Page 148 of Stream Heat
Jace didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His hand was steady in my hair, slow and careful.
“Obviously I’m never turning down a cuddle pile,” Theo said, wiggling closer.
So that was what happened. No fanfare, no ceremony. Just five Alphas closing in around me, fitting themselves together with the kind of precision you only saw in nature, or maybe in a game after hundreds of hours teaming with the same squad. It wasn’t about heat, or claiming, or any primal drive. It was just… connection.
Reid behind me: solid, safe, and infinitely patient. Theo at my front: energetic but content, breathing me in, for once at rest. Jace at my side: soft, persistent touches, grounding me to here and now. Ash a barrier at my feet: steady, unyielding, so I never drifted too far. Malik completing the circle, the anchor at the far edge, containing it all without squeezing.
For the first time in forever, the hum of five bonds was just support, not noise. My whole system stabilized, and the hurt that always lingered just… quieted. The part of me that had alwaysbeen afraid to need, afraid to want, was silenced by the reality. I wasn’t weak for needing this. I was pack.
“This is what pack is meant to be,” Malik said under his breath. “Not just protection or law, but this. Connection. Belonging. Home.”
“Home,” I repeated. The word tasted different in my mouth now. Maybe for the first time, it wasn’t just a concept, but a real thing.
I didn’t know how long we lay there. It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. They kept up a low, background murmur of nonsense and banter, but most of it was just warmth, the soft exhale of being held. Scent overlaid scent, making me almost dizzy with comfort.
Completion wasn’t the right word. It was bigger than that. For once, I wasn’t fighting who I was. The competitor, the Omega, the part that needed and the part that fought, they had space to coexist. They might even have been stronger together.
Sleep was a slow slide, not a drop-off, and I let it happen. The last thing I heard was Theo’s drowsy, satisfied sigh. “Best. Nest. Ever.”
He was right, of course.
They thought they were showing me a project. What they really gave me was proof. That I could exist without hiding. That the things I thought were damage were just different parameters to adapt to. That here, with them, I was more, not less.
I came here as a temporary solution, a contract, a business arrangement. Somehow, in the mess and the matches and the chaos, they made me pack. Not just as an Omega, but as myself.
And at the center of it all was me. Not reduced by dependency, but expanded by belonging.
As I drifted, wrapped in warmth and comfort and Alpha scent, I knew, for the first time, that I was exactly where I was meant to be.
Home.
EPILOGUE
Kara
It had been six months since my heat flooded a livestream and detonated my career, six months since I’d been crawling out from that wreckage and trying to stitch myself back together. Now, standing in front of the mirror, I was trying to decide if the bite marks peeking from my collar looked like calculated rebellion or accidental exposure.
“Ready for the big launch?” Theo’s voice exploded behind me, elastic and barely contained as always. His whole presence was kinetic, like his body had never gotten the message that you could stand still if you wanted. “Everyone’s waiting downstairs. The execs look like they’re about to collectively combust. Or piss themselves. Maybe both?”
I smoothed my blazer one last time. “They should be excited. This is going to change everything.”
“Already has,” he said, suddenly serious, and for a minute he looked at me like he was seeing someone new. “Six months ago, you were barely getting through an hour. Now you’re… I mean, look at you.”
I knew what he meant. The outside was obvious enough, I’d stopped poisoning myself and my body had decided to respondby transforming. My skin was clear, my eyes were sharper, my build was finally settling into itself. But the bones of it were different, too. Somewhere along the line, I’d stopped moving like I expected to be hit for it. Stopped tensing at the word Omega. Stopped pretending old wounds weren’t still sore, and started living like I wanted to be seen.
“Come on,” Theo insisted, and offered his arm like I was the fucking Queen. “Your adoring public is getting restless.”
Downstairs, the house had been gutted and rebuilt as an event venue, all chrome edge and soft lighting and more dignitaries than I’d ever seen in one place. Platform execs, industry journalists, rights advocates, competing streamers, all of them orbiting this gleaming display near the bar. The logo flickered on a massive screen: Stream Heat: LIVE. My creation. Our platform, built for content creators with designations, anyone who’d ever been forced to hide or lie to fit in.
Reid was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, his hand already finding its place at the small of my back, anchoring me like he always did.
“Nervous?” he murmured.
“Not even a little,” I said, and it was true. Six months ago, I’d have been sick with it. Now, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
He smiled, just enough to let me feel it through our bond. “The Senator’s office called. Apparently, your testimony is already in draft language for the new Designation Protection Act. Congressional aides are fighting over who gets to take credit.”
“Good,” I said, meaning it. “They should have done this years ago.”
