"All right. It's time. Let the ceremony begin."
The sun had swallowed half the horizon.
At the Elder's commanding call, every sound that had been rising and falling across the Ancestral Altar was seized by an invisible fist—silenced in a single breath. All that remained was the faint, mournful keen of wind threading through the branches of the Ancestral Thorns.
"By now, many within the pack have heard the news. But to show proper respect to a Blackthorn bloodline who has been away from us for far too long, allow me to make the formal introduction—" The Elder's voice swelled as the echo-wall above the altar amplified it layer upon layer. "The firstborn son of Alpha Brown. Selena's elder brother. Adrian Blackthorn has, after a long separation, finally returned to us!"
Cheers surged from
