They cast Adriel out for what he lacked.
Now the forest itself is holding its breath for what he has become.

In the blood-soaked territories of the old packs, a runt without a wolf was never meant to survive the first winter. Branded wolfless. Abandoned. Forgotten.

Until the howls stop.

Until the strongest alphas begin to vanish without a trace.
Until the night itself starts to move like something that remembers every wound.

He is coming back.
Not as the broken cub they left to die.
Not as anything the packs still have a name for.

And when the moon rises on the night of the Reckoning, the only question left will not be whether the runt has returned—

but whether any of them will still be breathing when he finishes what they started.