Chapter 6 Welcome to Moonstone
Bella's POV
I’d spent the drive expecting something manageable.
Rough terrain, maybe. Wooden structures. The general sense of wildness I’d always associated with wolves — untamed, unpolished, the kind of place where you’d want sensible shoes and low expectations.
What I got instead was the gate.
Black iron, taller than anything on my street back home, worked into the shape of howling wolves with a detail that made it clear someone had spent a very long time on it. Torches burned along the base without flickering. No wind touched them.
Beyond it, a stone road stretched straight and wide, bordered on both sides by trees trimmed with a precision that felt almost like a statement. We chose to make it look this way. We could make it look any way we chose.
The car rolled slowly through.
I kept my face neutral and watched.
Buildings lined both sides of the path. Stone walls, arched windows, warm amber light spilling through them. A quietness that wasn’t empty. It was organized. The kind of quiet that belongs to a place that knows exactly what it is.
At the top of a sloped road, at the furthest end of the main path, sat the manor.
I had one moment of just looking at it before I caught myself.
It was enormous. Dark stone that caught the moonlight and gave it back differently. Iron edgework along every ridge. Wide stone steps leading to an entrance framed by two carved wolves, mouths open mid-howl. The whole thing sat on that hill the way something sits when it isn’t trying to impress anyone. When it simply doesn’t need to.
The car stopped.
Rhys stepped out. The door barely made a sound.
I got out on my own side.
The air was cooler here. Cleaner, or just different enough that my body registered it. I took one breath and looked up.
There were people.
Pack members scattered across the grounds, near doorways, along the paths, pausing what they were doing to look at us. At Rhys, mostly. Every single one of them bowed as he walked past. Some placed a fist to their chest. The gesture was automatic, like breathing.
Then their eyes found me.
It wasn’t anger exactly. More like the expression people make when something turns up that wasn’t on the schedule. Uncertain. Appraising. Waiting to decide.
A woman near the entrance said something low to the man beside her. Neither of them lowered their gaze when I looked their way.
I kept my chin level and followed Rhys toward the steps.
The carved wolves at the entrance were close enough to touch. I didn’t touch them.
“Rhys!”
The doors burst open before he reached the top step.
A woman came out at full speed. Tall, dark-haired, cheekbones sharp enough to be intentional. She wrapped both arms around him before he could brace, and he caught her with the ease of someone who had done it before and expected to keep doing it.
“You’re late,” she said into his shoulder, laughing. Full and easy, the laugh of someone completely comfortable where they are.
I stood two steps below and watched.
Rhys said her name. Kattie. And something in his voice shifted slightly, the way a face relaxes when it stops performing. Not much. But on him, even a small change was visible.
My stomach noted this. I decided not to engage with that information right now.
Kattie’s eyes came to me over his shoulder. She looked me over once. Brief, efficient. A scan more than a look.
Then she smiled.
Wide, warm, the kind of smile that makes you want to smile back before you’ve thought about it.
I smiled back.
I also stayed where I was.
“So this is her,” she said pleasantly. “The mayor’s daughter.”
“Bella,” Rhys said. He glanced at me, the first time he’d properly looked at me since we got out of the car. “Kattie. Childhood friend.”
Two words. That was the whole introduction.
“Welcome to Moonstone, Bella.” Kattie’s tone was kind and warm and perfectly arranged. “It must be a lot to take in. Don’t worry. You’ll find your feet eventually.”
Eventually.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s beautiful so far.”
Her eyes held mine a beat longer than necessary.
Then she turned back to Rhys, her hand settling lightly on his forearm, and said something about the elders needing him. He glanced back at me once.
“Mira.”
A young maid appeared from inside almost immediately, hands folded, eyes down.
“Show her to her room,” he said.
Then he walked inside with Kattie, the two of them already talking, their voices pulling back into the warmth of the manor as the doors swung softly closed.
They hadn’t slammed. They had closed carefully.
Somehow that felt more final.
————-
My room was on the upper east floor.
Wide enough, clean. Stone walls with dark fabric hanging to soften them. A window that looked onto the back of the grounds where the treeline pressed closest to the building.
Mira set my bag near the wardrobe, gave a short bow that had the texture of routine, and left.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Soft mattress. Good pillow. Everything in its place.
I looked around the room and felt absolutely nothing, which was fine. I was tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep fixes. More the kind that comes from the inside, from carrying things too long without putting them down.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled my knees up and sat with it for a while.
The ceremony. My father’s face. Rita’s parting shot. The car ride with its four-word vocabulary. The way Rhys had said Kattie’s name quieter, less guarded, and then the door closing on both of them like I had already been settled and sorted.
I didn’t know what I’d expected. Not warmth. Not welcome. But something between nothing and this.
I got up eventually and went to the window.
Moonlight across the paths and the trimmed trees. The grounds quiet now, settled into themselves.
Then the howl came.
Long and low, rising from somewhere inside the treeline. Not a sound that stayed on the surface of things. It moved differently. Pressed lightly into the room and settled there, against my ribs.
I leaned closer to the glass.
At the edge of the trees, just past where the manor’s light reached, a pair of amber eyes. Steady. Unblinking.
My hand lifted and settled against the cold surface of the window without me deciding to do it.
I didn’t move. Didn’t call out for anyone.
I just stood there, staring back.
The eyes didn’t blink.
And neither could I.