<div style="margin: auto;max-width:350px;height:550px;background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #196F3D  41%, #82E0AA 103%);"><br/>
<div style="margin:auto;width:250px; height:130px;background:url('https://64.media.tumblr.com/38a5cbadf9c744fecdb0307f2d4f67da/d1d23c63b3eb4dc6-d1/s400x600/3d939961f58836c23a87b2d0187987ec9c9cf2e5.gif'); background-size: cover; background-position: center;font-size: 0px;opacity:100%;box-shadow: 2px 3px 9px #000000;font-size:0px;margin-top:0px;">image.</div><br/>
<div style="margin:auto;max-width:300px;height:250px;background-color:#0000000;font-family: century gothic;text-align: justify; font-size: 12px; color: #ffffff; line-height: 16px; padding: 10px; overflow-y:auto;margin-top:-10px;cursor: pointer; text-shadow: 2px 2px 3px #000000;"><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<i><b>Three days</b></i>. It had been three days since Santiago had seen Lilianna last, and he could still remember the final glimpse that he had been given of her as she finished securing her sleek, freshly-sharpened butterfly blades into the thigh-high weapons holster that she’d so cleverly hidden around the lithe sinew of her upper leg; on the surface, there hadn’t been an ounce of fear or nervousness to detect in her, but he had seen the faint, barely-there tremor of trepidation that rippled beneath her skin like a current of untapped electricity. He’d fought tooth and nail against the admittedly-faultless plan that she had come up with, telling her over and over again that it wasn’t safe for her to step into the Ninth Circle with a fucking target on her <i>back</i>, but there was no stopping Lilianna Shu Lei when she’d set her mind to something - especially when it came to this. <br/>
<br/>
Hunting down her mother’s killer was what she lived and breathed for; even the rebellion’s ultimate endgame came in second place when juxtaposed against his second-in-command’s dauntless quest for vengeance. <i>You’ll have to physically restrain me to keep me from going,</i> she’d told him in that clipped, measured voice of hers, the elegant combination of the refined British accent she’d picked up at her time studying medicine at Oxford and her native Chinese tongue coursing over him like cool water, <i>and I don’t recommend it, not unless you’ve lost all attachment to your</i> balls<i>, Santi</i>.<br/>
<br/>
He’d waited all night for her to return, just down the street from the club even though she had told him a thousand times over to stay safely within the compound, and when last call had come and gone, and there was no sign of his brilliant swan - he’d instantly panicked and swarmed<i> El Noveno Círculo</i>, pounding on the doors and shouting to be let in until his voice was hoarse, but - something treacherous had taken place within the elite night club, and nobody was allowed in or out until further notice. There had been an incident, and Santiago would have been a <i>damned</i> fool not to realize that not only was Lilianna undeniably tangled up in whatever it was that had happened, but… <br/>
<br/>
The possibility that she had been the <i>catalyst </i>of it was extremely in her favor. <br/>
<br/>
Now, days later, he was a man driven half-mad. Every resource that the resistance had to offer had been re-routed towards finding Lilianna; he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t <i>think</i> of anything that didn’t directly revolve around locating his best lieutenant. <br/>
<br/>
His best <i>girl</i>. <br/>
<br/>
Mei Mei, the tiny teacup pig that Lilianna had adopted several years ago, let out yet another pitiful-sounding <i>oink</i> as he he nudged his snout sorrowfully against Santiago’s ankle, and with a long, weary sigh, the leader of the rebellion bent down and scooped the pint-sized familiar up into his strong, muscle-corded arms. “We’ll get her back, Mei,” he said quietly, with a gentle <i>scritch scritch</i> behind the little creature’s fuzzy ears, but his gaze was focused intently on the television turned on in front of him. <br/>
<br/>
<i>“Paolo Deleon, eldest son of Hades and leader of the Garduna clan was spotted outside of </i>El Noveno Círculo<i> today, less than seventy-two hours after the gristly double murder that took place within infamous trafficking hub. Stay tuned for more updates as we - ”</i><br/>
<br/>
