Chapter 21: Public Blood

Ryder The square was a theater of grey stone and cold shadows, the air biting with the scent of pine and the metallic tang of fear. I stood on the raised dais, my heavy wool coat draped over my shoulders like a mantle of iron, feeling the eyes of the BlackThorn pack boring into my back. They were silent, a sea of muted colors and hushed breaths, but I could feel the electricity of their collective anxiety vibrating through the soles of my boots. The Omega knelt in the center of the clearing, her knees raw against the grit, her wrists bound by heavy silver-infused chains that hissed whenever she moved. Her name was Elara, a girl who had done nothing more than hesitate when given an order that went against her conscience, but in my pack, hesitation was a contagion. I looked down at her, not with pity, but with a cold, calculated necessity, knowing that her suffering was the only currency that would keep the others in line. A leader who cannot inspire love must demand terror, and I had lo