Page 99 of The Harbinger
She shook her head. “Accepting my fate.”
“Fate had nothing to do with your design.”
“Whatever the fuck it was, I don’t give a shit anymore.”
My spine stiffened at her use of vulgar language. So out of character for her.
“Interesting choice of words. But given your tone, I’d say you do.”
She scoffed. “You like to hunt, Sacha?” Mia lunged forward and slammed her closed fist onto my wound, a snarl raising her upper lip. “You like to act like a predator. A big, tough, scary man?” I grunted as a bolt of pain shot through my chest, the glue failing, my wound breaking open. “Prove it then.”
Her watery gaze narrowed, then she turned and bolted before I could shake the wildness from her bones. Mia rushed through the fruit trees, barefoot, with a storm on the horizon, her white pantsuit a blip through the density.
I smiled and slipped off my suit jacket, blood ruining another dress shirt, then laid it over Medusa’s wing and followed her through the woods, her feet echoing snapped twigs behind her.
“Don’t run too far,” I hollered after her. “There are far more dangerous things out there than me.”
I walked through the fruit trees, grabbing a low-hanging apple, and tore into it as I tracked her stomping through the forest like an Asian elephant, my heart pounding as blood rushed to my cock.
A twig broke, and her small barefoot impressions littered the forest floor, seeding deeper into the forest. Adrenaline spiked in my veins as she headed toward the one place I’d wanted to lay her bare and ravish her senseless.
I took another bite of my apple and tossed it aside, then froze when a breeze brought notes of warm pine with a strong musk-like odor resembling cattle to my nose.
It couldn’t be…
A distant bugle had me turning in circles until a flash of white to my left caught my eye—the opposite of where I’d thought she’d gone.
About thirty meters away stood a stag with creamy white fur covering its body from head to tail, its antlers broad and far-reaching. He stared at me with a piercing, intense gaze as he pawed at the ground beneath him with lightning flickering in the sky.
My stomach twisted around as I recounted the ancient legend Ina ingrained in me.
The white stag is a messenger of death, leaving destruction and sorrow in its wake. Quickly look away, for its gaze will imprint your soul with great tragedy.
I took a step closer to the beast. She’d been wrong about Mia, and she was wrong about this.
Mia squealed, followed by the crashing of hooves smashing leaves and pine needles. I jerked my head towards her, then back to the stag, his attention drawn to the herd running his way. He took off with a snort, his head held high. She screeched again, and this time I rushed towards her, damning my loafers to the waste bin.
I passed the large twisted tree, noting my location, its branches reaching out like skeletal fingers. Its gnarled dark trunk held a deep red hue that seemed to glow in the diminishing light.
“Mia…” I taunted as I walked up to her standing at the edge of my circle, her bloody hand on her chest.
Her eyes widened. “What… what is this?” she stammered as she overlooked the altar composed of jagged stones jutting up from the ground and covered in moss. At the center lay a large, black stone slab with a smooth, worn surface from the passing of time and symbols carved into the surface from centuries prior.
“It’s an altar.” I grabbed a lighter beside the sconces embedded in the tree, turned on the gas line, and lit the linked torch. Each one lit with a whoosh.
She jumped, her head swiveling as she watched them light around us, locking us into the protective fire and stone circle.
“An altar… for what?”
Mia walked around the platform as she took in the carvings decorated with writhing bodies from pleasure and pain, her breaths shallow and rapid.
“For our sacrifices.”
A dimple formed on her chin as it trembled, her wild frightful eyes moving around as if unholy creatures would walk in from the darkness.
But the beast was already here, in front of her. She just didn’t know it yet.
“Sa…sacrifices? Are you… do you worship the devil or something?”