The Little Rose

Alone

The wind whipped against the sides of the little cabin I had called my home for the past 6 years, shaking the tin above my head.  I knew before long the rain would start thundering against the metal and the roof would leak, but it was okay, I'd fixed and repaired my little home multiple times over the years when hurricanes had damaged it.  My bed was a thin mattress on the floor, the only other furniture in the small room that made up the entire tiny house was a small table with a single chair and a wood burning stove I cooked on.  Every bit of it was more then I wanted or needed.... it was better then I deserved.

Hell, air was better then I deserved after I killed them.

"Give me control..."  Odin whispered through my mind for the fifth time today.  

Temptation beckons me like an oasis to a wandering man in the desert.  He offers me all I want, a chance to be with her again, to meet them.  It's a constant battle within my self to refuse his offer, to fight against him.  After almost 6 years of refusing to shift, not allowing him to run, it was getting harder and harder to fight him.  But I couldn't let him out, not without risking him taking over my body and refusing to give it control back, like he did when she'd left this world for the next.

I had turned her body over to the coroner myself, refusing to allow anyone else to move her there.  After which I had allowed Odin to take over and I had hidden in the recesses' of our mind, reliving the memories of my Gracie and the kicks of our unborn children under my hand.  That was all I would ever have of them, memories of the most amazing four months of my life, the few pictures I had grabbed from my house as I packed to leave and Gracie's engagement ring, which now rested against my chest on a silver chain.  I had shifted, taken the packed bag in my mouth and left to hide in the woods until the day of the funeral. 

Sitting at the edge of the forest I had watched as they held a service, listening to everything said, the words of love and sorrow, the preacher spoke of the Goddess and her plan for all of her children, how Gracie and her three small babe's were now in the arms of the Goddess Selene, running through the fields of the here after, at peace.  It was all bull sh*t.  If there were such a merciful Goddess she would not have taken the most beautiful soul to ever walk this earth.

When the funeral had ended, I'd watched as they lowered the casket into the ground and covered it with soul.  As the rest of the guests had began their departure, I had come out and laid upon her grave, unable to pull myself away, though even if I had tried, Odin would not have allowed me to leave.  As much as Gracie had meant to me, as irrevocably as I loved her, as greatly as I had longed to hold our children in my arms, Odin's love and longing for the same things was greater yet than my own.  He'd been a soul on this Earth and beyond it for millennia, he'd always walked alone, his mother refusing to grant him a mate as punishment for his crimes against humanity.  Of course, this punishment had been a blessing for Odin, or so he'd thought.  A mate was a weakness and no other being worthy of such an honor of knowing him as her mate could possibly exist.

Until he'd met sweet, kind, beautifully perfect Gracie.  She'd softened the rough edges of his personality with just one look, with just a whiff of her intoxicating fragrance,  a single touch of her skin on ours; he'd been wrapped around her pretty little finger.  But when something as deadly as Odin grows fond of something as world enveloping as our sweet Gracie was, the loss of that goodness, of that light, strengthens the rage tenfold.  He'd never had a mate or a child of his own, to finally have something he'd always swore he didn't need become the very air he breathed and it be taken... it had destroyed the very Odin that Gracie had been able to bring to the surface.

Odin had laid on her grave for three days before disappearing into the forest.  I had sent off a single warning to my family to leave me be before I'd drifted back into the memories in my subconscious, choosing to live in the past, where we had all been happy.

Our battle had begun the first time Odin had taken a life.  The smell of copper bringing me from the safe haven I had created for my shattered soul deep in our mind, when I'd looked through his eyes I had seen blood everywhere.  Red washed walls and furniture, pools of it on the floor as we stepped through it, I had been frozen in shock even as Odin jumped on the next man in the room, his teeth tearing open his throat blood spraying all over the already crimson room, including us.  The black robes lying over a chair attested to the men he'd killed being Night Walkers, belonging to the same organization that had taken everything from us.

For a moment I had revealed in the kill with Odin, finding satisfaction in their deaths and the blood coating the entire room we were in, but as we had passed a mirror that was shattered during the fight to the death, I got a glimpse of us, our silver fur coated in blood, the black diamond on our forehead covered by the sticky substance.  Glowing white eyes had looked back at me and I was speechless, a pain in my chest spreading beyond, fire ripping across my body as the grief of what Gracie would think of this, of us, shot through my mind.  She'd never want this, she wouldn't want us to fall so deep in disappear that we lost everything that made us, us.

