I’m lying in the middle of a double bed with bronze, silk sheets that look like they cost more than the academy’s entire bedding budget for a year.
Late morning sunlight streams through the wide window. An elegant honey locust tree leans against the glass, and a blood-red breasted robin hops along its branches.
The bedroom isn’t luxurious like the rest of the mansion is. It’s cozy, messy, and as contradictory as Ambrose is.
A sleek, leather violin case leans against the far wall next to a tall, antique mahogany wardrobe, in pride of place.
One entire side of the room, however, is taken up with a home gym: stacked dumbbells, jump ropes, and boxing gloves. A heavy punching bag hangs from a hook.
Does Ambrose need the punching bag to take out the stress of being a CEO? Or has he bulked out into his ripped physique because he’s taken up boxing as a replacement for football?
Perhaps, he never stopped being a jock.
I glance down at myself, patting myself in excitement.
My smile widens.
I’m alive!
I didn’t die yesterday. These incredible men saved me.
I raise my hand to my neck. Then I whine in pleasure, as my fingers trace one bond bite, before lowering to the next. Desperate to feel every single one, I touch the other side of my neck, stroking across the final two bites.
I have two scent matches, butfourfated mates.
Is that why I was able to survive my damaged heat?
Has Swan been right all along about those?
I expected to wake up in a sticky mess in the middle of the library. But instead, my skin is clean. My hair has been washed. And I’m dressed in dark brown, silk pajamas.
Despite their own exhaustion after the heat, and likely knot soreness, have the two Alphas carried me here? Proved their intention to cherish me by washing me? Then settled me to sleep, alongside Benedict and Swan?
Only the first Omega has the right in a Traditional pack to sleep in the Chief Alpha’s bed. But this must be Ambrose’s bedroom.
Curious, I glance around myself.
When I was in high school, I spent hours daydreaming about what Ambrose’s room would look like.
I imagined that he’d sneak me up here like we were in one of those movies that the gorgeous Omega movie star, Jex, starred in when he was a teenager, about kids from rival packs falling in love. Jex would be smuggled into the Alpha’s bedroom to supposedly work on a joint school project but instead, would be kissed senseless.
Of course, that would be when the Alpha’s dad would storm in and find them. Cue much angst and drama, before the HEA.
I’d dream that I was the Omega, and Ambrose the Alpha.Except, his mom wouldn’t interrupt us at the crucial moment.
My expression softens, when I can see glimpses of the boy that Ambrose had been back when I’d known him in high school.
A poster of iconic formula one racing cars is plastered on the wall behind Ambrose’s punching bag. The top of his chest of drawers is covered in trophies and medals, which he won in his football days, although they look dusty and unloved now.
Swan is lying next to me in the bed, wearing matching pajamas withARmonogrammed on the pocket. It’s like Ambrose wants to be certain that we belong to him.
We’re marked.
Possessive Alphahole.
Swan has his arm slung around Benedict’s slim shoulders protectively.
Benedict’s curls look like they’re tickling Swan’s nose.