Chapter 1 Being A Mooncrest

Kathy's POV

The car door swung open before I was ready.

That's the thing nobody tells you about arriving somewhere you're terrified of. You think you'll have a moment. A breath. Some kind of internal speech ready. I had none of that. Just the door opening and my legs moving and suddenly I was standing on actual ground at actual Mooncrest College and my chest felt like it had forgotten how to do its job.

The driver got out with me. Didn't say anything, just pulled my suitcase from the boot and set it beside me like he'd done it a hundred times, which he probably had. He gave me a small nod and I gave him nothing back because I was too busy staring up at the gate.

Welcome to Mooncrest College.

Iron letters. Old ones. The kind that look like they've survived things.

I stood there longer than I should have. Long enough that I heard the crunch of heels on gravel behind me and turned to find a woman in a sharp grey suit holding out a folder like she'd been waiting for exactly this moment.

"Miss Moonfall. Everything you need is inside. Room assignment, schedule, orientation details." A pause, very brief. "Good luck."

Then she walked back into the car, it pulled off and that was it. That was the whole send-off.

I picked up my bag and walked through the gate.

---

The inside of the folder told me I was in Ashveil Hall, room 214. I found it without asking for help, which felt important somehow. Small victory. I needed those.

The hallways were busy in that specific way where everyone looks like they know exactly where they're going and you're the only one who doesn't. I kept my eyes down and followed the map on the last page of the folder and tried not to think about how many of these people probably already knew who I was.

Malia Mooncrest's daughter. Seventeen. Wolfless.

That last word sat in my stomach like something swallowed wrong.

I turned a corner and walked straight into someone.

Not bumped.

Not grazed. Full collision, folder flying, my shoulder hitting something solid and my whole balance going sideways.

My balance went instantly, like the ground had tilted without warning, and for a split second I knew—I was going to fall. But I didn’t.

His hand caught me.

Fast. Too fast for me to even register the movement. One second I was falling, the next there was an arm around my waist, firm, steady, like it had always been meant to be there. It pulled me back before I could even panic, before my body could finish reacting.

And just like that, I was upright again. Close, too close.

I froze.

My hands hovered uselessly between us, not touching him but not pulling away either, like I didn’t trust my own balance without that grip still there. His hand was still at my waist, solid and warm through the fabric, grounding in a way that made my chest feel… off.

I looked up.

There was something sharp about him, something still and controlled, like he didn’t waste movement, didn’t waste anything. His hood was up, shadowing part of his face, but not enough to hide it.

His eyes—

Dark. Not just the color, but the way he looked at me. Steady. Focused. Like I wasn’t background noise, like I wasn’t just someone he’d accidentally run into. It wasn’t soft, wasn’t warm either. Just… there. Intense in a quiet way that made it hard to look away.

For a second—maybe less, maybe more—we just stayed like that.

Me staring.

Him not looking away.

My heart did something stupid in my chest, fast and uneven, like it couldn’t decide what this moment was supposed to be.

Then—

He let go.

Just like that.

The space between us came back too quickly, like something had snapped, and I almost missed the steadiness of his hand before I could stop myself from thinking it.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even react, not really. Just stepped back, like none of that had mattered.

Like I hadn’t almost fallen. Like he hadn’t caught me, like that moment hadn’t happened at all.

I blinked, trying to catch up with it, with him, with the sudden absence of… whatever that was.

He bent down, picked up my folder from the floor, and held it out to me.

I reached for it.

He let go before our fingers touched.

And for some reason, which was somehow worse than if he'd just left it on the floor.

Then he walked away. No sorry, no acknowledgment that we'd basically just collided hard enough for me to feel it in my teeth. Just gone, earphones still in, hoodie pulled up, like the whole thing had already been deleted from his memory.

"Okay," I said to no one. "Great."

I found room 214. Unlocked it. Sat on the edge of the bed without taking my jacket off.

The room was fine. Normal. A window, a desk, a wardrobe with one door slightly crooked. I should have been unpacking. Instead I just sat there and let it all come back up, the thing I'd been holding down since the car, since before the car, since the morning of my eighteenth birthday when I'd woken up and waited and waited and felt absolutely nothing.

No shift. No pull. No wolf.

Just me. Exactly the same me I'd always been, lying in bed at home while my mother stood in the doorway trying to keep her face still and doing a terrible job of it.

It's supposed to happen on my birthday. For wolves it always does, that's just the way it works, and when it doesn't it means something is wrong or missing or broken and nobody says that last word out loud but you can feel it in the air whenever anyone looks at you for half a second too long.

My mother never pushed. She said give it time and every wolf is different and I love her so I let her say it. But I'm here now aren't I. Shipped off to Mooncrest because standing around at home waiting wasn't working and maybe being here where the magic is thicker, where everything started, maybe that does something.

Or maybe it does nothing and I just live here being ordinary and everyone watches and whispers.

I got up and went to the window.

The grounds spread out below, wide and green and older-looking than they had any right to be. Students moving between buildings, some in small groups, some alone.

And there, on a low stone wall near the far path, sat the boy from the hallway. Urgh, Not him again.

Earphones still in. Hood down now. He was just sitting there, not on his phone or talking to anyone, just still in that way that some people are when they're actually thinking rather than pretending to.

As if he felt me looking, his head turned.

I dropped below the window frame so fast I banged my elbow on the sill and bit down hard on my lip to keep from making noise.

My heart was going embarrassingly fast.

I pressed my back against the wall and stared at the ceiling and thought: Who is he?

Not even a question. More like something that had lodged itself in my chest without asking permission.

First day. Not even unpacked.

And I was already 𝗍һіs curious.