Chapter 27 27
Kaelen's POV:
I hesitated for maybe two seconds before opening the passenger door and sliding into the seat. The interior of the car hit me immediately, heat that had nothing to do with the heater running and everything to do with the man next to me radiating enough warmth to make the air shimmer. Pure dragon energy, concentrated and barely controlled, the kind of power that made my instincts scream run even while my brain said stay still, don't challenge him, don't make this worse.
Marcus, I knew his name because Annabeth had mentioned it once during our night chats, didn't say anything at first. Just sat there with his hands on the steering wheel, staring out the windshield at my house, at the window where Marlen and Lucian were sleeping and had no idea I was currently sitting in a car with a dragon who could probably kill all three of us before we had time to shift.
"How long have you been watching us?" I asked when the silence got too heavy.
"Three weeks. Since the night you met my daughter." He turned to look at me and those red eyes were even more intense up close, ancient and dangerous and absolutely terrifying. "I know everything about you, Kaelen Ellsworth. Golden dragon, twenty-two years old, parents disappeared five years ago and presumed captured by the Order. You've been running ever since, moving every few months, trying to keep your siblings safe. Marlen is thirteen, paranoid but smart. Lucian is fifteen, impulsive but loyal. You are economically surviving thanks to your parents’ savings, you're failing your literature class, and you haven't slept more than four hours a night since you got to Emberdale."
My throat went dry. He'd been watching us, really watching us, close enough to know details about our lives that should've been private.
"That's creepy as hell," I said.
"That's protection. I've been eliminating threats to my daughter for eighteen years, and when a golden dragon suddenly appears in her life right as she starts awakening, that makes you a threat I needed to evaluate."
"I'm not a threat to her."
"Everyone is a threat to her. The Order wants her blood, other dragons might want to use her power, and you..." He gestured at me with one hand, dismissive. "You're a complication she doesn't need. A connection that puts a target on her back bigger than the one that's already there."
I wanted to argue but he wasn't wrong. Being close to me did make her more visible, more vulnerable. If the Order was tracking my family, and Annabeth was seen with me, they'd investigate her too.
"I've been careful," I said. "We both have."
"Careful isn't enough. Not with the Order. They're already here, in Emberdale, watching and waiting for the right moment to move. I've killed two of them in the past month alone, low level scouts who got too close to Annabeth's house or yours."
Jesus Christ. Two Order members dead and we hadn't even known they were here.
"The symbol on my door," I said slowly. "The one carved into the wood. The one who broke in our house. That was you."
He didn't deny it. "I needed you scared. Needed you to think the Order had found you so you'd run, take your siblings and leave town before you got Annabeth killed by association."
"You could've just asked me to leave."
"Would you have?"
No. Probably not. But that wasn't the point.
"You had no right to threaten my family," I said, and I heard the edge of a growl in my voice, my dragon rising to defend Marlen and Lucian even if the threat was currently way out of my league.
"I have every right to protect my daughter by any means necessary." Marcus turned to face me fully and the temperature in the car spiked, my skin prickling with heat that wasn't mine. "You don't understand what she means to me, what I've sacrificed to keep her safe. I've lived in shadows for eighteen years, watched her grow up through windows and photographs, killed anyone who got too close, all so she could have a normal life. And then you show up and ruin that in a matter of weeks."
"She was never going to have a normal life," I shot back. "She's a red dragon hybrid, her powers were always going to wake up eventually. Keeping her ignorant doesn't protect her, it just means she's unprepared when shit hits the fan."
"She was fine before you."
"She was having fevers of 39.5 that should've hospitalized her and having eyes that glowed red and not understanding any of it. That's not fine, that's terrifying and dangerous and exactly the kind of thing that could've exposed her if the wrong person noticed."
Marcus was quiet for a long moment, his jaw working. I could see him processing that, fitting it into whatever picture he'd built of Annabeth's life from the outside.
"She's awakening faster than I expected," he said finally, and there was something in his voice that might have been fear if I didn't know better. "The human side should've suppressed it longer."