A tall, well-built man with a tumble of dark, shiny curls and a mouth that curved wickedly without even needing to curl up into a smirk dominated the screen, and Santiago felt every nerve in his body tense, every hackle rise, as he caught the glint of satisfaction present in the celestial’s hedonistic gaze, as if he’d just left the premises of a high-stakes poker game rather than an active crime scene where two of his own had fallen - a high-stakes poker game in which he’d come away with the<i> lion’s share</i> of the winnings. <br/>
<br/>
Santiago stood up abruptly from where he’d sat at the edge of the bed he’d once shared with Lilianna, and with a dismayed-sounding <i>oink</i>, Mei Mei scampered off in search of his owner that was nowhere to be found. <i>That’s him</i>, the Spaniard thought to himself grimly, as the realization settled over him like the deadly sheen of ice atop a frozen lake right before it cracked, <i>that’s the man that took her</i>.<br/>
<br/>
</div><br/>
<div style="margin: auto;max-width:450px;height:450px;text-align: center;line-height: 25px;letter-spacing: 10px;text-shadow: 1px 1px 10px #ffffff;font-family: UnifrakturCook;font-size: 40px;color:#ffffff;margin-top:-40px;"><br/>
santiago<br/>
cabrera</div><br/>
<div style="color:#a4a4a4;text-align: center; font-size: 8px; letter-spacing: 3px; text-transform: uppercase;margin-top:-360px;">code by promethean</div></div><div style="margin: auto;max-width:350px;height:550px;background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #f9ecf3 41%, #dc93b9 103%);"><br/>
<div style="margin:auto;width:250px; height:130px;background:url('https://64.media.tumblr.com/c2c25a89190d672aaf37e030098bcde7/f406348f073ef507-8e/s540x810/0477254b5078dc0ca31fe51498a603bff2cddf5a.gif'); background-size: cover; background-position: center;font-size: 0px;opacity:100%;box-shadow: 2px 3px 9px #000000;font-size:0px;margin-top:0px;">image.</div><br/>
<div style="margin:auto;max-width:300px;height:250px;background-color:#0000000;font-family: century gothic;text-align: justify; font-size: 12px; color: #ffffff; line-height: 16px; padding: 10px; overflow-y:auto;margin-top:-10px;cursor: pointer; text-shadow: 2px 2px 3px #000000;"><br/>
<br/>
By the time that the furies finally finished with her, Lilianna was nothing short of livid. Nobody would tell her what was going on still, why they insisted on calling her <i>Persephone</i> even as she reminded them over and over again of who she actually was, and there was still the unsolved mystery of what had happened back at <i>El Noveno Círculo</i>; with each blink of her large, luminous eyes, she saw the charred, blackened bodies of the two celestials that she had accidentally killed with her bare hands - with an onslaught of divine, god-given <i>power</i> that had come from seemingly nowhere. And now, after a worrying number of days in which she had remained unconscious due to the sheer exertion that had overcome her supposedly-human body in the wake of the calamitous <i>something </i>that had awakened within her, she was trapped inside of a sprawling, labyrinthine manor with no exit or entrance to be found anywhere within its opulent depths. Instead of being given the answers to <i>any</i> of her questions, she had been primed and groomed like a prized <i>mare</i>, polished and scrubbed from head to toe and shrouded in scarlet silk that matched the blood-red of her murderous rage. <br/>
<br/>
The sands of Lilianna’s patience were rapidly abating as she was marched, with her clenched little hands still tied neatly behind her back with Thierry’s glimmering rope, into yet another room of the estate; this one was clearly meant for entertaining guests, and she breathed out an incredulous <i>huff</i> as she saw the decadent spread of wine and hor d'oeuvres that had been laid out in splendorous abundance in front of her. “I’m going to remove this now, alright?” the fury said in a calm, measured voice, as if she was talking to a child, and Lilianna forced herself to remain still as the electric-charged length of magic-imbued cord was mercifully unbound from her sore, delicate wrists. <i>Good</i>. <br/>
<br/>
