Chapter 186: A Schedule of Madness
The incidents with the elves, along with the endless paperwork, had finally been dealt with.
And with it, a certain human aide found himself standing in front of a mirror, holding a list he had absolutely made up on the spot.
Self? Check.
Money? Check.
Destination? Check.
Horoscope? Check.
Possible threats to personal safety or a territory-wide terrorism? Debatable, but check.
Approval? Working on it.
Okay, maybe not working on it. But at least thinking about working on it.
Riley sighed and stared at his reflection, expression torn between determination and defeat. "Why is this harder than asking for a raise?" he muttered. "For someone who just weakened the elven faction, how hard would it be to ask permission to go on a vacation?"
He could already hear it in his head.
"It’s dangerous," Kael would say. "The sigil has faded."
Riley groaned. "Yeah, yeah, I know."
And then, as if his imagination wasn’t done torturing him, another version of Kael’s voice followed. "You still haven’t spoken to your parents."
That one made him wince.
"Oh, right. The looming identity crisis," Riley muttered, dragging a hand through his hair.
But it didn’t stop there.
The current voice of reason that sounded too much like a certain someone’s voice surfaced in his mind, calm and authoritative as ever. "There’s still the unfinished investigation about Orien’s kidnapping, the stolen artifact, and the Elders in question."
Riley froze mid-eye roll.
To be fair, all of that was true. Every single one of them.
And as much as he wanted to argue with the imaginary dragon in his head, he was even losing the argument against himself.
Technically, he’d already been awarded vacation time. He won it fair and square after that first bloody incident with Kael. But choosing when to actually use it? That seemed to be a problem in itself.
Riley stared at his reflection again. "I’m making excuses," he said flatly. "Which was clearly why he needed to take a vacation."
He took a deep breath and turned on his heel, marching toward the door with the confidence of a man pretending to have his life together.
"Vacation," he told himself firmly. "As soon as possible. Before someone finds a new crisis and names it after me."
But if Riley were being honest, he didn’t really care where he went. He just needed to get out of the dragon estate before he completely deluded himself into something too insane.
Because honestly, while his life didn’t look all that different on the surface after the incident, that was only true for people who had no idea what the last two weeks had been like for him.
He was, technically, living like a normal human again.
He woke up, ate, worked a bit, rested, and even slept.
Okay, well, sure, just listing those was something old Riley wouldn’t have been able to do so easily, and it did make his life sound terrible—but that was just it.
All things considered, he was glad to report that there was now something resembling a work-life balance for him.
In fact, lately, there had been a little more life than work.
Insane, right?
So what was the problem? Wasn’t that basically a wish come true?
Well, sure—if not for the fact that he didn’t wake up to his alarm anymore, but to the alarm of a certain someone who apparently considered "minimal fabric" a new lifestyle choice.
Riley sighed just thinking about it. He hadn’t been a believer before, but after being spoiled and wearing them for a while, he was now sure that quality sleepwear wasn’t exactly disposable and could last for years. So why was wearing tops suddenly a dying concept?
He didn’t know. But the last time he had tried to ask, he’d been told, very seriously, "What’s the point?"
And Riley, tired and defeated, had decided that yes, fine, there was indeed no point.
But see, that wasn’t even the real issue.
The real issue was that ever since he’d woken up from that week-long coma, he’d been staying with the great dragon lord.
Literally.
Staying, eating, sleeping wi—
NEXT to the dragon lord.
Next. Definitely just next.
To be fair, there were also several valid reasons why things had ended up that way—and why it was still continuing, even though Riley was clearly up and walking around like a functional adult again.
The first reason was for safety and health.
He had been unstable before he woke up, and it wasn’t as if that kind of instability had just vanished overnight.
Second, he had to be observed.
His family hadn’t really known about the sigil’s existence, and they definitely didn’t know about its disappearance.
And Kael didn’t like that. Not one bit.
Every day, the dragon lord would check for any further fading and would click his tongue as if someone had committed a mortal sin.
Really strange behavior for someone who used to be searching for a way to remove it entirely.
Third, sometimes things happened to Riley. He couldn’t really explain them, and he definitely couldn’t risk being around anyone who couldn’t handle it.
His little magical misfires were nothing to the golden lizard, of course. But Liam? He’d probably not be too safe around Riley without Orien nearby to solve any budding fires.
That was also part of why he couldn’t just go home.
Aside from the area being practically soaked in bad energy and the smell of fish, Riley couldn’t risk accidentally burning down his furniture—or his entire apartment—during one of his "episodes."
While he seriously wasn’t an arsonist, with how many people were curious about him, just one fire would likely have landed him in a legitimate cell.
The dragon estate, however, was another story. It was heavily warded with fire-resistant enchantments and could handle most flames without so much as a scorch mark. Sure, the flowers might not have survived him, but at least the bed wouldn’t suddenly burst into flames and kill him in his sleep.
See? Valid.
Then there was the blood issue.
That new "requirement" of his meant he had to stay close to the dragon lord—who, in such an unprecedented way, had even gone ahead and made a feeding schedule for him.
A schedule based on observations they had retried over the past few days, Ahem.
To think he wouldn’t have known about it if he hadn’t seen the actual phone when he first learned about his newfound dependence on blood.
Yeah. An honest-to-goodness mobile phone.
To say Riley was shocked would be an understatement. He’d actually checked if his boss had been possessed.
But apparently not.
Apparently, Kael just needed something that could accurately remind him of the feeding times. Something that didn’t talk or announce, "It’s time!" like those enchanted Ministry clocks loved to do.
He also wanted a way to take pictures of the sigil’s fading progress.
So now there existed a phone with a gallery filled with nothing but photos of Riley’s shoulder, taken twice a day under consistent lighting.
Yes. That phone better never get stolen, or there would be very concerning news headlines once again.
Not that any of that was the most concerning thing about their current arrangement.
No, what was really driving Riley out of his mind was the growing, terrifying realization that there was a teeny, tiny chance he might be a degenerate.
Fine. Maybe not tiny. Because how could it be tiny when he was doing all sorts of things he should definitely not be doing—with a dragon. Worse, his boss.
Riley groaned and pressed both hands against his face. "What is wrong with me?" he hissed at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a man halfway between a crisis and a confession. "Get a grip, Riley. This is not normal. This is not okay."
He tugged at his hair and paced the room like it owed him answers. "I can’t be developing some kind of late-onset puberty. That’s not a thing. It’s not a thing!" And even if it were a thing, would it really happen so late?! Wasn’t he already too old? Several of his classmates were already married with children, and here he was dealing with something like this!
He paused, groaned again, and dropped into the nearest chair. "Or maybe it is. Maybe this is karma. Maybe I just secretly have a death wish."
Because honestly, what else could explain it?
He’d been finding himself in situations that any sane person would’ve called suicidal. Like sneaking in feedings at the most random places.
And the worst part? He didn’t even stop when the stopwatch said the feeding was over.
He just went with it, and Kael let him—indulged him, even.
There’d be no blood.
Instead, they would just go at each other like animals, then, the next moment, act as if they hadn’t just done something that would normally have annoyed Kael enough to fire someone.
And while the poor human aide could hide behind the blood transfusion excuse, even he wasn’t stupid enough to be unaware that he had jumped the guy several times now.
Riley buried his face in his hands again, muffling a half-scream, half-whine. "Aaaaahhhh!"