Rain of Shadows and Endings (The Legacy)

by Melissa K. Roehrich

Among those to emerge were six Firsts: Falein, goddess of wisdom and cleverness; Celeste, goddess of the sky and moon; Anala, goddess of day, fire, and the sun; Serafina, goddess of the stars and dreams; Achaz, god of beginnings; and Arius, god of endings.

“I choose Tessalyn Ausra to be my bonded Source,” Theon announced, his voice skittering over her bones.

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

With this Mark, may the bond become physical, that we can always sense each other’s presence and crave each other’s closeness. My power claims you as its own.”

Tessa thought their meeting in that corridor was random. It was anything but. He’d had his choices narrowed down to five, and he’d sought them all out in the hours before the Selection Ceremony. She had been the last one he’d tracked down. He’d never expected her to be hiding in an alcove out in the corridor. Then again, maybe he should have based on the number of times she sneaked off the Fae Estate in the Celeste Kingdom.

But when Theon’s gaze had landed on her, when he’d found her leaning against another male and he’d felt the prickle of irritation at seeing another’s hands on her, he’d known it was over.

“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.”

“It’s something you can’t learn until you’re forced to walk through it, but you’d know that strength grows in the moments you think you can’t go on, but you do anyway. Strength is fighting back. Strength is doing whatever it takes to claim what is yours, even if others try to convince you it is not yours to take.”

“No one can steal your thunder if you are the storm,” he replied, stretching a hand toward her. “Be the fucking storm, Tessa.”