CHAPTER 77: THE FORGOTTEN STUNT

The suspicious hand turned into a pointed finger that tapped against his chest. Then came a voice, low and merciless.

"At least control your heartbeat if you plan on pretending for any longer."

"!!!"

Eyes flew open, scowl already forming before his brain caught up. Control his heartbeat? If he could do that, he would have had a whole different career path—one that didn’t involve being manhandled by a lizard with authority issues. But no, clearly he couldn’t, and yet Kael didn’t even bother to play along. He had to call him out.

They stared each other down, brows furrowing deeper with every passing second, the air between them buzzing with something sharp. Each scowl only deepened the other’s, like a contest to see who could look more offended by the other’s very existence.

The thought of earlier clawed its way back into his head, unbidden. He opened his mouth to demand an explanation—

"Did you have a death wish?" Kael cut in, voice like ice.

Mouth clamped shut, then snapped open again. Annoyance spiked instantly. How dare this dragon accuse him when clearly he was the one with the suicidal impulse?

"My Lord," he bit out, voice dripping venom, "don’t you think you should be asking yourself the same question?"

"Oh, so now it’s back to ’My Lord’? After all that ’Kael this, Kael that’?"

"Well, I apologize, MY LORD"—he slammed the emphasis down like a hammer—"for having to use your name instead of your oh-so-sacred title."

Kael’s brow arched high, eyes calmly assessing the anger practically radiating from him. Then, with infuriating composure, he said, "Did I say you need to change it back? Now that everyone has heard you calling me that, people will suspect something is wrong if you start using honorifics again."

"What—?" He almost choked on his own outrage, convinced he had misheard.

Eh?

"But why?"

Kael’s gaze sharpened. "After that stunt you pulled, you think you can just wash yourself clean of the title you claimed for yourself?"

"???"

Words failed him. What stunt? What title? Why was his boss speaking like a cryptic riddle scrawled on the back of a cursed scroll?

"You’re not making sense," he snapped, throwing his hands up. "Explain it. Because I don’t remember anything but the extreme desperation to stop you from annihilating all of us. So unless I sleepwalked into something insane, I’d like to believe you’re mistaken."

Kael’s composure didn’t falter. "Then allow me to remind you. You need to take responsibility for me."

His brain blanked. "...Excuse me?"

"After the public kiss that cemented it."

"WHAT?!" He shot upright so fast the blankets tangled around his legs. "That didn’t happen!"

One perfect brow lifted, calm as ever. "For someone who insists he doesn’t remember, you seem very certain it didn’t."

"I—I mean—it couldn’t have happened! Because I haven’t gone that crazy yet!" His face twisted like he’d just swallowed something rancid.

Kael’s patience snapped with a flick of his wrist. A magical orb appeared, flickering to life in the air between them. The recording from the hall played back with cruel clarity.

And from this damned angle—

"It looks like I kissed you?!" He grabbed at his own lips, as if they might confirm otherwise. Or maybe it was to check if he still had an intact mouth.

"Yes," Kael said smoothly. "It didn’t happen. But to everyone else, it did." He leaned in, voice dropping into quiet gravity. "And tell me—after all your effort flaunting our so-called intimacy, do you really think anyone will bother listening to your explanation?"

His jaw fell open, aghast. "Why is this suddenly my fault?! Technically, Sir, isn’t this your fault—and your ancestors’—and maybe the universe’s?!" He jabbed a finger at Kael like he wanted to stab sense into him. "Also, wouldn’t this entire thing have been avoided if you didn’t try to kill everyone else?! Sir?!"

The aide had had enough. Something inside him finally snapped.

"Do you want to know what your problem is?" The words shot out before reason could drag them back. "It’s you! Always you! I didn’t even ask to be born into this world, but guess what? I still honored that ridiculous debt my family saddled me with. I’ve done my part. I paid it back to an acceptable degree! If you had just released me earlier, both of us wouldn’t even be stuck in this mess!"

Chest heaving, he stabbed a finger toward Kael’s face, ignoring the way golden eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "And if you’d been just a little more reasonable, we wouldn’t have had to slap sigils all over me just to keep me alive. I’m not fit for this job. I wasn’t born for it! You think this is normal? You think it’s fun? Because I sure don’t!"

The litany only gathered momentum. "And yeah, fine, maybe I blame myself too!"

"I’m always throwing myself into situations beyond my reach, because that’s apparently my brand of stupid. I don’t regret saving Orien, not for a second, but you know what I do regret?" His eyes narrowed as he paused.

"Not just attacking the assailants outright! At least then I’d only have a bunch of merfolk to deal with instead of the entire dragon-kind wanting to roast me alive like a side of beef!"

His voice cracked, high and raw with pent-up frustration. "And another thing! If you could actually control your temper, maybe I wouldn’t have felt like I was one breath away from dying, begging for everything to stop! Or maybe—just maybe!—if you had bothered to warn me about a pain so horrific it made me wish for death, I could’ve braced myself for it! But no! You just let me get steamrolled by it!"

The grievances spilled out in waves, tangled, frantic, unstoppable. "I even stubbed my toe earlier, and you know what? That’s your fault too! Because I was so shocked by you that I probably hit the damn chair leg without realizing it!"

By now he was panting, face flushed, arms flailing with every point like punctuation marks. What started as fury had turned into wild, almost childish whining, a pressure valve finally releasing after being screwed tight for too long.

And yet, through all of it, the dragon across from him didn’t snap. Didn’t scowl. Didn’t even twitch a claw.

Only when the silence stretched did the realization hit like ice water. He’d just spent the last few minutes screaming at the Dragon Lord himself, who could probably flick him in half if he felt like it.

The smart thing would be to shut up. Back down. Pretend none of this happened.

But his mind was already too far gone, and if dragon-kind was ready to barbecue him anyway, then what was one insanely strong golden lizard compared to the rest of the clan?

So he squared his shoulders, bracing himself for impact. He even flinched, preparing for the smackdown that surely had to be coming.

It didn’t.

Instead, the unthinkable happened.

"I’m sorry."

"..."

"???"

Eyes blinked furiously, brain stuttering to a stop. Had he heard that correctly?

"Come again???"

"I said I’m sorry."

Time seemed to slow. The aide stood frozen, staring, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Blinking was the only action left to him.

"You’re... sorry?"

"Yes."

Woah.

Shit. That was practically a third admission. His heart thundered, too loud, too heavy. He didn’t even think such a word existed in the golden lizard’s dictionary.

But what if this was a trick? What if Kael was only pacifying him?

Suspicion cut through the haze. "For what?"

"For putting you in situations you don’t like."

Simple. No frills. No excuses. No long-winded lecture. Just... that.