Chapter 31 31
Annabeth's POV:
I couldn't stop thinking about last night. The way Kaelen had looked at me on the porch, the way our foreheads had pressed together, the way he'd said "friends who kiss sometimes" like it was the most natural thing in the world. The thought kept circling in my head while I drove to meet him for training, while I parked and walked into the woods, while I tried to focus on what I was supposed to be doing.
Kaelen was already there when I arrived at the clearing, standing near the bench with his hands in his jacket pockets and that expression he got when he was worried but trying to hide it.
"Hey," he said when he saw me. "How are you doing? After last night, I mean. With the... everything."
"Good. Tired. My aunt talked my ear off after you left, asking me a million questions about what I thought of you and whether I was sure about all this." I dropped my bag on the bench. "She likes you, by the way. She tried to hide it but I could tell."
"That's a relief. I was convinced she was gonna tell you to never see me again."
"She considered it." I pulled off my jacket even though it wasn't warm. I just needed something to do with my hands. "Can we train? I feel like I have too much energy and I need to burn it off. Literally, I guess."
"Sure. Yeah. Let's start with the breathing exercise from last time. You were holding it for about thirty seconds before you lost control, so let's try to beat that today."
I nodded and moved to the center of the clearing, taking the stance he'd shown me. Feet shoulder-width apart, weight balanced, shoulders dropped. Breathe in, acknowledge the heat. Breathe out, let it settle.
Except the heat didn't want to settle. It rose immediately, way faster than normal, climbing up my chest and into my throat before I'd even finished my second breath.
"Annabeth, you're tensing up," Kaelen said from somewhere behind me. "Drop your shoulders."
I tried. The heat kept rising. I could feel it in my hands, the air around my fingers starting to shimmer.
"Breathe through it. Don't fight it."
Breathe. Right. I took another breath and the heat exploded outward, a burst of flame from my palms that caught the pile of leaves I'd been standing near. They went up instantly, red fire that was way too hot and way too fast.
"Shit." I stumbled backward and Kaelen was already moving, putting out the flames with his jacket. Again. I was gonna owe him like fifteen jackets at this rate.
"Sorry," I said.
"It's fine. Try again."
We tried again. Same result, different bush. Then we tried a third time and I managed about ten seconds before losing it completely and nearly setting my own sleeve on fire.
"Okay, stop." Kaelen came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. "You're in your head too much. I can feel it from here, you're thinking instead of just being."
"I can't help it. My brain won't shut up."
"Then let me help." His hands moved from my shoulders to my upper arms, his chest almost against my back. "Close your eyes. Feel my hands on you, feel how solid I am, how steady. Use that as your anchor instead of trying to control everything yourself."
I closed my eyes. His hands were warm through my shirt, his chest close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. He smelled like the woods and something else, something that was just him, and my concentration scattered in about twelve different directions.
"Breathe with me," he said quietly, his voice right by my ear. "In... and out. Match my rhythm."
I tried to match his breathing but I was too aware of how close he was, how his hands felt on my arms, the way his breath moved my hair when he exhaled. The heat rose but it wasn't the dragon fire kind, it was something else entirely, something that had nothing to do with training and everything to do with the way his thumbs were pressing gently into my biceps.
"You're not breathing," he said.
"Yes I am."
"No, you're holding your breath. Annabeth, relax."
Relax. Sure. Easy to say when he wasn't the one being touched by someone who made his skin feel like it was on fire in the best possible way.
I forced myself to take a breath. The dragon heat rose with it, immediate and overwhelming, and my hands ignited before I could stop it. The grass in front of me caught, just a small circle, and Kaelen stepped away to put it out with his boot.
"This isn't working," I said, frustration sharp in my voice.
"We just need to find the right approach. Maybe if I—"
"No. Kaelen, stop." I turned to face him. "I can't concentrate when you're that close to me."
He blinked. "What?"
"When you touch me, when you stand behind me like that, all I can think about is how good it feels and how much I want you closer and how it felt last night when we were standing on the porch and—" I stopped because my face was probably bright red and I'd just word-vomited all over him.
He stared at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then his eyes shifted, that blue-green darkening and the edges going gold.
"You can't say things like that to me," he said, his voice rough.
"Why not?"
