Page 5 of Stream Heat
Ten seconds. Maybe a hundred. None of us moved.
Jace stood up first, breaking the spell. “I’ll drive.”
That snapped everyone else awake.
Theo surged to his feet so fast he almost wiped out on his own chair. “Okay. Yeah. But we need gear. I’ve got blockers. I think.”
“We all dose,” Malik grunted, digging for his med kit. “No exceptions. Scent dampeners if you’ve got them.”
Ash was already halfway out the door. “I’ve got some, and I’ll grab the cooling blanket.”
Theo spun, eyes wide. “Are we seriously doing this? She’s alone, and we’re five Alphas. She’s not bonded, not pack. We just show up and… what? Scent-drunk SWAT her place?”
“Are you actually suggesting we don’t help?” I growled, standing up.
“I’m saying, is it even safe to help?” Theo looked each of us in the eye, desperate. “What if she panics? If we trigger her? What if we already did? What if it was one of us that set her off?”
“No one’s claiming her,” Malik rasped. “No one scents her. No touching without consent. This is a medical thing. Nothing more. Nothing less. She needs someone and she asked for us.”
“She said don’t come,” Theo insisted. There was a note of panic in his voice, the chair back creaking beneath his hands. “What if she doesn’t want us there? What if we are the ones that triggered this? What if we make it worse?”
“The last thing she said was to hurry,” I said, dead calm. “I’m taking that seriously.”
Theo breathed out, brittle.
Ash grabbed Theo’s hand and slapped a dampener patch into his palm. “Just focus on her. Not yourself.”
I hit the bathroom, grabbed my blockers. The pills felt like gravel scraping my throat on the way down. Didn’t slow my pulse much, but it helped, some. Still, I couldn’t shake the sense of her, Kara, even through the cold blue screen. Like her scent had somehow found its way to me, and chased itself into my skull and wasn’t letting go.
“She’s not going to be coherent,” I said as I came back out. “Maybe not even responsive. But she’ll be scared. We keep calm. Follow Malik’s lead. Go in gentle, keep everything slow.”
“I’ll get the hydration kit,” Jace said.
“Grab the neutral-scent jackets too. No cologne, no personal markers. I don’t want her picking up anything that’ll make it worse.”
We spun through the room gathering gear, but my mind didn’t leave her, not for a second.
Eight years on suppressants.
Eight. Fucking. Years.
For what?
She’d been fighting herself, every hour, every day. On stream, in tournaments, with cameras and the whole world all breathing down her neck. She let them think whatever they wanted. Some of them called her Alpha bait, while others called her Beta queen or prude. They memed her, joked about her, and she took it all, never cracking. Until now.
She’d never been Beta though, not really.
She was Omega. Always had been. No one had suspected it.
Her body was making sure she couldn’t hide it anymore though.
I shouldered the last of the gear and followed the rest of my pack into the night.
When the van doors punched shut, I looked at the dashboard where Malik had pulled up her address for GPS. She was further away than I liked, but we were just lucky that she was close enough to drive to.
I couldn’t imagine if she’d been on the opposite side of the country when this happened. Who would have helped her then? Did she have anyone? Something in my gut told me I already knew the answer, and it wasn’t a good one.
Kara.