Despite the fact that she was half-starving after nearly seventy-hours without sustenance, Lilianna staunchly refused to so much as look at the food and drink that had been presented so luxuriously in front of her; she didn’t trust a single thing that had been provided, and she decided then and there that she would sooner allow herself to wither away to <i>nothing</i> than fall prey to the celestials more than she already had. Still, her famished stomach growled with open, unquenched hunger, but Lilianna focused instead on the sharp, polished gleam of the silverware settings on the silk placemat.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hmm</i>. <br/>
<br/>
The door to the dining room finally opened, and she stood instantly, the cat-like coil of her musculature taut and tense beneath the pale porcelain of her moonlit skin as she turned to look at her apparent dinner guest. She had already known who to expect, but the sight of <i>Paolo Deleon</i> in the flesh still wasn’t something that she could have ever truly prepared herself for. He was beautiful in the way that only a celestial could have been, with his glossy, untamed curls that fell into his dark eyes that shone like the night sky in hell; despite the fact that he was a <i>god</i>, there was something immensely unholy about him, something twisted and vicious and decidedly iniquitous. To worship him in any capacity would have been to brand yourself a heathen, a <i>sinner</i>, and Lilianna hated him immediately for the way that he towered over her willowy frame. She’d been left barefoot by the furies, and even though she stood at an elegant height of 5’10, Paolo was taller - Paolo was <i>bigger</i> - and the sound of his voice was like velvet that had been lined with box-cutter sharp thorns as he stepped further into the elaborate dining room.<br/>
<br/>
And Lilianna was forced to react as quickly as she possibly could. “<i>Bastard</i>,” she hissed in a fiery, fury-enhanced rush as she reached swiftly for the bone china steak knife that she had been eyeing; it certainly wasn’t ideal - it certainly wasn’t her beloved <i>butterfly blade</i> - but it was <i>something</i>, and she didn’t hesitate to brandish it at the ready as she <i>lept</i> towards Paolo mere seconds after he’d greeted her by the wrong name. The seductive split of her lingerie-like gown fluttered open sensuously to bare her long, shapely legs as she used one of them to kick out with trained, skillful precision - up into his chest her poised blow would land, and Lilianna was quick to take full advantage of his surprise as she pushed him fully down upon the smooth quartz of the dining floor.<br/>
<br/>
Now, she straddled his sternum, with both of her lithe, toned thighs parted on either side of his pectorals as she bore down on him with all of the strength that she could muster. She was dizzy from not eating, from the way that her body was still <i>recovering</i>, but none of that was enough to stop her from bringing the edge of her dinner knife to the god’s exposed throat, and - curiously enough, it seemed as if he’d already suffered an earlier infliction, if the faint, almost-invisible ligature mark near his Adam’s Apple was anything to go by. “I need you to tell me why the <i>hell </i>it is that you’ve brought me here,” she spat heatedly, and with the hand that wasn’t golding the blade to his neck, she reached for his <i>stupidly </i>gorgeous hair instead, threaded her fingers through the lush curls, and lifted his head up only so that she could bring it down with a harsh little <i>thud</i> upon the floor.<br/>
<br/>
“If it’s because I killed those <i>despicable</i> men of yours, then you should know that they deserved it,” she breathed over the spiraling crescendo of her own heartbeat as she dug the serrated edge of the knife in just a bit further, just enough to draw a few droplets of blood that matched the wine-colored material of his sharply-cut tuxedo. “And I’ll kill <i>you</i>, too, if you don’t start answering my questions within the next thirty seconds.”<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</div><br/>
<div style="margin: auto;max-width:450px;height:450px;text-align: center;line-height: 25px;letter-spacing: 10px;text-shadow: 1px 1px 10px #ffffff;font-family: UnifrakturCook;font-size: 40px;color:#ffffff;margin-top:-40px;"><br/>
lilianna<br/>
shu lei </div><br/>
<div style="color:#a4a4a4;text-align: center; font-size: 8px; letter-spacing: 3px; text-transform: uppercase;margin-top:-360px;">code by promethean</div></div>