The Hidden Luna- Moon Crowned Trilogy by Serena Clare

Chapter 6-Luna Suite

I woke to light.

Not the thin gray kind that slips through cheap blinds and tells you it’s time to survive again.

Real light.

Golden. Warm. The kind that pours through expensive windows like it has nowhere urgent to be.

It lay across the floor in a clean rectangle, catching dust in the air and turning even that into something pretty.

For a second, I forgot where I was.

Then I looked up.

High ceilings rose above me, crossed with sweeping arched beams of dark polished wood. They curved overhead like the ribs of something grand and living. Carved into them were patterns so beautiful I forgot to breathe properly.

White oak branches wound through the woodwork, their limbs curling elegant and strong across the beams, leaves picked out in pale silver that caught the morning light. Between them ran crescents in every phase, waxing full, fading thin, beginning again. Tiny starbursts glittered between the branches, eight-pointed and sharp, some inlaid with silver, others carved directly into the wood so the sun found them first.

It didn’t feel decorative.

It felt old.

Loved.

Like the house remembered what mattered and refused to let anyone forget it.

Tall windows stretched nearly floor to ceiling across the far wall, overlooking rain-bright gardens and ancient trees beyond a stone wall. The glass was so clear it looked like stepping through it might simply place you outside.

The bed was enormous.

Not normal-big.

Queen-decides-your-fate big.

Layered in cream linen and a comforter so plush I suspected it had opinions about lesser bedding. Pillows were stacked against a carved headboard where more oak branches curved around a silver crescent moon.

Across from me stood a limestone fireplace, wide and elegant, the mantel worn to a satin glow by time and hands and years of people leaning there with secrets.

Everything in the room was beautiful.

Not flashy. Beautiful.

Kept beautiful.

The kind that made my chest ache unexpectedly.

I belonged to fluorescent lights and laminate counters and rent anxiety.

This room looked like it had never worried a day in its life.

It also smelled like clean linen, old wood, and something faint beneath it I couldn’t place.

My leg.

I remembered my leg half a second after trying to move it.

Pain arrived immediately, sharp enough to pull a sound out of me. I shoved my face into the pillow and breathed until it dulled into the heavy deep ache of something set properly instead of broken wrong.

Last night.

I went still.

Shock had carried me farther than I realized.

Through the hallway.

Through the SUV.

Through Dr. Aldric.

Through Dominic sitting in that chair while I drifted in and out.

Through the steady weight of his hand at my shoulder.

Morning had apparently come to collect the bill.

George.

Sarah.

My throat tightened so fast it hurt.

For one sharp second, I could see Sarah sliding extra toast onto my plate without looking at me.

George pretending to complain while pushing the butter closer with one finger.

Like I didn’t notice.

My lips pressed together hard.

No.

No, no, no.

Not again.

I couldn’t cry again.

My face already hurt from it.

But the memories didn’t come loud. They crept in.

And that was worse.

Sarah’s hugs.

Her apron brushing my cheek.

Her hand smoothing my hair like I was something precious and not just some girl taking up space in her kitchen.

My chest folded in on itself.

One tiny sound slipped out before I could trap it.

I hated it.

I missed her. I missed him.

I missed them so much my body shook like it had been holding the hurt in its teeth.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Annabelle?” Chloe’s voice came soft and careful.

I swallowed hard, but the tears were still there, hot and stubborn, stuck in my throat like they had teeth. My voice tried to come up and broke before it could be useful.

“Come in,” I said.

My voice worked.

Mostly.

Chloe stepped inside carrying a tray.

She looked like someone who had gotten ready on purpose.

Hair done. Clothes neat. Brightness arranged carefully over swollen eyes.

It made me love her a little immediately.

“Pearl made you breakfast,” she said. “She said before anyone starts having dramatic conversations, you eat first.”

“Chloe—”

“She was very clear.” Chloe set the tray beside me. “Eggs, toast, tea for healing, and apparently my opinion means nothing.”

That got the smallest laugh out of me.

Her face changed at the sound.

Like she’d needed it more than I had.

“You’re okay,” she said.

Not a question.

I looked at her.

She was trying so hard not to cry for my sake that I almost did it for her.

“I’m okay,” I said.

A lie with decent manners.

