Page 3 of Stream Heat
OMG IS SHE IN HEAT
HOLY SHIT
CLIP THIS CLIP THIS
Quinn's an OMEGA?!?!
"Quinn," Reid's voice had dropped into what I recognized with horror as an Alpha command tone. "End. The. Stream. Now."
My body responded before my brain could, a whimper escaping my lips that was picked up perfectly by my mic. The sound, which was needy, desperate, and unmistakably Omega, echoed back through my headset.
"I can't… " My voice broke as another wave crashed through me, more violent than anything I'd ever experienced. My skin flushed visibly on camera, sweat beading on my forehead. The suppressants had failed catastrophically, years of chemical blockage giving way to a heat crash more violent than any natural cycle.
I watched in horror as my chat connected the dots in real time.
OMG QUINN IS AN OMEGA
SHE'S BEEN LYING THIS WHOLE TIME
Is this a joke???
Quinn in HEAT on main!!!!
The sponsor notification flashed again, RazorTech's sleek logo suddenly feeling like an accusation. My career, my carefully constructed identity, my entire world was collapsing in real time while sixty-three thousand people watched.
My phone lit up with notifications, management, sponsors, fellow streamers, all bombarding me at once. The room spun around me, scents suddenly overwhelming, my own unfamiliarsweetness filling the air, wild honey and cracked pepper where there should have been nothing but neutral Beta pheromones.
"Kara!" Reid's voice cut through the chaos, commanding and urgent. "Cut the stream!"
With trembling fingers, I hit the emergency stream end button, shutting down the streaming program and cutting off my camera and mic that connected me to my audience. But it was too late. The damage was done.
Eight years of pretending to be a Beta. Eight years of illegal suppressants. Eight years of building my brand on a lie.
All undone in sixty seconds of biological betrayal.
CHAPTER TWO
Reid
"Quinn, are you okay?"
Loaded question. Way too loaded, and I knew it as soon as it left my mouth. There’s only two ways that lands: she comes clean, or she slams her walls so high none of us will ever reach her again. Still, I had to ask. She’d gotten too quiet. Wasn’t just my imagination, either. Her voice quavered, brittle around the edges.
"Don’t be ridiculous." Offended, at first, but it didn’t have any weight behind it. Not nearly enough to convince me, or anyone, that she was actually fine.
Silence. The chat stilled too. For a moment it felt like the entire server decided to hold its breath.
"I think we need to end the stream," Theo said, his voice was more serious, softer too. The Alpha air about him sharpened, like he’d suddenly decided to start running point.
"I'm fine." Quinn again. Sharper this time, the words lashing out instead of explaining. “Just feeling a little off.”
But her voice was wrong. All wrong. Thin, shaky, like it might shatter if you looked at it too hard.
"Quinn," I said. Didn’t even mean to let it out like that, but my voice fell flat and hard, the order threading through it like steel cable. “End. The. Stream. Now.”
"I can't… " Whispered and barely even that. Choked, like every syllable scraped through broken bone on the way out.
"Kara!" Snapped it. Her actual name, like a knife through haze, breaking through whatever sick little spiral she’d locked herself in. “Cut the stream!”
