CHAPTER 110: THE DRAGON LORD’S SLEEPLESS NIGHT

What hour?

Riley didn’t even make it to the thirty-minute mark.

Barely twenty had passed before he was sprawled on the bedding, fast asleep, which was either a testament to how rattled he was or proof that cooking like a maniac and then attempting to punch the dragon lord counted as a full workout routine.

So yes. Out like a light.

But if it looked simple, that was only because one dragon lord spent the night monitoring one human who might as well have been charcoal waiting to ignite.

Sure enough, Riley Hale had not escaped unscathed from ingesting dragon blood.

It began at midnight.

"Haaa...! Huff!"

Kael’s eyes snapped open. They had been resting shut while he monitored the steady rise and fall of human lungs, but the sudden strangled sound pulled him fully alert. Riley’s heartbeat was steady. Mana flow unchanged. And yet...

"What now?" Kael muttered, watching as the aide twisted restlessly.

The human was still asleep, but his face flushed crimson, sweat beading across his brow. Kael placed a hand against his skin and frowned.

"...Hot."

Too hot. Far hotter than the fragile twig ever felt. Humans were supposed to be lukewarm at best, not this furnace about to combust.

Riley clawed weakly at his own shirt, tugging it to the side and away as if desperate to peel it off. His voice cracked, thick with sleep. "Hngh... haaa..."

Kael sighed. "If you are going to expire, at least say so clearly."

No answer. Just another strangled groan as Riley arched away from the sheets.

"Fine. I will grant you a vacation if you wake up now."

Still nothing. The human only flailed harder, fingers hooking at his collar, legs kicking like he was trying to burrow straight into the mattress.

"Two weeks," Kael tried again. "Paid."

The only reply was Riley’s sweaty forehead pressing into his chest, burning hotter than any forge.

Kael scowled down at him. "Do not pretend this is a strategy. It would be impossible to increase it further."

He sat back slightly, running a hand along Riley’s damp temple. Heat radiated into his palm, far too much for someone who was supposed to be fragile, mortal, and pitiful.

In short, this was far too much for a human.

For a dragon, it was laughable. He himself would not blink if thrown into molten rock. But this human was clearly struggling.

"Unacceptable," Kael murmured.

With a flick of his wrist, cold magic rippled across the bedding. The pillows chilled, the blanket frost-kissed, the mattress cooled to a tolerable degree.

Instantly, Riley shifted. His arms latched onto the pillow like a lifeline, legs tangling into the cooled blanket with all the desperation of a man drowning in heat.

Kael blinked. "Survival instincts. At least you still have those."

The dragon lord leaned back, watching the twig clutch enchanted bedding as if his life depended on it.

Still, Kael frowned. This was not what he had expected. Reaction to dragon blood usually meant bleeding from every possible orifice. Noses. Ears. Eyes. That sort of mess.

It was really the kind of thing that human hospitals wouldn’t be able to treat, and definitely the kind that would require effort from those born with mana.

But here Riley was, sweating buckets and writhing like he had been dropped into a sauna.

Perhaps... perhaps it was different because the twig had already survived being marked by a sigil. Perhaps his body reacted in another way.

Or perhaps this was merely the beginning.

After all, it was only midnight.

Kael folded his arms, eyes narrowing as he settled in to watch.

In a sense, it was both true and false.

Because yes, Riley hadn’t combusted. That part was true.

But false—so very false—because the entire night and well into the early hours of dawn, his condition had only gotten worse.

Even with the enchanted bedding, the twig wasn’t satisfied. He twisted, groaned, and finally returned to tugging at his clothes in his sleep. By the time Kael finished enchanting the room, Riley was practically half undressed, limbs tangled, cheeks red and damp with sweat.

The dragon lord tried shaking him awake once more.

Still no use.

He thought briefly about using magic to wake him up, but the mental image of the fragile human launching into hysteria stopped him.

So he tried layering cold enchantments on Riley’s clothes instead, or well, what remained of them. Still, it wasn’t enough.

Kael considered actual ice but dismissed it—humans were frail, prone to injury when exposed to direct frost. Yet when he pressed his palm against Riley’s burning skin, hotter than before, hotter than any human should ever be, he decided drastic measures were needed.

The enchanted spring that normally ran warm beneath the manor’s wards shivered, rippled, and then momentarily froze under Kael’s will before it was once again turned liquid. A steaming bath turned into a shimmering cold pool.

Kael carried Riley into the water, only to pause when a sharp hiss escaped the surface. Steam surged upward the instant Riley’s skin touched it, sizzling as if Kael had just dropped a live ember into the pool.

"...What the...?"

This was not something humans could do. They were not supposed to turn cold pools into boiling cauldrons.

What unsettled Kael more was this: at such temperatures, Riley should have been writhing in agony. And in turn, the confused dragon lord should have felt the pain of burning like this.

But no.

The aide only sighed, the tension in his body easing, his arms slack as though he had finally found relief.

Kael narrowed his eyes. "Ridiculous."

And yet, there he stayed.

Hours passed. If anyone had asked how often the dragon lord blinked during that time, the answer would have been zero.

Yes, a big fat zero. His golden eyes remained locked on Riley, unflinching. The only silver lining was that with all the steam constantly rising from the pool, his eyes were more moisturized than they had ever been in his entire life.

Through it all, Riley slept. Occasionally, he stirred in Kael’s arms, a restless twitch of fingers or a murmured sound, but never enough to wake.

Nothing changed.

Well, not until the birds began chirping.

And definitely not until that blasted phone let out a shrill alarm.

For a split second, the dragon lord genuinely considered hurling the device straight through the wall.

But he didn’t get the chance.

Because out of nowhere—likely born from nothing more than the involuntary reflexes of a pitiful employee—Riley jolted upright.

The same Riley who had been radiating heat like a part-time heater. The same Riley whom Kael had carried, cooled, and practically guarded through the night. The same one who, moments ago, still looked on the brink of boiling alive.

Now?

There he was, perched on the bed Kael had transferred him to after dragging him out of the pool before he wrinkled beyond repair, stretching lazily like this was nothing more than a regular morning.

Kael froze.

The dragon lord had tried everything—commanding, shaking, bribery, enchantments, even holding him through hours of restless heat—and not once did Riley so much as do anything more than stir and groan. And yet here he was, springing to life the moment a cheap alarm buzzed.

Kael’s golden eyes narrowed, daggers aimed at the offending phone.

Meanwhile, Riley yawned. Stretched. Rubbed the sleep from his eyes with all the serenity of someone who had not just kept a dragon lord awake all night in fevered panic.

Like nothing had happened.

Like he hadn’t turned into a human furnace.

Like Kael hadn’t spent the entire night making sure he didn’t spontaneously combust.

"..."

Kael breathed, low and unreadable, his glare still locked on the phone.

The silence thickened.

And Riley, blissfully unaware of the storm he had just walked into, blinked at the ceiling and muttered, "Five more minutes."

"..."