Legacy of Destruction (EBOOK)

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Chapter One

She was gone. His anchor, all he had left in the world.
Stale air and the taint of neglect permeated the small cabin. A fine layer of dust coated the furniture. She would have hated that. She’d never had much in the way of material possessions, but what she did have, she’d kept tidy.
Justin straightened the patchwork quilt on the bed, drawing it over the pillow where the indent of his grandmother’s head still remained.
He hadn’t been there for her final breaths, to hold her hand or ease her pain.
His fingers trailed over the quilt’s soft, well-worn material. The framed photograph on the nightstand drew his gaze—a picture taken of him and his mother when he was a small child. It was the only photograph on display—the only one she’d kept. He’d tucked away a miniature copy in his wallet. He had only a vague recollection of when it had been taken. They’d spent the day at the beach playing in the surf and building sand forts—a rare day of carefree play.
A dog-eared copy of the Bible lay next to the frame. He’d asked her once why she still read it, why she still believed. After silently staring out the window for so long he’d thought she wouldn’t answer, she’d replied, “It comforts me and provides wisdom on the days I have none.”
His hands fisted at his sides. Did it give her solace at the end? Did she read the words once again, seeking answers? Was an old book all she had to turn to in her final moments?
Justin tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He hadn’t been there to say goodbye.
The tension in the air built. A soft rumbling echoed beneath his feet.
His eyes shot open. Raw power filled the room. The hairs on his arms stood on end. Like a live current, the room zapped with energy. He took deep, labored breaths, trying to rein in the power, to draw it back into his body.
It was no use. He’d lost control.
Windows rattled in their frames. The picture fell from the nightstand onto the floor. He stared at the frame’s cracked glass. A jagged line separated him from his mother.
Justin turned and strode from the bedroom into the main room of the one-bedroom cabin. A glass fell from the open shelving in the kitchen area and shattered. Dishes clattered against each other. One by one, glasses flew off the wooden ledges and joined their smashed brethren on the floor. The little bird salt and pepper shakers he’d given his grandmother as a belated birthday gift, bought with his first paycheck, lay broken on the red rug under the table.
The walls shook as the earth’s resonating growl echoed around him. He rushed to the door. The handle turned in his hand, but the door was stuck in its shifted frame. Justin leaned his shoulder against the wood and shoved with all his strength, then squeezed through the slight opening.
The bright Mexican sun beat down on him as he slid from the cabin. The ground split beneath his feet, and he ran. A shudder moved through the earth, knocking him to his knees. He scrambled to his feet and sought open ground away from the cabin and the towering cypress trees around it.
A crack rent the air, and he whirled. The Mexican cypress tree toppled, crashing into the roof of the old cabin and rendering a giant hole. Creaks and groans rose from the tree and cabin. The wall gave a last shuddering attempt to stand before crumbling beneath the tree’s weight.
Justin slid to the ground and rested his forearms on his drawn knees. Dirt and dust coated his skin and clothes. He coughed as his dry mouth and throat spasmed. It was like he’d drunk a dirt milkshake. He spat out the grime covering his tongue.
The quake ended after a few moments. The earth resumed its slumber, leaving him to stare at the aftermath.
His grandmother’s cabin was destroyed—lost to him, just as she was. Her meager belongings were ruined because he’d lost control of the power he’d had since birth. A power he certainly hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. It had only brought him destruction and despair.
It had taken his mother from him.
After his mother’s death, his grandmother had always kept them on the move. They’d never resided in one place for more than a few months. As a man, he’d continued the habit, but after a while, his grandmother had wanted a place to call home. She’d chosen the cabin and had lived there for the past five years. He’d visited, often at first, less and less as the years had passed. And he’d called to check in and make sure she had anything she needed, but he should have been there. She’d never said she was unwell, never hinted that her heart was giving out.
He hung his head. He was tired of running, tired of hiding.
Someone had murdered his mother because of the power that ran through their veins.
For generations, his family had been hunted. No more. Now he would do the hunting. He would find those responsible for killing his mother and finally make them pay.
He had nothing left to lose.





Chapter Two

Willow took a deep breath of the salty ocean air as she leaned against the metal railing of her brother’s deck. The wall of glass facing the ocean behind her and the rest of the large modern home on the Connecticut coast fit Sebastian perfectly. She wasn’t surprised he’d never taken her there before or even spoken of the private getaway. With a telepath for a sister, secrets were hard to keep. Miranda probably would’ve plucked the information from Willow’s mind, who would then have been responsible for betraying her brother once again.
