CHAPTER 12
WINDY
Slowly, I wake, drifting from deep sleep.
The first thing I notice is a satisfying ache—the residue of restful slumber and being fucked spectacularly.
I stretch, feeling the knots in my shoulders and back uncoil one by one.
I sigh and open my eyes. In dim morning light, the ceiling comes into focus.
The sun’s soft glow paints the room in a warm, golden hue.
Slowly, I become more aware of my surroundings.
Warmth presses against me from both sides.
A hand holds my breast; an arm hugs my waist. Their gentle, steady weight fills my heart to bursting.
What really gets me is the face nuzzling my lower abdomen.
A huge body lies between my legs, one arm wrapping from beneath my left leg, the left arm hugging my right leg to their muscular chest. His neck presses against my sensitive mound, sending pleasurable tingles along my skin.
The room is quiet except for the soft rustle of blankets and the low, sleepy groan that comes from the person lying on my stomach.
It vibrates through my abdomen, the feeling of their head resting against my lower stomach making me smile.
I feel grounded, held, and strangely peaceful.
As I lie here, I take in the closeness and the slow, shared transition from sleep to waking.
It feels like a moment suspended in time—quiet, gentle, and full of a connection that should terrify me but relieves me instead.
I feel refreshed and renewed, like a whole new woman. These three men are the reason I feel this way; they make me feel whole and complete.
My throat may lack mating marks, but I’ve never felt so close to people as I do right now—not even Remi. She’s my best friend in the entire world. Still, in this moment, I feel closer to these men than to her. It’s a beautiful feeling.
The men start to wake up around me. Each one stretches and groans as if they’ve just had the best sleep of their lives.
The male between my legs nuzzles his face against my stomach, then moves his mouth down to my mound and gives it a light kiss.
I giggle and feel him smile against my skin.
He squeezes my leg once, grunts, and starts to get up from between my legs.
I crane my head down and meet Wolf’s smirking face.
He winks, and his smirk grows into a full-blown smile when my cheeks flush, and a smile spreads across my own face.
“Morning,” he whispers in a sleep-rough voice. “How’d you sleep?”
“Very well,” I say, giggling.
He gives me another smile before he gets up on his knees, placing his fists beside my hips.
He leans forward, presses light kisses against my stomach, then my chest, and finally my lips.
He moans, trying to deepen the kiss, but I pull back and mime brushing my teeth.
He huffs a laugh, then climbs from the bed.
The other two hands and arms holding me start to move.
Finian’s hand squeezes my breast before he gets up.
Amos’ arm pulls me into his chest even more as he grumbles about waking up so early.
He kisses my shoulder, saying, “Come. Let’s go back to sleep.”
I laugh, feeling my heart fill to the point of bursting.
I nuzzle the top of his head and press a kiss against the crown of his head.
He moans, dragging out the sound before he huffs and raises onto his elbow.
He looks down at me, his eyes bright and happy, before he shuffles up and pops a kiss on the side of my neck.
Wolf breaks the moment as he says, “If only this were a perfect world, but we all have work.”
Ugh. Work.
Last night, when they asked about my job, I nearly died.
It’s nothing to be proud of, and I wish I didn’t have to do it.
Still, it pays the bills. No matter what I want, this is the hand I was dealt.
It’s all I know—my normal. Another job is possible, yes, but nothing pays as well as this one.
Over the years, I’ve built a decent-sized nest egg, and every month I work, I save more.
But this job isn’t what I want to do.
I desperately want to be a mother, a mate—just someone who wants to be truly wanted, not for what I can give, but for who I am.
That’s all anyone wants: to be loved. I don’t think I’m unlovable.
I just think people misread and underestimate me.
I may seem agreeable at first, but if you betray me, I become ruthless and viperous.
“What are you doing tonight?” Finian asks as he stands up beside the bed and gives a big stretch; his back pops, and a pleasurable groan escapes him.
I sit up in bed, uncaring about my nakedness. Three sets of hungry eyes feast on my body, making me smirk as I glance between them. Wolf is the first to remember himself. He clears his throat and turns his head away. I smirk wider when I see him sneak another glance out of the corner of his eye.
“See something you like?” I ask, loving the fact that they can’t seem to stop looking at me.
“You know we do,” Amos’s voice is filled with a need so strong he nearly gravitates toward me.
Wolf grabs Amos by his arm and drags him away from me. We’re in an omega nest in their home, ready for their mate whenever they find her. Last night, they found me. I found them. I know they’re my scent match mates. It felt too right for them to be anything else.
Finian takes a step toward the nest's door but stops short. He glances over his shoulder. The other two also stop, and all three congregate at the door. Finian’s eyebrows lift in a quiet question.
“We never really got your last name yesterday,” he says. “What is it?”
I freeze for half a second, weighing them, the room, and the risk. Then I shrug like it’s nothing. “It’s Michael. Why?”
It isn’t.
It’s Carmichael.
But they don’t need to know that. Only my job knows my real last name.
I’m not hiding from my family, nor am I doing anything nefarious—at least, nothing dramatic.
Still, I don’t want any ties to them. I want my success to be mine alone.
Their name opens doors that would otherwise remain closed to those who aren’t their blood.
I want to be normal. To be normal, I don’t need to be connected to the Carmichael family.
They can keep their blue-blooded legacy, their expectations, and their polished pedigree.
I don’t want any part of it. I want something different.
I want to be me, not just a small cog in our family’s machine.
“I don’t believe I know anyone with the last name Michael,” Finian whispers.
