Rain of Shadows and Endings (Legacy, #1)

by Melissa K. Roehrich

Be what they want you to be now, so you can be who you were meant to be later.

Her eyes narrowed on his in the mirror. “I look like a gutter rat, Theon,” she replied, noting her limp and messy hair and tired eyes. “No, beautiful,” he said, shaking his head. “You look like salvation and temptation all rolled into one.”

“Know that sometimes we must break to be forged into who we were meant to be,” she said, streaks of violet flickering in her eyes like lightning cutting through the flecks of gold. Then she bent and pressed her lips to Tessa’s brow. “You will break, Tessalyn. Make sure you get back up and take what is yours.”

“It matters because very few want me, Theon!” she cried. “They want what I can give them, what I have to offer, but never me. And you have just told me you are no different. So I am trying to figure out what exactly it is you want from me⁠—” “Everything, Tessa,” Theon snarled, moving so quickly, Tessa didn’t register he’d even moved until he was before her once more, his hand loosely gripping her throat. “I want everything you have to give, and then I want more. I want every piece of you— every secret, every tempest raging in those stormy eyes. I want all your fear and all your pain, all your smiles and all your laughter. I want all your mornings and all your nights, all your days and months and years.”

When he just stared back at her, she asked hesitantly, “Why are you looking at me like that?” “Because you are smiling, and I rarely see such a thing.”