Chapter 8 - THE TRIAL OF BLOOD AND FIRE
"I challenge it!" Callum suddenly screamed, his mind snapping under the weight of utter humiliation, public disgrace, and the terrifying realization of what he had thrown away.
The entire ballroom went completely silent.
Damon’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "What did you say, warrior?"
Callum’s face was flushed red with desperate rage and wounded pride. He drew his broadsword, pointing the trembling steel tip at the floor between Damon and Lyra.
"I invoke the Ancient Rite of Combat!" Callum yelled, his voice echoing frantically off the white quartz walls. "The rejection was based on deception! Her true power was hidden from me by dark magic! Under the ancient laws of the First Packs, a broken mate bond caused by magical interference can be re-claimed through a Combat Trial! If I defeat her champion... the Moon Goddess's bond is restored, and she must return to Crescent Moon as my mate!"
"You dare?" Damon took a step forward, his hand moving to the hilt of his sovereign blade, his aura flaring with absolute, lethal rage. "I will tear you limb from limb where you stand—"
"No, Damon," Lyra’s cool voice interrupted.
Damon paused, looking down at her.
Lyra walked past Damon, stepping directly into the open center of the ballroom floor. She looked at Callum with an expression of quiet, lethal amusement.
"He invoked the Rite against me," Lyra said, her voice echoing clear and calm. "He does not fight my champion. He fights me."
"Lyra, no!" Beta Arthur yelled from the crowd. "Callum is the head warrior! He has trained in combat for fifteen years!"
Callum felt a sudden, desperate surge of hope. If he fought her—if he could somehow defeat her or force her to submit in physical combat—he could reclaim her, her ancient royal bloodline, and her vast power for himself and Crescent Moon.
"Accept the challenge, then!" Callum sneered, raising his sword into a guard stance, his muscles tensing as he prepared to shift partially into his warrior beast form. "Unless the Queen is afraid to back up her grand words!"
"I accept," Lyra said simply.
The nobles quickly scrambled backward, clearing a massive sixty-foot circle in the center of the grand ballroom. Guards lined the perimeter with silver shields to catch any stray magic.
Callum didn't wait for a formal count. Driven by desperate ambition and wild rage, he let out a guttural, half-wolf roar, his eyes turning fully golden, long fangs elongating from his jaw, dark gray fur bursting along his arms and face. He lunged forward with supernatural speed, bringing his heavy steel broadsword down in a deadly, two-handed executioner's strike meant to shatter her guard and force her to her knees.
Lyra didn't draw a sword. She didn't even shift.
She simply waited until the razor-sharp blade was inches from her collarbone.
BOOM.
With a movement so fast it appeared as a silver blur, Lyra sidestepped the heavy blow. The broadsword slammed into the marble floor, shattering the stone. Before Callum could pull the blade free, Lyra raised her right hand and struck him across the face with an open palm coated in shimmering silver wolf-fire.
CRACK!
The force of the strike sounded like a cannon shot. Callum’s head snapped sideways, blood and broken teeth spraying across the polished floor as he was lifted off his feet and sent spinning through the air, crashing hard onto his back twenty feet away.
The crowd gasped in shock.
Callum groaned, coughing up blood, his vision swimming as he struggled to push himself up from the floor. "Impossible..." he wheezed, his warrior transformation faltering under the sheer shock of the impact. "How... how are you this strong?"
Lyra walked toward him slowly, her silver silk dress flowing gracefully around her legs, her feet barely making a sound against the marble.
"You spent fifteen years learning how to hit things, Callum," Lyra said, her voice vibrating with cold, ancient power. "I spent seventeen years surviving a dark curse that was trying to tear my soul apart from the inside out. My pain forged a monster. You are just a boy playing with a toy sword."
Callum roared in desperate fury, pushing himself up and charging at her again, throwing a wild, ferocious left hook aimed at her temple.
Lyra caught his massive, fur-covered fist in her small, bare hand.
Callum’s eyes widened in absolute horror. He pulled with all his strength, but her grip was like a vice forged of solid titanium. She didn't budge an inch.
Lyra looked at his trembling fist, then up into his terrified eyes.
"This is for the rejection," Lyra whispered.
She twisted his wrist.
SNAP.
Callum screamed in agony as his forearm bone fractured. Lyra followed up with a lightning-fast kick directly to his chest. The kinetic shockwave exploded through his ribcage, sending him flying backward fifty feet across the ballroom floor until he slammed heavily into the base of the sovereign dais, unconscious, broken, and defeated.
Silence hung heavy over the grand hall.
Lyra stood in the center of the room, completely unbothered, not a single hair out of place, her silver dress shining immaculate beneath the crystal candlelight.
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She turned her eyes to Alpha Dominic and Beta Arthur, who were staring at their broken warrior in absolute, petrified silence.
"Take your warrior," Lyra commanded smoothly. "And leave my Citadel."