She sat on the far side of the bed, careful of my leg.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Anna, if I hadn’t come in there, if they hadn’t seen me, if Dom hadn’t—”

“Stop.”

I reached for her hand.

“This is not yours.”

“You got hurt because of me.”

“I got hurt because life has terrible timing.”

She let out one broken laugh.

I squeezed her fingers.

“I was there because it was my shift,” I said quietly. “Because George liked to overwork me and Sarah liked pretending she didn’t notice.”

The laugh disappeared.

We both looked away.

My eyes burned again.

I blinked fast and stared at the tray like it had personally offended me.

“Eat,” Chloe said after a moment, borrowing Pearl’s authority with admirable confidence.

So I did.

The eggs were criminally good.

Soft, buttery, actually seasoned.

Not hospital eggs.

Not pity eggs.

Real eggs made by someone who believed breakfast could save lives.

I ate all of them.

The toast too.

Then the tea, which tasted herbal, strange, and mildly suspicious.

By the second cup, my leg hurt less.

Excellent.

I was apparently in a mansion being healed by enchanted breakfast.

No one had sighed once about bringing it to me.

That felt stranger than the tea.

I swallowed hard.

Chloe watched me eat with the solemn satisfaction of someone completing sacred work.

She opened her mouth.

The door opened first.

Dr. Aldric came in wearing a white coat and glasses, carrying quiet competence like luggage.

He glanced at the empty tray and visibly approved, smiles lines at his eyes.

I liked him immediately for it.

“Good morning,” he said. “I’m Dr. Aldric. We met briefly last night.”

“You threatened me with honesty.”

His mouth twitched.

“Medically, yes.”

He took the chair beside the bed.

The chair.

The one Dominic had sat in.

And just like that, my pulse did something unhelpful.

My fingers found the curl he’d pushed from my swollen cheek last night, winding it tight.

The slightest blush stole over my cheeks, and I ducked my head so Dr. Aldric wouldn’t see.

Anna.

Honestly.

Can we please not swoon at furniture.

“How is the pain?”

“Managed.”

“The tea helped.”

“It usually does.”

He opened his bag.

I watched him for a second.

Then said the thing sitting in my throat since last night.

“You called Dominic Alpha.”

Chloe shifted beside me.

Tiny movement.

Important movement.

Aldric looked at me calmly, like he’d expected this exact moment.

“I did.”

“What does that mean here?”

I gestured weakly around the room.

“In this very expensive haunted forest palace.”

Chloe snorted.

Aldric almost smiled.

Then he grew serious.

“The Alpha of SilverMoon leads the pack.”

Pack.

The word hung there.

“We are not ordinary people, Annabelle.”

My mind offered several responses.

Most of them useless.

“The men who attacked the diner weren’t ordinary either,” he continued. “I think you know that.”

I remembered being lifted off the floor like I weighed nothing.

I remembered Dominic coming through a wall.

Something prickled across my skin under the blanket.

“Not not human,” I said.

A pause.

“In part.”

I stared at him.

“In part?”

I gave the smallest shrug my leg would allow.

Pain pinched for the effort.

My curls slipped loose from what was left of my bun, tumbling over my shoulders and into the hands I’d twisted tight in the blanket.

I looked at Chloe.

Her mouth was half open, pale green eyes flickering between thoughts so quickly it was like watching light move across water.

Like she wanted to comfort me, explain everything, and laugh all at once.

Which, honestly, felt fair.

I took a breath.

Then another.

Looked back at Aldric.

“Well…” I said, lifting my chin a little, my voice coming out higher than usual, with a tiny thread of hysteria trying to sneak through, but steady enough.

“I did wake up in the Beast’s castle.”

The corner of Chloe’s mouth tipped up.

“And he came through a wall.”

My fingers knotted deeper in the blanket.

“So unless there’s a magic rose lying around somewhere…”

Aldric’s brows pulled together with visible effort.

Chloe broke first, laughing into her hand.

Aldric lost the fight a second later, ducking his head as a real laugh slipped free.

I blinked at them.

Then a little smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it.

Heat rushed over my cheeks.

I ducked behind the curtain of curls that had absolutely betrayed me.

“I’m just trying to keep up,” I murmured.

Chloe reached over and squeezed my wrist once, still smiling.

Something in my chest loosened.

I drew in a slow breath and let all the strange, impossible warmth of the room settle around me.

“Okay?”