Waves tumbled onto the beach in a soothing rhythm. The only early-morning inhabitants were a man walking his dog and a woman jogging on the packed, waterlogged sand. The man threw a stick into the shallow waves, and the brown Lab bounded in after it.
A smile stretched across Willow’s lips, and a chuckle escaped her. She would like to have a pet someday. But the hope was probably empty. The smile faded, and she looked away from the idyllic scene. Pets or caring too much about anyone or anything was a luxury she’d learned not to indulge in. It had been a hard lesson to learn, but she’d learned it young. Sebastian was the only thing left that she cared about in the world.
Caring about anything or anyone was both a blessing and a curse. Her brother never showed it, but to him, it must be more of a curse. She was the leash around his neck. The tool their family used to keep Sebastian in line.
If she were braver and less selfish, she would’ve ended their suffering years ago. If she were gone, her brother might have a chance to escape their evil family.
Tears filled her eyes, and her gaze studied the blue-gray Long Island Sound stretched before her. She could walk into the water and just keep going. Eventually, her limbs would tire and the ocean might do what she’d never managed on her own.
Or it might spit her back out after dragging her along the rocky bottom for a while. That aligned more with her life.
She absently wiped the tear from her cheek. Crying was pointless. It changed nothing. It was as useless as she was—ineffectual power that harmed more than helped.
Cold seeped over her skin. Her gaze blurred. She clenched her hands around the cool, metal railing. The sounds of the ocean grew louder, stronger as a white haze descended over her vision. Strange barking came from a distance. It wasn’t the dog from the beach, though. It sounded distorted. The waves crashed harder on the shore.
Beneath the scent of the salty air hung a thicker smell, like dirt and vegetation. The haze shimmered and dissipated. It was the ocean, but different. The waves were bigger, the water a deeper blue rather than gray.
Willow searched her surroundings as the vision strengthened. She knew she was seeing somewhere else. But where? Why? She would only have seconds to make sense of it. Her visions never lasted long. They teased her with snippets she had to interpret and untangle.
An empty beach. A seagull’s call. She glanced behind her. A forest with towering trees. She gasped. They were colossal—not just tall, but wide at the base.
The barking came again. She whipped her gaze back to the sand.
There, on the rocks, down the beach. Are those seals?
A man came into view, tall, powerful—not just muscular. He had power. The white aura surrounded him and glowed brightly. The stronger the aura, the more power the witch had. At least, it seemed that way to her. Sebastian said he never noticed a difference in a witch’s aura. They either had one or they didn’t. His was bright too. Her brother was one of the most powerful witches she’d ever encountered.
She recognized the dark-brown hair and sharp features. Justin Crown. He scowled out at the ocean with his fists on his hips. She’d seen him in visions twice before, and both times he’d appeared angry. Angry at what? Or who? She never wanted to be on the receiving end of that anger. He’d caused an earthquake in the last vision she’d seen of him.
Her vision dimmed. Willow fed it power, hoping to make it last. She needed more information. Is it now, the past, or the future? Why is my power so useless?
The scene snapped away like someone had turned off a light and plunged her into darkness. She swayed.
“Easy.” Hands clasped her shoulders and pulled her against a warm body.
She stumbled and blindly reached for purchase.
The darkness turned gray, then it brightened and cleared—like she had stepped from inside out to a bright, sunny day, and her eyes needed a few seconds to adjust.
Sebastian led her to a lounge and sat with her. “What did you see?”
“Justin Crown. He was on a beach, maybe California. It had giant trees—redwoods, I think. And seals.”
“Why do you think you saw him again?”
Willow shrugged. Except for family, Justin was the only one she’d ever had more than one vision of. “Who knows? I don’t know if it was now, in the past, or in the future.”
“I’ll get you some water. Stay here.” Sebastian walked into his house through the sliding glass door.
She scooted over and lay back against the gray cushion. The vision had weakened her. They always did. The price of power? Using magic weakened her siblings too. But they were more powerful and did greater magic. She only had random visions she had no control over. Yet, it still sapped her strength.
“Here.” Sebastian stood over her with a glass of water. His blond hair flapped in the breeze as he watched her with hazel eyes. Concern etched his face.
She gulped it down and closed her eyes once again. The healing power of her element spread through her like liquid energy. The lightheadedness lifted, and the lethargy left her limbs. She shielded her eyes and blinked at her brother, who sat on the lounge next to hers.
