All Chapters of MAD END'S DECEPTION: Chapter 321 - Chapter 330

ARAHEENNot long after, General Lothair dismissed her. Though she would have preferred to discuss further war strategies, she knew better than to occupy her father’s time longer than necessary.As she stepped back into the High Council chamber, the red hummingbird from the ceiling caught her attention again. Its tiny head tilted, black eyes fixed on her with unnatural stillness.“You’ve got everything you need, you little sneaky spy?” she whispered, realizing at once she sounded like Arah.Without hesitation, she drew her sigil needle and flicked it upward. It sliced through the air like an arrow and pierced the creature clean through the chest.The hummingbird let out a sharp, metallic shriek as it plummeted to the marble floor. It convulsed briefly, wings twitching in broken spasms, before disintegrating into a fine ash that dissolved into the air.She lifted a hand and summoned her needle, pinning

GILDEONHis heart pounded. He felt Arah. She was right outside the door.With the last of his strength, he forced his dragon sight to flare, but the cell doors were laced with heavy, impenetrable magic. He couldn’t see through them.Her presence lingered only moments.Then she was gone.His jaw flexed, grinding side to side until his teeth ached. Every instinct in him screamed to rip free. He wanted to wrench against the chains until his shoulders tore from their sockets, until bone split and flesh ripped… until he dragged himself bleeding across the stones just to crash through those doors and force Arah to face him.He would demand that she look him in the eye and tell him the woman who held his heart was truly gone.Instead, exhaustion swallowed him whole.Darkness took him.*******Light knifed back into his skull.Agony followed.A violent, searing pain exploded fro

GILDEONHis breath stilled. All pain and exhaustion suddenly receded to the back of his mind. It felt like centuries since the last time he’d seen her.Two guards trailed behind Araheen. She turned her head slightly toward them and lifted a hand.“I’ll take it from here,” she said. “You can go now.”“But Lady Commander,” one protested, “the Vice Commander ordered us not to leave you alone with the prisoner.”Gildeon huffed quietly under his breath, finding grim satisfaction in the fact that Feviel—even as a sylph—did not trust his own wife to face him alone.“And my command to both of you is to leave,” Araheen said firmly. “Am I not clear enough?”The guards bowed immediately. “Forgive us, Lady Commander,” they said in unison. “We will be right outside.”When the doors shut, silence settled he

ARAHEENShe had lost control, if only for a moment.How had she allowed him to provoke her so easily?Before entering the chamber, she had disciplined herself. She had locked her emotions away, sealed them behind iron resolve, and sworn not to be swayed.Seeing Gildeon in such a battered state had twisted something low in her stomach. But she had forced herself to recover. To see him not as Gildeon, but as an enemy. A weapon. An asset to be used in war.And yet she had indulged him. She had answered his questions when she did not need to. She had convinced herself he deserved to know the full truth.She should have anticipated that the past would surface—their first meeting, the deaths of her siblings... What she had not accounted for was the fury still coiled inside her. When he had asked for forgiveness, it had burst free before she could contain it.Part of her had hoped he would meet her with hatred. That he

GILDEONNone of this was fucking fair.His body had finished regenerating days ago. Flesh knit clean. Bruises gone. Bones whole. The slow, dragging ache in his chest had faded into a steady rhythm.He was restored—except for the enchanted restraints still binding his power.Meanwhile, Eitan and Yadira lay sprawled on the floor in front of him, half-conscious. Fresh blood mixed with old, soaking into their hair, torn clothes, and staining the floor around them. Limbs that had been torn off and regrown several times left ghost scars along their skin. They both had missing fingers and toes, their claws either broken to jagged stumps or plucked clean from the root.Eitan had cracked ribs along his side. Yadira’s torso was a map of puncture wounds, some closed, some still leaking.It wasn’t fair that he could draw a full breath while theirs came shallow and rough.But that was the point. He’d figure