The stag hunt with the scarlet heart

Chapter 13 "Her aura screamed imminent explosion in a silent garden"

CALLUM

I tried not to look at her, tried not to see what her eyes were telling me. This morning I acted a little tougher than I had the last few weeks, flirting with the receptionist, dragging her around the print shop, dragging her away from the Darius Walker clown with the shit-eating stare and grin that I'd love to punch out, but what really made me want to rip his corneas out was the way he hugged Saffron like she belonged to him, then asked her out like I wasn't even there.

Today has been the hardest day I've wanted to shake her since I saw her this morning, to tell her I can't, to hold her accountable for what she's doing to my mind. I have never felt more frustrated and irritated in my entire life.

But now her body is in my hands, growing small as I instinctively bring mine closer, her breathing already matching mine, but I refuse to let her go. I don't know what has caused this in her, but if I let her go, for some strange reason I want to stop everything and take her away, make the fear in her eyes disappear.

"Callum, I..."

"It's okay, let it go. Focus on your breathing."

Her eyes full of fire looked at me, her neck arched, her hands holding mine and I could feel the tremors running through her body. She lowered her chin and closed her eyes, but immediately opened them again, as if her nightmares were behind her closed lids.

"Could you tell me a story? Just speak, please."

I try to search my palette of memories. If she wanted a story, I would give it to her, I found myself wanting to give her everything she asked for.

"Once I saw a deer so tall and big that it almost made me shit in my pants, with big horns, it was in a forest in Rome, near the Aegean Sea, the strange thing is that it looked at me and ran away, but I was able to take a picture of it, a little blurry, but I noticed something shiny against its fur." I stopped and she looked at me to continue. "Later, a fellow photographer told me that there was a legend of a white stag with huge antlers... A long time ago, in the castle of Doiras, there lived a knight named Fritz, with two sons: Abel and Daphne. Egas, the son of another lord of a nearby castle, fell in love with Daphne. His love was reciprocated, but his father did not give them consent to marry; Daphne, desperate and full of pain, disappeared from the castle to meet her beloved. A crossbowman brought news that he had seen her heading towards a lily pond at midnight. Father and brother, servants and squires, and even her lover, accompanied by his people, went in search of her through mountains and forests, huts and hamlets. After a few days of fruitless searches, they considered the girl's loss definitive, imagining her badly wounded by a wild boar, a bear, or devoured by wolves."

A restrained sigh came out of her mouth, making me lose my concentration and direct my gaze there. Her pink, puffy lips opened a little wider under my scrutiny, I had to force myself to continue speaking.

"Many years later Egas, while hunting in the forest, spotted a beautiful doe. With a single, accurate shot he ended its life when suddenly a white cloud covered the animal, he tried to approach it, but one of his squires prevented him from doing so, letting the mist slowly dissipate, he could see something, a hand; a fine, white, soft hand." Her eyes were penetrating mine, her gaze went from my eyes to my mouth, and she followed her path, totally focused on the story. "A noble maiden's hand, but what made me look closer; was the neck of that young woman covered in thick mist, a necklace with a heart. Like the one he had given to his missing beloved when the mist dissipated completely, he could see Daphne's body, with a painful spirit he ran to the top of the mountain, lying on the ground taking the corpse, letting out cries of pain, and supplication, he took the necklace of the young woman and put it on his neck, after this he took the body of his love and went into the forest and no one ever saw him again."

She presses her fingers against mine.

"According to legend, some mouro must have enchanted her in the form of a doe, and death returned her to her natural state, a maiden. This same mouro must have turned the prince into a stag as punishment for having murdered Daphne. Some villagers have seen it, a white stag with huge antlers with a necklace around its neck, a red stone."

I am skeptical. I didn't buy the story, but I can't deny that it resonated with me. I don't think what I saw on the neck of that deer was a necklace, it could have been a blood stain, or probably my imagination was running wild because of the psychedelic alcohol the tribe was drinking. Even so, when I had an accident in which I almost died, the image of that deer stayed in my mind. She looks at the tattoo on my chest; the question is marked in her eyes, so I nod.

Suddenly Saffron is trembling under my fingers again and I want to do anything. But then she gives me a determined look back.

That look in her eyes draws me in. I let that feeling flow, but she just reacted by pushing me away, pulling away.

"Callum, can you forget what just happened?" She asks in a hoarse voice.

"What just happened?" Confusion washes over her face, and then understanding and gratitude in the form of a small smile that makes me nod.

I want to know what happened but cornering her is not the best way.

"I'll get your shirt." She looks at my bare chest and I do the same.

"Oh yeah, sorry about that, I didn't know what else to do," I say, leaning against the door under her eyes full of confusion. "You've made it very clear that you don't want me around."

"Don't put words in my mouth that I never said." She grins with the same grimace that makes me want to bite her lips. Her eyes flame.

"I haven't said anything that you haven't demonstrated... I don't understand you at all. First you get upset because I get too close to you and then angry because I move away." I raise my arms in frustration, I see how she lowers her gaze for a moment, I take the opportunity to walk towards her, she steps back until she touches the marble, and I put both hands at her side. "You have to speak clearly, we are too old to play cat and mouse, and I'm getting tired of it."

"You are imagining things that aren't, okay?" She answers defensively pointing at me with a finger that touches my beard, making me look down, seeing her finger and then her nervous eyes. "You don't know me at all, stop looking at me as if you do. What just happened means nothing... all you have done since you arrived is treat me as if you know me, about me like now and everyone in the office noticed it. I have worked hard to get to where I am, and I refuse to let it all fall apart because of people talking about something that is not there."

Listen patiently to her nervous verbiage that even she doesn't believe at all.

"Then why the hell do you act upset when I don't look at you?" I ask, and she looks down at me and then slips out from under my arm.

"I'll get your shirt."

She comes out of the bathroom and just like that, I know she has escaped. Lily confirms it to me when they come with my belongings and announces that the fugitive had to leave for a supposedly urgent meeting.

She is full of chaos, her aura screamed of an imminent explosion in a silent garden.