Page 54 of Stream Heat
"That's not an option," I said flatly.
"You're living with Alphas, aren't you?" He noted my surprise and shrugged. "Your scent carries traces of multiple Alpha signatures. Fresh ones. Not just passing contact."
I shifted uncomfortably. "It's a business arrangement. Content creation. Not a real pack."
"Your body doesn't know the difference." He tapped his tablet. "And based on these readings, you're already forming preliminary bond responses whether you acknowledge them or not."
The hoarding. The nesting. The inexplicable comfort I found in their scents. It wasn't just withdrawal making me hypersensitive, it was my body actively seeking the very solution Dr. Levine was suggesting.
"So those are my options?" I asked bitterly. "Risk my health with illegal suppressants, accept a life of unpredictable biology, or become dependent on Alphas for basic functioning?"
"When you put it that way, it sounds rather dire," he acknowledged. "But yes, essentially. And only two of those options won't kill you."
I sat in silence, the full weight of my situation pressing down on me. Eight years of chemical suppression had led to this impossible choice, risk my health or accept being publicly, permanently Omega in a world that would never see me as more than my designation.
"How much?" I asked finally. "For the suppressants. The military-grade ones."
Dr. Levine's expression hardened. "Did you hear anything I just said? Those suppressants could, probably will kill you."
"I heard you. How much?"
He stood, gathering his tablet. "I don't prescribe medication that will harm my patients. Not even the ones who pay cash and use fake names."
"Please," I hated the desperation in my voice. "Just enough to get through the next tournament. Two weeks' worth. Then I'll start the withdrawal properly."
"You're already in withdrawal," he pointed out. "Going back on, even briefly, would shock your system further. Potentially fatally."
"I can't be an Omega," I whispered, the truth I'd been avoiding finally spoken aloud. "Not in this industry. Not with my brand. Everything I've built is based on being something else."
Dr. Levine's expression softened. "Ms. Smith, or Quinn, I presume, the world already knows you're an Omega. That livestream saw to that. The question now isn't whether you can hide it, but how you'll live with it."
The truth of his words hit me with devastating clarity. He was right. The world had already seen me in heat, already knew what I was. The carefully constructed Beta persona I'd maintained for eight years had shattered beyond repair. Victoria and her cronies had told me that and yet somehow it hadn’t hit me the same way until Dr. Levine had said it.
"The tests show significant potential for recovery if you follow the proper protocol," he continued, his voice gentler now. "Your youth works in your favor. But you need to make a choice that prioritizes your health, not your image."
"What would you do?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded. "If you were me?"
He considered this for a moment. "I'd recognize that adaptation is the most fundamental survival skill. Things change. We change with them or we break." He paused. "And I'd consider that perhaps those Alphas you're living with might be more than a business arrangement. Your body seems to think so, at least."
I looked away, unwilling to acknowledge the truth in his observation.
"I'm prescribing an adjusted tapering schedule for your legal suppressants," he said, returning to professional efficiency."And supplements to support liver and kidney function. I want to see you again in two weeks to monitor your progress."
He handed me the prescriptions, along with a data stick. "This contains your test results and my full analysis. Share it with your primary physician, your real one, not just me."
I took them numbly, still processing the devastating reality of my situation.
"One more thing," he added as I stood to leave. "Those preliminary bond responses I mentioned? They're unusually strong for casual contact. If those Alphas are responding in kind, and based on your scent markers, I suspect they are, then fighting those connections might be doing more harm than good to your system right now."
"What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting that perhaps the solution you're so determined to avoid might be the very thing your body needs to heal." He held my gaze steadily. "Sometimes surrender isn't defeat. Sometimes it's just adaptation."
I left the clinic with prescriptions in my pocket and a weight on my shoulders that made each step feel like wading through concrete. The morning sun was too bright, the traffic too loud, everything amplified by the knowledge that my body might never process sensory input normally again.
In the rideshare back to the Pack Wrecked house, I stared at the data stick in my hand, turning it over and over as if it might somehow offer a different answer if examined from the right angle.
But the truth remained unchangeable. I had poisoned myself for years in pursuit of a career that valued me only as long as I pretended to be something I wasn't. And now I was paying the price, and I potentially would be for the rest of my life.
