Savannah stood, the black dress falling straight as a blade from her collarbones. She looked smaller than the day before, but her voice was clearer, more measured.
“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 myscreams, 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 hesawme—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 mybody howledminethe 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 isnotSavannah 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.
