There was a group of people surrounding a lone figure, preparing to spar. I sneak up behind Annabeth, tapping her on the shoulder. She turns to me smiling and bear hugs me.

"Thals!" She whispers loudly, "When did you get in? How long are you staying?"

"A few months," I respond, "Artemis is on one of her lone hunts, and we needed a place to crash." I shrug.

Annabeth shushes me then, "They wanted to challenge Reyna to a fight while she's here."

Reyna, huh?

I turn back to the group, the lone figure indeed being Reyna. I didn't recognize her with her new clothes. Last time I saw her she was wearing the weight of the world on her shoulders. Now, she wore a pair of black leggings that hugged her butt very nicely. She wore a purple SPQR shirt, her hair in the same long side braid.

She stood proudly, sword resting on the ground, her hands on top of the hilt, head up, eyes ablaze.

As they attack, she easily parried their hits, dodging attacks from behind while sweeping the person in front of her off their feet.

That's one out of five down.

She grabs his shield off the ground, striking the side of another one's knee before smacking him in the back of the head. A collective, "Ooh," was heard from the crowd as the metal hit his head and he fell unconscious.

Two out of five.

Reyna ran full-force at one attacker, seemingly stabbing him.

"If this were a real fight you'd be dead."

She slid the sword through the space between arm and his ribs. He seemed so shocked, he just kinda sat down.

Three out of five.

The remaining two were getting nervous now, started getting sloppy, yet Reyna hadn't seemed to have broken a sweat.

The Roman seemed to be in her zone, easily blocking their hits and dealing her own. Reyna quickly dispatched one of them by smacking him in the face with the flat of her blade and then hitting him with the shield.

Four out of five.

The lone survivor was now faced with a one-on-one battle with Reyna. Reyna drops the shield, oozing confidence. The poor idiot charges her, she side-steps letting him run past where she follows grab an arm, forcing it behind his back, and holds her sword to his throat.

Five out of five. Game Over.

"Now, now Reyna, we don't maim when we spar," Chiron says, ever the voice of reason.

Her mouth twitches upward, and she releases the boy who scrambles away.

"Jackson!" Percy looks up, "I'd like a match with you."

My hand shoots up as I smirk,

"I'll fight you."

.Reyna.

"I'll fight you."

My head jerks to the voice.

Thalia Grace

There she is. Standing by Annabeth, smirking confidently as she walks towards me.

"I prefer to fight powerful demigods." I say.

That stops her in her tracks, "Annabeth did she just say that?"

I hear Annabeth snort in the background.

When Thalia looks back at me, her eyes stormy.

And damn it all they're still as distracting as they were the first time I saw them.

"No holds barred, yeah?" She asks.

"No holding back," I agree.

.Reyna.

The first strike usually sets the tone for the match and after a few minutes of blocking, parrying, we both charged at the same time striking simultaneously and passing each other.

Turning to face each other, Thalia doesn't have a scratch, and I have a cut on my face. The crowd gasps in awe. Thalia smirks at me. I reach up to touch the blood, wiping it on my pants. Our eyes met, and so it commenced.

The fight was going just fine, until she started using lightning. I had blocked another strike of her spear when she sent a shock through me.

I pushed through and continued to fight until we broke apart. She smirked, spinning her spear in her hand and very dramatically thrusting it into the ground sending lightning coursing through the ground and into my body, making my muscles lock up.

I grunt in pain.

"Only fight powerful demigods, huh? How's that for powerful?" I can hear the smirk in her voice.

I grit my teeth and charge forward. She wasn't exactly expecting that and when she blocked my strike it sent her off balance, and sent our weapons flying and we fell. I grabbed my knife from my belt, and held it to her throat. Once again, I was straddling her hips and her throat was under my knife.

Once again, she began laughing.

"Is it just me experiencing deja vu?"

I scoffed, "Once again, I win."

Suddenly, she sits up, putting me in the awkward position of straddling her lap with her hands on my thighs. I feel heat rising into my cheeks.

I quickly rise and she follows suit. I sheathed my sword and begin to walk away.

"Gone so soon?" I turn to find her right behind me, smiling widely.

"Zhang!" I say in response, "I have business to attend to as praetor, Grace."

"Thalia," She screws her face up at my use of her last name, "And I want a rematch."

"Wouldn't want to embarrass you, if this was best 2 out of 3 then I won already."

"Best 3 out of 5 then."

I roll my eyes.

"See you later, Grace." I begin to walk away Frank in tow.

"You can bet on it, Ramirez-Arellano."

