And Then There Were Four

How was I ever going to be able to go on without her?

She had been with me my entire life? She had been my rock, my anchor to this world since the day my powers came into play and now she was gone.

A swirling mass of wind and a crack of thunder in the distance brought all of us to attention and as it had happened once before, a void opened within space and through it I came face to face with someone I hadn't seen since I was a child. Kara, my grandfather's Valkyrie.

"It seems that the party is over and things didn't turn out the way they should have."

Anger flashed through me at her comment. It wasn't needed and even though I wanted more than anything to put her in her place, I couldn't. "Go fuck yourself, Kara."

A chuckle escaped the woman as she looked at Melissa's body and then turned to look over her shoulder. I wasn't sure what to expect, but before I knew it, a large, burly figure of a man with a white beard stepped through the portal. The white robes he wore screamed hierarchy and I realized this himself was Odin, the man my father Hale had told me about often.

He wasn't pleased by the sight before him and everyone, including my parents, seemed to quake under his gaze. All except me.

As silver eyes stared at me, he shook his head. "I should have known that this would have happened, and it is my fault that it did. A young life was lost because I thought my daughter could keep my grandchildren in check."

"Excuse me, how dare you say something like that?" My mother snapped, standing to her feet as she came to stand in front of me. "Get out of here now. You're not welcome."

"Child, you no longer may say

anything. We had a deal, and I gave you till their eighteenth birthday. Now I was going to be nice enough to give him a bit of extra time to say goodbye to their family and friends, but after this? There's no way that I can allow that to happen.

The tone of his voice echoed through the air, and as it did, the surge of power and authority echoed with it. He was right, though. I should have gone a long time ago. I was dangerous and because of my inability to control myself, Melissa got killed.

Glancing at my parents, I could see they were willing to fight to keep me here and there was no way in hell I was going to allow that to happen.

I couldn't allow someone else to get hurt because of me and honestly, disappearing from this place sounded a lot better than staying put. "I'll go."

"What?" My mother gasped as she looked over her shoulder at me. "Don't say that. No, you're not. I've worked too hard for too many years to protect you guys. You're not going. You're my children."

"Mom...I-I just killed my best

friend..." I stammered, trying to make

sense of what had happened. "Do

you really think that I can stay here after that? Do you really think that I.. I could risk somebody else getting killed because of me? Because I can't control myself?"

She was speechless at my comment, and there was nothing she could say. I was a risk to everybody around me in the state I was, and until I learned how to handle this, nobody was safe.

"Cassie, you can't go. You belong here with me." Lucas' soft words only irked my nerves even further. I knew he was my mate, but I couldn't even think about that right now.

Turning to him, I tried to hold back further tears, but instead they just continued like a river down my face. "Why would you want somebody like me? I'm a murderer. You're free to be with whoever you want." A chuckle escaped my grandfather at this point and as I looked at him, his eyes were focused on Lucas. "Interesting. How in the world did I not notice you before?"Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

Lucas' entire demeanor shifted, and he became fearful as he tried to step away from the entire situation. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I think you do, little celestial Lycan." Gasps echoed around the area, and as Odin looked at each of us, an amused smile hinted within the depths of his eyes. "I suppose instead of two, I'll be taking three."