บททั้งหมดของ The Devil's Broken Doll: บทที่ 361 - บทที่ 370

(Caelum Ashborne) Cael's arms loosened. Slowly. Reluctantly. He lowered Adelaide back onto her feet. She looked at him in confusion, searching his face as though she couldn't understand why the world had suddenly shifted beneath them. "Cael?" He rested his forehead against hers one last time, forcing himself to breathe. "We have to talk first." She smiled sadly. "No." "Adelaide..." "No." She reached for him again before he could retreat, her hands finding the fastening at the front of his shirt instead of his face this time. One clasp slipped free beneath her fingers almost absently as she leaned in to press another lingering kiss against the hollow beneath his collarbone. "I don't want another conversation." Another fastening yielded. "I don't want another prophecy." Her lips brushed lightly across his chest as she spoke, each word carrying more exhaustion than desire. "I don't want another person telling me who I'm supposed to become." The ribbons at her shoulders, l

(Caelum Ashborne) Adelaide didn't move. She didn't breathe. She stared at him, her eyes fixed upon his face with an intensity that almost frightened him. "No." The word escaped her as little more than air. "No..." She shook her head slowly, almost absently, as though the movement might somehow rearrange the world back into something recognisable. "...you're confused." The sentence sounded fragile even to her own ears. "You've..." She swallowed. "You've misunderstood something." Cael closed his eyes. "I haven't." "No." She shook her head again, more firmly this time. "No, because..." Her breathing had begun to shorten. "Because none of that makes sense." She laughed. A tiny, broken sound. "You cried." His heart lurched. "When Apollo..." Her voice faltered before she forced herself onward. "When he..." She looked away for only a heartbeat. "...when he hurt me..." She looked back at him. "...you cried." The memory struck him with unbearable clarity. He remembered every se

(Adelaide) Another memory rose uninvited. Apollo was with her. She was hanging from the chamber ceiling, naked and panting. She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly her head began to ache. She hadn't wanted to remember that one. But she did. She remembered the touch of his flame. The pressure of his hands. The pleasure. So much pleasure. But she also remembered the humiliation and the helplessness. But more than either of those... She remembered afterwards. She remembered standing waist-deep beneath the drifting steam of the bathhouse, convinced she had somehow ruined whatever fragile thing had been growing between them after the coldness in his voice had cut straight through her. She had believed, if only for those few unbearable minutes, that he regretted ever coming close to her. Then he had followed her into the water. Not because he had been ordered to. Because he couldn't bear leaving things that way. She remembered the apology. Not polished. Not rehearsed. Quiet. Awkward. Alm

(Adelaide)Adelaide lowered her eyes to the dark berry cordial swirling gently inside her goblet. "I don't think I'm her." "No." His answer came immediately. "You aren't." She looked up. "You are something altogether your own." The words should have comforted her. Instead... For reasons she couldn't quite explain... They didn't. The silence returned, stretching comfortably for Arkael, though Adelaide found herself increasingly aware of the distance to the door behind him. She drew a slow breath. "There is... something I wanted to ask." His expression brightened. "Anything." She hesitated only briefly. "I think..." The words felt strangely difficult to say aloud. "...I'd like to return to the Citadel." Arkael didn't react. Not outwardly. He regarded her for a long moment, as though politely waiting for the rest of the sentence. When none came, he asked quietly, "Return?" She nodded. "Only for a little while." His head tilted almost imperceptibly. "May I ask why?" She co

(Apollo) Pain had become the only measure of time Apollo trusted. It arrived without rhythm and left without mercy, rising through him in savage waves that tore apart whatever fragile awareness remained before withdrawing just far enough to let him understand that another was coming. Hours no longer meant anything. Neither did sleep. He drifted in and out of consciousness beneath the low vaulted ceiling of his private healing chamber, surrounded by the metallic stink of his own blood, the bitter smoke of purification herbs and the soft, incessant drip of crimson falling from the silver tubes fastened into the veins of his arms. Every basin beside the narrow stone bed had been filled, emptied and returned so many times that he had lost count. Fresh cuts had been opened whenever the old ones began closing. New sigils had been carved over his skin when the poison found another place to hide. His body had been drained until even the healers had begun exchanging frightened glances, yet th