank you," she said. "For helping me with the diary. For not thinking I'm crazy."
"Anytime."
"And Kaelen? Your secrets..." She bit her lip. "When you're ready to tell me, I'll listen. Without judgment."
She left before I could respond, walking to her car with the backpack over her shoulder and the diary hidden inside.
I watched until she drove away, then closed the door and leaned against it.
I'd just confirmed to her that her father was something not human. I'd translated a draconic diary without admitting I could read every word perfectly. I'd basically told her I had secrets that connected to hers.
Marlen was gonna kill me.
But as I went back to my room and saw the spot on my bed where Annabeth had been sitting, I knew I'd do it all again. Because she deserved to know the truth.
And because keeping secrets from her was getting harder every day.