I'd pushed back, trying to force him to give up control, but he'd simply flicked me back down.  Snarling at me to continue what had been working so well for us, letting him take out those who were responsible for the loss he had suffered, while I simply sat in the back of our mind wallowing in my grief and sorrow.  But I couldn't do that anymore, not when I knew he meant to kill again, and again, and again.. until they were all gone from this world, wiped off the face of the planet they tormented.

Odin had taken twelve more souls from this world before I'd managed to wrestle control back from him, which I had only succeeded in doing when he'd been severely injured in his last attack and drained of energy, I had forced us to shift to my form and taken over.  We'd healed in a matter of hours, but I'd taken the reigns and I wouldn't make the same mistake again.  It was time to face reality and the world with out them.

I'd gone back to Blood Moon to dig up the duffle bag I had buried along the forest edge of the cemetery, said placed wild flowers on my Gracie's grave one last time, before leaving and promising to never return.  A promise I had kept to this day.  I'd stolen a small boat from a house along the gulf and paddled it out into the water, I wasn't sure what my plan had been at the time besides getting Odin far from civilization.  When I had spotted a small island covered in trees and no other land visible to the naked eye, I decided to maroon my self there, I had been pleasantly surprised when I found the island a little bigger then I had expected, and in the middle of the dense, but small forest of trees was this small cabin I was now calling home.  Right in front of the cabin was a small lake of fresh water, most likely having pooled there from the abundance of rain the gulf produced.

For the first year I worried that the owner would come back and demand I leave, but when no one showed I decided it was a sign from the Goddess that she would allow my plea for self exile to protect others from myself.  I made trips to the mainland once a year for supplies, only non perishables since I had no power to keep anything cold.  I always took my phone so I could charge it and check my messages, my sister, Luna, had apparently continued to pay the bill and left me messages periodically, my other sister Celeste left a few voice mails the first few years before giving up on reaching me.

I couldn't reach out to them.  I couldn't for a mixture of two simple reasons;  One, I blamed each in a way for what had happened to Gracie and two, I knew I wasn't strong enough to see them happy, with everything I had lost... 

"You are ignoring me again."  Grumbled Odin, sullen as he always was, he'd broken through my barrier faster then the last time I'd been forced to put it up.  I was getting weak.  Six years of refusing to shift was leaving me mentally strained, whiled Odin was gaining more energy, becoming more powerful.

"Of course I am.  All you offer is death and destruction.  You lost any light you had when-"  But I was cut off by his growled vibrating within the confines of my mind.

"Do not say her name!  Do not mention that night!"  Odin screeched, his claws digging into my consciousness, sending pain shooting through my head.  "This is all on you!  It is all your fault!  If you had let me contain the situation!  If you had refused to shift into your weak, human form, I could have saved them!"  

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting not only the physical pain his actions sent pounding through my mind, but the emotional and mental anguish that washed over me as well.  I hear the same words daily from him.  The constant reminder that I had not been enough, that I had killed them, just as well as if I had held the knife my self.

I cut him off, sending him back into the darkness, putting up a wall and enforcing it the best I could.  But his words still rattled around in my mind, before I has processed what I was doing I was off of my bed and throwing open the door, pulling it from it's hinges in my anger.  Looking down at it in my hand I lost control of my rage and threw it across the small grassy clearing between the cabin and lake, but seeing it splash into the surface gave me none of the relief I needed.  Stepping off the small wooden porch I lifted my head up to the dark heavens, ominous storm clouds circled over head as lightening ripped across the sky and thunder shock the trees all around me.  The rain was now pouring down upon me, the droplets filling like needles with the wind throwing them around like sand in the breeze.

"I this what you wanted?!"  I screamed into the night, the hurricanes force drowning out my words.  But I knew she could hear me.  "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED?!  Are you happy now?  He is broken beyond repair and a danger to all!  And I am a soul who has been torn in half, bleeding into the soil for the past seven years!"  I hollered again.  A sharp c***k of lightening hit the lake in front of me, the sound deafening me as I stumbled back, my palms covering my ears.  

Growling as I face the raging storm above me once more I lifted a fist into the rain and continued my tirade.  "Is that all you have all powerful Goddess?!  Screw you!"

I had barely gotten the words out when another flash of lightening flashed down from the sky, I felt the electricity flood through my body before I was thrown back, hitting the cabin's rickety walls with a thud before falling to my face in the rain.  Blackness evolved my vision as I felt into darkness.  The last thing I heard was an adjoining c***k of lightening a distance away and a soft voice floating through my mind.

"Be still my son... your soul will heal when you find the missing piece... but do not be afraid to let my magic do it's work."