Page 105 of Stream Heat
I was still scared. But I was ready.
Some battles were worth it, even if they cost you everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kara
The interview with Sarah Kiminski went better than I’d dared to hope.
She had been everything the rumors said she’d be, polished and probing, but not cruel. Her questions had cut close to the bone, yet she’d asked them with a low-burn empathy, so quiet that I hadn’t even realized I was bleeding until I looked down and saw my own secrets laid out on the table. There had been no expectation that I would confess anything, but somehow, I did. Maybe it had been her tone, or maybe it had been knowing the story was coming out with or without my cooperation, so fuck it, I talked.
The things I said I had never admitted in public, how I’d felt at sixteen, cornered into a false choice between my own damn biology and everything I wanted for myself; how suppressants had stopped working and I’d had to keep finding higher doses while pretending everything was fine and normal and safe; the loneliness of hiding it all, carrying a story so heavy it made my bones ache. I’d spent years perfecting a version of myself who could manage it all. I told her that, too.
“What do you hope comes from speaking up?” Sarah asked, glancing down at her notes but clearly not needing them.
“Change,” I answered, letting the word hang for a second before forcing myself to continue. “I want younger creators to have better options than I did. I want the industry to admit that forcing people to suppress their own bodies just so they can keep their jobs isn’t only unethical, it’s dangerous. It’s insane.”
She let the silence linger, then nodded. “And personally? Has the experience changed you?”
I thought about that, there was no dodging it with her looking at me like that, equal parts clinical and genuinely interested. “It taught me the difference between standing on my own and isolating myself. Between looking strong and being too scared to reach out for help. I thought I had to be self-sufficient, but honestly, the most courageous thing I ever did was let someone else care about me.”
When the interview wrapped, Sarah left, and I sat there on the couch, my pulse galloping, my brain empty and electrified all at once. The piece was going live that night. After that, everything would shift again, the target on my back would grow, but so would the sense of relief. No more hiding.
I wandered into the kitchen, half-floating, half-grounded. Reid was already there, assembling what looked like a grilled-cheese army. Typical.
“You stress-cooking?” I asked, dropping onto a stool and watching him butter bread with military precision.
He slid a sandwich toward me, cut on the diagonal, aka. the good way. “Thought you’d be hungry. And the others’ll want to talk. How’d it go?”
I shrugged, mouth already full of cheese and bread. “Actually really good. Sarah’s tough, but she didn’t try to trip me up. She’ll probably write a piece that helps people see I’m not the only one it happened or is happening to.”
“You okay about it going public?” His tone was gentle, but there was an edge to his voice, and I knew he was worried.
I chewed and thought. “Scared. Nervous. Actually kind of…hopeful? I mean I already talked about a lot of it with Callie, but this is just… more. If that makes any sense.” There was something else, too. Something I didn’t have a word for yet. “Talking about it with Sarah has helped though. It’s almost like…peace, I guess. Like finally getting a weight off my chest. Relief, but also something bigger than that.”
He kept moving around the kitchen, lining up sandwiches, and I found myself watching him, the clean, strong lines of his shoulders, the way he hovered, not out of obligation, but because he cared and couldn’t shut it off. It hit me so hard it felt almost physical.
“Reid?” I asked softly.
He glanced up. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For, you know, supporting me. Letting me talk through all of this. Not pushing, not pulling away, just…being here.”
He met my eyes, and there was a steadiness in his gaze that made it hard to breathe. “Thank you for letting me.”
Something sparked in the air between us. Not biology, not heat. Just history and pain and maybe, finally, trust.
He cleared his throat. “Kara?”
I swallowed. “Yeah?”
He set the knife down and really looked at me. “I need you to know something. What I feel for you? It’s not about Alpha stuff, or pack dynamics, or you needing someone during a crisis. It’s about you. The way you never back down from what matters, even when it terrifies you. The way you let yourself be real, even when you think nobody’s watching. Being around you makes me want to be better.”
The words just kept coming, and every one of them hit harder than the last.
“Reid…”
He shook his head quickly, as if he feared I’d cut him off before he got it all out. “I’m not asking you for anything. Just…needed you to know before the story dropped and shit got crazy again. For me, this is real. Not instinct, not biology. It’s a choice. It’s love.”