“Nor do I,” Wolf states, his voice sounding off from the open, soft one he had when he woke up this morning.
“Who cares about her last name?” Amos looks between both Wolf and Finian, giving them a hard glare before he looks back at me, and his features blank out completely.
Wolf takes a step forward, leaning into Amos. I can’t hear what he says, but I know by the way Amos stiffens that it’s not a good thing.
How did everything change so quickly? Why did it change?
“Yes, my last name is Michael.”
The moment I say Michael again, I watch three sets of shoulders slump.
Wolf’s drops sharply, as if his strength drains out of him all at once.
Amos’s shoulders fold inward, his chest caving slightly—a quiet surrender heavier than words.
Finian’s shoulders sink more slowly, as if he carries an unmistakable sense of loss.
Watching them doesn’t warm me. Instead, a chill makes me shiver where I sit.
They look ... defeated.
And that defeat seeps into my body, leaving me dejected and oddly isolated in a room full of people.
The loneliness sharpens the sting of failure.
I fold my arms across my bare torso, trying to shield myself, though I know it changes nothing.
The gesture feels feeble, inadequate beside the sudden vulnerability.
I want to shrink, to protect what’s exposed.
My skin prickles as embarrassment and self-consciousness blend with the chill in the air.
When I glance at Wolf, seeing his expression shift, I know I’m not going to like whatever he’s going to say. His features settle into a firm, stoic stillness. His jaw is set, eyes steady, and posture unbothered. Even naked, he looks like the king of all he surveys.
Nothing about him mirrors the cold heaviness I feel. The moment glances off him and leaves no trace. I sit here, trying to hold myself together, but I feel myself slowly fraying at the edges.
We’re all in a stare-off. I wonder who will break first.
It isn’t for several minutes of silence, when finally, Wolf breaks it. He gives me a tight smile, saying, “How about we have dinner tonight? We can talk about us then, okay?”
Numbly, I nod my head. Just moments ago, we were laughing and planting kisses; now, a chill settles between us, sharp and sudden.
I feel the sting of rejection, but I know they haven’t pushed me away.
I’m here, in the nest they’ve built for their potential mate—for me.
If rejection was coming, it would have happened already, back at the restaurant.
No one is cruel enough to end things after a night full of passion.
“Yeah. That’s good. What should I wear?” I ask quietly, afraid anything louder will break this moment between us.
“Dress nice,” Finian says, giving me a smile. A smile that actually reaches his eyes, unlike Wolf.
“We’ll see you tonight,” Wolf says, walking away without saying another word.
Then, to my horror, Amos and Finian both walk away as well.
I can’t help it when my mouth falls open in shock.
A huff of disbelief leaves me as I try to run my fingers through my tangled mess of hair, but it’s too tangled for that.
I will have to go home and condition my hair to within an inch of its life to get a brush through the long, thick strands.
I allow myself one heartbeat of shock. Just one.
Then I force my body to move. The moment snaps like a thin thread of fraying edges, and I push myself off the bed.
My feet hit the floor harder than I expect.
My eyes trail over the room. A room that feels too bright, too exposed.
I scan it with the kind of frantic precision of a mom who's lost her child in a theme park.
I do so until I spot my clothes scattered across the floor in careless places. The sight makes my stomach twist.
My dress is draped over the chair arm. I gather it quickly; my fingers are clumsy as I clutch the fabric. They feel like they don’t even belong to me but to someone else. I dress in sharp, jerky movements, each one a small act of reclaiming myself from the utter confusion I feel.
I start looking all over for my purse and shoes.
When I crouch to look under the bed, I find my purse half-hidden in the shadows.
I pull it free and sling it over my shoulder.
My heels are next. I spy them under the chaise lounge that’s next to a door I’m sure leads to either a bathroom or a closet.
They’re hiding almost near the back against the wall, as though they’re trying to escape the scene too.
I slip quietly out of the room. I don’t see anyone when I do.
The hallway yawns open, silent and polished to within an inch of its life.
I make my way toward the grand staircase.
It curves downward, beautiful and majestic, like something out of a world I don’t belong in and am away from.
Each step echoes faintly through the ai, swallowed by the opulence around me.
There are gilded frames, priceless artwork, a gorgeous chandelier that drips like molten gold, and marble floors.
This home is beautiful in a way that feels cruel.
It’s a reminder I don’t belong, even though I really want to belong to them.
They’re my mates. Their scents draw me in a way no alpha’s scent before has.
Cinnamon candy, bonfire, cedar, and the most delicious scent of the most chocolatey chocolate cake out there.
Put them all together, and it’s like doing a fireball shot with a smore as dessert.
My heart lodges high in my throat, tight and aching, as tears burn hot at the corners of my eyes. I take a shaky breath, blinking hard. I refuse to let those tears fall.
Not here.
Not now.
Not in this house.
Not where they can stain the air with proof that I’m hurting; that their words hurt me.
Right now, I don’t know what hurts most. Their reaction to my last name or the way they treated me before doing a one-eighty.
Gathering my wits, I straighten my spine even as my chest trembles. I will not break. I repeat it silently, a mantra, a shield, a promise to myself that I refuse to break. I am stronger than this hurt. Stronger than them. And with every step down the staircase, I make myself believe it.
With every step I take, a new resolution pushes to the forefront of my mind.
I will show them that I’m the best omega for them. My happiness with my scent match mates rides on this.
I’ll show them they’ve never met anyone like Windy Carmichael.
I’m a lot more headstrong than any alpha out there.