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Home / Fantasy / The Devil's Broken Doll / Kabanata 161 - Kabanata 170

Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Devil's Broken Doll: Kabanata 161 - Kabanata 170

290 Kabanata

Chapter 161 - Put On Display

(Apollo)A faint smile tugged at Apollo's mouth as his gaze traced the evidence of her exertion, the leather soaked and moulded to the mounds of flesh around her chest. “And you,” he replied, glancing pointedly at the sweat-darkened leather clinging to her, “are not dressed for royal business.” She followed his look and scowled. “Then I should go change.” She tried to wriggle free. Apollo growled. The sound wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. His arms tightened, iron and heat closing around her, stride unbroken. The growl rolled through his chest, thunder leashed and waiting. “You don’t need to do for yourself,” he said, voice low and possessive, “what I can do far more efficiently for you.” Before she could argue, magic brushed her skin like warm breath. The sweat-soaked leather peeled away without a single buckle touched, dissolving into embers that vanished before they reached the floor. Cool air kissed her overheated skin, chased at once by silk—light as smoke—settling over

Chapter 162 - Speak Varketh

(Apollo)“Proceed,” Apollo said calmly. The court obeyed. No one questioned it. No one dared. Petitions resumed. At first, they came cautiously, as if the court itself was testing whether the moment might fracture under its own weight. One demon stepped forward. Then another. Voices rose, steadied, and gained confidence as the world stubbornly refused to end. Borders were disputed. Old grievances dragged into the light. Accusations sharpened, then softened again beneath Apollo’s gaze. He listened with the ease of something eternal, attention splitting effortlessly between voices, intent, and consequence. A flick of his fingers silenced one speaker. A tilt of his head dismissed another. Judgment flowed like lava—slow, inevitable, final. Adelaide listened. At first. Her attention drifted somewhere between the third territorial dispute and a long-winded complaint about trade routes. Her eyes tracked movement lazily, unfocused. The cadence of voices blurred into background noise, a s

Chapter 163 - Whispered Words

(Apollo & Adelaide) The throne room did not empty. It bled out, slow and reluctant. It drained, slow as cooling blood. At Apollo’s dismissal, demons scattered like ash caught in a furnace draft. They retreated the way smoke does when cold air invades—slow, unwilling, eyes clinging to the throne, bodies shifting backward rather than daring to turn away. Whispers died on their tongues. Wings snapped tight to spines. Claws scraped stone, the sound too sharp, too loud in the hush that followed. The scent of brimstone faded, leaving only the aftertaste of hot iron and incense burned down to memory. Apollo did not look at them as they left. He did not need to. He felt the last of them go, eager to be anywhere but under the weight of his attention now that his boredom had turned sharp. The throne room exhaled as the last of their attention faded. Heat sank into the stone, thickening the air until it pressed close, heavy and private. The hush that followed was not silence, but a reve

Chapter 164 - Lies of the Loyal

(Apollo & Adelaide) The silence stretched. Not awkward, but weighted. Like the pause before a storm chooses whether to break or pass. Her brows drew together, not in disbelief, but in something closer to concern. “Apollo,” she said softly. “That isn’t funny.” “I am not laughing.” She swallowed. Her gaze dropped, just briefly, to the spot where his hand rested on her thigh, fingers curved possessively but not tightly. Then back to his face. “You don’t mean that,” she said, quieter now. “You can’t.” Apollo’s mouth curved. Not cruel. Not teasing. Something like weary honesty. “I do not speak carelessly,” he replied. Adelaide lifted herself, pulling up to sit on his thigh so she could see his face without craning. Her arm came over his shoulder, fingers sliding into the thick hair at the back of his neck. The sheer fabric pooled and parted, falling from her leg like red smoke against black stone. The movement brought her closer, changed her angle, her body waking in small,

Chapter 165 - Kill The World

(Apollo & Adelaide) “When did you realise the truth?” she asked. Apollo’s eyes closed. “After,” he said. The word was quiet. Final. The room dimmed around them. Even the distant groan of the mountain went still. “She fell,” Apollo said, voice stripped bare now. “And the moment she did, the lie unravelled.” His breath shuddered. “Not because he confessed. Because her flame vanished.” Adelaide’s breath caught painfully. Her fingers tightened reflexively in his hair, as if the idea of flame going silent struck something deep and primal in her. The throne room seemed to shudder. Apollo’s breath hitched—not visibly, not dramatically, but Adelaide felt it against her skin. Felt the way the moment carved something open in him. “I knew her power,” Apollo went on. “I knew the way it moved. The way it answered her. When it went silent—” He swallowed. “There was no betrayal strong enough to kill that bond.” The admission settled between them. Heavy. Terrible. Not guilt. Knowledge.