He waited patiently. Sebastian rarely acted impulsively, unlike their brother and sister. Miles and Miranda were volatile. They could be relatively pleasant one moment and, the next, send her flying into a wall or down the stairs for sport.
“Was he alone? No sign of our father?”
Willow shook her head. “Justin was alone as far as I could see. Hopefully, Father is still searching in Mexico.” She’d told Edward, their father, about her vision of Justin causing an earthquake there, but she hadn’t told him the vision had also shown her Justin had already left.
“Any sign he’d been in a fight? Could you tell if he still had his power?”
She frowned. “I didn’t see any bruising. The vision was brief, and he was standing farther down the beach. He still had power, though, and a lot of it.”
If Father had found him, he wouldn’t have been able to steal Justin’s power without a solar eclipse. So her vision must have been the present or immediate future, because the next eclipse was only weeks away.
“Maybe the vision showed me where he is now or where he’s about to be so we can find him and convince him to join us.” They needed more witches on their side if they had any hope of survival. It was just a matter of time before their family located them. Sebastian’s magical wards and legal shenanigans could only hide them for so long.
Sebastian gazed at her with a raised eyebrow and a drole look. “You think some sentient being is sending you visions to guide you? For what purpose?”
“I never said a being was sending me visions, but who’s to say there aren’t gods or goddesses? We’re witches, after all. Most people don’t believe in us either.”
“If there are, then they either have a twisted sense of humor or they’re as evil as our father. Why else would they let him continue to torture and destroy lives for his own gain?”
“Free will? People make their choices. I chose to tell Father about my vision of Justin to save myself.”
“You told him to save both of us and give us time to escape.”
Willow clasped her necklace and dragged the sea turtle charm back and forth across the gold chain. “I told him so he wouldn’t torture me.” She dropped her necklace and rubbed her chilled arms. The lick of flames still sizzled in her mind from the fire her father had threatened her with. The heat had reddened her skin as the fire had surrounded her. Sweat had poured down her temples and back. Smoke had filled her nostrils. She’d dry heaved and curled herself into a tight ball on the blackened bricks lining Edward’s torture chamber.
Edward knew all her weaknesses. He’d been angry over Sebastian’s failure to produce Josephine’s heir. He’d threatened to kill Willow and Sebastian if he didn’t get his way. He needed to sacrifice a witch during the eclipse to extend his life again. He should’ve died centuries ago.
She knew her days were numbered, anyway. Her father wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice her and capture a more powerful witch to join his coven so he could control them and use their power. Her vision had shown her that Cory Bishop could be that witch. She was Josephine’s heir and powerful.
Willow winced. At one time, she might’ve let Edward sacrifice her. She’d gotten so tired of merely existing, surviving until her family doled out the next round of torture.
But her vision had also shown Sebastian and Cory uniting to defeat Miles and Miranda. It had given her a spark of hope. Hope for freedom. For herself and Sebastian.
“You must see by now that our only chance is to find powerful witches and form our own coven to defeat him.”
Sebastian grimaced, walked to the railing, and leaned his back against it. “I see nothing of the kind. You and Coralea are engaged in a fantasy. Do you have any idea how long it takes to put together a coven? Look how long our father has been building one. To build one powerful enough to go against our family? It’s delusional to believe that can happen in any beneficial time frame. He’s weakest before the eclipse. We need to concentrate our time and energy on ways to kill him now or run like hell and stay as far away from him as possible. We can’t waste time searching for powerful witches we might convince to join us. Witches are selfish creatures. Anyone powerful enough will be a problem. We might end up worse off—if that’s possible. At least we’re free right now.”
Willow drew her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Father never built a full coven because he keeps killing them off. I’m not naïve enough to think we can build a full, powerful coven overnight, but having you and Cory is a beginning. If we can convince Justin to join, that’s four of us. Miles and Miranda might come around if they see potential. That would make six, which would put us halfway there.”
Sebastian stared at her coldly. “You still hold out hope that Miles and Miranda will go against our father? Willow, you can’t possibly trust them. Promise me you won’t, ever.”
“I don’t trust them. I’m not stupid. But I don’t discount that they might want their freedom as much as we do.”
He rubbed his hands over his face and squinted up at the sky. “Miles and Miranda are self-serving to the end. They would sacrifice either of us in a heartbeat.”
“You’ve threatened to do the same to them.”