I grimace at that, stopping briefly. I decide it's not worth it, and keep walking.

.Thalia.

At dinner Reyna sits at the head table looking bored out her mind and I decide to go keep her company. Taking my seat at the Head Table as Artemis' lieutenant next to Reyna, who is decidedly not looking at me, I strike up a conversation.

"You'd think I'd be the one avoiding your gaze after this afternoon."

She looked at me then, rolled her eyes and went back to looking bored. The rest of dinner past with me trying to get a reaction out of her and her very uncaring ears listening to me.

But tonight we were celebrating 6 months since the end of the war and the newfound peace between Greeks and Romans. I wanted to have fun and damn it all if I haven't wanted Reyna since the moment we met.

I am willing to wait for her though.

Reyna finally leans over to me and whispers in my ear, "This is not how you get in my pants."

"I wasn- I didn- I ju-" Every response I could have said died on my tongue while she just sat there snickering.

Reyna is just a mystery wrapped in a question mark. How the hell did she know I wanted her like that?

I'm still trying to get at her when Jason comes up to us.

"I have to go. An emergency came up." Reyna nods in acknowledgement.

Jason flies off to gods know where. Which leads to me realizing I'll have the cabin to myself...

Or not...

.Thalia.

During the celebration there is a lot of drinking.

Those Romans sure know how to party...

I opt to sleep in Cabin One rather than with the Hunters. I have a headache and just need some peace and quiet. I enter the cabin, stripping off my boots, my pants, and my jacket, and flop onto my bunk.

"You look wasted." I'm up in an instant, reaching for my bow.

I blink until my eyes fully adjust to the darkness and see Reyna making herself comfortable on my couch, flanked by her gold and silver dogs. They growled low at me and I narrow my eyes at them.

"Argum. Argentum. Dismissed." She commands, they slowly make their way out, like unearthly living statues with their beady red eyes and their-

"We need to talk," Reyna's voice snaps me out of my drunken stupor.

"About what?" I try my best not to slur my words.

"You're drunk." She says, crossing her legs and arching an eyebrow. I notice that she changed, wearing the same SPQR shirt, but with shorts shorts and she is barefoot. Those shorts were very nicely showing off her legs...

I must have been staring because she rolls her eyes and says, "If you would please stop undressing me with your eyes, we can talk; if not I'll wait till the morning."

I blinked a couple times.

"Sorry. You're pretty distracting in those shorts." I rubbed my eyes amd yawn.

Probably taking her off guard she stutters out a reply I didn't really listen to.

"So you wanted to talk?" I ask, and suddenly she's all business.

"Well, it's about you," I sit up, "And me. About what we talked about at dinner." I nod.

Maybe it was because I was drunk that I was being so slow, "Okay? I'm not following."

I watch as she bites her lip, thinking. While she thinks I go get some coffee from a machine I keep in the cabin. I feel her eyes on me as I get a cup and walk over to the couch and take a seat next to her.

The coffee helps clear my head. I bring my feet up onon the couch, resting one arm on the back of the couch, the other holds my cup. She stiffens when I sit next to her.

"I'm waiting," I say when the silence gets to deafening.

She turns to me, "I'm not very good at these things," I nod in understanding.

"Me neither." She gave a small laugh at that.

I put the almost empty cup of coffee on the table, and slid closer to Reyna, putting one arm behind her on the couch, and the other one grabbing her thigh. Her breathing hitched. I leaned in slowly until our lips were almost touching.

"Can I?"

Barely audible, "Please."

I capture her lips with mine. My hand lightly runs up and down her thigh until I grab her hip. Our kiss is like a fight for dominance, tongues dancing around each other, mine more experienced, hers more demanding.

She throws her leg over my lap so that she is straddling me. We break apart gasping for breath. Both my hands are on her thighs and her hands are on my shoulders. She makes the first move this time.

.Reyna.

As I recapture her lips with mine, her arms snake around my waist, and she stands. Never breaking apart, I wrap my legs around her, nipping at her lip. I hear her groan.

"Fuck."

Suddenly, my back hits a mattress, and Thalia is now over me, her body still between my legs. She stop for a second, having hooked her fingers under the waistband of my shorts.

Breathlessly she asks me, "Do you want to stop?"

Her electric blue eyes are locked on mine. Do I want to stop? Should I stop? All coherent thought melts away from me with one look at those eyes. I can only focus on the feeling of her hands on me, her eyes boring into mine.

And damn it all if those eyes aren't still distracting.

~*A/N*~

Please Read and Review. Hope you enjoy it. One more chapter, likely filled with fluff.

~WiseChic~