Elena's eyes fluttered open, too slow, like heavy shutters forced against a storm.
Above her loomed the snarl of a beast.
Fangs gleamed inches from her face, breath hot and rank with blood and incense. Its mane writhed with shadow, as if woven from serpents, and its eyes burned as twin suns of black fire. This was not the Lion she had known- this was something far more cursed.
"Did you really think you could escape me, mi Doña?" El León Negro's growl vibrated through her bones, a rumble so deep she thought her ribs might splinter beneath it.
Elena tried to part her lips, to summon lightning, even twitch a brow. Nothing. Her mouth was pried open only by a gag, cloth astringent and perfumed with ash.
The cloying sting of incense seared her lungs. Her side burned raw where something had pierced her. She shifted against cold stone, too weak, too heavy, and chains rattled. Mana cuffs bit into her wrists, their sigils writhing like living snakes, siphoning every spark of her storm.
And then she saw her.
The silhouette. Familiar. Dread sharpened like ice in her blood.
Dark robes swayed in a wind that wasn't there. Bone earrings clicked, steady as a clock measuring the last seconds of her life. The High Priestess stepped into view.
"No…" Elena's throat fought the gag, but only a muffled rasp tore free.
The Priestess's smile gleamed like a blade. Her laughter rang high and lilting, the sound of a bird that knew you could not escape its talons. It carried over the shattered walls of the altar, blending with a low, thrumming chant that made the very stones shiver.
"So you thought your binding to a bastard god would bring salvation? Power?" Her hand drifted across Elena's bare abdomen. Bare. Stripped. Elena's shame cut colder than the sea wind. "If we cannot take our goddess from you, then you will sire one, born of Storm and Lion."
Her laughter cracked metallic, brittle as swords clashing. Then her voice softened to a hiss, intimate as a lover whispering poison:
"El León Negro demands his consort. You will consent."
Elena's eyes sparked, lightning caught in violet depths, though her body sagged. She shook her head, wrists jerking until the cuffs tore her skin, but the drugged incense drowned her lungs, her heart, her strength.
The Priestess pressed her hand into the Lion's mane. She kissed his cheek like a consecrated bride. The beast hesitated, then licked her face in grotesque parody of devotion.
Cultists surged forward, bearing Elena's sagging form to an X-shaped scaffold overlooking the sea. Chains coiled around her limbs. The wind bit. Her back arched against the wood as one by one, each cultist pressed a hand to her womb in reverent violation. Elena shook her head frantically, gagged whimpers breaking her lips.
A great bonfire was lit. Its smoke twisted like black wings into the sky.
The High Priestess raised an obsidian dagger. Chanting in a cursed tongue, she carved sigils of hunger and fertility into Elena's flesh.
Elena screamed, blood spilling in indigo rivulets that shimmered like stormlight. With each cut, her magic pulsed hot and primal, flooding her most vulnerable parts, making her betray herself with gasps. She cursed them all with her eyes, cursed the Lion most of all. You loved me once. Stop this.
The beast leaned down, and with a groaning moan, licked the glowing sigils from her belly.
"Be mine again, mi Doña. Save yourself. Give yourself to me."
With surprising tenderness, he removed the gag. The High Priestess watched with rapturous hunger.
Elena's lips trembled, her voice raw as flame.
"You might as well kill me, pendejo. I belong to the sea, the storm, the flood. You had me, once. You never will again."
For a heartbeat, the Lion looked almost wounded. His tail swished sadly. A single tear tracked through his mane.
"You do this to yourself, then."
The gag returned.
The High Priestess stepped forward with her whip: a cat-o'-nine-tails, barbs and metal tied cruelly at each end. The sight hollowed Elena's stomach.The Inquisition's tool. The cult had inherited their cruelty.
The first strike ripped her breath away, flesh blooming into bloody welts across her chest. The second lashed her abdomen, her carved sigils blazing as pain made her vision white. The third shredded her shoulder, stars bursting before her eyes as she wept into the gag.
The Lion undid it again, his voice coaxing, velvet and fangs.
"End this, mi amor. Submit. Be mine."
The cultists' chanting swelled, the sigils glowing so hot they made her body tremble, betray her with involuntary moans. She spat through it with a scowl.
"Never. Do your worst. I belong to Jaime, and Jaime alone. Coatriskie is the only true lover of my goddess."
The gag returned.
The whip fell. Again. And again.
They were trying to break her. Elena realized, through tears and blood and haze. Oh, Jaime… I'll never give in. Never.
By the time dawn bled across the horizon, Elena's body was torn open, her blood running like rivulets of indigo fire. The sea shimmered with it. When the Lion pulled the gag free one last time, her voice was only a rasp, the barest threads of breath.
"Jaime… sorry… Jaime… love… you…"
Her head fell forward.
And El León Negro roared, shaking the coast, splitting the sky, as her body went limp in the rising sun.