"Maybe being around another dragon accelerated it. I don't know how hybrids work exactly, our parents never..." I stopped because talking about my missing parents wasn't going to help this conversation.
"They never taught you because golden dragons rarely produce viable hybrids. The genetics don't take well to mixing." Marcus rubbed his face, suddenly looking older and more tired. "But reds can. We're pure fire, pure power, and that translates even when diluted with human blood. Annabeth is more dragon than human, she just doesn't know it yet."
"Then help her. Teach her to control it before she hurts someone or exposes herself."
"I can't. If I approach her now, after eighteen years of absence, she'll hate me. She'll have questions I can't answer, expectations I can't meet. It's better if she never knows I exist."
"That's bullshit and you know it." I turned in my seat to face him properly. "She deserves to know her father is alive, that he's been protecting her, that he didn't abandon her by choice. And she needs training that I can't give her. I'm golden, I can teach her control and breathing and meditation, but I can't teach her how to manage red dragon fire. Only another red can do that."
Marcus stared at me and I stared back, refusing to back down even though every instinct said this was a terrible idea. Pure dragons didn't like being challenged, especially not by younger dragons from different lineages.
But then something shifted in his expression, some decision being made behind those red eyes.
"You really care about her," he said. It wasn't a question but I answered anyway.
"Yes."
"Enough to defy me. Enough to risk your family's safety by staying here instead of running."
"Yes."
"That's either very brave or very stupid."
"Probably both."
He actually smiled at that, just a little, and the temperature in the car dropped a few degrees. "Fine. I'll help train her. But you don't tell her about me, not yet. I'll reveal myself when the time is right, when I can explain everything without it destroying whatever image she has of me in her head."
I hated that plan. Hated keeping another secret from Annabeth when I'd just finished explaining the soul bond and asking her to trust me. But I also understood his logic, understood that dropping "hi I'm your dad who's been alive this whole time" on top of everything else might actually break her.
"When will you approach her?" I asked.
"Soon. After she's processed the bond, after she's made her decision about you. I don't want to influence that choice." He looked at me again.
That statement surprised me a lot. How the hell did he know about the bond?
"You... you know about that too?"
"I told you: I know everything about you. And yes, I have a strong connection to my daughter even if she doesn’t sense it yet. Of course I know what is going on between you two. If she chooses to complete the bond, you'll be connected to her forever. That makes you family, which means I'll be watching you for the rest of your very long life to make sure you're worthy of her."
"I'll... I’ll do my best not to disappoint."
"See that you don't. And if she chooses to complete the bond, it doesn’t mean by any chance that it has to be in a close future, by the way." He said, in a very suggestive way. Shit. Then he reached across me and opened the passenger door, dismissal clear. "Go back to your siblings. Continue training her, keep her safe, and for god's sake don't let the Order see you together if you can help it. I can't kill all of them, not if they come in force."
I got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, watching as he rolled up the window. The car pulled away from the curb smoothly, no rush, just a normal departure that didn't match the intensity of the conversation we'd just had.
I walked back to the house in a daze, my mind spinning with too much information. Annabeth's father was alive. He'd been protecting her for eighteen years. He'd killed Order members to keep her safe. And he was willing to help train her, but only if I kept his existence secret for now.
Marlen was going to murder me when she found out I'd kept this from her too.
But that was a problem for tomorrow. Tonight I just needed to get inside, lock the door, and try to sleep even though I knew my brain wasn't going to shut up anytime soon.
My phone buzzed as I reached the porch.
Annabeth: "Can we talk tomorrow? After classes?"
I stared at the message for a long moment, then typed back: "Yeah. Anytime."
Her response came fast: "Thank you for being patient with me."
"Always."
I went inside and locked the door behind me, the weight of too many secrets pressing down on my shoulders like a physical thing. But underneath it all, there was relief.
Annabeth wanted to talk. That meant she hadn't decided to run. That meant I still had a chance.