"Because it’s already difficult enough for me to be around you and if you keep talking like that I'm gonna—" He stopped, his jaw tightening. "I'm trying to be respectful here. Trying to give you space to figure out what you want without pressuring you."
"What if I don't want space?"
"Annabeth."
"What if I want—"
He closed the distance between us in two steps and kissed me before I could finish the sentence. It was nothing like the almost-kiss from last night, nothing tentative or careful. This was desperate, urgent, his mouth on mine like he'd been holding back for too long and couldn't do it anymore.
My hands fisted in his shirt and pulled him closer, needing more, needing everything. We stumbled backward until my back hit a tree and he pressed against me, one hand braced on the trunk beside my head and the other cupping my face, and I made a sound against his mouth that would've been embarrassing if I wasn't so far gone.
His lips moved to my jaw, then my neck, and I tilted my head back against the bark, my eyes half-closed and my breathing completely wrecked. I could feel the heat building between us, our dragon natures responding to each other, fire calling to fire in a way that felt inevitable.
"Kaelen..." I breathed.
And then he stopped.
He pulled back, his forehead dropping to my shoulder, his breath coming hard and fast against my collarbone. His whole body was tense, almost shaking, and I could feel the effort it took him to hold still.
"I can't," he said, his voice rough. "We can't. Not like this."
"Why not?"
He lifted his head and looked at me, his eyes still edged with gold but something else there too. Something that looked like fear.
"Because if we keep going, I won't be able to stop. And you deserve better than against a tree in the middle of the woods because we got carried away during training." He took a breath, then another, visibly forcing himself to calm down. "I'm not going to be the reason you make a decision you're not ready for. I meant what I said last night, about giving you time, about not rushing."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him I was ready, that I knew what I wanted, that he wasn't pressuring me into anything.
But he was right. We both knew he was right.
The bond, the permanent connection, everything that came with it... that wasn't a decision to make against a tree because our hormones got the better of us. That was something that deserved thought, intention, certainty.
"Okay," I said quietly.
He stepped back, putting distance between us, and the air felt cold where his body had been. We stood there for a moment, both breathing hard, not quite looking at each other.
"So," he said finally, a slight awkwardness in his voice. "Maybe I should stand over there for the rest of training. Like, ten feet away. Minimum."
"Probably a good idea."
"Maybe fifteen feet."
"Maybe twenty."
He laughed, a little strained but real, and the tension broke slightly. He walked to the other side of the clearing and leaned against a tree, arms crossed, keeping that careful distance between us.
"Okay," he said. "Try again. From the top. Breathing exercises."
I took my stance again, hyper-aware of him watching me from across the clearing. My lips still tingled from the kiss, my skin still felt too hot, and my heart was doing something stupid in my chest.
But I breathed. In, acknowledge the heat. Out, let it settle.
And this time, with him far enough away that I could actually think, the fire came slower. Steadier. I held it for thirty seconds. Then forty. Then forty-five before it finally slipped and a small flame escaped my palm, singeing the grass at my feet.
"Forty-seven seconds," Kaelen said, and I could hear the smile in his voice even from twenty feet away. "That's a new record."
"Forty-seven seconds of not burning anything down. My greatest achievement."
"Hey, progress is progress."
We trained for another hour, him keeping his distance and me actually managing to focus for once. By the end I was exhausted and sweaty and my control was still shit, but it was slightly less shit than before, and that counted for something.
When we finally called it quits, we walked back toward the parking area together, close but not touching.
"Same time tomorrow?" I asked when we reached my car.
"Yeah. If you want."
"I want."
He smiled, that half-smile that still made my stomach flip, and shoved his hands in his pockets like he didn't trust himself not to reach for me.
"See you tomorrow, Annabeth."
"See you tomorrow, Kaelen."
"Will you... will you send me a text tonight? I mean... I really miss talking to you when my head is torturing me and I can’t sleep."
"You mean, like, every night, right? Because I don’t think you ever sleep."
We both laughed for a moment.
"Yeah, basically."
"I will," I said finally. Then I got in my car and watched him walk away to his in my rearview mirror, my heart still beating too fast and my mind already counting down the hours until I could see him again.
This was going to be a problem. A really good, really complicated, really unavoidable problem.
And I couldn't wait.