Chapter 24 24
Annabeth's POV:
It had become our thing, texting late at night after everyone else was asleep. I'd lie in bed with my phone on the pillow beside me and wait for that notification, and it always came around eleven or midnight, sometimes later. Tonight I didn't even pretend to sleep first, just climbed into bed at ten-thirty and opened our conversation, typing: "Still awake?"
His response came fast: "When am I not awake?"
"Fair point. Insomnia gang."
"The most exhausted gang. How was your evening?"
I smiled at my phone. "Boring. Studied for Chem, ate leftover pizza, pretended to listen while my aunt talked about her day at work. You?"
"Similar minus the aunt. Lucian wanted to play video games for three hours. I lost every single match."
"On purpose?"
"Half on purpose. He gets sad if I completely destroy him but also mad if I obviously let him win. It's a delicate balance."
"Sounds exhausting."
"Everything about having a teenage brother is exhausting."
We texted back and forth about nothing for a while, the kind of random conversation that would be boring if it was anyone else but felt important because it was him. He told me about the book he was reading for his lit class, Beowulf again, still hating it, and I complained about my Chemistry professor who talked too slow and made every lecture feel like it lasted six hours.
Around midnight the conversation shifted.
"Can I ask you something?" he texted.
"Sure."
"The dreams you've been having. The ones about flying. Do you still get them?"
I hesitated, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. We hadn't really talked about the dreams since that first time, and I wasn't sure why he was bringing them up now.
"Yeah," I typed. "Pretty much every night."
"What are they like? If you don't mind describing."
I thought about how to explain it, how to put into words something that felt more real than reality sometimes.
"It's like I'm actually there," I wrote. "Not watching it happen but living it. I can feel the wind on my face, the way my wings work, the weight of the air. Everything is so clear and sharp and real. And I'm not scared, that's the weird part. I should be scared of being that high up but I'm not, I'm just... free."
Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
"That sounds incredible."
"It is. It's the best part of sleeping honestly." I hesitated, then added: "There's always another dragon with me. A golden one."
The dots appeared and stayed for a long time before his response came through.
"I know."
Two words that made my heart do that stupid jumping thing, although we had already kissed and definitely had something going on between us. What was wrong with me?
"You know?"
"Yeah. Because I dream it too."
I stared at my phone, reading the message three times to make sure I understood right. He dreamed it. He had the same dreams, or similar dreams, or dreams that connected to mine somehow.
"How is that possible?" I typed.
The response took almost a minute.
"There's something I need to explain to you. About dragons, about bonds between dragons. But it's complicated and I don't want to do it over text."
"Then tell me now. I can call you."
"No, it needs to be in person. Face to face. I need to be able to explain it properly."
I wanted to argue, wanted to demand he tell me right now because waiting for information was killing me. But something about his messages told me he was serious, that this was important enough that he needed to see me to say it.
"Okay," I typed. "When?"
"Tomorrow? After your last class?"
"Yeah. Okay."
"Thank you for understanding."
"I don't understand anything, but I trust you."
More dots, another long pause.
"That means a lot. More than you know."
I chewed my lip, trying to figure out how to ask the next question without sounding desperate or crazy.
"Kaelen, is the golden dragon you? In the dreams?"
"Yes."
"And we're flying together."
"Yes."
"Every night?"
"Almost every night for the past weeks, yeah. And even more intense since the day we first kissed."
My breath caught. Since we kissed. That's when the dreams had gotten really strong and consistent.
"What does it mean?" I asked.
"That's what I need to explain tomorrow. The bond thing. It's... it's big, Annabeth. And I want to make sure you understand everything before I tell you."
"You're scaring me a little."
"Don't be scared. It's not bad, it's just important. And permanent. Or, it could be permanent. Depending on what you want."
What I wanted? What did that mean?
"Okay," I typed, because I didn't know what else to say. "Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow. I promise."
The conversation drifted after that, back to safer topics. He told me about Marlen's latest book recommendation, something with dragons in it, ironically, I told him about the barista at the campus coffee shop who definitely had a crush on me and kept drawing hearts in my latte foam.
"Should I be jealous?" he texted.
"Of the barista? Absolutely. He makes a perfect cappuccino."
"That's a good reason to be jealous honestly."
"Are you jealous?"
Long pause.
"Yeah. Little bit."
I smiled so wide my face hurt. "Good."
"Good?"
"I like knowing you care."
"I care way too much. It's becoming a problem."
"Same."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
We kept texting until I could barely keep my eyes open, my responses getting slower and more typo-filled. He was patient, waited for me to respond even when it took me five minutes because I kept almost dropping my phone on my face.
"You should sleep," he texted around two AM.
"You should too."
"I will. Eventually."
"Liar. You're gonna stay up worrying about something."
"Probably."
"Try to sleep, Kaelen. Please?"
"Okay. You too."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Annabeth."
I plugged my phone in and rolled over, hugging my pillow and feeling that warm fuzzy feeling that had nothing to do with dragon fire. He cared about me. Enough to be jealous of a barista, enough to dream about me, enough to want to explain important things face to face instead of hiding behind text.
The bond. What was the bond? And why did the way he'd said it make it sound both wonderful and terrifying?
I fell asleep thinking about golden dragons and flying and Kaelen's hands on my waist during training, and when the dream came it was the same as always. Flying together through the night sky, perfectly in sync, like we'd been doing this for years instead of days. His golden scales caught the moonlight and when he looked at me his eyes were that blue-green I knew so well, warm and safe and mine somehow.
When I woke up at six-thirty my phone had a notification. A text sent at 4:17 AM.
" I dreamed about you too."
I pressed the phone to my chest and lay there smiling like an absolute idiot, and I didn't even care.