“I have at least nine hundred questions,” I said. “But okay.”

This time he smiled.

“For now,” he said, opening his bag, “let me check the leg.”

He was gentle.

Efficient.

He asked careful questions.

History of injuries?

Some.

Consistent medical care?

Not always.

Nutrition concerns?

Depends how poetic you’re feeling.

He did not write that last answer down.

Every honest thing I gave him tightened something behind his eyes.

He never commented on it.

That kindness landed harder than pity would have.

No one here looked annoyed that I needed help.

I didn’t know why that almost made me cry, so I stared at the blanket instead.

When he finished, he stood.

“The break was clean. You’ll heal well.”

“Love hearing that after dramatic events.”

“You should rest.”

“I’m beginning to suspect everyone here enjoys telling me what to do.”

“That would be accurate,” he said, something conspiratorial flickering in his eyes.

A giggle rose up before I could catch it, tumbling out anyway.

The room felt easier all at once.

He left with the tray.

Chloe looked at me.

“Soooo,” I said.

She waited, already suspicious.

“Does your brother always rescue strange girls and bring them to his haunted moon castle?”

She stared one second.

Then laughed so suddenly it cracked into tears halfway through.

“Moon castle?”

“There are carved stars in the ceiling! Chloe.”

“Those are heirloom details.”

“There are suits of armor.”

“Decorative.”

“There are windows taller than my future.”

She wiped under one eye, still laughing.

“Your family is unmanageably strange.”

Then quieter, smoothing a wrinkle in the blanket that did not need smoothing:

“These were my mother’s rooms.”

The room went quiet for a second.

I looked at her.

Something soft and sad moved across her face, the kind of look that made my chest ache before I even understood why.

“Dom…” She glanced down, suddenly fascinated by the bedspread. “Dom hasn’t brought anyone here.”

My pulse did something unhelpful again.

Completely inappropriate timing.

A quick flash of his eyes crossed my mind.

Dark green.

Steady on mine in the SUV while everything else hurt.

My hands folded together in my lap.

“Oh,” was all I could muster, pink returning to my cheeks.

Chloe looked up and caught every bit of that.

The smile she tried to hide was deeply unhelpful.

I felt my cheeks warm.

She giggled first.

I giggled right after.

And just like that, some of the strangeness of this whole impossible situation lifted and drifted quietly away for awhile at least.

Then my stomach dropped.

I’d been gone all night.

Henry.

My fingers tightened in the blanket.

Chloe saw it immediately.

“What?”

“My stepdad… Henry,” I said, my eyes starting to sting again.

My phone sat on the table beside the bed.

Ten messages.

Just seeing them made my stomach turn over.

I tucked my hands under the blanket so Chloe wouldn’t see them shake.

I was not brave enough for those yet.

“He’s going to be furious.”

A small tremor still ran through my shoulders anyway.

Henry might have only weighed a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, but when he got angry, the whole room seemed to shrink around him.

I learned young that quiet Henry was never really quiet.

It was just the calm before the storm.

Her face sharpened.

“I’ll ask Dom to go. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having a conversation with him.”

My whole body went cold.

Then a full image of Dominic meeting Henry flashed through my head.

Dominic standing in our cabin, broad shoulders taking up too much of the room, those dark green eyes catching everything I wished they wouldn’t.

The notice on the door.

The broken blind.

The couch with the stuffing showing.

Henry at the table, pale and mean-quiet, looking up at him like he had a right to.

My stomach turned.

Worse, Dominic would look at me after.

Not angry.

Not disgusted.

Just knowing.

Somehow I didn't want him to know.

My cheeks burned so fast I wanted to pull the blanket over my head and live there forever.

Or at least until everyone forgot I existed.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

It came out small.

Embarrassingly small.

I tucked my chin, because apparently looking at people while panicking was a skill I had not unlocked yet.

“That feels like it could become…” I swallowed, trying very hard to sound reasonable and not like a girl who wanted to disappear into cotton. “A whole thing.”

Chloe let a small sigh slip from her.

Something flashed through her eyes, soft and lethal at the same time, before she nodded like she understood enough without making me say it.

“I’ll send someone gentler,” she promised.

I breathed again.

Only a little.

The questions stayed.

And every time I thought I’d calmed down, some traitorous part of me remembered Dominic’s eyes first.