Sebastian dropped onto the lounge next to her. “And I would. I don’t exclude myself from the selfish moniker. I’m just as self-serving as the rest of them.”
Willow patted his knee. “You say that, but it’s not true. You’ve put me first all our lives, and you saved Cory rather than handing her over to them. You could’ve just done what Father told you to do and located her. You didn’t have to train her. You didn’t have to fight them with her.”
“You’re the exception, but I would’ve turned Coralea over in a heartbeat to save my skin. I told her as much from the beginning.”
“And that’s another exception. Miles and Miranda wouldn’t have been honest about their intentions. Justin might not be good. I don’t know him. I’ve only seen him in visions, but I feel it in my soul that we should find him. Even if you’re not ready to form a coven, we need to ensure Father doesn’t get to Justin first and turn him or take his power. You see that much, don’t you?”
“That much I can agree with.” He looked out at the ocean. “You said the redwoods? By the shore?”
Willow nodded. “I know it’s not a precise location, but it’s a start. It gives us a general area to look for him.”
“At least he chose somewhere near the water. I suppose we can be thankful for that. It would really put us at a disadvantage if we had to search for him in the desert, away from a water source.”
“Way to look at the positive side, little brother.”
He shot her a derisive look. “You’re all of three minutes older than me, Willow.”
“Yes, but I really love those three minutes. Don’t try to take them away from me.”
 





Chapter Three

The bark of the giant tree he sat against dug into his back, but the slight discomfort felt grounding rather than repelling. The verdant-green underbrush was lush and plentiful. Justin scooped the rich, dark soil into his palm and let it trail through his fingers. The forest teemed with life. From the microscopic creatures to the skyscraping tall trees, life surrounded him. Yet silence echoed all around.
He’d gotten lost among those trees when he was a boy. He’d been playing and had wandered too far into the woods. It had all looked the same, and he hadn’t known how to find his way back to the cabin he and his mother had been staying in. She’d been frantic when she’d found him sitting against a tree with his face buried in his arms. He hadn’t cried. He didn’t remember being afraid. He’d known his mother would find him.
He wished he’d known then how little time he had left with her. He could’ve made different choices. If he had, maybe she would still be alive.
Justin tilted his back against the tree. He’d returned to the forest not only because it was where his mother had died, but because it was the last time he could remember being genuinely happy and carefree. His grandmother had taken him and run from that point forward. They’d never stayed in one place longer than a few months. He’d kept a similar pattern when he became an adult. Only then had his grandmother settled in one place. The same place she was buried.
She’d never given him a straight answer about who or what they were running from. She blamed the mysterious “them” for his mother’s death and others before her. He hadn’t found any clues in her cabin before he’d leveled it. He had nowhere to start his search for revenge. Maybe he should’ve stayed in Mexico. Whoever hunted his family might’ve found him then, and he would have had the fight he thirsted for.
His grandmother and mother had both been terrified of anyone knowing about his power. Anytime it got away from him, they would run. They’d both had power from the earth, but theirs focused on plants, and they didn’t have his volatility or strength.
They didn’t cause earthquakes or create sinkholes that swallowed cars whole.
He’d been ten years old when he did that one. It hadn’t been intentional. His powers rarely were. His grandmother had gone as white as a sheet and had stared at him silently for several moments before she’d herded him into the house where they’d been staying to gather their belongings. They’d disappeared that same day and had never gone back.
Justin took a deep breath of the clean air and stood. He wouldn’t find answers sitting in the woods, ruminating over the past. The long fern fronds brushed his legs as he walked back to the cabin. He’d bought it from an older couple several years ago. They hadn’t been the owners when he and his mother had stayed there. It had changed hands a few times before sentimentality had gotten the better of him and he’d purchased the place. He’d been careful to hide the paper trail. Nothing should lead back to his real identity, but buying the cabin had gone against everything he’d been taught.
The one-bedroom structure hadn’t changed much in the past couple of decades. Owners had modernized parts of it over the years. At least he was comfortable. The roof was fairly new, and the appliances were from the current century, at least.
He scanned the surroundings at the edge of the clearing where the cabin sat. Trees enclosed the area. Only a narrow dirt path led to civilization. He couldn’t even call it a driveway. Nature had done its best to reclaim the path over the years of his absence. If he decided to stay, he might clear and widen it into the driveway it once had been. Then again, it might be more secure to leave it inaccessible to vehicles—even his. He knew enough ways to escape that didn’t include the path.
