The Devil Alpha
I said, "and paid his bills. Nobody out there can hate you cleanly. Nobody can thank you. That's the devil, isn't it — you broke the pack's arithmetic. Blood for blood, a thousand years, one number. You gave them a second one and it doesn't balance."
"I kept the arithmetic." He stood in the center of the sand, in the judgment black, and looked at the stones rather than at me. "Blood for blood is a beautiful number. It's also a civil war every second generation. My father's father ran one; my father inherited the debts. A pack that can only count to blood will always owe somebody." A muscle in his jaw. "So I gave them a number with interest. Mercy, itemized, is the most expensive thing I own.