Chapter 22 #2
“My name is Savannah Calloway. I was born the property of Declan Calloway, and for twenty-four years, he has treated me as such. My only crime was existing. My only hope, for most of my life, was to avoid being noticed. My brother Callum’s fists taught me obedience.
My father’s indifference carved me into something cold, sharp-edged, but independent.
I learned to swallow my screams, to let bruises bloom purple under my skin like funeral flowers.
Love? A fairy tale for fools. Survival was the only hymn I knew. ”
Her words echoed, cold as snowmelt. She wasn’t speaking for the Council; I realized. She was speaking for herself, and for the ghosts of every girl like her.
She went on. “I never dreamed of a mate. Not once. The concept felt like an unimaginable nightmare, something brittle, bitter, destined to crumble. My father’s voice always at the forefront of my mind, venomous and certain: ‘You’ll kneel for whomever I choose, girl.
Your purpose is to bleed power into this family.
’ I’d seen what that looked like. My mother, hollow-eyed and silent at his side, her true mate found only after being mated and married to my father, now beyond her grasp.
Too late for her. I saw what it was to be chained to a monster.
My only hope was to survive. So I ran.” She took a deep breath.
“Then Bridger came.” Her eyes found mine.
“He found me in that lab, silver burning my wrists and ankles raw. I didn’t recognize hope until I saw it on his face—all fury and fire, eyes like a storm hunting vengeance.
His hands didn’t shake when he snapped my chains.
His voice didn’t waver when he gently told me to rest easy.
He had me. And in that moment, I knew it was true. Someone had me.”
A tear ran down her beautiful face.
“Bridger’s love was not gentle. It was a blade, yes—but one that carved away the rot, leaving me raw and trembling and new.
When he looked at me, he didn’t see a pawn.
He saw a queen. A partner. A soul the Goddess herself had forged to walk beside him.
The day I met Bridger Hardin, I knew it was fate.
Not because he claimed me, but because he saw me—not as a pawn, not as a prize, but as a person.
The only person in my life who ever did. ”
I could feel the tension building behind me, the eyes narrowing, the ears tuning in.
“My father tried to have me killed. My brother beat me. Dominic Madison wants to brand me, take what my mate gave me, and then pretend I never existed. I would rather die than let that happen.” She turned, faced the Council.
“If you take this bond from me, you will kill more than a shifter woman. You will kill the idea that any of us can be more than the tools of men like Declan Calloway.”
She stopped, breath shaking. “The Goddess chose us. Deny us at your peril, for Her wrath is terrible to behold.”
There was a silence then, not the dead air of fear, but a living, breathing quiet as every eye in the room reevaluated what they’d been told. The Councilwoman made a note, the pen scratching like a nail over bone.
“Thank you, Miss Calloway. The plaintiff may respond.”
Declan stood, face unreadable, the mask of a man who’s already convinced himself of his own lie.
“I have always loved my daughter,” he began, but the words sounded so wrong I thought he might choke on them.
“But she has been ill. Unbalanced. She was taken from her home, brainwashed, made to believe that this man—” he gestured at me, “—is her mate. There is no evidence the bond is legitimate. No evidence she can survive the ritual of stripping. But if the Council decrees it, I will support the law.”
He sat, hands folded, and did not look at her.
Dominic didn’t even bother to stand. He smiled, slow and reptilian, and said, “She will adapt.”
A ripple of disgust, not laughter, rolled through the audience.
The Councilwoman tapped her gavel. “Mr. Hardin, you have the right to speak.”
I stood. The bond burned like holy fire in my veins.
“The Goddess carved Savannah’s name into my bones long before I knew to beg for mercy.
I’d laughed at fated mates once, spat at the notion like the arrogant fool I was.
But Savannah… She wasn’t a choice. She was a revelation.
A reckoning. Every cell in my body howled mine the moment I scented her fear in that lab, bloodied but unbroken.
I’d have torn the world apart then. Now? Now I’d salt the earth.”
I stared at Declan across the council chamber, my wolf’s snarl vibrating behind my teeth.
“You think your bribes and threats matter?” My voice dripped venom, low enough to slit throats.
“I know you’ve been busy calling in favors.
Five votes bought like cheap whores.” The chamber hissed, but I didn’t blink.
“Your council’s a rotting theater, Declan. A pantomime of power.”
I leaned forward, the wood groaning under my grip.
“You want to play games with fate? Fine. But know this—” My gaze swept the room, lingering on every compromised face.
“I didn’t survive hell to kneel to cowards.
You vote to strip our bond?” A feral smile split my lips.
“I’ll raze every fucking kingdom here to ash before I let your greed touch her. ”
The truth of it sang in my blood. The Goddess didn’t make mistakes. Savannah’s laugh in the dark, the way her wolf curved against mine like two halves of a blade—that was divine work. And me? I was the weapon she’d forged.
