12
LYSSA
Consciousness returns like drowning in reverse—harsh, unwelcome, dragging me up from merciful darkness into a reality I'm not ready to face. My body hangs suspended, arms stretched above my head, wrists bound in iron shackles that bite into my skin. Naked. Vulnerable. The cold air raises goosebumps across my flesh, but the chill is nothing compared to the ice that settles in my stomach as I take in my surroundings.
This isn't a cave. It's a cathedral.
Walls of skull and bone rise around me, stretching up into shadows that the firelight can't reach. Femurs and ribcages form twisted architecture, creating arches and buttresses that mock any holy place I've ever seen. The skulls stare down at me with hollow sockets—human, Waira, dark elf, species I can't even identify. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. All watching. All judging.
At the center of the chamber sits a massive stone slab, dark with stains I don't want to identify. Heavy chains hang from its corners, their metal links worn smooth by use. Around it, small pedestals form a perfect circle, each one carved from what looks like a single massive bone. The craftsmanship is exquisiteand horrifying—these aren't crude altars but carefully designed furniture for whatever rituals happen here.
A fire roars in an enormous hearth carved into the far wall, casting dancing shadows that make the skull-walls seem to move and shift. The flames are wrong somehow—too bright, too hungry, consuming wood that crackles with sounds like breaking bones. The heat should be comforting after the mountain cold, but instead it feels predatory, like being warmed by something that plans to devour me.
But it's the smell that makes my stomach lurch. Blood, yes—old blood soaked deep into stone and bone until it's become part of the architecture itself. But underneath that copper tang is something else.
Something musky and intimate and obscene. Sex. Raw, animal coupling mixed with pain and fear until I can't tell where pleasure ends and torment begins.
The sound of approaching footsteps echoes through the bone cathedral—one set confident and measured, the other uneven and eager. I crane my neck toward the entrance, my heart hammering so hard I'm sure it can be heard over the crackling fire.
She enters like a queen holding court.
Beda flows into the chamber draped in robes of deep purple and black that seem to absorb the firelight rather than reflect it. The fabric moves like liquid shadow around her form, occasionally parting to reveal glimpses of pale skin underneath. Her beauty is undeniable and utterly wrong—perfect features arranged in an expression of serene cruelty, dark hair falling in waves around shoulders that should belong to a goddess, not a monster.
Behind her, connected by a leather leash, stumbles the thing that was once Saulo.
I've heard stories of dark elves—their ethereal beauty, their predatory grace. This creature bears no resemblance to those tales. Naked and scarred, he moves with the jerky enthusiasm of a broken toy, his movements equal parts eager and unnatural. Where his groin should be, there's only a smooth hollow of scar tissue, the castration so complete it looks almost surgical. But it's his expression that makes my stomach turn—not the blank stare of the truly broken, but the bright, terrible excitement of something that has found purpose in its own destruction.
"Isn't she an exquisite little cunt, Saulo?" Beda's voice is honey over broken glass, sweet and cutting all at once.
The thing that was Saulo lurches forward with a hungry whine, but Beda jerks the leash short. He stumbles backward, practically dancing with frustrated desire.
"Easy, elf. You'll get your chance to taste her."
A whimper escapes my throat. The sound seems to please them both—Beda's lips curve in a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, while Saulo bounces on his toes like an excited child.
The crack of Beda's palm across my cheek explodes through the chamber. My head snaps to the side, stars bursting behind my eyes. Saulo makes a sound of pure delight, pressing against his leash as if the violence feeds something deep inside him.
"Come, Saulo," Beda purrs, her voice rich with promise. "Let us show her what education means."
Saulo claps his hands together and actually jumps with glee, his hollow groin making the movement grotesque. This is what they've made of him—not just a victim, but an enthusiastic participant in his own degradation.
And I hope that I am not next. I hope that at any moment Thorrin and Kaerith will coming smashing into the world and tear these two beasts apart.
“Up, boy.”
Saulo leaps onto the pedestal in a single fluid motion, landing on all fours and then rising tall, spine straight, chest proud. The collar stays—he is trusted, but never free. He plants his feet wide, thighs trembling with eagerness, and waits like a statue carved from devotion.
Beda turns to the roaring fire. She lifts both arms, palms forward, and speaks words that hurt to hear—old Waira twisted through dark-elf cadences, syllables that scrape the inside of my skull like claws on slate. The fire answers. It surges higher, white turning to searing red, and she reaches in.
Her hand does not burn.
She draws forth a thing that should not exist: a thick, phallic bone the length of a man’s forearm, carved from some massive femur and glowing cherry-red from crown to root. Veins of molten heat pulse beneath the surface. It steams in the cold air, yet her fingers close around it without blister or scream.
Saulo’s breath hitches. His scarred chest heaves. His hollow groin weeps clear fluid in anticipation.
Beda walks to him slowly, hips rolling beneath the robe, the red-hot bone held out like an offering. When she is close enough that the heat kisses his skin, she presses the tip to the hollow place where his cock was cut away.
Saulo screams.
