Rain of Shadows and Endings (The Legacy)

by Melissa K. Roehrich

“Don’t touch me!” Tessa cried, scrambling away from him as he made another grab for her. A violent gust of wind tore through the garden path, knocking the second male back several inches, and Tessa used it to her advantage, crawling away even farther. She shoved herself to her feet as the male came for her again, and she threw her hands out in front of her. “No!” The word had barely left her lips when the ground beneath them shook. The first male, who had managed to get to his own feet, fell back onto his ass, and the second male dropped to his knees. Tessa pitched forward onto her own hands and knees once again, and when her palms met with the earth, light sparked and rippled, a large crack ripping through the path between her and the Legacy. “What the—” the second male began to say, but he didn’t get to finish. Gold mist began rising from the crack as a crevice took shape, widening the gap between Tessa and the Legacy. As thunder cracked, light so bright she had to turn away flared up from the ground. She was scrambling back, but not before she caught sight of something beginning to crawl up out of the crevice from the light. No. Not crawl. It glided up out of the crevice. Another appeared. And another. Tessa watched in utter terror as bodies rose up out of the crevice. But they weren’t bodies of flesh and blood. They shimmered in the sunlight, their bodies nearly transparent. They floated a couple of inches off the ground, and they were all identical. Pale skin. Tall an...