Declan’s jaw twitched. Fear, sour and sweet, bled through his cologne. Good. Let him choke on it.
“Burn your protocols,” I said softly. “Your votes. Your lies.” Savannah’s breath hitched beside me, pride and fury tangling in our bond. “The Goddess will have the last word.”
I wasn’t quite finished. “And just for good measure. Further proof that Declan Calloway is a liar, there was a battery of tests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are, in fact, fated mates. Every test we willingly submitted to. Every test we passed. Someone here may have diminished mental capacity, but it is not Savannah Calloway.”
I sat. Savannah reached for my hand under the table. Her fingers were still trembling, but only a little.
The chamber fell into a clamor.
The Councilwoman again scratched her pen across paper. The plaintiff again may respond.
Declan stood. “I say those tests were not accurate.” Then he sat.
A hush fell over the chamber. The type of hush that dragged out, stretching to a thin wire that vibrated with every heartbeat in the room.
Even the Kozlovs had gone quiet, eyes glittering like predatory insects in the gallery.
Beside me, Savannah’s hand curled into a fist, the knuckles gone white against the black of her dress.
The Councilwoman finally lifted her head, lips already pursed in a verdict.
“Council will now render its judgment,” she said, and the timbre of her voice was all the warning I needed.
“For the separation and nullification of the disputed mate bond, as proposed by the Eastern and Midwestern Kingdoms are as follows.
The witches' votes are split; three aye, one nay. Vampires are split; the West aye, the East nay. Wolves are split; two aye, two nay. Demons are, aye. Angels are a nay.”
Her gaze was cold as a morgue’s drawer. “The ayes have it. As per Council law, Savannah Calloway’s mate mark will be stripped, and she will be remanded to the custody of King Dominic Madison pending further review.”
A sound like a punctured lung went up in the gallery—shocked indrawn breath, then the hiss of a hundred minor predators relishing the kill.
Guards moved at once. Two advanced on Savannah, hands out, their eyes fixed not on her but on me.
I felt the wolf in my blood rise, claws prickling at the beds of my nails, every bone in my body shouting for release.
But the next moment, everything went cold, then brilliantly, terribly clear.
I heard a voice—not my own, not even the beast’s, but older than either.
It said: She is yours. The Council does not matter. Remember who you are.
I stood up before the guards could reach her. The entire chamber tilted on its axis.
“I invoke ancient law,” I said, my voice ringing through the stones.
Every head turned. The guards froze.
“I challenge Dominic Madison for the right to my mate,” I said. “By ritual combat. Witnessed. Final. No substitutions. You know the words.”
The Council Chairwoman’s face drained of blood, and for a moment I thought she might faint. Instead, she turned to the scroll at her elbow and scanned it with trembling hands.
“There has not been a challenge in a hundred and fifty years,” she said.
I ignored her. “But there is precedent.”
Bronc was on his feet now, every muscle wound tight. Rafe looked at me, not with shock, but with a kind of raw pride. Juliet grinned—she was the only one.
Dominic rose to the bait at last. He stood, face darkening, fists balled at his sides.
“I accept the challenge,” he said.
Declan tried to interrupt, looking at Dominic. “You do realize what that means, don’t you? The winner takes all. Kingdom. Power. Life. Are you prepared to lose?”
“Too late. He already accepted. I came here prepared to die,” I told Dominic. “Did you?”
All the color washed from his face.
The Chairwoman tried to reassert control. “This is most irregular. There are—”
Rafe interrupted her with a wave of his hand. “You know the law. It supersedes even the Council. The challenge is binding.”
Kazimir Kozlov spoke up, voice as soft as falling ash. “You should allow it, Madam. Else we will. And your precious Council will look quite foolish.”
She nodded once, defeated. “So be it. The challenge will be held in three days’ time.
This will allow everyone time to travel to King Dominic’s estate where the challenge will occur on the battlefield there.
No weapons allowed, but those the Goddess gave you.
The result is final, as it is a fight to the death.
Savannah will remain with her current pack until the challenge is decided. ”
The guards retreated, not quite sure where to stand. Savannah sagged into her chair, stunned, eyes wide. When she looked at me, there was fear, but also something like awe.
Dominic smirked, but the confidence was gone from his eyes. He was a wolf, but I saw the man in him, saw the cracks.
Declan slumped back in his seat, jaw working, but he said nothing. For the first time, he looked mortal.
I took Savannah’s hand again. The tremor was gone.
“We have a few more days,” I said. “Eat. Rest. Whatever comes next, I want you strong.”
She nodded. “I trust you,” she whispered, so quiet I barely heard it.
I didn’t trust myself. But I trusted the voice that had spoken to me. The voice of every ancestor who’d ever fought to keep what the world tried to steal.
I would win, or I would die. There was no third path.
I looked at Dominic and smiled a toothy grin. I saw him sweat.