Knotted By The Devilish Alpha Brothers

Chapter 60: Chapter 60: rare flower

Madame’s expression was gentle. ”You don’t have to hide things from me. I am your mother-in-law.” A small pause. ”Were you talking about my sons?”

Amelia felt the lie collapse under that steady gaze. There was no point pretending. ”...Yes. I was thinking about my partners.”

Madame stepped closer and lightly linked her arm through Amelia’s, guiding her forward along the corridor as if they were simply taking an evening walk.

”I know those three have rather... high drives,” she said, voice matter-of-fact. ”But they won’t push past your limits if you’re truly tired. They understand the difference.”

Heat rushed straight to Amelia’s face. Shame and residual memory tangled together until she could only look at the floor.

Madame continued. ”I’ve been wanting to speak with you privately for some time. Woman to woman. Is that all right?”

Amelia managed a nod. ”Yes.”

Madame gestured to a nearby servant. ”Take her bag to her room.”

The maid accepted the bag with a bow and disappeared. Amelia followed Madame up the stairs in silence until they stopped before the tall glass wall that overlooked the internal garden. On the other side, rare and carefully tended flowers of every color filled the space in neat, luminous rows.

Madame’s gaze rested on the blooms. ”How do they look to you?”

”Beautiful,” Amelia answered honestly.

”Most of them aren’t ordinary flowers,” Madame said. ”Healers use some. Enchanters use others. Even those who work with darker arts have their preferences. But there is one type among them that is especially potent.” She glanced at Amelia. ”Would you like to know which?”

Amelia nodded.

Madame lifted a hand and pointed toward a specific section deeper inside the garden. Amelia followed the direction and saw neat rows of pink flowers—different shapes and shades, all of them delicately structured.

”Those are extremely rare,” Madame said. ”And they carry powerful magical properties.”

She guided Amelia through a side door into the garden itself, ignoring the few flower keepers who bowed and stepped aside. The air was cooler here, scented with soil and subtle fragrance. As they drew closer to the pink blooms, recognition hit Amelia like a quiet shock.

These were the same flowers that had erupted across the stage during the ceremony.

Madame watched her face. ”They look familiar, don’t they?”

Amelia could only nod.

Madame’s voice softened with something closer to wonder. ”When I saw them materialize during the ceremony... I thought I was either dreaming or hallucinating.”

She folded her hands loosely in front of her, gaze still resting on the pink blooms.

”I first came across these flowers a little over thirty years ago. I’ve been searching for more ever since. This is only the second time I’ve seen them with my own eyes.” Her expression grew more serious. ”I don’t believe they’re natural. They are man made. What I can’t understand is how someone who has always been called wolfless—someone with no known powers—could materialize a flower capable of boosting the abilities of everyone around them.”

Amelia’s throat tightened. There was no point pretending the comment wasn’t aimed directly at her.

”I didn’t know how I did it,” she admitted quietly. ”I only recently found out I’m not as powerless as everyone—including me—always believed.”

Madame gave a small nod, as if the answer simply confirmed what she already suspected. ”I figured as much. You’re also the one who caused the weather shifts. The Blacksmith Territory. The college. The one near our estate. And the ceremony itself.”

Amelia’s eyes flickered. Did the brothers tell her?

Madame continued as though she had heard the thought.

”I discovered it through my own means. I’ve had a feeling from the beginning that you were some kind of hidden gem. My instincts are rarely wrong.”

”I’m sorry,” Amelia said.

Madame glanced at her. ”For what?”

”For not saying anything. My powers damaged property. They hurt wildlife. I should have—”

”That isn’t your fault.” Madame’s voice was firm but not unkind. ”You weren’t even aware you were doing it. However... there is something I would like to know. Did your parents possess similar abilities?”

Amelia shook her head.

”I never knew them. I grew up in an orphanage.”

Madame let out a thoughtful sigh. For a moment she seemed to weigh her next words carefully.

”This will sound unreasonable, but part of me wondered whether you somehow unlocked these powers thirty years ago without realizing it.”

Amelia blinked. ”That isn’t possible. I wasn’t born thirty years ago. I’m twenty-four.”

Madame gave a short, almost self-reproachful breath.

”Yes. I wasn’t thinking clearly on that point.”

She bent, carefully plucked one of the pink flowers, and held it out to Amelia.

”You don’t need to be nervous around me any longer. We are family now.”

Amelia accepted the flower with both hands. ”Thank you.”

Madame inclined her head.

”You may go.”

Amelia left the garden in silence, the single bloom resting lightly between her fingers.

Alone again, Madame remained where she stood, eyes fixed on the rows of rare pink flowers. She had heard, long ago, that only one person in existence could produce them. Yet Amelia had not existed thirty years ago.

So how was it that when she found her three newborn sons... they had been lying in a small, perfect patch of those exact same flowers?

She could still remember that day with perfect clarity.

The ache of wanting sons had lived in her for years. Her body had simply been too weak to carry a child; every physician and healer had told her the same thing—pregnancy would kill her.

Money, influence, the finest medical talent money could buy... none of it had been able to give her the one thing she truly wanted. The failure had cost her marriage. Her husband had turned to the head maid, gotten the woman pregnant, and the divorce that followed had broken her heart.

Then she found the boys.

Three newborns, healthy and strong, lying together in a quiet clearing as if they had been placed there for her alone. The small patch of pink flowers surrounding them had seemed intentional.

In that moment it had felt as though the Moon Goddess herself had finally answered the prayer she had stopped speaking aloud.

Only later, over the years, did she understand that the flowers were not ordinary. They had healed the lingering frailty in her own body completely. And the boys—Enzo, Reid, and Dean—had begun displaying powerful abilities far earlier than any normal child.

Strength, speed, instinct, dominance. She had known then that it was her duty to raise them into men who were strong, fearless, and competent enough to survive the world they were born into.

The ruthlessness had come on its own.

Betrayals. Disappointments. People who smiled to their faces and schemed behind their backs. Each lesson carved something colder into them. By the time they were grown, the three of them had learned to treat most attachments as liabilities. The women who shared their beds were never more than temporary distractions—objects of appetite, discarded without sentiment once the interest faded.

Until Amelia.

Madame’s gaze softened as she looked at the pink blooms again.

She believed fate had brought the girl into their lives for a reason. Her sons had spent years building walls so high that almost nothing could climb them. Amelia, whether she realized it or not, had already begun to crack those walls. If there was any real chance that the three of them might one day receive the kind of love they had never allowed themselves... it would be through her.

They would have to work for it, of course.

Amelia was no pushover.