Chapter 166 - Unraveling Truth

(Caelum Ashoborne) Caelum did not move when the throne hummed. He felt it first through his bones—not the sound itself, but the shift beneath it. A deep, ancient vibration that rippled up through the stone floor and into his boots, through his legs, into his spine. The mountain did not wake. It listened. The hum carried a pressure more than a note, but a bell struck underwater. It entered him at the teeth first, set his molars on edge, then sank into the hollow places behind his ribs where fear liked to live. The realisation chilled him more than any threat ever had. Not cold, exactly. A clean, surgical absence of warmth, as if the air had remembered snow and decided to weaponise it. His lungs tightened on the next inhale, instinct trying to make him smaller, quieter, less noticeable to a room that could feel intent like scent. He pressed himself harder into the shadows along the outer colonnade, the carved pillars cold and sharp against his back, their ancient sigils biting fa

Chapter 167 - What Chains Makes

(Apollo & Adelaide)The vast chamber breathed differently without its court. The only sound was the deep, ancient quiet of Hell’s heart, the slow pulse of the mountain beneath them, and the faint crackle of torches bowing inward as if reluctant to intrude. The silence wasn’t empty; it pressed at the edges, dense and listening, as though the room itself had learned to hold its breath. Apollo had not moved. Adelaide still lay against him, cradled across his lap, her body warm and real where moments ago the weight of centuries had pressed down upon them both. The heaviness of the confession lingered like smoke after fire—visible even when unseen, impossible to ignore. It clung to the air, to skin, to the narrow space between heartbeats. She could feel it in the way his arm remained firm around her waist. Anchoring her to him in every way. She shifted slowly, carefully, as though afraid a sudden movement might fracture whatever fragile truth had finally been spoken aloud. Her muscles

Chapter 168 - The Weight of Choice

(Apollo & Adelaide)A crown placed. A law recognised. The words landed heavier than any threat he had ever uttered. He lifted his other hand, cupping her jaw with deliberate gentleness, forcing her to meet his gaze. His thumb brushed beneath her cheekbone, tracing the warmth there as if anchoring himself to something real. “I have waited centuries,” he said quietly. “Not knowingly. Not patiently. But I have waited.” His thumb brushed along her cheek, tracing the warmth there. Her pulse jumped under his touch, quick and unguarded. “And then you walked into my pit and stood against me like you were born to do it.” Her pulse thundered. She felt it everywhere—in her throat, her wrists, the hollow behind her ribs where fear and exhilaration tangled until they were indistinguishable. “You are my queen,” he said. “And therefore Hell’s queen. You are my equal. My balance.” His voice softened—not weakening, but deepening. Something ancient bent around the words, reshaping itself in

Chapter 169 - Unholy Union

(Apollo & Adelaide)He lifted his hands. With deliberate care, he drew her garment up and over her head, the fabric whispering as it passed her skin. Adelaide lifted her arms for him without thinking, pulse racing, every nerve alive as the last barrier between them vanished. The air touched her bare skin, and she shivered—not from cold, but from the weight of being seen without disguise. No rush. No fumbling. He stripped her as one would undress something sacred, lifting the cloth free and casting it aside. It fell soundlessly to the stone floor, a stark shape at the foot of the throne. Apollo’s breath halted. For a heartbeat, he simply looked at her. Not like a king surveying a prize. Like a man staring at the thing he was about to lose himself to. Then fire answered him. The fabric of his own clothing ignited in a sudden, controlled flare, not wild but precise, flames licking up and away from his body without heat or pain. The fire consumed the leather in a single breath, lea

Chapter 170 - Intimate Proclamations

(Caelum Ashborne) Caelum remained where he was. He pressed himself into the narrow seam of shadow between two carved pillars, stone cold and unyielding against his spine. He did not move. Not out of fear of being seen, but because movement itself had become a kind of decision, and he was not ready to choose again. The muscles along his spine locked tight, breath held shallow in his chest, as if even the act of shifting his weight might tip something irreversible into motion. The throne room had changed. The change was subtle. Not the roar of fire or the ringing hum of power he had learned to recognise over centuries of service, but something quieter, more dangerous. The air no longer waited for command. It listened. It pressed inward, not outward—a presence that did not demand obedience, only attention. He felt it press against his skin—a warmth without threat, heat that had already chosen its shape. The fine hairs along his arms lifted, his body registering the shift before his

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