Mated Girl (Wolf Girl #4)(49)

It dawned on me then, she was right. She was the one who’d saved me and locked everything away to protect me.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked.
She nodded.
“Let my wolf join me, and then I’ll show you. She has the memories of that night. The night my soul split in two,” I added, and glared at the male vampire.
At my request, compassion crossed the faces of the witch, troll, and light fey.
“I’ll allow that, but if you try anything, I’ll kill him instantly.” The witch pointed to Sawyer and the dark fey broke out of formation to stand behind my mate.
Sawyer peeled his lips back, growling, but didn’t move.
The young witch councilwoman walked over to my wolf and unlatched the cuff at her neck. The second it fell to the ground, I dropped to my knees and opened my arms. Tears lined my eyes as she leapt into the air, going spectral, and slammed into my chest. I burst into sobs as she filled me up, making me feel whole and normal and sane for the first time since I’d left her.
‘Never again. I’m so sorry,’ I told her, hugging my chest.
‘It’s okay,’ she promised. ‘We can get through anything.’
I looked up into the surprised faces of the council, wiping the tears from my cheeks. Why did everyone look so shocked? It’s like they hadn’t really expected her to join me. Maybe they thought my split shifting was a rumor and she was a decoy pack wolf or something. Shaking herself from her stupor, the witch held out her hand again.
“Do I, Callie Heartstone, have your permission to enter your mind and see all there is to see pertaining to the truth?” she asked.
Enter my mind? I wanted to cry out, Hell no, but I knew the truth was the only way out of this mess. “I do,” I told her, and then turned to Sawyer. “Promise me you won’t look.” My lower lip shook and his entire face fell. It was like I’d just stabbed him. You could see the pain play across his features.
‘Promise me,’ I pushed through our imprint, relieved to find that the collar didn’t keep me from mentally speaking to my mate. I couldn’t live the rest of my life with this man if I knew that he’d seen the darkest night of my soul play out like a movie.
I just couldn’t. Some things needed to stay private in a marriage, and this was a deal breaker for me.
He swallowed hard, his eyes flashing yellow. “I promise.” His voice broke.
“Okay, very cute,” the vampire councilman sneered at Sawyer and I. “Let’s get this over with so we can lock them up.”
The witch’s nostrils flared in irritation, and then she looked at me, softening her gaze. “Show me your memory of the night of the alleged incident with Prince Vicon Drake.”
Alleged. That was such a hurtful word to someone telling the truth.
I reached out to touch her hand, at the same time that I turned and faced Sawyer.
The left wall of the dome we were in lit up like a movie screen and there was fifteen-year-old me and Raven getting out of a car and laughing as we walked up to Vicon’s house, where music could be heard inside.
Wow.
Her abilities were … incredible. She’d pulled my memory from my brain and then projected it on the wall with sound and color and everything.
“Hello, beautiful ladies.” Vicon opened the door with a bottle of beer and a handsome smile. This was my memory, and I felt that my wolf was about to take over and show hers. Flicking my eyes from the screen, I looked into the deep blue eyes of my mate. He was staring at my face and not making an effort to look at the screen beside him.
‘I love you,’ I said as Vicon’s pick-up lines played out in the background.
‘I love you so much more.’ Sawyer reached up, shielding my peripheral vision with his hands. ‘Everything about you. Even this.’
I whimpered at his words, and then my fifteen-year-old scream cut through the space.
Fifteen-year-old me said no. I said no four fucking times, but Vicon kept going, his friend’s voices joining him, egging him on. There were grunts, moans, shrieks, but I blocked them all out and just looked into my future, letting my past go up in flames. I didn’t live there anymore. I refused to.
‘Each day gazing into her blue eyes is like looking into the ocean. You come to learn there is endless depth,’ Sawyer said.
I couldn’t help but give him a weak smile as we blocked out the growling and the noise of fists smacking bone. The witch gasped and so did some of the Paladins behind the bubble, but I just focused on my mate. The one who believed me when I’d said what Vicon did and demanded justice for it.
‘Who wrote it?’ I asked. He was always spouting poetry to me. It was one of the ways he wooed me at our time in Sterling Hill.
Sawyer stroked my cheek. ‘I did.’
My fifteen-year-old wolf’s howl cut into the bubble from the screen and the witch clapped her hands. “I think we’ve seen enough.” Her voice shook with emotion.
I had to take a few deep breaths to calm myself, keeping my eyes on Sawyer and just feeling the sorrow from my wolf before I could pull away and finally face the council.
Each and every one of them stared at their feet, all except the witch. She boldly met my gaze.
“She was telling the truth.” Her voice held pride and I had to swallow hard to keep from crying.
“Doesn’t change the fact that she broke out five high-value prisoners,” the vampire mumbled, head still down.
The witch looked absolutely stricken. “Of course it does! She’s the mate and wife of the alpha! When Vicon Drake stole her virginity, he soiled her for the future alpha, violating Section 5A of the Magical Creature Code. Sawyer Hudson was well within his right to kill him and seek redemption for his future mate’s purity. Which means Sawyer was wrongly imprisoned. And also means Demi was within her right to free her mate when justice failed them both.”