Nothing stirred in any direction. The closest road was half a mile away—a rough dirt track that barely met the definition of a road. He’d parked his Jeep at the end in a small dirt parking lot the forest constantly tried to reclaim. The closest paved road or house in either direction was several miles away. No sign of disturbance caught his eye.
Justin waited a moment more before stepping into the clearing and walking to the cabin’s back door. His gaze continued to search.
It took less than a minute to check the interior. Except for the bathroom door, the layout was wide open. The bedroom sat in an alcove at the front next to the bathroom. He glanced at the ladder to the loft above the bedroom and bathroom. He’d stayed there as a child but would have to crawl to enter the space anymore. Anyone hiding up there would have to be fairly small. From his angle, he could see all but the corners of the back wall in the loft. It was empty.
He grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and drank as he wandered to the kitchen table and glanced at the papers strewn over the surface. Justin plucked an apple from the counter and tossed it back and forth in his hands. He didn’t have much to go on. Nothing new had magically materialized since he’d looked it over a couple of hours ago. Copies of the newspaper articles detailed an unidentified woman’s remains found on a beach and police reports investigating the unexplained homicide. The stack was thin. The trail had gone cold long ago.
He took a bite of the red-and-green apple. The cool crispness exploded over his tongue.
They’d never identified the woman as Maria Crown or any of his mother’s many other aliases. They’d never found her killer, who’d burned her alive and left her husk of a body on the beach for scavengers to desecrate further.
Justin shoved the papers to the corner of the table. The police files had been surprisingly easy to hack into. Perhaps he should give it another go and check for updates. He might’ve missed an alert. He doubted they had solved the crime, however. He was fairly sure that would be front-page news.
He polished off the apple and chucked the core into the garbage can by the back door.
One of the burner phones rang—a Mexican number. The only one who had that number was the priest his grandmother had grown close to, who had handled the details of her death. Justin had given it to him in a moment of weakness or grief—he couldn’t say which.
He connected the call but said nothing. He should’ve disposed of the phone days ago, but it still held a message from his grandmother. She had been the only one with that number before the priest.
“Mr. Alverez?”
Justin gave a soft grunt. He wasn’t an Alverez and never had been. It was an alias his grandmother had used during the last few years of her life.
“I thought you’d like to know of some strange visitors I had yesterday. They were looking for the owner of your grandmother’s cabin.”
Justin clenched the phone in his fist.
“When I mentioned she had passed, they asked about a man she might’ve been associated with. You’re the only visitor Anna ever had.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them nothing, of course. I’m not in the habit of giving personal information about my parishioners to strangers. Just as the confessional is sacred, so is my knowledge. I told them as far as I knew, Anna had no one.”
Is he saying my grandmother confided in him? Does he know about our past? Our secrets? “Thank you. What can you tell me about them? Did they say what they wanted? How many of them were there? What did they look like? Do you know where they went?”
The priest chuckled. “That’s more words than I believe I’ve ever heard you speak. There were two of them, a man and a woman. The man was older, with a British accent. He walked with a cane and had glasses and a goatee. The woman was younger, with light-brown hair. She spoke little—just stared at me. It was a little uncomfortable, actually. Before they left, the man turned to her, and she shook her head. Oddly, he hadn’t said a word, but it was like she responded to a silent question. They left, but I don’t know where they went. It was a few hours later before I remembered I had your phone number.”
Witches? His grandmother had told him a few tales of witches with unique abilities. Could communicating silently be one of them?
“Thank you for your discretion. I know what a comfort you were to my grandmother. I owe you a debt.”
“There is no debt, my son. I hope I did provide some comfort to Anna. She spoke of you with great affection, and I know she loved you dearly. Be well, and I hope you find peace with your grandmother’s passing. She is with God.”
He would not argue theology with a priest, but he had a tough time believing anyone was watching out for him or any of the billions of people on the planet. If anyone deserved to have found peace, though, his grandmother did. “Thank you.”
Justin said goodbye and dismantled the phone. He destroyed the SIM card. If the priest spoke the truth, they weren’t likely to trace Justin or even know of his existence. He had no reason to make it easy for them, however.
They possibly had nothing to do with those who had hunted them or killed his mother. They could be interested in something else, like purchasing his grandmother’s land. The priest could’ve told them she’d left it to the church. But if that was all they were after, they would’ve said.
If they were looking for him, they would have a tough trail to follow. In the past, any inquiries into his whereabouts would’ve signaled it was time to move on. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Let them come. The hunted had become the hunter.