Page 46 of Stream Heat
Before I could spiral, Reid steered the topic to tournament strategy, a question so familiar I snapped back to life.
“Still planning to run point on the eastern approach?” he asked.
“Obviously. Someone needs to cover your slow reaction time on the flanks.”
“My slow–” he started, throwing in outrage for the audience. “I have the fastest target acquisition on the team!”
“Second fastest,” I corrected, and the banter locked me back into my armor, piece by piece.
From that moment on, everything steadied. The chaos in my head became background noise, not the main event. We finishedthe stream, highlighted by Theo’s last-minute panic-run through the facility, and ended on a high.
“And that’s how it’s done,” he cheered, exaggerated drama. “Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week.”
“Only because we can’t figure out how to make you leave,” Reid replied, deadpan.
The post-game wrap-up blurred past, a haze of thanking subscribers, plugging next steps, normal closing chatter. I realized it was the first time since the heat crash that I’d made it through a full stream without falling apart. Malik’s breathing trick, Jace’s light control, the constant rebalancing from the others, maybe it was actually working.
“Same time tomorrow?” Theo called out for chat, already hyped for the next round.
“Assuming you all can keep up,” I added, one last shot before the curtain came down.
After the cameras cut, I went limp in my chair, the flood of adrenaline draining out.
“You did well,” Malik said, just like that, no fanfare.
Ash chimed in from his corner, “Stream metrics were insane. Best numbers all quarter. The Quinn effect is real, I’m telling you.”
“The lighting was a nice touch,” I told Jace, not sure how else to give him the credit without laying myself open.
He just nodded. “Audio compression helps, too. I’ll adjust it for tomorrow.”
Reid was already standing, looming, but not threatening. “Food’s arriving in twenty. Quinn, you joining us or taking it in your room?”
He let the question dangle in the air, an easy out if I needed it. But the thought of going back to that empty room made my skin crawl.
“I’ll join,” I said, surprising myself. “As long as Theo didn’t order that weird fermented stuff again.”
“One time!” Theo yelped. “It was a cultural experience.”
“It was a biohazard,” Reid grumbled, scooping up equipment.
We moved down the short hallway to the kitchen, a ragtag mob with me in the middle, Jace and Malik on either side, like a shield. Reid up front, Theo bouncing like a satellite, Ash bringing up the rear.
It wasn’t planned, not really, but my body knew the safety of the formation. My system eased. Scent, noise, temperature, it was all buffered just enough to make it tolerable.
In the kitchen, it was more of the same. Jace flicked off the harsh overheads, trading them for the soft under-cabinet glow. Malik put himself between me and the fridge, which hummed at a frequency that made me want to torch the building. Reid’s voice dropped another octave, and I realized he’d switched up his cadence to avoid grating on my headache.
I watched them, and the longer I did, the more unsettled I got.
This was not standard alpha comfort behavior. This was pack behavior. Pack the way it was meant to be, the kind people wrote off as fairy tales. Not caretaking, not coddling, but the kind of primal, unconscious adjustment alphas made for someone in distress. Someone who belonged.
And worse, my body was responding. I didn’t feel pushed to the periphery anymore; the scents were… fine, even pleasant. Their voices, even loud, didn’t cut. I started to crave the comfort, hated to admit my system felt better in their orbit than anywhere else, even with strangers watching.
No. It wasn’t just withdrawal, and it wasn’t just heat. It was the part of my biology I’d spent a decade suppressing, the partthat wanted to bond, to belong, to be claimed in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with safety.
And all five alphas, maybe without realizing, were already responding as if we were bonded. As if I belonged to them.
I started sweating. My hands went slick. The realization was oil on water, sliding under my ribcage, changing everything.
