The Cost of BloodNina’s POVThe heads were sent before sundown.Ryan made sure of it personally.By dusk, ten severed heads had been packed in iron crates lined with burlap and blood-soaked cloth, loaded onto two trucks, and sent north with one surviving runner shackled in the back and just enough breath left in him to deliver the message.Ryan had wanted to nail one to the front gate for dramatic effect. Kaiden, disturbingly practical as ever, had pointed out that sending all ten was more efficient and significantly more difficult for Nate to ignore.In the end, practicality won. By the time the trucks rolled out, the entire lower courtyard had gone quiet.The kind of quiet that spread when a pack watched its Alpha choose blood and understood something fundamental had shifted.No one said it. They didn’t need to.I felt it anyway.In the way, guards stood straighter. In the way conversations stopped when I passed. the way no one met my eyes too long.By the time I stepped back into
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