Chapter 10 First Blood
Bella’s POV
I woke up still in my clothes from the day before.
Shoes included, which felt like a personal failure. I decided not to dwell on it. I sat up, looked around the quiet room, and gave myself exactly thirty seconds to feel sorry about yesterday before getting up.
Just thirty seconds.
I freshened up, changed, and went downstairs.
…….
The dining room was enormous for one person.
Long table, high-backed chairs, enough seats for twenty people at least. Someone had already set a single place at the near end — tea, bread, a small dish of something warm I couldn’t name but smelled better than it had any right to.
I sat down.
The chair at the head of the table was empty. The cup beside it untouched. The place setting that hadn’t been set for me.
Rhys wasn’t coming.
I picked up my tea. More bread for me, then.
I ate alone, which wasn’t new. I tried not to let the size of the room make it feel heavier than it was. The food was genuinely good — that kept happening, and I was starting to find it quietly irritating. It’s hard to maintain the right emotional distance from a place when it keeps feeding you this well.
I finished, thanked the maid who cleared the plates and went outside.
\-----
I heard the training grounds before I saw them.
Wood cracking, bodies hitting packed earth, short sharp commands cutting through the morning air. I hadn’t planned to go near it. My feet just drifted that way while I wasn’t paying attention.
I stopped at the edge of the open field.
About twenty wolves mid-drill. Fast, disciplined — moving through formations with the ease of people who’d done something so many times it had stopped feeling like effort. At the far end, two of them were sparring. Real contact. No hesitation.
I stood at the side with my arms crossed, just watching.
“Bella.”
I turned.
Kattie was walking toward me, smiling, relaxed, like she’d just happened to be passing by. She probably hadn’t. This was probably already her plan before I’d finished breakfast.
Here we go.
“Didn’t know you were interested in training,” she said pleasantly.
“I’m not, really. Just walking.”
“You should stay.” She tilted her head toward the group. “Good to watch, at least. Helps you understand how things work here.”
She said it like a suggestion. It landed like something else entirely.
Before I could answer, she’d already turned toward the field.
“Dara. Come here for a moment.”
A girl broke from the group and jogged over.
She was tall — not just tall for a wolf, tall by any standard. Wide shoulders, arms that had clearly been doing this since she could walk. She looked at me with the open, easy expression of someone who had absolutely no concerns about how this would go.
Of course.
“Dara’s one of our junior warriors,” Kattie said warmly. “She’s been training since she was eight.” A small pause. “I thought a friendly match might help you settle in. Nothing serious. Just to get a feel for the pack.”
She said friendly the way people say this won’t hurt right before something does.
I looked at Dara. Dara looked back at me like I was a light warm-up.
The rest of the training ground had gone quieter. Not stopped — just quieter. In the way that means people are still moving but their attention has shifted somewhere else.
Every part of my brain said no. I had no wolf training, no enhanced strength, no anything. I was human. I’d been awake less than two hours. The last real fight I’d been in involved throwing sand at someone and running.
But the whole ground was watching now.
And Kattie was still smiling.
Fine.
“Sure,” I said.
\-----
The first hit came fast.
Not a test. Not a warm-up. Dara moved like she’d already decided, and I barely got my arm up in time. The impact shot straight through to my shoulder and my feet left the ground.
I landed hard on my side.
The watching pack made a sound.
I got up.
She came again. I ducked the second swing but the third caught my upper arm — a glancing blow that still felt like being hit with a plank. My vision smeared for half a second.
Okay. She’s strong. Good to know that now.
I steadied myself. My lip had caught something on the way down — already swelling, copper taste sitting at the corner of my mouth.
I didn’t look at Kattie.
I looked at Dara and I tried to think. No strength, no speed, no wolf instinct. What did I actually have?
I had the fact that I’d been underestimated my entire life. And the people who did it always left a gap somewhere.
Dara came forward again and I moved sideways instead of back — stepping inside her reach rather than away from it. She wasn’t expecting that. Her balance shifted slightly, and I pushed hard against her extended arm. She stumbled half a step.
It wasn’t a win. But the watching pack went quiet in a different way.
Someone at the back said something low. Someone else responded.
Dara reset. Her expression had changed — less easy, more focused. I’d just become slightly more interesting to her, which was not entirely good news.
She hit me again. This one caught my ribs and I went down on one knee, the breath leaving my body all at once.
I stayed there for one second. Just one.
Then I pushed myself back up.
Do not stay down. Whatever else happens— do not stay down.
The ground had gone almost completely silent.
“Enough.”