JUST THIRTY MINUTES
1599 Words
"Lucian," Sabine said, her voice snapping back. "The sun is setting. We need to move her to the chamber now."
I didn't let anyone else touch her. I gathered into my arms, feeling the terrifying heat of her skin.
"I'm right here," I whispered into her hair. "I'm not letting you go."
As we reached the bottom, the air became damp and cold. The chamber was circular, with ancient runes that seemed to glow faintly in the light.
I laid Tessa on the stone dais at the centre of the room.
I took my place at the head of the dais, bracing myself to become the anchor she needed. Sabine lit the sage and the black candles.
“No matter what you see,” Sabine warned, her gaze locking onto mine and then Eli’s. “No matter how much she gasps or how cold she gets, do not break the circle. If the anchor breaks, she is lost.”
I gripped the edge of the stone until my knuckles turned white.
“Begin,” I said.
Sabine began the incantation. The words weren’t in any language I knew. She pressed her ash-darkened thumb to Tessa’s forehead.
“Now,” Sabine whispered.
Tessa’s body arched violently off the stone. Her eyes flew open, but they weren’t seeing me. They became pure white. Then she went still.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
“She’s stopped breathing,” Eli gasped, stepping forward.
“Stay back!” I roared.
I pressed my fingers to her neck. Cold. No pulse. No flutter of life. She was dead.
“Tessa,” I choked, my voice breaking. "I am here. Find me. Follow my voice back."
“The clock is running,” Sabine said, her voice trembling for the first time. “Thirty minutes, Lucian. Don’t let her go.”
TESSA'S POV
The transition didn't feel like falling. It felt like being shattered and then put back together in the wrong order.
One second, I was looking into Lucian’s beautiful, terrified eyes. The next, the world exploded into white noise.
When I opened my eyes, the pack house was gone. I was standing in a forest, but it wasn't the woods I knew. The trees were pure white and leafless, stretching up into a sky . There was no wind, no sound of birds, just complete silence.
"Lucian?" I called out.
My voice didn't echo; it just dropped into the fog. A cold shiver raced down my spine. I felt a faint tugging at my chest, warmth that felt like Lucian’s hand on mine. It was the only thing keeping me from dissolving into the place.
"Tessa?"
I turned around, standing beneath a white tree was a woman who looked like a blurred reflection of my mother, but her eyes were older.
"Aunt Julia?" I whispered.
The woman smiled, but it was sad. "You shouldn't have come here, hon. Not so soon. But since you are here... we must work quickly. The Veil does not like the living to linger."
I didn't listen to her, I rushed right in for a hug.
"I've missed you."
"Oh, I've missed you too, honey."
"Mom"
"They're not here, but they're fine." she assured me.
She studied me for a long moment, the way she used to when I asked questions she couldn’t protect me from.
“I don’t know how to be myself anymore,” I admitted. “Every time I feel something, it reacts. Every time I try to ignore it, it hurts. I thought if I understood it; if I controlled it, I’d stop feeling like I’m disappearing.”
My aunt stepped closer.
“You think control means silence,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”
The moments around us shifted; past, present, future folding, and unfolding. I felt them all at once. I could touch them. Shape them. Step into any one of them.
And that terrified me.
“I don’t want this to be all I am,” I whispered.
“It isn’t,” she said immediately. “But it will be everything you deny.”
I shook my head. “Then what am I supposed to do?”
She reached out, pressing her palm to my chest. The power stilled, it listened.
“You stop asking it to leave,” she said. “And you stop asking yourself to disappear with it.”
Something cracked open in me.
“You don’t obey it,” she continued. “And you don’t fight it. You choose yourself first.Every time. The power follows that.”
“Listen to me,” she said urgently. “Your bloodline is rare. Your power is not meant to be contained. It is meant to be directed.”
“I don’t know how,” I admitted.
The silver haze peeled back like a curtain, revealing layers beneath it. Threads. Thousands of them. Some glowed softly, others burned bright, and a few were dark and dangerous.
“What am I seeing?” I whispered.
“Time,” my aunt said beside me. “Possibility. Consequence.”
One thread brushed against my wrist, and suddenly. It was somewhere else.
Lucian stood in the cellar chamber, blood running from his nose, his hands shaking as he called my name over and over again. Sabine was shouting. The candles were going out one by one.
I gasped and tore myself free. The vision snapped away.
“That’s the future,” I said, breathless.
“One of them,” my aunt corrected. “You’re not seeing what will happen. You’re seeing what can.”
The realization hit me hard.
“I can change it.”
Her smile was sharp. “Now you’re learning.”
The space around us rippled again, and suddenly, I could feel it, power humming under my skin, no longer burning, no longer wild. It flowed like a river instead of a fire.
"There is a source to this power, and it lies deeper than I can take you. To truly master the flood, you have to go to the centre. You have to face the part of yourself that isn't human."
She pointed toward a thick, ink-black wall of mist. "The deeper you go, the thinner Lucian’s voice will become. If you go in there, you go alone."
"If I don't go," I said, looking at the darkness, "I'll never be able to stand beside him without destroying us both."
"Then run, little bird," Julia whispered. "And remember: do not let the silence trick you."
I plunged into the ink.
Suddenly, a figure materialized out of the blackness. It was me. But she was different. Her eyes were solid silver, and her skin glowed with a cold, terrifying light.
"Why go back?" my reflection asked, her voice a vibration in my marrow. "Back to a body that breaks? To a world that fears you? Here... you are a Goddess. You don't need a mate. You don't need a pack."
She stepped toward me, offering a hand. "Stay. Merge with the Source. Let go of the him and the burden."
I could barely remember the sound of Lucian’s laugh. The silence was so seductive. No more pain. No more burning blood.
But then, I felt the weight of the necklace in my palm. It wasn't cold like the reflection. It was warm. It carried the scent of woodsmoke and the memory of my aunt’s smile.
"You're not me," I said, my voice finally finding its strength. "You're just the part of me that’s too afraid to love."
"You are choosing to be weak! You are choosing to be a slave to a bond!"
"I'm choosing to be whole," I countered.
I didn't run from her. I stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace.
The moment we touched, the darkness shattered. The "flood" didn't drown me—it filled me. I felt every silver thread of the future, every choice, every heartbeat of the pack house above. I saw Lucian’s tear hit my cheek. I felt his lips on mine, a desperate, broken plea.
For once in my life, I felt powerful.
LUCIAN'S POV
Thirty minutes.
I knew because Sabine had stopped counting out loud.
“Tessa,” I whispered again. I didn’t care how desperate I sounded anymore. “You need to come back now.”
Nothing. Her body lay motionless on the stone, cold beneath my hands. Too still. Too quiet.
My wolf paced violently inside me, slamming against the walls of my mind.
“Lucian…” Eli’s voice cracked behind me. “It’s been thirty minutes.”
“No,” I said immediately. “No, you’re wrong.”
“She’s past the threshold,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
I collapsed forward, pressing my forehead to Tessa’s. “I told you I’d call you home,” I whispered. “You promised me.”
My hands shook as I cradled her face. She was still cold. Still lifeless.
The bond, our bond, was barely there now. A thin, fading thread.
A sob ripped out of me before I could stop it.
Eli sank to his knees beside us.
Somewhere behind me, someone cried out softly.
“I warned you,” Eleanor said, her lips curving. “Power always takes more than it gives.”
I couldn’t even turn to look at her. I couldn’t move.
The world had narrowed to the woman in my arms and the unbearable certainty that I had lost her.
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